The Nation 1914 : Vol 98
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The Nation 42705 A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO POLITICS, LITERATURE, SCIENCE, DRAMA, MUSIC, ART, and FINANCE . iflf*ftil Public Library VOLUME XCVIII FROM JANUARY i, 1914, TO JUNE 30, 1914 NEW YORK NEW YORK EVENING POST COMPANY 1914
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4 12 7 * ) 5 INDEX TO VOLUME XCVIII JANUARY TO JUNE, 19 14 (Nos. 2531-2556) This index is divided into two parts: the first covering miscellaneous matters, the second, authors and books. A welcome note war •_■ • :i : Politics '-• amission . affairs 1 .one iif government Railway 73, 121, 174, Albania All 1 iH-rhi, It. Aii Italian philologist Am. in h ItlODB, The American and English novelists American concerl <.f powers American Economist can Historical Association. .. .80, 32, 82, 88, 107, 132, 807, American judges ami American temper American Oriental Society American Philosophical Society American Political Science Ass'n an university presses American vitality declining, is 53, 101, h, The merry Animal disease Aunales de Geographic Annates Polltiques et Lltteraires Anson. \V. B. Obit Anti-Alcohol conference Anti-Slavery ami Aborigines Protection Society a 1 1., i rati 'ii i real les Ar.'iiiv fOr Kunstgeschlchte 21, Archer, W. London theatres 440, 581, Argentina : Recognition of Arkansas: Child labor Saloons Army and navy Army and the war, The Art : Academy of Design Ion tor minister of British Artists' i !ommissions Corslnl Gallery Egyptian excavations Excavations: B iln-en-Gallia (mosaic). ( ; reek excavat Ions Harvard Museum Indian Industrial labor International courtesy International in London Italian excavations Jerusalem excavations Johnson collections Metropolitan Museum Meunier, G Morgan loan exhibit New English club Old paintiugs rediscovered Paris Salons Pennsylvania Academy Royal Academy Spanish sculpture Titian's Philip II Whistler's stories Athletics Athletics and character Athletics and millionaires Australasia, History in Ausl ria : Albania Art and music Effects of Balkan war 291, 424, Hungary and the Slavs Military service Relations with Russia Trade and emigration Vienna medical college Authors' bank Automobiles Aviation 854, Axon. W. E. A. Obit Ayres, H. M. On two poems in The Nation.. B. R. Libertas sub rege pio Bade. W. F. Thomas Spencer Jerome Baer, G. F Bailey, \V. W. Obit I'.iiker. H. T. A reincarnation of Touchstone, Balkan States 9. 25. 49. 74, 594, Ball, A. The logic of the direct primary.... Ballads in America Bandeller, A. F. A. Obit Barnonw, A. J. Albertus van Bees! Baseball Bassett, E. G. Imagination in collcg.' Beebe, W. An Arctic eye Domestication of wild birds Belgium : Museums Below the surface Bentham. O. Obit Bertillon. A. Obit Between two worlds Bibliophile 8. 50. SO. 100. 181, 156, 1«2. 207. 235. 201. 295. B80, 858, 890, 429, 403. 497. 525. BR8, 001, 881, 881, 898, 722. 751 Billboards 283 828 591 816 852 176 7 620 71 '.l 208 6 1 8 422 517 23 297 151 191 804 79 25 7 106 103 881 581 56 702 591 99 121 143 704 200 881 2 816 188 343 575 479 142 702 223 44 223 223 108 54 654 584 223 730 411 277 54 220 19 443 707 194 673 647 33 195 486 126 317 393 719 522 522 657 625 625 424 439 284 122 742 64 389 664 725 484 217 261 620 133 128 328 298 254 520 326 394 043 619 444 191 100 Bingham, II. Across unknown South America 033 Bandelier 328 I'.ini on, S. A. Obit 64 Bird Lore 166, 671 r.l.ik, P. J. A tribute from Holland 428 Blood 11 mil nin fallacy 4 Blowing hot ami, cold with labor 655 BoQkS and Men 294, 329, 357, 889, 428, 496, 569, 601, 630, 692, 721, 750 Bouck While 591 Boynton, II. W. Joseph Conrad 395 On the land 459 Breck. E. Canada's treatment of the Indians 133 Howlers 726 Brewster, E. T. A question of heredity 108 Bristow vs. common-sense 202 Broadus, E. K. Bibliophile (Drydeu) 751 I'llllileil pools 490 The bloom-colored coat 429 BroWII, Alice 654 Brown, E. \V. George William Hill 540 Brown, J. N. John Brown's career 157 Bruce, W. Obit 40 Bryan, W. J 74, 200 Bryan, W. L. Imagination in College 294 Bryant, J. D. Obit 439 Bryce, -i 25 Burleigh, B. oi.it 761 Burr. A. J. A niiinir poet 523 Business and the trust bills 203 Butterworth, S. Bibliophile (Lamb) 261 Cadwalader, J. L 283 California: Hetch-Hetchy Valley 71, 72 Industrial Accident Commission 653 Japanese 97 Legislature 152 Los Angeles and Owens River 98 Politics 47 Calveiley, C. Obit 250 Cambridge History of American Literature.. 592 Canada : American magazines 718 Americanization 718 Art 3)1, 692 Crime 381* Development under Strathcona 102 Immigration 620 Indians 48, 133 Northwest mounted police 123 Parcels post 175 Parliament 175, 592 Railways 516 Rural credit 382 Candid Quarterly Review S6 Carver, T. N. A plague of sociological gossip 327 Census Bureau 25, --■• Chamberlain, A. F. Obit 439 Chase, J. Eastman. The errant mushroom.. 721 Chase, L, A. Democracy 724 Chew, S. C. Bibliophile (Scott) 497 Chicago: Mrs. Young's election 227 Children's Bureau 448 China : Confucianism 123 Bepresentatlve government 510, 742 Preservation of antiquities 500 "hurch as a social force 493 Civil service 23, 71, 156, 713 Claretie, J. -A. -A. Obit 18 Coastwise-traffic insincerities 383 Coleman, A. Publishing Juvenilia 393 College: Athletics 126,149 Columbia 51 Deans Entrance examinations German universities Harvard 24. 52, 107, 353, Honor system 539, Johns Hopkins 200, 492 Mass. Institute of Technology 52, 107 Oberlin 350 Offensive loyalty 259 Ohio State University 149 Princeton, pass mark 255 Professors 50, 321, 307 University of Illinois 200 University of Pennsylvania 50 Vanderbilt University 34S Wellesley fire 317. 117 Wesleyan Dniversity (Fisher) 7 rj Wisconsin inquiry 686, 715 Yale University 257. 592 Colombia 410. 540, 568 Colonel's uncertain trumpet! The 055 Colorado and the nation 598 ■ lolori do outrages 818 Colorado puzzle, The 517 Colwell, W. A. The honor system 688 ComstOCk, C. W. Non-union miners 00 1 Congress : A. I inurnment 55s Anti-trust bills 51 I Appropriation 410 Cannon's candidacy 818 Christmas and the currency Mil i Civil service 713 1 lurrencj bill 200 Dr. Coik 510 Federal Reserve Board 55s Hetch-Hetchy Valley 71, 72 La Pollette bill 652 t.i Collette's Bpeech 591 t ibnj ing 310 Mileage rates 10 82 9 741 632 Congress : Nominations 710 Orators 3*0 Panama ami President Wilson 150, 3S0 Rural credits bill 590 Senate 71, 72 Senator Bradley's death 618 Teller resolution 226 Vollmer's speech 823 Conover, J. M. West Point and Annapolis.... 150 Conservation 2, 44S Conspiracies, More 743 Constitution and the Supreme Court 183 Consular service 5:11, 619 Cooper. E. E. Obit 10 Co-operative societies 382 Corwin, E. S. National supremacy 134 Gist of manifest destiny 74 Coxey, General 122 Crawford, J. R. Bibliophile (Thackeray).... 181 Fagin's school 237 Crockett. S. R. Obit 473 Crooker, J. II. Prof. Pearson's conclusions... 33 1 1 Her resolution 220 Culmer, H. L. A. Obit 190 Curtis, G. De C. Baconian ciphers 527 Customs: McAdoo's reforms 17:: Dana, C. E. Obit 143 Dawson, E. Entrance examinations 32 Dc Vinne, L. T. Obit 191 Denmark: German invasion 99 Iieionli de. P. Obit 140 Dewey, S. Frederic Mistral 526 Dialects, English ami American 29 Dicey, A V. Public opinion and popular gov't 78 District of Columbia : Municipal Court judge 199 Dixon. F. II. The tolls 602 Dr. Janeway, at Johns Hopkins 492 Dodge, R. E. N. Bibliophile (Louis VII).. 155 Domestic servants us:', Diama: Abbey Theatre Company I m iEschj lus's Agamemnon L'70 Ames prize 054 Amtoine and the Odeon 470 A Woman of Property Ill Dairies Legend of Leonora 41 i'.oi nhardt's farewell tour 705 Bernstein's The Secret IS Brighonse's Garside's Career 218 Burbage memorial 573 Capus's L'Institut de Beauts' 840 Cabiria 556 1 1. Hi. .he theatre movement 117 Censorship in England 117 Change 372 Chesterton's Magic 107. 810 Chicago Theatre Society : ; < 1 s Curd's La Danse devant le miroir. . . . 107 Daudet's L'Arlesienne 735 D'Avenant's Siege of Rhodes 645 Diplomacy 270, (42 Drama League 822 Elson's Account Rendered 583 English Elizabethan Literary Society.. 342 Fit.h's Truth lis, 111 France (Anatole) in England 3 Gsbriele d'Annunzio Galsworthy's Mob 842, 582 Garrick Club 21s Glastonbury festival theatre 111 creek Theatre, Syracuse 271; Greet, Ben 117 Irish players 846 Knoblauch's My Lady's Dress 412 Lady Windermere's Fan 372 Le Bargv 112 Life of plays 418 Little 'I'll. ■aire, LondOU 5 12 MacKaye's a Thousand Tears Ago 1:7 MacK lye's Sanctuary 192 Marrying Money 3 11 1 Sully, and the French Inst 42 Xoilson Terry. Phyllis 2ls New spirit of French drama 175 Tan then 5 72 e's Theatre, London 444, 646 P. pl.'s A Pair of Sixes 341 Pinafore at the Hippodrome 441 nuance 218 Porter's The Two Angry Women at Abingdon Qui . n's Theatre. London 57.", 1:. action in Fi- in !• 339 Recent German plays 371 his Macbeth 1. Id's The Charm of Isabel Shakespeare (Anclln) Shakes].! are at the Savoy 240 Shakespeare memorial 311 Memorial Theatre SI. a! i-n Like It (Anglini 309 Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice ifarr) 275 Shakespeare's Othello ( Fnversham ) . Shaw's Pygmalion 270, 81 The Silver King 27fl Street. G S '■ Strimlhorz's plays 192 s Playboy 92. 1 It The Philanderer 17 TheAtre Francals 195. 375 I^Sol
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Vol. XCVlll Ind ex | Jan. -June, 1914 1 irama To! toj ■ llbrarj
Turiibull' . The 1 leadlock Wei ii theatre \\ in h side's performance Wj milium. 1 1 ■-•. 1 1 1 1, I 1, mills illn.nl Dublin, 1.. 1. is Amor, vigor declining.... Dunbar, .1 B. Obit Duncan, 1;. K Obll 1:. M- 11. Constitutional power of the courts 466, Edison Company IMiii :i 1 1,111 : Compulsory Conference ai Louisville Home stud; Imagination in college Maryland Medical Mel iimii-.i con! '"i of Six 1 Mrs. 3foung) 1 [literacy Sanity in Tevl bonks (California 1 us Vocational commission Elberfeld borses Eliot, Oh. W Eliot, s. A. Church as a social force 1 in ress of Ireland disaster Ende, A von. Miscellaneous German books. . . Recent German plays . England : American church in London Anglo-American exhibition A nny mutiny Ait 479, 585, Asquitb 318, 384, Asquitb and Bonar Law A unique magazine Balfour Balfour, and Gilford lectures 141), Balfour mi "prose and verse" Bird preservation British Association Budget Chamberlain, J Civil service Devonshire library Drama 440, 531, 554, 581, G45, 705, 704, Drood jury and the law Education 009, Elections Exports and imports Film manufacturers Government Federalism 473, Frazer memorial Guernsey customs Home Rule. .. .230, 255, 317, 31s, 350, 382, 387, 450, 473, 510. 560, 598, 020. 654, 685, 714. 732. intervention in Mexico Jenkins, II Kipling and Ulster 050. Law 201, 488, Leeds strike Letchwortll Lincoln memorial London county council London "Times" 284, Museums 438, 551, National insurance Navy 31S, 684, Newspapers Oxford's cooperative store Oxford pageant Panama fair Preservation of birds Professional women Railway managers Rhodes scholars Royal literary fund Rylands Library South African labor agitators 201, 255, 323, Suffrage 659, Temperance The Thames Ulster and literary men Universities Westminster Latin plays "Westminster Review" Execution of the gunmen Fairchlld, II. p. Problems of immigration.. 1 ■';.' liners, American 122, Fashion, Crnsade against Fathers ami sons in Ireland Fay, S. B. Amer. Historical Ass'n Federal power and child labor Field, Michael. Obit Filling in the map ice: Banking and currency 1, 131, industrial loans Ranks, regional le of things Bu iness and the government in, Business revival Corporation laws Currency law and gold exports Directorates, Interlocking 27, 's sudden recovery Ii'i.i nl 55S, Federal reserve cilieK 5x3, Gold '"• ports Inci tax London markets MeXiCO and I he markets Morgan, Mellon and the N. H nls New turn of affairs New Year beginnings I iim- iniM.ii ' A years ago
Railway rates Remarl able barvei 1 otri tool !■' i mi peel 69 707 70s 170 270 198 71 1 I I 7 12 I is 737 7 12 875 813 648 588 1 10 45 I I I 0 7.", 112 586 21 Finance: Stock exchange and general business. 223 Stock Exchange and Mexican news 510 Swili;.' around a eiivle. The 70S The in \ i chapter 844 Undoing mischief of the past 27S War markets 180 Firkins, 0, \V. 'rim bo : system 589, 632 Pisk, E. 0. Wesley or Satan 207. 202 Fletcher. .1. it. A lay o' the day 204 Le Byron de nos jours 163 Flux of parties, The 683 Foerster, N. Transcripts of Bird Songs 296 Foreign polities 173, 199, 712 Foreign politics, Transcendental 2(1 Forman, A. Obit 307 Fortler. Alcee. Obit 217 Foster. W. T, The social emergency SI France : Academy 175 Alcoholism in the colonies 591 Bouvines centenary 755 Calmette 2S4, 318,382 looks 747 Deputies 732 Drama 193, 339, 475, 5S3, (ill, 705 Dr. Guillotin 532 Elections 4S0, 500, 6SS "Femina" 592 Feminism 592 Foreign policy 355 Foreign students 732 "French League" 456 In Mexico ■ 2'.I0, 521 Literature and life 8, 338 Malmaison 669 Old armor 702 Old paintings 445 Opera 704 Opera balls 505 Personalities in politics 491 Political psychology 720 Politics G82, GSS, 714, 720 Popular book's 532 Roman military service 733 Stamps 505 Visit of English sovereigns 532 Watering places 020 Franco-Americana 154 Franklin. C. L. The world's fair art building G95 Frantz, H. W. Billboards and attractiveness 203 Free speech and professors 50 Fuller. H. de \V. Lyric poetry 232 Fun in Latin 29 Future historians 449 Galsworthy's protest 2^5 Garden city, the first 70 Geographical Journal 507, 644 Genee, R. Obit 92 George, W. Textual criticism 572 Georgia : Politics 1 Germany: Alliance against the United States 4 Anglo-German relations 504 Army and navy 49, 99 Berlin's Polterabend 25 Dirigibles 682 National wealth 356 Relations with Russia 564 Gill, D. Obit 116 Ginn, E 100 Ginsburg, C. D. Obit 307 Golf : Duffers and experts 299 Invasions 024 On the Campagna 027 Spring philosophy of 387 Goodman, K. S. The Chicago Theatre So- ciety 308 Gordon, G. A. Church as a social force.... 494 Gould, J. P. Balladry in America 430 Government : As an exact science 124 Diplomatic and consular service, 1, 121, 591, 0111. 711 Efficiency 202 Federal authority 97, 150 New Haven R. R 50 Public Printer 23, 448, 515 Right of petition 514 state Constitutions 518 Taxation 125 Gray, D. Charles E. Norton 753 Greece 49 Greet, W. Ohil 632 Griffith, R. II. Bibliophile (Dryden) 50S Griswold, Putnam. Obit 249 Gross, P. A. libit 119 Gruening, Emll. Obit 671 Gflnther, C. A. Obit 217 Hackett, F. The Irish In America 002 Haines. II, E. Eden Phillpotts's schoolboy stories 288 Hans Sachs's birthplace 072 Harris, G. W. The Bibliographical Society of London 499 Harvard-Teehnologv merger...' 52, 107, 209 Hastings. 11. W. Hardy's Tragic Possibilities 257 The Gothic romai 683 Havens, R. H. Nature In the early eighteenth century Hawtrey, w. Obit Head. Ii. V. Obll ii' miing, a. N. Picturesque language Heredity, envlr nent, ami duty Herkomer, H. \ Obll Heroiill. P. L. T. Obit i [eydecker, K. le Moj ne. obit Ilevse. Paul. Obit Hill, G. W. Obll 189, Holdi ii E. S. Obll Holland : Financial difficulties I Inn ling in Kol In il.ilii Hollander, j. ii. Bibliophile (Querist)..., II i, i: T. B ophlle I onn I I Hueffer, 0, M Hue man Hunt. o. William Thornton ami John Fitch. . Idealist. The blight on athletics its about Lincoln Illinois: Lincoln highway ' ihicago, markets Chicago, Mis Young's ejection Usiey, s. Marshall. Columbus's new charter Immigration ....97. 121, 117. 2S2, 511, 620, Income tax imiia, Awakening of Indianapolis: Clean-up week Indian problem inertia in fire prevention Insurance, Life Insurance, State Internal loui imerclal arbitration) .... (Musical .Magazine) International courtesy Irish humor Irish iii our public life 320, Irving. S. B. L. Obit Isolation not at all splendid Italy: Change of Ministry Disorders Horace's villa 474, Panama Exposition Sicilian sulphur James, E. J. Imagination in college Jameson, J. F. American Historical Ass'n.. Japan : Famine Navy 424. Politics 350, 450, .last row. J. The passing of a master mind. Jefferson, S. M. Obit Jerome, T. S. Obit Jewett, L. R. Obit Johnson, W. H. The humane angler Jones, H. S. V. One of the gianls Josephson, A. G. S. A request for letters.. Joyce, P. W. Obit Kansas: "Emporia Gazette" Politics 1, 98, Kauffman, R. W. Socialist party Keddie, H. Obit Keith, B. F. Obit Kelsey, R. W. A rejoinder rejoined The constitutional power of the courts . . Kennedy's suicide Kimball, S. F. Jefferson as architect Knapp, C. Amer. Philological Ass'n Archaeological Institute Koopman, A. Obit Koran, The Kossuth. F Labor : Child 47, 150, Clayton anti-trust bill 055, Colorado 517, 593, Compensation law 448, Domestic servants Laws 348, Industrial Relations Commission Monotony of the machine New York's unemployed 122, 229, International Profit-sharing 51, 122, Strikes 73, Syndicalism Unemployment 229, 25o, United Mine Workers Laking, F. H. Obit Langley, S. P Language : Dialect Creek, Latin Modern Language Association 54, Philological fallacies Latane, J. H. The American Historical Ass'n Law : Appropriation bill Child labor 150, Constabulary 5, Delays ii.-aitii regulation 562, Hughes on the judiciary Interstate trade Judges and justice Pure Food Trusts 50, 71, 94, 100, 121, 225, 279. 282, 419. ins. 655, Vice regulation Law, R. A. Bibliophile (prologues and epl- logues) Le Fevre, E. Obit. I.ee, .1. T. Bibliophile (Boston) Bibliophile < Dunton) Bibliophile (Ordway) Legislators under tire Legislature, The story of a l.ebenbauer, A. Signboards in magazines.... Lesser literatures, The Libraries : Duties of New York Stale Liebling, E. Obit Life Extension Institute Lincoln memorial Literary Influences from Russia Literature: American taste Ancient Mariner Closed couplet Del M'it. Mich Davenport, J., and Lady Vere Dickens Folk ballads France Lyric poetry Munford, w Russian Influence Sappho, a new poem Shakespeare '55. 284, Swinburne Villon and oilier French poets Wall. Dunton, T Woods. M. L. Literature and life In France Livingston, A. The Roman liberals and Lin- coln 230. Lockwood, W. Obit I. I', heights of science. The 1 mil a m The Lcestlan Louisiana: Red River Lucy, Sir II. Parlies and men ' Some mode: n painters 02s, Lying for the sake of war Lynch, F. Tile Church Peace Union Mr \ fee, 1 1 The sense of smell • i LcDonald, W. American HI 1 si Ass'n. . MacGlll, Pstrli Ii McKrn/.ie, k. Bibliophile 1 Mollere) MucMecluin, \ \ book of 1 ea 1 lories 725 712 890 485 850 28 1 (I 310 oso 43 054 2S4 002 07.1 I I II 521 717 009 733 733 293 133 291 059 505 571 210 578 119 301 032 298 04 147 147 184 04 373 094 570 174 33 54 55 144 809 657 381 713 619 653 2S3 G55 0S3 452 255 532 485 123 123 484 644 654 29 29 55 536 207 712 381 123 24 053 23 124 151 199 (ISO 70 403 370 182 001 429 595 152 527 354 619 80 118 27 559 590 98 300 390 62 58 49 38 8 232 0 596 002 455 320 397 0S2 523 392 :ti 1 4 SO 357 72 325 000 183 898 57 132 335 880 237
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Nos. 253 1-2556 I Ind ex [Vol. xcviii Making 1 i r** Insurance do the .... 8 Maine: Politics 147 Mannerlng. Mr, Mellen's testimony 694 Man wiiii the 1 i53 Senator O'Gorman's speech 501 Seton-Karr, H. Obit ••■• 671 Sex discussion 14J' J°- Shadwell, B. The opium traffic 431 Shakespeare %°* Shakespeare : Memorial oil At the springtime 455 Sharpe, N. W. Library of the surgeon-gen- eral's office J64 Sheldon. G. W. Obit 143 Sherman, S. P. The white slave 628 Wesley or Satan 20, William Cobbett 131 Sherman silver purchase act • • • • • • **» Shipping: Seamen's bill 3, 47, 57 Short cuts to the millennium jon Sills, K. C. M. John Alden 43J Simonds, M. R. The InTentor of the steam- boat 500 Singh, S. N. Revival of Indian art 168 Smith, A. D. Howlers 726 Smithson, G. A. One of the giants <2o Snyder. A. W. Obit 165 Social emergency I°- Social evil treatise, A real .... To Socialism 23, 73 155, 226 Socialist politics 155, 184, 349 Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis.. 31 Soden, H. v. Obit • • • 140 South Africa: Railway strike 49, 1/3 South and Central American republics, 4, 99, 416, 558 South Carolina: Senatorial elections 559, 591 Spades and shovels 258 Spain : Carnival f,£, Alhambra restorations »iO Anniversary of EI Greco 5i2 Elections ;jg Galdos 418 Spanish-American Geographical Congress 644 Sparrow, C. M. The honor system 682 "Spectator," London 2" Spitzka, E. C. Obit M Stansell. C. V. The people's wants 230 State constabulary 5 Stanton, Theodore. A call for American books 209 A French scholar • ■ • ■ ■ • 726 Saint-Saens's estimate of Gounod Wj State insurance gJJ Sterrett. J. R. S. Obit • • • • ■ 701 Stevens, J. S. Unwelcome evidence for Im- mortality 203 Stewart W. K. Toronto "Globe" "•" Strung, F. Imagination In College gg| Strunsky. S. PhD 288 Reviewing the reviewer gw The complete anthropologist »°» Stimulating " Strathcona and Canada '. '- Stubbs. J. E. Obit ..•■ 869 Suess. Ed.iard. Obit 571. 670 Sullivan. H. L. John Davenport and Lady Vere • ■ ■ ■ • 58 Sumlchrast, F. C. de. Revolt of the Eng- lish officers *"" Super, C. W. German de;rees » National prejudices •■■• ';;''; Surgical congress *■•■}• Z', Suttner, B. v ' '■■■ '.- Swan. J. W. Obit «'1 Sweden : Emigration • :,v Militarism J4» Switzerland: Federal Council o7» line Museum Jjjn ■ alders Vaudols '"■• Literature Ziirieli University ™V Tariff : Cause and effect 23 Foreign markets •' 1 1 of I. and F,. Chemistry 2 \ew hope for protectionists 420 "40 Woollens 84S TatlOCk, J. S. P. Bibliophile (closed eonplet) 390 Taxation tarts and fancies 125 sr John. Obit 227.250,294 Terrell, G. Currency and banking 131 Mr. Bryan and the Currency act 208
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Vol. XCV1U Ind ex | Jan. -June, 1914 That alliance against us Thomas, li. Obit Thomas Lee house Thomson, 0. u. n. The fool's mate ThWlng, C. F. Church us u social force.... Tllden centenary Tombo, u. Obil Townsend, G. A. Obit Tozzer, a. M. if Buerta had won at Torreon Trade Commission bill L24, Treat; Obligations Trent, w. P. Bibliophile (Pittls) 698, Bibliophile TrUBt bills anil business Trusts: New Bills 100,121,225,282, 419, 656, 680, Tapper, J. W. Modern Language Ass'n Turkey Two Voices Tyler, S. Obit University and the yardstick U. S. Army : Efficiency U. S. Navy Dept. : Annapolis 15G, 227, Appeal to Congress Drinking Fletcher's reports Panama traffic U. S. War Dept.: Militia Pay bill Veterans West Point Universities lu a democracy Unpopular Review 486, Upton, W. Obit Vallols. G. M. First Steps in Collecting.... Van Loon, H. VV. Reversed instruments.... The Dutch navy Vane memorial Village improvement Vlllard, O. (J. The late Col. Hallowell John Brown's career Vincent, G. E. Imagination in College Virginia : Legislature State library Visit ot Bulgaria's queen Vogue of the inedited. The Volkmar, C. Obit Walcott, H. P. War by any other name War in April Washington: Politics 23, Watts-Dunton, T. Obit 682, Weeks, R. The foreign critic Weirick, B. Imagination in college Went, S. Duffers and experts Golf on the Campagua West Virginia: Labor and martial law Westinghouse and his times Weston, G. B. Bibliophile (Keats) Whipple, T. K. Imagination in college Who's Who in America, Europe on Whyte, H. Obit Wiener, L. Philological fallacies Ulphilas Williams, T. The law's delays Wilson, J. G. Obit Wilson, S. K. Bibliophile (Wordsworth) Wilson, W. : Administration 1, 3, 71, 73, 94, 100, 121, 122, 124, 147, 225, Bryan, W. J Congress 150, 6S3, Federal reserve board Foreign policy Government Harvey, Col Memorial Day address 652, Message Mexico 618, Panama Speech to Press Club Trust laws 71, 203, 618, Winship, G. P. Bibliophile Wisconsin : Marriage laws Taxes University inquiry Workmen's compensation 97, Wood, T. A. The National Guard of Pa Worker, as he sees himself Working ot the Oregon system Wright, M. R. Obit Wright, W. A. Obit Wynkoop, A. Bibliophile (libraries) Yachting outlook, The Young, E. C. Religion with a punch AUTHORS AND BOOKS. The entries in the following index are made under the name of author, editor, or translator, as the case may be; some- times under two of these heads. A num- ber of the more important books are also indexed by title. Acker, P. Les Demoiselles Bertram 577 Adams, C. F. Transatlantic Historical So- lidarity Adams, E. L. Word-Formation in Provencal Adams, H. Mont-Salnt-Mlchel and Chartres Adams, J. Q. Writings Adams, S. H. The Health Master Adcock, A. St. J. Booklover's London.... Agassis, A. Letters and Recollections Alastalr, Forty-three drawings by... Alden, C. 8. George Hamilton Perkins.... Ambler, C. H. Thomas Ritchie Ambler, L. Halls and Manor Houses Amen. Constitution of Matter An Actress, The True Ophelia Ancient Egypt Annates de Geographic Annesley, M. The sphinx in the Labyrinth.. Anthology of German Piano Music d'Argi-nxon. Memolres du Marquis d'Argenson Arnold, ii. Stained Glass 21 Artaybasbeff. Jealousy 7511 Aschaffenberg, G, Crime and Its Repression 86 Ashmun, M. Modern Short-Stories 759 Atteridge, A. 11. Famous Modern Battles.. 111 AmiIi.ii, a. Tantra of the Greal Liberation 608 Avalon, A. and E. Hymns to the Goddess.. 503 Avebury, Lord, Prehistoric Times 763 Aydelotte, F. Elizabethan Rogues and Vaga- bonds 437 Ayscough, J. Monksbrldge 468 Bucheller, I. The Marryers gu.'i Bacon, B, \v. Theodore Thornton Munger... out Backhouse, 10.. and Bland, J. A. P. The Court of Peking 634 Baedeker's Egypt 642 Baedeker's Russia 642 Baedeker's Southern France 612 Baldwin, J. F. The King's Council 400 Barnouw, A. J. Anglo-Saxon Christian Poetry 542 Barrall, M. L. Around the World Cook Book.. 272 Barrus, C. Our Friend John Burroughs 460 Barthou, L. Mirabeau 432 Bastide, C. The Anglo-French Entente 504 Bayley, H. Language of Symbolism 216 BarbS, L. A. Byways of Scottish History.... 114 Bearne, Mrs. Francois Boucher T ' ST Beaumont, Joseph. Minor Poems 303 Becque, H. The Vultures 644 Bebalne, It. Les Survlvants 576 Bell, C. F. Christ Church Drawings 707 Belloc Lowndes, Mrs. The Lodger 363 Benctt, W. Religion and Free Will 660 Benson, E. F. Dodo's Daughter 575 Berenson, B., and Valentiner, W. R. Johnson Catalogue 411 Bergstrom. H. Karen Borneman -217 Berlioz, H. Beethoven's Nine Symphonies.. 219 Bertrand, L. Saint Augustin 699 Betham-Edwards, Mrs. Lord of the Harvest.. 87 Bevan, E. Stoics and Sceptics 66S Bibliographical Society publications 106 Bibliographie Geographique 273 Bickersteth. G. L. Carducci 13 Bilgram, H. Cause of Business Depressions 757 Birmingham. G. A. Irishmen All 83 Blake. William. Poetical Works 270 Blashfield. E. H. Mural Painting in America 6S Blease, W. L. English Liberalism 113 Blennerhassett, Lady. Sidelights 113 Bleyer, W. G. Newspaper Writing and Editing 368 Blundell, F. Marv Dunne 11 Blunt, R. In Cheyne Walk and Thereabout.. 692 Bodley Head Natural History. Vol. II 581 Bolton. H. E. Guide to the Archives of Mex- ico 30C Bostonian Society publications 403 Bostwick, A. E. Earmarks of Literature.... 472 Boucher, A. L'Anabase de Xenophon Ill Boucicault, R. II. The Substance of His House 529 Bourgeois, M. Synge and the Irish Theatre .. 166 Bradley. G. D. The Story of the Pony Ex- press 270 Bradshaw's Guide 403 Braun, L. Mutter Maria 371 Brewster, D. Aaron Hill 87 Brieux, E. Blanchette. The Escape 275 Brown, C. S. Latin Songs with Music 612 Brown, M. E. Dedications 190 Browne, B. Conquest of Mt. McKinley 84 Brownell, G. G. Life of Balboa 668 Bruce, A. Adventures in the Psychical 760 Bruce, H. A. The Education of Karl Witte... 542 Brucker's Thresholds of Science 550 Brunot, F. Histoire de la Languc Franc: Vol. IV 471 Bryan, W. J. The Prince of Peace 608 Bryce, J. The Ancient Roman Empire and the British Empire 437 Buchan, J. The Marquis of Montrose 529 Budge, B, A. w. Syriac Medicine 703 Bunau-Varilla, P. Panama 336 Burdett's Hospitals and Charities. 1918 33." Burnam, J. M. Paleographla Iberlca 13 Burroughs, B. Catalogue of Paintings 278 Burton It. Little Essays in Literature and Life 608 New American Drama 66 Butler, s. Alps and Sanctuaries 15 The Fair Haven. The Humor of Homer 604 Bfllow, B. von. Imperial Germany B9fl Cabot, It. C. What Men Live By 241 Caldwell, w. Pragmatism and Idealism 271 Cambridge Mediaeval History 19 Cambridge Poets, 1900 1913 337 Campbell, O. .1 The Comedies r Holberg.. 734 Campbell, W. w. Stellar Motions 406 Canada and Its Provinces 105 Canadian Art, Year Book of 344, 699 Canadian books 104 Cannan, G. old Mole 188 Cannon, J. F., and Kn.ipp, <!. S. P.rlgham Young 731 Cardueel's Poems (Bickersteth) 13 Carpenter, .1. and it. Improving Songs .... 443 Oarr, W. K. Mailer and Some of Its Di- mensions 33S Carson, W. K. Mexico 527 Carter, H., and Dryson, G. Chants Francois 678 Cams, p. Nietzsche 868 Casimlr-Perler, 0. Brest 213 ''astollbin. S 'I l:nl< flp I len'd luues J89 Castle, w 1:, jr. The Pillar of Band 332 Cavour Agr! col tore 664 Oesclnsky, 11., and Webster, M. R. English Domestic Clocks 508 Chamberlain, A. it. Hans Holbein 98 Chambers, it. w. Quick Action 529 1 I "1 \ P The White 1 1 Tmitage 7 19 C Id Taylor, II. C, Goldonl 273 Cnatterton-Hlll, G. The Philosophy of Nietz- sche 240 ' 'hau .in 1 mi Chu Fan ehi 83 Ohavannes, B, Lea Documents Onlnoli 580 Che ter u 1: 1 lordelifl Bl om 728 Chi terton, G, K. The riving inn 185 Child, G. B The Efficient Kitchen 809 Milliard, G. L'Amerique el le Rave ezotlque, 155 15 12 1 Hark, G. B, Papers 1 'iei iiM.ni, B. Laure Cole, P. 15. Dave's Daughter ...'.'.' .' .' .' \ < olonlal Society of Massachusetts Publica- tions. Vol. XIV 504 Colquhoun, A. The Vocation of Women 272 Commons, J, R. Labor and Administration.. In Oomstock, II. T. A Son of the Hills 12 Cons, l. Rabelals's Pantagruel 216 Conway, Th., Jr., and Patterson, E. The Operation of the New Bank Act 469 Cook, B. Life of Florence Nightingale 30 Cooke, A. O. The Forest of Dean 190 Cooke and Morrison. William and Bill .... 211 Cooke, J. F. Pianists on Piano Playing .... 18 Cooley, A. M.. and Klnne, H. Foods and Household .Management 609 cooper, E, My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard 575 Corwiu, E. S. National Supremacy 61 184 Coulter, J. G. Plant Life and Plant Uses.. 550 Country Architecture 402 Country Homes and Gardens '.!!"" 460 Coutts, H. T. Library Jokes 750 Coward, II. Choral Technique and Interpreta- tion (jj2 Cowen, Sir F. H. My Art and My Friends.'.' 276 Craig, A. Lineage and Life of Rizal 215 Craven, P. Circe's Daughters 59 Crawford, M. C. The American Theatre .... 17 Croce, B. Philosophy of the Practical 268 Cromer, Lord. Political and Literary Essays 190 Crow, C. America and the Philippines 701 Crowninshield, F. B. George Crowninshield's Yacht 134 Curie. R. Life is a Dream , 698 Curzon, Lord. Modern English Eloquence ' . . 732 Cuthell, E. E. A Vagabond Courtier 114 Uauthendey, M. Gedaukeugnt 259 Danes, R. The Greatest House at Cbelsey! . 24'' Davis, W. W. The Civil War and Florida... 88 De 1.1 I'.area, Mme. Calderon. Life in Mexico 641 De .Morgan, W. When Ghost Meets Ghost.. 300 Deeping, W. The White Gate 265 Deutsch-Amerikanische Geschichtsblatter .... 545 Dewar, D. Glimpses of Indian Birds 430 Dickinson, U. N. The Business of a Gentle- man 3gg Dia-uitrs Hlstoin dt la Ccnf_:l£ratiuu Sums 1 Dillon, Mrs. G. F, The Fire Within .... 12 D'Indy, Vincent. Beethoven ' 219 Disraeli. Whigs and Whiggism 305 lover, M. The Judgment of the Sword 301 Dixon, J. K. The Vanishing Race 162 Donne, J. Poems yo Douglas, J. New England and New France!! 165 Doumergue, La Gendve des Genevois 642 Dramatic Index, 1913 734 Dreiser, T. The Titan !!.!!!.' 697 Duate, R. de Orueta. Pedro de Meno y Men- drano 647 Dunn, S. O. Gov't Ownership of Railways 242 Dunoyer, A. The Public Prosecutor of the Terror 271 Durran. W. The Lawyer 3y Bdwardes, T. The Honey Star 363 Ekblaw, E. K. Farm Structures 460 BHiot, D. G. A Review of the Primates.... 115 Bison, A. and L. The World's Best Music. 410 Emerson, It. W. Journals 14, 668 Empress Frederick. A Memoir 700 Englaud's Parnassus (Crawford) 3s Elizabethan Love Songs 442 Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences.! 643 Bnock, C. R. Ecuador 041 The Republics of Central and South America , 215 Enrlquez, R. de Z. The Case of Mexico 467 Erasmus. Letters 403 Praise of Folly 242 I Ichi ga iay, J. Mariana (170 R, C. Can We Still Be Christians. 759 Knowledge and Life 808 Ethics and Modern Thought 806 Bulenberg, II. Zeitwende 371 Rxner, A. il. Japan as I saw it 207 Fabre, J. II. Life of the Fly 140 Pansier. S. Chaucer and the Roman de la Rose 505 Farming and Rural Life 401 iVirwell, P. T. Village Improvement 103 D"l Urn. Mrs. It. The Spare R u ]2 Ferguson, W. S. Greek Imperialism 58 Ferris, II. W. The African Abroad 608 Findiatir, j. 11. The Green Graves of Bal- gowrle 488 Findlater, M. Over the Hills 433 Fioot. J. The Science of Happiness 30 1 Flske, G. II. Bilileral Cipher of Fran. -Is Bl n in:: Fltzgibbon, J. M. The story of the Flute 583 Fitzmaurlce-Kelly's Boole of Spanish Vers,.. 58] Spanish Literature 40 1 'li i" 1 a. Prostitution in Europe 75 Fling, F. M. Source Problems of the French Revolution 517 Flint, a du 1:. The Garden Patch 459 B'icke, A. D. Mr. Fausl 101 Ford, W. 0. Writings of J. Q. Adams.... 39 Foster, M. Keeping up Appearances Odd Fowler, 11. N. Plato 546 Fro ' " ! 1 1 it- ivolte des Anges 577 Francis, M. 10. Story Of Mary Dunne 11 k. Deutsche und Americanlsche Ida 608 Frnser, Urs. H, Italian Yesterdays 88 French books 701 I'rencb action 578 1 imi & Wagnalls. New Standard Dictionary 268 <■■■ tin, \ B .1 a McNeill Whistler. ... 11 .1 Fugll in 312 1 I. A. J. Familiar Talks on Ihe I [I tory of Mush- Airland, li. The Forester's Daughter.., 10 Caiman, f. x. Histoire du Canada ■ . 164 ■ larofalo, it. Criminology one, Qastlne, L, Madame Talllen m Repre 1 ntatlve English I la dies .'IS German books
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Nos. 2531-25^ I Ind ex [Vol. xcviii Qennan Classics of the Nineteenth Century.. 868 Plays 8T0 Gerould, k V, \ aln Oblations 832 Gerry, M 8. Tbe Masks "f Love 898 tture 102 Olacosa. G. Three Plays 168 Qibbs, H. The Hour ol Conflict 864 Gibson, F. 1 iharles , and Dlrke. Deutsche Lleder ''.73 Schevlll. R. Ovid and the Renascence 40 Scbnltzler, a. Viennese 1 ivii« 005 i- le, G. Tristan and Isolt 130 ScbOUler, J. The Roconslrnctlon Period .... 81 Schulie, .1 W. The American Oflce 88 Scott, it. F. Last Expedition M Voyage of the Discovery Scott, W P. History of Land Mammals ... 10 Sears. A. W. Two on a Tour 30 Seashore. 0. E Psychology in Dally Llfi Seraflmovitch, A. The City nf tlie Steppe... 750 Seton, E. T. Wild Animals at Home 140 Shakespeare. Cymbellni Mtlon .... 3m Works 07 Shaw, C. G. The Ego and Its Place 702
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Vol. xcviiij Ind ex [Jan. -June, 1914 Shaw, s. William of German; 164 Shaw, W. W. J in- I "-I Vocal \h 508 Shackleton, B. *VDbe Heart of the Antarctic. 841 i i. c Shakespeare and Stratford . . 81 i in- Tragedy ol Mary Stuart 609 Shorter, C K ilrnrsr l:»i rm ami Ills Ciivle. 333 Sii olalr, B W, Nor ( I Ifty three 468 Sir Galahad. Im Palast dea Minos 260 Sladen, D. How to See the Vatican 783 Smith, G. Correspondence 104 Smith, L it. Sixty Musical Games 012 Smith, P. Luther 15 s i wiii-, l>. Green Chalk 211 Sommer, n. . Arthurian Romances 04 O. ie Loboes&nge des Claudian 409 Sullivan. M. D. -The Goddess of the Dawn 200 Sumner, W. G. Earth Hunger 15 Snmlbarg. G. Swedish Emigration Report.... 338 Tagore, R. Cliitra Oil Tale of Lady Daventr.v 1G0 Taylor, I). O. Self-Help for Singers 508 Taylor, W. G. L. The Credit System 210 Tennyson, C. Cambridge from Within 437 Teul.ner. B. G. Ans Natur und Geisteswelt. . 505 Textbooks : Agriculture 553 Astronomy 553 Biology 540 Chemistry 551 Educational Theory 541 Gardening 461 Geography 552 Greek 545 English 54 'J German 545 French 544 History 547 Latin 540 Mathematics 553 Physics 551 Textbook, Spanish 1 1 a .mil i.miiii. Bayernbucu Tin. ma, l. Die Slppe Thompson, V. Etbelbert Nevln 'flawing, 0. F. The American College.... ,Tlcknor, C. Hawthorne Tompkins, E, YV. The Egotistical I t'oynbee, P. Dante Dictionary Tiizzit, A. M, Kuiiis of .Xakinii X'raubel, II. Walt Whitman. Vol. Ill I'reueh, W. F, Shakespeare's Hamlet Trevelyan, G. Clio and Other Essays luxes. F. The Country of the King and the Bool Twitchell, R, E. Spanish Archives of New Mexico Tynan, EC. Twenty-five Years' Reminiscences CJnderhill, E. The -Mystic Way Vaka, I>. A Child of the Orient Vale, C. John Ward, M.D Van Denburgb, Mrs. E. 1). My Voyage in the U. S. Frigate Congress Van Dyke, J. C. .New Guides to Old Masters 735, Van Pelt, J. V. Composition Van Schalck, G. Sweetapple Cove Vasarl society Publications, 1912-1013 Vaughan, H. Sacred Poems Veihler, II. C. The Reformation in Germany. Venn, J, Early Collegiate Life Verneau, it., and Rivet, l'. Ethnographie an- cienne de l'Equateur VinngiadiilT, I'. Essays in Legal History.... i hi. M. Ii. The Heart's Country Waldstein, C. Greek Sculpture and Modern Art Waller, M. E. From an Island Outpost Walling, W. C. Progressivism Wallis. A. F. Idonia Walsh. W. S. A Handy Book of Curious In- formation Walton, G. L. The Flower Finder Ward, A. The Grocer's Cyclopaedia Ward, L. F. Glimpses of the Cosmos Ward, W. Horace Blake Men and Matters Warwick, A. The Meccas of the World Victory Law Watt. F. Book nf Edinburgh Anecdotes R. L. S Way, S. A. Argonautica Weathers, John. Commercial Gardening Weaver L. Luytens's Houses Webb, W L. Life of T. J. J. See Webster, H. K. The Butterfly Wedekind, 1'". Simeon Wedgwood, J. C. Staffordshire Pottery Wekerlin, J. B. Bergerettes Wells, C. Anybody but Anne Wells. H. G. The Wonderful Visit The World Set Free OS -KIT 528 707 005 667 135 304 , :,:.n 272 578 239 304 641 332 191 188 473 2tr. 707 3117 239 37o 93 I I 'J 433 605 433 Wc-ni.vss, Mrs. o. Grannie 574 Wentworth, P. The lire Within 12 Weston .1 1.. Tie Quest of the Holy Grail 187 Whelpiey, J. D Trade "i the World 10 H ' ["rails 757 While, II. T. A Civil Servant in Burma 405 Whltlock, B. Forty fears of II 867 Whlttlngham, ll. Thai Farm 469 Who's Who in Japan 68 Who's Who in Music and Drama 07.'! Who's Who. 1914 (England) 112 Wilcox. 10. W., and Gottsclialk, L. F. His- torical Mother (loose 442 \\ ild, I. Drum's House 666 Willhy, W. T. A Motor Tour Through Canada 640 Williams, E. It. Lombard Towns of Italy. 641 Williams. II. S. Miracles of Science 439 Williamson, C. N. and A. M. It Happened i n Egypt 110 Williamson, R. W. The Ways of the South Sea Savage 337 Willson, B. Quebec 640 Wilson, I'. Modern Ireland 85 W'inans. W. Animal Sculpture 44 Wiiitliroii, Tb. The Canoe and the Saddle 213 Wise. H. C.. and Beidleman, H. F. Co- lonial Architecture 249 E. v. Florian Mover 047 Wood, Sir H. T. Royal Society of Arts 737 .' berry, G. E. The Flight 437 Woodward, G. R., and Mattingly, H. Bar- ic ni and Ioasaph 577 SVorce ter, D. C. The Philippines 301 Wren, I'. C. Snake and Sword 728 Wright, A. E. .The Onexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage 272 ifear Book of Canadian Art 344, 692 Yeats. W. B. Stories of Red Hanrahan.... 501 Young, W. E. Organ Pieces 442 ZaStseff, B. The Remote Region 750 Zoitlin. J. Hazlitt on English Literature 87 ERRATA. Page 216, col. 3, line 26, for Armes read Ormes. Page 385, col. 3, line 51, for designation read dissipation. Page 429, col. 1. line 17. for shine read shrine. Page 458, col. 3. line 17, for moisure read moisture. Page 525, col. 3. line GO, for iatuca read iatrica. Page 525, col. 3, line 61, for diegitica read die- getica. Page 525, col. 3, line 62, for ennociea read en- nceica. Page 575, col. 2, line 52, for write read white. Page 720. col. 3, lines 00, GG, for Micacedus read Micaceus.
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neiie The Nakon v ijioraiy, as. VOL. XCVIII— NO. 2531 THURSDAY, JANUARY 1, 1914 {£!;&&. PRICE TEN CENTS MATERIALS FOR THE STUDY OF ELEMENTARY ECONOMICS Edited by LEON CARROLL MARSHALL, CHESTER WHITNEY WRIGHT, and JAMES Al.lRI.I) FIELD, of the Department of Political Economy in the University ^of Chicago. This volume of nearly a thousand pages is intended to supply to students of elementary economics a collection of readings illustrating the working of economic principles in actual life. The material is drawn From the most various sources — books, magazines, newspapers, commission reports, court de- cisions, corporation charters, government circulars, etc. In not a few cases, original articles and dia- grams have been prepared especially for this book. The selections have been carefully edited, so as to eliminate unsuitable material and present the documents in the most usable form. It is not intended that the book shall take the place of the systematic text on economics. On the contrary, it is designed as a companion to any standard text. Of the various materials collected in the volume a few ex- tracts, primarily theoretical, have been chosen to present important aspects of contemporary or his- toric economic thought. A number of passages, descriptive of existing economic conditions, are intended to afford a background of information which the systematic treatises on economics can hardly give and which the teacher is certainly not warranted in expecting his students to possess. Most frequently the selections offer documentary or case material in which economic laws are embodied in concrete facts. The material is thus very diverse in character, but it is all bound together by the single purpose of helping the student to come, by his own thinking, to an understanding of economic principles. To this end expository writing, news reports, official statements of government or private organizations, statistical tables, schematic analyses, maps, charts, and diagrams are all intended to contribute. 946 pages, 8vo, cloth. Postpaid, $3.00. Library Edition, on heavy paper, bound in library buckram with special stamping, and strongly sezvn on tape, postpaid, $4.80 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS AGENTS THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY, New York KARL W. HIERSEMANN, Leipzig THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, London and Edinburgh THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA, Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto Jiist Published DEUTSCHE LIEDER By PETER SCHERER, Supervisor of Ger- man, IndianapolisPublicSchooIs, and LOUIS H. DIRKS, Teacher of German, Shortridge High School, Indianapolis. 25 cents A collection of popular German songs, including some of the best lyr- ics of the great poets. Melody and ac- companiment are given for each song. The singing of these songs will stimu- late the interest in classes studying German, and will give them a famil- iarity with German words and idioms, and greater insight into German life. AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY NEW YORK CINCINNATI CHICAGO THE TRUTH ABOUT WOMAN By C. Gasquolne Hartley. $2 50 n« DOPD, MEAD A COMPANY o*tarjf>. 14c. extra NEW YORK LONGMANS' NEW BOOKS THE SORROW STONES AN UNFINISHED STORY By MAUD E. WILLIAMS. Crown 8vo. Pp. vi+86. $1.35 net (Postage 10 cents). "Tlie author calls this an unfinished storv but it is more finished than a Rood many that make no such claim. A story that baa more in it than mere amusement." — The Header. "The reader of many novels will lav down this volume with a sense that here Is a book oC unusual sincerity and effectlvi The story is unpretentious . . . i.ut ban- died with a restraint that puts significance Into hare outlines. ... In giving us the flavor of the dialect, the writer evinces bet faithfulness by the Inclusion of uianv mod- ern expressions — a step grateful to a pub- lic constantly presented With a rehash of Identical speech that Scott pave his charac- ters a century ago. ... A range of char- acters sufficiently wide to give variety t the action, from the youth's grandpa to his sweetheart, is brought into the I hundred pages of the book." V, 11 |m) 7 , . ,i, Stuoies in ffllston?, j£co* nomics ano public Xaw Edited by the Faculty of Political Sci- ence of Columbia University. Speculation on the New York Stock Exchange, 1904-1907 By ALGERNON ASHBURNKI: BORNE. 8vo. Paper covers, $1.60. University of XonDon his- torical Series The Reign of Henry VII from Contemporary Sources Selected and arranged In three vol- umes, with an introduction by A F. POLLARD, M.A., Lltt .]>.. Fr-ilow of All Souls College, Oxford; Pro sor of English History in the I'ni- vorsity of London. Vol. I: Narra- tive Extracts. Crown 8vo. Pp. lxx +332. $3.00 net fPc I ntsi. LONGMANS. GREEN, & CO., Publishers. 443-9 Fourth Ave.. N. Y.
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r i t The Nation A WEEKLY JOURNAL. FOUNDED IN 1865. [Entered at the New York City Post Office as second-class mail matter.] The Nation Is published and owned bv the New York Evening Post Co. Oswald Garrison Villard, ['resident : John Palmer Gavit. Secretary and Treasurer; Kmil M. Scholz. liuslness Manager- Paul Elmer More, Editor; Harold deWolf Fuller, Assistant Editor. Three dollars per year in advance, postpaid, in any part of the United States or Mexico; to Canada $3.50, and to foreign countries comprised in the Postal Union, $4.00. Address THE NATION, Box 794, New York. Publication Office, 20 Vesey Street. CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER. The Week 1 Editorial Articles: The Blood-and-Iron Fallacy 4 That "Alliance" Against lis 4 The State Constabulary 5 Making Life Insurance Do the Most Good 6 An Alaska Programme 7 Literature and Life in France 8 Special Articles : News for Bibliophiles 8 Correspondence : German Degrees 9 The Bulgaro-Servian Treaty 9 A Dean of Women 10 Literature : The Cambridge Mediaeval History 10 The Story of Mary Dunne 11 The Spare Room 12 The Fire Within 12 A Son of the Hills 12 Dave's Daughter 12 Social Welfare in New Zealand 12 Carducci 13 Palasographia Iberica 13 Notes 14 Science: A History of Land Mammals in the Western Hemisphere 16 Drama 17 Music : Great Pianists on Piano Playing. — How the Piano Came to Be. — First Studies for the Piano 18 Art: The New English Art Club 19 Finance: Retrospect 21 Books of the Week 22 JVST PUBLISHED The January Issue of tile HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW Thl§ number Includes llicjoiiouing articles: Theology and Tradition. .By William It. Arnold What is theChristianlteligion.ZfyZXC'.MaMn/osA Religion in Contemporary Po&ts.rF. S. Archibald The Fitness of theKn vironment. #//./. Y.Simpnon The Modern Man's ReIigion.5y J.E.LeBosquet Single number 50 cent* Subscription price k.iiii HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS THE OPEN COURT A MONTHLY MAGAZINE Devoted to the Science of Religion, the Religion of Science, mill the Extension of the Re- ligious Parliament Idea Among the noteworthy articles in the January- number may be men- tioned the following: TOLSTOY'S RELIGION. By Edward A. Thurber WANG-AN-SHIH: A Chinese Social- ist Statesman of the Eleventh Cen- tury By Herbert H. Oowen THE PORTRAYAL OF CHRIST. By the Editor THE JESUS AND THE BAPTIST: A Rebuttal. By William Benjamin Smith SAINTS AND SAINTHOOD. By Phillips Barry A copy of this January issue will be sent to any reader of The Nation on receipt of 10 cents. The Open Court Publishing Co. 122 SOUTH MICHIGAN AVE., CHICAGO RIPLEY: RAILWAY PROBLEMS REVISED EDITION. Authoritative material bearing di- rectly on railway problems of the past, present, and future. 825 pages, with maps, $2.50. SELECTIONS AND DOCUMENTS IN ECONOMICS TRUSTS, POOLS, AND CORPORA- TIONS $1.80 TRADE UNIONISM AND LABOR PROBLEMS 2.00 SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL PROG- RESS 2.75 SELECTED READINGS IN PUBLIC FINANCE 2.25 RAILWAY PROBLEMS, REV. ED... 2.50 SELECTED READINGS IN ECONOM- ICS 2.25 ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE U. S. 2.75 GINN AND COMPANY Boston New York Chicago London Atlanta Dallas Columbus San Francisco "TO LIBRARIANS " It is of interest and importance to know that the books reviewed and advertised in this mag- azine can be purchased from us at advanta- geous prices by PU1ILIC LIBRARIES SCHOOLS, COLLEGES A1VD UNIVERSITIES A. C. McCLURG \ Mlll'IIN ., NewYork A new boos by EDWARD HOWARD GRIGGS. THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART Tin- meaning and relation of sculpture, painting;, poetry and music. Tbe autbor's Important work so far published. l2mo. cloth, $1.50 net ; by mail, $UiO B.W.Huebsch.Publisher, 225 Fifth avenue, NowYork
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The Nation ,"/.•/.. THURSDAY, JANUARY 1, 1914. The Week When the historian who leaves noth- ing out comes to write the full account of the passage of the currency bill, he will not omit reference to the influence of the Christmas spirit. Congress was as eager as a small boy to get off for the holidays; and there stood the cruel resolution of the Democratic majority not to adjourn unless the bill was pass- ed. This undoubtedly had the effect of hastening final action. The drawing near of the gracious Christmastide seemed to calm the savage breast of the filibuster, and to still the passions of the makers of long speeches. It was rumored that Senator La Follette would insist upon speaking for two or three days; and one can imagine the appre- hensive looks that were cast in his di- rection. But he let his music die with- in him. Even he could hardly have faced the universal rage that would have fallen upon him if he had ruined the Congressional vacation over the hol- idays. The whole thing was a wonder- ful demonstration of what Christmas can do in the sphere of legislation. It was the old miracle over again: No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof. Senatorial eloquence dried up, obstruc- tion laid down its weapons, and Con- gress and the country seized their Mil- ton and echoed: — at last our bliss Full and perfect is. vessels. This is the clause which Eng- land maintained, and which it is hard to deny, was in violation of our treaty with her. There is also the question whether the Canal can be made any- where near self-supporting if tolls are not paid by all ships using it. Now, Mr. Adamson argues with .much plausibil- ity that his proposal will accomplish two things at once: it will give time for a test of the revenues of the Canal in relation to expenses; and it will also give time for the necessary diplomatic arrangements if we are finally to adopt the policy of free tolls for our coastwise vessels. It has been understood from the be- ginning of the Wilson Administration that nothing would be done about the question of Panama tolls until after the tariff and currency bills were out of the way. That was in line with the "single- track" idea. It may, therefore, be more than a coincidence that on the very day the currency bill became law, Represen- tative Adamson, Chairman of the Com- mittee on Interstate and Foreign Com- merce, introduced a joint resolution proposing a way out of the difficulty. The plan is to suspend for two years the provision of the Panama act making the Canal free to American coastwise There are reports of a change in the Administration's attitude concerning the retention in the diplomatic service of Ministers whose training and experi- ence make the continuance of their em- ployment an obvious requirement of sound public policy. Failure to recog- nize this principle hitherto has been one of the chief sources of criticism of the Administration on the part of fair- minded observers. The report that a better course is now to be pursued de- rives confirmation not only from the apparent certainty of the retention of Henry P. Fletcher as our Minister to Chili, and the indicated probability of the continuance of John W. Garrett in Argentina and Edwin V. Morgan in Brazil, but also from the unquestion- able fact that President Wilson's own convictions and proclivities must lie en- tirely in that direction. While he can- not disclaim responsibility for what has thus far happened, it can fairly be pleaded for him, if not by him, that the overshadowing importance of the two great legislative projects which he has just brought to consummation must naturally have absorbed his attention to the exclusion of many matters which, in an ordinary time, would have enlisted his keen interest. It is to be hoped that from now on nothing will be done to encourage the spoils concep- tion of the diplomatic service. tional Committeeman from that State, the Central Committee will be called to- gether soon after the holidays, and will approve the recommendation cutting Georgia's delegation from twenty-eight to eighteen. Mr. Jackson does say, for home consumption, presumably, that the action of the National Committee is not entirely fair to the Republican party in the South. But he makes another re- mark that is much closer to the point. "However," he says, "I believe the plan will operate to strengthen Republican- ism in the South. It will have a ten- dency to encourage voters to turn out at elections." He has in mind, of course, the provision that Congressional dis- tricts in which the party polls 7,500 votes or more shall be entitled to an ad- ditional delegate. Georgia's response to the proposed reduction of Southern delegates In Re- publican Conventions is as gracious as it is prompt. If we may trust the Na- Progressive irreconcilables should keep a sharp eye upon Kansas. A year ago the Progressives were in control of the Republican party machinery, and accordingly there was no "Progressive" State ticket. The "Republican" nomi- nee for Governor, .Arthur Capper, lack- ed only thirty votes of being elected. Now he is hesitating between announc- ing himself as a candidate for the Pro- gressive nomination for Governor and entering the race for the Republican nomination. And be is getting encour- agement in this dubious position by no less an authority than William Allen White! A Progressive who writes to the Emporia Gazette to ask why Capper does not decide one way or the other is gen- tly told that "often people who lack imagination cannot put themselves in the place of others. . . . Mr. Cap- per is in the position of a child of di- vorced parents who loves them both and is loved by both." Then comes this shocking explanation: He is not hesitating because he is afraid of himself. Whatever hesitancy he mani- fests is due to the fact that he is in a po- sition where a man may not say It is all black and white on one side or the other, and where a sudden decision, a hasty or impulsive act, might do Incalculable harm to the best interests of Kansas. Or of Capper? But why cannot he say that it is all black on the Republican side and all white on the Progressive side? It is, isn't it? While the Gazette would like to see Mr. Capper declare
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3 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2531 himself a Progressive, it "also realizes the immense pull of the mere party name on entirely honest people," and so it asks patience for Mr. Capper while he makes up his mind. But what would the Colonel say of a man who could even think of accepting a Republican nomination after July 19, 1912, and be- fore January 1, 1916? "Probably the greatest factor in re- tarding the development of scientific re- search among our industries has been high tariff." This is not the guess of a politician, but the verdict of a trade paper, the Journal of Industrial and En- gineering Chemistry. "This high tar- iff," it continues, "has caused many of our industries to prosper and pay enor- mous profits in spite of their short-sight- ed management. Political research, with a view to exploiting the consumer, is well understood by such managers, and it is a regrettable fact that many of them have spent thousands of dollars on the lobby and not one cent for plac- ing their business on a sound scientific footing." This is not a new contention. It is part of what President Wilson means by "freeing" the American man- ufacturer and dealer. In this view, lower prices are not the only end of tariff reduction. The main thing is the elimination of the artificial condi- tions that, under exorbitant rates, have surrounded our industrial processes, which, in consequence, may receive a kind of attention hitherto denied them. Not new "talking points," but better quality, becomes the aim of the man seeking a market. Incidentally, in the opinion of the Journal, "the loss of this tariff protection will, in the end, exert a great stabilizing influence on our in- dustrial development." "Efficient" is the word most common- ly used to describe the kind of adminis- tration that New York expects from its new Mayor. Because he himself made his reputation as Commissioner of Ac- counts, and because one of the men he seems certain to put into office is an- other notable exponent of the new science of statistics as applied to mu- nicipal government, one is apt to gather that the city's high expectations for the next four years are based primarily on the efficiency of systematizatlon, corre- lation, bookkeeping, card catalogues, and the like. Yet there is one factor in governmental efficiency which seems to have been overlooked in the passion- ate discussion of administrative meth- odology, and that is the antique virtue of simple honesty. If the average citi- zen looks forward to four years of effi- cient government by Messrs. Mitchel, Prendergast, McAneny, and their bor- ough associates, it is primarily because the average citizen is convinced that tbese men are honest. There is no need to disparage training and method in the conduct of municipal affairs, but the motive behind the method is of para- mount importance. German municipal government has reached its high state of efficiency because Germans employ experts to rule their cities. But Great Britain, which is not in the habit of go- ing in for scientific experimentation and prefers to move forward along old lines, has also developed efficient municipal government, for the simple reason that it has developed honest municipal gov- ernment. Whether the situation at Calumet is such as to call for an investigation by Congress or not, it is certainly one that is of most serious interest to the nation. The Governor of Michigan owes it not only to his office and to the people of his State, but to the people of the whole country, to get at the full and exact truth, and to get at it promptly. The terrible Christmas tragedy, the accusa- tions that arose out of it, and the at- tack on Moyer, coming on top of a situa- tion already intensely embittered, make a combination full of sinister possibili- ties. The story of Lawrence offers a clear enough demonstration of the seri- ousness of such a trouble as this, and the way In which it contributes to ag- gravate labor troubles in other parts of the country; and this Calumet case has in it elements of far greater potential mischief than did the Lawrence case. Justice and expediency alike demand that it be taken hold of at once with the utmost vigor. Secretary Lane's proposal to "con- serve'' deposits of radium is an illus- tration of the unexpected ramifications which a new policy is likely to develop. A very few years ago, conservation meant trees, water, coal, and the like. In a day It has come to mean radium. The principle once accepted, we are not greatly surprised at the finding of new objects to which it may be applied. One element in Secretary Lane's proposal is novel. He asks for authority, not only for the President to reserve to the Gov- ernment all rights in radium-bearing ores on public lands, but also for the Secretary of the Interior to proceed with the mining and treating of these ores in such a way as to obtain a supply of radium for the use of the Govern- ment and for hospitals throughout the country. To this kind of Government operation of industry no objection will be raised. Arkansas's new application of the lo- cal option principle, now upheld by the State Supreme Court, virtually disfran- chises the negro upon the liquor ques- tion. Instead of providing for wiping out saloons by a majority of the voters in any locality, it forbids any munici- pality or township to license a drinking- place except upon petition signed by a majority of the adult white residents. The bill was passed by the efforts of the anti-saloon forces, and had the usual avowed Southern motive of keeping li- quor from the black population. Ap- proval of the ends sought can hardly ex- tend to the means employed, especially in a State which increasingly recognizes the colored vote, and which has hith- erto resisted a "grandfather clause.'' There seems no warrant for vesting control over saloons in an artificially restricted portion of the population. The liquor interests, however, declare that they will not carry the matter to the United States Supreme Court, as this would involve too many delays. This implies that other means will be sought to bring the whole plan to a final test of legality. The high moral purpose behind the ex- hibition of the "white-slave" films, which has now been brought to an end in this city, is revealed in the remark made by the impresario of one of these enterprises to the effect mat he was busy taking in the money while the go- ing was good. It is easy to declaim against police censorship in this matter of white-slave exploitation in the thea- tre or on the canvas screen. But what, after all, Is police censorship as it lias been employed? There Is no qui
Page 20
Jan. I, 1914] The ]ST a t i o n here of allowing the policeman to decide whether a certain exhibition is to be tolerated or not. There has been no at- tempt on the part of Mr. Waldo or his subordinates to impose their arbitrary will on the managers of these enter- prises. The matter has been tried out in the courts and the decision against the films is not a police decision, but a judicial decision. In a broad sense, there is, of course, a censorship by the police, and it is exercised upon the citi- zen in every walk of life. There is a police censorship on crime and on pub- lic nuisances. In a still broader sense, the "police" power of the State is in- voked by Legislatures and courts when It comes to any form of regulation in the interests of the public welfare. The citizen who complains to the police of a nauseating "moral" exhibition is like the citizen who would complain to the police of a soap factory next door. The police are the primary agents whom the community calls in to bring a public nuisance before the attention of the courts. With public opinion against them, the police cannot destroy the lib- erties of the citizen; and what other tri- bunal can the moral crusaders ask for? Can't somebody do something, at this happy season, to cheer up Col. Harvey? He is having a terribly doleful time In the North American Review over the sins and shortcomings of President Wil- son. Trouble, trouble, and nothing but trouble does he see — the Constitution "subverted," foreign relations in a par- lous state, business depression already upon the country, and political defeat for the Democratic party impending. We can't be sure what is the matter with Col. Harvey, but we have an idea that he has lost his old strong grip on his theology. When one recalls the tiium- phant way in which, only a few short years ago, he was making it out that Wilson was foreordained, before the foundation of the world, to be President of the United States, it does seem as if it might do the Colonel good, in this hour when his countenance has fallen and his spirit is cast down within him, if he would only reach out and take a stiff dose of his favorite old family med- icine, predestination. We read that Dean C. Worcester, ex- Secretary of the Interior in the Philip- pine Government, is a great admirer of the Moros; and not, as one would sup- pose, because the Moro with his kree and his faculty for running amuck con- stitutes one of the favorite arguments against granting self-government to the Filipinos. The head-hunter and the Moro have never failed to be trotted out as proof that the removal of Amer- ican rule would mean the handing over of the peaceful population of the islands to rapine and murder. But now we read that Mr. Worcester believes that, if properly governed through men who know them and sympathize with them, some day they may be made law- abiding and self-respecting citizens of the Philippines. Does this mean that the Mindanao dat- to on the rampage can expect more sym- pathy from the present white masters of the islands than he would receive from the Filipinos themselves? Or does the sympathetic treatment the Moro needs take the form of being civilized with a Krag? In either case, a native Government at Manila ought to be equal to the task. Mr. Shuster, in his admira- ble article in the Century, points out the shallowness of the Moro argument. A Filipino gunboat, equipped with a few rapid-nrers, would be enough to protect the people of Luzon against murderous invasion. attitude of sulky resentment is not like- ly to bring this country to terms. The British Cabinet's decision against official participation by England in the Panama fair is condemned by the Liber- al press and defended, so far as it is defended at all, by Conservative news- papers. This has been the usual fate of Mr. Asquith's foreign policies. The bit- terest criticism against Sir Edward Grey's policy in the Near and Middle East has come from supporters of the Ministry, and the Tory London Times was for a time regarded as the spokes- man for Sir Edward. In the matter of the fair the severest indictment against the Government has been formulated by the Radical Chronicle, which points out with undeniable force the absurdity of the plea that the British treasury can- not afford the sum of half a million dol- lars towards an act of international courtesy whose effect on Anglo-Ameri- can relations could hardly fail to be beneficial. Conceding the point that Eng- land has a justifiable grievance against us over the question of Panama tolls, it needs no special acumen to see that an Mr. Andrew Furuseth's resignation in a huff from the London Conference on Ocean Safety so confirms his stamp of radicalism that it will inevitably dam- age his position upon the Seamen's bill. The House will be more inclined than ever to hear arguments pro and con upon a measure which could thus lead him to a sharp split with an interna- tional and impartial body. President Wilson has already expressed a wish that action in Congress may await the recommendations of the Conference on matters pertinent to the bill. That this be done is highly desirable, for repeat- ed protests from foreign and native shipowners have left no doubt that the bill requires amendment. Its provi- sions for the protection of crews are now generally acquiesced in, but cer- tain clauses relating to the safety of passengers are held exaggerated and unreasonably drastic. The report of the Conference is not likely to err on the side of laxity; it will be expert in every sense of the word; and a rational willingness to be guided by it will not merely support the general movement for international uniformity in regula- tions upon transoceanic traffic, but re- lieve the bill of the charge that it now violates certain treaty obligations. On his recent visit to London, Ana- tole France was taken just once to the theatre. And what does the reader sup- pose was the play by which the cultivat- ed Frenchman was to get his idea of the present state of the English drama? Why, it was "Joseph and His Brethren''! Why not? It was given at Sir Herbert Tree's theatre, it has run for nobody can recall how many months, so why not invite the supreme ironist of France to soothe his spirit at this tedious spec- tacle, and from it carry back an im- pression of the present ideals and achievements of the stage in England? Doubtless, M. France is too shrewd a man to be deceived by this stroke of English hospitality. He probably knows that his experience was very like what it would be to ask Edmund Gosse in Paris to pass by the Comedie and the Chatelet and go over the river to the Theatre Cluny to judge of what the French are doing in the dramatic art.
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± The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2531 THE BLOOD- AN D-1R0N FALLACY. A valued correspondent, with good knowledge of conditions in Mexico, writes to ask why the Nation does not urge the Government at Washington to stop the. "atrocities" in Mexico. What he refers to is the slaughter of Mexi- cans by Mexicans. Ilis estimate is — and we fear that it is not exaggerated — that 30,000 Mexicans have been killed since last February: some of them soldiers slain in battle; more of them shot in cold blood after capture or surrender; with a great many non-combatants. The thought of it all is, indeed, shocking; but two reflections come with it. The first is that no one can suggest a way in which Americans could bring to an end these atrocities without causing more horrible ones. In case of armed inter- vention by us, the tale of deaths would run far beyond 30,000. And the second reflection is that it is folly to think of terrifying into submission, by means of fire and sword, a people accustomed to such ruthless methods as are now prac- ticed in Mexico. It is an awful habit they have, but it is inveterate, of shoot- ing unarmed prisoners in times of civil war. This they inherited with their Spanish blood. Carranza as coolly pro- poses to "execute" the adherents of Huerta as Huerta proclaims his inten- tion of exterminating all who take up arms against him. And it is a nation habituated to such ferocities that it is said the United States should bring to terms by being more ferocious than it- self! We have been told, till everybody is sick of it, that Mexico's great need is for a "strong man." Usually, this has meant a ruthless man. With much wise head-wagging, stories are repeated of the swift brutality which Porfirio Diaz used to practice. That is the true pre- scription for Mexico to-day, we are as- sured. Send out a detachment of troops with orders to shoot every sixth person in a district where trouble is reported. Kill first and find out the truth after- wards. Diaz did it, and see how he kept the country in order. That's the only way in which these Mexicans can be made to behave. But this is to forget that the Diaz system of ferocity broke down. As Professor Hart writes in World's Work, Diaz, "like most despots, discovered that, no matter how many beadi were cut off, men with tongues will still arise. The strong man in the end was weaker than his people." Right here let it be remarked that the demand for a "strong man" in Mex- ico is made chiefly by foreigners. The Mexican correspondent of the London Tunes notes that this demand "comes glibly from the lips of nearly all Brit- ish and American residents in the coun- try." And their reasons for wanting a strong ruler are obvious and, to an ex- tent, legitimate. They have great in- vestments in Mexico, which they would have protected. Their lives and the lives of those dependent upon them, they would have safeguarded. This is natural and lawful enough; the trou- ble arises only when they translate strong man into a ruthless despot. Now, it is the deliberate opinion of the well- informed correspondent referred to that Mexico has passed the stage where a ruthless dictator, dealing out death and destruction, can possibly succeed. Diaz proved this to be true. "No one can govern the country again as he did." Huerta is proving it to be true. How can you frighten men into yielding who face the firing-squad without flinching and die with their last defiant word, "Viva Mexico"? This writer in the London Times declares that the idea that the Mexicans need an iron-handed despot is a complete mistake. An able ruler, yes, but never again simply a military ruler knowing no argument but that of pike and gun. "The notion that the Mexicans need merely a despot betrays failure to understand either them or human nature. They are not fully grown up yet. But they are no longer children." Evidence is, in fact, accumulating on every hand that the flame lit by Fran- cisco Madero cannot be extinguished by blood. Only last week, one Mexican in the very capital had the courage to stand up and tell Gen. Huerta to his face — after others had flattered him — that mere force was no remedy for Mex- ico's ills, and that the Dictator must seriously consider doing something to meet the demands of the growingly in- telligent middle classes. What Seiior Urrutia had the boldness to say Is un- questionably the thought of many hearts in Mexico, as is borne out by the testi- mony of sympathetic observers. It Is a terrible welter through which Mexico is now passing, and the' end of it no man can foresee. But some antecedent and harmful fallacies are at least disposed of. The greatest of them is the assump- tion that a people whicli has withstood the worst that native ferocity could do would meekly submit if foreigners be- gan to shoot and burn and ravage. And twin with this folly is that of supposing that if the United States had only sharpened the edge of Huerta's sword, he would by this time have made Mex- ico a land of smiling content. THAT ''ALLIANCE" AGAINST US. Several Washington correspondents have made the simultaneous discovery that "Germany and Great Britain have entered into an offensive and defensive commercial alliance against the United States." At last news, Germany and England were about to go to war with each other. But, it seems, they have dropped all that in order to think about trade; and their first move, as traders, is to put their heads together in a plot to harm their best customer. We thus put the essential absurdity of the story in a condensed form, not in the hope of destroying belief in it. Such yarns have more lives than a cat. They turn up from time to time, and always find audi- ence among the credulous. Why this re- vival should have taken place just now it is hard to say. One reason may he the dearth of topics for Washington cor- respondents during the holiday recess! Another is seen in the admitted fact that the National City Bank of New York has been contemplating the estab- lishment of a branch in Buenos Ayres, but has given it up for .the time being. This is gravely cited as clear proof of a conspiracy, on the part of British and German interests, to check American enterprise abroad wherever it threatens competition with them. It might be thought that the plain tale of the president of the Nal City Bank would put down these retail- ers of big stories about Englishmen and Germans in buckram. Mr, Vandi plij explains that his institution bad, In- deed, made inquiries preliminary to cos sidering a plan of opening a brai tna, as it is authorized to do un der the Dew banking and 1 urrency law, But Hi" project bad not been pi because it appeared that tlio time WES not ripe tor it, either In South km or in this country. It was added by Mr.
Page 22
Vanderlip that there would be great dif- ficulty in finding Americans able and willing to go and manage such an im- portant enterprise at Buenos Ayres. We have very few men capable of doing the work, and they would not wish to expa- triate themselves indefinitely. This, points out the president of the City Na- tional, is "a weakness in our system." England and Germany have an abun- dance of men trained for foreign ser- vice. We have scarcely any. But does not that merely show that the "alli- ance" has been getting in its deadly work in advance? So must think the Washington detectives, for they declare that, "despite the denial made by Pres- ident Vanderlip," we should have had a flourishing bank at the Kiver Plate by this time, had not our efforts been thwarted by the sinister influence of British and German interests. This sort of thing crops up whenever there is talk, as there is now, of mak- ing new efforts to extend American com- merce and financial facilities and pres- tige abroad. We do not make as rapid progress as we think we ought to make, and then, asserting that the fault cannot be in ourselves, we look about for the machinations of some foreign rival. We have been doing this for many years, and shall doubtless continue to do so until we learn that the thing to search for in foreign competitors is, not mys- terious plots, but the plodding methods of success. On this very point of branch banks in other countries, the address of the president of the United States Steel Corporation at Chicago, at the annual meeting of the Illinois Manufacturers' Association, had a pertinent passage. Mr. Farrell had no doubt that American banking institutions would gradually find their way into foreign countries, but they would first have to master the new business. Asserted President Far- rell: The early history of German banks in Latin America and the Far East was one of continued failure, and it was only after they had solved the problem of doing a banking business in the country in which they were established, rather than merely acting as mediators of German trade, and began to finance industrial enterprises, railway construction, etc., in the land of their adoption, that they commenced to do a large business. There is no occasion for taking a gloomy view of our foreign trade. It has enormously expanded. Though the greater part of the increase has been in raw materials or semi-manufactured products, it does not follow that we shall not find still greater markets abroad for our finished goods. But our merchants and bankers will have to go about the business like men of sense. If they do, they will promptly dismiss all these inventions of hostile trade "alli- ances," just as they will also abandon the notion that there is any short and easy way to build up foreign commerce. The whole thing is simply a human and business problem which has to be solv- ed, as other nations have solved it, by human qualities and business princi- ples. First of all, we need to make good the lack pointed out by Mr. Vanderlip — our deficiency, that is, in trained men. The high tariff policy has tended to pre- vent us from looking to foreign mar- kets. But home-keeping youths have ever homely wits; and Americans must acquire the habit of seeking out a full understanding of the political conditions and the social life and the language of the people with whom they wish to do business, so sharpening their wits and making them cosmopolitan, before they can hope to trade on equal terms with the nations that have long studied and occupied the field. THE STATE CONSTABULARY. A State police has long been urged by the Nation, not only for Northern States, but for Southern as well; and in the achievements of the model force main- tained by the State of Pennsylvania is the clearest demonstration of the use- fulness and desirability of such a law- enforcing body. New York, for instance, needs a State police because of the com- plete breakdown of the sheriff system for enforcing law; because of the neces- sity of preventing rural crime and ap- prehending offenders; because of the changed traffic conditions upon its high- ways; because there is needed a power independent of local politics to uphold State laws; because its heterogeneous population has considerably increased rural lawlessness in several counties. There is the further reason that such a Constabulary would be of invaluable ser- vice in preventing and checking riots, and would relieve the National Guard of the disagreeable necessity of dealing with strikes. This latter, so far as this State is concerned, does not appear to us the most convincing reason. Unlike Penn- sylvania, New York has had compara- tively few cases of labor trouble involv- ing the calling out of the militia. There can be no question, however, of the greater efficacy of a trained body of mounted police in handling mobs than a similar force of troops. In the street- car strike in Philadelphia in 1910 a com- pany of militia was disarmed and made ridiculous by a mob of women, which was promptly handled and made to behave by a small body of police. In the Press- ed Steel Car strike at McKee's Rocks, near Pittsburgh, the strikers cheered the Constabulary, even after they had been sharply handled by the police. They recognized that the Constabulary were doing their duty, and doing it well, admired their courage, and re- spected them for showing as much con- sideration as possible. None the less, it is a regrettable fact that organized labor is opposed to the Pennsylvania force, and has thus far blocked a neces- sary increase. In New York, opposi- tion may develop in this quarter; but we hope that the union element which believes in the necessity of force to win strikes will be held in check by wiser leaders, who will see the great advan- tage to the whole State if such a body were created to serve the entire com- monwealth. It is the prevention of crime and the apprehending of rural offenders which seem to us the chief reasons for a Con- stabulary. It is a striking fact that the number of arrests by the Pennsylvania Constabulary has decreased from 5,028 in 1908 to 1,144 in 1912. This does not indicate any police laxity; on the con- trary, the decrease has been steady, and is traceable directly to the preventive work of Major Groomo's men, who pa- trol annually between 400,000 and 500,- 000 miles, although there are but 228 of them, and they are likely to be drawn off at any moment for strike or emer- gency duty. Thus, they furnish from their number trustworthy State detec- tives. In the matter of the Coatesville lynching, for instance, the Constabulary placed detectives in that town and !>- tained the evidence upon which the In- dictments of the lynchers were ba» 'i [1 is safe to say that if a single member of the force had been in town on the day of the lynching, the town and State would not have been disgraced. Yet the
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6 The Nation (Vol. 98, No. 2531 service of the Constabulary costs the State only $331,000 a year. This may seem to some a large fig- ure to add to the budget of New York just when it is in great need of econ- omy. But crime is the most costly thing with which a State has to deal. It always spells outgo and no return. It is perfectly plain that by its pre- ventive work the Pennsylvania police have saved the State much more than they have cost, to say nothing of the comfort and security given to districts hitherto terrorized by the lawless, or in danger from wandering criminals. West- chester County would particularly ap- preciate such a sense of security; that it now lacks altogether. The large in- flux of Italians into the county has re- sulted in some terrible crimes, many of which have gone unpunished. In oth- er cases, the Aqueduct police have come to the rescue. But the fact remains that Italians are used to seeing rural dis- tricts patrolled by their admirable cara- binieri. They come over here and see no symbol of authority whatever; that a sheriff resides ten or twenty miles away impresses them not at all. It was the Aqueduct police, and not the Sher- iff, who captured the six Italians execut- ed by the State last year for a horrible crime at Yorktown Heights; and despite the Sheriff, the three Italian murderers who killed a worthy citizen at Mount Kisco last summer readily made their escape, although identified, and not one has been arrested. A single Pennsyl- vania constable would easily have bag- ged the trio. Had New York possessed a Constabu- lary, it would not have been necessary to call out United States troops from Plattsburgh Barracks last summer to fight the Adirondack fires which did so much damage. The Pennsylvania police have done yeoman service as forest rangers and game- and fire-wardens, in addition to all their own duties; in 1906, prior to the establishment of the police, seven civilian game-wardens were shot at and four killed. Since the po- lice appeared all such attacks have ceas- ed. Every Continental country has its gendarmerie; that the United States is for most of its territory without such a force is, to our mind, one reason why our record of crime disgraces the na- tion. MAKING LIFE INSURANCE DO THE MOST GOOD. Several of the leading life insurance companies have recently devoted consid- erable effort to the promotion among their policyholders of a mode of using their insurance so as to obtain the greatest certainty of substantial good for those whom the insurance is design- ed to benefit. They have drawn the attention of actual and prospective insurers to the advantage of the plan of putting the benefits in the shape of annuities for the beneficiary instead of a lump sum paid at the death of the in- sured. Mr. Sylvester C. Dunham, presi- dent of the Travelers' Insurance Com- pany, at the recent meeting of life in- surance presidents in this city, referred to the frequency with which widows lost in a few months all the money that was the result of self-denial for years, often by both husband and wife. He dwelt upon the wide extent of the busi- ness carried on by the promoters of get- rich-quick schemes, who systematically seek their prey among the very people that can least afford the loss in such ventures. Important and regrettable as these losses are, however, they doubtless are less in the aggregate than those caused by the sinking of hard-earned money in investments which, while not tainted with fraud or marked by clear folly, do not present the solid safety that attaches to the careful investments of a properly managed fiduciary corpor- ation. It is therefore to be hoped that the annuity plan will find steadily in- creasing favor. But there is a consideration making in somewhat the same direction which seems never to be pressed either by in- surance companies or by others. We re- fer to the fact that in a large propor- tion of cases the sole motive of the in- surer is to provide for the benefit of one person or of a small group of persons, and that if these do not survive him the acquisition of the amount of his pol- icy by his heirs-at-law is of no inter- est to him. For simplicity, let us speak of the case of a man whose only purpose in insuring is to provide for his wife in case she survives him. Evidently, the way in which he could best serve this purpose would be to take out a policy providing for a payment to the widow either of a lump sum or of a fixed an- nuity, the company to pay nothing in the event that she did not survive him. By means of this last feature, he could evidently obtain for the widow, with a given expenditure, a much larger provi- sion than otherwise. Survivorship policies of this nature — simple survivorship policies and sur- vivorship annuities — have been obtain- able from English companies since the very infancy of life insurance, and also from American companies; but the ad- vantage of them has not been made suf- ficiently known. There are, indeed, two evident obstacles to their widespread adoption. One is that people have a dislike to paying premiums of life in- surance from which it may easily hap- pen that no returns will come; how un- reasoning this attitude is appears at once when we consider that in the case of fire insurance, and even accident in- surance, we never think of regarding the probability that our house will not burn down or that we shall not break a leg or an arm as any objection at all. The other obstacle comes from the fact that the majority of persons nowadays, when they insure, have in view a pro- vision for their own old age as well as for a surviving beneficiary or bene- ficiaries. To some extent both these difficulties, however, are overcome in that combination form of policy which was introduced a number of years ago by Emory McClintock, one of the fore- most actuaries in the world, under the name of the continuous endowment pol- icy, and which, we believe, is essentially identical with some of the plans now being pushed by the companies that are recommending the annuity plan. We are convinced, nevertheless, that it would be possible to bring about such recognition of the manifest advan- tages of the survivorship plan in insur- ance as would result in its adoption by thousands of persons who now either do not insure at all, or insure very inade- quately, for the protection of those dear to them. Every man would prefer, of course, to make sure of his own inde- pendence if he lives to old age, as well as of the welfare of his wife, or chil- dren, or mother, if he dies an untimely death. But it costs a lot of money to do that; and if a man who cannot afford a big annual sum for insurance were distinctly and simply informed that for a very moderate sum applied to the sole purpose of providing for some one per-
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Jan. i, 1914] The ISTation 7 son dependent on him he could place that person beyond all danger of want, he would In a considerable proportion of cases avail himself of the opportu- nity. This surely applies in great num- bers of cases of husband and wife; but there are others. Unmarried men hav- ing a parent dependent on them are not to be counted by the million; but there are many thousands, perhaps many hundreds of thousands of them. A man of thirty could, by the payment of a veritable trifle, absolutely insure that his mother of sixty should not suffer In material comfort through his death; and the peace of mind that this would bring about would of itself in many cases be a great blessing. It is doubt- less true that there is no great induce- ment to insurance companies in general, from their customary standpoint of large-scale business, to exert themselves greatly in this direction; but some one company, making a specialty of it, might do much with it, and in doing so would be entitled to the credit of having done a real social service. Nor do we see any reason why some of our great mil- lionaires should not start a company which would undertake this work on well-planned lines — surely as good an embodiment of the idea of "philan- thropy and 4 per cent." as can well be imagined. AN ALASKA PROGRAMME. In my judgment, the way to deal with the problem of Alaska resources is to es- tablish a board of directors to have this work in charge. Into the hands of this board or commission I would give all the national assets in that territory, to be used primarily for her improvement — her lands, fisheries, Indians, Eskimos, seals, forests, mines, waterways, railroads— all that the nation owns, cares for, controls, or regu- lates. Congress should determine in broad outline the policies which this board in a liberal discretion should elaborate and administer, much as is done as to the Phil- ippines. This board would, of course, have nothing whatsoever to do with the internal affairs of the organized Territory of Alaska, for it would exercise no powers save such as Congress granted over the property of the United States in Alaska. This is the solution that the Secretary of the Interior recommends for the pro- blem of Alaskan development. It strikes us as an admirable proposal. The ques- tion has now been conspicuously before the country, from time to time, for something like eight years. Mr. Roose- velt treated it with vigor in some of his messages. The Guggenheim scheme, fol- lowed by the Ballinger unpleasantness, made it for a considerable period the focus of an intense controversy. Presi- dent Taft gave to the question a great deal of serious attention, and Secretary Fisher, soon after his appointment as successor to Ballinger, made a visit of investigation to Alaska which resulted in a comprehensive report and impor- tant recommendations, especially that of the construction by the Government of a main line of railway in the Territory. This recommendation was adopted by the President. Mr. Taft also urged, as had Mr. Roosevelt before him, the in- troduction of a comprehensive system of leasing for the exploitation of the coal lands; and in more than one mes- sage he recommended the establishment of a commission form of government for Alaska. While, therefore, Secretary Lane's proposal is novel and original, it seems, to use the medical phrase, clearly "indi- cated" by the history of the case. He, like President Taft and President Roose- velt, wishes to institute an effective leasing system; like Secretary Fisher and President Taft, he thinks Govern- ment construction of a main line of rail- way an essential prerequisite for the opening up of the country; and he rec- ognizes that the chief obstacle to at- taining large results has been the lack of any adequate handling of the pro- blem as a whole. What he adds to the recommendations of his predecessors is a plan for the removal of this ob- stacle. Instead of an Alaskan question being either nobody's business or the in- cidental and sporadic business of half a dozen different departments of the Government, he wishes to have a com- mission created whose sole business it will be to look after the concerns of the nation in Alaska. Properly safeguarded as to the exercise of its powers, such a commission appears to offer the best prospect at once of protection for the nation's possessions against spoliation, and of encouragement to legitimate pri- vate enterprise. In lively and interesting style, Sec- retary Lane sketches, in the introduc- tory part of his report, the history of the conflict between these opposing as- pects of our general land policy in the past. Alaska simply happened to come into active consideration at the time when this policy had, under severe but ! not too severe criticism, been brought to a halt. It had been wasteful, and thoughtless, and undiscriminating. It had resulted in the reduction of our magnificent possessions in the States and the older Territories to a small fraction of what they had been, without anything like adequate advantage to the people and with a vast amount of undeserved gain to land-grabbers. It was natural that when this process was, by vigorous resistance, brought to an end, something like paralysis should have set in for a time. That is the price which must almost inevitably be paid for the effecting of a cure for so long-standing a disease. Attempts have all along been made by eager friends of Western development to discredit the champions of conservation as men who wished to lock up the resources of the country indefinitely, and in their zeal for the interests of future generations would ignore the needs of the generation now on the scene. The accusation is thoroughly unjust, but the policy which includes a leasing and royalty system for coal and other mineral lands, and discrimination of treatment between timber lands and agricultural lands, has been taking some time to get into shape. Secretary Lane urges legislation by Con- gress to this end; and it is quite as important that this recommendation concerning the public domain nearer home should be attended to as that Alaskan affairs should be put upon a better footing. With Mr. Lane's picturesque presen- tation of Alaska's possibilities it would be hypercritical to find fault. Still it may not be idle to point out that al- lowance must there be made for the ardor of the advocate. That the poten- tialities of the Territory are very great is now generally recognized; but as a region which, within anything like a near future, can be made to contain a large population, its claims are doubt- ful. It is true that the present sparse- ness of Alaskan population "cannot be explained on the ground of the inhos- pitality of the Alaskan climate"; and it is also true that "our people are not stayed in their quest for homes or wealth by the rigors of a long winter." Still, they do not prefer those rigora, nor do they like, other things being equal, to go to places so remote in point of location and so peculiar In other re-
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8 Tli e Natio 11 [Vol 98, No. 253 1 spects us is Alaska. The process of set- tlement will in all probability be a slow one at best. The example of New Zea- land is instructive in this regard; in spite of its temperate climate, its good land, its mineral resources, and the long- established and much-advertised attrac- tions of its system of government, it receives a net accession of only four or five thousand inhabitants annually by immigration. The point is not vital as to the essence of the general policy pro- posed by Mr. Lane, but it indicates the danger of over-sanguineness in the exe- cution of that policy. LITERATURE AND LIFE IN FRANCE. The dispatches telling of the death of Jules Claretie, journalist, playwright, dramatist, and man of affairs, all prop- erly emphasized his membership in the French Academy. The term "immor- tal" has become naturalized the world over. But in this country at the pres- ent moment there is a certain danger in using the word. The press has hardly finished poking fun at our own "immor- tals" as embraced in the American In- stitute of Arts and Letters, which re- cently had its meeting in Chicago. There is also danger ot doing injustice to the great Academy which Richelieu founded, by popularizing the idea that it is on the whole a society of pedants and book-worms and dryasdusts, who are not qualified to legislate for a liv- ing literature because they themselves stand apart from life. This popular conception of the French Academy is re- inforced by the well-known tradition of the forty-first chair, the chair to which Moliere, Flaubert, Emile Zola, and oth- er "rebels" failed to be elected. As a matter of fact, the French Acad- emy is far from being an assemblage of secluded scholars and poets of the ivory tower. Certain rebels have failed to ob- tain admission, but many more rebels have been inscribed on its rolls, though not perhaps until time and experience have given them national prestige and a broadly national outlook. The career of Jules Claretie is an instance in point. He began his literary career as a disci- ple of Henry Murger, author of "La Vie de BohSme," surely not a pedant or a conservative. Like bo many distinguish- ed i''i enclimi a of to da y, be was an ardent republii an dm Ing I be last years of iii' Tim ii Empire. He wenl 1 brougfa 1 in' war with Prussia, that cataclysmic event which has left its mark, generally in the form of a sobering influence, on French people of all classes. As head of the Theatre Frangais for nearly thir- ty years, he must have displayed admin- istrative ability, business acumen, and the gift of diplomacy. His weekly caus- erles in Le Temps showed a man vividly alive to things of the present day. Here, surely, was no dreamy scholar or fussy grammarian. Nor was Claretie an ex- ception in the Academy, which now con- tains rebels like Maurice Donnay, who began his career by chanting naughty verses at the Black Cat, dressed in a burlesque Academic uniform; or Jean Richepin, the poet of the vagabond life; or sturdy fighters like Brieux and Mau- rice Barres. Such full, active lives blending the work of the spirit with the hard experi- ence of the world are completely in line with the great historic tradition of the French people, a people which in less than three-quarters of a century has had at the head of its Government phi- losophers and historians like Guizot and Thiers and a poet of romantic idealism like Lamartine; leaders of the parlia- mentary opposition like Victor Hugo and the college professor, Jean Jaures; a people which at the present day names its battleships and cruisers Voltaire, Diderot, Jules Michelet, and Ernest Renan. If France has been the reser- voir of political ideas and ideals for the world, it is not merely because the French are a highly volatile race given to experimentation, but because of the large share which men of imagination — philosophers, scientists, men of letters — have played in her political life. The ardent intellectual curiosity of the French nature spares no field of life. But something more than curiosity en- ters into the account. There is also the habit of laborious application. Tourists nave made a commonplace of the thrift and industry of the French working and trading classes. What they have not touched upon is the industry of the French intellectual classes. Only now are we beginning to realize the magni- tude of the Labors of a Pasteur or a I'oiin are, or the lissi'i'-known pioneers who made possible many inventions thai enter Intimately Into our modern Indus trial life. Nothing can be further from the truth than the popular conception of tie Pa- risian man of letters as a jolly boule- vardier who does his literary work in intervals of social intrigue and the pull- ing of wires. The extraordinary copi- ousness of a Claretie is no exception; it is true of most French writers, from sober craftsmen like Sainte-Beuve and Emile Faguet to rebels like the late Catulle Mendes. This, too, goes back to old French tradition, to the number- less volumes of Voltaire and the gigan- tic labors of a Diderot. Such extraor- dinary productivity will be explained only to a minor degree by the fact that the task of learning how to write is spared to every Frenchman, who is born with the gift of supple and accurate ex- pression. Nor will the press of necessity- explain everything. The pecuniary re- wards of authorship in France are not great as a rule, and a writer to make a living must write continuously. But the explanation is that here is a nation which knows how to combine applica- tion with artistic ease; a nation which has solved the important problem of how to be gay and bow to work. NEWS FOR BIBLIOPHILES. Brunswick County, in Virginia, was formed in the year 1720 from the counties of Surry and Islo of Wight, in view of the fact that "the frontiers towards the high- mountains are exposed to danger from the Indians, and the late settlements of the French to the westward of the said moun- tains." The chief Indian Trading Path from James River to the south traversed what became territory of Brunswick County, and al a i oint on this road, in 1714, Gov. Spots- wood had set up a fort and a school, both tor the good manners of the aboriginals. Brunswick County lay very near the West for many years of the eighteenth century, and conditions in the region were not great- ly dissimilar to those obtaining about Jamestown win in George Sandys was making 1,1s 71 in lion of the "Metamorphoses of Ovid," printed in folio at London in 1626. 'Twas always spring; warm Zephytus sweel y blew On smiling flowers, wulcn withoul setting gi n Sandys may have written the lines during the excellent crop season of 1622, a year of maize so high thai the Indians found' good cover in approaching the settlements (or their dreadful slaughter. Brunswick County bad been bul two years established, under the new hen ver, when there was born at Angli Wales, Goronwy Ddhu o P that Is, Blaok Goronwy of Anglesea, called Goronwy Owen, who was to die In the ' lounl y ol Brunswick seme ttftj years later, the lasl ol I b< poets of Wale:; ( inriniw.v ( »w n ' . In Virginia about 1767, was foi two master of the Qra ar Sohool al William and Mary College, and thereafl »i of the Parish ol St, Andn w's In Bi m Oounl i His gi a ire I has recentlj been
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Identified. The author of the "Cywydd y Farn" was an Oxford man, one of the nu- merous alumni of the English and Scot- tish Universities to whom fell the task, be- fore the Revolution, of instructing many of the youth of Virginia in the Latin and the Greek, with something of the mathematics. Goronwy DdhU, immortal composer of the "Last Judgment," was fond of drink, and it Is not certain that he was a useful man in America, or that he added to his poeti- cal works among the woods of Brunswick County. Mecklenburg County, set off in 1764, had been a part of Old Brunswick. For many years before the formation of Mecklenburg the Mun fords of that county played a part as active men of the frontier. Robert Munford, perhaps grandson of the emigrant, married into the legal family of Beverley. Robert. Munford's son, William Munford (born in the County of Mecklenburg in 177.")), w.is the grandson of William Bever- ley, an historian of Virginia (editions 1705 and 1722), who was the first cousin of Sir John Randolph, uncle of William Stith, an historian of Virginia (first ed., 1747). Wil- liam Munford had affiliations with an earli- er man of letters. The obituary notice of Sir John Randolph, Knt. {Virginia Qo- tette, March 11, 1736-7), runs: "He was a gentleman of one of the best families in this country, although what Livy says of the Romans, soon after the Foundation of their City, be very applicable to us here — in novo populo uibi omnia repentima nooili- ta.i fit, yet his family was of no mean fig- ure in England before it was transplanted hither. Sir Thomas Randolph was of a Collateral Branch, which had the Honour, in several important Embassies, to serve Q. Elizabeth. Mr. Thomas Randolph, the poet, was great Uncle to Sir John. An immature Death put a Stop to his rising Genius and Fame; but he had gained such a Reputation among the Wits of his age that he was exceedingly lamented; and Ben Jonson always expressed his Love and Esteem for him, calling him by no other Title, but that of Son." William Munford was at college at Wil- liam and Mary, where he seems to have been introduced to the classical literatures by the celebrated George Wythe, under whom also he studied law. Munford prac- ticed law with success in his native county of Mecklenburg for about ten years, finding time for literary diversions. He published at Richmond in 1798 (12mo, 189 pp.) "Poems and Compositions in Prose on Several Oc- casions. By William Munford, of the Coun- ty of Mecklenburg and State of Virginia" —largely a Tragedy, Almoran and Hamet, founded on an Eastern Tale of that name; versions of the Odes of Horace; and metri- cal versions of Ossian. Removing to Rich- mond about 1805, Munford held office as a member of the Council of State until 1811, when he became Clerk of the House of Delegates, so continuing until his death in 1825, in the month of June. His Preface to his translation of the Iliad of Homer is dated, "Richmond, May, 1825." Munford's Homer must, no doubt, be ac- counted a creditable work. It was pub- lished by his wife in 1846, two volumes, 8vo (Boston: Little & Brown). Of his task the author remarks: "How far I have succeed- ed in this difficult enterprise, the public will judge, if not prevented from reading this work by the prejudice unfortunately existing against American poetry. I hope, however, that some at least of the lo\ Homer will not be unwilling to behold their favorite author arrayed in such various suits of apparel, as may be furnished by artists of different tastes. Pope has equip- ped him in the fashionable style of a mod- ern fine gentleman; Cowper displays him, like his own Ulysses, in 'rags unseemly,' or in the uncouth garb of a savage. Surely, then, there is room for an effort to intro- duce him to the acquaintance of my coun- trymen in the simple yet graceful and ven- erable costume of his own heroic times." For example: Ob scandal unci disgrace! Truly ye talk like feeble, beardless boys. Who know not warlike deeds. All ! whither now Are Bed our solemn promises and oaths'- I'd wiiii the smoke of sacrifice! and designs, by heroes fram'd, The treaties, with unmiz'd libations crown'd, Ainl righl hands join M , to which we trusted once, Are fruitless all! For without benefit We wrangle and dispute, and staying here However long, we hud no remedy. [Book II, 11. 441-451.] Alfred J. Morrison. Correspondence GERMAN DEGREES. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir : Last summer, when the report of the attendance at the German universi- ties for the preceding semester came into my hands, I tried to make an estimate of the number of doctor-theses laid before the faculties of those institutions in which the German language is used as a medium of instruction. According to my calculation, it amounted to about 5,000 annually. These figures were so large that I thought I must be mistaken. However, the Deutsche Lit- eraturzeitung contains a report of a paper read before the Association of German Uni- versity Professors, held in Strasburg on the 13th of October last, by Professor von Amira, of Munich, in which he affirms that more than 5,500 such dissertations were issued in 1910 from the universities of the German Empire alone. My figures were, therefore, a good deal too low. Yet the sum-total does not seem unreasonable when we reflect that during the past few years more than 60,000 students have attended the German universities, without counting those in Austria and Switzerland. It is within bounds to say that of this enormous output not one thesis in ten is worth printing, and not one in a hundred has any permanent value. Professor von Amira declared that in foreign countries German doctors have come to be regarded as a fit subject for merriment, and that even at home they are not taken very se- riously. He finds a good deal of differ- ence in the requirements of the different universities and even in the faculties of the same university. He recommends a number of reforms, the adoption of which he proposes for Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, in order to bring about uniformity in the matter of conferring degrees. One is that an accepted thesis should really enlarge the boundaries of knowledge and should not be a mere statistical collection of data. Another is that the candidate should be required to testify under oath that his work was done without assistance and that if it should be subsequently dis- covered that he had not acted in good faith his degree should be revoked. Evidently the sense of honor in German university circles is not as keen as it is usually sup- posed to be. Now.no one believes it is possible for sev- eral thousand persons to prepare as many documents that by any stretch of language could be said to contain anything original. Search is not research. While there are doubtless yet many things to discover in the vast domain of nature, that of the his- torical sciences is rapidly becoming small- er. Would the result not be far more sat- isfactory if assimilation rather than discov- ery were set as the goal to be striven for? There would be no danger of exhausting the material. A thesis might still be re- quired, but more attention should be paid to the soundness of the ideas it contained. A great deal of stress should be laid upon the oral part of the examination. This would serve to bring out to what extent the candidate had really made the matter under study a part of his mental equipment, at least if the theme chosen lay in the field of literature. It might not be wise to set a high standard of literary excel- lence for persons who intend to devote themselves to purely practical activities. But such a requirement would not be out of place for those who expect to devote themselves to teaching. That this goal is not impossible of attainment is proved by the fact that French books as well as ar- ticles in French periodicals almost without exception display finer taste in composition than those appearing on the other side of the Channel or of the Rhine. Many German professors have expressed the opinion that at least 40 per cent, of their students ought not to be in a uni- versity at all. The same judgment might with justice be applied to this country. Too many young people are looking towards gaining a livelihood with their wits who should be using their hands for this pur- pose.. Our vicious practice of "drumming up" students is largely responsible. A slight reaction against purely practical studies has set in on this side of the At- lantic. Such seems also to be the case in France, if Professor Laurand is not mis- taken. He affirms, in the announcement of his forthcoming "Manuel des Etudes grecques et latines" that "Les Etudes clas- siques reviennent en honneur. De plus en plus on se rend compte qu'on ne peut les negliger sans detriment." On the other hand, the tendency in Germany is more and more strongly towards the purely prac- tical in education, if the proposed estab- lishment of two or three new universities from the curricula of which the culture studies are to be omitted, can be taken as a sign of the times. Charles W. Super. Athens, 0., December 24. THE BULGARO-SERVIAN TREATY. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: In the issue of the Xation for December 11 there Is a reference to the enterprise displayed by the Paris Matin In publishing the secret Bulgaro-Servian
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io The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2531 treaty of March, 1912. The gist of your comment Is that Russia, Germany, and Aus- tria were aware of the alliance, and that their action In trying to prevent war with Turkey was largely formal. May I point out that this is no start- ling revelation? In the Revue de Paris for December 15, 1912, there appeared an article on "La Ligue balkanique," by Au- guste Gauvain, who was obviously inspired from trustworthy sources. It was there stated that Berlin and Vienna were privy to the alliance, and the fact has not been denied, so far as I am aware. On January 9, 1913, the Sofia Mir, the Governmental organ, acknowledged that t*ie idea of the alliance was due at the outset to foreign inspiration. Finally, from the articles pub- lished by the Times (weekly edition, June 20), on the history of the alliance, it is clear that the Bulgaro-Servian agreement was due to "Russian inspiration," repre- sented by M. Hartwig, the energetic Rus- sian Minister at Belgrade. These articles were written by Mr. J. D. Bourchier, the Times's correspondent in the Balkan penin- sula, whose accuracy is beyond question, at least on matters of fact. Bernadotte E. Schmitt. Cleveland, O., December 23. A DEAN OP WOMEN. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: I have read with much interest in the Nation of November 13 your corre- spondent's query regarding deans. I can- not attempt to answer so large a question since I have been trying to discover the raison d'etre of but one species of dean. The writer says "dean of women of course." I suppose it has come to be "of course," but why? What is the real function of a dean of women? I have studied the occu- pants of the position in various colleges, but they are so different there seems to be no acknowledged type. In one case the dean is a handsome woman, dresses well, Is possessed of some scholarship, but without sympathy or social tact. In another, she is a kind of superior matron whose work is almost exclusively supervision of boarding arrangements for women. She is not at all sure to dress suitably and is far from Impressive. Another dean is learned, kind- ly, but has no ability to know or remem- ber her girls. Still another has interest in girls, but violates ordinary rules of good manners. Some have the scholarship to rank with the best faculty members, oth- ers are not even college graduates. The question naturally arises, what is a dean of women? She seems to be, in some sense, the successor of the old-time precep- tress changed to fit higher education. If the office is a good thing it should be made a success. I have wondered if part of the difficulty In this matter comes from the fact that while a dean of women must be a woman's woman, under present conditions the position is determined by men as pres- idents of colleges and as boards of con- trol. Must a dean be a learned woman who represents the best in higher education and ranks high in her chosen field? Should she be a society woman In the best sense of the term, who will be a model for the stu- dents that In our democratic colleges need to be trained for a new social life? A woman with human sympathy, who will win her girls? A physical director to pro- tect and improve health? An administra- tor? A dragon? A policewoman? Or by chance must a dean be a combination of all these? I understand courses are to bo offered in some universities to train deans of women. Are deans like poets or can they be made? I once knew a member of a board of trustees who desired "a woman of the type of Mary Lyon, Emma Willard, and Alice Freeman Palmer." Maybe the dean of wo- men is something as impossible as a wo- man combining all the good points of these three unique women. Mart B. Putnam. Ypsilauti, Mich., December 22. Literature A NEW VOLUME OF THE CAM- BRIDGE MEDIAEVAL HISTORY. The Cambridge Mediaval History. Plan- ned by J. B. Bury, M.A., Regius Pro- fessor of Modern History. Edited by H. M. Gwatkin, M. A., and J. P. Whit- ney, B.D. Volume II: The Rise of the Saracens and the Foundation of the Western Empire. New York: The Macmillan Co. $5 net. This great cooperative undertaking which continues backwards, so to speak, the "Cambridge Modern History" that was completed a year ago, resembles that huge work, both in its general plan and in the lines along which that plan is carried out. Instead of one un- broken and continuous narrative, we have a succession of chapters by differ- ent authors, who endeavor among them to cover the whole field by breaking it up into subdivisions; each subdivision being allotted to a writer who is a spe- cialist in that particular division. This method, successfully used by Rambaud and Lavisse in their French "Histoire Universelle," has certain evident advan- tages, but it almost of necessity involves some overlapping, some risk of omis- sions, and also a possibility of di- vergence between the views of two or more writers who are dealing with cognate topics. To the experienced scholar this will seem no great evil: it may even be deemed by him a gain that the various aspects of tne same event, or character, or institution, should be pre- sented within the covers of the same book. But the "general reader" may be occasionally perplexed by finding that a theory which he has accepted with sat- isfaction from the writer of one chap- ter is ignored or set aside by the writ- er of another, perhaps without reasons assigned. The present volume has twenty-two chapters and 891 pages, without count- ing the maps. It is the work of twen- ty-one writers, of whom nine belong to the European Continent, one (Professor Burr, of Cornell University) to the United States, and the rest to Great Britain. The period covered is a toler- ably well defined period, viz., that from the accession of Justinian to the death of Charlemagne. Besides the more di- rectly narrative chapters, there are sev- eral which are, very properly, devoted to the description of institutions. These include The Governmental and Monas- tic System in Gaul under the Mero- vingians; Imperial Administration in Italy and Africa; Foundations of Soci- ety, i. e., the Origins of Feudalism (by Prof. Paul Vinogradoff ) ; Legislation and Administration of Charles the Great, by Dr. Gerhard Seeliger, and Roman Law, by Mr. H. J. Roby; the last a chapter written with thorough knowledge, which, perhaps in deference to the example of Gibbon, has been made to contain not only an account of Justin- ian's compilations, but virtually a mini- ature treatise on the law of Rome, with special reference to the alterations made by Justinian or his legal advis- ers. The ecclesiastical side of history is dealt with in a chapter upon Keltic Heathenism in Gaul and in the Brit- ish Isles; and on Germanic Heathenism, with a long chapter immediately fol- lowing op the Conversion of the Kelts in Roman Britain, in Scotland, and in Ireland, and also on the Conversion of the Teutons in England and in Ger- many. We find also a chapter on Pope Gregory the Great, but no ac- count of the development of doctrine or ritual during the period covered by the volume (sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries). The early growth of the Slavonic peoples, an obscure and curious subject upon which it is hard to find any full or trustworthy informa- tion in any English book, is treated by Dr. Peisker, of Gratz, in a chapter en- titled The Expansion of the Slavs. Three chapters are devoted to Islam. The first traces the career of Mohammed; the second describes the expansion of Sara- cenic power in the East; the third tells of the Arab conquests in North Africa and Europe, carrying the story down to the beginning of the conquest of Sicily from the Saracens by the Normans in a. d. 1061. The execution of the book Is very similar to that of the previous volume and to that of the "Cambridge Modern History," which has naturally and prop- erly been taken as a model. Some writ- ers are more scrupulously dry and ex- act than others, some a little more juicy than others. Dr. Rafael de Alt$- mira's account of the Visigothic king- dom in Spain is pleasantly as well as clearly expressed, and presents in a concise form an illuminative view of a very dark and perplexing period. It is certainly not so entertaining or pictorial as Washington Irvlng's "Log- ends of the Conquest of Spain," but It
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Jan. I, 1914] The Nation 11 gives a more reasonable explanation of the collapse of the Gothic monarchy un- der the Muslim attack. Among the other articles which have a certain measure of novelty because the facts here collected have been difficult to obtain except by ploughing through a number of books containing different and often irreconcilable views, are those already mentioned on the heathenism of the primitive Celts and Teutons, and on the circumstances of their respective conversions to Christianity. These be- long to the dry category. They are strings of facts rather than con- nected presentations of phases of histor- ical development; but the facts have been collected with critical care, and at least the rudiments of the subject are well set forth. In Professor Whitney's chapter on the Conversion of the Teu- tons in England and in Germany, there is no less knowledge and more of con- structive quality. It is an excellent summary of a series of events which have been the theme of much contro- versy. In the period which the volume cov- ers four personalities stand out, over- topping all others, viz., the Emperor Jus- tinian, Pope Gregory the First, Moham- med, and Charlemagne. Of these four the one about whom we would gladly know most, because he had the greatest in- fluence on the world, is the one of whom we actually know least, not that there are not an immense number of stories current about him, but that it is diffi- cult to determine how much truth there is in the stories and thereby to arrive at any positive conclusions. Moham- med is one of the five or six figures in history about whom curiosity is never satisfied. The most divergent views of his talents, as well as of his hones- ty and his moral qualities generally, have been taken, and although no one would now follow the European writ- ers of the seventeenth century in calling him "the impostor of Mecca," his character and conduct continue to af- ford matter for endless debate. In the chapter allotted to him there is quoted a saying of Theodor Noldeke, one of the greatest Semitic scholars of our time, that, having in his younger days plan- ned a work on the history of the early Muslim Empire, he was finally deterred from carrying out the scheme by his inability to offer any satisfactory ac- count of the Prophet's character. Mr. Bevan, professor of Arabic at Cam- bridge, England, in the critically stud- ied, carefully written, and well-balanced account which he gives of Mohammed's life, does not attempt what Noldeke found an impossible task. But he at least gives in a clear and compact form the gist of the data we possess. He truly observes that in the absence of all ex- ternal— i. e., non-Arabian and non- Musllm — sources we are obliged to rely on what Muslim writers tell us, and they are obviously very doubtful wit- nesses. Nevertheless, people will go on studying a personage so extraordinary, and fresh theories will continue to be formed about him, and also about the causes of the amazingly rapid course of victory which attended the arms of his disciples and successors in the century that followed his death. Mr. Bevan is chary of speculation; but he seems dis- posed to attach rather less importance to the Prophet's personality than schol- ars did fifty years ago. In discussing the subject [Mohammed's ca- reer] there are two opposite dangers which we must strive to avoid. On the one hand, we should beware of assuming that Mo- hammed's doctrine and policy were deter- mined solely by his own personal qualities. Much that strikes us as peculiar in his preaching may in reality be due to his Jewish or Christian informants. It is likewise clear that the spread of his re- ligion was largely governed by factors over which he had no control. All the evi- dence tends to show that during the first few years of his propaganda he never dreamed of acquiring political power. He strove, it is true, to convert Mecca as a whole, and not merely a few individuals, to the true faith; but this was not in view of an earthly kingdom — it was in view of the impending Day of Judgment. Even when at length circumstances placed him in the position of a ruler, his authority rested much more on the voluntary co- operation of his followers than on any material resources that were at his com- mand. It has often been suggested in re- cent times that the religious movement of which Mohammed was the head coincided with a great national movement on the part of the Arabs, who, it is said, had al- ready developed, independently of Islam, a sense of their superiority to other races, and were eager to overrun the neighboring countries. On this question it is difficult to pronounce a definite opinion, since near- ly all our information about the Arabs of that oeriod comes through Muslim chan- nels. But in any case, the national feelings of the Arabs played a very Important part in the diffusion of Islam. On the other hand, we must avoid the er- ror of ignoring the extraordinary influence exercised by the Prophet over his disciples, an influence which was apparently due quite as much to his moral as to his in- tellectual qualities. The confidence which he inspired may seem to us undeserved, but it is only just to acknowledge that he used his immense power oftener for the purpose of restraining than for the purpose of stim- ulating fanaticism (pp. 328, 9). The view of the spread of Islam here tentatively recognized by Professor Bevan is put much more positively by Profes- sor Becker, of Hamburg, author of the next following chapter on the Expansion of the Saracens. He suggests that the Arab migration and conquest are con- ceivable without the intervention of Islam at all. "The movement itself," he holds, "had been on foot long before Islam gave it a party cry and an or ganization." This idea, and others bear- ing on the forces at work throughout Arabia in the Prophet's lifetime, are supported in paragraphs too long to quote, which set the early history of the Muslim conquests in a fresh and un- familiar light, and give a certain nov- elty to this part of the volume. The administrative system of Charles the Great receives that full treatment which is its due, and the three chap- ters assigned to the great Frankish King and his coronation as Emperor^ two of these by a German professor and one by an English ecclesiastic, are among the best in the book. We can- not but regret, however, that the practice followed in the Cambridge Mod- ern History of giving no references to authorities, and of drawing no distinc- tion, in the bibliographies attached to each chapter, between works of real value and others of little or no conse- quence, has been continued here. It is a pity to send the student to a book whose title promises much while its contents perform nothing, as sometimes happens in these lists. Otherwise we find the lists helpful. One improve- ment on the Cambridge Modern His- tory we gladly note. The historical maps are placed at the end of this volume, in- stead of being relegated to one which has not yet appeared. They are well executed, and a great aid to the compre- hension of the text. Taking this vol- ume as a whole, it gives us every rea- son to hope that the series will be of high and permanent value to the stu- dent of the Middle Ages. CURRENT FICTION. The Story of Mary Dunne. By M. E. Francis (Mrs. Frances Blundell). New York: Longmans, Green & Co. This story has to do with that newly advertised institution of white slavery which has proved such a boon to the playwrights and novelists of the cur- rent season. Here again is the beautiful and innocent young girl from the coun- try decoyed to an evil house and starved and beaten into a life of shame. The situation is that of "My Little Sister" and a dozen other recent narratives. The atmosphere is fresh, however. The very ingenuousness of the tale, its touch- es of frank melodrama, are marks of sincerity. Mary is the violet by a mossy stone on a far Irish hillside. She has a lover, but he must go to America to win a home for them both. After he is gone, she aspires to earn her mite towards their future happiness. The high wages of England tempt her to cross the Chan- nel. It is her own good old priest who puts her in charge of the "kind, mother- ly woman" they meet by chance aboard the boat. Then the usual thing hap- o— y ana an or- pena After a tlm_ fr«,a r. SurTnYfrJ^a Public L
Page 29
ment from her prison, Mary llings hor- Belf under an English motor-car. But she does not die, and after a Dumber ol' incidents involving a chivalrous hos- pital doctor, the old priest, and tier re- turned and prosperous lover, a happy ending is achieved. The earlier chap- ters of the story, with their picture of a family of Irish peasants, have a sim- plicity and charm which are later sacri- ficed to the exigencies of the painful theme. The Spare Room. By Mrs. Roniilly Fed- den. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. Good farce in Action is not too com- mon, and this, taken frankly as farce, is good. It is in two parts: the first vir- tually a prologue, in the form of letters; the second, which is much longer, a facetious narrative. A honeymooning couple, British groom and American bride, take a villa at Capri. It is out of repair, but it has a single available "spare room," to which, in their new pride of possession, they casually invite v. number of their relatives and friends. Unexpectedly, on the same day, these persons all descend upon them. The shifts employed to house the interlopers, the complications which arise in conse- quence of their uncongeniality, are (to a reader in the right mood for farce) real- ly funny. With the aid of two or three love-affairs, the situation is finally un- ravelled to the satisfaction of everybody concerned. regains his poise, and through a recur- rent dream which he has had since boy- hood, he is led to the discovery that lie loves her. The dream iove is brought into touch with waking life only through a, rude shock. The working out of this device puts a severe strain on the read- er's credulity, and involves the handling of delicate and debatable material. The bits of verse prefixed to the chap- ters are excellent. The Fire Within. By Patricia Went- worth (Mrs. G. P. Dillon). New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. This story makes implicitly two de- mands of the reader. First, he must grant that the most intimate affairs of life are proper material for the novelist. The second assumption cannot be stated baldly without injustice to the book, but it concerns the extent to which a man may act unconsciously, in a dream. If we accept Mrs. Dillon's postulates in these two matters, we shall find little to criticise in the story; for she has han- dled her material with sincerity and delicacy. David Blake, a young physician, is desperately in love with Mary Chantrey, who has married his friend. Her sister Elizabeth has for years been in love with David. To shield her husband from a charge of murder, Mary exerts her pow- er over David to make him violate the ethics of his profession. It turns out that this was unnecessary; but David's moral balance is upset by having yield- ed. His passionate love for Mary reas- serts itself, he takes to drink, and sleep deserts him. When he is at the point eakdown, he discovers that Eliza- beth has the power to soothe him and make him sleep. Knowing that he is in love with Mary, she marries him to sa i him. Under lOlizabeth's influence David A Son of the Hills. By Harriet Theresa Comstock. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co. Mrs. Comstock's story has rare merit. It conveys sympathetically a message from the "poor whites" of the Southern hills. Soon after Sandford Merton's mother died and the woman Mary came to live in his father's cabin, Sandy learned to feel that he had a mission, that he must go far away North anu there learn to help his people. He bided his time and worked, and after seven years he had saved thirty dollars. He had heard of a college in Massachusetts, and one night he stole away to walk to Massachusetts. He fell ill on the way, and was taken in by a kindly bach- elor, who educated him and sent him back to his people, after seven years. Of course, a little golden-haired miss is waiting for Sandy. About the two are built some of the most tender scenes in a book that is charmingly written. At times the story reaches a high dramatic pitch not without danger of toppling over into melodrama, but never quite falling. Highly effective is Mrs. Com- stock's use of the mountain scene, not merely as a background, but as an ac- tive, regenerative force in the lives of her people. nation would present an impasse to any one with less courage than the dressmakers. But they find a way out. Dave's Daughter. By Patience B. Cole. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co. The letter-writing predilections of Miss Mattie and Miss Matie, the two spinster dressmakers of a Long Island town, form the basis for the action of this story. Their naive meddlesomeness takes an incredibly exaggerated form, but one fraught with the happiest pos- sibilities for themselves and their friends. Noting in the paper that one Christabel Sayne is to spend $10,000 on her wedding gown, they write to her a scathing rebuke. Now, Christabel hap- pens to be a young Western orphan, en- gaged to a New York society leader of fifty. She is starving to make the ac- quaintance of just such an unconven- tional pair, and promptly hunts them ii p. Henceforth, the spinsters think only of the girl's romance. They are astound- ed and grieved to find that she does not care for the match she is about to make, and that her heart is really set on a young Coloradoan, who seems too timid to declare himself. Inasmuch as all New York is agog over the wedding, the sit- GOVERNMENTAL EXPERIMENT. Social Welfare in New Zealand. By Hugh H. Lusk. New York: Sturgis & Wal- ton Co. $1.50 net. it is unfortunate that the great strike in New Zealand broke out so soon after the appearance of this work, whose sub- title is, "The Result of Twenty Years of Progressive Social Legislation and Its Significance for the United States and Other Countries." Just twenty years have elapsed since the first arbitration statute of New Zealand was passed. Its purpose was to substitute the calm judg- ment of a court, the members of which might be expected to have a general ac- quaintance with the questions likely to come before tbem, and whicn should be presided over by a judge accustomed to near and weigh evidence. It was char- acteristic of the New Zealand point of view that it took for granted the willing- ness of all classes of the community to submit to whatever was held to be fair and just by a court of this kind, rather than to insist on fighting a battle. Mr. Lusk says that experience proved that the makers of the new law had not been too sanguine. The events of the last few weeks have, however, done not a little to impair the confidence bred by the experience of twenty years. In October a strike was declared which speedily attained na- tional proportions, and worked havoc with the comfort and convenience of the general public; and in face, too, of the fact that under the law the labor-union was subject to a fine of £50 a day from the moment the strike was declared. It may be said that twenty years ago there were many who maintained that the compulsory arbitration law could not be thoroughly tested except in a period of pronounced financial depression, like that in which so large a part of the world, Australasia not excepted, now finds itself immersed. Industrial arbitration is, however, only one of many economic and social departures in New Zealand. The fact that the sympathetic picture which Mr. Lusk has drawn of its operation is at the moment somewhat blurred, should not impair our interest in the remark- able scheme of social and industrial de- velopment which has been evolved by that far-off community. The people of New Zealand, or at least a majority of them, know what they desire, and if we may believe Mr. Lusk, they have suc- ceeded in the main in attaining their ends. For eighteen years the colony has had :i Labor Government. Immigration lias bfiBD discouraged, the laboring man la taken precedence of the capitalist, small estates have enjoyed the favor of
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Jan. i, 1914] T li e ]S" a t i o 11 13 the law rather than great, public utili- ties have been nationalized and munici- palized— in short, a policy of state So- cialism has been consciously adopted. The aim of the present work is to trace these steps and to note dispas- sionately their consequences. We ob- tain, for example, a clear understand- ing of how the danger of capitalistic landlordism was averted. This danger was imminent forty years ago, and in 1872 a policy of immigration and public works was introduced which in ten years added $100,000,000 of debt to the $50,000,000 previously occasioned by the native rebellions. In 1882 the debt of New Zealand stood at about $300 for every man, woman, and child in the colony. It is not surprising, therefore, that the decade prior to the twenty years covered by the present work was one of depression and stagnation. It is perhaps well to bear in mind that the many features of the present state Socialism in New Zealand were introduced just on the eve of, or sub- sequently to, the greatest industrial re- vival of modern times. It will be in- teresting to see how they stand the test of a world-wide industrial depression. It is a well-known fact that the policy which the colony has been perfecting in tecent years necessitates exceedingly heavy loans in London during the next twelve months, a matter of considera- ble importance, in view of the present poverty of the international money mar- ket. All this is said with the hope merely of enhancing the reader's interest in a book well worth his careful attention. The world cannot afford to ignore the remarkable experiments that have been carried on in this South Sea laboratory of economics. Mr. Lusk describes the present results of these experiments in a way to convince many that the last word has been said on the wisdom of New Zealand state Socialism. But his thoughtful and interesting work would leave a stronger impression on our mind if we could forget an utterance of about a month ago by a leading New Zealand newspaper: As a matter of fact, the principal weapon of the "Syndicalist" apostles is an organ- ized and systematic terrorism. We have had an exhibition of this in New Zealand during the past few days, work having been generally suspended, not because the great majority of strikers were individual- ly desirous of participating or because the great body of citizens were not anxious that industry should continue unchecked, but because ample police protection has not been available to prevent a temporarily successful because a very determined in- timidation. These words, indeed, picture a situa- tion closely analogous to that which ex- isted in the colony just prior to the pol- icy which Mr. Lusk so painstakingly de- scribes. One cannot read the present work without a consciousness of the irony of fate. Carducci: A Selection of His Poems, with Verse Translations, Notes, and Three Introductory Essays. By G. L. Bickersteth. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. $3.50 net. Mr. Bickersteth does not "put forward the translations in this book as in any sense an equivalent of their originals, " but publishes them "in the hope that they will serve not as a substitute for, but as an interpretation of, the orig- inal to those unacquainted or only slightly acquainted with the Italian lan- guage." But if the disclaimer were quite whole-hearted and the purpose were quite single, surely the translations would have been in literal prose rather than in verse that is far from literal. The reader "only slightly acquainted with the Italian language" would be hard put to it, in many instances, to match the English and Italian phrases. The stanza, With voice as of tempest No yoke may confine Cries Savonarola Our great Florentine, will hardly guide him to the under- standing of the Italian: E pugna e prSdiea Sotto la stola Di fra' Girolamo Savonarola. The truth is that the obsession of rhyme and rhythm is upon the translator, ana that he sacrifices thereto, most inauspi- ciously, the interpretation that he might have made so excellent. The "Shelley" suffers particularly from the intrusion of padding adjectives: "giovini anni" becomes, for instance, "the tearless years of my youth," and "quest' urna che freddo ti chiude" becomes "this urn, thy cold, uncongenial prison." Most ot the variations from the Italian are of this sort; but the reviewer has noted some thirty passages for which the text was evidently misread. One might forgive all this if the re- sulting verses were beautiful in them- selves; but they are not. Carducci, in spite of the Odi oaroare, loved true rhyme, and would have been quick to protest at such pairs as "over: Jehovah," "o'er the sea: Anadyomene," "fairer: Glicera," "old man's: countenance,' "honour: on ner," "rising: dies in," "behind: grinned," "clear: Maria," or at such a stanza as this: Thereafter Tiber's dark-haired nymph shall rove 'Mid moss-grown stones, and tell The pilgrim how "these are the ruins of A shame unspeakable." Nearly all the sonnets, however, are skilfully done, and many of the un- rhymed translations from the Odi bar- bare are very good indeed, notably the "Sirniio." The sins of omission are few, though one misses the "Ruit hora," the "Victory of Brescia," and the "Monte Mario." The sins of inclusion are worse. The pres- ence of the "Satan" is doubtless justi- fied; but the reader, beginning with that and finding next two poems in such, wretched taste as "Per le nozze di un geologo" and the "Meminisse horret," would be quite excusable should he lay the book aside in disgust. The introductory essay on the poetry of Carducci is excellent. It deals main- ly with the practicalness of Carducci's nature and poetic purpose; with his se- lective realism — that is, the concrete, ex- plicit treatment of themes instinct with, poetry; and with his constant subjec- tion of form and matter to the strict, control of reason. The title of Carduc- ci's second collection of poems is "Levia* gravia," not "Levia grandia," as Mr. Bickersteth invariably writes it. Mr. Bickersteth speaks of Mrs. Hol- land, whose "Poems of Carducci" (con- taining about twenty translations) ap- peared in 1907, as his only English predecessor. He does not mention Frank Sewall's "Poems of Giosue Carducci," published in New York in 1892, which contains some forty translations — bet- ter, on the whole, than those of the two English writers. Mr. Sewall's excellent translation of "The Ox" seems to have been known, in some way, to Mr. Bick- ersteth, for the two versions coincide in eight of the fourteen rhyme-words, agree verbally in several cases where the Eng- lish is somewhat at variance with the Italian, and have in common the two lines, "How solemn, like a monument, thou art" (a very free translation), and "All the divine green silence of the plain." PaUrographia Iberica. Facsimiles de Manuscrits Espagnols et Portugais (ixe-xve siecles) avec Notices et Tran- scriptions. Par John M. Burnam. Paris: Librairie Champion. 15 fasci- cules, each 25 francs. The above title apparently promises a much-needed work, a history of writing in mediaeval Spain presented by annotat- ed facsimiles. Till now, there has been nothing of the kind. Collections like those of Ehwald-Loewe and Mufioz y Rivera contain valuable materials for such a history, but that history is still to be told. We are not sure that Pro- fessor Burnam's publication will bring us to the goal. The earliest manuscripts discussed are, according to the pro- sper tus, of the eighth century, or, accord- ing to the present title, of the ninth. The prospectus further indicates that attention will centre chiefly on texts in the Spanish and Portuguese languages. If this plan is pursued, the earlier and
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14= T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2531 more important part of the history will receive inadequate treatment, and "Palae- ographia Iberica" prove too inclusive a term. But instead oi' demanding what Professor Burnam may not have intended to give, we must be grateful for what he has given. The first fascicle contains twenty fac- similes, of which all but four are of Latin texts. One, a famous Paris codex of the "Lex Romana Visigothorum," al- ready accessible in reproductions, is of the ninth century, eight are of the twelfth, five of the thirteenth, four of the fourteenth, two of the fifteenth. No strikingly novel or individual features appear in the later Gothic hands here represented. The most interesting are certain twelfth-century scripts which il- lustrate the gradual triumph of the Car- oline hand in Spain. In No. v, a Lisbon codex of Gregory's "Liber Qusestionum,' the writer still cultivates the old Visi- gothic style, but he also shows the in- fluence of the new script. In No. vi, "Incerti Tractatus," also at Lisbon, the general effect is that of late Caroline, with a few lingering traits of Visigothic. Of much historical interest are the five plates devoted to a Lisbon manuscript in three volumes, written at the begin- ning of the thirteenth century and con- taining the dictionary and other works of Papias; plates xiv and xv reproduce pictures illustrating the ancient system of counting on the fingers. In describing the different plates, the author gives first an account of the manuscript with a bibliographical no- tice, then follows an enumeration of spe- cial features of the script, including ligatures, abbreviations, and punctua- tion, and finally the text is transcribed. This information is satisfactorily pre- sented and is generally, though not scrupulously, accurate. For instance, in pi. i, p. 2, the s-shaped sign stands for "ue" on 1. 19, not 9, and is not used for an s in 1. 24; as the transcription rightly states, the original reading is "parem," not "pares." On pi. xvii, p, 67, 1. 1 read "Ilia," not "Jua"; 1. 2, "consistit," not "cowstitit"; 1. 3, "necessaria," not "neces- sentia."; 1.- 24, what is called e seems rather a false stroke corrected; 1. 25, "qwedam" ("qwtdem"?) rather than "qwod"; 1. 27, it is not noted that "sine" is deleted. If here and elsewhere the transcription is inexact, it reproduces, with a rather meticulous nicety, cer- tain palaeographical minutiae, like the oc- casional appearance of the majuscule M and R in the minuscule. The letter i longa is represented by a special sign. For the form in which the shaft runs above the line, now a capital 7, now j, now both I and j (pi. 5), are used; in pi. i, 1. 6, an erroneous I appears in conluoali. J is also employed for the form in which the shaft runs below the line. No phonetic principle is involved here; the scribe used the long shaft on a purely graphic principle, to avoid con-1 fusion with an adjacent short stroke. 1 Spellings, therefore, like "Jn," "gus- taverjt," "diujsus" hinder rather than help the object for which a transcription is intended. If such elaborateness were profitable, one might more appropriately distinguish the two forms of the liga- ture ti, which, as Loew has shown, have both phonetical and historical signifi- cance. But it is better to include all such matters in the explanation of the plates; for the reader will verify these observations from the plates, not from the transcriptions. In spite of these defects in details, "Palaeographia Iberica" presents, in ex- cellent reproductions, useful specimens of the script, especially the later script, of Spain and Portugal. Though the pro- spectus makes no certain statement in the matter, we hope that Professor Bur- nam will treat in an introductory vol- ume the history of writing in Spain, so far as it is presented in his facsimiles. Notes This week Little, Brown & Co. will pub- lish the first book of a young English writ- er, Arthur F. Wallis, whose "Idonia, a Ro- mance of Old London," is a tale of love and roguery. The same house is bringing out "A Peo- ple's Man," by E. Phillips Oppenheim, and "From the Angle of Seventeen," by Eden Phillpotts. The second in the series of books pub- lished for the Bureau of Social Hygiene by the Century Company, Abraham Flexner's "Prostitution in Europe," will be issued January 17. Among the volumes of fiction which the Century Company will publish early this year are "William and Bill," a study of boy life by Grace MacGowan Cook and Caro- line Wood Morrison, and "Home," anony- mous. Martin Seeker is bringing out this week Gilbert Cannan's new novel, "Old Mole." The religious penances and punishments self-inflicted by the holy men of India are described, with seventy striking illustra- tions, by the Rev. W. M. Zumbro in the National Geographic Magazine for Decem- ber. He shows very clearly what a hin- drance these five million idlers are to the development of a healthy national life In India. Texas, where more than one-third of our cotton crop is produced, and where. If all the suitable land was under cultivation, there would be a possible production of forty million bales a year, or more than double the present crop of the world, Is described by Mr. N. H. Darton, geologist of the United States Bureau of Mines. Another valuable asset, to which he calls attention, is the bituminous coal area which it is estimated contains thirty-one billion tons. A marvellous industrial future Is predicted for our largest State. The magnetic work accomplished at sea Is described by Prof. L. A. Bauer, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, with plates and sketch-map, in the Qeographical Journal for December. Sir Aurel Stein gives an account of the first part of his new expedition in Central Asia. Starting from Kashmir he crossed by fifteen passes, between 10,000 and 17,400 feet in height, an almost unexplored region to Chinese Turke- stan. In many places he found extensive ruins showing that a dense population ex- isted in pre-Mohammedan times where now it is an almost uninhabited desert. At one place there were unusually fine irrigation canals of solid stonework. Some rock tombs in Arabia are described with illustrations by Dr. F. G. Clemow, who was sent to this region by the International Board of Health in Constantinople to select the best site on the Hejaz railway for a pilgrims' quaran- tine station. The recent crossings of Green- land are sketched, with a map, and there are given the addresses of Lord Curzon and the Italian Ambassador at the presentation of medals to the survivors of the Antarctic expedition of Capt. Scott. As the "Journals of Ralph Waldo Emer- son" (Houghton Mifflin) draw to a close, the gleaning per year diminishes. The ninth volume covers a period from 1856 to 1863. Much of the comment is directed to the great public events then crowding one another. Emerson, except in a somewhat con. descending attitude towards Lincoln, whom he personally knew, is singularly clear- sighted. Many of his utterances have pro- phetic weight. The present political con- fusion in England and America is hit off quite incidentally in the definition of clas- sicism and romanticism. "Republics run into romance when they lose sight of the inner necessity and organism that must be in their laws, and act from whim." Again, in 1856, when men joked about secession, "South Carolina is in earnest. I see the courtesy of the Carolinians, but I know meanwhile that the only reason why they do not plant a cannon before Faneuil Hall and blow Bunker Hill Monument to frag- ments, as a nuisance, is because they have not the power. They are fast acquiring the power, and if they get it, they will do it." Singularly fine and Emersonian is a re- flection on the multiform bereavement that may result from a single death. "When our friends die, we not only lose them, but we lose a great deal of life which in the survivors was related to them." One of the most striking fancies in the journals is this: Were it not fit subject for a poem, to send a soul to doom in the charge of an angel and trace the angel's vain attempts to find a hell for it— the assimilating en- ergy of Osman converting every place into the one thing needful, and every hobgoblin into the best company! Such specimens may hint of the richness of these mature jottings of the sage. It is consistent with his own cult of inconsisten- cy that he should write, "Science has never measured the immense profundity of the Dunce-Power," and less than two years later pen a contemptuous paragraph on the novels of Jane Austen, who surely was among the greatest of antldunces. Only one volume of the journals remains to be published; the whole series casts much new light upon Emerson's genius and should enhance his greatn ss. Very few assertive and virllo wrltors on economic and sociological subjects would
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Jan. i, 1914] The Nation 15 care to have their scattered sayings and writings, covering a period of a quarter of a century, gathered together In a single volume In such a way as to facilitate com- parison and criticism. Yet this has been done In the latest volume of Professor Sumner's essays, "Earth-Hunger and Other Essays" (Yale University Press), by Wil- liam Graham Sumner, edited by Albert Qalloway Keller. It Is a testimony to the real soundness of this great sociologist's views that his reputation suffers not at all thereby. To deny that there are contra- dictions would be futile, for they abound. But they are such contradictions as mark tin- truly great thinker, arising from em- phasis upon certain points in certain con- nectlODS rather than from any real incon- sistency of belief. Many of these con- inns are of the sort which beset the student whose theory of life minimizes the potency of individual effort to change the operation of the great forces of social de- velopment, and yet whose native disposi- tion leads him to make war unceasingly upon those things in society which seem to him wrong, or foolish, or futile. One or two examples will suffice. The first is fur- nish.■•] by what Professor Sumner has to say of ideals. In many passages the au- thor voices his scorn of ideals, and brands their pursuit as socially injurious. Thus in the essay on "Purposes and Conse- quences" (page 73), he says: "It is a still more positive vice to act from an intention to attain ideals. Ideals are necessarily phantasms. They have no basis in fact." Yet on the second page after, the follow- ing sentiment closes this very essay: "At the present moment . . . the thing of the highest importance is the subjection of societal phenomena to scientific investiga- tion, together with the elimination of meta- physics from this entire domain" — an ideal sufficiently grand for the most visionary. And throughout the book Professor Sumner continually advocates certain lines of so- cial conduct which are none the less ideal because of a negative nature. Again, in the essay referred to, he says, "Socialism is not a subject for discussion by serious students of the science of society." Yet a large part of the book is taken up with the discussion, if not of Socialism, at least of Socialistic projects. The range of topics covered in this vol- ume is so great that to criticise the views advanced would be to tread upon almost every field of sociological controversy. It has been said repeatedly that one of Pro- fessor Sumner's great gifts was the ability to make men think. This book will set the reader thinking, and the very points at which the author's views challenge him most boldly will probably be where his thinking is most profitable. Those who have read the earlier volume of essays will find in this new book an even clearer exposition of the basic principles of Pro- fessor Sumner's sociological philosophy. The most important ideas which run throughout the majority of these essays are three— the importance of the ratio of men to land in all sociological analyses; the real nature of liberty and freedom, and the limitations of state control over the economic activities. The book affords an ample justification of the confidence of the editor that Professor Sumner's views on matters of this sort deal with perpetual realities, and are not evanescent but fun- damental. Dr. Preserved Smith, favorably known for his study of "Luther's Table-Talk" (1907) and his "Life and Letters of Mar- tin Luther" (1911), now publishes the first volume of an English translation of "Lu- ther's Correspondence and Other Contem- porary Letters" (Philadelphia: The Lu- theran Publication Society). This is an- other contribution to the rapidly increas- ing literature of selections of original ma- terial, a very welcome form of aid to the student as far as it goes, but, precisely in proportion to its volume, tending to con- fuse by its incompleteness and inevitable duplications. If an English translation of Luther's letters were desirable, it seems rather a pity that Dr. Smith, eminently fitted as he is for the task, should not have tried to make it complete, adding, if nec- essary, a selection of other letters by way of appendix. It is, for example, likely to prove irritating to the user of this volume to find thirty-seven letters of Luther, most- ly to important persons, omitted here be- cause Dr. Smith has already printed trans- lations of them in his biography of Lu- ther. A comparison with the originals shows that the editor has well lived up to his expressed intention to give a true and vivid reproduction of the writer's thought rather than an exact rendering of his language. The style is vigorous and lively, suggest- ing the force of Luther's own and follow- ing cleverly its varying moods. The notes, biographical, historical, and critical, are well-balanced, neither too many nor too few, and are invariably helpful to an un- derstanding of the text. There is a useful index and a list of correspondents which would have been more useful if it had in- dicated whether a given letter were by or to the person named. To the welcome reprint of the works of Samuel Butler, of "Erewhon," is added "Alps and Sanctuaries" (Dutton). It is considerably reduced in form from the original in quarto, but retains the old cuts by the author, and becomes more portable as a guide-book. In a brief introduction R. A. Streatfeild gives the circumstances un- der which the book was written. It is cap- ital Butler in his most festal mood. The descriptions of places and persons are de- lightful, and the whole is intershot with Butler's peculiar wit and wisdom. Some of the best criticism of modern art education may be here found, but in the main grave issues are in abeyance and we have ge- nial and lucid descriptions of the villages and pilgrimage shrines which are set on the middle slopes of the Italian Alps. A most winning and stimulating classic of the footpath. In 1906 the trustees of the Illinois State Historical Library appointed a commission, composed of professors of history in the universities and normal schools of the State, to formulate a plan for the publication of the historical sources of Illinois, and to have general supervision over the scholarly work of the department. Shortly after- wards a general editor of the above series was appointed. Previous to this reorgan- ization one volume of historical collections had been published, so that the present work, "Collection of the Illinois State His- torical Library, Volume VIII, Virginia Se- ries, Volume III, George Rogers Clark Pa- pers, 1771-1781," edited with introduction and notes by James Alton James, Spring- field, is the seventh volume issued under the new regime. The plan of the advisory com- mission for the publication of the collec- tions marked a new era in the study of the history of a Western State. Instead of the haphazard methods of publication that had been in vogue up to this time, the Illinois State Historical Library has attempted to have each of its volumes cover a limited period or limited phase of history. The plan is to make such a clean sweep of sources, that the work may never have to be done over. To illustrate the plan, the present volume is the third of the Virginia series, the first two with the sub-titles "Cahokia Records" and "Kaskaskia Records" having been edited by Professor Alvord ; a fourth volume will be edited by Professor James and will continue the George Rogers Clark Papers; and a fifth volume will deal with the financial side of the Revolutionary pe- riod in Illinois history. These five volumes will contain nearly every known document of importance that illustrates the history of Illinois between the years 1778 and 1790. It is a pleasure at length to have a correct transcript of the famous letter by Clark to Mason, which contains the former's account of the occupation of the Illinois country, and also of his more important and longer memoir. The date of the latter has been a subject in dispute. Mr. Roosevelt in his "Winning of the West," asserted that the memoir "was written at the desire of Pres- idents Jefferson and Madison, and therefore •some thirty or forty years after the events of which it speaks. ... It undoubtedly contains some rather serious errors." Mrs. Minnie Cook was the first to point out, in the Virginia Magazine of History and Geography, the error of this late date; and Professor James has concurred with her in fixing the date of the Memoir be- tween 1789 and '91, and in Appendix III he has printed the letters showing the con- ditions under which it. was written. The same care as has been shown in Mason's letter and the Memoir has been shown in the other transcripts that are here publish- ed. So far as possible, these have been made directly from the originals in London, Paris, Madison, Washington, Ottawa, and elsewhere. The reviewer wonders, however, why Professor James thought it necessary to publish so many documents that had al- ready appeared in previous volumes of the Illinois Historical Collections. It should seem that for his purposes a reference to these would have been sufficient. The volume is preceded by an introduc- tion of 167 pages, furnishing the history of the period. It is Impossible to give unstint- ed praise to this part of the work, for it shows carelessness In sentence structure, but particularly a lack of logic In the whole presentation. There are also some things lacking that we should have expected to find. Clarke's expedition to the Illinois was undoubtedly the culmination of efforts by Virginia, sustained through many years, to make good her claims to the West. The fight of the Old Dominion against the at- tempts of the British Ministry to establish her western boundary from the time of the Proclamation of 1763 to Dunmore's War, are but the predecessors of this last at- tempt on the part of the seceding colony to
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seize the fertile lands. Professor James has mil brought mil in bis Introduction this connection of Virginia's past attempts with this success! u i one. i □ bis mind tl m in be Mu conned Ion bel ween i lunmore's u b r mid Clark's expedition, and yet thej are bui phenomena of a similar kind. Again, Clark in ins diary under December S, 1777, writes: "taken In partnership by his Excellency P. Henry in taking a Body of Land." Pro- fessor James has made no attempt to ex- plain this partnership, hut when one re- members how closely Patrick Henry was connected with the western land schemes of Lord Dunmore, one can but wonder whether Clark's expedition may not have been a continuation of this patriot's efforts to make a fortune. Professor James has fol- lowed the usual account of the occupation of Kaskaskia as drawn from Clark's own statements, and yet some doubt has been expressed by previous writ- ers as to whether the conception of the ex- pedition originated in Clark's mind and as to whether there was so much surprise among the French in Kaskaskia as Clark describes. It was hoped that a careful study of the Clark papers would solve these problems, but the editor has not shown any interest in them whatever. In spite of these criticisms, the introduction was decidedly worth doing. It is the first attempt to form a scientific interpretation of the Revolutionary War in the West up to the year 1781. Professor James's de- scription of the efforts of Congress to ob- tain the support of the Western Indians, and to prepare an expedition against De- troit from Fort Pitt, are extremely valua- ble. He has clearly brought out, also, how Clark long planned to take Detroit, and has given an adequate account of his failure. Finally, the book, particularly the docu- mentary part, is a most important con- tribution to our knowledge of Western his- tory during this period. Mr. James Davenport Whelpley would undoubtedly himself be the first to ad- mit the defects inherent in the structure of books such as his "The Trade of the World" (Century). Generalizations respect- ing races and countries, always dangerous, become doubly so in a rapid-fire and neces- sarily brief survey, and, possibly, trebly so when this survey has to be made in a succession of more or less symmetrically constructed chapters where the temptation to the maximum use of contrast, antithesis, and epigram is, naturally, almost irresis- tible. With this general reservation kept clearly in mind, however, the reader will find this book of great interest, and he may have a good deal of confidence in the gene- ral truth of the pictures presented by Mr. Whelpley in its pages. The book is emi- nently one for the reader who wishes to be intelligently informed upon matters which furnish at all times a large part of daily news and daily comment. The general scope of the work is described in the opening pages. "The foreign trade of the world In 1912 amounted to more than $35,000,000,000. This is the great stake for which the In ternatlonal traders are playing the game this year" (p. 7). It is to Illustrate the i'i' lent position of the players in the "big game" that "The Trade of the World" I: written. Separate chapters are devoted to each of the great nations of the world, and each chapter bears evidence ol consider- able thought of the ei si hi la i facts, The styli le and straightforward, but relieved by many In ten ting and pertlnenl phrases and anec- doti i u huh make the book easy and pleas- ant reading. Particularly is this the case with the chapters on Great Britain, Ger- many, France, and Belgium, to which the reader will doubtless turn with most curiosity. To the reviewer's thinking, however, it is the chapters on Japan, China, and Russia that are the most interesting and informing in the book. Joseph Cullen Root, who died on Wed- nesday of last week, aged sixty-nine, was founder and sovereign commander of the Woodmen of the World. He wrote several books on woodcraft and a drama entitled "Consolidation." malian faunas. The remaining two- thirds Of the volume deals with the his- tory of the various groups, from the Perissodactyls to the Marsupials. The final chapter treats of modes of mam- malian evolution. Comment is difficult because of the equal excellence of all the chapters. The vast amount of material demanded that a careful selection should be made. A single paragraph, dealing with a classic subject, will serve to show the concise treatment of those fossil forms which are fortunate enough to find a place in Dr. Scott's pages. The characters of the modern horse are sketched, and we are led back through past ages until — the The death is reported from Richmond,! Passing over, for lack of space, England, of Edith Emma Cooper, who, in ! transitional forms of the Wind River, we collaboration with her aunt, Miss Bradley, i come finally t0 the most ancient known was known as Michael Field. Their pub- ! horses- the Wasatch species comprised in lications include: "Callirrhoe and Fair tho Senus t MoMppus, the "Dawn Horse," Rosamund," "The Father's Tragedy," "Bru-|as lts name signifies; these were little tus Ultor," "Canute the Great and the Cup | creatures ranging in size from a cat to a of Water," "Stephania," "Underneath the sma11 fox- DesPite an unmistakably equine Bough," "Long Ago," "The Tragic Mary," "Attila, My Attila!" "Sight and Song," "The World at Auction," "Anna Ruina," "The Race of Leaves," "Julia Dornna," "Wild Honey," and "Poems of Adoration," the last almost wholly by Miss Cooper. look in the skeletons of these diminutive animals, it is only the long intermediate series of species and genera, together form- ing a closely linked chain, which we have traced from the Pleistocene to the lower Eocene, that leads us to regard t Eohippus as the ancestral type of the horses. Were only the two ends of the chain known, he would be a daring speculator who should venture to connect them. In these little Wasatch horses we have the evidence of a still more ancient form with five fully developed toes in each foot, since the front I History of Land Mammals in the foot had four functional digits and indl- Western Hemisphere. By W. B. Scott. cati0T1 0f a splint, and splints, as the whole Science New York: The Macmillan Co. $5 net. This volume marks a new era in palaeontological science, and it is not an exaggeration to say that, from the point of view of general evolution, it is the most important single publication of the past year. Remembering the petty personal jealousies of the period of Cope and Marsh, it is refreshing to read Dr. Scott's dedication "to my classmates, Henry Fairfield Osborn and Francis Speir, in memory of a notable summer afternoon in 1876 and in token of forty years' unclouded friendship." In every way it is a worthy successor to Osborn's "Age of Mammals," published three years ago, and while keeping to an equal- ly high plane of scientific worth, both in diction and illustrations, it makes an even stronger appeal to the imagination of the lay reader. The writing is clear, forceful, and devoid of all suggestion of padding. The development of the thesis is logical and takes for granted only fundamental knowledge, but demands keen interest on the part of the reader. The first two chapters deal with meth- ods of investigation in both geology and palaeontology. The next two sketch the classification and the main features of the skeleton and teeth of the mammalia. Then follow the geographical develop- ment of the two Americas, the distribu- tion and the succession of their mam- history of the long series teaches, always are found to be functional digits in the ancestor; the hind foot had three toes and perhaps two splints. This preceding form is hardly to be looked for in America or Europe; it will be found, if ever, in the region whence the great migration came. In all other respects, as well, t Eohippus was what we should expect the forerunner of the Wind River and Bridger horses to be. The premolars were all smaller and simpler than the molars, and the latter in the upper jaw are particularly interesting, for they had no crests and ridges of enamel, but four principal coni- cal cusps, arranged in two transverse pairs, and between the cusps of each pair was a tiny cuspule no bigger than the head of a pin. These cuspules were the first step in the formation of the transverse crests, which were destined to assume such im- portance in the subsequent members of the series. The neck was very short, the body long, with curved or arched back, the limbs and feet short, and the hind limb much longer than the fore, making the relative proportions of the various parts of the skeleton very different from what they af- terwards became. With this is a vivid restoration of a quartet of the tiny Eohippus, browsing near a fallen tree on which grow fungi nearly as large as themselves Following such a "history" of the group Kquus, we find a numbered sum- mary of characters, seven in this case,
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Jan. i, 1914I The Nation 17 with a pithy resume of the method 01 evolution. Thus: (7.) The feet were much elongated and the median digit of each gradually enlarged until it carried the whole weight, at the same time modifying the shape of the hoof so as to fit it to be the sole support of the body. The other toes gradually dwindled and became functionless, though often re- tained as splints. The first digit (pollex and hallux) was first lost, then the fifth, then the second and fourth were reduced to dew-claws, and finally to splints. Thus the pentadactyl horses of the lower Eocene were transformed into the monodactyl spe- cies of the Pliocene and Pleistocene. Accompanying these histories, Dr. Scott presents many theories, but with caution. As he says in his preface, "A book of this character is obviously not the proper place for polemical discus- sions of disputed questions. Whenever, therefore, the views expressed differ widely from those maintained by other palaeontologists, I have attempted no more than to state, as fairly as I could, the alternative interpretations and my own choice between them." One gathers from a perusal of these pages that the author very sanely re- jects all extreme theories of evolution, or, indeed, any single postulate with claims to universal application. He in- clines decidedly to a monophyletic origin of the mammalia, and to divergence or adaptative radiation as the dominant method, with convergence and parallel- ism as very important subsidiary pro- cesses in the great developmental scheme. One of the most significant ten- dencies of palaeontologists of recent years, induced by many startling paral- lel and convergent characters, Is a hint- ing at some "internal perfecting princi- ple." Dr. Scott mentions and dismisses this as follows: So far as we are able to follow it by the aid of the fossils, development among the mammals would appear to be a remarkably direct and unswerving process. When any long-lived phylum, made up of numerous well-preserved members, is studied, the ob- server cannot fail to be impressed by the straightforward course of the evolutionary process, as though the animals were con- sciously making for a predetermined goal, which, needless to say, they were not. Perhaps the most important aspect of the work, as certainly the most original, is that relating to the fossil mammalia of South America. This is Dr. Scott's especial province, which he has been studying for thirteen years. All the in- teresting results here given are con- densed from his eight volumes, relating to the Princeton Patagonian expeditions. The apparent continental isolation ot these forms is quite inexplicable, and one looks confidently to the demolishing of this barrier by the discovery of extra- neotropical representatives. In view of the tremendous field cov- ered and the myriad facts which are de- tailed, the text is remarkably free from error. The few that are most notice- able relate, curiously enough, to the two extremes of the class, mankind, and marsupials and Prototheria. The spe- cific name of Ornithorhynchus is no longer the time-worn paradoxus, but anatinus. On page 86 the author has failed to say that the patella is absent in most marsupials, and that in those same animals the bones of the lower log have a decided power of rotation. A few lines farther, on the same page, the statement that "the upper end of the tibia is enlarged and extends over that of the fibula" should be amended. In Ornithorhynchus the fibula is much longer than the tibia, and in mar- supials slightly longer. In monotremes, marsupials, and a number of higher forms the tibia does not extend over the upper end of the fibula. Why the small Otocyon is called a wolf is not apparent. Fox would be more correct, and the statement that its molar formula of % exceeds that of any other placental mammal is untrue, since dolphins, manatees, and some edentates have a much larger number. A glossary of nine pages is a very valuable asset to this volume, but a few of the definitions are rather loose. The auditory meatus can hardly be defined as the entrance to the bulla, when man has no bulla. The centrum is only a por- tion of the body of a vertebra, and again the mastoid process is probably confused with the styloid process, as the former is never "spine-like." The slips in rela- tion to the physical make-up of man are perhaps a result of the omission of the discussion of mankind in the Western Hemisphere, although no definite dis- missal of this subject is implied. In the brief mention of the' various typ s of fossil skulls, on page 588, no mention is made of Pithecanthropus. The use of the word "Klipdases" as a popular plural term for the Hyracoidea is hardly cor- rect. In South African Dutch, Das is a badger, while the only English equiva- lent for the plural would be Dasses. The outline drawings are excellent, with the exception of a few, such as that on page 310, which is as bewilder- ing to the eye as the optical illusion of the pyramid of inverted cubes. The restorations are one of the most inter- esting features of the book. Made under the personal supervision of Dr. Scott, they are, on the whole, as accurate as we can expect, the markings and pat- terns being, of course, wholly hypothet- ical. A great many beautiful photo- graphs from the collections of the New York Zoological Society add to the com- parative value of these restorations. Every name mentioned in the text, both common and scientific, is indicated as living or fossil, by the absence or pres- ence of a dagger. The index is admira- ble; the paper is necessarily coated and heavy, while the general make-up is in keeping with the high excellence and permanent value of the contents. John Phin, who came to the United States from Scotland in 1851, and for a number of years was a professor in the Pennsyl- vania Agricultural College, died Monday, aged eighty-four. Besides a "Shakespeare Cyclopaedia," he was the author of several works on applied science, such as "How to Use the Microscope," "Useful and Pre- cious Minerals," etc. Drama "The Romance of the American Theatre" (Little, Brown), by Mary Caroline Craw- ford, is a book largely made up of assort- ed extracts from earlier publications. Many of these, clipped from recognized authori- ties, are excellent in their way; others are of doubtful value, while some are utterly trivial or worthless. All are perfectly fa- miliar to persons moderately conversant with theatrical affairs in this country, with the exception, perhaps, of some of the quo- tations from old newspapers. The original matter, relating chiefly to modern times, cannot be commended for accuracy, com- pleteness, proportion, or judgment. In the first half of the book, which deals with the early days of the theatre in the South, the Puritanical opposition to it in New Eng- land, the experiences of travelling "stars," and the first play houses in New York, many interesting details are conveniently collected for the casual reader. For the student they are insufficient and might be misleading. Most of the sketches of noted players are hopelessly inadequate, not only in the presentment of fact, but in the al- most total lack of anything like com- parative criticism. Even in the cases of such prominent and comparatively modern stage figures as Edwin Forrest, Macready, the elder and the youti Charles Fechter, Charlotte Cushman, Helena Modjeska, Salvini, Joseph Jefferson, John McCullough, and John Gilbert — many oth- ers of almost equal celebrity might be named— no reference is made to some of their most famous impersonations, or to their distinguishing characteristics as act- ors. Considering the existent mass o: anec- dotical, descriptive, and critical ready ref- erence to all these players, it is amazing that the author, In compiling a quasi-his- torical account of the American 1 should have Ignored entirely the most per- tinent parts of it, and contented herself, as she seems to have done for the most part, with a haphazard use of the paste- pot and scissors. Her treatment of the contemporaneous stage Is equally super- ficial and unsatisfactory. She writes glib- ly and dogmatically, but without any show of intimate knowledge, personal experience, or discrimination. Her closing a that the present condition of the theatre Is highly encouraging is tolerabl proof of this. The book is liberally and well illustrated. The first performance in this country of Bernard Shaw's "The Philanderer.'' in the Little Theatre, is a notaMn Incident, chiefly on account of the excellence of the acting. The company, specially Imported by Win-
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is The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2531 throp Ames, had been selected and drilled In London by Granville Barker, under the supervision o£ the author himself. It may be presumed, therefore, that the represen- tation gives adequate expression to Mr. Shaw's Intent, and beyond question it is admirably artistic in its smoothness, fin- ish, and nicety of proportion, and especial- ly In Its freedom from exaggeration. The play, although It shows signs of age in the selection of such topics as the early Ib- senian enthusiasts and Amazonian women, Is a characteristic Shavian product and a fertile source of entertainment, although devoid of any real dramatic Impulse or sig- nificance. Professedly it Is a demonstra- tion of the grotesque relations caused by the matrimonial conventions of its period, but actually the "grotesque conditions" and their consequences are alike arbitrary crea- tions of the dramatist's fancy. The adven- tures of the philandering hero, in his sim- ultaneous pursuit of the experienced and sharp-witted widow, Grace Tranfield, and the emotional conventional woman, Julia Craven, are devised simply with the view of giving Mr. Shaw vantage ground for the launching of his witty sallies — sar- donic, cynical, or gay — at the various old- fashioned institutions, sentiments, or preju- dices of which he is the declared foe. Not only matrimony, but the army, the church, and the medical profession, the home, pa- ternal or filial affection, mid-Victorian sentiment, dramatic criticism, and other things are the targets for his assault. And his shafts are often winged with humor- ous fancy and barbed with sharpest wit. It is this piquant dialogue which gives the play its chief theatrical value, and it was delivered with delightful point — without the least trace of conscious emphasis — at the Little Theatre. Throughout the per- formance the tribute of laughter was fre- quent, but there were intervals when the continual flow of cynical wit, all in the same vein, palled by its manifest insin- cerity. Indeed, an audience which knew not Shaw — if such ignorance were possible —might easily be puzzled as to the author's real views on any of the subjects he dis- cusses. It is easy to understand why "The Philanderer" has remained unacted for so long. Only such a company as has now been assembled could disguise its dramatic inconsequence and feebleness. The chief performers are Charles Maude, Ernita Lascelles, Mary Lawton, W. R. Staveley, Reginald Dance, and Reginald Besant, and they all do so well that it would be unjust to discriminate among them. It is probable that his success with "The Case of Becky" — which, it will be remem- bered, was a professed study of compound personality — induced Mr. Belasco to try a Bi cond experiment in the same direction with "The Secret," the latest play of Henri Bernstein, which virtually deals with the same subject, although it dispenses with the theatrical hocus-pocus of mesmeric in- fluence. In both cases the heroine . is rep- resented as the victim of abnormal and irreconcilable impulses which give her two distinct individualities, and thus pro- vide tempting opportunities to histrionic ver- satility. The American play was founded upon a scientific medical report, to whose theories it assumed to give practical il- lustration, but the French work is wholly imaginary and stultifies Its profession of serious psychological analysis by its ex- travagance and obvious insincerity. Mani- festly, Mr. Bernstein selected his subject mainly on account of the emotional situa- tions to be manufactured out of it. And in this respect he has shown his usual in- genuity. It is unnecessary to go into the details of his plot, which is as improbable in its premises as it is conventional and unreal in its final issue. His heroine is a woman who would have been an angel if she had not been a demon. She is pic- tured as a creature seemingly possessed of all the feminine graces and virtues, accom- plished, generous, affectionate, for ten years a happy and devoted wife, but, neverthe- less, dominated by a malignant spirit of jealousy which makes the spectacle of an- other's happiness intolerable to her. The theatricality of such a conception is evi- dent. She intrigues against her most inti- mate friend, her sister-in-law, separating her from her first lover, and afterwards betraying her secret to the second, who has married her. In effecting her purpose, she involves the whole family group in one common misery and dishonor, bringing about a complete domestic tragedy. Incidentally she is compelled to confess her own guilt, thus becoming the object of general abhor- rence. The remarkable technical clever- ness displayed by Mr. Bernstein in reach- ing his catastrophe, or the theatrical ef- ficacy of his situations, need not be dis- puted. And his play, if it had closed with the exposure, might have been credited with a certain measure of sincerity and logic. But he demonstrates the commercial object ot his work by devising a comparatively happy ending which reduces the whole thing to ordinary melodrama. Frances Starr, as the heroine, proved unequal to the intel- lectual and emotional demands of a part written for that subtle and powerful ac- tress, Madame Simone, and the interpreta- tion, admirable in most respects, was weak- ened by her deficiency in the crises. Prank Curzon has obtained the English ri Klits of the new Parisian farce, "Les Deux Canards," by Tristan Bernard and Alfred Athis, produced recently at the Palais Royal. Probably he designs it for the use of Gerald du Maurier, as the dual 1 i" who, under different names, controls two newspapers constantly at war with each other. Sir Herbert Tree has decided to revive "The inn-ling of the Gods" at His Majesty's Theatre in London. The repertory season of Lillah McCarthy and Granville Barker at the St. James'e Theatre, in London, was so successful thai it was extended from three weeks to a month. Sir Charles Wyndham and Mary Moore have just been acting again in "David Gar rick" tor the benefit of the Actors' Benevo lent Fund. Jules- Arsene-Arnaud Claretie, whose death at the age of seventy-four was reported last week from Paris, had for half a cen tury occupied a prominent place in the list of France's literary men. His earliest work was done on such satirical paper! as Le Naln Jaune and Dlogine, which wore strongly anh BonapartUt, In 1868 M. Claretie, writing In the Figaro under the signature of "Candlde," showed courage by denouncing the execution of Martin Bidaur6; for this he and his paper were fiercely persecuted. In the war of 1870 he followed the Army of the Rhine and acted as correspondent of the Itappel and L'Opin- ion Rationale. He then became attached to Le Temps, and for many years his causerie was one of its distinguished features. When Emile Perrin died, Claretie was selected to succeed him as director of the Comfidie Franchise. Three years later, in 1888, he was elected a member of the French Acad- emy and was "received" by Renan. Under his rule at the Franchise, from which he resigned the past year, the famous com- pany retained its ancient prestige in spite of the occasional defection of such emi- nent players as Coquelin, Bernhardt, and others. His rejection of certain plays, at various times, on political and other grounds, led to some severe criticism of his policy, but in all crises of this sort, whether the struggle was in the courts, the press, or his own society, he displayed both tact and resolution. His written works include, in drama: "Les Muscadins," "Les Ingrats," "Raymond Lindey," "Le Regiment de Champagne," "Les Mirabeau," "Monsieur le Ministre," "Le Prince Zilah," "Le Pere," and "La Navarraise." History: "Les Derniers Montagnards," "Le Champ de bataille de Sedan," "Paris assiege," "La Guerre nationale," "Camille et Lucile Des- moulins," and "Histoire de la Revolution en 1870-1871." In addition he wrote "La Fontaine et Lamartine," "Beranger," and "Moliere." Music Great Pianists on Piano Playing. By James Francis Cooke. Philadelphia: Theo. Presser Co. How the Piano Came to Be. By Ellye Howell Glover. Chicago: Browne & Howell Co. 50 cents net. First Studies for the Piano. By Rafael Joseffy. New York: G. Schirmer. $2 net. Not a few of the world's greatest pian- ists were and are persons of exception- al intellectual gifts — thinkers and wits as well as players. James Francis Cooke, editor of the Etude, has known some thirty of them, and with eigh- teen he has had talks on their art. These "study talks," as he calls them, make a book of exceptional value to students and teachers. His list in- cludes three women: Fannie Bloomfield- Zeisler, Teresa Carreno, Katharine Goodson; and fifteen men: Bacliaus, Bauer, Busoni, Gabrilowitsch, Godow- Bkl, llofmann, Lhevinne, de Pachmann, Pauer, Rachmaninoff, Relsenauer, Bauer, Scharwenka, Schelling, and Stojowski, besides the boy prodigy, Peplto Arrlola. Each of them contributes food for thought; on one point they all Beam to agree — that the persistent playing of Bach Is the surest way to true muilcian- ship.
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Jan. I, 1914] The Nation 19 II ai old Bauer warns against usiqg Bach merely as "a kind of technical elevator," using the word technical in the common sense. Mr. Godowski, whom the critics have accused of being a mere master of technique, maintains that technique "has properly to do with the intellectual phase of the subject rather than the physical"; that it in- cludes rhythm, tempo, accent, phras- ing, dynamics, agogics, touch, etc.; and that it thus differs from the mere "mechanics" of playing. But it would create no end of confusion to accept this distinction. The conception of technique as that which relates to the mechanical part of a performance has become universally accepted by mu- sicians and will remain in use, even though it be less nattering to Mr. Go- dowski than his own suggested amend- ment. His ideas on touch also differ from those of some of the other pianists represented in this volume; but in this case his views are more acceptable, even though Ossip Gabrilowitsch, e. g., attains surprisingly good results in other ways. Mrs. Bloomfield-Zeisler utters a protest against the exploiting of wonder-chil- dren. She gives a brief but admirable summary of Leschetizky's way of teach- ing, talks suggestively about pro- gramme-making, the art of hypnotizing an audience, and explains the secrets of successful appearance in public. Mme. Carrefio repeats the advice Liszt gave her, not to imitate any one but to cul- tivate one's individuality, and she il- lustrates the importance of this with leference to the career of her pupil, j Edward MacDowell. Her remarks on the importance of the study of musical history are also worth noting by stu- dents. Mme. Goodson warns against the wasting of time and money in send- ing beginners to famous artists. She, also, is a pupil of Leschetizky, and has interesting things to tell about his ways of making his pupils musical. If one of them, for example, had difficulty with rhythm, he advised her to go and hear Strauss, the king of rhythm and dance. Wilhelm Bachaus discourses special- ly on two great musicians. One of them is Bach, the other Rachmaninoff, whom he considers "the giant of to- day." In his opinion, he is "writing the greatest original music for piano of any living composer." He is also very par- tial to Debussy, whom he admires be- cause he "manages to put so much col- or into his piano pieces without sug- gesting the orchestra. Much of his music is wonderful in this respect, and, moreover, the musicians of the future will appreciate this fact more and more." Mr. Lhgvinne discusses the musical situation in Russia, and Josef Hofmann expresses his conviction that there has been no progress in piano playing since the time of Liszt. Besides recording the opinions of prominent pianists in diverse aspects of their art, Mr. Cooke contributes two valuable chapters of his own, in which he discusses, among other things, the advantages of domestic life over that of a virtuoso, and the special disadvan- tages to which players are subjected in this land of magnificent distances. In the case of some prominent artists the managers have the greatest difficulty in inducing them to come more than once. Rubinstein declined $100,000 and Grieg made prohibitive conditions. On the magic of magnetism, as illustrated by Paderewski, Mr. Cooke has some sug- gestive pages. Of special interest is his explanation of the reason why Ameri- can students are apt to make more progress in Europe than at home. It is because over there the same students willingly subject themselves to strict discipline, against which they rebel at home. Thus has come about the curi- ous situation that "teachers who have taught for years in America have re- turned to Europe, doubled and quad- rupled their fees, and, under Old World surroundings and with more rigid stan- dards of artistic work, have produced results they declare would have been impossible in America." "How the Piano Came to Be" is a booklet of sixty pages, in which the his- tory of the piano is traced from its sup- posed germs in the sinews stretched across the shell of a dead tortoise to the modern American grand. It is not a mere compilation from the diction- aries, but contains evidence of wide reading, with entertaining details. One of these is the odd fact that a century ago a Boston maker of pianos had to put a false English or French stamp on them before he could sell them. There are pictures illustrating the evolution of the clavichord and harpsichord into the pianoforte. Some years ago the Schirmers pub- lished a "School of Advanced Piano Playing" by the greatest of foreign pianists and teachers who have made their home in America, Rafael Joseffy. This is now followed by "First Studies for the Piano" by the same authority. The text and the footnotes are printed in both English and German. "First studies" must not be taken too literally; it is not a book for pupils who still have to learn their a, b, c, but for those who have had some experience and can use their own brains. For these, the book is invaluable. Among the many things considered are varieties of touch, rhythm, eye-training, accompaniment fig- ures for the left hand, scales in thirds and sixths and in chromatics. For the first time In its history of more than a century the Philharmonic Society of London gave, a few weeks ago, a ronrort with an "all-British programme." Sad to relate, it "fell flat." The composers repre- sented were not those best known; they were Frederick Austin, Von Hoist, Vaughn, Williams, and Arnold Box. At the Berlin High School of Music Prof. Georg Schumann has been appointed teach- er of composition to succeed the veteran Max Bruch. There are two things in particular that impede the progress of opera in English: the scarcity of acceptable singers and the inability of most of them to enunciate distinctly, which seems to be a growing infirmity. At any rate, Robin H. Legge makes some remarks on this point in the London Daily Telegraph which are worth pondering: A number of correspondents write to point out that the diction of opera sing- ers in English was at its highest point of excellence in the great days of the Savoy operas. It certainly was then very high. Those who are interested in the matter may hear for themselves if the Savoy tra- dition is still upheld by attending the va- rious performances of the Gilbert and Sul- livan operas during this week at the Crystal Palace. As a matter of fact, the now com- mon complaint as to the difficulty of hear- ing the sung words when the operatic sing- er is English is, I think, quite a modern matter. I have no recollection of it in my early days. \.n THE NEW ENGLISH ART CLUB. London, December 22, 1913. The New English Art Club has just opened its fiftieth exhibition. When it opened its first, it represented all that was most advanced — according to Brit- ish standards — all that was most inde- pendent, most revolutionary among British artists. It flaunted its opposi- tion to the Academy and the Academic. The little inner group, its chief strength, went so far as to call themselves Lon- don Impressionists at a time when Lon- don still shrank from the scandal of French Impressionism. At its shows the younger generation was heard knocking at the door, in the Ibsen phrase then in everybody's mouth — pow- der was smelt, as a Frenchman said to me one day at one of its early press views. In its members' hands, every- body thought, lay the future of art in England; it was a society full of prom- ise. And now that it has lived long enough for that promise to be fulfilled, now that with the round and imposing number of fifty exhibitions to its cred- it, it seems as if the time had come to reckon up its achievements: what does it represent, what does it stand for? To tell the truth, it stands for little save the ease with which middle age shakes off the ambitions and hopes of youth. The powder is all but spent, the new younger generation knocks louder from without its fold than from within. Of the older generation some are dead, some have ceased to exhibit on its walls,
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20 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2531 some have been gathered into the Acad- emy. Wilson Steer remains, from the beginning the most faithful, lie has seldom contributed to other exhibitions, In: has always reserved his best for the New English, and, in consequence, has made a much more distinct impression on the public than those members wno have scattered their work in many ex- hibitions; and it is reported — with how much truth I cannot say — that the Club at last recognizes the wisdom of his policy and proposes passing in self-de- fence a law to prevent members from showing anywhere save with their own society. This year even Steer can scarcely redeem the New English from the com- monplace into which it is drifting. He sends two paintings: one, a rather gar- ish Sunset over a broad space of wa- ter full of shipping, a conscientious, painstaking statement of facts without the selection that would give them ar- tistic value, so that it becomes a ques- tion whether the restless and chromo- like effect — the foolish sunset — Nature sometimes indulges in is worth record- ing at all; the other, a Breakwater stretching out an unlovely line into an empty gray stretch of water under an empty gray stretch of sky; both suggesting the weariness of the paint- er who, rather than continue wrestling with problems, is content to state his facts as he finds them. Indeed, signs of weariness betray themselves on every side among the older men. Prof. Fred Brown and Henry Tonks have only wa- ter-colors, and these might pass unno- ticed at Burlington House. David Muir- head is gradually reducing his land- scapes to a formula, and forgetting his sense of color in the process. Ambrose McEvoy's portraits are so invertebrate, so without flesh and blood and muscle to give them life, that you feel as if with the first puff of wind his sitters must blow away. Altogether, this group of painters — long since exalted into the great modern leaders by the Slade School, with which most of them are associated — now they have reached the age when they should be in the ful- ness of their powers, appear to have lost grip, to have come to the end of a convention that could produce agree- able results while it was fresh, and not yet staled by repetition, but that, like all conventions, cannot take the place of the sound knowledge, unwearied study and research, and continual ex- periment of the true master, and must, or later, lead to feebleness and '1 tils Is 1 he trouble with so many men who start out brilliantly — ore brilliantly, many of them, than the founders of the New English Art Club — and from whom much li < d, but who, wit h suci ess, bei omi 1 on tent i" reScho themselves or the mas tera whom they follow— at a distance. If the older men are disappointing, little more can be said for the men who, when elected some few years since, were relied upon to infuse new life and vitality into the Club. John is still a name to conjure by, but he still seems satisfied to justify his reputation by his projects rather than his performance. His chief work at the New English is a large cartoon, The Flute of Pan, a design apparently for an important mural decoration, and perhaps it would be fair to reserve a final judgment until it is finished and in place. In its pres- ent stage nothing is more obvious than the influence of the old masters. Against a rocky background which recalls Leo- nardo and his school, figures are group- ed: to one side, three women reminis- cent of Botticelli and the Florentines; to the other, men whose presence is scarcely explained since, in type and treatment, they seem born of Post-Im- pressionism; in one corner, a boy who is evidently John's own invention. This inconsistency, this incongruity, in de- tail might pass had the artist, after bor- rowing so much from the old Italians, gone further and appropriated the great essential of fine decoration which it is so well within their power to have fur- nished him. For these Italians had, above all, the sense of design which does not seem ever to enter into John's scheme of things; they understood the imperative value of composition and never sacrificed it to detail. Their fig- ures and landscapes, however beautiful in themselves, arc always subordinated to the beauty of the design as a whole — are but beautiful parts of a beautiful harmony. The figures and landscape in John's cartoon have no relation to each ether, are not bound together by any rhythm of lines or any relation of spaces. John, as far as I have seen him in his work, is much where he was when, as a student, a few drawings made his name a fetich for the wor- shippers at the shrine of the New Eng- lish Art Club. The drawings wen- said to be guarantees of masterpieces to come. And yet to-day one looks in vain for the masterpiece in this large, ambi- tious work, while the notes and studies hanging in another room have the same skill of draughtsmanship as in the old days when his every drawing was hailed as a guarantee of his triumphant fu- ture. The fault of bi n is em- t'hasized by the contrast with the car- of Mrs. Sargent Florence, whose 1 - iniiai Ion cannot be compan d to his, but who has studied the old ma iii 1 oral Ion « 11 b greater 1 , mpal b j and Intelligence. 1 [er cartoons are toi tree decorate 1 hi chool hall at Bourn \ lib , the Cadburys' model win lllage, ami 1 be subji cts are Suffer the Little Children and Thi Baptism. In both, the groups are well balanced, 1 he Bpat ■ B harmoniously disl ributi d, I he lines expressive, with the result that the design tells in the working drawing, as it must eventually if the color scheme is as carefully studied. Orpen, who became a member of the society about the same time as John, is the more distinguished painter of the two, though this year his only painting strikes one as a piece of sheer bravado— a puzzle intended to bewilder the pub- lic and trip up the critic. Sowing the Seed is the title, and those who love a story in paint may make what they will of the nude figure that, to the left of the canvas, sows the seed, the two pure- ly grotesque figures of a man and a woman that, to the right, stand under a branch of a withered tree where a magpie perches, and the two little nak- ed children who, with their reflections in a little pool, are the centre of the composition. But if these figures are de- liberately provocative in their gro- tesqueness on the one hand, and their inappropriateness on the other, the canvas has the unity that John's car- toon lacks, the harmony, the balance in the placing of the figures that holds the composition together, making a fine decorative design against the cool gray of the flat background; and there is the quality Orpen almost always gives to his paint. Its self-conscious eccen- tricity, however, is irritating, and he is seen to better advantage in two large, simple water-colors that hang near John's drawings. In fact, both artists are most successful in their least impor- tant exhibits — one cannot help a sneak- ing suspicion that Orpen is ready to let the New English play second fiddle to the Academy, and to hold back his more serious paintings for the more popular institution. Certainly, neither shows anything to lend special distinction to so important an event as the fiftieth exhibition of a society supposed to rep- resent the most distinguished and inde- pendent group of artists in the country. If the New English in its fiftieth ex- hibition were positively bad, it would be to me less depressing. The reg to see it falling into a rut where it is losing even the courage of its own tra- ditions. For this reason I find more vitality in a respectable body like the old Water-Color Society that never dreamed of revolt in the beginning, does not now, and never will, and in its un- shakable fidelity to its highly rei tceful, and mediocre Ideal an impression of stability, permanence, like the of London or Madame the New English was created Tea- n volt, for opposition; there was no other reason or excuse toi Iti i mi it has long ceased to revolt, it is as academic In one ■ the Academ In another. In the late nineties, the Internal Ion*] Sociel v was formed as the mo:, I ho mi.la- bie rival the Academj «\ ei had to fear,
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the nucleus of every new mo and in Qlj in tingland, but on the Continent, though the International, year by year, is shutting its door upon the all-important, the International, ele- ment that gave it its name, with the re- sult that it also is losing its original vigor. Rumors are about of the forma- tion of another new society of the young- er men, who think they have as little hope of adequate representation in the International as the New English. This means a further splitting up into groups and the consequent strengthening once more of the Academy which has tri- umphed again and again over the inde- pendents, partly by absorbing them, partly by ignoring them. Had the New English followed the more practical pol- icy of uniting under its protection all the independents, all the protesting bod- ies, instead of degenerating into little more than an exhibiting society for the Blade School, it might have proved in- vincible. But it has narrowed its scope and interests until the question is whether it can get the better of its present inertia and survive a younger and more energetic society as success- fully as the Academy has, up till now, survived every secession and rival in- stitution. N. N. finance Among the twenty plates of rare works of art published in the last number of the AroMv filr KunstgeschichU (Leipzig: See- mann) the most remarkable are a Goya aquatint oi monkeys, a Madonna by Neroc- cio, a portrait drawing by Montagna, a splendid Tiepolo, the Miracle of the Manna from the Church of Vorolanuova; a Nattier portrait, a Tintoretto Annunciation, a French primitive from the Fogg Museum, two delightful sheets of landscape sketches by Hans Baldung Grien, a very fantastic Cranach— the Mass of St. Gregory. An es- pecially interesting feature is the recon- stitution on one plate of a very fine Gau- denzio Ferrari triptych, of which the parts are scattered among Leipzig, Milan, and Moscow. There are also minor drawings and sculptures by early German masters. Most are chosen from little-known private collections, and in a few instances from public museums or dealers' stocks. Hugh Arnold's "Stained Glass of the Middle Ages in England and France" (Mac- millan) is the best popular work on the subject that has come to our notice. Mr. Arnold's descriptive and historical chapters are sober, accurate, and interesting. The especial superiority of the book lies, how- ever, in Lawrence B. Saint's water-color sketches. There are fifty color plates after famous windows. Frequently a single plate contains a composition sketch and a group of significant details. Mr. Saint's water- color memoranda give the effect of stained glass better than photographs and the older colored lithographs. For minute informa- tion the student must go to the older sources, but it is surprising how much Mr. Saint has managed to convey in sketch- es apparently slight. For a person of anti- quarian taste it would be hard to imagine a more acceptable gift. RETROSPECT. In glancing back over the past twelve- month and endeavoring to determine what it has really signified in American finance, account must first be taken of the noteworthy governing influences un- der the sway of which the year began. On January 1, 1913, every intelligent ob- server knew that there were three dis- tinct influences of the sort at work; whose actual results it was impossible to measure in advance; whose operation, in our financial markets, was certain to be conflicting, and whose concurrence left the question entirely open, which would actually play the greatest part in shaping the history of the year. One of these dominant influences was the European money market crisis, brought to a head by the Balkan War and emphasized by dread of a general conflict and by resultant money-hoard- ing throughout Europe. Another, very different in its nature, was the enor- mously profitable crops harvested in this country towards the close of 1912, and marketed during the early part of 1913. The third influence was the new Admin- istration and the new Congress. It is because of the perplexing and frequently unexpected manner in which these influences have operated, and be- cause of the fact that some movements on the markets could logically be ascrib- ed to either of two causes in the above summary, that Wall Street has found so confusing the current explanations of the year's finance. At one time, Wall Street would learn that business was prosperous; in the next day or month, that the country was face to face with panic. When our security markets were breaking, in the spring, one group of experts would point out that frightened forced liquidation by American Inves- tors was in progress; another, that Eu- rope was raising money in New York, which the foreign bankers rightly re- garded as the only stable market of the world, by selling its own investment holdings. When we sent gold in un- precedented sums, to France in the spring and to Canada in the autumn, people would he informed on the one hand that capital was taking flight from America because of its dread as to what might be done at Washington. Yet, on the other hand, they would hear that our own financial position was so strong that we were helping the Bank of France to restore its gold reserve, and assuming London's obligations at Mon- treal— both in spite of a foreign ex- change market really in our favor. The truth is, that all three influences have had at least some hearing in every important financial movement of the year. The American stock market, for j instance, was bcyunu uuy question pri- marily depressed by tue leaction on us oi i^uiopes financial troubles. But Lie resultant break- would certainly have Deen tar severer, had it not been for the sound position and abundant resources carried over from the great harvests of 1912 — in sequence also to a period of prolonged retrenchment and economy. And yet again, after this foreign pres- sure had relaxed, the Continent's politi- cal fright abated, and the great Euro- pean banks regained a strong position, our own recovery would presumably Lave been far more rapid, but for the third and important element of politi- cal misgiving. Taken as a whole, and with all the ad- verse influences, real or imaginary, kept in mind, the past year in the United States has been marked by an astonish- ing show of financial and economic strength. We have absorbed (as we did under similar circumstances in 1900) enormous quantities of the European holdings of our own securities. We pass- ed through the spring with the Euro- pean market closed to our own new stock and bond issues; through the sum- mer with a minimum of financial as- sistance by Lombard Street to move our crops, and through the autumn without the slightest suggestion of London's re- lieving our "autumn money squeeze" or financing a Wall Street "boom in stocks." Instead of this, it has been America which was helping out Europe, directly or indirectly, from the 1st of January to the 31st of December. Gratifying to our financial pride as this may be, it nevertheless has another side. The man who spends a year draw- ing on his personal resources to help out an embarrassed neighbor, is likely to be forced to retrenchment on his own account, and the market which takes care of the liquidated securities of an- other, and sends gold in return, has a similar experience to undergo. A point is sometimes reached where even a strong and powerful market will be crushed by such a process. Our own was not; but it had to accept the al- ternative of a distressing lack of capital to spare for its own new enterprises, and of a Stock Exchange year so dull as to amount at times to suspension of business. All these considerations add excep- tional interest to the change in the aspect of the markets in the last weeks of the year. That this change should have been ascribed unanimously to the removal of the one adverse influence which had prevailed without intermis- sion until then — the acute misgiving as to sweeping hostile legislation against capital— gives a singular balance to the year, which began with every one point- ing to Europe as the one cause for our troubles, which presently saw that In- fluence offset by our own material pros-
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22 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2531 perity, and which finally found Wall Street pivoting everything on politics. As to which of these three considera- tions had actually the most Important part in shaping the history of our mar- kets, it is still too early to decide. Pos- sibly it will require the lapse of anoth- er year. or two — as it did after 1900 and 1904 and 1906 and 1909— before all will agree as to what was the real control- ling financial influence in the year now ended. BOOKS OF THE WEEK. Archiv fur Kunstgeschichte. Herausgege- ben von Detlev von Hadeln, Hermann Voss, und Morton Bernath. II. Lieferung. Leipzig: E. A. Seemann. Baldwin, J. F. The King's Council in Eng- land during the Middle Ages. Oxford University Press. Bigg, Charles. The Christian Platonists of Alexandria. Second edition. Oxford Uni- versity Press. Boppe, A. L'Albanie et Napoleon (1797- 1814). Paris: Hachette. Brunner, Karl. Der Mittelenglische Vers- roman iiber Richard Lowenherz. Vienna: Braumiiller. Bryce, James. Promoting Good Citizenship. (Riverside Essays.) Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 35 cents. Caldwell, William. Pragmatism and Ideal- ism. London: Macmillan. $2. Duckitt, M., and Wragg, H. Selected Eng- lish Letters— XV-XIX Centuries. (World's Classics.) Oxford University Press. Edwards, M. B. The Lord of the Harvest. (World's Classics.) Oxford University Press. Harvard College, Annals of the Astro- nomical Observatory. Vol. 78, Part I, Variable Stars in the Cluster Messier, by S. I. Bailey. Cambridge: Observatory. Hythe, Viscount. Problems of Empire. New edition. Longmans. $1.75. net. Arabian Nights. The Arabian *" nights' entertainments, based on a translation from the Arabic by Edward William Lane; selected ed., and arranged for young peo- ple by Frances Jenkins Olcott. 1913. 294 pp., illus. #1.50 net. Aladdin and Ali Baba are also included, taken from the Scott translation of the Gal- land version. Illustrated in co'.ar by Monro S. Orr. The best edition for a children's library. 4» Recommended for small libraries if needed. The American Library Association Ka Booklist {Dec, igi 3) RHenryHolt&Co.,N^voSrtk- $3,000 YEARLY BUSINESS OP YOUR OWN-, mail order; success sure; honest, legitimate: email capital : original methods. Write M. CLEMENT MOORE, Specialist, New Egypt, N. J. A practical handbook for income tax payers, by an authority. The Income Tax Law of 1913, Explained By GEORGE P. TUCKER, of the Bos- ton Bar, joint author in 1895 of "The Federal Income Tax Explained." Cloth. Price, $1.50 net. LITTLE, BROWN & CO., Publishers, Boston Foreign Books and Magazines Correspondence Solicited E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 681 Fifth Avenue, near 54th Street NEW YORK Auction Bridge 1. The Fine Points. 2. The Develop- ment under the New Count. BY FLORENCE IRWIN. Revised Editions, each, $1.25 net. By mail, *1.B5. "Not only the BEST WRITER ON AUCTION, tlio BEST EXPONENT of any card game I know Of " —AN OLD CARD PLAYER. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, Publishers The Flowery Republic By FREDERICK McCORMICK is the most authoritative work on the new China. $2.50 net. By mail $2.70. D. APPLETON & COMPANY, New York THE GREAT ART QIFT-BOOK OF THE YEAR ART By Auguste Rodin (Translated from the French of Paul Gsell by Mrs. Romilly Fedden.) With over 100 Illustrations In photogravure and half-tone. Buckram. $7.50 net; three-quarter levant, $15.00 net; carriage additional. A book which takes its place at once as the most important art book in years. It covers practically the whole range of art, and abounds In memorable analyses of the works of the masters of painting and sculpture, ancient and modern. Send for descriptive circular. Small, Maynard & Co., Publishers, Bonton Who Writes for The Nation? These names are taken from a list of more than two hundred contributors: Dr. Charles Francis Adams Prof. Francis G. Allinson Prof. C. W. Alvord Prof. C. McL. Andrews Prof. H. M. Ayres Prof. Irving Babbitt Frederic Bancroft Prof. Carl Becker C. William Beebe Bernhard Berenson Prof. Hiram Bingham H. W. Boynton Gamaliel Bradford, jr. Prof. James H. Breasted Prof. J. Douglas Bruce Prof. F. M. Burdick Lawrence J. Burpee Prof. G. N. Calkins Prof. W. H. Carpenter Gen. W. H. Carter, U. S. A. F. W. Coburn Prof. Archibald Cary Coolidge Prof. Lane Cooper Kenyon Cox John Cotton Dana Prof. W. M. Davis Stoddard Dewey Prof. Frank H. Dixon Prof. Ephraim Emerton Mrs. A. von Ende Prof. Sidney B. Fay Prof. W. S. Ferguson H. T. Finck Prof. O. W. Firkins Prof. Warner Flte Prof. J. B. Fletcher Prof. George T. Flom Prof. H. J. Ford Worthlngton C. Ford Prof. J. E. Frame Prof. Kuno Francke Fabian Franklin Prof. P. H. Frye Prof. John Fryer H. Nelson Gay Rev. Charles R. Gillett Prof. G. L. Goodale Prof. T. D. Goodell Rear-Admiral C. F. Goodrich, U, S. X. Prof. C. H. Grandgent Rev. W. E. Griffis Prof. A. D. F. Hamlin Arthur S. Hardy Prof. J. M. Hart Prof. C. H. Haskins Prof. George Hempl Prof. F. Hirth Prof. E. W. Hopkins Prof. J. K. Hosmer Prof. W. G. Howard Gaillard Hunt Prof. A. V. W. Jackson Dr. Joseph Jacobs Dr. Morris Jastrow, jr. Prof. W. H. Johnson Prof. A. G. Keller Prof. Francis W. Kelsey Prof. J. F. Kemp Prof. C. J. Keyser Arne Kildal Prof. Chas. R. Lanman Luther S. Livingston Prof. Gonzales Lodge Prof. A. O. Lovejoy Prof. Wo, MacDonald Prof. A. C. McGlffert Prof. Allan Marquand Henry Rutgers Marshall Prof. Frank J. Mather, Jr. Albert Matthews Prof. Elmer T. Merrill Prof. R. B. Merrlman Prof. Lawrence H. Mills Prof. George F. Moore Prof. Louis T. More Prof. T. H. Morgan Prof. George T. Northup A. D. Noyes Prof. G. R. Noyea Rollo Ogden Dr. William Osier Mrs. Joseph Pennell Rev. John P. Peters Gustav Pollak Prof. James R. Pratt Miss Ruth Putnam Prof. E. K. Rand Miss G. M. A. Richter Prof. F. N. Robinson Prof. J. Royce Prof. H. R. Seager Prof. Stuart P. Sherman Prof. Paul Shorey Lindsay Swift Wm. R. Thayer Prof. Calvin Thomas Pres. J. M. Thomas Prof. C. H. Toy Paget Toynbee J. R. Towso Prof. W. P. Trent O. G. Villnrd Luigi Vlllari Dr. Joseph W. Warren Prof. A. G. Webster Horace White V. J. Whiting Prof. Burt G. Wilder Prof. E. H. Wilkins Lieut.-Col, C. deW. wnicox, u. S. A. Prof. F. W. Williams Dr. S. L. Wolff Qen. A. A. Woodhull Prof. C. H. C. Wright
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The V* '"a n VOL. XCVIII— NO. 2532 THURSDAY, JANUARY 8, 1914 Res:. V. S. Pat. Offlc*. PRICE TEN CENTS SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE Some Important Announcements Articles by Price Collier The late Price Collier, author of "England and the English from an American Point of View," "Germany and the Germans from an American Point of View," etc., had completed several of his projected articles on the SCANDINAVIAN countries. These are expected to appear In the Magazine during the coming year. By Richard Harding Davis "Breaking into the Movies" How "Soldiers of Fortune" was put on the films at Santiago. Short Stories By Rudyard Kipling, Sir Gilbert Parker, Henry van Dyke, Richard Harding Davis, Katharine Holland Brown, James B. Connolly, Mary R. S. Andrews, Gordon Arthur Smith, Mary Synon, Barry Benefield, Abbie Carter Goodloe, and many others. — A remarkable group of stories by Katharine Fullerton Gerould, author of "Vain Oblations." A Short Serial: Maje A Love Story by Armistead C. Gordon. A tender idyllic story of the old South. THE SPECIAL FEBRUARY NUMBER will deal with the MOTORandtheHIGHWAYS Theodore Roosevelt in South America He will contribute to Scribner's Magazine the account of his trip of adventure and research into the Paraguayan and Brazilian interiors, through the great tropical forests which so few white men have ever traversed. From the New York Sun: COL- ONEL ROOSEVELT IN HIS MOST ATTRACTIVE ROLE.— <No living American can be better qualified to explore the wilds of South America and to describe its flora and fauna and its savage and tremendous scen- ery with a sympathetic and kindling interest than Theodore Roosevelt. A Famous Writer's First Long Novel Early in the year the Magazine hopes to begin the first long novel by an American author whose work has been not only of the first rank but based upon a deep and unfailing optimism. His short stories and poems are among the best known wherever the English language is read. By Madame Waddington A new series of articles — "My First Years as a Frenchwoman, 1876-9." The political and social aspects of these years are commented upon in the author's own inimitable and de- lightful way. By Sir Henry Norman, M.P. Author of "The Flowing Road." The Alpine Road of France The best motor-way across France from Normandy to the Mediterra- nean by the new "Route des Alpes." By Rollin W. Hutchinson, Jr. Motor- Vehicle Expert and Engineer. The Motor -Truck and Motor Commerce The influence of the Motor-Truck on business systems. By Henry B. Joy President of the Lincoln Highway Association TheGreat National Road Schemes Transcontinental Trails, Their De- velopment, and What They Mean to This Country. The Illustrations The Cover in color, 10 pages in full color, 8 of them autochrome photo- graphs in color by Earle Harrison (photographer of the Panama Canal;, showing scenes of beauty along the transcontinental trails. Subscriptions to Scribner's Maga- zine may be sent direct to the publishers or to any bookseller, newsdealer, or subscription agent. The price is $3.00 everywhere. CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
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11 The USTation [Vol. 98, No. 2532 The Nation A WEEKLY JOURNAL. FOUNDED IN 1865. [Entered at the New York City Post Office as sccond-olass mail matter.] The Nation is published and owned by thp New York Evening Post Co. Oswald Garrison Vlllard, President: John Palmer Gavlt, Secretary and Treasurer; Emil M. Scholz, Business Manager; Paul Elmer More, Editor; Harold deWolf Fuller, Assistant Editor. Three dollars per year in advance, postpaid, in any part of the United States or Mexico; to Canada $3.50, and to foreign countries comprised in the Postal Union, $4.00. Address THE NATION, Box 794, New York. Publication Office, 20 Vesey Street. CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER. The Week 23 Editorial Articles: Transcendental Foreign Politics 26 The Morgan Announcement 26 The Life Extension Institute 27 A Great Physician 28 Dialects English and American 29 Fun in Latin 29 Special Articles : The American Historical Association. 30 The Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis 31 Correspondence : Entrance Examinations in History.. 32 Titian's Philip II 33 Jefferson as Architect 33 Reversed Instruments 33 Professor Pearson's Conclusions .... 33 Literature: Scott's Last Expedition 34 Fascination 35 The Lure of the Little Drum 35 The Egotistical I 35 The Life of Florence Nightingale.... 36 Monarchical Socialism in Germany.. 36 Railway Problems 37 Notes 37 Science 40 Drama 41 Music : A New Italian Opera 42 Art: Charles Conder, His Life and Works.. 43 Finance : Beginning the New Year 45 Books of the Week 45 JUST PUBLISHED THE HISTORY OF THE GRAIN TRADE IN FRANCE, 1400-1710 By ABBOTT PAYSON USHER, Ph.D., Instruction in Economic* in Cornell University. Harvard Economic Stud- ies, Vol. IX. si«. Clotb. 405 vase*. $2.00 net. An illuminating chapter in the his- tory of European commerce, illustrat- ing vividly the evolution of wholesaji market organization and of national poll' ■!(■■■ lor its regulation. HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESi CAMBRIDGE MAHHACIHISIC'ITS THE M0NIST A QUARTERLY MAGAZINE Devoted to the Philosophy of Science Founded by Edwahd C. Hegeler. AMONG THE CONTENTS OF THE JANUARY NUMBER: On the Nature of Acquaintance. — BERTRAND RUSSELL. Wang Yang Ming, a Chinese Idealist. —FREDERICK G. HENKE. Christian Elements in Later Krish- naism and in other hlnduistic Sects.— RICHARD GARBE. Ceremonial Si>itting.— A. H.GODBEY The Chemical Origin and Regula- tion of Life.^LEONARD THOMP- SON TROLAND. Criticisms and Discussions. The Economy of Thought.— PHILIP E. B. JOURDAIN. An Answer to Mr. Bertrand Rus- sell's Article on the Philosophy of Bergson— KARIN COSTELr LOE. "Multiplication of Pears and Pence."— P. G. AGNEW. Book Reviews. The Alchemy of Thought.— L. P. Jacks. A copy of this January number will be mailed to any Reader of THE NATION for 60 cents THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING CO. 122 South Michigan Ave. CHICAGO ARTIFICIAL PARTHENOGENESIS AND FERTILIZATION By JACQUES LOEB, Member of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. This n'w work presents the first complete treatment of tue subject of artificial par- thenogenesis In Binglisb. It gives an ac- couni "f tin- carious methods by which un- 1'iTiiiizeii eggs cmii be caused to develop by bemical means, and the conclusions in he drawn from then? concerning the mechanism by which the spermatozoon Induces development, since the problem of fertilization is Intimately connected with manj different problems of physiology and pathology — we need only mention the natural death oi the egg f the i act " coi 4 i and discussed in the boos h. . ond I hi i" clal problem Indicated by the title. 818 Pages, 12mo, cloth; postpaid, $2.G8 The University of Chicago Press CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. AOI1NTS The Baker and Taylor Company New York ThcCanibridgc Univ. Press, London and Edinburgh Karl W. li ierscmann Leipzig I lie Muruzcn-Kabushiki-Kaisha, Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto Educational The WOLCOTT SCHOOL, DENVER,COL. Superior climate. Accredited with Eastern Colleges for girls. Fine music advantages. Gymnasium. rpHE FISK TEACHERS' AGENCIES, 1 BVDBBTT ii. Ki.sk & Co., Proprietors. Boston, 2a Park St. Denver, 817 Mas. Two. New York,15(il DIVINE LOVE." "THE GREAT SAVIORS OF THE WOULD," etc. Bend fur catalogue, Addreta VKDANTA ASHUAMA, Well Cornwall, Conn. Agents: THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO., New York /V<» iv llvtid 1/ JULIUS CAESAR Being the Seveoteentt) Volume In a Now Var- iorum ffldltloB <,r Shakespeare. Edited bj Horace Howard Purlieu, .ir. Cloth. 14.00. Half uio- rorco, $6.00. I'ohIbko extra. .1. II. MPI'IMJOTT COMPANY, I'nl.llHliri-N. IMilliult-liilila.
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Jan. 8, 1914] The Nation in A practical handbook- for income tax payers, by an authority. The Income Tax Law of 1913, Explained By GEORGE F. TUCKER, of the Bos- ton Bar, joint author in 1895 of "The Federal Income Tax Explained." Cloth. Price, $1.50 net. LITTLE, BROWN & CO., Publishers, Boston Foreign Books and Magazines Correspondence Solicited E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 681 Fifth Avenue, near 54th Street NEW YORK t fbening Jto^i (NEW YORK) SATURDAY ISSUE contains, in addition to its financial supplement and usual columns of current news, a number of regular features of con- stant interest to newspaper readers both in the city and coun- try. The Illustrated Evening Post Magazine With a' cover design and articles, sketch- es, a serial novel, and a short story, all with pictures; added to thess whole pages of pictures of things worth seeing in New York and out of it. current plays, fashions, and the humors of the time as they are caught by the artists of the human comedy. Pages Devoted to Literature Reviews of Books and Special Articles by men who speak with authority on matters relating to letters and authors. These are supplemented throughout the week by additional reviews of fiction, interviews with writers, excerpts from the latest books, comment on the current magazines, and miscellaneous literary matters. News of Army and Navy The Religious News Page The week's happenings of moment in both branches of the regular service, and in the National Guard of the City and State, with special articles on army and navy prospects, plans, and personnel. Comprising a more com- plete presentation of what is going on in the world of churches and religious discussion than is printed in any other New York newspaper. What Women Are Doing A page devoted to the Modern Woman's Interpretation of her part m the world's work. Part of a special programme with daily features to chronicle women's progress, as homemakers, as artists, as mothers, as business women, as civic workers. Theatrical and Musical Comment A page of theatn- .. _ cal news covering the English-speaking Stage and of musical news here and abroad gath- ered from many sources. A Chess Column written by Lasker (NEW YORK) Saturday Magazine Price 5c. By mail, $2.50 per year in advance Including the regular edition of The Evening Post. Can't be bought separately McClurg's New Catalogue of Rare & Fine Imported BOOKS Selections from the finest collection in the country Copy sent free on request A. C. McCLURG & CO. Dept. P. 218-24 S. Wabash Avenue CHICAGO PRESIDENT WILSON'S BLUMENTHAL LECTURES: Constitutional Government in the U. S. Published by the Columbia University Press $1.50 net. By mail, $1.61 "Remarkable fulfilment in his official conduct of his views of the Chief Mag- istracy of the Nation, as expressed in the Blumenthal Lectures five years ago." — New York Evening Post. January 3d, 1914. Lemcke & Buechner, Agents 30-32 W. 27th St., New York City. THE GREAT ART OIFTB0OK OF THE YEAR ART By Auguste Rodin (Translated from the French of Paul fiscll by Mrs. Romllly Fedden.) With over 100 Illustration* In photogravure and halftone. Buckram, $7 50 net; three-quarter levant, $15.00 net; carriage additional. A book which takes Its place at once as the most important art book in years. It covers practically the whole ranee of art, and abounds In memorable analyses of the works of the masters of painting and sculpture, ancient and modern. Bend for descriptive circular. Small, Mnyiutrd A Co., Publishers, Boston THE TRUTH ABOUT WOMAN By C. Gasquoine Hartley (Mrs. Walter (ialllchan) "An honest and courageous attempt to view woman . . . by the clear, search- ing light of reality."— Ellen Glasgow in the New York Times. 8vo. ?2.50 net. Postage 14 cents extra. OODD, MEAD & CO., 443 Fourth Aw.. New 1 ..rk WANTED -THE MONIST July and October, 1912 A year's subscription to The Monist will be given for these issues. OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY, VIZ South Michigan Aicnue, Chicago. Autograph Letters of Celebrities Roneht and Soil. S 5th At..N.T ESTABLISHED 1887 Pub "th f. ootoiaecTOK." *i « yt.
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IV The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2532 NEW MACMILLAN BOOKS Important Announcement The Hon. Dean C. Worcester's New Book PAST AND PRESENT THE PHILIPPINES By DEAN C. WORCESTER Secretary of the Interior, Philippine Insular Government, 1901-1913, Author of "The Philippine Islands and Their People," etc. A timely, valuable, up-to-date and authoritative work on our Southern Pacific possessions which brings home to the American people the truth as to the situation in the Archipelago. Of a special interest since the recently appointed ad- ministration has again sharply brought up the whole question of our policy with regard to the Philippines. Profusely illustrated with full page plates. Two volumes, $6.00 net. Ready in January. The Biography of Florence Nightingale By SIR E. T. COOK An exhaustive biography of one of the greatest of mod- ern women. Illustrated. 2 vols. $7.5.0 net. Theodore Roosevelt AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY Colonel Roosevelt's Own Story of His Life. The official biography of ex-President Roosevelt, and one of the most important books of recent years. Illustrated. $2.50 net. A History of Land Mammals in the Western Hemisphere By W. B. SCOTT The marvelous story of the development of American animal life from remote ages. Illustrated. $5.00 net. I The Principles of Greek Art By PERCY GARDNER, Litt. D. A work which makes clear the artistic and psycholog- ical principles incorporated in Greek art. Illustrated. $2.50 net. Politics and History By VISCOUNT MORLEY, O. M. An important new work by the Rt. Hon. John Morley, with the deep insight, widespread interest and high au- thority characteristic of this distinguished author's writ- ings. $1.00 net. The Works of Rabindranath Tagore Nobel Prizeman in Literature, 1913. Gitanjali (Song Offerings). A Collection of Prose Trans- lations made by the author from the original Bengali. $1.*0 net. The Gardener. Poems of Youth. $1.25 net. The Crescent Moon. Child Poems. Colored Illustrations. $1.25 net. Sadhana: The Realization of Life. A volume of essays. $1.25 net. Here Are Ladies By JOHN STEPHENS Another alluring book by the unique author of "The Crock of Gold," "Insurrections," etc. $1.25 net. Van Cleve By MARY S. WATTS A modern American story, inviting in the intensity of its realism. Cloth. $1.35 net. Bulwer Lytton a biography By THE EARL OF LYTTON The authorized life of this distinguished 19th century author and statesman. Illustrated. 2 vols. $7.50 net. My Life with the Eskimo By VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON A great explorer's story of discovery and daily life among the natives of the Arctic Regions. Illustrated. $4.00 net. A Woman Rice Planter By PATIENCE PENNINGTON Introduction by Owen Wister. Interesting experience! of a woman planter in South Carolina. Illustrated. $2.00 net. History of Education in Modern Times By FRANK P. GRAVES, Ph. D. With the author's "History of Education Before the Middle Ages" and "The History of Education During the Middle Ages and the Transition to Modern Times," pro- vides a continuous course on the History of Education. $1.10 net. The Facts About Shakespeare By Prof. WILLIAM ALLEN NEILSON, Ph.D. and PROF. ASHLEY HORACE THORNDIKE, L.H.D. A corrected account of Shakespeare's life, environment, work, and reputation. Regular edition. 60 cents net. Sold also uniform with sets of the Tudor Shakespeare complete in forty volumes, in box. Superior cloth, $14.00 net the set. Leather, $22.00 net the set. Each volume edited with an introduction, complete text, notes, and glossary, represents all that is best in American scholarship. Each volume of the Plays or Poems may be had separately. Leather, 55 cents net. Illustrated. 16rao. Superior cloth. 35 cents net. The Valley of the Moon By JACK LONDON One of this author's best love stories, the hero again an unforgetable type. Illustrated. $1.35 net. JUST COMPLETED "One of the great works of the Century, the most important of the Encyclopedias." A CYCLOPEDIA OF EDUCATION Edited by PAUL MONROE, Ph. D. Professor of the History of Education, Teachers College, Columbia University. With the assistance of Departmental Editors and more than One Thousand contributors. Complete in Five Big Quarto Vols. The set $25.00 net. Vol. V. POL-ZWI. JUST PUBLISHED "This Cyclopedia ought to go into every school and public library in the land, and become accessible" to every teacher and every school official, and to all others who have to do with the organization, administration, or teaching-work of our schools." — Literary Digest. PUBLISHED BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64-66 5th AVE. N. Y.
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The Nation NEW YORK. THURSDAY, JANUARY 8, 1914. The Week If any further doubts exist of the fit- 0689 of the Democratic party, and of Democrats, to rule, they will be re- moved by the test for efficiency made in the office of the Public Printer and re- corded in the New York World. Of thir- ty-one employees reduced in rank and salary by the Public Printer, just thirty- one are Republicans. Of thirty-nine em- ployees advanced in rank and salary, no less than thirty-nine are Democrats, twenty-five of them from south of Ma- son and Dixon's line. The Public Print- er refuses to give out the efficiency re- ports on the basis of which the changes have been made. This is a loss to the world; for an efficiency test that func- tions with 100 per cent, of accuracy is something we have not yet found. It is our earnest hope that President Wil- son, with the heavy portion of his pro- gramme out of the way, will turn his attention to this formidable outbreak of efficiency in the public service which manifests itself in the form of Pindell Ambassadorships, and the exemption from civil-service rules, by means of rid- er legislation, of Government positions. The virulence of the fight between factions in the Socialist party of the State of Washington is evident from the labels attached to them — the "Yellow Socialists" are arrayed against the "Red Socialists." A "yellow" orator, clearly not speaking from the tail of a cart, declared that "the contention of the 'red' faction that a man has to be crack- ed over the head with a bluecoat's billy, or occupy a berth in an obscure corner of a box-car, before he understands the needs of the working class, is all bosh." But has not the grandson of a cele- brated American poet proved that a course in penury and abuse will alone bring, by inner light, a conviction of the high justice of Socialism? Can't such a man better expound the esoteric in Comte and Bebel than any silk-stocking waiting in his library for intellectual conversion? Yet one is shocked to learn that the city offices of Seattle and Ta- coma have obscured the question of prin- ciple. A "get-together meeting" two weeks ago closed with a widened gulf, the "reds" flinging at the "yellows" the question how they reconciled sympathy for the downtrodden with an itching to reserve the city plums for pockets al- ready well lined, the "yellows" casting aspersions of the same kind on the "reds." After all, Socialists are not so different from the ordinary man when it comes to office-holding. For a genuine case of the courage of conviction, commend us to the Ameri- can Economist. In its closing issue for the year 1913 appears a column which by its extraordinary typographical dis- play must attract every eye, and which we can here but feebly reproduce in or- dinary print. Its heading is "The Tariif — Cause and Effect." Then come a se- ries of "boxes," headed Prosperity or Adversity, as the case may be, with the date of the beginning and the ending of that state of things, and finally the des- ignation of the tariff condition of the country at the time. Thus Prosperity and McKinley Protection went hand in hand from October 1, 1890, to Septem- ber 27, 1894, at which latter date Ad- versity instantly took possession of the field along with Wilson Free Trade. Many people, as we all know, felt that there was a pretty had break in the reign of Prosperity when the panic of 1893 set in, in the first half of that year; hut to any one firmly planted on the rock of protectionist conviction it is plain that this impression was a mere delusion of the senses. Bank failures, bankruptcies, railway receiverships, etc., have an ugly look, but in reality prosperity continued unbroken for some fourteen or fifteen months after the pan- ic started, and only came to an end on September 27, 1894. As for the so-called panic of 1907, it remained a mere hal- lucination from first to last, for it is safely tucked away in the Dingley Pros- perity era July 24, 1897, to August 5, 1909, which was followed by the Payne- Aldrich Prosperity era August 5, 1909, to October 3, 1913. So long as we have journalists who show such unflinching adherence to cardinal principles in the face of the worst that facts can do by way of discouragement, the country's in- | stitutions are safe. The deliberate remaking by the Ohio Reference Bureau of the recently passed Direct Legislation bill is an interesting example of expert mending of amateur- ish legislation. All the remedies propos- ed for the last summer's scandals are highly instructive as to the workings of the initiative and referendum. The principal suggestions number no less than eight, and the Governor is insis- tent that the amendments shall pass if the measure is to remain on the statute books. The perjury and forgery laws must be so broadened that false petition is a felony. No circulator of petitions may work outside his own county, and none — to exclude professionals — may collect above 200 signatures. Oath as to the genuineness of a petition must be made before the County Clerk, not a notary public. All petitions must be filed with the County Board of Elec- tions, and that body must have power to investigate the signatures. Only reg- istered electors, as by a recent Oregon reform, may sign petitions, so that the man who does not take trouble to vote is barred. Expenditures in bringing about a direct election must either be totally prohibited, or the corrupt prac- tices act be made to cover them, and circulators required to make sworn financial reports. These are broad changes, but Senator Owen, of Okla- homa, and Senator Bourne, of Oregon, testify that they are in the main essen- tial, and the Ohio press agrees that frauds have made the present measure intolerable. Critics will remark that if a deliberative and informed Assembly moves so faultily in an important mat- ter, a wide electorate ought to be more than cautious in drawing up and voting on essential laws. Justice Hughes had a forcible passage in his remarks at a dinner to Judge Cullen on Saturday night. The general tone of the speeches, as was natural enough at a gathering mainly of law- yers and judges, was that of deprecating anything like an attack upon the ju- diciary. But Judge Hughes, while abundantly sympathizing with the view that the courts must be upheld as a necessary part of our system of govern- ment, and as, on the whole, a great bulwark of justice, dwelt upon the fact
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24 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2532 that the repute of judges is largely within their own keeping. He pointed out that an able and vigilant judge of high character and great personal weight has it in his power to cut down the law's delays and ignore a lot of legal red tape and really expedite trials. English judges are all the time doing this. Ah, yes, we are told, but this is not permissible under our "system." It is a grave question, however, whether the system is so much at fault as per- sonality. If we were to adopt the Eng- lish system, yet were to go on putting poorly equipped and self-distrustful judges upon the bench, it is doubtful if we should see any decided improve ment. The report of Senator Borah on the reign of martial law in the West Vir- ginia coal strike confirms every main contention of those who brought about the Congressional investigation. With the civil courts in full operation, and without evidence that the popular bitter- ness would impair their function, the military authorities arrested, sentenced, and punished men in violation of the Constitution of the State and the nation. Even arrests made outside the zone of martial law resulted in military trial. Worst of all, penalties in excess of those permitted by law were imposed on the arbitrary ground that public intimida- tion was demanded. Certain aspects of the Governor's attempt to preserve order and stop rioting and murder by use of the militia may have been justifiable; but certainly the outline of the situation furnished by Senator Borah shows that decision upon the guilt or innocence of those charged with violence could have been, and should have been, left to judge and jury, and that in the light of the statutes. It may not be entirely regrettable in the public interest if the general method of railroad promotion and construction here employed should be found unprofitable. This unsympathetic sentence from a 16,000-word report by the Massachusetts Public Service Commission on the Hampden Railroad follows a decision by which the promoters are left many dollars out of pocket. They had asked lor authority to raise their capitaliza- tion to $3,900,000, but were allowed only $3,800,000. Whereas the company's of- fioktffl averred they have spent $4,400,- 000 in constructing the road, 14.85 miles long, in the opinion of the Commission "the reasonable and proper cost incur- red" was $3,367,789. Thus it not merely scales down the expected profits of the builders, but leaves them with an ad- mitted loss of $67,789. The Massachu- setts press notes the decision as check- ing a threatened "flagrant scandal." More instructive to the outsider is the moral warmth with which the Commis- sion actually gloats over a loss involved in extravagant and inflated construc- tion methods. A minority report indi- cates that the incident will give an im- pulse to the movement in Massachu- setts for making actual value, not cost, the basis of railway capitalization. Thrifty New England is summoned to go itself one better. It has capital- ized its summer and autumn, confesses a writer in the Boston Globe, by draw- ing visitors to "its picturesque moun- tains, its vast forests, its rocky shores and sandy beaches," so that "its mild, temperate summer of glorious sunshine has been a stream of gold pouring all over the five States." What remains to be done is to capitalize the winter as successfully. For an example, New England is pointed to Switzerland. A few years ago, it is reminded, only in- valids visited the Alps in any season except summer. But "St. Moritz awoke to the glorious possibilities of the Swiss winter. Mammoth coasting slides and skating rinks were made, and the crowds came." Now, what Switzerland has done, cannot New England do? Let her build "a double-runner slide from the top of Mt. Washington to Sebago Lake." Let her construct "a skating rink with a fine pavilion and orchestra where young and old could skate to music." As for rivals, "the South has no winter. The Western plains are bleak and dreary. Winter in Canada is like summer in the Sahara, in that it is too much of a good thing." The conclu- sion is irresistible. "It would mean mil- lions to New England." How the shiver- ing Pilgrims would have been comforted if they could only have known! It is no new criticism that Dr. Picker- ing, director of the Harvard Observa- tory, makes of the Government's policy in relation to its astronomical work. The national observatory at Washington is called the United States Naval Ob- servatory. It has always been part of the naval establishment, and its direc- tor, under the law, must be an officer of the navy. The consequence is too well known: the work of the observatory falls far short of accomplishing the results which the liberal appropriations made for it would justify the astronomical world in expecting. It seems next to impossible to get Congress to move ia the matter. The reason for this lies partly, no doubt, in the maintenance of the conventional pretence that the re- searches carried on by the observatory are called for by the interests of the navy or of navigation; a thing which is true in only an extremely small de- gree. But of course there is a more solid obstacle in the persistent cling- ing of the navy to its prescriptive privileges. It is an absurdity that this great national institution of pure science should be under the control of a series of men successively "detailed" to take charge of it as a mere episode in a naval career, instead of being directed by one of the foremost astronomers of the country, chosen for his special abil- ity in such work, and devoting his life to it. The fact that astronomy is a science in which American achievement has, from an early period in our his- tory, been of eminently distinguished character only emphasizes the anomaly of having the Government's own observ- atory work carried on under the direc- tion of amateur officials. Wisely administered, the chain of banks to make small industrial loans which Julius Rosenwald announces should help meet a pressing need. State and city legislation, protective associa- tions, and alert public prosecutors have done much in a negative way to com- bat the ubiquitous loan-shark. But posi- tive attempts to drive rapacious money- lenders from their field have been almost entirely limited to the work of institu- tions like our thirty-five "Remedial Loan Associations," which last year loaned $22,000,000 to the poor of our thirty largest cities. In spite of protec- tive legislation, wrote President Ham, of these federated associations, recently, "there can be no advance of permanent value until philanthropic citizens pro- vide sums, subject to a limited return, by which the urgent needs of wage -, ;mi- ers may be provided for." In Europe this function of issuing money to do-
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Jan. 8, 1914] The Nation 25 serving borrowers, secured by personal property, assignment of wages, or even a mere pledge, has in great part been assumed by the State. Mr. Rosenwald's scheme is founded on one originated by the present Italian Minister of Fi- nance. In France, the monts de pi6tc have been a shield of long-tried ade- (|ii;n y against extortion. The growth of the registration area for American vital statistics is slow but sure. Thus, the Census Bureau's mor- tality figures for 1912 report the low- est death-rate yet — 13.9 per 1,000 — in an ana now covering 63 per cent, of the population. Missouri, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Minnesota are among the latest States to enforce the registration of births and deaths. In 1880, when the mortality rate was 19.8 per 1,000, the registration area was 17 per cent, of the population; in 1900 the mortality rate was 16.5, while the area had risen to 37.9; in 1910 mortality had dropped to 15 per 1,000, and the registration area increased to 58.3 per cent. The connection between a growth in area of accurate statistics and the betterment of national health is narrow, but clear; one of the most potent weapons of State, city, and national sanitation must be trustworthy measures and standards of population, birth, sickness, and deaths. For this reason it is urgent that the Census Bureau and the various humani- tarian and medical agencies should suc- ceed in their endeavors to widen the field in which such figures are available. At present it includes but twenty-two States. Even great commonwealths like Illinois and Kansas have only city regu- lations on the subject. The small boy must begin to feel that a conspiracy exists against him. The latest piece of evidence is the establish- ment of a scientific test for the distinc- tion between hunger and appetite. That there is such a distinction is no news, but hitherto it has not taken a vast amount of cleverness to obscure it. Now all that the doubting parent has to do when his child asks for something to eat between meals is to have the victim swallow a small cigar-shaped rubber balloon, fitted with long rubber tubes, inflate the balloon through the tubes, and attach the latter to sensitized paper. If the muscles of the stomach grip the balloon and drive out the air, the amount of hunger is automatically reg- istered on sensitized paper, and the par- ent may act accordingly. But if noth- ing happens, then the parent knows that his doubts are justified, and that his child is not suffering from hunger, which is a sensation arising in the stomach, but is merely subject to appe- tite, which is an affection of the brain. All that he will then need to do is to explain this distinction to the child, and go back to his book. There is obviously something like a propaganda against Philippine indepen- dence now carried on in this country, and some persons are curious enough to ask what interests are behind it and are footing the bills. No one objects to fair argument on the subject. The thing is in politics, and public discussion of the Administration's plans for the Phil- ippines is fully in order. Nor need there be any suspicion of the entire sin- cerity and disinterestedness of some of those who stoutly hold to the opinion that it would be a great mistake to set up an independent Filipino government short of a generation or two hence. Ex- President Taft maintains this view, no doubt honestly, and he is quite within his rights in presenting it as forcibly as he can on every fit occasion. But quite apart from this kind of advocacy, there is evidence of an organized move- ment, with lecturers, etc., designed to create a public opinion adverse to turn- ing the Philippines over to the Fili- pinos. And in connection with the cost of this undertaking, there are unpleas- ant stories afloat about development companies and concerns engaged in ex- ploiting the resources of the islands. If they are, indeed, paying out money here so that they may be able to make a great deal more money there, their course is one that needs only to be stated to be severely condemned. Americans will have to school their lips in order to say Viscount Bryce. Probably most of them will continue to speak of James Bryce, just as they do, despite his elevation to the House of Lords, of John Morley. But that tne honor which has come to Mr. Bryce was fairly earned, not even his political op- ponents in England deny. One reason that he may have had for accepting it Is the fact that it will close those foolish English mouths which have prated about his not having been a successful Ambassador in this country. It may be, also, that a delicate compliment to the United States is intended. This could have been rendered explicit if the title had been made, in accordance with the practice in the case of Wellington and Kitchener, Lord Bryce of Washington and Baron of the American Common- wealth. A "Polterabend" dinner given by a rich family at Berlin, to which a New York newspaper thought it necessary to devote a half-column of cabled descrip- tion, brought together guests "the ag- gregate wealth of whom was estimated by one of those present at $100,000,000." But this only shows what a poverty- stricken city Berlin is. In New York it would be a poor-spirited parvenu who could not rally at his table representa- tives of at least $1,000,000,000. At a really glittering affair of the kind no one would be admitted at all if he had less than $50,000,000. Mention of that sum recalls the fact that, full forty years ago in New York, a religious edi- tor, describing a church wedding, wrote in an awed way that the group in front of the altar was worth at least $50,000,- 000. It was expected that the Almighty would be duly impressed. But nowadays the figure has gone up and it would take $500,000,000 to make much of a sensation in Heaven. The balance of power in the Balkans is threatened and the European chan- celleries are said to be disturbed by Turkey's attempt to purchase a fifteen- million-dollar Dreadnought now build- ing in an English shipyard for the Bra- zilian Government. Because Turkey's plan for regaining her lost islands is so simple it may be assumed that it will not be allowed to come to pass. The Powers may find it necessary to lay an embargo on such sudden acquisitions of naval material by small nations in time of peace. On the part of Brazil and Ar- gentina, such action would be received with vehement protest. Speculation in Dreadnought futures seems to be a well-established business with these South American republics, which always have a ship or two on the point of com- pletion and are always ready to sell for a fair price to a Government hard beset.
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26 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2532 TRANSCENDENTAL FOREIGN POLI- TICS. There is a story of a man asking af- ter a friend of his youth, and expressing surprise that he had not gone far in public life, because, he added, "when I knew him as an undergraduate in col- lege he was a great expert in foreign politics." One knows the callow type. The expertness consists in remaking the map of Europe at will, in launching navies and armies at each other, and, in general, in working out the concep- tions of destiny and historical inevita- bleness and race-clashings and world movements which form themselves in the imagination of a young man, possi- bly a little touched in the head. But a similar tendency is sometimes met with in children of a larger growth. Men much better entitled than a college stu- dent to be known as experts in foreign politics occasionally allow their brood- ing over possible complications to be- tray them into an unreal and almost fantastic treatment of their subject. The whole thing becomes to them transcen- dental— something in which pure theory may operate. In their absorption in study of the weapons and potential fight- ing power of nations they forget the men and women of flesh and blood who make up the nation. Of this weakness in a certain class of writers and publicists we are just now having instructive examples, both in this country and in Europe. In England, for example, the question of the great burden of taxation for increasing arma- ment is becoming acute. It is getting into politics. A large delegation of Lib- erals recently waited upon the Prime Minister to protest against any enlarge- ment of the naval estimates. And Lloyd George, with his instinct for discovering what the plain working-people of the land are thinking about, has lifted up his voice against spending more money on battleships. Now, this is the junc- ture which Admiral Mahan seizes for putting before the British public his conviction that the British navy is alarmingly weak. It is not possible to follow his reasoning, in the fragment- ary reports of it given by telegraph. But we would not make light of it. Whatever Admiral Mahan writes Is pret- ty sure to be worth serious attention. If he asserts that the British navy is not strong enough to be dominant both in home waters and in the Mediterra- nean, he no doubt can give reasons for that opinion. But the point is that he expresses himself merely as an abstract student of naval power. He discusses not likelihoods but possibilities. His writing is that of a transcendental phil- osopher. It will interest theorists; but whether it should much influence Eng- lish statesmen saturated in the facts of the situation at home and abroad, aware of the failure of past naval prophecies, and conscious of the intense strain caused by excessive Dreadnought-build- ing, is highly doubtful. In connection with our own Mexican problem there has lately been a start- ing up of the high-priori theorizers. At their head stands the London Spectator, which draws a fancy picture of the United States conquering and annex- ing Mexico and extending American jurisdiction all the way from Canada to the Panama Canal. Such articles have a way of appearing in the Spectator, which is, as a rule, sober and learned, but now and then seems to find re- straint irksome and gives its imagina- tion a fling. This is easier in foreign politics than anywhere else; and ac- cordingly we get apocalyptic visions of vast reshiftings in the Orient, sweep- ing readjustments in Europe, and now this dream of the United States taking over Mexico with ease — we seem to re- member that the Spectator had pre- viously said that we should need an army of 500,000 men and several years' time — and instantly bringing about order and settled government. A few other visionaries almost as sanguine are appearing among the persons with whom the New York Sun is obtaining interviews on the subject of our possi- ble armed intervention in Mexico; though most of the opinions gathered are strongly against any hasty step in that direction. It is notable that nearly all those who favor aggressive military action towards Mexico do so with their mouths filled with large phrases about civilization and race-qualities and the book of fate. Sentiment has before now joined with sordid interests to bring war or the peril of war. Now, we do not affirm that all this transcendental way of looking at the matter is pure folly. Some of the con- siderations advanced may yet appear to have weight. But what seems perfectly clear to us is that the present is no time for our statesmen to be rhapsodizing about world-movements and race-strug- gles, or to be speculating dreamily on how their policies will look a hundred years from now. Their problem is of the day. What they should fix their gaze upon is the facts as these actually exist. If this makes their course seem a little grandiose, so be it. They need not stand in fear of criticism if they only keep the peace, while seeing to it that our national obligations are honorably met. This policy will be called hand-to- mouth and rule of thumb, but no mat- ter for that. It is better to be cautious, to advance step by step, and to deal with each situation as it arises, than to run blindly off with some swelling phrase of vanity, some formula of Weltpolitik, which may land us in un- foreseeable miseries. It may not be mag- nificent, but it is common-sense to wait and watch and hope for a better turn in Mexican affairs. THE MORGAN ANNOUNCEMENT. Mr. J. P. Morgan, in announcing Fri- day his firm's decision to withdraw from the corporation directorships now held by members of the firm, admitted that the action was taken largely in defer- ence to public sentiment. He referred to the undoubted mistrust with which the general public has come to look on representation by a few great banking institutions, on the boards of the great railway and industrial companies, so ex- tensive as to suggest the possibility of uniform domination or control. This popular dislike must be admitted to have taken at times a highly exaggerat- ed form. Public men like Senator La Follette, not being content with point- ing out visible or potential evil arising from the practice, have allowed a vivid Imagination so far to run away with them as to conjure up a financial or- ganism of their own, peopled by wicked spirits who, in the Senator's own words, can "create artificially periods of pros- perity and periods of panic." The Congressional "Money Trust de- bate" of 1912 was full of such strange conceits and superstitions. But the Money Trust crusade was never 1 1 not a movement without a cause, and the cause lay in company management and affiliations, concerning which even conservative and cool-headed ob: confessed misgiving.
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Jan. 8, 1914] The JSTation 27 The danger in the system did not lie primarily in what was done through these so-called "interlocking director- ates,'' and nothing is more certain than that the allegations of malicious con- spiracy, put forth by the La Follettes and the Lindberghs, were mere raving. But a condition was created by this machinery of representation, on two or three dozen boards, by a few great banking interests, which had the po- tentiality of undoubted danger. For such a statement we do not need to rely on the arguments even of hostile crit- ics. It was one of the most powerful financiers who shared in this distribu- tion of control from whom the Pujo Committee w-as informed that "excess of power in a limited number of men is always a menace," and it was another, the head of a great New York financial institution, who told the same Commit- tee that "it has gone far enough," and that while in good hands the system might do no harm, "if it got into bad hands, it would be very bad." But the truth also was that the ma- chinery which had been constructed was of a kind which its own authors were themselves scarcely able to con- trol. That is to say, they might, as Mr. Baker did, deprecate further extension of its scope; but they were neverthe- less swept along with it. Its extension seemed to be carried on, despite their own willingness to let the movement stop where it was. It probably could not have been stopped, except either by absolute force of prohibitory law or by such outright abandonment of the sys- tem which made the movement possible, as has been formally announced, in his own firm's behalf, by Mr. Morgan. Such financial episodes as that which now seems to be somewhere near its end do not occur accidentally; but, on the other hand, they are by no means always the result of deliberate design. The much-discussed Money Power, in the shape of representation of a few great banking interests on the boards of all the great corporations, was primar- ily an outcome of the period from 1893 to 1897, when the country's largest rail- way and industrial companies had gone into insolvency and when the task of setting them on their feet again devolv- ed on the international banking inter- ests. That those interests should be personally represented on the boards of the companies, pending their financial rehabilitation, was a condition positive- ly fixed by the capital, home and for- eign, which was needed for the under- taking and without which it was not possible. To an extent, similar representation on the boards of the huge railway and industrial combinations of a few years later was stipulated by the capitalists who "underwrote" the stock. But it is hardly possible to deny, as a simple his- torical fact, that in the turmoil of financial ideas which then prevailed the original purpose of such director- ships— the guaranteeing of sound and conservative policies, as against the recklessness and incompetency which had previously prevailed — was quite lost sight of, in the new conception of com- panies with perpetual directorates, so manned as to prevent either change of control or inconvenient competition. The people have been pretty steadily occupied, ever since 1901, in doing away with the theories which grew up then with such portentous suddenness. The Northern Securities decision stopped the progress of the movement through the "holding company" device. It seems to be the spirit of the day to solve the later problems, inherited from the period of financial infatuation, through frank recognition of, and con- cession to, the public's attitude by the financial interests themselves. In this respect, the action, taken with much dignity and straightforwardness by Messrs. J. P. Morgan & Co., is as im- pressive a sign of the times as last month's voluntary dismantling of the Telephone and Telegraph combination. THE LIFE EXTENSION INSTITUTE. In a brief prospectus, the Life Exten- sion Institute, just incorporated in New York, sets forth its object, its plan of operation, the personnel of its organiza- tion, and the prospects of usefulness which its founders see before them. The object is "to lengthen life by apply- ing modern science." The means by which this object is to be promoted are of twofold character. The Institute has "a Hygiene Reference Board of nearly a hundred leading experts on various sub- jects pertaining to health," the purpose of which is "to help determine the truth on hygienic questions referred to it"; and the Board "will aim ultimately to settle scientifically, so far as possible, the many disputed questions of personal hygiene" and will endeavor with "the co- operation of savants throughout the world to solve such fundamental pro- blems as how best to ventilate our hous- es and how best to clothe and feed our bodies." The distinctive feature of the Institute, however, is its system of health-inspection of individuals, which is set forth as follows: The method to be used to prolong life is very simple and the same as applied to ordinary machinery — inspection and re- pairs. Any person, whether a policyhold- er in a company which employs the In- stitute or as an outside individual, may have an expert examination made of his physical condition. If he is entitled to the examination as a policyholder, he has it without cost to himself. After the human machine has been in- spected, the individual will be advised to see his family physician, who will be fur- nished a full statement of the results of the examination— high blood pressure, or what- ever the disability or disabilities may be. Thus the Institute is designed to be a self-supporting business enterprise; but two-thirds of any profit there may be above 5 per cent, on the capital invested is to be applied to "extending its pub- lic usefulness." Finally, the names of the men prominent in the organization are such as to offer strong warrant for the expectation that its work will be car- ried on upon a high plane. Among them we note ex-President Taft, Col. Gorgas, Dr. William H. Welch, Prof. Irving Fish- er, and others of national and interna- tional eminence. Mr. E. E. Rittenhouse, whose devotion to work of this nature in connection with the Equitable Life and the Provident Savings is well known, will be president of the Insti- tute. That such a provision for competent medical examination of individuals, at little or no cost to the person examin- ed, is capable of doing a vast amount of good will hardly be questioned. The early discovery of slight impairments, which would induce the man involved to consult his doctor before it is too late, cannot fail, in thousands of cases, to avert developments which, in default of such timely knowledge, result in dis- disability, and premature death. But it will not do to ignore the objec- tions to a general resort to the practice, from the standpoint of physical health, pure and simple. So long as there is selection — so long as only those go to the medical examiner who person-
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28 The JSTation [Vol. 98, No. 2532 ally feel that it is advisable for them to do so — the benefit doubtless vastly out- weighs the harm; but there is room for harm as well as good. There is, to be- gin with, the danger of a false diagnosis — and diagnoses may be mischievously false in degree even when they are right in kind — which is far from being a negligible quantity; but even if the diagnosis is perfect, it is by no means certain that imparting of it will be of physical benefit to the person examined. The knowledge of a slight "impair- ment" may, through its psychic effect, do the individual vastly more bodily harm than the measures prescribed by his physician will do good. We believe that it is distinctly an open question whether the introduction of yearly med- ical examination as a universal prac- tice would increase the average term of human life. Nor will it do to look upon a ques- tion of this kind as conclusively deter- mined by its physical results. Even if it were demonstrated beyond a doubt that the average length of human life would be increased by the universal practice of periodical medical examina- tion, it would still remain a question whether the establishment of that prac- tice was desirable. There is such a thing as paying too dear for a few add- ed years of life. A hearty man who goes about his work and his play, his duties and ambitions and pleasures, without a thought of his health, may, through having this or that unsuspected danger thrust upon his attention, suffer an im- pairment of happiness, and even of use- fulness, for which no mere prolongation of existence, and no ordinary improve- ment of physical health, can supply a recompense. In this matter, men pre- sent an infinite variety. There was a world of wisdom as well as of wit in the reply of the old lady to a great hygienic expert who wrote to ask her how she accounted for living to the age of a hundred. "Account for it," she said, "what nonsense! I have done just as I pleased, and the Lord has kept me alive." By an odd coincidence there appeared in one of the New York papers on the same day with the publication of the prospectus the announcement of a forth- coming article by a physician, long con- nected with the Health Board, who "be- lieves that Institutes to examine each citizen annually should be established. Whether Dr. Biggs's idea is that such examination should be obligatory we cannot say, but the use of the word "citizen" seems to look that way. The truth is that there are a number of 'movements" in our day that point to the kind of control of personal life of which such a proposal would be an illus- tration. Compulsory vaccination and other sanitary regulations stand in an entirely different category; they are measures for the protection of the pub- lic health or the maintenance of such standards of living as are indispensable to decency or civilization. But that a man should be compelled to have the condition of his own health officially in- vestigated in order to prevent a possible shortening of his own life would be an intolerable invasion of reasonable per- sonal liberty. There is no danger that anything of the kind will be attempted in the near future, but there is no tell- ing to what a point the fanaticism of race culture — or whatever the particu- lar cant may be that fits this case — may be carried. A GREAT PHYSICIAN. It is because he combined with a great career as a physician the production of a notable series of works in prose and verse that the death of Dr. S. Weir Mitchell attracts such general attention throughout the country. But if he had never published a story or a poem, his name, though it would have been on far fewer tongues, would be hardly less deserving of a place of extraordinary honor and distinction. In this day of systematic and organized research, making almost daily advances in the science and art of medicine, the type of which he was one of the finest examples is overshadowed by another from which mankind is receiving measureless bene- fits and to which it owes unstinted praise. But the time has not come, the time never will come, when personal qualities of mind and heart and charac- ter like those of Dr. Mitchell can lose their priceless value or cease to com- mand the affection and homage which are their due. After scientific research has done its utmost, there will still re- main the need for that peculiar intui- tion which is the mark of the born phy- sician, and for that combination of sympathy and force, of careful thought and unflinching will, which are essen- tial to the highest work of the great practitioner. And in no field of medi- cine are these qualities of more vital importance than in that of nervous dis- eases, to which nearly the whole of Dr. Mitchell's life was devoted. It would be misleading, however, to think of Dr. Mitchell as in any sense representative of a contrast between the type of the research student and the type of the practitioner. On the con- trary, the foundation of his medical rep- utation was laid in several remarkable and original investigations which he made early in his career; investigations not belonging to the domain which he afterwards made his specialty. Nor in this domain was his work only that of the able and devoted physician bring- ing succor to thousands of individuals whose cases had baffled the efforts of less gifted or less masterful practition- ers; for it was the originality of his methods as well as the power with which he applied them that constituted the dis- tinction of his practice. But in research, and in the initiation of new methods, he was but one of a multitude; it was in the qualities of his personality that he stood as one of an extremely small group, the representative of a type which must ever be rare but without which the world would be infinitely poorer. In quite a different way, but perhaps even more strikingly, the pow- er of sheer personal qualities is illus- trated by another American medical ca- reer, that of Dr. Osier. It was to his rare gifts of intuition, sympathy, judgment, and personal charm, rather than to any extraordinary scientific equipment, that he owed his preeminence as a med- ical consultant; and the powerful influ- ence which he exerted on the progress of medical education in America was due, above all, to the enthusiasm and loyalty he inspired in those with whom he was associated, and especially in his students. Dr. Mitchell's literary achievements did not, like Dr. Holmes's, put his medi- cal fame into the shade. This is both because his medical work was of more signal importance and continued to the last to absorb his energies except dur- ing his professional vacations, and be- cause his literary productions in prose and verse, though of a high order of merit, do not possess the distinction or excellence which place Dr. Holmes's
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Jan. 8, 1914J T li e 1ST a t i o 11 29 works among the chief treasures of American literature. But in the case of neither of these eminent medical men was the turning to literary production in middle life an accident. In botli cases the talent and the desire for writ- ing manifested itself in short but strik- ing productions in early manhood. In both cases a fuller indulgence of that de- sire was postponi (1 lor many years. But Dr. Mitchell continued to be chiefly ab Bdfbed in the exhausting labors of his strenuous practice; while Dr. Holmes, after the phenomenal impression made by the Autocrat, became chiefly a man of letters. In both instances we have illustrated, what it is always a great pleasure to see, the combination of liter- ary talent with the acuteness and pre- cision of the scientific temperament. That the combination is not so unusual as is generally believed the jeux d'esprit of a number of great scientists — Clerk Maxwell, for example — bear witness. Dr. Mitchell was the last of a group of three Philadelphians, of nearly the same age, who, each in his own department, occupied a position of peculiar emi- nence. He was born in 1829; Henry C. Lea, who died four years ago, was born four years earlier, and Horace Howard Furness, who died in 1912, was born four years later than Mitchell. The three men were warm friends, and it is not many cities that can boast of a trio of old men at once so distinguished and possessed of such admirable and delight- ful traits of character. Different as were their fields of activity, there was one thing common to them all, besides their high aims and their interest in hu- manity. They were all three filled with the spirit of scholarship, and represent- ed its finest traditions. If there is growing up in Philadelphia a group of men who in their old age will be wor- thy of being classed with these three whom she has recently lost, she is for- tunate above most of her sisters. DIALECTS ENGLISH AND AMERI- CAN. To the recent British lament over the decay of the so-called popular tongue, the first pamphlet of the new Society for Pure English adds its voice. After outlining the Society's hope "to assist conscientiously in the development of English," it lays down certain prelim- inary principles. These chiefly look to a restoration of the old popular sense for native expression — for a speech rich in localism, dialectic raciness, natural- ness in idiom and diction. Recital of the fact that in Cornish, Sussex, North- umbrian, and the other dialects is the land's real reservoir of fresh, energetic English and its best mint of new words is not new; and the statement that they are the last refuge, in their vowel sounds and syllabic rhythm, from the current slurred pronunciation, only re- flects Dr. Bridges's long-familiar views. But the pamphlet falls in with a gener- al concern over the drying-up of the sturdy vernacular, and its encrusting by an artificial, town-bred speech. Cor- respondents have lately gone into re- mote districts, only to ascertain sadly that "journalese" had thrown a mortal dart at dialects once as vital as in Eliot's Lancashire rustics, or Scott's lowlanders, or the Devon of Blackmore, or Wessex of Hardy. Some tributes paid to the indigenous tongues are only less extravagant than Yeats's claim for the unpolluted speech of the Irish peasant. To maintain that our American pro- blem of preserving dialects is equally im- portant would be absurd. Diffused edu- cation and currents of democratic thought have hindered the birth of true dialects on our soil, as the migratory habits of our population have refused them sustenance. So, too, the growing dominance of urban life has worked against them. Our local colorists have reflected in fiction dozens of distinct forms of dialect, but rather by accentu- ating the extreme individuality of New England, or the South, or the Far West, than by faithfully reproducing the ver- nacular of even the most rural commu- nity. Any American understands any of our dialect writers, while he would be gravelled by the first line of modern Cheshire or Kentish or Norfolk. Our fiction does, however, indicate popular forms of speech, nowadays much en- dangered. The Government has report- ed the inroads made by the moonlight schools of Kentucky upon the sturdy negligence of the mountain tongue. The picturesque acridity of New England speech, now swamped by foreigners, was vitally distinct from the broad humor of prairie diction, now fast being urban- ized; the explosive West of Bret Harte has been civilized to a degree; even In the South, the old Creole-land and the old Virginia are becoming traditional. That these lines of cleavage represent- ed a native vigor is beyond question. The chief agents in their destruction are the schoolmaster and the newspaper abroad. The newspapers could not be written in the style of Sir Thomas Browne or De Quincey, even if such writers were available; but it is untor- tunate that they and other agencies are making current a standardized speech that is driving idiomatic coin out of even remote circulation. Such idiom smacks of the soil. Wed- ded to localities, its preservation seems, in theory, feasible. The life of every section is reflected in its speech. In glory of cadence no American dialect equals "The Shadow of the Glen" or "Riders to the Sea." But we have a storehouse on which we can never af- ford to turn the key. Take a lower-Mis- sissippi sentence that Clemens might have copied: "There's been a fray on the river — I don't know how the frac- tion began, but Dan and Bill feathered into the Joneses with their rifles." Agin- court bowmen would have understood "feathered into." In the tongue of the Appalachians storm is tempest, gay is gamesome, strong is sur-vigorous, the air is the element, agriculture is tilth and husbandry, medicine is physick. The people speak in metaphor as read- ily as the Tudors. One can hear in the Great Smokies, as in Marlowe, of cow- ards whose blood is snow-broth and he- roes bold as brass. To become ashamed of speech with a colloquial flavor is to become ashamed of the very speech that has primitive thews and muscles. To read the country conversations of that random walker, Clifton Johnson, in his Highways and Byways Series, and compare the shrewd point of talk in "unprogressive" with the stilted flatness of "progressive" localities, is as instruc- tive as to compare the Lincoln-Douglas debates with present-day Congressional oratory. The homespun language has a past; in it beats the heart of deep feeling, and its sayings and phrases have a race-old distillation of wisdom. FUN IN LATIN. The scholars of Westminster in Lon- don have been In the habit of giving an original Latin play every year, of the nature of a "review." That is to say, the chief events of the past twelvemonth.
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30 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2532 political and social, are made the sub- ject of skits and jokes in Latin verse. This year's performance, which was so successful that it was given three times, had a great many amusing grinds on persons in public life, with witticisms about current fads in society. When one says that all this is good fun-making, al- lowance has to be made for the peculiar titillation which always comes from catching the point of a joke in a foreign language. And a special humor, of this derived sort, seems to lie in the fact that gibes at Lloyd George and jests at Lar- kin and puns and sly allusions at the expense of fashionable folk are found in school-boy elegiacs. In the play, Davus, a "Misaristocrat," is easily recognizable as the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He and Simo, plain- ly Sir Rufus Isaacs, are discovered at table, drinking healths to "Marcone" and to a colleague absent "in urbe Bogota." This was Lord Murray, of course, whose absence in Colombia at the time of the Marconi inquiry was much remarked upon. To his health Davus drinks en- thusiastically, with the hope that it will be a long time before he gets back: Absent! socio! longa sit usque via! Presently Chremes comes in, the "plebis turbator Hibernae," and excitedly demands how they dared put him in jail. But Lloyd George reminds Larkin that he is there a free man, and Sir Rufus Isaacs points him to the new in- scription over the prison door: "Who enters here leaves fear behind." And a bystander adds the comment that Lar- kin got out more quickly than he got in: Kxltus hinc citior quam datur introitus. But Larkin Chremes declares that he must go on with his "fiery cross" (ignea crux), whereupon Sir Rufus warns him that he will himself be burned by it, if he is not careful. At this point news comes that the Lord Chancellor has re- signed, and Sir Rufus says that he is willing to accept the office. Lloyd George asks him, doubtfully, if he Is able to pronounce the judgment of Paris, whereupon Charinus enters, a "Chame- leon Authority on Dress," and Davus exclaims: "Atque eccum Paris Ipse!" After this the fun Is diverted to suf- fragists and modern costumes and dances. Lesbia appears with a slit skirt, and Sir Rufus offers to aid her, it being apparent to him that she had "torn something" in getting out of her "Teu- tonic chariot" (query, automobile?). But Davus cries out to him: U asiue! hunc mulier fert hodierna modum. To add to the confusion, a dancer comes in and makes advances to Larkin, who cries out upon the "Gallican" and pro- tests angrily: Nil ego tango te; ne tu me tange. The samples given will suffice. But the enterprise of making a Latin play as snappy and "topical" and up-to-date as a French "revue" deserves a word of comment by itself. It might be thought to prove that Latin is not so dead a language, in every sense of the term, as has been asserted. To make it a ve- hicle for jokes of the day would seem to show that it is very much alive. And it is not merely a question of the stu- dents, who perhaps laboriously wrote and learned their parts, but of the audi- tors. If the hall could be three times filled with an audience quick to see and applaud each thrust, are we right in thinking that the habit of Latin quo- tation has so nearly gone out because there is nobody left to understand it? For our part, we should greatly like, if we honestly could, to draw comfort for the lovers of the classics from this West- minster play; but truth compels us to state that every one who attends the per- formance is furnished with an English translation, and also with a sort of lit- tle "book of the play" giving the gist of it. This seems like a dashing of the last hope, yet it must not be forgotten that many a good Latin scholar, judg- ed by modern standards, cannot easily understand the language when it is spoken, or speak it himself. A tongue that is taught as "dead" inevitably be- comes dead in this sense. And so it is, as the London Times remarks, that a "great instrument has been lost, which should have continued to be, as it was throughout the Middle Ages, the com- mon means of understanding and fel- lowship for all educated men." THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSO- CIATION. Hanovek, N. H., January 2. Charleston, S. C, was the historic town chosen for the twenty-ninth meet- ing of the American Historical Asso- ciation, beginning December 29. The four-score members who went by special train from New York enjoyed on the way a morning's visit at Richmond; in the afternoon, at Petersburg, they were whirled out by automobile to the scenes of the great conflict about that town; standing on the edge of "The Crater," as the peaceful rays of the descending sun fell through the trees, they listened to the picturesque narrative of a veter- an who had lived through that calam- itous day. At Charleston, likewise, the historic houses, the visit to Fort Sum- ter, and the military papers read at the meeting were vivid reminders of the past. At Columbia, where a final ses- sion was held, the members of the Asso- ciation, as guests of the Board of Trade, greatly enjoyed a luncheon and an auto- mobile view of the growing city and its thriving cotton mills. A notable feature of the Charleston meeting, aside from the prominence of American history on the programme, and aside from the pleasant Southern flavor lent by the locality, was the devo- tion of many discussions to subjects other than the old-fashioned strictly po- litical sort of history — to special confer- ences on religious, commercial, military, legal, and social and industrial history. These special conferences emphasized the breadth and many-sidedness of pres- ent historical study among the members of the Association. A word or two in •egard to these. The study of American religious his- tory was commended by Professor Jam- eson to laymen, especially in view of the fact that the management of church affairs in America has been so much more in the hands of laymen than in Europe. He also urged that the vari- ous denominations, especially the Cath- olics and the Protestants, should try for a fuller and more sympathetic under- standing of each other's history in America. M. W. Jernegan, of Chicago, on the basis of a careful study of let- ters from American missionaries, ana- lyzed the un-Christian manner in which the early Christian colonists treated their slaves. J. S. Bassett, of Smith, dealing with the development of popu- lar churches after the Revolution, shed a light on the heroism of the little pio- neer churches as they pushed out on the frontier. A large attendance evidenced much interest in the conference on Social and Industrial Aspects of Modern History. W. P. Hall, of Princeton, in a paper pleasing in style and sound in content, explained how laissez-faire doctrines in English politics broke down in the early nineteenth century under the influence of factory legislation, Malthusianism, trade-unionism, and Owenism. James Sullivan, of the Boys' High School in Brooklyn, gave an amusing account of the Inadequacy of most of our history textbooks— of their failure to Int pupils because tliey contain too man] dry political and military farts Which have QO direct relation to the pupil's every-day experiences and tralnlc
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Jan. 8, 1914] The Nation 31 practical life. He succeeded in stirring up a vigorous discussion, of which tUe upshot seemed to be that political his- tory must be retained as the backbone of history; that some greater emphasis may profitably be given to the social and industrial side of history, especially for the period since the great economic changes wrought by the Industrial Rev- olution; but that historians must be careful not to draw, nor allow their students to draw, analogies between the past and the present, which at first Bight seem attractive and interesting, but which, upon careful investigation, may prove to be wholly fallacious. Teachers interested in present economic forces must be careful not to fall into the unhistorical pitfall of reading twen- tieth-century motives into fifteenth-cen- tury men. To one who thinks that the present enthusiasm for socializing and industrializing history Is excessive and unstable, it was noticeable that the en- thusiasts denied their faith by their works. For the next morning, when C. M. Andrews, of Yale, read a careful pa- per on colonial commerce, none of them was present; they were either in the overcrowded room below, listening to excellent papers on the much-abused subject of military history, or at a con- ference on methods of teaching, or else- where. Yet Professor Andrews was analyzing, out of his abundant know- ledge of colonial manuscript material on both sides of the Atlantic, the exports and imports, the trade routes, and the resultant social and industrial aspects of colonial life two centuries ago. In an entertaining paper on "Legal Materials as Sources for Modern Eng- lish History" A. L. Cross, of Michigan, indicated how rich for the general in- vestigator of modern English history, as well as for the historian of the Eng- lish law, are the records of the cases decided in the common-law courts, the rolls of quarter sessions, and the rec- ords of manorial courts. Some of the latter existed into the nineteenth cen- tury, even such a great city as Man- chester, for instance, being under the jurisdiction of a manorial court until 1846, when the corporation of the city bought out the rights of the lord of the manor for £200,000. In the conference on the teaching of history, out of a discussion by F. L. Paxon, James Sullivan, H. D. Foster, and others, there grew a resolution look- ing towards the cooperation of the American Historical Association with the local associations of history teach- ers for defining the content of the fields of history in the secondary schools. In the presence of a large evening audience the president of the South Car- olina Historical Society, Mr. J. W. Barn- well, gave an eloquent address in which he touched the high places of South Carolina history. Professor Dunning's presidential address, which followed, was, as one would expect, charmingly witty, keen, and convincing. Disguis- ing his subject as "Truth in History," he showed how the critical scholarship of the nineteenth century since Nie- buhr has destroyed the legends and myths of ancient Roman history, and how yet it was this legendary "untrue" history which influenced the motives of the makers of history from Dante and Machiavelli to Luther and Mon- tesquieu. It was not the actual events at Ems, of which we now know the truth, but the untrue version of them, which occasioned the Franco-Prussian War. "The course of human history is no more influenced by what is true than by what is supposed to be true." For- tunately, Professor Dunning's address is appearing in the current number of the American Historical Review, where its reading is commended to all, and especially to those who believe in the economic, the geographical, or other "sundrylogical" interpretations of his- tory. Space will fail if we tell of many oth- er excellent papers, of the archivists and the local historical societies, and of the business meeting, with its discussion of the system of electing officers. Suffice it to say G. L. Burr becomes second vice- president to follow A. C. McLaughlin and H. Morse Stephens in regular succes- sion to the presidency. Evarts B. Greene, of the University of Illinois, becomes secretary of the Council in the place of C. H. Haskins, who has resigned. The regular December meeting of 1914 will be at Chicago; that of 1915, at Washing- ton, with an extra meeting on the Pa- sific Coast in the summer of 1915, and that of 1916 probably at Cincinnati. S. B. F. THE SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL LITER- ATURE AND EXEGESIS. New York City, Dec. 31, 1913. The annual meeting of the Society, held on Monday and Tuesday, December 29 and 30, was the most successful in its history, by virtue both of the large attendance of members and of the number of papers announced in the meetings. The host of the Society this year was the Jewish Theological Sem- inary, in the admirably equipped build- ing of which institution the meetings were held, as was also the dinner on Monday evening, tendered by the au- thorities of the Seminary to the mem- bers of the Society. The dinner brought more than sixty members of the Soci- ety together and gave an opportunity for pleasant social intercourse. A brief address of welcome was made by Presi- dent Schecther, of the Seminary; and two distinguished visitors, Professor Dobschiitz, of the University of Heidel- berg, who is the exchange professor at Harvard University this winter, and Prof. Arthur Ungnad, who is at present filling the chair of Assyriology at the University of Pennsylvania, were called upon for brief addresses. Both scholars emphasized the pleasure that it gave them to witness the present activity of American scholarship in so many fields. At the first session of the Society on Monday afternoon, after the routine bus- iness had been dispatched, Prof. George A. Barton, of Bryn Mawr College, deliv- ered the presidential address, which was devoted to a survey of the literature during the past year in both Old and New Testament, as well as in Biblical archaeology and some adjacent fields. Professor Barton emphasized the grow- ing tendency both in Old and New Testa- ment fields towards agreement on large essential questions of literary criticism, together with a frank recognition on the part of the more careful scholars of the existence of problems not yet ripe for a solution. At the same time Professor Barton condemned in no uncertain terms the endeavors made in some quarters to raise a doubt as to the foun- dations of modern Biblical criticism. Re- ferring to the recent effective answer given to critics of the modern school by Principal Skinner, of Cambridge Uni- versity, Professor Barton added as his own contribution the proof that the at- tacks upon modern scholars rested on a misconception. The critical theory, he insisted, is not in any way affected eith- er by the circumstance that it has not yet succeeded in solving all the pro- blems of Old and New Testament study or by lack of agreement among schol- ars in regard to questions of detail. Frofessor Barton also paid his respects to those who in misguided zeal use "Biblical archaeology" as a weapon of attack against critical scholars. He showed that this kind of Biblical ar- chaeology was entirely unscientific and either misapplied or misunderstood the real bearings of excavations and other phases of archaeological study. No less than thirty-five papers were announced in the printed programme, to which number several more were add- ed after the meetings had begun. It was impossible for all the papers to be read in the three sessions arranged for. A compromise was effected by curtailing the time allotted for the reading of the papers and limiting those who had an- nounced several papers to reading only one. If the activity of the Society con- tinues to grow in the same proportion as during the past few years it will be necessary to arrange for one or two ad- ditional sessions. As on former occa- sions, there was a preponderance of pa- pers in the field of Old Testament study over those in the New Testament. In- deed, this time the number of New Testament papers was so small, barely a half-dozen, that one is tempted to
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32 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2532 ask the question, What is the matter with the New Testament scholars in this country? Are they so much occu- pied with teaching and routine duties as not to find time for investigation, or is the small showing of New Testament scholarship at the meetings of the So- ciety due to timidity, or to other causes? To be sure, what the New Testament pa- pers lacked in numbers was made up by the quality, though all but one or two of these papers were of too technical a character to be reported here. Professor Bacon, in a brief abstract of his paper on "Jesus as the Suffering Servant in Paul," remarked upon the fact that there appeared to be scarce- ly any appeal in New Testament writ- ings to the famous 53d chapter of Isaiah. Professor Torrey, of Yale University, placed convincing evidence before the members for his thesis that the Book of Acts reverts to a Semitic source, and that this source was in all probability Aramaic. Of the papers relating to the Old Tes- tament the same general remark ap- plies as to those in the New Testament field, namely, that the majority were of a technical character; some of them, in- deed, technical to a superlative degree. Of most general interest was the ad- dress by Prof. Warren J. Moulton, of Bangor, Me., giving an account of the year spent by him in Palestine as the director of the American School of Archaeology at Jerusalem. Professor Moulton made no less than five different tours with the students of the school in Palestine and Egypt, and was fortu- nate enough to discover an exceedingly interesting painted tomb, at Bet Dschibrin, which, while dating from the Christian period, contained many sym- bolical representations that were clearly survivals of an earlier age. Such painted tombs are quite rare in Pales- tine, and the one found by Professor Moulton forms a valuable complement to a still finer specimen discovered a number of years ago by Professor Thiersch, of Munich, and Dr. Peters, of New York. One of the most important announce- ments made at the meeting, though not bearing directly on Biblical studies, was by Professor Clay, of Yale University, who was fortunate enough to come into possession recently of a fragment of a cuneiform tablet which proved to be part of the Sumerian original (or proto- type, as Professor Clay calls it) of the famous Code of Hammurapi. It was known that this Code, the Babylonian text of which was discovered in 1900, was a translation from the Sumerian, and it is of great interest now to find portions of the original language of the Code turning up through dealers in an- tiquities. An unusually Interesting communica- tion was that presented by Prof. Nathan- iel Schmidt, of Cornell University, on the Sins of Jezebel, which showed con- clusively that the accounts of this queen in the Book of Kings represented in part distorted facts and in part in- volved such incredible assumptions as to reveal their late origin; the purpose was to reflect on the character of the wife of Ahab, who as a foreigner was not looked upon with favor by the pious compilers of later days. Another paper of real value was that by Professor Friedlander, of the Jew- ish Theological Seminary, who, on the basis of a plausible interpreta- tion of Jeremiah iii, 16, sets forth new reasons for believing that the Ark of the Covenant actually disappeared at the time of the destruction of the Temple in 586 b. c, and that at the time of the catastrophe it was thrown or placed in the chamber in which the wood for the temple sacrifices was kept. An interesting feature in connection with the meeting was the exhibition of manuscripts and early Hebrew prints in the upper floor of the building of the Jewish Theological Seminary. This col- lection was merely a sample of the rich treasures acquired by the Seminary dur- ing the less than two decades of its ex- istence. Among the 141 specimens dis- played there were such treasures as a copy of the Genoa edition of the Psalms, of 1516, in Hebrew, Greek, Arabic, and Aramaic, with a Latin commentary in the course of which there is a mention of the discovery of America by Christo- pher Columbus — interesting as the first reference to the event in any printed work. The exhibition also included a copy of the edition of the Psalms with Kimhi's commentary printed in Bolog- na, 1477, which is generally regarded as the first Hebrew print. There was also the copy of a Hebrew Bible printed in Brescia in 1494, the second complete edition of the Old Testament, which is of special interest as the one used by Martin Luther. A Hebrew book issued from the press of Soncino in 1491 is noteworthy as the first Hebrew print with woodcuts. A work of Petras Niger, printed in Esslingen in 1475, con- tains the first Hebrew characters print- ed in Germany. The exhibition gave to members an opportunity of seeing what is now the third largest collection of Hebrew and Rabbinical litreature in the world. At one of the business sessions an- nouncement was made of the appoint- ment of Prof. James A. Montgomery, of the University of Pennsylvania, as di- rector of the American School of Ar- chaeology in Jerusalem for the coming year, 1914-15. By unanimous vote Prof. Nathaniel Schmidt, of Cornell University, was elected president of the Society, and Prof. Charles C. Torrey, of Yale Uni- versity, vice-president. The report of the managing commit tee of the American School at Jerusalem gave an account of the activity of the school during the past year, and empha- sized once more the need of gathering an immediate fund of at least $100,000, to erect a suitable building and provide for a permanent director of the school. Land for the proposed building was pur- chased some years ago, and it is to be earnestly hoped that efforts will be made during the coming year to obtain the necessary funds for the erection of a suitable home for archaeological re- search in so important a centre as Palestine. M. J., jb. Correspondence ENTRANCE EXAMINATIONS IN HIS- TORY. To the Editor op The Nation: Sir: Of those who take the College En- trance Examination Board's examination in history, a very large proportion fail every year. In June last 70 per cent, of the can- didates in American history failed to pass. This fact, of course, creates no little com- ment, and some indignation; and the de- mand for some explanation of so great a mortality is reasonable. The explanations are various. It is charged that the ques- tions are too difficult. When an investiga- tion of the questions shows that this charge i3 not true, the blame is laid on the per- sons who read the answers. These readers are said to be too severe. The last expla- nation to date is that the American His- torical Association is trying to use the College Board to elevate standards of his- tory teaching "unduly." The following paragraph is from the New York Evening Post's (November 22) notice of the annual meeting of the College Board: The committee on examination ratings presented a report, in which the Board's history examinations were discussed. It was pointed out that the results in history were poorer than in any other subject, and that secondary schools were evidently not doing the work called for by the requirements recommended by the American Historical Association. It was said by some that through the influence of the American His- torical Association the College Entrance Examination Board had been used as a lev- er in an attempt to elevate unduly the stan- dards of history-teaching, and that the standards set up were unattainable, not only from the point of view of the maturity of the students in the secondary schools, but also from the point of view of the time that can be given to history in the pro- e of study in even the very best schools. Now it may easily be conceded that his- tory is badly taught in many secondary schools, ns in many institutions of other grades. It may even be conceded that the American Historical Association has been guilty of trying, very modestly, to im- prove the teaching, though there are many who would deny that this compliment Is deserved. It might be conceded, though , 1 Mm. >t be proved, thai the woondarj school pupils are too Immature to study history properly, or to meet the sort of examinations set. All of those things are largely matters of opinion; and all of us
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Jan. 8, 1914J The Nation can, this being the case, lay the blame as far from us as our arms Will reach. The last clause of the paragraph quoted, however, has In It a statement the accu- racy of which Is open to somewhat more definite discussion. What about the time as- signed to history in the secondary schools? Is it sufficient? Is it reasonable? It is assumed that the schools had in mind by the writer of the paragraph are those which prepare boys for the College Board's examinations. Therefore they know what the examination is meant to embrace. History is what is called a one-unit sub- ject. It is understood in all educational cir- cles now that the College Board's units stand for the result of a year's work in a subject on which the student recites five times a week. Yet it is perfectly well known to every one who has looked into the mat- ter that those who complain about these examinations in history are giving their students three-hour courses in history and expecting them to pass an examination based on a five-hour schedule. Physics, for example, is more likely to receive six hours than three or four. It should re- ceive five, since it is a one-unit subject. The languages and mathematics receive at least five hours a week for each unit. Now this is no plea that history receive five hours. It is not even a plea that his- tory be recognized as a college-preparation subject. It may not be. The field may be too large and too indefinite. This is not a plea for anything but an honest recogni- tion of one or two elementary facts: First, whether or not a unit is to represent a five-hour course; secondly, whether or not the examination in a five-hour course should be so set that those who take three- hour courses can pass it; thirdly, whether it is fair or reasonable for the principals who send up students with a three-hour course to try to lay the blame for failures where the blame does not belong. One of the first things our boys and girls need in candor and fairness. One doubts whether such an attitude towards standards is likely to train them in these qualities. Edgar Dawson. Normal College, New York, January 2. TITIAN'S PHILIP II. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: The newspapers yesterday gave us news of the sale by Sir Hugh Lane to an American lady of Titian's original portrait of Philip II. The portrait is of so great interest that it is worth while to have every detail of its history, so far as may be, correctly recorded. This was not done in most of the newspaper accounts over here, which stated that "since it left the painter's easel in the sixteenth century the work has only passed through four hands" (Daily Telegraph), and further that before Sir Hugh Lane "acquired the canvas it had been the treasured possession of the late Professor von Lenbach, who purchased it from the original owners, the Glustiniani family, of the Palazzo Barbarigo, Padua." The picture has certainly passed through more than four hands since Titian's death, nor did Sir Hugh Lane purchase It from the Lenbach family. On the painter's death, in 1576, the canvas passed to his sen, Pom- porlo Vecelli, who squandered his patri- mony and finally sold his house and its contents to Christoforo Barbarigo. Ridolfi (see "Maraviglie dell' Arte," Venice, 1648, p. 181) mentions the portrait as owned by Gil Signori Barbarighi di San Polo. Later this picture and the original portrait of Francis I (the original of the picture in the Louvre) passed to Count Sebastian Giustiniani Barbarigo, of Padua. When they were in Padua, they were seen by Dr. Bode, of Berlin, who (as the story has been told me) desired to purchase them for Ber- lin, the price then being only a few thou- sand marks for the two. Not being able to procure the money, he persuaded Professor von Lenbach to buy them, hoping to get them later from him. The professor, how- ever, refused to part with them (though they were the cause of litigation in the German courts), and after his death they were sold by his widow, through Heinemann, the Mu- nich dealer, to Messrs. Agnew, of London. This was in 1911. While in Agnew's hands they were offered to various buyers, among others the late Mr. Morgan and the Boston Museum, for a price considerably less than the Philip is now reported to have brought. Finally Sir Hugh Lane bought the Philip, and it has been in his "collection" only a few months, he being the fifth and not the fourth owner. Richard Norton. London, December 23, 1913. JEFFERSON AS ARCHITECT. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: Every student will heartily second your praise of Dr. Lambeth's "Thomas Jef- ferson as an Architect" for its service in reproducing certain of Jefferson's archi- tectural manuscripts. Unfortunately, how- ever, your review gives the impression that the book is a thorough presentation of Jefferson's achievements in architecture. The neglect of important documents pre- viously published, which have been held to lessen Jefferson's part in the design of the University of Virginia, leaves this con- siderable aspect of the question for further discussion, while an evident lack of fa- miliarity with other circumstances at the time prevents Dr. Lambeth from pointing 1 out Jefferson's most vital significance. Dr. Lambeth's speculations as to what Thornton may have sent Jefferson in reply to Jefferson's request for sketches for the University should have been rendered un- j necessary by the publication of Thornton's ' answer by Mr. Glenn Brown in the Journal of the American Institute of Architects for January, 1913. Mr. Brown, who, as J author of the official history of the Capitol at Washington, is familiar with Thorn- j ton's work, even makes the statement that j the drawings preserved at Charlottesville are exactly the kind of drawings that! Thornton made for the Capitol and other buildings, and that he feels confident they are the ones Thornton sent Jefferson. In this matter, at least, we must take Jeffer- son's part, for Thornton himself states that he sends only two "specimens of the orders," and comparison of the Corinthian capitals in the Virginia MSS., for instance, with those in drawings of Thornton's, leaves no room for doubt that the former were the work of one relatively an amateur in draughtsmanship. To Jefferson is due the credit for the design of the University, in spite of his adoption of several of Thorn- ton's suggestions. Such absurd superiority to Thornton as Dr. Lambeth ascribes to him (p. 93), however, is discredited by the most casual comparison of the published documents. Jefferson's real distinction is one at which Dr. Lambeth merely hints ; it rests in the first instance on his design for the Capitol of Virginia, which Dr. Lambeth mentions only in passing. This design, the exterior of which followed as closely as possible that of the Maison Carree at Nimes, he sent from Paris in 1785 with the expressed purpose "of introducing into the State an example of architecture in the classic style of antiquity." Both in form and in principle this was the beginning of the classical revival in the United States. The architectural career of Thornton here did not begin till 1793, that of Latrobe till 1797 at earliest. Neither of these men, moreover, though they used pure classical forms, followed the method of the true revivalists who later covered the country with literal reproductions of ancient build- ings, their interiors converted to modern uses. It was Jefferson who initiated this method, calling down on himself the just complaint of Dr. Dunglison, the medical lecturer he brought from England, that he was used to "planning the architectural exterior first, and leaving the interior to shift for itself." However much we deplore the revivals of earlier architectural styles during the nineteenth century, we must recognize that such revivals were not less expressive of contemporary culture, domi- nated as it was by the newly discovered historical method, than previous styles have been in their own periods. Of this char- acteristic tendency in American architec- ture Thomas Jefferson was pioneer. Sidney Fiskb Kimball. University of Michigan, December 31, 1913. REVERSED INSTRUMENTS. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: The January number of the Century Magazine, on page 377, reports the follow- ing interesting incident: "Many thousands of the poor Russians followed while a mili- tary band with reversed instruments played Tchaikovsky's dirge." Beresin, in hia "Skizze der inneren Organisation des Dschudschi Ulus" (Arb. d. Orient abth. d. Ak. d. Wiss. 1864, p. 387), mentions the weird music fashionable at the Court of the Khan of the Golden Horde at Kiptchak. Can it be that the Russians, under Tar- tar domination, have invented musical In- struments which upon solemn occasions can also be played upside-down? I am neither very musical nor very fa- miliar with Russian history. Can any of your readers tell me what sort of effect a reversed band has, and Is there a chance of hearing such music well played in this country? Hendrik Willem Van Loon. Washington, December 28, 1913. PROFESSOR PEARSON'S CONCLUSIONS. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: Your article on "Eugenics and Com- mon-Sense" (December 4, 1913), is timely and excellent. The writer has, however, fallen into serious error in his reference to Professor Pearson's conclusions respect-
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34: The Nation (Vol. 98, No. 2532 ing the effect of alcohol on offspring (Gal- ton Laboratory, Memoir, No. 10, 1910). Pro- fessor Pearson did not personally conduct any direct investigation on this subject similar to those carefully made by Drs. Rudolph Demme, Taav Laitinen, W. C. Sul- livan, and others, who have shown clearly the extensive ruin of children by parental drunkenness. What Professor Pearson and his associate, Miss Elderton, did was simply this: They took the somewhat carelessly collected data relating chiefly to a slum district in Edinburgh, gathered by charity workers for another purpose, and drew elaborate conclusions, without using any corrective factor — the facts respecting an equal number of children born of abstain- ing parents. Practically all the children studied were those of drinking parents. There was no comparison with children in normal, temperate families. Conclusions so reached are obviously most untrustworthy and misleading. All this was pointed out by many eminent specialists some three years ago, in the controversy which followed the publication of the Memoir, in such papers as the London Tim.es, the British Medical Journal, the British Journal of Inebriety, and others. These criticisms completely dis- credited the so-called "findings" of Profes- sor Pearson. Joseph H. Crooker. Boston, December 25, 1913. Literature THE FAR SOUTH. Scott's Last Expedition. In Two Vol- umes: Vol. I, The Journals of Capt. R. P. Scott, R.N., C.V.O.; Vol. II, The Reports of the Journeys and the Scientific Work Undertaken by Dr. E. A. Wilson and the Surviving Members of the Expedition. Arranged by Leonard Huxley, with a Preface by Sir Clements R. Markham, K.C.B., P.R.S. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. $10 net. Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale, but sur* ly, surely, a great rich country like ours will see that those who are dependent on us are properly provided for. So closed the last message to the pub- lic of Capt. Robert P. Scott. Thanks to the recovery of his journals, the tale has been told in spite of his own tragic fate, and the hearts that have been stir- red know no bounds of race or tongue. It hardly needs to be added that his ap- peal to his countrymen to care for the material wants of those dependent upon himself and his companions was at once and abundantly granted. And it was fitting that after this was done the friends of Capt. Scott and his party should see to it that the story should go to the reading world in a dress worthy of its inherent nobility. Typography, paper, and binding are all admirable, but the wealth and excellence of pic- torial illustration are especially to be commended. The frontispiece of the first volume reproduces in photogravure an oil portrait of Capt. Scott by Har- rington Mann, a lovable face, with the highest grade of British devotion to country, duty, family, and friends un- mistakably stamped thereon. Dr. Wil- son holds the same position in the sec- ond volume, the plate being reproduced from a photograph. There are sixteen colored plates from water-color draw- ings by his hand, and a half-dozen pho- togravures from his sketches, in addi- tion to above two hundred and fifty pho- tographic illustrations, mostly by Her- bert G. Ponting, the official photograph- er of the expedition. Eight well-defined maps make it easy for the reader to keep his geographical bearings, and the dates are indicated at the head of the pages right through the two volumes, aids which any reader will appreciate who has tried to keep his chronology and geography in hand in his perusal of Stefansson's new volume. The index, however, is surprisingly weak at impor- tant points. For instance, nowhere un- der the names of Scott or Wilson or Bowers will the reader find any refer- ence to the story of the discovery and burial of their bodies, related on pages 237-8 of the second volume. Capt. Scott went into the southern ice with an unusually congenial and well-assorted band of companions. Each was well qualified for his particular part, all had faith in him and he in them. Given such weather conditions as Amundsen found, sledging from the Bay of Whales, thirty degrees to the east, a few weeks earlier, and Scott's arrival at the Pole and safe return, by the route which he actually took, would have been sure and fairly speedy. Against his choice of McMurdo Sound as a base, no criticism can Justly be offered. It had its proper place in the general plan of a comprehensive scien- tific expedition, and there was as yet no known reason for suspecting that the western portion of the Ross Bar- rier, where it encounters the mountain slopes of South Victorian Land, might present weather conditions incompara- bly more severe than those obtaining on the meridian of the Bay of Whales. Antarctic weather is at best an uncer- tain quantity, however, and one cannot read this tragic story without coming (o the conclusion that Capt. Scott and his party took too great chances In the amount of food and fuel left at the vari- ous depots, at all events as far as to the Beardmore Glacier. Evans and Oates, the two who died before the final catastrophe, had given grave signs of weakness before the serious shortage of food and fuel came on, but it is plain enough that with a gallon or two of oil and a few pounds of food in their lit- tle tent, Scott, Wilson, and Bowers would easily have worn out the blizzard which caught them only eleven miles from the next depot on March 21. Here, with but two days' food and fuel enough to make tea but twice, a continuous howling gale with blinding snow out- side their tent, they lingered at least until the 29th, the last day on which Scott's freezing arm could move the pen- cil. And the last words were: "We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far. It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more. For God's sake, look after our people." Over this closing sentence were written the words "Last entry." When found, eight months later, Scott's sleeping-bag was open and his arm thrown across the body of Wilson, possibly never drawn back into the bag after that last entry was made. There were letters to his wife, his mother, and other relatives and friends written during those terri- ble days of cold and hunger, but no sin- gle word betraying any break in that absolute self-mastery which has fixed the place of Capt. Scott as an example of noble manhood for untold ages to come. And when their sledge was dig- ged out of the snow, upon it was found thirty-five pounds weight of geological specimens from the moraines of Beard- more Glacier, dragged wearily along for the benefit of science for days after the party had given up all but the slender- est chance of life. While it is true, as we have indicat- ed, that a bit more of food and fuel at the proper points would have turned dis- aster into victory, yet the story as Capt. Scott's own journals tell it, even before a score of pages have been read, brings an impression of impending ruin and keeps that impression alive and grow- ing almost as steadily as a tragedy of ^Eschylus marches to its catastrophe. If one imagines that Scott himself did not feel this, let him read the journal en- tries carefully for, let us say, the six or seven weeks leading up to April 17, 1911, when a new manuscript book is headed with the words of Sir Humphrey Gilbert: "He is not worthy to live at all, who, for fear and danger of death shunneth his country's service or his own honour, since death is inevitable and the fame of virtue Is immortal." Twelve miles from Beardmore Glacier, on the way to the Pole, he writes: "A hopeless feeling descends on one and is hard to fight off." And at the Pole: "Now for the run home and a desperate struggle. I wonder if we can do it." These were no words of weakness, but a clear-headed conception of the mean ing of the unexpectedly severe atmos- pheric conditions with which the expe- dition had been struggling almost con- tinuously since its arrival in McMurdo Sound. Indeed, the struggle had been
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Jan. 8, 1914] The Nation 35 so severe that Capt. Scott would have had ample excuse for deciding not to attempt the Pole at all, and still no one can feel like blaming him for following his original plan to the end, nor would any of his party have received with fa- vor a suggestion to do any less. He was quick to see the probable out- come of Amundsen's appearance in the Bay of Whales. "There is no doubt,'' he writes, "that Amundsen's plan is a very serious menace to ours. He has a shorter distance to the Pole by sixty miles. I never thought he could have got so many dogs safely to the ice. His plan for running them seems excellent. But above and beyond all, he can start his journey early in the season — an im- possible condition with ponies." Not for a moment, however, did he think of al- tering his plans and entering into a scramble for priority. "The proper, as well as the wiser, course for us is to proceed exactly as though this had not happened. To go forward and do our best for the honor of our country with- out fear or panic." And so he was not really surprised when, on the afternoon before his arrival at the calculated loca- tion, a small black flag flying from a sledge runner stuck into the ice told him of Amundsen's success. "This told us the whole story. The Norwegians have forestalled us and are first at the Pole. It is a terrible disappointment, and I am very sorry for my loyal com- panions. Many thoughts come, and much discussion have we had. To-mor- row we must march on to the Pole, and then hasten home with all the speed we can compass. All the day-dreams must go: it will be a wearisome return." Scott's calculations fixed the location of the Pole within a fraction of a mile of the point indicated by the marks of Amundsen. This, together with the fact that their converging paths of approach met so short a distance away, tends to increase confidence in the substantial trustworthiness of such observations, in spite of the inherent difficulties, which serious explorers do not deny or mini- mize. Readers of Peary and Amundsen will remember their admissions on this point. The journal for the remaining seven- ty days wrings the reader's heart at every point, as the spectre of oncoming disaster looms ever larger and gloom- ier through the whirling snows. The drop of 10,000 feet from the plateau to the Ross Barrier, which was expected to bring some relief from the severe temperature, is followed only by a marked change in the opposite direc- tion. Edgar Evans, his strength all run down, his extremities frozen, his mental faculties giving way, dies at the foot of the Beardmore Glacier from concussion of the brain, through a fall. Oates struggles on for four weeks, and then, seeing that the end is near in any event and that his weakness is lessen- ing any slight chance that the others may have, deliberately walks out of the tent into a whirling blizzard and dis- appears, some twenty miles south of the point where their fate overtook the re- maining three. One searches the jour- nal in vain for any word of Scott in- dicating a suspicion that the disaster came through censurable action or in- action on the part of any one concerned. The oil that he found in the Barrier depots was less than he had expected. He did not know why, but it did not oc- cur to him to blame any one. The ex- planation now given for this fatal short- age is this: The tins of oil left for the return journey had been exposed to ex- treme changes of temperature. The oil was especially volatile and the occa- sional outbursts of bright sunlight tend- ed to vaporize it and thus allow its escape through the corks. This pro- cess was facilitated, we are told, by in- jury to the leather washers about the stoppers, due to the extremes of cold. One can hardly avoid the thought that more careful consideration in advance would have suggested the possibility of just such losses and provided against them by better protection of the tins, but it is a satisfaction to know that there is no warrant whatever for any suspicion that the tins were depleted by members of the supporting parties who returned before the Pole was reached. In all this tale of tragedy the one thing that grips the mind most power- fully is the strong manhood and lovable personality of Capt. Scott. When the proper time comes, and that ought not to be long, the first volume of this work, his own journals and last letters, should be presented in an edition cheap enough to he within the reach of all. We do not mean by this to depreciate the importance of the second volume, telling of the various lines of explora- tion and research undertaken apart from the Polar journey; but in these busy times of many books, the strong moral tonic of the first volume, with its essential unity and comparative brev- ity, should have its broader chance at the public attention by itself. CURRENT FICTION. Fascination. By C. C. Lowis. New York: John Lane Co. The title is due to a minor part play- ed by an East Indian snake charmer, the story being of Burmese life. The general theme is one Kipling has often put into far less verbose form: the marital entanglements brought about by the narrow scope of white society in the over-sea empire. Mr. Cavlsham. wife, and daughter no sooner arrive at Min- daung, where the tottering old man is to engage upon some ethnological work. than the young wife and the resident Governor, Chepstowe, who tells the story, feel an irresistible attraction to- wards each other. The remainder of the book, excluding small parts dealing with the love affair of the daughter and the Vice-Governor, is concerned with this fatal triangle. The wife is quite willing to accept the situation, to the point of encouraging Chepstowe to wait for the death of the failing old man. But the sturdier fibre of the Governor finally asserts itself. "I looked into the future. I saw old Cavisham a confirm- ed invalid, failing slowly, fading away, bed-ridden; and his wife, sprightly and unconcerned — forever, as I had uncouth- ly phrased it, 'out in the veranda with the other beggar.' And that philander- ing other beggar, who waited, smirking there with his indecent cold-bloodedness, to step into a dead man's shoes, was al- ways— myself." And he cuts the knot by marrying a young woman who comes out from home. A sense of humor atones for lack of varied incident. The Lure of the Little Drum. By Mar- garet Peterson. New York: G. P. Put- nam's Sons. The insidious appeal of Eastern sen- suality to what is vicious in the Occi- dental nature, is personified in Ishat Khan, a young Indian prince, who has acquired at Oxford the manners of a gentleman and the mental processes of a Mephistopheles. The victim of his wiles is an Englishwoman who has in- herited a streak of bad blood from a disreputable mother. Upon her intro- duction into Anglo-Indian society, Esther immediately becomes acutely conscious of two natures struggling within her, one responding to the seduc- tions of the subtle Ishat Khan, the oth- er crying for protection to a certain nice, thick-headed, kind-hearted English boy. She marries the latter. Ishat Khan bides his time. The little drum of the title is his wedding gift to her, a toy which symbolizes the fascination upon which he relies. The husband proving more chivalrous than helpful, Esther at length succumbs to tempta- tion and consents to be carried off to Ishat Khan's harem. Redemption ob- viously can only come through death. The author is surprisingly free from any tendency towards the Kiplingesque; she makes no pretence of penetrating very deeply into the mysteries of the Asiatic mind. Her theme is developed in a competent and, we might say, busi- i.ess-like fashion. It would need more profound insight into character, or a more potent suggestion of exoticism, to make the story memorable. The Egotistical I. By Ellen Wilkins Tompkins. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. This book in no wise falls into the
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36 T li e JST a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2532 class which its name suggests. It is rather an uncommonly refreshing com- pound of personal memoirs, little na- ture-talks, and philosophic revery brought down to a very practical, home- ly level. The hero or narrator is a simple gentleman arrived at the youth- ful age of sixty years. lie is not even redeemed from positive ugliness "by a pair of keen, penetrating eyes over- shadowed by bushy eyebrows." As he says, "One must possess at least one such characteristic to rise above the average, and it is one of my proud boasts that I am a simple American gen- tleman, clean-shaven, and endowed with a generous supply of common-sense." In his quaint old-gentlemanlike way, he tells of his acquaintances, the Imag- inary Listener, the Youthful Pessimist, the Chance Acquaintance, the Young Doctor. His pursuits and the incidents of his life have their share of interest — his garden and his fowls, his summer trips, and his match-making. In his moments of revery he describes the ef- forts of his mental or "other self" to free his physical self from the common- place. He laments over the dying art of conversation, and defends the role of fibbing in society. In short, the book contains many pleasing ideas expressed in clear terms of everyday life. Its charm lies in a simple flowing style and in the very ordinary nature of the in- cidents and reflections. The love-story of the Young Doctor and the Youthful Pessimist is a recurring theme. FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE. The Life of Florence Nightingale. By Sir Edward Cook. New York: The Macmillan Co. 2 vols. $7.50 net. The author of "The Life of Octavia Hill," which was recently reviewed in these columns, has had here a kindred task, and has discharged it with equal zeal and discretion. Miss Nightingale's fame has rested upon a wrong, or at least an insufficient, conception of her character and achievement. Nothing is more difficult than to persuade the world of its error in such a case. The truth is, it does not care to be bothered with a re-judgment of its idols. The legend of Florence Nightingale is a very pretty legend as it stands; but it is a pity that a great figure should be re- membered as merely romantic or pic- turesque, and the present biographer has at least made it unnecessary that Miss Nightingale should be so remembered. "The popular imagination of Miss Nightingale," he says, "is of a girl of high degree who, moved by a wave of pity, forsook the pleasures of fashion- able life for the horrors of the Crimean War; who went about the hospitals of Scutari with a lamp, scattering flowers of comfort and ministration; who retir- ed at the close of the war into private life, and lived thenceforth in the seclu- sion of an invalid's room — a seclusion varied only by good deeds to hospitals and nurses and by gracious and senti- mental pieties." Such, when she went to the front, was the impression seized upon by England, which had been hor- rified by reports of the neglect of her soldiers in the field; and the impression has never been outlived. It was fixed by the romantic tributes of Longfellow and Miss Yonge, as well as "by tne fact of Miss Nightingale's seclusion, by the hid- den, almost the secretive, manner in which she worked, by her shrinking from publicity, by her extreme reticence about herself. It is only now, when her papers are accessible, that her real life can be known." Even Miss Nightingale's service in the Crimean War was far from being, what fancy made it — a sort of glorified "fluke." The frontispiece to the first volume of this work seems, in the light of the past, to have a prophetic value. It is taken from a water-color sketch of Mrs. Nightingale and her two daugh- ters. The mother and her elder daugh- ter (elder by a year) have the furbished and sidelong prettiness of born members of the fine world. The younger child, at eight, though she wears, by fate, the family smile, looks straight forward, with serious brooding eyes: even her dress is plain. Her father was a man of wealth, who loved and succeeded in the role of country squire on the grand scale. Her mother and her elder sister were all that the wife and daughter of such a man should be. They asked for nothing better than the life of luxury and social diversion which had been al- lotted to them. The child Florence, on the other hand, seems to have been early aware of a "call." She exhibited the strange spectacle of a pretty girl with nothing to worry about refusing to be contented with that nothing. She was not an ascetic or humorless person, and enjoyed dancing, and dining, and visit- ing, as far as they went. But they did not go all the way with her; she was still only a child when she began to astonish and distress her family with aspirations for some career of useful- ness. She was frowned upon; and her loyal affection for her people, her whim- sical appreciation of their total inabil- ity to understand her, long prevented anything like an effectual escape into her own world. The problems of nurs- ing and sanitation had fascinated her even in girlhood, but she was a woman of thirty-four when the need in Turkey freed her to the full exercise of powers carefully trained and developed against all sorts of obstacles to meet precisely the necessity of that hour. She was still beautiful, graceful, an aristocrat In appearance and In manner. No doubt these qualities, with her gentleness and self-sacrifice, acted beneficently upon the poor fellows who lay wounded and help- less in far Turkey. But her more im- portant service was a service of wise administration, of unfailing attention to detail. She came back to England af- ter the campaign a physical wreck, not as a result of the more obvious hardships of camp life, but because she had denied herself all rest of mind and body while the task was in hand. Her subsequent career, through years of semi-invalidism to extreme old age, was distinguished for its exercise of the same unusual powers. The present rec- ord shows that her Crimean experi- ence was in a sense the beginning of her active life — a spectacular episode which served as a starting-point for more valuable achievement. The whole problem of the health of the British sol- dier had been opened up to her; the foun- dation of her later work as hospital re- former and pioneer in modern nursing methods had been laid. Later, her in- terest in the health of British troops in India led to absorption in the wider questions of sanitation in the East — questions which for forty years occu- pied much of her time, and to which she gave all the vigor of her mind and will. The record of these activities is an es- sentially sober one; but derives charm from the keen and flexible humor which shines from the correspondence of this remarkable woman, and which always safeguarded her from the extravagances of the mere theorist and reformer. Monarchical Socialism in Germany. By Elmer Roberts. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. $1.25 net. Mr. Roberts is a master of the art of condensation. He compresses twelve chapters within the limits of 176 pages, and he accomplishes this without being baldly terse. He etches rather than photographs, and we read him almost as much for himself as for his subject. He begins with a distinction between "pa- per Socialism," which represents the aims of the ' Social-Democratic party, and "monarchical Socialism," the Social- ism in being, the only collective owner- ship of mines, railways, lands, forests, and other means of production existent by acts of the Crown in cooperation with Conservative Parliamentary majorities. This distinction between theory and fact immediately arouses expectation, which Is no sooner aroused than satisfied. In 1911 the Imperial Government and various German state governments took profits of $282,749,224 from the indus- tries which they conducted. Estimating the capital value at a 4 per cent, ratio, we find the value of the productive state- owned properties to be $7,068,729,600. The federated states being taken to- gether, 38 per cent, of all the financial requirements for governmental purposes were met out of profits on Govern- ment-owned enterprises. Including the
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Jan. 8, 1914] The JSTation 37 Imperial Government, a newcomer with relatively few possessions, about one- quarter of all the expenses of the state and the Imperial Governments for the army, the navy, and for all other pur- poses, were paid out of the net profits on Government businesses, not includ- ing the tobacco, spirit, or match monop- olies. Such astonishing facts would seem to Imply a profounder distinction between the economic and social conceptions of the Germans and those of other nations than most persons have supposed. No- where else do we find collective owner- ship an actual working force to the ex- tent that we do here. The representa- tives of the monarchical principle in as- sociation with the conservative classes have accepted this way of thinking, and it has entered into the very texture of their ideas of government, and is sup- ported by the great orthodox economists, such as Schmoller and Wagner. Indeed, the author of the present work is con- vinced that it is slowly making Ger- many fundamentally different, indus- trially and politically, from the United States, Great Britain, France, or any country that comes into comparison with the Fatherland. Mr. Roberts's brief but graphic chap- ter on the German railway policy con- cludes with some expressions singularly timely, in view of recent utterances in the United States. Notwithstanding the immense differences between American and German railways in ownership and in variety of conditions, it may be, he thinks, that partly by legislation and partly by the cooperation of some of the powerful railway managers in the United States, a close national control might be developed from the founda- tions already laid. Political considera- tions and the permanent well-being of the wealth massed in railways might co- operate in building a system of control, subordinating railways, to their ultimate advantage as dividend-payers, to indus- trial, commercial, and farming interests as an entirety. The railway captains, declares our author, would lose some- thing of the joyousness of free-lance in- dependence (as a matter of fact, it would be hard at the moment to find a railway captain with any signs of joy- ousness about him), but they would be more solidly effective as corps command- ers in a coordinated army. They might also draw larger allotments of revenue for their shareholders as a result of sav- ing the waste of working alone and by "concentrating attention upon service to economic unity rather than to eco- nomic war." The industrial spirit of the German people seeks, we are told, to prepare the growing generation for -achieve- ments in production as imposing in contrast with the present as the work of to-day is compared with that of the eighties. Compulsory sanitary living and other legislation requiring a mini- mum of social well-being have lengthen- ed the average life and increased the height and bodily frame of both sexes. The German mind has now a stronger physical instrument with which to work than the generation that fought with France. The training of that instru- ment is expressed intensely in relation to skilled production by the work of the continuation and trade schools. Mr. Rob- erts's description of this aspect of Ger- man state Socialism, in the chapter en- titled The Passing of the Unskilled, is more than interesting — it is inspiring. He touches upon the labor exchanges and unemployment insurance with vital- izing effect. The friendly spirit towards the Trusts and the taxing of the in- crease in land values are among Mr. Roberts's subjects in which Americans can at this time find much to interest them. There are also some entertain- ing remarks about the growth of the German navy and about the play in- stinct in Germany. Mr. Roberts has done his work so well that it is easy to forget the heavy burden of taxation that rests upon the German people, and the complaints, deep if not loud, which one hears from time to time regarding the effects of certain features of this programme — State insurance, for example — on the economic "welfare of the Fatherland. Railway Problems. Edited by William Z. Ripley, Ph.D. Revised Edition. Bos- ton: Ginn & Co. $2.50. This second edition — the first appear- ed in 1907 — contains much new matter. In the introduction Professor Ripley points out that a good deal of railway history has been made in the last few years, and he has now recast the 1907 collection of cases and documents so as to allow room for some of the principal new developments; such, for example, as the dissolution of the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific, the Minnesota rate case, and a number of important deci- sions of the Interstate Commerce Com- mission. He has also included some in- teresting descriptions of early railway building taken from Mr. H. G. Pear- son's life of John M. Forbes and a pa- per on the complexities of interstate rate-making by Mr. Theodore Brent. The aim of the book has been to enable ad- vanced students of transportation to work by the "case system," so generally used in law schools, and those who wish to penetrate below the surface of the question will find Professor Ripley's col- lection of large and timely interest. In the case of such a book as this the reviewer's chief concern is necessarily with the scope and character of the mat- ter brought together, consisting, as it does, so largely of judicial decisions and commission rulings. It is not easy to suggest any very important improve- ment upon Professor Ripley's selection, having iu mind his purpose in maKing it. So far as the question of court de- cisions and the like are concerned, the cases chosen seem to be the leading cases. It may be suggested, however, that in the next edition the decisions in the "advanced rate" cases in 1910 and in the case now pending should be giv- en, for the reason that they will un- doubtedly prove to be a landmark in the history of transportation in the United States. The present case (that of the railways in classification territory) is of enormous importance, by reason of the principles involved and the prece- dents that may be established, and as it is an outgrowth of the 1910 case, both should be included. Doubtless, the fact that the 1910 decision left the main points unsettled governed Professor Rip- ley in omitting it, but when the present case is decided, that will no longer be the case. It may also be suggested that among the documents of historic inter- est which are well worth attention of transportation students are the discus- sions of Prof. Dionysius Lardner, in the very early days, of the principles gov- erning the industry, and also the famous Louisville & Nashville annual report of 1873-4, written by the late Albert Fink, in which the question of the "operating ratio" was thoroughly explained, once and for all. Notes Mr. Harry W. Laidler is bringing out this week, through Lane, "Boycotts and the Labor Struggle," with an introduction by Prof. Henry R. Seager. "Bransford in Arcadia" is the title chosen by Eugene Manlove Rhodes for the appear- ance in book form (Holt) of his "Little Eohippus," which ran as a serial. Dr. Neville Figgis's book on "The Divine Right of Kings," which has for some years been out of print, will shortly appear in a new edition containing three further essays — Jus Divinum in 1646; Bartolus, and the Development of European Politics; and Erastus and Erastianism. It will be pub- lishel by the Cambridge University Press (Putnam). Early in February McBrlde, Nast & Co. will publish the following books: "Panama, Its Creation, Destruction and Resurrection," by Philippe Bunau-Varilla ; "How France Is Governed," by Raymond Polncarfi; "Lord London," by Keble Howard, a tale of achievement which closely follows the career of Alfred Harmsworth, Lord North- cliffe; "The White Gate," by Warwick Deeping; "The Autobiography of a Prin- cess," by Charlotte Amelie, and "Cecil Rhodes, the Man and His Work," by Gor- don Le Sueur, one of his confidential secretaries. A limited edition of the Keats relics be- queathed by the late Sir Charles Dllke to Hampstead is In preparation by Dr. Wll-
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38 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2532 liamson, who will be responsible for the editing and facsimiles. Mr. Buxton Forman will contribute an introduction; the pub- lisher is John Lane. Prof. C. Alphonso Smith, of the Uni- versity of Virginia, makes an appeal in a pamphlet issued by the Bureau of Educa- tion at Washington for the cooperation of all who desire to see the old European folk ballads, still surviving in this country, collected and classified. In his great work on "English and Scottish Ballads" Profes- sor Child noted incidentally that versions of seventeen ballads in his list were to be found in the oral tradition of Eastern States, ranging from Maine to South Caro- lina. Through concerted effort, thirty-nine others have now been discovered, and it is requested that the search be continued while there is yet time and that the re- Bults be sent to Mr. P. P. Claxton, Com- missioner, Washington, D. C. Specialists in Elizabethan literature will be grateful to Charles Crawford for his scholarly reprint and editing of "England's Parnassus" (Oxford University Press). The text of this reissue has been made from a copy in the Bodleian Library, and from two copies in the British Museum one of which was possessed by Dr. Richard Far- mer. One of Dr. Farmer's marginal anno- tations confirms, in Mr. Crawford's judg- ment, an old rumor that the initials of the compiler of this anthology found on the title-page stood for Robert Allot; for we read in Dr. Farmer's hand, "I have since seen a copy with Robert Allot's Name print- ed at length." Allot, it appears, was an honest but careless workman and was ham- pered by a slovenly printer. "Out of thirty- one cases in which the same passages are used twice, Allot makes no less than twen- ty-two differ each time that he writes them down." He also seems to have got his manuscript copy badly confused. Mr. Crawford argues plausibly that Allot, in writing down the selections, used large sheets of paper, and then for the sake of convenience cut them into pieces. This would have been proper if he had not em- ployed so many "idems"; naturally when the passages were shifted about an "idem" often became misleading. But by consult- ing so far as possible the editions which the compiler used, Mr. Crawford has suc- ceeded in bringing some sort of order out of Allot's confusion. His corrections are put in the notes, which also contain much interesting speculation. A single instance of Allot's or his printer's carelessness in handling text speaks volumes. Markham in one of his poems had written, -•li they erown'd his valure by accord This is printed, Although they chaln'd his valour by a cord. Yet "England's Parnassus," with all its sins, furnishes numerous interesting pro- blems of bibliography and literary history, and Mr. Crawford, both by this convenient reprint and by his copious notes, has ap- preciably lessened the difficulty of solving them. If "studies" is a rather large word tor the articles and addressee making up the two volum late vVhitelaw R the . on I he other hand, a thoughtful- Ins] that one Is uol aecui to i 01 Oni turns to the opening address, for instance, with some apprehension for the outcome of an attempt to deal with The Rise of the United States in an hour. But Mr. Reid could be concise without heaviness; he could handle fa- miliar material without making it dull, and he manages to paint a real picture of a vast scene on a small canvas. These qualities are more strikingly displayed in the address on Lincoln. By skilful selec- tion of such comparatively neglected points as Lincoln's ambition, his low ideals of civil service, and his life in Illinois pre- vious to the debates with Douglas, the American Ambassador contrived to give his Birmingham hearers a fresh and yet un- distorted view of a hackneyed theme. This address opens the second volume, which, for most readers, with its estimates of Jef- ferson, Burke, Byron, and the virtues and vices of journalism, will be more inter- esting than its companion, which in the main expounds its author's ideas of the Monroe Doctrine and the problems arising from the war with Spain. Upon Jefferson's inconsistencies, Mr. Reid was hard, while not forgetting his unique position in history. There was noth- ing of the mere diplomat in what he had to say of the author of the Declaration of Independence. Indeed, one very seldom has occasion to remember that a diplomat is speaking. This consciousness obtrudes itself, however, in the address on The Scot in America and the Ulster Scot [i. e., Scotch-Irish]. For, while the Ambassa- dor did not fail to remind his Edinburgh auditors of the existence of unworthy emi- grants from their shores to America, he employed most of his time in reciting a list of notables that leaves one wondering whether we have ever had a public man who, if his ancestry were investigated mi- nutely, would not be discovered to have Scotch blood in his veins. Mr. Reid avoid- ed any difficulties in the subject of the Revolution by taking the now-familiar po- sition that the war was for the rights of all Englishmen. Of Talleyrand, for whose memoirs he wrote an introduction, and of Byron, he uttered commonplaces. The con- eluding portion of the second volume is headed "An Editor's Reflections," and con- tains two addresses delivered in the sev- enties, and the first .Bromley lectures, given at Yale on two days in February, 1901. It is interesting to observe how his prophecies in the earlier lectures as to newspaper tendencies were unfulfilled, although in the later ones he stuck to his doctrine of less quantity and better quality of news than are now provided. His notion of editorial independence was qualified to mean party loyalty without subserviency, but in general he upheld higher ideals in both preaching and, one is glad to say, in practice than most newspapers even yei have seen fit to follow. John Kenlon has written a readable book about an Interesting subject in the volume Fires and Fire-Fighters" (Doran). The sub-title, "A History of Modern Fire- Fighting, wiih a Review of Its Develop- 1 Earliest Times," explains its ■ ci pe, ii' bool '. ould have i" aeflted, we think, by the elimination of much of the rlii .--i part, toi rhloh 1 1 , 1 .1 onlj ii" > 1 1 ■ 1 abbreviated pi Ii I- i in in pri entatlon 1 « mel ii In pected to know most thoroughly in his office of thief of the New York Fire Depart- ment, Mr. Kenlon is clear and convincing. He deals with the fire perils and problems in garages, in hotels and schools, and takes up the special conditions of seaport cities. The appalling disasters which have taken place in factories and theatres in recent years, with terrible loss of life, lead him to urge the need of better fire protection, chiefly by use of automatic sprinklers and improved exits. Public opinion in many States has forced the adoption of more stringent laws for protection of human life from fire, but there remains much to be done in this respect, and the enforcement of fire laws is lamentably lax. Perhaps the ordinary reader will find his greatest inter- est in the narrative part of the book, in which Chief Kenlon graphically describes some of the great fires of modern times. The San Francisco, the Baltimore, and the Equitable building conflagrations have their lessons, either in the field of fire preven- tion, by improved building construction and equipment with extinguishing apparatus, or in methods of fire fighting. The last chap- ters in the work are devoted to a descrip- tion of apparatus and the organization of a modern fire department. He makes a strong argument against the proposed two- platoon system. Patience Pennington's "A Woman Rice- Planter" (Macmillan) is a book that gets close to the ground and to the negro, and mingles unusual agricultural and sociologi- cal interest. Its literary value is in its picture of what Owen Wister, who writes the introduction, calls "the highly accen- tuated characteristics" of the rice-planta- tion coast of South Carolina, and in a story of really heroic effort. The writer, daughter of an ex-Governor of South Caro- lina, invests all her slender funds in the. family plantation of Cherokee, and with the uncertain aid of hands and renters, and in the face of many natural obstacles, successfully manages the huge enterprise. Her dangers, her ventures, the patience- exhausting performances of the colored folk, her interest in the growth of the crops and in the animals which are her only real companions, are related in simple and vivid diary form. Not heavy tomes of sociological exposition could give so vital a picture of Southern life and problems. The courage of the book is notable. Her hands would get into debt, and neither cajolery nor threats could move them to payment; hired to plough by the acre, they would turn up just a sufficient number of furrows to cover the ground with an ap- pearance of fresh earth; they would row for miles to steal her harvested rice by night; they would do nothing by direc- tions, and nothing right; their communal morality was of the most primitive, dis- torted kind; and yet she always feels hopefully that in keeping their cabins erect, their burying ground:; clean, their rice fields green, their sons out ol ii"' urban gulf, her indomitable efforts are their own reward. 1 , 1 , i . ■ - ber ha ad some oi 1 he unsophisl Icated negroes become friends well worth her and 1 be reader's attenl Ion. vVil houl di : ources of descrlpi Ion or aa rral h e ta lent, her faithfulness i detail ami hei [a 1 1 hi.' made t book of i ii value t>> Ha' South
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Jan. 8, 1914] The Nation 39 "History of Ohio, the Rise and Progress of an American State" (Century His- tory Co.), by Emilius 0. Randall and Daniel J. Ryan, in five volumes, is a "popular" work written to glorify Ohio and Ohioans. Accuracy is sacrificed to pride of State. Yet there are some good portions in this book, particularly the first two volumes, which treat the history of Ohio before the State was founded; al- though such a disproportionate amount of space devoted to the territorial period gives the work a curious perspective. Mr. Ran- dall, author of this part, has long studied the period and has produced a readable narrative. At times, however, he shows a surprising ignorance of general American history, as when on several occasions he hopelessly mixes the Quebec act of 1771 with the Proclamation of 1763. The last three volumes are not so well organized and show a very conscious effort to attract subscribers by the exploitation of the lives of individual citizens at the expense of the general narrative, and many subjects which should have found a place have been in- adequately treated or crowded out. The ex- cellent school system of Ohio, for instance, is neglected, as is the even more important mingling of the Southern and Northern ele- ments in the population. It is highly improbable that any one will read through "The Lawyer, Our Old-Man- of-the-Sea" (Dutton), by William Durran. with a "foreword" by Sir Robert F. Fulton, unless he is impelled by the strong sense of duty of a reviewer. Nearly one-half of its contents is found in the twenty-six appen- dices which follow the text, and which con- sist largely of newspaper clippings of a miscellaneous and sensational character. Not infrequently, foot-notes to the text are again printed in the appendices. Why they are repeated is not explained. Certainly this repetition is not to be justified on the score of their worth. The professed purpose of the author is to aid in the reform of the English legal system. He assumes that "the common law" is the equivalent of "legal chaos" ; that "law and justice were living in unity" until the Norman Conquest, when a foreign judiciary was imposed upon the English people, and the lawyer began his career of domination. Now, with a barris- ter as Prime Minister of Britain and an- other as President of the United States, the lawyer "bestrides Empire and Republic, one foot in either hemisphere, a bewigged, be- gowned, bespectacled Colossus." Every chapter in this volume is pitched to the same note— the utter balefulness of the lawyer and all his works. "Our Old- Man-of-the-Sea" must be cast off. We must stop recruiting our bench from the bar. We must exchange our common-law principles for the continental code, that we may have less need of consulting lawyers. We must abolish jury trials, because "success with juries is the passport for the lawyer's pro- motion to the bench or to high ofHce in the legal hierarchy." We are assured that— Advocates are the spoilt children of the State. Juries are the special pets of advo- cates. The jury system is the palladium of the Bar. Its vested interest, its special pleading, have contrived to cast a glamour of pseudo-sanctity around farcical verdicts. The Judge knows they will be reversed on appeal. Precisely. Appeals and fresh trials bring grist to the Bar. That is the vicious circle of Legalism. Our Continental neigh- bors have found and applied the remedy. i The author seems blissfully Ignorant of the fact that one of the greatest historians of Continental Procedure is as devoted to the jury as the most perverse English lawyer. Professor Esmein declares that "a great civilized nation cannot renounce it, without losing its rank." Mr. Durran seems to be equally ignorant of the fact that, while he is advising his countrymen to exchange their legal institutions for those of the Continent, a body of German reformers is anxious to substitute the English legal system for their own. The attitude of these reformers, we are told, is "one of extreme pessimism, not only in respect of the quality of the work done by the courts, but also of the merits of the Civil Code." It is safe to wager that if Mr. Durran will read German and French periodicals with as sharp an eye to legal scandal-mongering as he haa kept on English publications, he can gather quite as many clippings as he has reprinted in this book; clippings which will show that what he calls "the craziness of our outfit of private law" is equalled if not ex- celled upon the Continent. The second volume of Worthington C. Ford's "Writings of John Quincy Adams" (Macmillan) covers the five years from 1796 to 1801. At the beginning of the pe- riod Adams was still Minister at The Hague; but in June, 1797, he was transfer- red to Prussia, arriving at Berlin early In November. It was France, however, and not Prussia, that held the centre of the stage ; and the correspondence, both be- fore and after the transfer, is mainly oc- cupied with the aggressions of France on, American commerce, the shifty course of the Directory, the X. Y. Z. affair, and the vexatious question of claims. Adams early noted the suggestion that France might attempt the conquest of Louisiana, but rightly concluded that the project would give way to more pressing concerns at home. His intense patriotism, growing vis- ibly in fervor as the devious course of European politics unfolded before him, did not prevent him from perceiving and weighing the hostile opinion about him; as when, for example, he notes a wide- spread impression, "propagated with great zeal and industry in every part of Eu- rope," that the union and prosperity of the United States depended upon the per- sonal influence and popularity of Wash- ington. For Monroe's diplomatic perform- ance he expresses only contempt, and con- demns unsparingly his relations with Thom- as Paine. Adams was convinced that the Directory intended to force a war between the United States and Great Britain, and that it was willing to dismember the Union in the hope of procuring an alliance with a new confederacy of the Southern States. Aside, however, from their well-informed comments on the newspaper and official opinion of the day, the letters do not shed a great deal of new light on the diplomatic history of the period. The forty-two Slle- sian letters, written during a three months' journey in 1800, and published in the Phila- delphia Portfolio the following year, are not reprinted by Mr. Ford; and numerous other letters are, as in the first volume, given only in part or relegated to foot- notes. In February, 1801, Adams was re- called, but the letter of recall did not reach him until April 26, the day after the last entry in this volume. "Word-Formation in Provengal," by Ed- ward L. Adams (University of Michigan Studies, Humanistic Series, Macmillan), is an expansion of a doctoral thesis presented in the department of French and other Romance languages at Harvard University. Its purpose is to study the various proces- ses by which new word-formations occur- red in Provencal, an offshoot of Latin, and to give a good tabulation of all such for- mations. The details of the subject are considered and set forth clearly. Especial emphasis is laid upon word-formation by means of suffixes and prefixes, the most common of all processes in the develop- ment of the Neo-Latin vocabulary. To cases of parasyentheta, of post-verbals, of com- pounds, and of hybrids, the requisite space is given. The book is a model of pains- taking investigation and lucid exposition. The task involved was not one likely to tax the fancy, but it called for long and pa- tient endeavor in the collecting and sifting of scattered facts, and this the author has bestowed upon it with praiseworthy result. We have here a valuable addition to our manuals for the study of specific problems within the domain of Romance philology. Apparently the demand for books on South America has become so great as to make it worth while to publish even the most superficial travel sketches. Every publisher must have a "South America" on his list. If the exterior of the book is suf- ficiently attractive, it seems to have all that is necessary from the bookseller's point of view. Alas for the unwary pur- chaser of "Two on a Tour in South Amer- ica" (Appletons), who, caught by the lure of the pretty colored map on the front cover, expects to learn something about South America from the contents! Mrs. Anna Wentworth Sears and her husband took a flying trip a couple of years ago and touched at the principal ports. Most of the time was spent on board ship, and naturally a large part of the volume deals with shipboard gossip. In places this is lively and entertaining, but when a woman can write a whole volume about a voyage taken with her husband and refer to him on every page as "Orange-Blossom," the day of marvels is not over. "Crime and Its Repression," by Gustav Aschaffenberg, translated by Adalbert Al- brecht (Little, Brown), is the sixth number of the Modern Criminal Science series of translations, and is perhaps the number first to be recommended to one seeking a general acquaintance with the field of criminology. The treatment of the subject is comprehensive, and statistical rather than philosophical, and the book Is mark- ed on the whole by sober judgment and an avoidance of extreme views. Naturally, the writer rejects Lombroso's theory of the born criminal, although he admits that a large number are mentally defective. In his view the chief cause of crime is alcohol — here he is doubtless extreme, and the book is a rather sweeping condemnation of the drinking-habits of his German race; and the next cause is poverty, mainly, how- ever, as the cause of overcrowding In tene- ments. As for remedies, the only perma- nently hopeful remedy will be an Improve- ment In economic conditions. As an actual deterrent, punishment has accomplished lit- tle, yet the Idea of deterrence should be
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4:0 The Nation [Vol. 98, No.. 2532 i in cause of its educational value. More hopeful is the possibility of reform the Inducements offered by Inde- terminate or suspended sentences. In any case, tlir Immediate centre of gravity is not the law, but the execution of punish- ment. And hero he quotes from Krohne: "Even if you have the best law, the best judge, the best sentence, and the prison official is not efficient, you might as well throw the statute into the waste basket and burn the sentence." Superstitions of the ages regarding gems ami jewels have been assembled in an as- tonishing compilation in "The Curious Lore of Precious Stones" (Lippincott), by George Frederick Kunz. While the book is devoted primarily to the lore of precious stones the text and illustrations give the author a le- gitimate chance to display his knowledge and appreciation of the artistic and tech- nical qualities of the stones themselves. Esthetic considerations, nevertheless, are quite properly subordinated to details of the fabled properties of amulets, luminous stones, crystal balls, religious gems, and stones believed to possess planetary and astral or therapeutic influence. The quest goes back to the early Stone Age where "there is no trace of either idols or im- ages." It emphasizes the virtues attributed to stones in classical antiquity and the Middle Ages, and it includes lore of the present age which, Mr. Kunz urges, "could afford us nearly as many examples of faith in talismans and amulets as any epoch in the past, if people were willing to confess their real beliefs." The descriptions of these superstitions reveal prodigious eru- dition, involving citations from many lite- ratures, sacred and profane, ancient and modern. They constitute a work that is not less extraordinary in its way than Mr. Kunz's sumptuous "Book of the Pearl." The practical spirit of the University of Wisconsin upon which Prof. John R. Com- mons touches in the opening chapter of his essays, "Labor and Administration" (Mac- millan), is well exemplified in his own work. It is in his dealings with the con- crete facts concerning labor matters that he is at his best; his philosophic and more abstract disquisitions are the least satis- factory portions of his book. He is, in fact, more what he himself calls a "social engineer" than he is a "college professor," as most people understand the term; and the reviewer is confident that he will not resent this characterization. Chapters vi to x, inclusive, bearing upon labor unions and their characteristics; chapters xii and xiii, dealing with municipal affairs, and chapters xx to xxii, inclusive, describing Wisconsin's methods of dealing with in- dustrial education and industrial condi- tions within the State, are well worth study, for they convey to the reader the results of first-hand knowledge and per- sonal experience. Especially is this true of the Wisconsin experiments in which Professor Commons has himself borne large part. It is perhaps in the chapters on or- ganized labor that the reader will find most food for thought, especially in the chapter on the Union Shop (vii), that on Unions of Public Employees (viii), and that on Unions and Efficiency. Professor Com- mons leans with some partiality to the side of "labor," but notwithstanding this, what he has to say is worthy of attention. The general Impression left on the reader's mind is that cooperation by means of or- ganization on both sides offers the best solution of the problems arising in the relations of capital and labor. Education —on both sides — is an indispensable pre- liminary to this cooperation. Students will be glad to learn of the ap- pearance of a new French edition of Fitz- maurlce-Kelly's "History of Spanish Lit- erature" (Colin). The original English edi- tion (1898) has never been revised; the same is true of the Spanish translation; and the original French translation is now nine years old. The present book, however, is far from being a reissue of the other editions. It is an entirely new work, recast and rewritten from beginning to end. The author has brought his subject abreast with the times, having utilized all the important monographs which have appeared in the years since the last issue. During that in- terval also a whole new school of poetry and fiction has sprung up in Spain. These authors are thoroughly treated in the final chapter. The serviceable bibliography of Spanish literature which has accompanied the previous editions has now grown to such proportions as to demand a supplemental volume. Fitzmaurice-Kelly has given an unusual proof of virtuosity by acting as his own translator, a tour de force in which he seems to have been very successful. His book in its newest form will continue to ap- peal equally to the literary specialist and the general reader. During the Middle Ages and period of the Renaissance no Latin author, save Virgil alone, enjoyed a greater vogue than Ovid. In his "Ovid and the Renascence in Spain" (University of California Press), Prof. Rudolph Schevill tests that author's influence upoiu Spanish literature. During the Dark Ages Ovid was banned by the austere, but the "Ars Amatoria" offered the charm of forbidden fruit to many a choice spirit. Soon the discovery was made that Naso's licentiousness was not what it seemed, but was, instead, a profound reser- voir of moral truth. Specious allegorical elucidations of the text made the pagan poet respectable, and even Christian. In the twelfth century his works held a prom- inent place in the school curricula. Trouba- dours and Minnesiinger drew from them much of their conception of love-making as a fine art. In Spain, Juan Ruiz, Arch- priest of Hita. is the supreme exponent of the Ovidian influence during the Middle Ages. Mr. Schevill proves that he not only knew Ovid at second hand through the "Pamphilus de Amove," but also enjoyed a direct acquaintance with the source. In an "Ovidian tale" the interest centres on an attempted seduction of the heroine. This seduction is always carried on according to fixed precepts. The characters general- ly belong to the lower or bourgeois class- es. The tone is realistic. Fiction of this sort found a wide vogue in Italy earlier than in Spain. Mr. Schevill regards it as "a logical outgrowth of the peculiar social life of the Italian cities in which highly centralized activities were dominated by the prose of mercantile interests, and yet colored by an artistic and passionate in- terpretation of every-day life." The genre Is as easy to Isolate as the romance of chivalry, the pastoral, or tho picaresque novel; though, of course, tho Ovidian In- fluence may appear sporadically in these other genrvH. The author gives a careful analysis of the works of Boccaccio and Mnea.& Silvius Piccolomini and their influ- ence. In Spain the most celebrated and characteristic "Ovidian tale" is the dramat- ic novel usually called the "Celestina." The genre finds its most artistic expression in the "Celoso Estremeno" of Cervantes. In these and later works it is not always easy to determine whether the Ovidian in- fluence is due to direct acquaintance with the author, whether it represents a contin- uance of the mediaeval tradition, or wheth- er the impulse came from Italy. Mr. Schevill also enumerates the various trans- lations made of the "Metamorphoses" into the Spanish and the influence of this poem upon Spanish writers, notably Cervantes and Lope de Vega. He has given us a thorough and stimulating study in compara- tive literature. Important generalizations are reached. Monographs like this, co- ordinating ancient and modern culture, are all too few in America. Wallace Bruce, author, and former Unit- ed States Consul to Edinburgh, died Friday at his winter home in Florida. He was a resident of Brooklyn, N. Y., and was sixty- nine years of age. Among his published works are the following: "The Land of Burns," "The Yosemite," "The Hudson," "Old Homestead Poems," "In Clover and Heather," "Scottish Poems," and "Leaves of Gold." Science "The Efficient Kitchen," by Georgie B. Child, is announced for publication next month by McBride, Nast & Co. Another State list of birds is always wel- come, especially when available at cost, as is the concise, paper-bound volume, "The Birds of Connecticut," by John H. Sage, Louis P. Bishop, M.D., and W. P. Bliss (Bulletin No. 20 State Geological and Nat- ural History Survey). The authors have brought within the limits of 350 pages a summary of the State's knowledge of the birds, leaving identification keys to more general bird books. After a brief account of the topography, and of the history of Connecticut ornithology, Part I gives a list of the three hundred and thirty-four re- corded species. Under each we find its stat- us, the earliest and latest records, the breeding dates, and a few lines describing the nest, eggs, and any important or un- " 1 nbservations. The most noteworthy of the appendices is an elaborate bibliog- raphy of the State ornithological literature. Part II is by Dr. Bishop, and deals with the economic side, treating of each group In turn. Very careful consideration is given to the game birds, hawks, crows, blackbirds, and English sparrow. "Regarding the Crow," Dr. Bishop writes, "the evidence is about the same as with tho Blue Jay; and it is probable that the good this bird does mi destroying grasshoppers, cutworms, etc., la tar outweighed by the evil in kinim-, the young of insectivorous birds." The starling and English sparrow aro unqualifiedly con- 1. nini'ii, and elaborato directions for trap- il poisoning are given. The farmers ami lovers of birds of Connecticut will
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Jan. 8, 1914] The Nation 4=1 find much of value and interest in this ex- • Hi nt State publication. At the second international conference on rid map held in Paris in December, thirty-three Governments, including China, Guatemala, and Siam, were represented. Not' worthy features were the considerable part taken in the proceedings by the dele- gates of the Latin-American states, and the announcement that the Chinese Government intended to make topographical surveys. Dr. Charles Phelps, who for many years had been surgeon to Bellevue and St. Vin- cent's Hospitals, died in New York last week, aged seventy-nine. During the Civil War he served as volunteer surgeon on the Arago, when that ship was fitted out for conflict with the Merrimac. He wrote, be- sides various monographs, "Traumatic In- juries of the Brain." Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell died at his home in Philadelphia, Sunday morning, in his eighty- fifth year. His death was due to an acute attack of grip. After a public-school training in Philadelphia, where he was born February 15, 1829, he entered the Univer- sity of Pennsylvania, but did not graduate, owing to illness in his senior year. He took the degree of M.D. at the Jefferson Medi- cal College in 1850, and in later years re- ceived the following honorary degrees: M.D. from Bologna; LL.D. from Harvard, Edin- burgh, Princeton, and Toronto Universi- ties. An early incident in the life of the young medical student, who was hesitat- ing between two professions, in both of which he was destined to become famous, has often been told. He had sent a portfo- lio of verse to Ticknor & Fields; the pub- lishers referred the manuscripts to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who advised the poet of twenty-seven to make secure his position in medicine before attempting lit- erature. Thus, in 185S, Weir Mitchell turned his undivided attention to the profession in which his father, himself a physician and professor of note as well as an author of some success, had predicted he would fail. For twenty-five years he worked and studied, practiced and wrote. Experience in the Civil War directed his attention to the care and cure of nervous diseases, and he began those especial researches which resulted in the "rest cure" and brought him world-wide fame. More than a hun- dred publications on physiology, toxicology, and various troubles bear his name. His published works include: "Researches up- on the Venom of the Rattlesnake," 1860; "Gun-shot Wounds and Other Injuries of the Nerves," 1864; "Wear and Tear," 1873; "Rest in the Treatment of Disease," 1875; "Fat and Blood," 1877; "Researches on the Venoms of Poisonous Serpents," 1886; "Doc- tor and Patient," 1888; "Clinical Lessons on Nervous Disease," 1895; "Relations of Nervous Disorders in Women to Pelvic Disease," 1897; "Nurses and Their Educa- tion." 1902; "The Evolution of the Rest Treatment," 1904; "Rest Treatment and Psychic Medicine," 1908; "Hephzibah Guin- ess," 1880; "Thee and You," 1880; "A Draft on the Bank of Spain," 1880; "In War Time," 1882; "Hill of Stones," 1883; "Roland Blake," 1884; "The Masque," 1886; "Prince Little Boy," 1887; "Far in the Forest," 1888; "Cup of Youth," 1889; "Psalm of Death," "Francois Villon," 1890; "Characteristics," 1892; "Francis Drake," 1893; "The Mother," 1893; "Philip Vernon," 1895; "Mr. Kris Kringle," 1896; "Collected Poems," 1896; "Madeira Party," 1897; "Hugh Wynne," 1898; "Adventures of Francois," 1899; "Dr. North and His Friends," 1900; "Autobiog- raphy of a Quack," 1900 ; "The Wager," 1900; "Circumstance," 1901; "Pearl," 1901; "Comedy of Conscience," 1902; "Little Sto- ries," 1903; "Youth of Washington," 1904; "Constance Trescot," 1905; "A Diplomatic Adventure," 1905; "The Mind Reader," 1907; "A Christmas Venture," 1907; "The Red City," 1907; "The Comfort of the Hills," 1909; and "John Sherwood," 1911. Drama The radical label on conservative goods is so attractive in certain quarters that one would feel no surprise if Mr. Henry Rose's little book, "Henrik Ibsen: Poet, Mystic and Moralist" (Dodd, Mead), which deals almost wholly with Ibsen's ideas, and treats even these in a highly selective and idio- syncratic fashion, should attain a consid- erable popularity. The first trait of this expurgated Ibsen is respectability; he is insistent on contracts, especially marriage contracts, and he disapproves of Nora's departure from home; he wishes people to be innocent and useful (the italics are ours) ; he favors truth and freedom, but only under the supervision and chaperonage of the still higher ideals of love, duty, and service; he is as truly a religious mystic as any saint in the Roman hagiology; we have good hope that he believes in personal immortality, and even in redemptive and providential accident. "Et durae quercus sudabunt roscida mella." Jane Austen, Maria Edgeworth, Mrs. Hemans herself, would be satisfied with these impeccable credentials. The hysteria which recoiled in groundless alarm from the mild pre- cepts of this orthodox gentleman is fitting- ly rebuked. The destiny of Ibsen in the next generation is to supply texts for the birthday book, the autograph album, and the worsted sampler; to be read by the Pastor Rbrlunds of the coming decade (with whom one instinctively associates Mr. Rose) in the garden-room to Mrs. Holt and Mrs. Rummel at afternoon meetings of the Society for the Lapsed and Lost. We have no wish to ridicule ideals some of which have earned the respect of man- kind by undoubted contributions to its wel- fare, but merely to indicate the bias which has gone far to frustrate the excellent in- tentions of Mr. Rose in his conscientious and carefully written book. He ignores or discredits or re-interprets whatever dis- agrees with his personal conviction, and is aided in the task of self-beguilement by a singular courage to which a constitutional mildness serves both as mitigant and sup- port. His literary sense is not delicate; he draws a parallel, for instance, between "The Master Builder" and "Macbeth," in which Solness's vague and indirect respon- sibility for the deaths of the two children is counterpoised with the murder of Dun- can, and Hilda Wangel figures as the ana- logue of Lady Macbeth. He concedes that the correspondence in the latter case is not minute. The reasoner in Mr. Rose is much ahead of the critic; he has patience, order, and coolness, and, where the intellectual demands are not too heavy, he can reason justly, even happily. The fallacy of Dr. Stockman's "majority" argument has never been more deftly exposed than in the fol- lowing sentence: "The fact that the leader is ten years ahead of the majority no more proves that the majority is wrong than it proves that the leader himself was wrong ten years ago." In point of style, Mr. Rose has made himself rare in our per- verted generation by the practice of a method which ought to be normal and prev- alent; he has written an English at once thoroughly careful and absolutely plain. It is plain that "The Legend of Leonora," by J. M. Barrie, which was produced in the Empire Theatre on Monday night, must have been subjected to radical alterations since it excited the "boos" of a London au- dience, as it did on its first representation. As it is played here, the greater part is in a mood of burlesque, which might con- fuse, but would not be likely to excite se- rious opposition. Briefly put, the theme of it is the feminine tendency to be governed by emotion and instinct rather than by logic and moral sense, and the chivalrous disposition of man to sacrifice both con- viction and interest when subject to femi- nine emotion and feminine appeal. Leo- nora, the heroine, an exquisite creature, representative of all that is best and most dangerous in her sex, has thrown a man out of a train and killed him, because he refused to shut a window when she told him that her little girl "had a cold." She is unaffected by remorse, and neither she nor her friends can discern any discrepancy between the punishment and the offence. When she is tried for murder she takes possession of the whole court, entertains her friends, directs the procedure, estab- lishes confidential relations with the judge and jury, confounds the counsel on both sides by her explanations and admission';, and, having hopelessly ruined her own case to the consternation and despair of the judge, kindly accompanies the jury when they retire, and, of course, induces them to give a verdict of "not guilty." All this is sheer burlesque, but burlesque of a highly superior kind, extravagant in inci- dent, but full of humorous fancy, close observation, keen analysis of motives and manners, and entertaining satire upon con- ventions of English court procedure. But the main theme, the quality of unexpected- ness in the feminine character and the inevitable submission of chivalrous man to feminine appeal and glamour, is enforced by all sorts of ingenious device. If the piece is too light in texture to stand the test of criticism as serious drama, it con- stantly supplies food for reflection and Is productive of admirable entertainment. It is uncommonly well played at the Empire. H. B. Irving is busily engaged in the preparation of the new version which he and Max Pemberton have made of Sardou's "Patrie." The late Henry Labouchere had an unfortunate experience with this play when he produced it in the St. James's Theatre, of which he was then manager, forty years ago. A modified spectacular adaptation of it had a long run in this city not long afterwards under the management of Augustin Daly, at the Grand Opera House. The Drama League Series of Plays, an- nounced by Doubleday, Page & Co., are to
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42 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2532 be selected by a committee whose members always be three actor members shall be re are drawn from the Drama League and the publishers. The first two volumes of the scries will be "Kindling," by Charles Ken- yon, and "A Thousand Years Ago," by Percy MacKaye. D'Annunzio's "Le Chevrefeuille," which has just been produced at the Porte St. Martin in Paris, Is a drama of love and intrigue which is supposed to take place in an ancient castle. One critic characterizes it as "often beautiful in detail, but in the mass vague and baffling, devoid of any real dramatic vigor." The site in Bloomsbury, London, which now has been definitely acquired for the Shakespeare Memorial National Theatre, is about 47,700 square feet in extent, and has at present only three street frontages — Gower Street, Keppel Street, and Malet Street. Another roadway, which will be made parallel to Keppel Street, will furnish a fourth frontage, and it is probable that the theatre will be surrounded by a mar- gin of garden. The idea of an island site, to which the Shakespeare Memorial Na- tional Theatre committee has remained fair- ly constant, will thus eventually be car- ried into effect. At a comparatively mod- erate price a site has been obtained which far exceeds the utmost requirements even of a very large building, and which will place the theatre in the centre of what may well be a handsome open space. Dignity is, of course, an important consideration in the scheme, but whether the gain in that respect is a sufficient set-off to the disad- vantages that may arise from the distance of the site from the theatre zone is a point to be proved by experience. The demand of the eminent French trage- dian Mounet-Sully for the right to present himself as a candidate for election to the French Institute has created a stir in Paris. During the past thirty years the Institute has refused to admit actors, first on the ground that they "created" nothing, and, secondly, because of a law dating back to the Revolution. This point of law is ex- plained by a French correspondent to a London journal as follows: When the Institute was organized in 1795 by the National Convention, it was divided into three groups : the physical and mathe- matical sciences, the moral and political sciences, and literature and the fine arts. The third group of seats was divided into eight groups of six, the last being assigned to "music and declamation." Accordingly three actors, Mole, Preville, and Monvel, were elected to the Institute. Strangely enough they were all comedians, and Talma, the great tragic actor, was passed over in their favor. Seven years later, in 1802, an order of the Consuls completely altered the constitution of the Institute. The fine arts were separated from literature, and the three seats which n assigned to "declamation" wrere given, without any com- pensation, to engraving; and, final! the Academies wei actors bad no longer any place at all in them. In 1S10 M. Maurice Faure 1 the question in his report on 1 b Beaux '■ • - 1 nmmendinp; that the three be assigned according to their original constitution. M. Mounet-Sully has announce, 1 that If he is not. eli le he is still exercising his art, b< 'ill refuse any appointi and bi bat fin: ancient oonstltu- b 1 bere should stored by the 1 Inv.-rn nt Music A NEW ITALIAN OPERA. Dozens of new operas are staged in Italy every year, but it is very seldom that one of them crosses the boundary of that country. In April, 1912, there was produced at a provincial theatre an opera entitled "L'Amore dei tre Re." It attracted sufficient attention to be ac- cepted for the Scala in Milan, where it was produced last season with such fa- vorable results that it has been kept in this winter's repertory, while fifteen other opera houses in Italy and Spain are said to have accepted it. Its first performance in America was given last Friday at the Metropolitan Opera House. The first act fell fiat, but the second was applauded -enthusiastically, and the third also pleased the audience, where- fore the opera may be recorded as a genuine first-night success. Neverthe- less, it is not likely to remain in the repertory, for reasons to be given. The story on which the opera is based is admirably suited for operatic treat- ment. The three "kings" who give the opera its title are Archibaldo, a medi- eval feudal lord, head of a band of barbarian invaders who have taken pos- session of an imaginary part of Italy called Altura; his son, Manfredo, who has married the native Princess Fiora, who does not love him; and the man she does love, Avito, the Alturian Prince who has been bereft by the invaders of both his throne and his fiancee. In the first act Archibaldo, though blind, discovers that Avito has been making love to Fiora. In the second act Man- fredo has returned from a military ex- pedition, but soon is obliged to leave again. He gives Fiora a scarf, begging her to wave it as a farewell from the battlements. While she is doing this, Avito once more appears. She begs him not to tempt her any more, but his pas- sionate pleadings finally weaken her and she yields to his embraces. Again Archibaldo appears on the scene, and this time she does not deny her guilt; whereupon, in an excess of fury, he strangles her. In the last act her body lies in the crypt of the chapel, sur- rounded by flowers and mourning wo- men and men in white. Seeing Avito approach, they hastily withdraw. He kisses Flora's lips and instantl: feels the effect of the poison that had been put on them by Archibaldo to tr lover. Before he dies, Manfredo al rourself!" cries Avito; but Manffedo, believing in his Innocence to the end, also klssi lips, .'mil Archibaldo enters to find his on 'lying. Sem Benelli, the author of this tragic poem, is among the best-known of Italy's contemporary poets. Its one weakness I — and a serious one — is that there is ! not sufficient action for a three-act opera; but what plot there is is con- structed with consummate skill. The scene where Fiora confesses her guilt and the enraged king commits the mur- der is one of the most impressive tragic episodes on the operatic stage. Its ef- fect on the audience was greatly height- ened by the combined personal charm and artistic achievement of Lucrezia Bori. This young Spanish prima donna has the freshest and loveliest voice of all the singers now engaged at the Met- ropolitan. Vocally, her Fiora was flaw- less; she has the gift of acting with the voice, which only two or three other singers possess, and in the potency of acting and the charm of facial expres- sion she rivals Geraldine Farrar, whom in many ways she resembles. Even death does not end her art, for she shows herself the superlative actress still while her lifeless body lies on the bench, and when it is carried away by the King. Should "The Love of Three Kings" prove a success here, it will be chiefly due to the way this scene is present- ed, and to the marvellous art of Mr. Toscanini in building climaxes and re- vealing the charms of orchestral color- ing in the score. For these, to be sure, the composer must have first credit. His name is Italo Montemezzi. Though he is barely thirty years of age, this is his third opera, the other two having been failures. They doubtless served their purpose in developing his operatic instincts. In his new opera he shows a genuine talent for dramatic effect, for suiting the music to the poem, line by line, and for rising to heights of tragic grandeur. Unfortunately, it is merely talent, not creative genius. Scholarly he is, and conscientious, as well as in- genious, a master of effects and im- passioned in pleading; but to an ex- pert it is obvious that there is no real creative power. All the good qualities that can be credited to Signor Monte- mezzi are things that can be taught and learned; what he lacks is the one tiling that cannot be taught — the gift of cre- ating original melodies — the same old story, alas! It is this lack of individual melody in both the vocal and the orchestral parts that made the first act fall flat; most of it is surprisingly dull. In the econd act the fact th tuslc is "Men, even from soin train ing interest of th dating in a thrill, in i tie final si ene 1 be con- ; ■ 1 si of H"' 1 ' 0 1 !i at the bier, the other In the distance, is remarkably Impressive; yel in ibis in h , too, there 1 nol the note ol 1
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Jan. 8, 1914] The ]ST a t i o 11 4:3 tive genius. Nevertheless, the opera was worth producing. Besides the points in its favor already noted, it has the merit of brevity, and the composer is to be commended for not imitating Debussy, Strauss, or Puccini, as well as for avoiding the cheap and silly cacophonies of the musical "cubists." The International has issued a musical number, with contributions by Daniel Greg- ory Mason and Caesar Serchinger. Here- after there will be a regular department of music in this readable magazine. It will be conducted under the auspices of the Na- tional Society of Music, which is engaged In preparing an extensive work entitled "The Art of Music." Among the contribu- tors to this arc Debussy, R. Strauss, TClgar, Ernest Newman, and Reginald de Koven. In the December number of the Inter- 1 Mr. Serchinger takes up the cudgels for Arnold Schonberg. He thinks that all talk about that bold composer's "insan- ity" and "viciousncss" is silly. Of Mascagni's many operas only one, "Cavalleria Rusticana," has proved a last- ing success; nevertheless, he keeps on add- ing score to score, and his failures seem to be as profitable as most other people's suc- cesses. His latest work, "Parisina," had its first performance anywhere on December 15. The Scala at Milan was crowded to suf- focation, although the price asked for an orchestra chair was $20. Probably the fact that the libretto was provided by Gabriele D'Annunzio had something to do with this result. The story is, of course, an unsavory one, and while it was not recognized as a poetic masterwork, the verdict of the crit- ics was that it offered the composer good opportunities. Of these, we read, he did not take advantage to the fullest extent. The vocal parts contain a good deal of uninter- esting recitative. The treatment of the or- chestra shows the influence of Richard Strauss, whose "Salome" seems to have be- come a model for Italian composers. The love duos frequently suggest Wagner's "Tristan," and the harmonies of the modern Frenchmen also are in evidence. On ac- count of its extreme length and the scarcity of original melodies, it is not believed that "Parisina" will survive long. The com- poser conducted the first performance and some of the scenic arrangement had been made under the poet's directions. Mozart's birthplace, Salzberg, has a new Mozarteum building, the opening of which will be celebrated by a music festival last- ing from August 12 to 20, 1914. The pro- gramme is most alluring. The Philhar- monic Society of Vienna will give three symphony concerts under the direction of Arthur Nikisch and Dr. C. Muck. These concerts will show the development of sym- phonic music in Austria, from the classics to Brahms and Bruchner, with three Mo- zart symphonies as the centre of it all. Under Madame Lilli Lehmann's artistic direction "Don Giovanni" will be given in Italian (three performances) ; Dr. Muck will conduct; Mmes. Lilli Lehmann, Geral- dine Farrar, Joanna Gadsky, and Messrs. John Forsell, McCormack, and A. de Segu- rola will appear in the principal parts. With the gracious permission of his Majes- ty the Emperor, the Viennese Imperial Court Opera will give two performances of Mo- zart's "Entfiihrung aus dem Scrail," Franz Schalk, conductor. Among the many chamber-music asso- ciations, that which styles itself the Capet Quartet of Paris has, since it began to travel to all parts of musical Europe, come very much to the fore. Even in the large capitals of Germany and Austria, which nearly all boast their own indigenous artists famous for ensemble playing, the Frenchmen have been admitted to be in- ferior to none in their special field. Great- er delicacy of execution, nicer balance of tone, or a truer understanding of the en- tire classical repertory can be found no- where, it is asserted by those who have heard them. Sir Frederick Cowen has been invited to conduct a concert of his own composi- tions at Monte Carlo next month. The pieces he has chosen for this occasion are, doubt- less, what he regards as his best works: the "Scandinavian" symphony, the"Phantasy of Life and Love," and "The Butterflies' Waltz." With the exception of Camille Saint- Sains, the most prominent pianist in France for some decades was Stephane Raoul Pugno, who died on Saturday in Moscow, during a Russian tour. He was of Italian descent on his father's side, and was born at Montrouge (Isle de France) on June 23, 1852. His mother was from Lorraine. His father was a dealer in musical instruments in the Latin Quarter of Paris, and among these Raoul grew up. His talent developed early. At the Conservatoire he was a spe- cial protege of Ambroise Thomas, and he won prize after prize. The Prix de Rome he could not get because of his not being of French descent. He successively held the post of organist and choirmaster in several churches in Paris. For some years he was professor of harmony and the piano at the Conservatoire. He also became known as the composer of some operettas, an ora- torio, and piano pieces. But after 1893 he became best known as pianist. He made several successful tours of the United States, the first being with Ysaye. Art Charles Conder, His Life and Works. By Frank Gibson. New York: John Lane Co. Illustrated. $6 net. Charles Conder was one of the most brilliant members of that self-admiring and self-indulgent group of young geni- uses who twenty years ago found fame through the press of Leonard Smithers and through Mr. John Lane's Yellow Book. Poets and painters alike, they were saturated with the current French symbolism. Except in a somewhat strenuous bohemianism, they cannot be called a robust lot. Almost to a man they died in the thirties, leaving rather exquisite intimations than complete and consistent works. In temperament — and they were all very strong on tem- perament— they were- (lassie pagans, or mystics, or exquisite decadents, after the French type — in short, the most un- British set that may well be imagined. Pictorially, Charles Conder, New Zea- lander by birth, Australian by education, French decadent by preference, and Lon- doner by residence, was a faithful rep- resentative of the mood of the group. They repaid his leadership with an ex- travagant admiration, in which his bril- liant and winning personality natur- ally blended inextricably with his art. The cult spread, and for a. matter of fif- teen years Conder has been a shibboleth. To possess some scrap of silk delicately tinted with his brush was to hold a pat- ent of arsthetic nobility. Five years af- ter his death the spell is still strong. Charles Conder and Augustus John, these are the names that are unfurled before the skeptic as to a worthy Eng- lish art. From Frank Gibson's memoir and es- say it seems possible to us to surmise a very definite artistic temperament. To do so becomes something of an act of divination, for Conder's uneventful life is merely sketched, and his work is passed in somewhat descriptive and perfunctory review. Still, what is done is done carefully. The work is listed with surprising thoroughness. Campbell Dodgson has catalogued the prints. Then the charming little folio contains more than a hundred plates representing Con- der's work in all its phases. It is upon these reproductions and memory of the New York exhibition of two years ago that we must rely. Mr. Gibson's work is dignified and adequate, the fitting tri- bute of an old friend, but precisely its discretion is its weakness. Let us In- dulge a reasonable indiscretion in the hope of genuine portrayal. Charles Conder was born in 1868 in New Zealand and trained chiefly as a landscape painter in Australia. At the age of twenty-two he was a Parisian, and a Parisian he remained through residence for a matter of four years, and by aesthetic inclination always. It was the Paris of Verlaine and the Japanese Club, of the glory of the symbolists in letters and of the impressionists in painting. Conder drank deeply of it all. Watteau seen through Verlaine's "Fetes Galantes," a modicum of Whistler and the Japanese, later a strong tinge of Goya — these are the influences delicately combined in Conder's work. Anquetin became in a degree his guide, Toulouse- Lautrec his friend. Through his early years in France he continued to paint landscapes, but by his twenty-sixth year he had developed the peculiar style and medium that brought him fame. By the slightest iridescent indications on silk, in water-color, he could create a little pastoral world. Such drawings were usually in the form of fans, but occasionally in more conventional forms. Now and then he painted strips of silk
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4.4= Tlie Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2532 for wall decorations, and sometimes pen- cilled the ribbons that adorned a frock. A sultry and quite entrancing feminism is the note of this work. The embodi- ment is the most superficial — in a tech- nical sense Condor never mastered the trade of the figure-painter — but the emo- tion is fully conveyed. It is the spe- cific nature of this emotion that must occupy us. In pearly silken regions women pass slowly or more languidly recline. Some are clothed, but their bosoms strain un- der the light coverings. About the half- revealed forms of other women the drap- eries cling as they fall away. The pos- tures and motions of all are hesitant, ambiguous. These fair denizens of pearly realms seem bewildered by half- sensed desires. Their world is saturat- ed with the warmth of sex, but they know not to whom to give themselves. The mood is a curious middle stage be- tween the wistful muted amorousness of a Watteau and the frank sensuality of a Goya. The light is often crepuscular, but rarely at all specific, and occasional- ly the whole design is shot with crim- son, green, or blue, after the fashion of an illumined stage. It is a woman s world. There is no struggle in it except perhaps the eternal struggle between mind and temperament. Which is to win, no spectator will doubt for a min- ute. Unmistakable as are the sensuous implications of Conder's art, they are also very subtle and diffused. What is present is not desire for a particular person, nor even of sex; rather an ur- gent and smouldering desire for desire. It is precisely the languid dulcet note of a book that to Conder personally and to many of his generation was a gos- pel of beauty, "Mademoiselle de Mau- pin." No painter has caught the mood so completely as Conder, and this im- plies a consummate artistic tact. To steer with Gautier a course between per- versity on one hand and grossness on the other, to elevate green sickness to an aesthetic, to present the bewildered human animal without waiver of pathos and grace — all this requires a sentimen- tality most highly intellectualized. Obviously, such feats are proper to times of decadence. And, in fact, Con- der's exquisite and personal gift could assume importance only in some inter- space when the sense of great art was lost. Despite a few charming Whistler- ian landscapes, there is little of the open air about him. The roses which he sheds so generously about his women might better be orchids. He himself is an exotic in England. His single note is sounded with such vibrant exquisite- ness as, once heard, to be quite unfor- gettable. Among the minor lyrists of an age that overvalued the lyric cry, he is one of the most complete, distinctive, and accomplished. His later years were passed between his delightful home at Chelsea and dear- ly loved spots in France, Italy, and Spain. Like most of his companions, he had burned himself out prematurely. He died in 1909, only forty-one years old. Nothing but repetition of his successful vein is promised by his last works. With most of the group to which he belonged his quality remained that of a charming and perverse adolescence. He never de- veloped an adult style and was fortu- nate in going before his youth had whol- ly passed. The following volumes are promised early next month by McBride, Nast & Co. : "The Art of Nijinsky," by Geoffrey Whitworth, with ten illustrations in color by Dorothy Mulloch; "The Craft of Hand-Made Rugs," by Amy Mali Hicks, and "Baroque Archi- tecture," by Martin S. Briggs. The British Museum has recently pur- chased a Roman mosaic of great interest. It was discovered at Romain-en-Gallia, the site of a Roman town on the bank of the Rhone, opposite Vienne (Isere), to the south of Lyons. The mosaic is distinguished by completeness, only small portions being re- stored. It measures about 12 feet by 10 feet 6 inches, and formed the floor of a room. The design consists of a central panel with four medallions, one at each corner. The central panel contains a nude figure with a hound; the medallions respectively Diony- sus, wreathed; a bust of a young Satyr; busts of an old Satyr and a Maenad, and busts of a young Pan and a Maenad. Each of these medallions is surrounded by a square border, the corners of which are fill- ed with birds. The prevailing colors in the mosaic are black, white, red, and yellow, but other shades are also introduced. Though not comparable with the finest work in this style in Naples and Rome, this mo- saic is of finer workmanship than that of the provincial work found in Britain and Africa. The squares employed are indeed exceedingly small, particularly in the panel and the medallions, and they have been pieced together with extraordinary skill. A. E. Gallatin has done a useful thing very well in "The Portraits and Carica- tures of James McNeill Whistler, an Icono- graphy" (Lane). Twenty-nine self portraits are recorded, of which three have been challenged by various authorities. Many of the self-portraits are slight or in small groups, and none represents the mature man satisfactorily. For this one must look to such portraits as Chase's and Boldini's and to the photographs, which Mr. Gallatin faithfully registers. There is a tantalizing mention of a collection of unfinished self portraits at London, access to which was denied the cataloguer. Whistler was a shining mark for the caricaturist. It is surprising that only thirty-five examples have been found. The diligence of Mr. Gal- latin's iconograph quest is shown by the fact that he records the cover design for a Whistler cigar. There are twenty cuts, ten of which are first publications. Like its attractive predecessors from Mr. Gal- latin's hand, the little book is fastidiously made and the edition limited. "Animal Sculpture" (Putnam), by Walter Winans, Is a book of terse practical advice by an artist who has won high awards. Modelling should be from memory, and tho all-important matters are right placing of the main muscles and right slant of the chief planes. If this be done, and it must be done not from immediate obse-rvation, but from analytical knowledge previously acquired, the contours will take care of themselves. Mr. Winans advises making two plaster casts of the model thus blocked out, one to keep in reserve, one to be used for adding details in plastacine. The method proposed is highly intellectual and disciplinary. Its use would do away with absurdities of pose and balance which have disfigured much of the animal sculp- ture of the past. We agree with Mr. Wi- nans as to the value of sheer concentrated observation fixed by slight sketches. One models what he knows rather than what he sees. Mr. Winans's position is that of the realist. His scorn of Greek animal sculpture, supported by a single illustra- tion which is not Greek, will not be shared by many art lovers. It is disconcerting to find Barye barely mentioned in such a book, and the Colleoni statue called Colonna and located at Rome. Such opin- ions and errors suggest lack of culture, but culture is not the point of a book intended ior craftsmen. The practical counsels seem to us almost without exception sound, and the whole tendency makes against the su- perficiality of much modern sculpture. The sub-titles of books seldom attract attention, and the ordinary reader of the volume on "Charles Follen McKim" (Houghton Mifflin), by Alfred Hoyt Granger, will be likely to overlook the fact that it claims to be no more than "a study" of the life and work of the great archi- tect. To those who knew McKim most in- timately, however, the book must seem in- adequate on the one hand and somewhat misleading on the other. Biographically it is clearly too slight a sketch to have great value; and as a discussion of McKim's mode of work, and of the results accom- plished by him, it can scarcely be said to be accurate. An author nowadays who produces a profusely illustrated book should remember that many of those who open its pages will judge of it very largely by its pictorial contents. And in this Mr. Granger does both McKim and those who worked in partnership with him no little injustice. In his text he indeed tells his reader that a number of the plates pre- sented are included rather to show the in- fluence of McKim upon the work done by his firm than to suggest that the buildings referred to were his own creations; but this fact will be overlooked by the casual reader who is certain to be led to impute to McKim certain buildings that bear no trace of his authorship. Injustice is thus done not only to McKim, but also to his partners, especially to his younger part- ners, whose personality is lost in the firm -ad to whom he was ever ready to accord the wry fullest credit, it is noth- ing less than a serious bluadi »r, for In- stance, to nave Inoluded among tho uius- tratlona a photogravure of the new Mu- nicipal office building In New Vurii, winch was not designed until after illness had ,t him to « Ithdraw cut [rely from practice, McKim's great laflueooe within and without In :ii'h.i c not to be quea-
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Jan. 8, 1 914] The Nation 45 tioned; and it was an Influence which al- ways pointed to perfection. But he wis associated throughout his career with oth- er men of strong individuality; and it is neither fair to him nor to them to suggest, even by indirection, that their personal taste was subordinated to his. The book, however, has its value as an enthusiastic appreciation of a great architect, and we may, therefore, overlook the fact that it is defective in critical acumen. It is, as it were, a wreath of laurel laid upon the tomb of AIcKim by one who feels that his own life was enriched by contact with him; and it may be accepted as repre- sentative of the respect and admiration of that large number of the younger archi- tects who feel that they owe a debt of gratitude to the master who inspired them with devotion to ideals. The book is beau- tifully printed, and the illustrations are well made. Finance BEGINNING THE NEW YEAR. The first business day of the new year was marked by curiously opposite move- ments in the home and foreign money markets. At New York call money rose to 10 per cent, a figure not surpassed at any time in 1913. At London, on the contrary, discount rates declined % of 1 per cent, to the lowest figure since the opening of October, and at Berlin a decline of % brought actually the low- est rate since the outbreak of the Bal- kan War. High call loan rates at New York for the opening of the year are not altogeth- er unusual — 14 per cent, was quoted at the opening of 1910, 20 per cent, at the opening of 1908, 40 per cent, at the opening of 1907, and 125 per cent, at the opening of 1906. But in 1910, when January opened with 14 per cent, such an inflow of cash to New York ensued that the maximum rate from the middle of that month to the end of March was 3x/2 per cent. In the preceding year, with 20 per cent, for call money, the highest quotation for the two next months was 3. To many people who scanned the tape between ten and three o'clock on the first business day of the new year, or who ran their eye over the afternoon newspapers' financial pages somewhat later, the action of the markets was un- doubtedly disappointing. There had been such an outburst of cheerful talk and prophecy, in the financial comment and forecast of the several preceding days, that it seemed the plain duty of the Stock Exchange and the money market to act in character. That prices on the one should have moved uncer- tainly, and that rates on the other should have risen to a figure higher than any in 1913, was unpleasantly like a dash of frigid water on the glowing ■expectations. One is not compelled, however, to take I it immediately for granted that this in- j iroductory movement is the keynote of 1914, or to apply to the financial situa- j tion the analogy of the traditional citi- zen who constructs on January 1 a new I programme for his life and conduct, and I on January 2 has to report a day's per- 1 tormances closely resembling those of 1 the previous year. A market has to put ; some distance between itself and the "year-end readjustments" before it can : begin to show its actual character. Even I the year of easy money and after-panic revival, 1908, was ushered in with the Wall Street call-money rate at no less than 20 per cent. The calendar does not always settle the course of events, and the passing into another year is no guarantee that another set of governing influences is in operation. Yet it ist hard to shake off the belief that events have combined, at this particular turn of the year, to alter rather strikingly the complexion of affairs. Wall Street, which always likes to have its superstitions fulfilled, may have had a certain satisfaction in the outcome of such a numbered year as 1913; but gratification that the ill- omened Wall Street year is ended will undoubtedly be the leading sentiment of the hour. This feeling certainly will not be weakened by the unanimous ad- mission that, whatever may be the gen- eral forecast as to 1914, the actual sit- uation has necessarily been changed by the bewildering succession of important occurrences in the past three weeks. The financial community may, in its own judgment, prophesy good or ill from the enacted Banking and Currency law, from the Telephone Company's truce with the Government, and from the long step made towards the peaceful and har- monious ending of the "Money Trust" agitation, through the announcement, by the Morgans, of their firm's retire-! ment from "interlocking directorates" on which it is personally represented. It is possible enough for the reasoners of Wall Street to insist that each of these developments may mean derange- ment of an agreeable status quo. But even the discontented critics will be the first to recognize that through these changes we at least part company with some important underlying factors in the uncertainties of 1913, and that now it is possible to look ahead. It is possible also, in contemplating the more recent of these occurrences, to set up a very fair argument that they are bringing American finance in gen- eral, not from a safe and normal an- chorage into an unknown sea, but from an exceedingly tempestuous course, whose end could be surmised by no one, into the old and well-charted channels of the past. The markets and the finan- cial community have been observing, lis- tening, and learning, since they were in- formed with angry exaggeration, during the exchange of political compliments in 1912, that to abandan these hazardous financial experiments of the decade past would be to "revert to the business methods of half a century ago." BOOKS OF THE WEEK. Allen, E. S. The Awakening of the Hart- wells. American Tract Society. Bacon, B. W. Theodore Thornton Munger: New England Minister. Yale Univ. Press. $3 net. Beaumont, E. T. Ancient Memorial Brass- es. Oxford Univ. Press. Bell, P. D. Gloria Gray, Love Pirate. Chi- cago: Roberts & Co. $1.25 net. Blake, William. Poetical Works. Edited by John Sampson. Oxford University Press. Braithwaite, W. S. Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1913. Cambridge, Mass. : The Author. $1 net. CoppSe, Francois. On rend l'argent Edit- ed with notes by P. W. Harry. Boston: Ginn. 50 cents. Cromwell, Oliver. Speeches, collected and edited by C. L. Stainer. Oxford Univ. Press. Dawbarn, C. Y. C. Uncrowned : A Story of Queen Elizabeth and the Early Life of Francis "Bacon." Longmans. $1.75 net. Fassett, J. H. The Beacon First Reader. Boston : Ginn. 35 cents. Fenn, R. W. Horacio: A Tale of Brazil. American Tract Society. Gerstacker's Germelshausen. Edited with notes by R. W. Haller. Merrill Co. 40 cents. Griffin, G. G. Writings on American His- tory: A Bibliography of Books and Ar- ticles published during 1911. Washing- ton: American Historical Association. Hare, M. C. Norris Wright Cuney. Crisis Pub. Co. $1.50 net. Harvard University Catalogue — 1913-14. Cambridge. Harvey, Alexander. The Toe, and Other Tales. Mitchell Kennerley. $1.25 net. Hepburn, A. B. The Story of an Outing. Harper. Hunt, T. W. English Literary Miscellany. Oberlin, O.: Bibliotheca Sacra Co. $1.50 net. Jackson, H. C. Black Ivory and White: The Story of El Zubeir Pasha. London: Blackwell. Jenks, J. W., and Lauck, W. J. The Immi- gration Problem. Third edition revised. Funk & Wagnalls. $1.75 net. Jerrold, W., and Leonard, R. M. A Century of Parody and Imitation: A Compilation. (1812-1912.) Oxford University Press. Johnson, S. W. Letter-flies, edited by Eliz- abeth A. Osborne. Yale Univ. Press. $2.50 net. Maoaulay, Lord. Historical Essays, and Lit- erary Essays contributed to the Edin- burgh Review. 2 vols. Oxford Univ. Press. Macaulay's War of the Succession in Spain, Edited, with notes, by C. T. Atkinson. Oxford Univ. Press. Martin, P. F. Maximilian in Moxico: The Story of the French Intervention. Scrlb- ner. Maxwell, W. B. The Devil's Garden. (Ad- vance copy.) Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. Miller, G. S. Fifty-one New Malayan Mam- mals. Smithsonian Institution. Morgan, C. L. Spencer's Philosophy of Science: A Lecture delivered at the Mu- seum, November, 1913. Oxford Univ. Press. Mosor. Gustav von. Der Bibliothokar. Edit- ed by F. W. C. Lieder. Boston: Ginn. 45 cents. Oxenham. John. Bees in Amber. American Tract Society. Philip, R. Q. A Vision and a Voice. Lon- don : Robert Scott. Phillpotts, Eden. From the Angle of Sev- enteen. Boston: Little, Brown. $1.20 n^t. Prain, D. Index Ke>vensis — Supplemental!) IV noofi-inio). Oxford University Reboux, P., and Muller, C. A la Manure do. . . . Three series. Paris: Bernard Grasset.
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4:U The N a, t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2532 Richardson, A. 0. The Power of Advertis- ing. Lambert Pub. Co. Royal Historical Society publications. Se- lections from the Correspondence of Ar- thur Capel, Earl of Essex— 1675-1677. Camden Third Series, Vol. XXIV. Lon- don: The Society. Shakespeare. Plays edited, with notes, by G. S. Gordon. Richard II. Oxford Univ. Press. Venn, John. Early Collegiate Life. Cam- bridge, England : Heffer & Sons. Vinogradoff, Paul. Essays in Legal His- tory. Oxford University Press. Wallis, A. F. Idonia: A Romance of Old London. Boston: Little, Brown. $1.30 net. Whittier, J. G. Selected Poems. (World's Classics.) Oxford University Press. Wildenbruch's Kindertranen. Edited by Carolyn Kreykenbohm. Merrill Co. 50 cents. The Jan. number of a new quarterly THE UNPOPULAR REVIEW Contains The New Irrepressible Conflict The Majority Juggernaut The Democrat Reflects The New Morality Prof. Bergson and Psychical Research Two Neglected Virtues The Unfermented Cabinet A Needed Unpopular Reform Our Tobacco: Its Cost Our Alcohol: Its Use The Microbophobiac The Standing Incentives to War The Machinery for Peace En Casserole 75 cents a copy, $2.50 per year Sample copies sent subject to return or payment. Subscriptions may be re- voked at any time, and money returned for unexpired time, including preeetling number. ,HenryHolt&Co.,KiS CHARLES FOLLEN McKIM A Study of his Life and Work By ALFRED H. GRANGER "A sympathetic and enthusiastic sketch of the life and work of one of the greatest leaders in the new Ameri- can architecture. . . . With ab- solute loyalty and enthusiasm Mr. Granger depicts the man himself, with bis passion for simplicity, for truth, for perfect beauty. His modesty, his wit, his bubbling humor, coupled with a certain sensitive restraint and self- repression; his generosity, his kind- ness to younger men; his fidelity to all high ideals are emphasized. . . . It is a book to be treasured by every lover of architecture."— Boston Tran- script. Lavishly illustrated. Boxed $6.00 net. Postage extra. HOUGHTCN MFFLIN CO., Boston and New York REMARKABLE DISCOVERIES IN EGYPT PROF. PLINDHRS PBTRIE now devotes bin entire time to the Egyptian Research Account (So- ciety), wliose discoveries relate to the history arts and sciences of ancient Egypt, and to its pre- dynastlc age. The Society, managed by a Com- mittee of forty eminent men and women, publishes an annual quarto volume, profusely Illustrated, of great value, that should be In hundreds of public ' and private libraries. Circulars of the explore- i tlons and books freely furnished. Address REV ' DR. WILLIAM COPLEY WINSLOW, 625 Beacon I St., Boston. The Flowery Republic By FREDERICK McCORMICK Is the most authoritative work on the new China. $2.50 net. By mail 82.70. D. APPLETON & COMPANY, New York The Justice of the Mexican War A Review of the Causes and Results of the War, with a View to Distinguishing Evidence from Opinion and Inference. By Charles H. Owen Formerly of Staff. Fourth Division, Second Corps, Army of Potomac. 12". $1.25 net. By mail, $1.40. It is the contention of this book that those who declare the Mexican War unjust base their charges largely upon mere opin- ion. The Mexican War, in Major Owen's belief, was fought in enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine. "The work is ably and entertainingily written. Page .after page bolds the reader and quickens interest." — Chicago Advance. "The book is well worth reading as a patriotic defence of our Government and Its Armies." — Literary Digest. At All Boolcsellers G. P. Putnam's Sons, Publishers Stu&ies in fittstor\?, i£co= nomtcs ano public %a\v Edited by the Faculty of Political Sci- ence of Columbia University. Speculation on the New York Stock Exchange, 1904-1907 By ALGERNON ASHBURNER OS- BORNE. 8vo. Paper covers, $1.50. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. JUST PUBLISHED NIETZSCHE AND OTHER EXPONENTS of INDIVIDUALISM By PAUL CARUS Illustrated with portraits of Nietzsche. Cloth, $1.25 A well balanced presentation of Nietzsche's philosophy Principal Contents : — Anti-Scientific Ten- dencies ; Extreme Nominalism ; Ego Sovereign- ty ; Philosophy of Originality; The Prineiple of Valuation (including a review of Nietzsche's predecessors and disciples). The Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago A Historyof FrenchLiterature By C. H. C. WRIGHT Professor of the French Language and Liter- ature in Harvard University. What French critics say: "Cn precieui instrument de travail." — Revue Critique. "Un manuel tres solide, trSs flair et tres judicieusement infertile." — Revue du ifots. "Destine & devenir un indispensable In- strument de travail dans les Universites d'Angleterre et d'Amerique." — Revue Inter- nationale dc VEnscignement. "I'n ouvrage solide, Men ilorumente et tout a [ail recommandable au\- etudiants d'Asgle- terre e1 d'Amerique."- — Revue Gennanique. "Oette franchise, cetle BVmpathie, cette moiiestie. et aussi eette tres serieuse informa- tion font de ce livre un manuel prerieux pour d'autres ™'iiip que ceux de langue angilaise. " — Revue de Synthase Historique. Cloth, 904 pages. Postpaid. $3.00. Oxford University Press American Branch 35 WEST 32D STREET, NEW YORK. A new book bv EDWARD HOWARD GRIGGS. THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART The meaning and relation of sculpture, painting, poetry and music. The author's most Important work so far published. 12mo, cloth, $1.50 net; by mail, $1.60 B.W.Huebsch.Publisher, 225 Fifth avenue, NewYork PUBLISHERS, ATTENTION ! We are equipped to do Jfine JJook printing May We Do Tours f Telephone' Cortland! 84 ] 20 VESnYLST.,'Ni:W YORK
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The Nation VOL. XCVIII— NO. 2533 THURSDAY, JANUARY 15, 1914 j&. <?/ "•RICE TEN CLNTS ANNOUNCEMENT From the standpoint of all public spirited citizens interested in the welfare of the nation, the most important of the many new encyclopedias to which the needs of the Twentieth Century gave birth, is A CYCLOPEDIA OF EDUCATION Edited by PAUL MONROE, Ph.D. Professor of the History of Education, Teachers College, Columbia University. With the assistance of Departmental Editors and more than One Thousand Contributors Complete in Five Big Quarto Vols. The set $25.00 net. Vol. V. POL-ZWI. JUST PUBLISHED Comments of NOTED EDUCATORS "Exceeds my expectations." "Indispensable to all students of education." "Serves the interests of profession- al education better than any other work." "Combines the highest measure of scholarship and practical availabil- ity." "Admirable in clearness, compre- hensiveness, and balance." "In the publication of this work the editors and publishers have done the country and the world an important and lasting service." "The most valuable contribution to the study of educational progress throughout the world." "A masterpiece, an enduring mon- ument." "Of unique value, a work of standard worth." "Fills a place in the plan of Edu- cation that has long needed to be filled." "The most useful work on Educa- tion that has ever been published." OPINIONS OF LEADING REVIEWERS "This Cyclopedia ought to go into every school and public library in the land, and become accessible to every teacher and every school of- ficial, and to all others who have to do with the organization, adminis- tration, or teaching-work of our schools." — Literary Digest. "A masterly work, one long needed, and one that will be keenly appreciated."— Journal of Education. "The undertaking is of exceptional interest, and of great value. It addresses itself in fact not only to all teachers, from kindergarten to university, but to a large body of intelligent outsiders. The scheme is comprehensive, dealing both with history and present conditions. Our warmest thanks are due for this 'open sesame,' this godsend to all edu- cators."— N. Y. Sun. "There has been hitherto no encyclopedia of education in English. The present publication, therefore, meets a real need, especially since its merit entitles it to approval as a worthy companion of the German and French educational encyclopedias. The editors have shown dis- crimination in the selection of contributors, and have succeeded well in securing harmony and proportion." — N. Y. Evening Post. "In the present immense and varied literature of education — a sub- ject now looming larger than ever in the public mind — not teachers only, but the many who are either officially charged with, or attracted toward, an intelligent participation in the treatment of educational problems, are here furnished with the succinct and comprehensive in- formation they require. This includes every aspect of education. Here is found, not only the information required in a handy reference book of cyclopedic range, but also an assemblage of systematic treatises on every phase of the subject." — The Outlook. An illustrated prospectus describing the work and containing press comments and personal indorsements will be gladly mailed to any address on request. Com- plete in five volumes, the set $25.00. Liberal terms of payment to teachers. Published by THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64-66 5th Ave. N. Y.
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11 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2533 The Nation A WEEKLY JOURNAL. FOUNDED IN 1865. [Entered at the Hem York City Pott Office as second-class mail matter.] The Nation Is published and owned by the New York Bvenlng Post Co. Oswald Garrison Vlllard, President: John Palmer Gavlt, Secretary and Treasurer; Eniil M. Scbolz, Business Manager; Paul Elmer More, Editor; Harold deWolf Fuller, Assistant Editor. Three dollars per year In advance, postpaid, in emv part of the United States or Mexico; to Canada $3.50, and to foreign countries comprised in the Postal Union, $4.00. Address THE NATION, Box 794, New York. Publication Office, 20 Vesey Street. CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER. The Week 47 Editorial Articles: The Government and the New Haven. 50 Free Speech and Professors 50 Profit-Sharing or Largesse? 51 The Harvard-Technology Merger 52 Is American Vitality Declining? 53 Industrial Labor in Art 54 Special Articles: The American Philological Association 54 The Archaeological Institute of Amer- ica 55 The Modern Language Association .. 55 News for Bibliophiles 56 Correspondence : The Seamen's Bill 57 The Sense of Smell 57 John Davenport and Lady Vere 58 Literature : Greek Imperialism 58 Circe's Daughter. — John Ward, M.D. — The Devil's Garden 59 The Poems of John Donne 60 National Supremacy 61 My Father : Reminiscences of W. T. Stead 61 Notes 62 Science : Letters and Recollections of Alexan- der Agassiz 64 Drama : The New American Drama 66 Music 67 Art: Mural Painting in America 68 Finance : Allotting "Regional Banks" 69 Books of the Week 69 JUST PUBLISHED Year Books of Richard II 12, RICHARD II, 1388 Edited by GEORGE F. HEISER Of the Philadelphia Bar. 8vo. Cloth. Illustrated. 470 pages. $5.00 net The publication of this book marks tie first step toward filling the only gap in the English Com- mon Law Reports — the reign of Richard II. HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS OAMIUtlDOH MA88AOHUBETT3 THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COM- PANY has just issued a new complete Catalog of its Books on Sciences, Relig- ions and Philosophies, of nearly 100 pages, attrac- tively arranged and volu- minously illustrated. A copy of this Catalog will be mailed free to any reader of THE NATION who will ask for it. THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING CO., 122 South Michigan Av.,Chicago Educational ARTIFICIAL PARTHENOGENESIS AND FERTILIZATION By JACQUES LOEB, Member of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. This new work presents the first complete treatment of the subject of artificial par- thenogenesis in English. It gives an ac- count of the various methods by which un- fertilized eggs can be caused to develop by physlcochetnical means, and the conclusions which can be drawn from them concerning the mechanism by which the spermatozoon induces development. Since the problem of fertilization Is intimately connected with many different problems of physiology and pathology — we need only mention the natural death of the egg cell and the prolongation of its life by fertilization; the fertilization of the egg by foreign blood and the immunity of the egg to blood of its own species ; the relations between heterogeneous hybridization and artificial parthenogenesis, between fer- tilization and cytolysls, and between per- meability and physiological efficiency of adds and bases, etc. — the bearing of the facts recorded and discussed in the book goes beyond the special problem indicated by the title. 318 Pages, 12mo, cloth; postpaid, $2.68 The University of Chicago Press CHICAGO. ILLINOIS. AGBNTS The Baker and Taylor Company New York I heCani bridge Univ. Press, London and Edlnburfh Karl W. H iertemann Leipzig The Maruzen-Kabushiki-Kalsha, Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto F. 31. HOLLY Established 1905. Authors' and Publishers' Representative 1S6 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, Rates and full information sent upon application. LIBRARY RESEARCH Researches made In Huston nnd Harvard Libra- ries. Ancient and modem languages. Translation, revision of manuscripts, etc, MISS m. II. BUCKINGHAM, 96 Chestnut Street, Boston, Mass. .*.'!, Inquirers. Address Educational u- brary, T11K NATION, 20 Vescy St., New York.
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Jan. 15, 1914I The JSTation 111 Foreign Books and Magazines Correspondence Solicited E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 681 Fifth Avenue, near 54th Street NEW YORK SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS First Folio Edition. Edited by Char- lotte Porter. 40 vols. Cloth, 75c per vol.; leather, $1.00 per vol. "By all odds the best edition now accessible." — [The Living Age THOMAS Y. CROWELL CO., New York JUST PUBLISHED PAUL ELMER MORE'S THE DRIFT OF ROMANTICISM An admirable group of papers on such authors as William Beckford, Cardinal New- man, Walter I'ater, Fiona Macleod, Nietzsche, and other leaders of the ro- mantic movement. $1.25 net. Postpaid, $1.87. Boston HOUGHTON MIFFLIN CO., New York HISTORY OF ENGLAND By ALLEN C. THOMAS, A.M. Professor of History in Haverford College. HP RACES social and industrial progress, -*■ the rise of the common people to par- liamentary control, and the development of the British empire. Cloth. 660 pages. Maps and illustrations. $1.50. i D.C.Heath&Co.,Publi3hers,Boston,NewYork,Chicago ATTENTION is called to the remarkable progress now being made by The North American Review under the new editorship of GEORGE HARVEY THE November Number, the first to contain the complete Editorial Department and the leading article by the Editor, was the largest edition in ten years. The December number was so greatly in demand that it was necessary to print three editions. The January number was completely sold out four days after publication. The gratifying way in which the new North American Review has been received leads us, with greater confi- dence, to invite subscriptions from those interested in authoritative reviews of our rapidly widening national affairs, and of the great movements in Science, Art, Lit- erature, and Religon. Yearly subscriptions at $4.00 should be sent through your local magazine dealer, or direct to The North American Review FRANKLIN SQUARE NEW YORK CITY LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF Wendell Phillips Garrison Editor of The Nation, 1865-1906 In one volume, croum 8vo, 300 pages, ivith photogravure portrait. During the forty-one years in which he edited the Nation, with a thoroughness, ability, and conscientious devotion unsurpassed in the records of American journalism, Mr. Garrison was an indefatiga- ble correspondent, never em- ploying an amanuensis, but writing tens of thousands of letters with his own hand to his contributors, who em- braced practically all the leading American scholars and critics of the period. From a dozen groups of these, which have been kindly loaned by the recipients, a sufficient number of selections has been made to illustrate the relations between Mr. Garrison and his great corps of contributors, the frankness and tact which he exercised towards them, and the wide range of his interests, tastes, and sympathies. The volume also contains a brief sketch of his life, a dozen of his best poems, and several of his characteristic editorials, re- views, and essays, besides a fine photogravure portrait. Price, $1.50 net postpaid. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN GO. BOSTON NEW YORK
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IV The ]NTation [Vol. 98, No. 2533 Longmans' New Books Vices in Virtues and Other Vagaries By the Author of "The Life of a Prig," etc. 8vo. Pp. viii+96. $1.20 net. (Postage 7 cents.) Contents: The Vices of Gardening — The Vice of Loving without Liking — The Ungentlemanliness of Ladies — The Fool and his Adjective — The Vice of Common Sense — Vices in Charities— Talking to Think— The Joys of Indigestion — The Vice of Unselfishness — The Vice of Being Too Previous — Re- viewing—The Vice of Finishing — Fleeting Pleasures — Prin- ciples— Misers, Ancient and Modern — Ill-health as a Profes- sion. Painting in the Far East By Laurence Binyon. New edition. Crown 4to. Pp. xx+295. $6.00 net. (Postage 29 cents.) Interest in this subject has lately widened vastly, and new stores of information have become accessible; so that this New Edition, thoroughly revised, with many new and additional illustrations, has been made neces- sary. It is bound in silk cloth, ornamented, in a style suitable for presentation purposes. Thirty Years in Kashmir By Arthur Neve, F.R.C.S.E. With 24 Illustrations and a Map. 8vo. Pp. viii+316. $3.50 net. (Postage 17 cents.) Dr. Neve has charge of the Mission Hospital at Srinagur, but this volume is mainly concerned with his mountaineering trips among the stupendous Himalayan ranges in the vicinity. He has also a great deal that is interesting to tell about the people of various races and religions who inhabit the valleys, and from whom his medical help gained him a warm welcome at all times. The natural surroundings have inspired sojourn- ers in Kashmir and other Himalayan countries to pro- duce some of the finest books of travel found. Splendid Failures By Harry Graham, Author of "A Group of Scottish Women," "The Mother of Parliaments," etc. With 8 Portraits. 8vo. Pp. xii+268. $3.00 net. (Postage 15 cents.) Contents: "The First of the Fenians" — "The Napoleon of San Domingo" — "The Cockney Raphael" — "A Shooting Star" — "The Infant Roscius" — "Little Hartley" — "The Paladin of 'Young England' "—"Kaiser Max." "We should imagine that few, even among well- read men and women, could read this volume without learning something they did not know before." — Times, London. Modern Chess Openings By R. C. Griffith (British Chess Champion, 1912-13) and J. H. White (Hon. Sec. Hampstead Chess Club). Specially compiled for Match and Tournament Play- ers. With an Introduction by H. E. Atkins (British Chess Champion, 1905-1912). Second Edition (Re- vised). Crown 8vo. Pp. xii+196. $1.00 net. (.Post- age 5 cents). £is>tubieg in J^tetorp, Cconomtca anb public Hato Edited by the Faculty of Political Science of Columbia University Speculation on the New York Stock Exchange 1904-1907 By Algernon Ashburner Osborne. $1.50. 8vo. Paper Covers. Published by ILonomans, <5reent & do. Fourth Ave. and 30th St. New York THE UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL! Books by SWAMI ABHEDANANDA FACULTY OF ARTS CHAIR OF MODERN HISTORY The Council Invite applications for this Chair. Salary £600. Duties to begin October 1st. 1914. Applications, together with the names of thr«? persons to whom reference may be marie and (if the candidate so desires) twelve copies of testi- monials should be forwarded to the undersigned on or before February 15th, 1914. Original docu- ments should not be forwarded. Women are eligi- ble for any office in the University. EDWARD CAREY, Registrar. A practical handbook for income tax payers, by an authority. The Income Tax Law of 1913, Explained By GEORGE P. TUCKER, of the Bos- ton Bar, joint author in 1895 of "The Federal Income Tax Explained." Cloth. Price, $1.60 net. LITTLE, BROWN & CO., Publishers, Boston The Flowery Republic By FREDERICK McCORMICK Is the most authoritative work on the new China. $2.50 net. By mail $2.10. D. APPLETON & COMPANY, New York No iv Ilea <l 1/ JULIUS CAESAR the Seventeenth Volume in :i New Var- iorum Edition of Shake peare Edited by Horace Howard 1 m oe Jr Cloth, .? 1.00 1 rocco, ( 5 00 Po tage extra .1. it. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, I'iiIiIImIk'in, I'll HiiiIiI |iliiii . "DIVINE HERITAGE OF MAN," "SELF KNOWLEDGE," "SPIRITUAL UNFOLDMENT," "REINCARNATION," "INDIA AND HER PEOPLE," "HUMAN AFFECTION AND DIVINE LOVE," "THE GREAT SAVIORS OF THE WORLD," etc. Send for catalogue. Address VEDANTA ASHRAMA, West Cornwall, Conn. Agents: THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO., New York THE TRUTH ABOUT WOMAN By C.Gasquoine Hartley (Mrs. Walter Galllchan) "An honest and courageous attempt to view woman ... by the clear, search- ing light of reality."— Ellen Olasgow in the New York Times. $2.50 net. Postage 14 cents extra. DODD, MEAD & CO., 443 Fourth Ave., New York PUBLISHERS, ATTENTION ! We are equipped to do Book Composition |and Presswork May IVe Do Tours f Telephone Cortlandt 84 20 VESEY ST., NEW YORK
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The Nation w it YORK, THVRBDAY, JAM.UlY 15, 1914. The Week We are loath to credit the statement, although it appears in the Progressive Chicago Evening Post, that Gov. John- son of California has been forced to re- consider his decision to retire from poli- tics because of failing health, on account of the upheaval the announcement caus- ed in the ranks of the California Pro- gressives, "with several party leaders anxious to fill Mr. Johnson's shoes." He finally decided to remain in politics, we read, "to save the Progressive State machine, as it was popularly under- stood," but has only now let it be known which office he will try for. As he has chosen the Governorship again, this leaves the Senatorship the prey of what we should have to call Progressive poli- ticians, if there were or could be such a thing. They manage these things much better in Kansas, where a few Progres- sives who were unable to attend a meet- ing called to consider the question of candidates for Governor and Senator, simply endorsed the candidacy of Victor Murdock and Henry Allen for any of- fice, State or national, for which they might run. The heart-burnings in Cali- fornia are duplicated in Massachusetts, where the six Progressives who made the election of a Republican Speaker possible are suffering verbal discipline by Charles Sumner Bird and others. Perhaps this bitterness is increased by the fact that only the refusal of three Democrats to vote for the Progressive candidate prevented his election on the first ballot. In a letter to the New York Herald no less an authority than Capt. H. C. Mc- Clellan, of the Revenue Cutter Service, retired, now superintending the con- struction of lifeboats and apparatus for the Life-Saving Service, denounces in severe terms the provision of the Sea- men's bill requiring passenger vessels to carry "two able seamen" for each life- boat. Shipowners and experts at the London Conference have already pointed out that this provision is doubly vicious — it lays an unreasonable burden upon commerce, and it utterly fails as a mea- sure of safety. In recognizing only able seamen as boatmen, it overlooks the fact that these men may never have had oc- casion to go into a boat, and may be ut- terly incompetent oarsmen. In exclud- ing stewards and hands below decks from the boats, it disregards the fact that they are frequently the best of oars- men, who have proved their superiority in actual competition. The test of boat- men should be a practical demonstration before the inspectors, and, as Capt. Mc- Clellan recommends, the bill should be modified with this end in view. This would also relieve the shipowners. As the bill stands, great liners with fifty or more boats will have to carry a force of deck seamen with virtually nothing to do but wait for some marine disaster. Mr. Robert Dollar vouches for the state- ment that "it would be an utter impos- sibility to get seamen enough of three years' experience to man the boats." To permit the use of qualified stewards would be only just. Despite certain merits of the bill, such faults as this go far to justify the opinion expressed in a letter which we print to-day, from Prof. Herbert C. Sadler, of the University of Michigan, that it is a tissue of contra- dictions and special legislation. Ten of the twelve States whose Legis- latures meet this year are to be objects of effort by the National Child Labor Committee to improve the laws relating to that subject. No one of the ten has the eight-hour law for all workers under sixteen, and three, Georgia, Maryland, and Virginia, allow children under six- teen to work at night. Georgia is also in agreement with South Carolina and Mississippi in allowing children under fourteen to work in factories; in Georgia the age limit is as low as ten years, and even this is not enforced. Stricter in- spection is needed in more than one State, and the Committee is urging a State Bureau of Factory Inspection in Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi. In a few States the laws are weakened by exemptions, as in New Jersey, which en- forces a fourteen-year limit for facto- ries only, and permits children of any age to be employed in other pursuits during the day out of school hours. Upon these exemptions the Committee is se- vere, but it is in reference to them that impartial observers may have two opin- ions. Much depends upon local condi- tions. Moreover, one of the larger edu- cational movements of the day is vo- cational training, which often takes the form of combining teaching with prac- tice. The snarl in the administration of the Mothers' Pension law in Massachu- setts seems a flat contradiction of the main claim made for the bill — that It would put a new leaven into local cnar- ity. At its passage there was hot de- bate whether its aid should be distribut- ed through local overseers of the poor or through special appointees. It was asserted that the appointees would be sociological experts, fully conversant with the theory and methods of poor re- lief. On the other hand, it was felt that to put it in the hands of the regular overseers would educate each commu- nity into a gradual revolution of its at- titude towards the destitute. It would learn to help them as a matter of public policy. Yet the overseers have imbibed so little of this "broad public spirit" that the private sources they once represent- ed are all dried up. In plain violation of the law's provision against State aid for less than one year, they are clamor- ing for funds in temporary cases — as when a husband goes to jail for six months, leaving his family in want. The merits of the case are clear, for the law was not meant to supersede, but to sup- plement, existing relief agencies. The Massachusetts press is doubtless justi- fied in its hope that the local officials will see the light; but meanwhile the situation is of interest to other States, where the chief opposition to mothers' pensions comes from private or organ- ized charities. The Pittsburgh Morals Efficiency Com- mission has found in eight months' work the basis for recommending a pot- pourri of reforms — the censorship of motion pictures, the sterilization of criminals, the inspection of employment bureaus, a minimum wage, and the use of schools as social centres. Chief inter- est, however, will attach to its cham-
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48 T h. e 1ST a t i o ri pionship of eugenic marriage legisla- tion, especially in the liglit of considera- tions joined with it. The one most po- tent weapon in the reduction of vice the Commission believes to be early marriages, to encourage which it em- phasizes good housing, cheaper living, and even vocational education, as per- mitting the easy conversion of youtn into self-responsible, wage-earning man- hood. If it can reconcile "eugenics" leg- islation with this principle of early mar- riage, the Commission will have done much for^ the enlightenment of such bodies as the Wisconsin Legislature. The most vicious aspect of such laws as that now meeting general condemnation in Wisconsin, and driving hundreds of cou- ples across the border, is that they place artificial barriers before the very con- tract which fosters all the virtues of family life, from thrift up. It is the duty of lawmakers to recognize the old discovery new made by the Pittsburgh Commission — that marriage itself is a force unrivalled in making for social purity. This is not saying that safe- guards of somewhat the character of those aimed at in the Wisconsin and oth- er laws are necessarily in conflict with this principle; but the matter is one to be approached with the utmost caution. tent that schools can be expected to deal j with it? A definite statement on this subject from educators who have given their minds to the subject would be wel- come. If in the interests of the child we have decided to abandon our sup- posedly prevailing reticence, let us be thorough about it. Let the honest facts be discussed instead of burying them under euphonious and vague terms like "sex hygiene." We believe that the right sort of sex edu- cation is greatly needed. When we come to the specific definition of what is the right sort, or of how it is to be given, we find ourselves less inclined to speak dog- matically. Mrs. Young seems satisfied that sex hygiene has made a place for itself of acceptable value in high-school instruc- tion, but she holds in abeyance her opin- ion as to its place in the primary schools. — [Chicago Evening Post. An honest statement of a problem on which there is a vast amount of loose and disingenuous chatter. Out of the laboring mountains of talk not even a respectably sized mouse of concrete sug- gestion emerges. Just what of sex knowledge are you going to impart to the child, and at what age? What an- swer will you give the child on specific questions that he is always asking? At what age are the lessons of elementary biology that he has been studying in plant life to be brought home to him? Just what kind of ignorance is it the ob- ject of sex education to remove? How ignorant in reality is the child of the things he is assumed not to know? How derelict have the schools been hitherto in dealing with the problem to the ex- Mrs. Ella Flagg Young favors instruc- tion in sex hygiene in the high schools. She is in doubt as to the elementary schools. The question thus resolves it- self into one concerned not with chil- dren at all, but with adolescents. But if it is with boys and girls of fourteen we must deal, the problem takes on a much simpler aspect. What "education" is necessary for children of this age that could not be conveyed in a single half- hour's talk on the subject of physical cleanliness, on the respect the individual owes to his body, and on the social im- plications of the violation of the laws of right living? One could cite the case of intelligent school principals twenty years ago or more, long before sex hygiene got into the headlines, who now and then gathered their boys into gener- al assembly just for such a brief word of caution and appeal. A mere quarter of an hour twice a semester by the head of the school or the school physician would probably meet the requirements of the situation. Canada's established reputation for enlightened treatment of the Indians can but gain from a departmental re- port showing them to be increasing at the rate of 2,000 a year. In 1912 there were 104,956, while 1913 closes with 106,- 490. Nearly all of them live in good dwellings; they have 326 schools, enrol- ling 11,144 pupils; while in spite of their supposed susceptibility to disease, the death-rate has been cut to 21 per thou- sand in the most populous communities. They earn wages amounting to $6,000,000 yearly, and cultivate 60,000 acrea. "In- dustrious and contented," says the Mon- treal Gazette, "they compare favorably with the Dominion's other residents." In their prosperous absorption Into civ- ilization is a constant proof of the wis- dom of Canada's policy of letting them shift for themselves, within certain pro- tective regulations. Their present estate [Vol. 98, No. 2533 would certainly compare favorably with that of the tribes once confined so close- ly by the strict American reservation system. Of this, the merit was to pro* tect the Indian while it educated him; but it also treated him as irresponsible, and cut him off from actual contact with civilization. A pathetic personal interest, rather than political importance, attaches to the announcement that Joseph Chamber- lain will not again accept election to Parliament. Chosen to this one, he has never been able to take his seat, though he dragged his broken frame to the Speaker's desk in order to sign — or, rather, pitifully to make his mark upon —the roll. It has long been evident that his public career was closed by the cruel physical disabling which fell upon him; and now his definite retirement will be taken merely as one sign more that his political battles are over. In the spec- tacle of so strong and masterful a man compelled to spend his last years in gray and hopeless invalidism, there is a theme for a tragic poet. On the same day that Mr. Chamberlain announced his retirement from public life, another statement was issued, of a quite routine character, but having a close relation to the leading feature in the last phase of Mr. Chamberlain's pub- lic career. The returns of the British Board of Trade for the year 1913 show that the exports of the United Kingdom for the year increased by about $180,- 000,000 above 1912, and imports by $120,- 000,000, an increase in the entire for- eign trade of $300,000,000. The aggre- gate of that trade, accordingly, was somewhat above seven billions of dol- lars, the exports being $3,200,000,000 and the imports $3,800,000,000. Mr. Cham- berlain launched his "tariff reform" cam- paign in 1903; the total foreign trade in that year was slightly more than four billion dollars, and in the ten years that have since passed it has grown to the tremendous figure of seven billions recorded in the figures just published. And exports have increased at a decid- edly more rapid rate than imports. In 1903, they were less than a billion and a half; ten years later, they are nearly three billions and a quarter. This great growth, both in exports and Imports, Is partly to be accounted for by the world- wide rise of prices; yet this goes com-
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Jan. 15, 1914] The Nation 4=9 paratively but a small way towards ex- plaining it. There has been, ever since Mr. Chamberlain began his protectionist crusade, a steady and enormous growth of British foreign trade; yet the very centre of his attack rested on his con- fident assertion that the growth of the foreign trade of England was bound to come to an end if she persisted in her free-trade policy. The London "verdict" which by com- promise convicted Edwin Drood's uncle of manslaughter, coupling a plea for mercy with a recommendation for judi- cial severity, partook of Dickens's own satiric hostility to legal inconsistencies. "Nothing serious in life!" exclaimed Mr. Snitchcy. "What do you call law?" "The one great principle of the English law," says "Bleak House," "is to make business for itself." Most of Dickens's lawyers, from Dodson and Fogg down, are what we should call shysters. The face of Quilp's attorney — low forehead, a wen-like nose, deep red hair — was "one of nature's beacons, warning off those who navigated the shoals and breakers of the world, from that dangerous strait, the Law." But if the youth who had been a reporter in Doctors' Commons knew of what he wrote, it was of con- ditions that were already beginning to dissolve. Shaw, Chesterton, and all the eminent Drood "jury" are witnesses that the spirit of ridicule for any social fault persists in England; but in legal pro- cedure, at least, it has an insubstantial target. Whether this spirit did more in mending matters than the downright as- saults of men like Bentham, is scarcely debatable. Much as didacticism in lit- erature is out of fashion, the writings of men like Mr. Alger and Judge Swann might furnish our own fiction a hint. While not bad to the Dickensian degree, some of our court procedure would still justify Mr. Snitchey's further retort to the man who thought law a joke: "If you ever went into it, you would change your mind." The entire citizen militia of the Transvaal has been called out because of threatened disorders arising from a general railway strike. South Africa is a remote spot, and in this country we have been catching the merest echoes of a bitter labor warfare which began last year and seems to have been only tem- porarily allayed. In the recent mine strike in the Rand, the situation ap- proached that of civil war. In one riot a hundred lives are said to have been lost. As a result of that conflict the mine owners were made to recognize the existence of intolerable conditions under which the gold-diggers carried on their work. One of the main objects of the present sojourn of Col. Gorgas in South Africa is to combat the ravages of disease among the Rand workers. The railway strike is wider in its scope. It has affected both of the former Boer republics and may easily extend to the whole of United South Africa. Time brings its revenges when the national militia, largely made up of men of Boer descent, is called upon to maintain order against the industrial and railway work- ers, of whom the white element is pre- dominantly of British origin. The acquittal by the court-martial of Col. von Reuter and Lieut. Schad, the Zabern military tyrants, is a grievous thing and one that will react upon the German army throughout the Empire. It illustrates clearly how firmly militar- ism is in the saddle and the army clique stands by its own. To judge from the testimony cabled to the American news- papers, the guilt of these officers seemed beyond question; indeed, Col. von Reu- ter openly avowed his deeds and assum- ed the responsibility therefor. In his speech to the Reichstag at the time of its censure of him, the Chancellor went out of his way to emphasize his regret that trouble-makers were seeking to cause a break between the army and the people by exploitation of the happenings at Zabern. But this decision of the court- martial will do that very thing, and to a tremendous degree; for it makes it clear that the army holds itself above all civilian law and entitled to arrest civilians, sabre them, break open the doors of their houses, put them in jail for merely laughing at the military, and generally to exercise complete autocratic power. It is inconceivable that the Ger- man people as a whole will submit to anything of this kind. The verdict will also intensify the difficulties of the Chancellor, whose position is shaky enough already. equip herself with a full-sized Dread- nought for the recovery of the iEgean Islands has put Greek nerves on edge. Now comes active Turkish intervention in Albania, the newest of the world's kingdoms. Albania makes a very at- tractive kingdom on paper, but there is to be no particular rush among cadets of Europe's royal houses to assume sovereignty over a nation of excellent marksmen from behind a rock, and chronically opposed to the payment of taxes. Turkey no doubt counts upon the resistance of the Mohammedan major- ity in Albania to any Christian prince whom the Powers may impose on them. This mountain-land, which for long was the bane of its Turkish masters, seems likely to prove a thorn in the side of the Powers who brought the new kingdom into being, and particularly of Austria. There is no likelihood that the Ottoman will recover anything of the territory he has lost. But there must be sweet re- venge for Turkey in the fearful price which her conquerors have already paid for their prize, and seem likely to pay. The Terrible Turk seems determined to be the enfant terrible of the Balkans. Constantinople's reported intentions to Greece's new Ambassador to the Unit- ed States is Agamemnon Schliemann, a name which cuts across the boundaries of race and time. The son of the dis- tinguished scholar who wrote the mod- ern epic of Troy and Mycenae with his spade would seem to be peculiarly quali- fied to act as representative of the new- er Greece which as a result of the Bal- kan wars is stretching out towards the boundaries of ancient Hellas. His quali- fications do not end there, for the new Ambassador is the son of an American citizen. The elder Schliemann was in California at the height of the gold rush, was naturalized, and never gave up his rights. This is a fascinatingly complex situation, which at the same time calls up and refutes much that has been said about the "mongrel" char- acter of the modern Greek people. It may be that little of the blood of the mm who fought at Salamis and Arbela runs in the veins of the modern Greeks, who are most frequently described as a mixture of Slav and Saracen elements. Yet there is such a thing as spiritual heritage, and it finds expression In statesmen of the Venizclos type, to whom the glories of twenty-five hundred years ago are both an ideal and a fulcrum for moving popular sentiment towards the attainment of that ideal.
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50 T li e INT a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2533 THE GOVERNMENT AND THE NEW HA VEN. The announcement, Saturday after- noon, of an agreement between the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company and the Government is primar- ily important as another evidence that aceful and amicable enforcement of the Anti-Trust law is the order of the day. It is also of particular interest because, in the case of an exceedingly complicated combination of properties subject to the law, the terms of the agreement prove, first, the willingness of the corporation to conform to the principle of that law; secondly, the Gov- ernment's disposition to take a reason- able attitude in regard to solving the practical difficulties of the proposed dis- memberment; and thirdly, the belief of the railway's officers that such difficul- ties can be surmounted. A year ago, it is probable that a good part of the community would have ques- tioned the likelihood of any of these three results. The New Haven's atti- tude then was, to fight to the last ditch against any surrender to the law. This attitude has been voluntarily reversed. It was then assumed in many quarters that the Government would impose con- ditions— as to instantaneous disposal, on an unwilling market, of holdings of stock in other corporations — whicn would involve a ruinous financial loss. But the chairman of the New Haven now declares, in outlining the plan of settlement, that the Attorney-General is "broadminded in considering the busi- ness and commercial welfare of New- England and of the railroads in New England"; that he "recognizes the obli- gations incumbent upon the directors to conserve, just as far as circumstances will permit, the full value of all of the properties," and -that, "so far as the de- partment properly may, it will help the directors to discharge their obligations in protecting the stockholders in work- ing out the details of the plan for the various properties." This means that abundant time will be allowed for the necessary liquidation. And as for the very prevalent idea of a year ago, that such dismemberment would inevitably injure the property it. self, the New Haven's chief executh further states that, despite the prai tical difficulties of the problem, the properties eventually will, "without doubt, be madi not only good properties to serve the public, but in due time better properties for returning an income to the owners of the securities." It would be difficult to exaggerate the significance of the episode, in the light of these three considerations. The set- tlement need not even be described as a compromise, as the Government's "meet- ing the company half-way." It is an ab- solute agreement, by both Government and company, on the principle of the law, on the practicability of enforcing it, and on the application, in such en- forcement, of the "rule of reason" al- ready vindicated by the United States Supreme Court. We imagine that, in the New Haven's case, it will not be many years before the financial community it- self will look back at the Government's intervention in the company's affairs as having saved the enterprise from a dis- astrous future. For such an outcome was clearly foreshadowed, if the policy were to be continued whereby the com- pany, in the nine years between 1903 and 1912, had increased its own capital- ization from $93,000,000 to $417,000,000; of which increase, as the Interstate Com- mission showed, $204,000,000 "had been expended in operations outside its rail- road sphere." We have indicated that the paramount teaching of the incident is the fact that the peaceable enforcement of the law, in other quarters where its application has been doubted or resisted, is now reason- ably assured. Pending such general re- adjustment, there is, indeed, no reason why the Administration should relax its firm insistence on obedience to the law, or should abandon such active mea- sures as may in any single case be nec- essary to insure obedience. But the events of the past few weeks no less positively teach, in our opinion, that the era of peaceable settlement is not the time for piling up new and drastic reme- dial legislation, or for throwing fresh agitation into the field of American finance, at the moment when these suf- ficiently delicate problems of undoing the errors of the past are patiently work- ing out. There are, no doubt, some questions of company legislation Which remain for early consldl 1 alien, as a natural supple- ment tO vlial has already been aCCOQ plished. These questions are pretty well understood, and are purely constructive in their nature. Even they will need am- ple time for proper consideration not- ably the matter of regulation of secur- ity issues of the railways. But legisla- tion which involves the further great un- settlement of existing financial institu- tions, and especially legislation which inters the introduction of new and de- batable experiments, can safely wait un- til time has worked out the process, now under way, of bringing back our finan- cial methods to the sound and normal basis which existed before the rash un- dertakings of a dozen years ago. The growing spirit of confidence, in the business community at large, has had its principal origin in the belief and hope that a period of rest from the po- litical uncertainties of the past few years is now at hand. That this con- fidence should be maintained is of the highest necessity, not only to the suc- cessful solution of the problems relat- ing to the dismembering of illegal com- binations, but to the successful applica- tion of the two great laws which the Wilson Administration has already plac- ed upon the statute books. FREE SPEECH AND PROFESSORS. Philadelphia, January 6. — Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania will under- take at a meeting on Monday, it is said, to establish boundaries within which cer- tain members of the faculty will be re- quired to restrain themselves in their pub- lic utterances. Whether anticipation of this particular situation had anything to do with the action taken by the American Political Science Association the other day in re- gard to professorial freedom, we are not in a position to say. But there oc- curs, every few years, some case of the kind which attracts national attention; and the Association was therefore, in our judgment, well advised in appoint- ing a committee to report on the broad question of the situation in American educational institutions as to "liberty of thought, freedom of speech, and se- curity of tenure by teachers of political science." That the report of this com- mittee will wholly remove the trouble Li too much to expect; but there is every reason to hope that it will serve to stamp upon the minds of university au« tnorl! lea a better know li dge and a Cull cr recognition of the demands of aca demlc freedom and the grounds on Which thOBB demand:: are | nsi ill. d in the comprehi nsion of the subject, both by university autho: It! and by the public rem rally, t here has been -1
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Jan. 15, 1914] The Nation 53 great advance within the past twenty years. There was a time when many persons of intelligence and standing, and in particular many college trustees, were content with saying that to dis- miss a professor for the enunciation of unwelcome opinions was not a denial of his right to free speech, but only of his right to the institution's money. One sees this notion still cropping up occa- sionally, but it has quite lost its vogue. The question is not an abstract question of the legal right of free speech; it is a question of the status and character of the university professor. It is the busi- ness of the professor to teach the truth, as he has come to see it through his study of the subject he is discussing. It is an indispensable part of the validity and integrity of his work that he shall feel this to be his duty. To tell him that if in the performance of this duty he runs counter to the opinions or de- sires of the holders of the purse-strings he will be discharged, is to penalize hon- esty and independence, to reward servil- ity and cowardice. What the upholders of academic freedom maintain, in so far as it relates to the "rights" of the professor at all, is his right to member- ship in an honorable profession. To say that he can hold his place only on con- dition of suppressing judgments that are not to his paymasters' liking would be to degrade the professorate in much the same way as the judiciary would be degraded under a regime in which the recall was not merely permissible, but was habitually resorted to whenever a judge's decision was not to the popu- lar taste. But the principle of academic free- dom rests on broader grounds than the personal rights of professors. The ques- tion touches deeply the whole spirit of university life; even more for the sake of the students than for that of the professors the intellectual integrity and independence of the professorate must be upheld. Moreover, the influence of university professors, taken as a whole, is one of the powerful factors in the moulding of public opinion. It is safe to say that, in this respect, it stands, or at least is quite capable of standing, next in power to the newspaper press. The influence is less direct, but it is more steady and continuous; it is less per- ceptible, but it has a way of filtering out, through successive strata of the pop- ulation, until it leavens a great lump. And this influence is, on the whole, bene- ficial, tending to the preservation of sane and wise views of political issues. No doubt there are among the professor- ial body a certain number of foolish ex- tremists, a certain number of shallow and sensational ranters. No doubt, also, there are a certain number of strong men who, from the point of view of the conservative, are sadly in error. But it must be plain upon a very little reflec- tion that in order that the opinions of the sober and conservative shall have weight with the nation, it is indispensa- ble that the heterodox and daring shall have the right to speak as they think, and to retain their chairs. Let it be known that nobody can keep a univer- sity professorship unless he conforms to a given code of opinion, and any ap- peal to university opinion must neces- sarily become a farce. There is a point, of course, beyond which freedom be- comes pure license and where, for obvi- ous ethical reasons, the trustees of an institution must intervene. All things human are in a way a matter of com- promise. But in practice the point of unquestionable license is seldom reach- ed, and it is safer to err on the side of liberty. As for the actual status and attitude of professors of economics and political science in this country at the present time, we believe that it is, on the whole, very nearly all that can be desired from this standpoint. Of this, Columbia Uni- versity is a striking example. We have taken occasion to find fault with its government in regard to a different aspect of the professor's freedom — the question of teaching methods and of the free play of personality. But as to free- dom of opinion, and particularly in the field of economic and political science, it would be difficult to find any fault. The president of Columbia is one of the leading conservatives of the country, and the trustees are doubtless in the main of his way of thinking. Yet almost every professor in those departments is a good deal of a radical, and several of them have been among the earliest champions of what a few years ago were generally regarded as very advanced rad- ical policies. None of them is in the slightest danger of molestation. And a similar condition exists in many of our leading universities. So far from be- ing fortresses of capitalism, as many people Imagine — and as perhaps they were, to some extent, a quarter of a century ago — the American universities have been distinctly responsible for a considerable part of the impetus behind the "progressive" movement which has come to the front in recent years. The reason for the action of the Political Science Association is to be found less in existing conditions as a whole than in the evil that shows itself here and there, and in the essential importance of asserting a principle which is always in more or less danger of being lost sight of. PROFIT-SHARING OR LARGESSE? Referring to the announced distribu- tion of $10,000,000 out of the prospec- tive profits for the year 1914 to the wage- earning employees of his company, Mr. Henry Ford has stated that he regards it as not at all an act of charity, but simply a fair division of the net returns of the business. Upon the abstract question there is room for a great deal of pretty disputation. But the practi- cal issue which this extraordinary dis- tribution presents relates not to the moral quality, or the social quality, of ;the act, but to its bearing on the sub- ject of profit-sharing in general. Call it fair division or call it largesse, as you will; the question is whether the act of the Ford Motor Company is calcu- lated to promote or to discourage the spread of the profit-sharing plan in the industrial world. Without trying to answer this ques- tion we may note some of the factors that enter into the case. One of these is the psychological element involved in the immediate spectacle. In the past few days profit-sharing has been discussed by thousands of persons who until then had scarcely heard of the term. Among them are probably many employers who are thinking of it, if not as a practical probability, at least as something more than a mere academic fad. Some of these may go so far as to inquire into the history of the subject in France, in England, in Germany, in this country, and look up books or Government re- ports relating to it. But while the mere stirring up of in- terest is calculated to promote the spread of the profit-sharing idea, there is much in the particular exemplifica- tion that is calculated to have the op- posite effect. Anything comparable to
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52 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2533 the bounties which are to be given by the Ford Company is so obviously out 01 the question in general as to give fresh point to one of the standard objections raised against the profit-sharing plan. An article in a recent volume of the Economic Review, by a thoroughly friendly writer, puts this objection to the schemes very clearly: They would, if generally adopted, intro- duce a great inequality in the remuneration of one and the same grade of labor. The inequality, in fact, would be exactly pro- portioned to the inequality of the realized profits of the various firms employing that grade of labor. . . . Now, inequality of remuneration is very soon felt to be inse- curity, since the weekly wage comes to be taken as a minimum, and the standard re- muneration (i. e., the sum which a man will complain of if he does not get) is the wage plus the average share of profit in the industry. For this reason the trade unions are not as unreasonable as they might appear to be when they choose to work for a rise of wages throughout the industry rather than for a state of things in which each firm should give its em- ployees a share of the profits. In the case in hand, the inequality here referred to is exhibited on a scale far beyond anything that this writer could have had in mind; and accord- ingly the very plethora of the success which the profit-sharing plan seems to have at its disposal in the Ford plant is the cause of its serving to accentuate not the feasibility, but a conspicuous difficulty, of that plan. As actually pur- sued in the many establishments which have successfully tried it, this difficulty has been hypothetical rather than real. Thus Mr. T. C. Taylor, who is one of the most ardent advocates of the plan in England, and whose firm has prac- ticed it upon a very just plan for thir- ty years, says: "In twenty years the number of our workers has increased from 600 to 1,400, and we have appor- tioned as the workers' share near £100,- 000." This is pleasant, but it means an average distribution of only about $25 a year to each worker. Taking all the profit-sharing enterprises in the United Kingdom on which data could be obtain- ed, the Labor Department of the Board of Trade finds that the average amount thus falling to the working people forms an addition of 5% per cent, to their wages — which is not very different from the experience of Mr. Taylor's firm. Ad- ditions ranging all the way from noth- ing to this amount, or even several times this amount, would constitute no seriously disturbing inequality. It is precisely in such a highly exceptional case as that of the Ford Company that the adoption of the plan brings in a dis- couraging factor which may more than counterbalance any stimulus that it furnishes to the profit-sharing system. In favor of that system, in one or an- other of its forms, a great deal is to be said. Its central recommendation, both from the narrowly economic and from the human standpoint, is its capacity for infusing into the ranks of the workers the feeling that they have a personal stake in the prosperity of the enterprise for which they are laboring. In that modification of the profit-sharing idea which is embodied in the Taylor meth- od of "scientific management," the case is somewhat different, for there the stake of each worker is expressly mea- sured by the quantity of his own indi- vidual output. But whatever particular form it may take, the idea of introduc- ing, wherever it is practicable, such a relation between employer and employed as makes for a keener interest in his work on the part of the worker, and a more human interest in the worker on the part of the employer, is one that is worthy of encouragement. If the De- troit episode shall stimulate the study of the practical possibilities of profit- sharing, it will have been so far of good service to the country. THE HARVARD-TECHNOLOGY MERG- ER. The news that an alliance between Harvard University and the Institute of Technology has at last come to pass is striking chiefly by its unexpectedness. After the failure of the attempt of Pres- ident Eliot and President Pritchett to amalgamate the institutions in 1904-05, and the receipt of the McKay millions by Harvard, it was supposed that the pro- ject was dead — as it was in the form in which they had urged it. Now their successors, Presidents Lowell and Mac- laurin, have brought about a union which is in several aspects one of the most original and remarkable develop- ments in our university evolution, if only because we may now see the extra- ordinary phenomenon of a student who has spent four years at the Institute re- ceiving a Harvard degree as well as a Technology one. If we understand the terms of the merger — to which, happily, the Sherman Act does not apply — some of the Institute's students will here- after be studying for two degrees in two different institutions, while some will be qualifying only for the Insti- tute's degree, and all will be taught by a corps of professors holding rank in both institutions. This is obviously the very opposite of what was planned during the years 1904 and 1905. The scheme which was then considered was the physical removal of the Institute to Harvard and its becom- ing in its entirety a college of Harvard, as Oxford and Cambridge have their numerous colleges with separate enti- ties. It was hoped that near-by Tufts, too, would ally itself on similar terms, since President Eliot's idea was that Harvard would naturally develop upon English university lines. But the Tech- nology alumni and faculty would have none of this, and a Supreme Court de- cision prohibiting the corporation from selling its land for these purposes came to their rescue. There followed the Mc- Kay bequest of $4,000,000 to Harvard, with promise of much more after the passing of certain lives, and so Har- vard, lamenting as it did the growing up of two great engineering schools al- most within sight of each other — the Technology is building superb new quar- ters on the Cambridge side of the Charles River basin — established in 1906 the Graduate School of Applied Science, with the idea that it should become for science what the Harvard Law School and Medical School are for their branch- es of learning. In this there has been the completest disappointment. Harvard has to-day less than sixty graduate students of ap- plied science, while the Technology has 250 graduates, or former students of other colleges, seeking its degrees. It is a pretty clear case that not means and able teachers alone can create a great school, and now Harvard wisely evacu- ates the whole field. Its fifteen profes- sors of civil, mechanical, mining, elec- trical, and sanitary engineering go over to Technology, and Harvard by itself will offer no further instruction within its domain In these subjects. With the professors go the funds of the Lawrence Scientific School and about three-fifths of the McKay money, or about $60,000 a year — eventually it should approxi- mate $250,000 a year- to lie lined, If the will Is followed, for salaries, upkeep of
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Jan. 15, 1914] T li e Nation 53 buildings, and scholarships for meritori- ous students. For President Maelaurin this is an ex- traordinary achievement; for slight con- cessions to Harvard he obtains great means for tbe Institute and leads in the movement to avoid needless duplication in institutions of learning. Moreover, in the five years of his presidency he has also obtained the new site and a magnificent group of educational build- ings. More than that, he has accom- plished the seemingly impossible: he induced the State of Massachusetts to vote $100,000 a year for ten years for the support of the Institute. He has still to obtain the money for dormitor- ies, and he has yet to prove that he can develop a great educational leadership. One regrettable feature there Is. We learn from Boston that the Technology and Harvard faculties had but two days' warning, and were not officially consult- ed. This executive haste savors quite too much of some of our big business mergers, with their "vote first and dis- cuss afterwards" policy. What does an American faculty exist for? It used to be held that a prime purpose was the discussion and formulation of large edu- cational policies, such as are involved in a momentous move like this. But we are out of date.. A faculty is now but a technical staff; our presidents are cap- tains of industry. What would fifteen Munich professors say to being switched to Halle without their assent on two days' notice? But if that is unthink- able, it is at least possible to congratu- late our college world upon a great and memorable advance, whatever the mis- takes of the manner of accomplishment. Particularly, President Lowell deserves credit for willingness to face the fact of Harvard's non-success in the field of ap- plied science. 18 AMERICAN VITALITY DECLIN- ING? The meeting of the National Confer- ence on Race Betterment will doubtless direct attention once more to the ques- tion of the increase of American mortal- ity in the higher age-groups. Mr. E. E. Rittenhouse, president of the newly formed Life Extension Institute, and other insurance authorities have for some years insisted on the gravity of the conditions. The outstanding fact, which nobody disputes and which is certainly very striking, is that while in ages be- low forty-five the rate of mortality is steadily diminishing, at about that age this tendency not only ceases but is re- versed. The mortality in the ages from forty-five to fifty-four is somewhat high- er now than it was in former times, and in the ages from fifty-five to sixty-four it is markedly higher. The conclusion drawn is that there is something about our way of life which grows worse in- stead of better from year to year. The advance of medical science and sanitary regulation has saved the lives of infants and of persons formerly carried off by infectious and zymotic diseases; but against this gain must be set an in- crease in the number of deaths among people of middle age. In point of fact, however, the increase in the death-rate at the middle ages of life does not prove the deterioration alleged. We are not asserting that the conclu- sion is false, though we are inclined to think it so; but we do say it does not follow from the premises. A simple and extreme hypothetical case will suffice to show this. Suppose that, under a given state of things, out of every thousand persons taken at the age of twenty-five, ten died every year for the following forty years, so that at the age of forty- five eight hundred were living, and at the age of sixty-five, six hundred. Now imagine that through some advance in medical science every one of the per- sons who had formerly been carried off between the ages of twenty-five and for- ty-five had his life prolonged exactly twenty years, while the rest lived just as long as before. The consequence would be that among persons of the ages from twenty-five to forty-four the death- rate would be zero, while for the ages from forty-five to sixty-four the rate would be greatly increased above what it had been. At the age of forty-five, instead of 10 deaths among 800, a death- rate of 12% per thousand, we should have 20 deaths among 1,000; and at the age of sixty-four there would be 20 in- stead of 10 deaths among the 600 sur- vivors. It is by no means improbable that what is thus grossly indicated on a mag- nified and impossible scale has in fact been going on in a degree sufficient to account for the actual statistics without the supposition of any increase of evil in our ways of life. Take the figures given in an article by Lewis I. Dublin, statistician of the Metropolitan Life In- surance Company, in the December num- ber of the American Journal of Public Health. They relate to the whole of the registration States as constituted in the year 1900, and give a comparison of the mortality of various age-groups in that year with the mortality for the year 1911. Among females, singularly enough, the phenomenon we have been discuss- ing does not present itself at all. Among males, the death-rate in the age- group forty-five to fifty-four advanced from 15.8 in 1900 to 16.1 in 1911. In the age-group from fifty-five to sixty-four it advanced from 28.9 to 30.9. It is almost exactly stating the case, therefore, for the entire group of twenty years, if we say that there was one more death an* nually among every thousand persons in the year 1911 than in the year 1900. Now, as the general death-rate in this country has been steadily declining as far back as the records go, it is certain- ly an extremely reasonable conjecture that this one additional death among a thousand persons is to be ascribed not to worse conditions destroying some lives which in the older time would have continued longer, but on the contrary to the survival for many years of some life less hardy than the average, which in the earlier days would have disap- peared much sooner. Or rather, to car- ry the war into Africa, is it not probable that much more than this increase of one death was brought about in this lat- ter way, and that the death-rate for the ages between forty-five and sixty-five would have increased more sharply than it has were it not for the actual improve- ment of conditions? Into the statistics of mortality from the various degenerative diseases by which the conclusion that we have been questioning is supported, we cannot en- ter. We must content ourselves with saying that similar considerations cast doubt on the validity of the argument drawn from these statistics. But there is one point of signal importance to which we must draw attention. Among the causes that affect the death-rate in any given age-group is the composition of that group as regards occupation and economic conditions. It is quite possi- ble that the increase in the number of deaths at the ages above forty-five may be due to a larger number of persons reaching these ages among the classes engaged in hard and life-shortening toll.
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54 Tli e 1ST a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2533 The effect of increasing the usual dura- tion of life in these classes would be to increase the death-rate at the middle ages of life; and, owing to the great number which such an improvement would affect, a very slight prolongation of life among them would be sufficient to make quite a perceptible change of this kind. So far from concluding, therefore, from the increased death-rate between fifty-five and sixty-five, that the conditions among the working classes are worse than they formerly were, it is at least a probable supposition that this phenomenon arises from the prolonga- tion of life among the least-favored classes into ages which in former times they comparatively seldom reached. INDUSTRIAL LABOR IN ART. It is fitting that Pittsburgh figures in the brief list of cities where the sculp- tures of Constantin Meunier are to be exhibited. People familiar with steel- mills, foundries, mines, and manufacto- ries should respond to an art that spe- cializes in the materials of this indus- trial age. Meunier's Melting Steel, The Miners, The Smithy, Factory Work, Returning from the Pit, with his unfinished Monument to Labor, rep- resent the heroic in industrial la- bor. In closest touch from his youth up with the mines and mills of his own Belgium, he has put the dramatic in- tensity of toil into a new setting. In the pleasure evoked by his work, a main element has been its novelty. That the industrial was synonymous with the ugly, that the aesthetic eye could look only with aversion upon the harsh lines of factories and the black clouds which their chimneys rolled against the sky, has been almost a convention. Yet into the tense groups about the pouring-ladle and the electric drill Meunier has put a vividness and a sympathy that make his sculptures popular wherever seen. Unusualness of background and action does not alter the fact that Meunier's main claim to attention is not his tinc- ture of iconoclasm, but an element as old as life itself — man laboring and over- coming. His work has suggested Millet more than any one else. Each strove to reflect human toil, and to convey a conception of the dignity of primitive labor. Largeness and serenity are key- notes of most of the productions of both. But in giving his types a touch of the august, Millet invoked the help of old traditions of the soil. The husbandman, in youth, is archetype of the earth's fruitful vigor; in age, of its patri- archal dignity. So far as toil has been the subject of treatment in any art, linking it to the earth whence it and man sprang together adds the poetizing touch. The harvester of Millet joins hands with Virgil and Theocritus, Boaz and Abraham. But Meunier puts in a transforming light toil that has been held brutalized. When the laborer went up to the city, he passed from the sweet- ness and grace of the fields to grubbing under man-made conditions. The change was like that of Ruskin's little plot of grass, beautiful in its surroundings till an iron railing made it ugly. At the present day, as no less than a century ago, the dignity of hard work is not in the mechanic, working amid clangor and competition and fret, but in the one whom Dr. Wakefield pronounced, after the priest, the noblest of men — the till- er. Just here come Meunier's sculptures to enlarge this dignity to the point of universality. Such art has especially a function in helping a working age adjust itself to its newer conditions. The spirit behind the work of Meunier and his fellows is the healthy impulse to follow life into its ramifications, searching for new ways of giving it artistic treatment. It necessarily deals in the unconventional; but in the end it carries its message home. A part of its usefulness may be in showing that those who work at the forge, in the mine, at marble, bronze, or coal, no less than the hewers of wood and drawers of water, are dressing and keeping the wilderness; but it points the larger lesson that to cut off, in the division of mankind's pursuits, any con- siderable body from artistic idealiza- tion, is suicidal narrowness. An Amer- ican philosopher once spoke of the world's rough and dirty work as neces- sary but ignoble employment to which it might be well, in time, to draft men turn by turn. The emergence of a Meunier from a coal-pit rebukes such utterances. His production can distil out a soul of goodness from the rankest tangle of modern steel and brick. The catholicity and democracy which thej spell sustain the self-appreciation of burdened groups, while broadening their sympathies. THE AMERICAN PHILOLOGICAL AS- SOCIATION. New Yokk, January 4. The forty-fifth annual meeting of the Association was held at Harvard Uni- versity, December 29-31, in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Modern Language Association. It had been thought that the interruption of the joint meeting with the Archaeological In- stitute of America, which had been the habit of the past eight or ten years, might interfere seriously with the at- tendance. Such fears, however, proved groundless; the attendance was uncom- monly good. Of the seven sessions, three were held with the Modern Language Association. Of these two were evening sessions, one of which was devoted to the annual ad- dress of the president of the American Philological Association, the other to the annual address of the president of the Modern Language Association. The for- mer, Professor Harold North Fowler, of the Western Reserve University, dealt with "The Present and the Future of Classical Studies in the United States." He considered the causes that lead stu- dents away from the classics, and dwelt on the special need in our times and in our country of such studies, and held, with refreshing optimism, that devotion to the study of the classics would surely continue if teachers of the classics re- mained enthusiastically convinced of their value and their abiding vitality, and communicated that enthusiasm to pupils. An important part of the third joint session was the address in memory of Francis A. March, for many years pro- fessor at Lafayette College, a scholar of the highest distinction in ancient and modern languages, a teacher of consum- mate skill, and an active member of the two associations. This address was by Prof. James W. Bright, of the Johns Hopkins University. The joint meeting with the Modern Language Association was voted a great success. In point of fact the scholarly and the material interests of the two associations touch at many points. The profounder work, both in Romance phil- ology and in English, is impossible un- less laid on a classical foundation. Nor can a thoughtful student of German lit- erature forget that to the vivifying in- fluence of Greek language and litera- ture, at the end of the eighteenth cen- tury, Germany owes the Impulse which made her one of the dominant intellec- tual forces of the nineteenth century. In the pedagogical field, too, the attenl now given to the application of the direct method to the teaching Of Latin and Greek has caused teachers of the classics to give increased attention to the teaching of the modern foreign lan- guages. One most Impressive result of ths
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Jan. 15, 1914] The Nation 55 numbers in attendance was the ited at the informal smoker held in the great hall of the tine new building of the Harvard Club in Boston. The hundreds of men gath- ered there joinea in the singing ot vari- ous songs; the singing of Gaudeamus Igitur, led by the great organ In the hall, was especially inspiring. The papers presented at the meeting of the American Philological Associa- tion, whether actually read or merely read by title, numbered forty-five. They deal with a very wide variety of sub- jects. At one session papers concerned with the Greco-Roman theatre were grouped; at another there were succes- on Greco-Roman religion. The American Philological Associa- tion is a national association, but geo- graphlcal considerations (the distances to be travelled and the cost of such 1 prevent many of its members from attending its sessions. Indeed, such difficulties led to the formation of a Pacific Coast division of the Associa- tion, which has had an active life for some years, and is planning now to hold two meetings in each year. Bearing in mind these considerations, one finds in- terest in the following table showing the number of papers emanating from the classical teaching staffs of various colleges and universities: Brown, 1; Chicago, 2; Columbia, 3; Grove City, 1; id, 3; Illinois (Univ.), 1; Mr- Gill, 1; Michigan, 2; Minnesota, 1; Mis sourl, 1; Northwestern, 2; Pennsylvania, 4; Pittsburgh, 2; Princeton, 1; St. Ste- phen's, 1; Texas, 1; Union, 1; Vander- bilt, 2; Vassar, 4; Virginia, 1; Washing- ton and Jefferson, 3; Western Reserve, 2; Wisconsin, 1; Yale, 1. Questions dealing with the pedagogy of the classics never receive real consid- eration at the meetings of the Associa- tion; and this circumstance lent spe- cial interest to that part of the ad- dress of Professor Hohlfeld, of the Uni- versity of Wisconsin, president of the Modern Language Association, in which he urged that Association to make prop- er provision for the pedagogical inter- ests of the teachers of modern languages, especially those in secondary schools. In the classical field these interests are amply cared for by such organizations as the Classical Association of New Eng- land, the Classical Association of the Atlantic States, and the Classical Asso- ciation of the Middle West and South. Twice recently, however, the Ameri- can Philological Association has been invited to lend its approval to move ments primarily pedagogical in their nature. At the recent meeting the joint committee on grammatical nomencla- ture, appointed several years ago by the National Education Association, the Modern Language Association of Amer- ica, and the American Philological As- sociation, presented a report recom- mending the adoption of certain gram- matical terms for use in all lauguage teaching, in Greek, Latin, French, Ital- ian, Spanish, and English — on the ground that the terms endorsed by the committee gave identical terms for iden- tical grammatical phenomena, so that the general adoption of them would make for economy of time and labor in the teaching and the learning of these languages. Since the copies of the re- port did not reach the members of the American Philological Association till its meeting was half over, and there was therefore no opportunity to examine thoroughly the sixty-three pages of the report, it was felt by many members that all consideration of the report should be postponed to the next annual meeting. A motion for such postpone- ment, without prejudice to the merits of the report, was presented. However, af- ter a debate of nearly two hours, which at all times was deliberately kept away from the merits of the report itself, and from the more fundamental question whether uniform grammatical terminol- ogy was necessary or desirable, the fol- lowing resolution was, by a vote of 36 to 19, substituted for the motion of post- ponement: Resolved. That the Association express its sense of the desirability of uniformity of grammatical terminology in the work of the schools; and recommend that the schools follow the general lines of the report of the Joint Committee on Grammatical Nomen- clature, with the understanding that this recommendation docs not carry with it ap- proval of all the terms proposed in the report. The officers elected for the year 1914 are as follows: President, Edward Capps, Princeton; vice-presidents, Carl Darling Buck, Chicago, and Edward P. Morris, Yale; secretary-treasurer, Frank C. Moore, Columbia; executive committee, Charles Knapp, Columbia; Henry A. Sanders, Michigan; John A. Scott, Northwestern; Kirby Flower Smith, Johns Hopkins; Arthur L. Wheeler, Bryn Mawr. Charles Knapp. THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF AMERICA. New York, January 4. The annual meeting of the Institute was held in Montreal, at McGill Univer- sity, January 1-3. The attendance of members, aside from those in Canada within easy reach of Montreal, was less than normal. All of New Year's Day and all Saturday morning were given to the business of the Institute — affairs quite unrelated to the reading and dis- cussion of papers. The most important items of business transacted were the re- election of Prof. F. W. Shipley, of Wash- ington University, St. Louis, as presi- dent, and the passage of a motion au- thorizing the executive committee to enter upon the publication of a bi- monthly non-technical journal, to be known, probably, as Art and Archwol- ogy, as soon as a guarantee fund of $4,00U shall be actually in possession of the Institute. Further details con- cerning the journal, such as the selec- tion of a managing editor and associate editors, were referred to a special com- mittee. The total number of papers presented was thirty-two. An interesting point is the circumstance that a considerable number were not archaeological at all: at any rate, they did not deal with those works of form and substance with which it is the special province of archaeology, in the accepted sense of the term, to deal. Further, the complete stoppage of excavations at important sites in Greece. Asia Minor, and Africa, as the result of the wars involving Greece and Turkey, made the current year somewhat barren of important new discoveries. One other fact was made clear, at least to the present writer, by the experiences of the meeting just closed: some plan must be worked out by which the busi- ness of the Institute may be transacted in full before the reading of papers be- gins. This is necessary in order that a speaker may have among his auditors the leading members of the Institute, those, in a word, best competent to value and to discuss his paper. At the re- cent meeting their time was consumed in committee meetings which, though begun before the reading of papers was in order, continued long after such read- ing was under way. Charles Knapp. THE .MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIA- TION. Easton, Penn., January 3. Well above three hundred members and their "gests" (as the official programme has it), probably the largest number in the history of the Association, attended the thirty-first meeting on December 29, 30, and 31, held under the auspices of Harvard University. The meeting was a joint one with the Philological Associ- ation; the last occasion on which the two societies met together was in 1900. The admirable way in which the wants of all were met and their pleasure ad- ministered to speaks well for the care of the local committee of the University. There were the reception and the lunch- eon at the Harvard Union, the opening of Mrs. Gardner's house in Fenway Court on Tuesday afternoon, and the smoker at the Harvard Club of Boston, at which Dr. Crothers furnished the "smoke-talk" to the delight of his four hundred hearers. At the joint evening session of Tues- day Prof. A. R. Hohlfeld, of the Univer- sity of Wisconsin, president of the Mod- ern Language Association, discoursed on "Light from Goethe on Our Problems."
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5G T li e 1ST a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2533 Goethe, he said, sympathized with Weltlitteratur, with its implication that those who study a foreign language and literature come to have a broader tol- erance for other nations and a deeper knowledge of their own. Goethe also recognized that there should be a har- monious synthesis of conflicting ideals, so that one should sympathize with re- search as well as with teaching. In the work of the Association there had been a marked decrease recently in articles dealing with broad pedagogical sub- jects; in 1884 half the articles of the Publications were of this nature, where- as since 1892 there had hardly been one. The college ideal of teaching has given way to the university ideal of re- search. An effort should be made to re- store the balance, and this could best be done by the establishment of a journal that would seek to give the many teach- ers of the country expert advice on mat- ters of broad pedagogical interest. The third matter in which, according to Pro- fessor Hohlfeld's view, Goethe can il- luminate our ideas is in the outlook for the future. The real promise lies not in a return to the old humanism, but in a richer and deeper study of the natural sciences. Goethe, the poet-scientist, took a broad outlook upon nature and got from his study of natural science aesthetic and moral direction in his life and art. The more specialized papers of the meeting varied in interest and in range, and were read by representatives of nineteen institutions, extending from Harvard University to the Universities of Texas and California. Only two could be called philological in the narrower sense, one on the Germanic preterit by Professor Prokosch, of the University of Texas, and the other on "Ye and You in the King James Version" by Profes- sor Kenyon, of Butler College. A paper of more than specialized in- terest was on the myth of the "noble Indian" by Professor von Klenze, of Brown University. Early travellers to America described the Indian sometimes as savage, sometimes as kindly, since they had no thesis to prove. Later writ- ers, however, who would extenuate the atrocities of the Spaniards in Central and South America, made the Indian savage and bestial. This injustice evok- ed a defence by the Spanish Bishop Las Casas in 1552, who represented the In- dian as gentle and kindly in contrast to the cruel Spaniard. The Bishop's book was at once taken up by the enemies of Spain and Catholicism, so that it went through forty editions in seven languages, and gave rise to the wide- spread conception of the noble red man that prevailed through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and that play- ed a great part in the imagination of Europe. Two other papers were concerned with America: one was a strong plea by Pro- fessor Mead, of Wesleyan University, for concentrated, systematic, and immediate work on an American dialect diction- ary; the other was a report by Profes- sor Lomax, of the University of Texas, on his rescuing of American folk-songs. Professor Lomax has nearly a thousand ballads, most of them for the first time now reduced to writing, which he took down from oral delivery. The ballads belong to eight marked types: those of the miner, the lumberman, the canal- boatman, the inland sailor — especially of the Great Lakes — the soldier, the rail- way man, the negro, and the cowboy; to which may be added those of the "down-and-out class" — the "dope fiend,' the "jailbird," the convict, and the tramp. The ballad is full of life in the open, vigorous, expressive of supreme physical endeavor, and is composed by men away from home, like the Arizona cowboy thus described: I've seed a lot of places where I'd like to stay, But I gits a-feelin' restless an' I'm on my way; I was never meant for settin' on my own door Bill, An', once you git the habit, why, you can't keep still. . . . The sun is sorter coaxin' and the road is clear, An' the wind is singin' ballads that I got to hear; It ain't no use to argue when you feel the thrill, For, once you git the habit, you can't keep still. Almost identical ballads will be found in widely separated parts of the coun- try. There are many war songs still un- printed, especially from the Civil War, and the rebel songs are better than the Yankee. Professor Scott, of the University of Michigan, in a paper on "Vowel Allitera- tion in Modern Poetry," combated Pro- fessor Saintsbury's contention that there is no such thing as vowel alliteration. He argued, chiefly from his study of the verse of Milton and Tennyson, that it is genuine and effective. The alliteration is not due to the sonority of the vowel sound, but to the glottal catch, or the un- marked sound of consonantal value be- fore the initial vowel. This catch is not so marked in England as in Germany; it is fairly common in America, especial- ly in the West. Probably the most original contribu- tion presented at this meeting was on "Chaucer and the Seven Deadly Sins," by Prof. Frederick Tupper, of the Uni- versity of Vermont. It was a continua- tion in very much condensed form of his article in the Nation of October 16, 1913, on Chaucer's treatment of love in the "Canterbury Tales," and it sought to show that certain of the pilgrims In their persons, prologues, and tales illus- trate the seven deadly sins, and that the Parson's tract is the culmination of a long-sustained motif. Parallels with Gower, the marked pointing of the moral in each of the tales dealing with a particular sin, the assigning of each of these narratives to the representative of the vice under rebuke, the linking of these tales with the Parson's sermon, are the proofs by which the conclusion is reached. A new irony is discovered in the fact that the story-teller sometimes incarnates the very sin he preaches against, as in the cases of the Pardoner, the Wife of Bath, and the Manciple. Professor Kittredge presented a mo- tion, which was almost unanimously carried, that the secretary of the Asso- ciation should ascertain by post-card the wishes of the members concerning the use of the so-called reformed spelling, which had been adopted some years ago and is now employed in the publications. The president of the Association for the coming year is Prof. Felix E. Schel- ling, of the University of Pennsylvania, and the vice-presidents are Professors von Klenze, of Brown University; Bour- land, of Western Reserve University, and Tatlock, of the University of Wis- consin. The place of the next meeting has not yet been decided upon. James W. Tupper. NEWS FOR BIBLIOPHILES. Some time ago the Paris weekly, Le» Annales Politiques et Litteraires, offered prizes for sonnets which were to be ad- dressed to French authors, living or dead. It is not remarkable or especially impor- tant that this call elicited 2,872 responses, nor even perhaps that of this number all but half a dozen contained fourteen lines of twelve syllables each; but It Is a mat- ter of real significance that a competition instituted by a periodical of popular char- acter and of modest circulation in a coun- try which is no longer one of the most populous, should call forth twenty such genuinely poetical and uniformly perfect sonnets as are now published In Les An- nales. The result in this country, If It were possible to Imagine a popular Ameri- can illustrated weekly instituting such a contest — In view, especially, of the diffi- culty of making clear to the ordinary read- er of such an American periodical just what a sonnet is — would have been very likely to be a mass of fantastic nonsense, and the judges would probably have select- ed the most fantastic for distinction; but Auguste Dorchain, himself a graceful poet and as sane as any Philistine, has chosen to reward twenty candidates whose work Is entirely free from the grotesque and the violent. The list, which, by accident or de- sign, shows exactly ten classic titles and ten names of contemporaries, has at least two sonnets that deserve to live. One la ii,,' noble apostrophe to Cornelllo, with the Stirring end-lines that warm the blood: 1: rontons tei vein, oomme 1™ mots ii'un Jllsl, Olaquer bu vent as I'anu alnil Que Am Irapeaul
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Jan. IS, 1914] The Nation 57 And the sonnet to EdmonJ Rostand, begin- ning Noua t'almons ft genoux, gravcment, tenrtrement, shows an admirably sustained beauty. The prefatory statement by Auguste Dor- chain is worth translating. His definition of the sonnet is extremely well done: That which is lacking in the work of those candidates whom I have qualified as simply respectable is the knowledge of what I will call the interior laws of the sonnet, which make of this poetic form a sort of drama in four acts, with its exposi- tion, its intrigue, its dSnoument, arriving, by a skilful progression, at a final climax which, by the idea, the image, or the stamp of the line, reverberates, concludes, illu- minates all the rest. And many of them are not clear, either, that throughout these fourteen lines there cannot be one weakness of rhyme or of language. A sonnet must be a finished and perfect work of art. And more valuable than all definition is the story how Dorchain himself once help- ed finish the faultless structure of one of Jose-Maria de Heredia's "Trophies" : Ah! if I had time, I should tell you how Heredia often left a sonnet on the stocks for years, simply because he had found one weak word in it, and because he knew that the strong word, the characteristic word, the only true and possible word, existed, and that he should find it sooner or later. And I would even tell you how one day I had the happiness — and I am very proud of it— to find for him one of those words, without which he would not have included In his "Trophies" one of the sonnets he loved the most. It was the one called "Tranquillus," and consecrated to Sueto- nius and his villa at Tibur. "C'est la," said the condemned text: . . . C'est ia Que 1'ont hantC NCron, Claude, Caligula Et Messallne errant sous la stole pourprfe. . . . "Errant! what a feeble word, my friend," cried the master, "to express the shame of that Empress prowling about among the dives of Suburra. I shall never give my sonnet to the Revue des Deux Monies with that word in it. Find me the word I should have, and I will try to find for you a bet- ter line than that impossible third line in the poem you have read me." Two hours later, a "petit bleu" brought me three excellent substitutes for my line; and at the same time Heredia received from me a pneumatic dispatch with this proposition : Messallne rodant sous la stole pourprfe. which is the definitive text. How many contemporary versifiers could duplicate this charming experience? Roy Temple House. Correspondence THE SEAMEN'S BILL. To the Editor op The Nation: Sir: The resignation and return of Mr. Furuseth, president of the Seamen's Union, from the International Congress on the Safety of Ships, compels attention once more to the Seamen's bill, now under con- sideration of a House Committee. Why did Mr. Furuseth resign? Simply because he found that the combined opin- ions of representative thinking men of all nations of the world — men who are thor- oughly sincere and well qualified by train- ing and experience to form opinions on all matters pertaining to ships — did not agree with his own. The presumption of a man who has never designed, built, operated, owned, or commanded a ship — at any rate during the last nineteen years — in stating that in his opinion the International Con- gress was not doing the right thing simply because it did not follow his prejudiced ideas as to lifeboats and manning the same, is naive, to say the least of it. Mr. Furuseth expects to appear before the House Committee and try to force his ideas upon them. The hearings will be re- sumed shortly, and it is to be hoped that the future meetings will be conducted in a fairer and more truly American manner than heretofore, and less as a one-sided criminal court. One member, a shrewd lawyer, for reasons best known to himself, is evidently bent upon bringing out only those things which are favorable to the bill, and is endeavoring to confuse most of the shipowners who have appeared, and who, on their side, have no lawyer to bring out the points they wish to take in rebuttal. He would not allow one of our best-known naval architects even to mention anything in con- nection with the effect of the bill upon the operation of vessels, because, foorsooth, he was not a steamship manager. Every one who has even the remotest knowledge of ship- building knows that this very question of operation is one that enters into the design of every ship, and it is often the naval architect who advises the shipowner as to the type and design of vessel that should be built for his service. If we follow such methods of procedure to their logical conclusion, Senator La Fol- lette had no right to bring up the bill in the first instance, because he has confessed that he knows nothing about ships and has obtained his knowledge second-hand — not from those who design, build, operate, sail, or own ships, but from a man (Mr. Furuseth) who has been haunting the gal- leries of the Senate for the last nineteen years. It will also be interesting to see if Mr. Furuseth will be allowed, without question, to give testimony on many points upon which he has at present an obsession, but upon which he can scarcely qualify as an expert according to the present methods adopted by the Committee. To any thinking man the whole matter has been conceived in ignorance, forced to an immature growth by the milk of am- bition of its mother and nurse, and in its present weakly adolescent state and in- ability to stand upon its own feet, is re- ceiving the necessary support in the way of artificial legal props. Let us hope that in these days of eugenics both it and those of a similar breed may never be allowed to reach the adult stage. It is one of the most obvious plays for the labor vote, at the expense of our none too prosperous mercantile marine, that has ever occurred; and the most amusing, if not pathetic, thing about it is the way that the leaders of this party seem to be able to "bluff" our lawmakers at Washington. The real opinions of the rank and file of labor are by no means always those of their loquacious representatives, and any man who stands out for fair play and justice will, In the end, get the reputa- tion and following that he deserves, with- out selling his birthright for such a "mess of pottage" as the Seamen's bill. Herbert C. Sadler. University of Michigan, January 7. THE SENSE OF SMELL. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: I deplore with a recent contributor to one of our leading literary magazines the fact that our sense of smell seems of late years to have lost caste. But I par- ticularly lament the effect this state of things has had upon our fiction. Our writ- ers nowadays rarely draw on this sense; or if they do, it seems to be merejy in a perfunctory manner. They feel, apparent- ly, that for convention's sake it is still necessary to refer certain odors to certain situations, but trusting that their readers will not be able to smell the difference, they content themselves with using any trite formula. Most of these formulae are too well known to need specific instances. For example : the complementary smell of a New England spinster story, lavendar; of a tale of camp life, pines; of a June romance, roses. If the question were to be put— What is the odor of the Maine coast? — any reader of American fiction would answer unhesitatingly, "cod." And I fancy that more than one of us crossing the Vermont line for the first time has been surprised that he did not at once smell maple sap! But, fortunately, those who mourn the decline and fall of the sense of smell at home may find solace abroad in the work of the Russians — which leads one to infer that, as a people, they still have good noses. One could multiply without end ex- amples from their great story-tellers of cases in which the sense of smell gets its due. Their perceptions, far from being con- ventional, are keen and fresh, and they are not dragged in simply for form's sake, but are an integral part of the matter. The impression on the reader is correspondingly deep. Every one who has read Turgenev's "Smoke" will remember the heavy fra- grance of the violets which was so op- pressive to the hero and played so im- portant a part in the story. And who can ever forget the mouldering smell of that cellar-bakery in Gorky's "Twenty-six and One"? It is as strong as the story itself. Or of those dens of darkness and drink which Dostoievsky's villain-hero haunts? — degrading, nauseating smells of the under- world that are part and parcel of Raskolnl- koff's terrible punishment. What Is more, the Russians lay this neglected sense under contribution for deli- cate and subtle, as well as for striking and theatrical, effects; and to this end they follow their noses with analytical sen- sitiveness. Tcheckov's Kvaschin, in "A Rainy Day," smells not simply of drink, as he would have done to an American novelist, but of "Madeira and fine liqueurs." In the corners of Shoemaker Anton's shop in Artzybachev's story of that name hangs a stale stench, not of leather alone, but of "leather, oil, and wax." Along with such an obvious smell, the same author thinks it worth while to note in another place the evasive odor of melting snow. But for sheer refinement of Impression, I know of no instance equal to the following, which occurs In that most remarkable of all Rus- sian stories of revolution, Artzybachev's "Shadows of the Morning": Tt is a Febru- ary day, and the heroine has Just come from a walk Into the room of her lover.
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58 T li e JN j 1 1 i o ii [Vol. 98, No. 2533 "She remained standing by Liu> table," the text reads, "and from ber Boft black Jacket radiated the Cresb, sweel smell of the cold." The tribute here paid by one of the great- 11. living artists to the frosty fragrance so beloved of children (and such others as bave not yet been n by adenoids) will perhaps bring some small comfort to those who, like the writer, regard with dis- may the immense loss to our literature re- sulting from our failing appreciation of the of smell. Helen McAfee. New York, January 10. JOHN DAVENPORT AND LADY VERE. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: In an article by Franklin B. Dexter, entitled "The Life and Writings of John Davenport," in the New Haven Historical Society Papers, Vol II, p. 216, it is said: In 1628, we have the first two which are preserved I in the British Museum J of a scries of nine letters from Davenport to Lady Mary Vere, whose religious life ap- pears to have been under his direction. A search in the British Museum Cata- logue of Printed Books does not appear to show that the British MSS. to which Dex- ter refers or any calendar of them has been printed. Five of the letters are in A. B. Davenport's "History and Genealogy of the Davenport Family in England and America." They are dated as follows: 26 December, 1629, written from London to Lady Vere at The Hague, where her hus- band's "military exploits" had taken her; November, 1033, written from Amsterdam, where Davenport bad gone after his resig- nation from St. Stephen's Church, London, to Lady Vere at The Hague; 21 July, 1635, written from Amsterdam to Lady Vere at Hackney; 25 December, 1635, written from Rotterdam to Lady Vere in England; 28 July, 1639, written from New Haven to Lady Vere in England. A careful search has thus far failed to locate printed copies of the other four letters. Dexter mentions two as having been written in 1628, and states that one of them, dated June 30, makes reference to Davenport's quarrel with Bishop Laud. In the list of Davenport's writings given at the end of Dexter's article, the remaining two letters are dated January, 1636, and 13 November, 1647. I should be glad to know if these letters, or any others not noted by Dexter that throw light on the relations between Daven- port and Lady Vere, exist in print or in any manuscript collection outside of the British Museum. Helen L. Sullivan. x... 66 College Street, Providence, B. [., Janu- ary :>. Literature ANCIENT EMPIRE. Imperialism. By William Scott tson, Professor of Ancient His- tory in Harvard University. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. $2 net. Readers of Professor Ferguson's "Hel- lenistic Athens" will expect in the pres cnt study a fresh and vigorous restate ! problems partly com- 1 > ! 1 mentary to, partly in extension of, his former theme. Nor will they be disappointed. In his introductory chap- ter, Imperialism and the City-State, he defines empire as "a state formed by the rule of one state over other states. It is immaterial in this connection what form of government the ruling people prefers." This both provides for the imperial democracy of Athens and ex- plains how Sparta, usually thought of as a self-contained oligarchy, came to as- sume, in her turn also, the imperialis- tic role. Mr. Ferguson, with all his scholarly interest in his theme, rarely shows any tendency towards special pleading. He states the case for the Athenian democracy as well, perhaps, as it can be done. And, at the very out- set (p. 2), he shows himself alive to the presumptuous arrogance of our cant phrase — "the white man's burden." His book, cut short by no artificial break before or after Alexander, is a discus- sion of the entail of imperialism passed on from Athens to Sparta, from the orthodox Hellenes to Alexander and the Diadochi, with their far-flung em- pires ripening for the Roman harvest. The Athenian empire, as Thucy- dides represents Cleon's words, was "a despotism exercised over unwilling sub- jects." Athens; as Mr. Ferguson points out, denied her "allies" the right to secede. And Athens had not even the excuse of a debatable interpretation of a Constitution binding upon sovereign and federated states. The specific ob- jections most often urged against the imperial democracy of Athens Mr. Fer- guson considers unwarranted. His can- did discussion is not, however, equally convincing at all points. Arguing, as is perhaps natural, from the side oi the home government, he speaks of the economic give and take. Impecunious Athenians were settled on lands taken from the allies. "In payment therefor reductions of tribute were given." This was, no doubt, sound economic expedi- ency for the imperial government, but it is not clear how the dispossessed in- habitants were beneficiaries. The gen- eral objection that the democracy result- ed in moral and intellectual mediocrity is more successfully met by a resume of the contemporary intellectual out- put. The notion that Athenian history played itself out upon a miniature stage must be revised by the statement (p. 43), fortified by the context, that "the world which Athens undo- Pericles sought to dominate; must have had a population of over 20,000,000." In the chapter From Sparta to krls totle Mr. Ferguson, after a needless fling at the English excavators in La- conia, point:. Bharply the contrast be- - 1 1 1 < ■ 1 1 : . and Spe rta, A.1 bens Inocu- lated her whole democracy with the spirit and culture of the aristocracy, hole people, thus ennobled, being supported on the shoulders of the tribu- tary allies." In Sparta the nobler art of the earlier day — whether native or imported — together with the aristocracy was destroyed in the sixth century is. C. Sacrificing all of this, together with certain fundamental instincts of civilized humanity, to the "vocational training" of the military barracks, Spar- ta escaped the episode of formal tyranr ny only to subject herself perennially to the ephorate, which, like the tribunate at Rome, was "tyranny in commission" (P- 84). Certain strictures on the political ideas of Plato and Aristotle form the transition to the treatment of Alexan- der's empire. Mr. Ferguson points out (p. 102) that Plato's model in his "Laws" was "an emended and perfected edition of Sparta." Again (p. 113): "The birth- mark which we have noted on Plato is an unreasoning hatred of democracy. That which mars above all the political thinking of Aristotle comes from the aversion instinctively felt by his age for imperialism." Mr. Ferguson would doubtless be right in implying that Plato's ideal justice, despite his apo- theosis of Spartan militarism, would hamstring the sinews of imperial ex- pansion, but his "youthful" Republic is profoundly constructive for the imperial democracy of the intellectualized con- science. His Recall is the "recall of the noblest in the soul to a vision of the most excellent in the ideal" (Rep. VIII, 532, C); his Referendum the revising of shifting opinions according to "the pat- tern that is laid up in heaven" (Rep. IX, 592, B). Alexander the Great, overleaping the circumscribed walls of Aristotle's city- state, transmuted into material empire his master's suzerainty over the physi- cal and metaphysical universe. He dis- played a feverish energy in founding Greek city-states. Hellenized "towns by the score sprang up behind him on his line of march." Nor did he shrink from unhellenic practices in order to inocu- late the Orient with Hellenism. With well-advertised and well-staged cere- mony he had himself deified among his new subjects. As their incarnate god he became fully naturalized. In this proskyne8l8 of cities our author "an absolutism such as Europe — and for that matter Asia— had never known be fore and has never ceased to know since." The "signal service" of this proski/ncsiti was, he adds, "that it made possible the lasting union of all the city-states of the world in b single greal territorial state." Mr. Ferguson's analysis Of the vary- in;', practices pursued b: I he I Uadot bl is in ttructlve. Ptolemy i &gl dlscai ded the Persian bride, ImpoBed upon blm by Me lander's policy, and tnai i led a Macedonian princes-. 'I 1 ilendid Ptolemaic dynasty, lasting 21 1 years,
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Jan. 15, 1914] The JSTation 59 snowed Irom its inception a return to iieiu .nisiii. tun tuu soiuiers, "multira- cial tnougu tiiey were, ... all spo&e GreeK. " auU In religion there uustotab- lished a rapprocnement between Greek and Egyptian. Later on, however, un- der stress of military neeessity, tne Greek element was diluted by native in- 1 1 i ages, "so that a eonsiderable half-breed and bilingual population de- veloped— Greek in the outward things, fellaheen, according to Polybius, in character and culture." In the chapter on the Seleucid Em- pire is clearly brought out the persis- tence of Alexander's projection of Hel- lenism upon the Orient: The Greek lan- guage and laws, Greek cities, gymnasia, and musical contests grew and multi- plied. Over all presided a motley choir of native and Greek deities with the living Emperor as chief city-god. "Greek ideas and customs became a ferment which stirred the peoples of Asia to the depths" (p. 207). As was inevitable, the Hellene succumbed in the end. The Seleucid empire was weakened by in- ternal revolts, but it was crushed from without by the ever-advancing Roman, on the one hand, and the Indo-Scythians on the other. To the latter Mr. Fergu- son assigns a large role. As the Roman conquerors carried Greek influence to the West, so these Indo-Scythians — the Yue Tchi of the Chinese — acted, after the collapse of Greek sway, as purvey- ors of Hellenic influences to the Orient. "It is an amazing spectacle," he says (p. 194), "to observe how Hellenistic civilization flowed simultaneously back the channels to the springs of Italy and China whence came the floods which overwhelmed the Seleucid empire." Finally, in the Empire of the Anti- gonids a more genuine Hellenism reas- serted itself. "It was not Macedon but Greece which took the proud Roman victor captive and bore the arts to rustic Latium" (p. 216). Mr. Ferguson does well to elaborate the character of Antigonus Gonatas. Unlike Alexander, Antigonus, a worthy pupil of Zeno, did not see fit to outrage and nullify real Hellenism by posing as a god. We are reminded, too, of the passing of the city-state and how even the eth- nic bond is cancelled and replaced by a federal bond. Why this empire also suc- cumbed is aptly illustrated: "In the art of government the Antigonids were re- sourceful, but to lift up a jelly-fish on a spear-point is an impossible task. Yet that is what they had to do in Hellas." It might be fair to add, in the spirit of Shelley's "Hellas," that a more esoteric imperialism remained uplifted on the bronze spear of Athena Promachus. One matter of style might raise ques- tion. How far is it desirable to strain the English reader's vocabulary by semi- naturalized Greek words? Proskynesis, explained and italicized, is justified as a technical term, but other non-resi- dent aliens, like ethne, hegemon, and Penoecs (sic), seem much in evidence. "Zoo" (though a "dictionary" word) is an intruder on an otherwise dignified context, and "piazza" (in the Italian sense) might be better provided for. "Chronus" for Kronus (p. 143) is a nat- ural confusion. It was already known in antiquity, but is now edited out of the verse of Cratinus cited by Plutarch. But such matters are insignificant in a book which is welcome alike to the special student and to the general reader. CURRENT FICTION. Circe's Daughter. By Priscilla Craven. New York: Duffield & Co. John Ward, M.D. By Charles Vale. New York: Mitchell Kennerley. The Devil's Garden. By W. B. Maxwell. London: Hutchinson & Co. The time is now comfortably past when Albion could be accused with jus- tice of subordinating her fiction to the taste and morals of her Young Persons. Perhaps this is so because her Young Persons no longer exist; or perhaps they no longer exist because this is so. At all events, the reader of liberal mind has now a two-to-one chance of finding the latest English novel unfit to pass around the family circle. This is true, to be sure, of the latest American mag- azine. But in the novel — despite the ef- forts of an enthusiast here and there — we remain, as usual, somewhat behind the English fashion. Give us a little more time, and we shall doubtless be devoting our best local talent to the physiology of the human goat. The Circe of Priscilla Craven is hirca humana, the female of the species. We do not follow her through the detail of her more active career. We simply learn that she has passed through youth to middle age with distinguished suc- cess in her chosen m.ctier: that is, she has been the mistress of many men without ceasing to be the wife of one, and consequently without sacrifice of her social position. That is a charming scene in which we are introduced to her in conversation with her eldest daugh- ter (by one of the many). Mrs. Iverson rather prefers Claudia to her younger daughter because she is of her own physical type: "You and I are just the right height. T think this modern girl by the yard is a mistake. None of the famous women such as Jeanne du Barry and Ninon de Lenclos were very tall. Patricia will make most men look ridiculous." "Perhaps Pat doesn't want to be a Ninon rle Lenclos." suggested Claudia with a twinkle. "Nonsense, every woman wants to be a Ninon de Lenclos. if she could have the chance. Don't be taken in with this talk of 'I wouldn't.' It's a case of 'I couldn't.' Most women have to be virtuous, because they can't be anything else, and they make the best of it." Claudia desires to be virtuous, but sne has her motiier s blood in her, and a loveless marriage almost results dis- astrously for her. She is not a wanton, but "une amoureuse." Her symptoms are described minutely, and it is only because she has unconsciously given her heart (thank Heaven, she has a heart!) to a good man that she remains tech- nically a good woman till her husband's death provides for a comfortable cur- tain. The most vivid person in the story is hardly concerned with the main action — Fay Morris, the little music-hall sing- er, a bit of true and moving portraiture, a spade who is rightly (since we have disposed of the Young Person) described as a spade. One droll thing about this narrative is that, despite its very "mod- em" substance, its style is that of the gentle romancer, the William Black or the Mrs. de la Pasture of blameless mem- ory. And there are lapses from sophis- tication into a delightful ingenuousness, as in the description of the American among Claudia's admirers: "In some ways he was not unlike Colin Paton, save that he had the American restless- ness and nerviness, and that he lacked the fine polish and self-possession which a man may possibly acquire, but is usually associated with families that can count back many centuries, and that have always tried to uphold the best traditions of English manhood." The problem of inherited sexual taint, here treated as if it concerned merely Claudia, is the main problem in "John Ward, M.D.," and is presented as capa- ble of no merely personal solution. John Ward is a country physician from choice. His grandfather, Lord Daven- try, had planned for him a more orna- mental career. The grandfather has lived the life of a voluptuary, and in age pretends to regret only his years and disability. Cynicism is his pose, and he is far from holding himself up as an awful example; but inwardly he is consumed with fear lest his grand- son, who, he knows, inherits his tem- perament, shall succumb to it. Ward himself is conscious of his danger. Only will power and hard work give him a chance of salvation. Till well past his first youth he resists his familiar devil, makes himself indispensable in a rough mining community, and almost attains a state of peace. Then comes into his life a woman of the Circe type, a woman breathing sex. She casts her spoil upon him. It is not altogether an evil spell. She has a "past," but it has been a past of seeking for the true love which John Ward at last embodies for her. But Ward realizes, and makes her realize, that they are both essentially abnormal and decadent, and that a mating be-
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60 T h. e N ation [Vol. 98, No. 2533 tween them would be a crime against the race. So he sends her away, hope- less but obedient. The verdict is ruth- less: "She must deal with her own pro- blem. Man had taken much from wo- man, for his lust and his desire and his love. But he had given more, pretending when illusion was gone; yielding to her weakness, as to a child's; deceiving her, for her vanity's sake; killing his soul, that her body might live. . . . Dream- ily, he felt his kinship with those who do things, walking steadfastly in a known path. . . ." John Ward's decision is as much the fruit of his mysticism as of his convic- tion that he is "the Beast." In Mr. Gals- worthy's "Dark Flower" the physiology of passion has the floor. There also we find the older generation, conscious of the chances of heredity, discussing its erotic experiences with the younger. And there we find a picture of the be- lated passion of age for youth: that dreadful obsession of desire which no doubt does come to many men who have passed their physical prime. It is a theme which, a few years ago, no reputa- ble writer of English fiction would have ventured to deal with. Mr. Galswor- thy's restrained and imaginative han- dling deprives it of grosser offence. In "The Devils Garden" Mr. Maxwell puts himself under no sort of restraint. The story is this: A man long married to a woman whom he worships as the embodiment of purity finds that she has just yielded herself, to gain his ad- vancement, to an old man who has se- duced her in childhood, and whose mis- tress she has been before their mar- riage. He murders the old man. The crime is not brought home, and the pair are reconciled, have children, and pass quiet years. Then the man finds him- self the helpless victim of a passion for a child who has been adopted into his family. She returns his feeling as in- stinctively and completely as the young girl of Mr. Galsworthy's story. Like Mr. Galsworthy's hero, and Mr. "Vale's, he dismisses her. But he knows that noth- ing will keep them apart till they have fulfilled their natures. Loathing himself and life, he finds a way to death con- sistent with "poetic justice." The seduc- er of his wife (and of many others, in- cluding her aunt and her cousin) has not died without leaving a monument. A motive here seems taken pretty direct- ly from Ibsen's "Ghosts." The old liber- tine Alving left money to found an or- phanage. This aged reprobate leaves half his fortune to the founding of a home for unprotected girls. His murder- er and successor in lustfulness dies in the flames of the burning "home" after saving seven of its innocents. This Is the pleasantest thing in the story. Mr. Maxwell is most conscientious in re- cording the symptoms and progress of his patient's disease. A NOTABLE EDITION OP DONNE. The Poems of John Donne. Edited from the Old Editions and Numerous Man- uscripts, with Introductions and Com- mentary by Herbert J. C. Grierson. New York: Oxford University Press. 2 vols. A carefully prepared text of Donne's poems, with proper commentary, has long been a desideratum for those interested in the transition from Eliza- bethan to Jacobean and Caroline lit- erature, and this want has been amply filled by the present edition. Mr. Grier- son's work will take an honorable place among the scholarly editions by which the Oxford University Press is, in a way, reproducing for us the corpus of English letters. Donne has been well treated by E. K. Chambers in the Muses' Library and by C. E. Norton in his Grolier Club edition, but neither of these editors had the patience, or the opportunity, to go through the bewilder- ing manuscript material which it was necessary to collate in order to estab- lish an authoritative text, and they have not, in the judgment of Mr. Grier- son, been always wise in their choice of readings from the various printed edi- tions. It is not expedient here to follow the minute analysis of the editions and manuscripts which forms the substance of the second, long section of Mr. Grier- son's introduction. He has himself summed up his method of procedure un- der these heads: (1.) To restore the text of 1633 [the first collected edition, published two years af- ter the author's death] in all cases where modern editors have abandoned or dis- guised it, if there is no evidence, internal or external, to prove its error or inferior- ity; and to show, in the textual notes, how far it has the general support of the man- uscripts. (2.) To correct 1633 when the meaning and the evidence of the manuscripts point to its error and suggest an indubitable or highly probable emendation. (3.) To correct throughout, and more drastically, by help of the manuscripts when such exist, the often carelessly and erroneously printed text of those poems which were added in 1635, 1649, 1650, and 1669. By the aid of the very full appa- ratus criticus, printed at the bottom of the pages, we thus have all the mate- rial that the most exacting student could require to form his own judgment of the words actually used by Donne. For the ordinary reader, who goes to such an author for literary profit and enjoyment, there is always a question whether the presentation of such details does not more bewilder than assist; for there is undoubtedly a certain annoy- ance in having the attention drawn from the poetic content of a passage to con- sideration of the choice among read- ings which for the most part, though not always, oiler no substantial difference of meaning. But obviously such textual labor in the case of a poet like Donne, whose works did not appear under his own supervision, should be done once for all and exhaustively, and it will now be comparatively easy for Mr. Grierson himself, or another, to produce a popu- lar edition better than any we yet pos- sess. Such an edition would also prop- erly adopt modern spelling and punctu- ation, and avoid the repulsiveness of a literatim reprint, whatever may be the value of pedantic exactness in such a task as Mr. Grierson has at this time undertaken to accomplish. It is, of course, a debatable matter whether so much weight should be given to the volume of 1633 as Mr. Grierson thinks proper. Under the conditions of publication no one of the four principal seventeenth-century editions, as Mr. Chambers says, "is of supreme author- ity," and, in preparing his text for the Muses' Library, he might plausibly ar- gue that he "had no choice but to be eclectic." In particular a special claim might be set up for the edition of 1650 [Virtually identical with the unique copy of 1649 in the Harvard Library used by Professor Norton], which was the first to appear with the sanction of the younger Donne. But Mr. Grierson has had no difficulty in showing that "Donne's son did nothing to fix either the text or the canon of his father's poems," and a comparison of the pres- ent edition with its modern predecessors will convince most candid readers that the general adherence to the editio prin- ceps of 1633 is justified by the results. For evidence of this we may open Mr. Grierson's "Commentary," which occu- pies the major part of his second vol- ume. Two examples, taken almost at random, will set forth the nature of this evidence, and will at the same time illustrate the character of the bulk of the annotations. The first note comments on the thir- teenth line of "The Relique," as follows: Where mis-devotion doth command. The unanimity of the earlier editions and the MSS. shows clearly that "Mass-devotion" (which Chambers adopts) is merely an In- genious conjecture of the 1669 editor. Donne uses the word frequently, e. g.: Here In .1 place, when' miss-devotion frames a thousand Prayers i Sninis, whose rery Dames The ancient Chnrcb knew not, &c. Of the Progreese of the Boule, p 266, " r> 1 1 - 1 3 . And: "This mis-devotion, and left- handed piety, cii praying for the dead." Sermons 80. 77. 780. [Query: Is "miss" an etymological variant for "mass," from Latin mlHuafi The second example we will take deals with the twenty-fifth line of "lOlcRie VII," as follows: Thy graoea and </«"<' words my oreatwrtt bee. I was tempted to adopt with Cham- bers the "good works" of L66fl Ud some mss., the theologloal oonneotlon of
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Jan. IS, 1914] The Nation 61 "grace" and "works" being just the kind of conceit Donne loves to play with. But the "words" of 1633-54 has the support of so good a MS. as II', and "good words" is an Klizabethan idiom for commendation, praise, (lattery: I [e I li:ll (I I Good words to thee will Battel Death abhorring. ispeare, Ooriolanut, 1. i. 170-1. In jroor bad strokes yon give good words. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, v. i. 80. Moreover, Donne's word is "graces," not "grace." "Your graces and commendations are my work," i. <•., cither the commenda- tions you receive, or, more probably, the refined and elegant flatteries with which you can now cajole a lover, though once your whole stock of conversation did not extend beyond "broken proverbs and torne sentences." Compare, in Elegie IX: The A 11 1 11 in nail, the description of Lady Dan- vers' conversation : In all lier words, unto all bearers fit, You may at Bevels, you at Counsalle, sit. And again, Elegie XV 1 11: Loves Progresse: So we her nyrrs contemplate, words and heart, And virtues. These are strong matters for those who go to a poet for delight, but are well done, once for all. Add to such textual discussions an abundance of other erudition, such as the reprint ol the music for one or two of the songs, and some notion will be had of Mr. Grierson's second volume. This second volume contains also an introduction which deals with "The Poetry of Donne" from the point ot view of literary criticism. It is an ex- cellent piece of work, and judicious, but it naturally leaves much to be said. National Supremacy: Treaty Power vs. State Power. By Edward S. Corwin. New York: Henry Holt & Co. $1.50 net. In the opinion of Professor Corwin, the supremacy of the national Govern- ment attains its highest reach in the ex- ercise of the treaty-making power. He holds Senator Root's view that "in in- ternational affairs there are no States; there is but one nation, acting in direct relation to, and representative of, every citizen in every State." But he presses the doctrine much further than Mr. Root does. He insists that the treaty-mak- ing power extends to many things to which the legislative power of Congress does not extend by the Constitution. Ac- cordingly, if the President and Senate enter into a treaty covering such things, Congress may pass all laws necessary and proper to carry the treaty into ef- fect, although in so doing it deals with subjects which the Constitution express- ly reserves to the States. It follows that while Congressional legislation is limited ordinarily by the police power of the States, it is not so limited when it is enacted to carry into effect the pro- visions of a treaty. The author admits that there is much authority opposed to this conclusion, and endeavors to explain it away as obso- lete. The view which he discards, how- ever, has received the emphatic approv- al of a writer whom he cites frequently. (See Butler's "Treaty-Making Power," Vol. II, pp. 48, 49, 52, 64, 245.) It has been reaffirmed, within a few months, by the Supreme Court of Oregon in these words: The power of the State by proper legis- lation to protect health, to promote the morals, and to prevent the introduction of I articles of trade that would nec- essarily injure property or affect persons is a matter of self-preservation, and suuh rights are not intended to be invaded un- der any clause of the Federal Constitu- tion. (Spaulding vs. McNary, 64 Ore. 491, On the other hand, the doctrine con- tended for by Professor Corwin was championed by the retiring president of the American Bar Association, in his an- nual address at Montreal, last summer. Both Mr. Kellogg and Professor Corwin admit, however, that Congress has not felt disposed to exercise the power which they claim for it. After referring to the demands made by the Chinese and Italian Governments on behalf of their citizens, who had been outraged in Wyoming and Louisiana in violation of their treaty rights in this country, both writers point to what they consider a humiliating fact, that Congress has re- fused to enact legislation for the en- forcement of such rights in the Federal courts. Mr. Kellogg does not hesitate to characterize this Congressional neglect of duty as shameful. And Professor Cor- win, though more courteous, is equally critical of our default in Federal legisla- tion. May not the unwillingness of Con- gress to enter upon this kind of enact- ments indicate its doubt of the unlimit- ed supremacy of the treaty-making pow- er? Even our author feels it necessary, or, at least, desirable, to close his volume with a statement of his reasons for be- lieving that the police power of the States will never be endangered by the doctrine which he champions. One rea- son is that Congress has the power to abrogate treaties. Another is "that it is of primary interest to the United States that the police powers of the States shall not be essentially abated by treaty." In other words, the President and Sen- ate may be counted on not to press the unlimited power of treaty-making un- duly. If they do, Congress can formal- ly abrogate the treaty or can refrain from enacting legislation necessary and proper to its enforcement. Whether it is worth while to fill a volume with ar- guments and authorities for the exist- ence of a governmental power which ought not to be exercised, is question- able. If "it is of primary interest to the United States that the police pow- ers of the States shall not be essentially abated by treaty," it should seem to fol- low that a treaty purporting so to abate them would be an attempt (to quote the words of Mr. Root) "to make provisions regarding matters which are not proper subjects of international agreement, and which would be only a colorable, not a real, exercise of the treaty-making pow- er." At any rate, the practical conse- quences of the author's doctrine that the treaty-making power is unlimited, but ought not to be so exercised as to abate the police powers of the States, are not very different from those of the doc- trine that the treaty power is limited by State police powers. My Father: Reminiscences of W. T. Stead. By Estelle W. Stead. New York: George H. Doran Co. $2.50 net. William Thomas Stead was one of the most striking figures of later Victorian England. By birth and education he belongs in that long line of dissenters through whom from generation to gen- eration the English conscience has found one outlet for expression. From Browne the Separatist, John Cotton and the Puritans, through Fox, Bunyan, and Wesley, down to Gen. Booth and Stead, these rebellious witnesses have had cer- tain common resemblances which more than outweigh their differences. In Stead's case the point of chief interest is the use he made of the modern tool — journalism. He was born July 5, 1849, one of a dozen children of a Congregational min- ister, settled in a poor parish near Alnwick. He got his chief schooling from his father. A vivacious intelli- gence, healthy curiosity, and a very real religious sense were his salient charac- teristics. At fifteen he was apprenticed as an office-boy in a merchant's count- ing-house at Newcastle-on-Tyne. There he invested his penny savings in the Sporting Life — he was passionately fond of cricket and other sports — and in cheap reprints of Shakespeare's plays. The book which, next to the Bible, made the most lasting impression upon him was James Russell Lowell's Poeti- cal Works, bought with part of a guinea prize which he won for an essay in the Boy's Own Magazine. Lowell's poem, "Extreme Unction," "changed my life," Stead says. "The idea that everything wrong in the world was a divine cnll to use your life in righting it, sank deep into my soul." In 1871 Stead became editor of the Northern Echo of Darlington, with which he stayed until 1880, when, to his surprise, John Morley Invited him to join the staff of the Pall Mall Oi The Bulgarian atrocities had given him his opportunity, his vociferous denun- ciation of the Tory attitude towards them bringing him to the notice of Gladstone and the Liberal leaders. In
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6° <t) Tlie Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2533 1884 Stead took full command of the Pall Mall Gazette. The following year he gained for him- self and his journal a world-wide noto- riety through his exposure of the or- ganized traffic in young women for im- moral purposes. Thenceforward, until 1890, when he sold the Gazette and established the English Review of Re- views, he was regarded by the public much as one regards a stick of dyna- mite which may go off unexpectedly and injure friends and foes alike. So, too, during the last twenty years of his life he engaged in many agitations, social or political, which his sensational man- ner made easy to criticise as crankish, if not crazy. The distrust which a large body of the public felt for him was increased by his infatuation, as they called it, for spiritualism, which he carried to the point of introducing a "Borderland" sec- tion in the Review and of making his office a sort of clearing-house for spir- itistic records. If spiritualism ever proves its case and converts the world, Stead will doubtless figure among the faithful few who, in the early days, were unshaken by ridicule and misrep- resentation. To his contemporaries, however, it seemed that Stead's efficacy as a reformer decreased in proportion as he spent more and more time across the border. For a long time before his death he waited on premonitions, and he believed implicitly in the reality of the spectral "Julia" and her messages. To students of psychic phenomena, his experience has some interest. But it is Stead the publicist and edi- tor who deserves mosi attention. Un- questionably, he exerted for a time wide influence on the British public. His support of Gladstonianism, his friendli- ness towards Russia during the period when Russophobia was John Bull's fa- vorite malady, nis stanch support of the peace movement, his championship of the oppressed regardless of their race, creed, or party, are among the positive achievements of Stead's career, while his attack on the "Maiden Trib- ute" seems to the present reviewer the most courageous act in modern journal- ism. To-day, when "white slavery" has become the topic of conversation in the nursery, and the agitation is carried on in ways which may do more harm than good, it is almost impossible to imag- ine the effect produced by Stead's "Apocalypse of Evil" in 1885. In Eng- land, as in other Anglo-Saxon countries, the policy had long before been adopted of assuming that the social evil did not exist because it was tacitly agreed not to mention it. When Stead broke through the silence, there was a mo- mentary consternation among the par- tisans of Cant, and then they recover- ed their nerve and punished, not the monsters whom he had exposed, but Stead himself for exposing them! A legal quibble sufficed. Even Thomas Hardy has not imagined so fine an in- stance of the sardonic humor which sometimes comes uppermost in the af- fairs of men. Stead took his imprisonment with re- ligious rejoicing. "You have now the crown upon your work," Cardinal Man- ning wrote to him. The cynical said, of course, that he was a sensation-monger, who exploited his righteousness in or- der to procure notoriety. We moderns have grown skeptical of the business man who avowedly takes the Ten Com- mandments down to his office. So far as appears, however, Stead sincerely be- lieved that in this crisis, and through- out his career, he was doing the Lord's work, and, certainly, he lost pecuniarily more than he gained by his fidelity to his visions. That vanity and piety may be intermingled, the lives of many very good men teach us. Through his voice and pen the con science of England found utterance on several matters of vital importance. Posterity, knowing him by his works, will probably value him more highly than did those of his contemporaries who judged him by his mannerisms or who suspected his motives. As the man who set himself to realize Lowell's "Pious Editor's Creed," just at the time when other editors began to see their profit in yellow journalism, he will not soon be forgotten. By one of the rare instances of poetic justice, his life, which had been crowded with dramatic incidents, closed in the wreck of the Titanic. One of the survivors, who put off in the last life-boat, says that Stead, having done all that he could for the cmbarkers, "stood alone at the edge of the deck, in silence, and, what seemed to me, a prayerful attitude, or one of profound meditation." These reminiscences consist of many autobiographical passages, letters of more than personal interest, and the recollections furnished by friends — all put together and made clear by his daughter. She writes with simple fer- vor. Notes Dr. Benjamin Rand, of Harvard Univer- sity, has two philosophical books in the Cambridge University Press (Putnam). One, entitled "Shaftesbury's Second Characters," will appear during the present month; the other, containing the "Unpublished Corre- spondence of Bishop Berkeley," will be completed in the spring. Both are the re- sult of his researches in England and con- tain entirely new material on these great English philosophers. Included in the announcements of Fred- erick A. Stokes Co. are the following: "Wlilspi Ting Dust," by Bldrid Reynolds ; ■The Coloi of the Bast," by Elizabeth Washburn; "The Intriguers," by Harold Bindloss; "Sanctuary," by Percy MacKaye; "The Two Americas," by Rafael Reyes; "The W"i no- Press," by Alfred Noyes, and "My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard," by Elizabeth Cooper. We may expect shortly a new mystery story from the pen of Mary Roberts Rine- hart, entitled "The After House." Houghton Mifflin Co. is the publisher. Thomas Y. Crowell Co. will bring out this season: "The Education of Karl Witte, or the Training of the Child," translated by Professor Wiener, of Harvard, and edited by H. Addington Bruce; "The Message of New Thought," by Abel L. Allen; "How to Rest," by Grace Dawson; "The Deaf, their Position in Society," by Harry Best, and a large-type, thin-paper edition of Roget's "Thesaurus," edited by C. O. S. Maw- son. Among the publications promised by Mc- Clurg for January are "Will o' the Wasps," by Margaret W. Morley; "A Primer of Po- litical Economy," by Alfred Bishop Mason, and "Earmarks of Literature," by Arthur E. Bostwick. In the spring Desmond Fitz-Gerald will bring out "The Song of Labor," translated from the hundredth edition of Rudolph Herzog's "Die Wiskottens." Later the same house will bring out Herzog's collection of short stories entitled "Es giebt ein Gliick." The following volumes are announced for early publication by Small, Maynard & Company: "Mrs. Brand," by H. A. Mitchell Keays; "More About King Edward," by Ed- ward Legge; "A Lady of Leisure," by Ethel Sidgwick; "Sunrise Valley," by Mar- ion Hill, and "The Dog and the Child and the Ancient Sailor Man," by Robert Alexan- der Wason. "The Treasure," by Kathleen Norris, and "The Philippines, Past and Present," by Dean C. Worcester, are among Macmillan's forthcoming books. Mr. Clarence M. Burton, of Detroit, Mich., has presented to the Detroit Public Library his large collection of books and manu- scripts relating to the history of the city. The collection contains 30,000 bound vol- umes, 100,000 pamphlets, 500,000 manuscripts, and 27,000 photographs of Detroit scenes, buildings, and personages. Included In Mr. Burton's gift are his home at No. 27 Brain- ard Street, and the three fireproof buildings used tor his library. He has spent forty years in making the collection, and he now wishes to be sure that it shall be preserved intact. The output of books in Greai Britain In 1918, according to the Bookseller, was 8,473, or 505 less than in L912. Willi the excep- tion of annuals and serials, the only in- 1 n a e was in children's books and music. The greatest falling off was In political economy, the works on this subject iber Ing only 304, againsi S21 the previous year. There were also fewer works on law, art and archlecture, travel, and religion. The Oxford University Press Is u report of "The Celebration of the Two Hun- dred ami Fiftieth Anniversarj of the Royal Society of London." 1 as 1 olums contains Mi* many addrSSBtS, in Latin anil English, sent to tin- Society on III ' I
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Jan. 15, 1914] The Nation 63 To the series of Literary and Historical' obscure in Medwin's pages as to evade his schichte der nordamerikanischen Literatur" Library (Dutton) elucidation; a book of which most fairly 1 (Gbschen Collection). He has compressed Ulases In Everyman's has now been ad and Australasia. nrrs have now in hand the fourth "carefully revised" edition of Baedeker's "Spain and Portugal." A 'wiio's Who in Japan" has reached Its second annual edii shows a bulky volume of 1,817 pages with 134 ad- ditional pages as a supplement. The text is in English, although the names of Chi- nese and Japanese are given also in the native script. The book is imported by Q. E. Stechert & Company. \niong George Meredith's later excursions Into journalism was a series of dialogues contributed to the Graphic in 1 st.T-4, under t1'" till ol "Up to Midnight," now reprinted In a thin volume by Luce. Their interest is bibliographical, not Intrinsic, and the author would probably have felt as warmly upon their resurrection as he did towards the "ghoul" who threatened to search out his early leaders, in whose ears he wished ommlnation Service thundered. A men converse through five distill' I ;s at the home of Sir John Saxon, upon such topics as the Franco-Prussian War, the Geneva Arbitration, Arctic Ex- ploration, and Stanley and Livingstone. No r-drawing raises the attention above these outworn subjects, Tor the whole peak patently for Meredith. Nor has the talk even , its. The re distinctly out of place upon subjects proper to jour- clarity, and an occasional glinting 1 scarcely lights up the waste of his pedagogic style. An entertaining compilation is "A Cen- tury of Parody and Imitation" (Milford), by Walter Jerrold and R. M. Leonard; the title's significance lying in the fact that the publication of the "Rejected Addresses" of Horace and James Smith virtually estab- lished modern parody, which is brought down to the death of Andrew Lang. Living authors are excluded, and a few excellent examples, as R. F. Murray's "The Banished Bejant" and Aytoun and Martin's "The Queen in France," may be missed. But gen- eral completeness marks the book, even to the inclusion of poems valuable only as historical missteps in the growth of parody towards general good taste, while all, from Hogg's "The Flying Tailor" to Bunner's "Home, Sweet Home," are well indexed and well annotated. te on Africa 1 well read students of the romantic move- ment may never have heard is to him some- thing which should be in any gentleman's liiiiary. In regard to Medwin himself he has no illusions; there is scarcely a quota- tion in Medwin's pages to the inaccuracy of which he does not call attention, and Medwin's mendacity and conceit would es- cape no one. But Mr. Forman is right, nev- ertheless, in placing high value on this biography as giving insight into the charac- ter of Shelley and his circle, though, as an into barely two hundred pages an extraor- dinary amount of information concerning American literature, and sketches its devel- opment with rapid strokes. Best of all, he contrives to let the great writers stand out in bold relief. His judgments are indepen- dent and incisive. Oliver Wendell Holmes evokes his greatest admiration. "The world has perhaps never seen so penetrating, keen- eyed, and, at the same time, so warm-heart- ed an optimist." Professor Kellner. known as an admirable translator, quotes a number ardent and full-souled worshipper of the ' of Passages from the "Autocrat," aptly poet, he apparently quite fails to see the ! characterizes Holmes's address on "Mecha- damaging nature of such an admission, j nism in TnougQt and Morals," and remarks Medwin, indeed, was of his age, and there ' that the reader often enjoys Holmes's wit is in his views of life and in his man- ner or writing not a little which might be described as Shelley without Shelley's ge- nius. On pages 139 and 140 of the present edition there will be found, for instance, as perfect an utterance of the romantic notion of sympathy, with its consequent sense of embittered isolation and its nature cult, as can be found in Shelley himself. It is romanticism bared to the quick. too much to appreciate his scientific impor- tance and his deep seriousness. In Lowell Herr Kellner admires mainly the satirist and humorist, with his "pyrotechnics of de- licious puns," though he does justice to his "glowing love of his country." In Long- fellow he sees "the Herder of English lit- erature," though he says that Longfellow "has perhaps taken Goethe's world litera- ture somewhat too seriously." Herr Kellner ! speaks of Emerson's wide influence on mod- One could scarcely get a more striking ern German thought. His aphorisms are exhibit of the revolution which has taken I everywhere eagerly read, "while the great Place in the past decade in American of- i transcendental systems of Fichte, Schelling, fice methods than that furnished in the vol- ' and Hegel, on which Emerson's philosophi- se, "The American Office," by J. William Cal views are based, slumber, undisturbed Schulze, assistant secretary of the Alexan- ! by the great public, in the dust of the 11- der Hamilton Institute of New York city, ' braries." which has just been issued by the Key Pub- Thomas Medwin's lishing Co. It would be difficult to men- tion a single phase of office activity, wheth- er relating to organization, physical ar- rangement, records, communication, dis- tribution of activity and responsibility, or ! psychological factors, which the book does [ not consider. The scope and purpose of the j work may be inferred from some of the ' In his chapter on our transcendental movement Professor Kellner speaks of the curious tendency in literature to put a common label on writers whom mere acci- dent has brought together. "Emerson is miles apart from Alcotrt and Channing, yet they are mentioned together as 'transcen- dentalists,' just as Wordsworth and Southcy, . who intellectually had but little in common, chapter headings: Office Employees, Office have been handed down to posterity as mem- Apphances, the Physical Office, How to Lay ■ bers o£ the Lake School of Poetry,. X(,v. Out Floor Space, Creatine the Office Or- n. 1 • . -i • >, •_* u , ^-canu Luc omie ur , orthclcss, in some way, striking it not alto- ganization, Training Office Employees, Su- ' gether convincing, Herman Melville and pervision and Salary Plans, Methods of Walt whitman are drawn by Professor Kell- Arousing Enthusiasm, The Human Touch, ner himself into intellectual kinship wit!, Welfare Work, Office Records, and Systems. ; the transcendentalists. Howclls and James The book is full of charts and diagrams 11- I come in for discriminating appreciation. Of lustrating the relations between branches j their "self-conscious art," it is said that ot the organization, photographs of model j "artists, in their endeavor to escape the yoke offices, and graphic devices for enforcing Gf their subject, often commit the mistake the points made by the author. Of course 0f working without any material, and thus it is all in the nature of counsel of per- j trying to make bricks without straw." We fection; but he must be a dull person who can only allude to the telling characteriza- cannot find here many practical sugges- tions of Hawthorne, Poe, Whittier, and Mark tions, as well as a general spirit of enthu- , Twain, the last of whom, of course, oc- siasm likely to increase his interest in his CUpies the most prominent place in the chap- Life of Percy Bysshe , own work. This book, says the author in ' ter on The Humor of Exaggeration. Shelley was originally published in 1847. his preface, on The Literature 0f the Soil is appro,, 1-17 « 7," amUS6d h,mSelf' an(1 is intended Primarily for three groups of ly ushered in by Bret Ilar.e, and is con- woiked off some of his accumulated rancor: people: (1) The young man in the office I tinued through Edward against Mary Shelley, by making large re- «'bo is anxious to succeed and who is de- I ^handler Harris visions of the work for a second edition ! sirous of studying a book that will teach ' which was expected to appear, but did not ' Wm standard office methods; (2) the stu appear, about the time of his death, in 1869. His copy of the book, with the revisions on the margins, fell, like so many other good things of this sort, into the hands of Mr. H. Buxton Forman, who has now issued an admirable reprint (Oxford University Press) with the author's proposed changes incorporated into the text. For annotations he has drawn largely on his extraordinary leston, Joel and James Lane Allen to the present day, closing with a brief sur- vey of the writers produced by Individual States. Even Iowa and Wyoming are not missing from Professor Kellner's li evidence of his familiarity with all the phases of his subject, we may point to his i!i ni in the university or business school who aims to start his business career with a knowledge of American office practice; (3) the executive who realizes that, no matter how well he may believe his office Ing managed, there are ideas and su gestions to be gathered from a study Of j remarks on Sidney Lanier, , mens methods. , ,, and Henry ('. Bunner. The Ann rlC in short- Prof. Leon Kellner, oi ,,ry gets its full share of attention, and Czernowitz (Austria), who published four even George Ade's "Fables in . years ago, in German, a valuable history i remembered. But ne: In the iinrary ot Shelleyan books and his no less of "English Literature during the Age of two little volumes will 1 11 of In- xtraordinary knowledge of the literary ; Queen Victoria," has no .- , , st to German readers and much de- vagabondage of the period. Nothing is so work with two tiny volumes, entitled "Ge- serves to be read by American!
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G4= Tlie Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2533 of no similar manual of American litera- ture in the English language, as a com- parison with some such volumes as Henry A. Beers's "Initial Studies in American Lit- erature" and with the American addition to Stopford A. Brooke's "English Literature" will disclose. Mr. John Masefield's "Salt-Water Bal- lads" and "A Mainsail Haul" (Macmillan) are not likely to affect his reputation par- ticularly in one way or the other. They are earlier productions and are now reprint- ed presumably in view of their author's amazing popularity. The second volume consists of a rather miscellaneous collec- tion of prose, much of which seems like hack work. The first volume is sufficiently characterized by its title; its verse is com- paratively inoffensive — hardly more than a little tarry in patches. The best thing in it is what Mr. Masefield calls "A Consecra- tion," wherein he defines his mission as poet: Others may sing of the wine and the wealth and the mirth, The portly presence of potentates goodly in girth ;— Mine be the dirt and the dross, the dust and scum of the earth ! The seventh volume of "The Vulgate Ver- sion of the Arthurian Romances" (The Carnegie Institution of Washington), edited by H. O. Sommer, offers as a supplement to the vulgate cycle the "Merlin" continuation or "Livre d'Artus" of MS. 337 (Bibliotheque Nationale), in so far as this continuation differs essentially from that of the vulgate cycle. The contents of this continuation are well known from the very minute analy- sis of it which was given by E. Freymond many years ago in the Zeitschrift Jkr fran- zbsische Sprache und Literatur XVII ;but no analysis, of course, can take the place of the text itself, so that the present volume constitutes a welcome addition to our ma- terials for the study of the evolution of the prose romances. One might imagine from Dr. Sommer's prefatory note that the title "Livre d'Artus" was applied exclusively to the text which he has here published. But, as a matter of fact, Paulin Paris, who in- vented it, first employed it of the "Merlin" continuation of the vulgate cycle; and ever since it has been used as a general desig- nation of works which were composed with a view to connecting the prose version of Robert de Boron's "Merlin" with the prose "Lancelot." Indeed, Dr. Sommer's volume does not contain the whole of the "Livre d'Artus" as given in MS. 337, for he omits (very properly) the earlier portion which does not differ in any noteworthy respect from the ordinary text of the vulgate "Mer- lin" continuation. But apart from the un- warranted restriction of the term "Livre d'Artus" to the text here printed, why should he say that its place in MS. 337 sug- gests that it is "a suite or continuation of the Vulgate-'Merlin' " — that is, a continua- tion of a continuation? Obviously not. The manuscript arrangement merely suggests that the present text was to be substituted for what we may call the second division of the vulgate "Livre d'Artus" or "Merlin" continuation. Dr. Sommer expresses the opinion that both the vulgate continuation and the present text are "redactions of an account of the reigns of Uterpendragon anil Artus made at different dates for the pur pose of linking Robert's 'Merlin' to the 'Lancelot.'" If he means by this that the two works are connected with each other, only through a common hypothetical source, we believe that he will find few Arthurian scholars to agree with him. It has been generally assumed that the present text was dependent on the vulgate, and we see no reason to call that view into question. Dr. Sommer advances also the theory that this text in an earlier form "already figured in the Joseph-Perceval-Lancelot cycle as such a link and markedly influenced the Lancelot. The present text is part of a later rifacimento added by some scribe to the Vulgate-Cycle and — paradoxical as it may sound — it is considerably influenced by the Lancelot." That a lost "Perceval" ro- mance ever constituted an integral part of the cycle of prose romances which in its extant form we call the vulgate is, itself, by no means an established fact, but apart from this the hypothesis here stated by Dr. Sommer is extremely improbable. We have no manuscript evidence of an earlier form, and no one is likely to accept so compli- cated a theory of the relations of our ro- mance to the "Lancelot" except in the face of the strongest proof. Now, as in the pres- ent publication the editor makes virtually no effort to supply such proof (for one or two brief footnotes cannot be regarded se- riously in that light), we believe that cur- rent opinions on the subject will for the present remain what they have been. As in the previous volumes, Dr. Sommer repro- duces his text from the MS. without editing it— only in this case he has capitalized prop- er names, which is an improvement, inas- much as in some degree it aids the reader in following the story. On the other hand, he has omitted the analysis of the narrative in side-notes which has been so useful a feature of the earlier volumes in the series. He was doubtless compelled to do this by the considerations of health which are mentioned in the publisher's note inserted at the beginning of the volume. We hope sincerely, however, that he will be able to complete his work with the "General Ana- lytical Index" which he has promised. Such an index would be of inestimable service in the study of these vast prose romances. The death at the age of sixty-one is re- ported from Glasgow of the Celtic scholar, Henry Whyte, better known under the pen- name "Fionn." A number of volumes on Celtic subjects, translations of Gaelic lit- erature into English, and his preservation of many Highland melodies comprise his contributions to scholarship. We record with regret the death of Wil- liam Edward Armytage Axon, which took place at his home in Manchester, England, on December 27. Mr. Axon was a valued contributor to the Nation's Bibliophile col- umns, where he displayed an extraordinary familiarity with pleasant byways of lit- erature. He was born in Manchester in 1846. At fifteen years of age he became an as- 1 iint. in the Manchester Free Libraries and from 1874 to 1905 ho was on the staff of the Manchester Ciiardhiu as office li- brarian. Though lacking a college educa- tion, his constant association with books, Joined with unremitting Industry, made aim a scholar in a noble sense; be was ad- mitted to many learned societies, received , om 1 1" Wllb 1 [prce University tin oi 1,1. i)., and- a degree which 1 in atl prized the master ol arts {honoris causa) from the University of Manchester, which was presented to him during his last ill- ness. Mr. Axon contributed to encyclo- paedias and magazines too numerous to be here recorded. He also wrote and edited a number of books, linguistic, religious, archaeological, and poetical. Henrietta Keddie, the novelist, who wrote under the name of Sarah Tyler, died last Thursday in London, in her eighty-seventh year. She began her literary work while conducting a boarding school for girls at the town of her birth, Cupar-Fife. A list of her works includes the following: "Cito- yenne Jacqueline," "French Janet," "The Macdonald Lass," "Miss Nance," "Women Must Weep," and "Three Generations." Samuel Augustus Binion, who died sud- denly in New York last Thursday, was born in Suwalki, Poland, in 1853, and was the author of several books, among them "An- cient Egypt," "The Baballah," "Phyllan- thography," etc. The death is reported from Dublin of Dr. Patrick Weston Joyce, an Irish scholar of repute, who was born in 1827. He was edu- cated in private schools and entered the service of the Commissioners of National Education of Ireland in 1845. He occupied successive positions with the commission- ers until 18^4, when he became a professor in the Commissioners' Training College at Dublin. He subsequently became principal of the College. In 1893 he retired from that position, but later became one of the com- missioners for the publication of the An- cient Laws of Ireland. He received the de- grees of M.A. and LL.D from Trinity Col- lege, Dublin. Dr. Joyce's published works include "The Origin and History of Irish Names of Places," "Ancient Irish Music," in which he collected hitherto unpublished Irish airs and songs; "Old Celtic Ro- mances," a collection of thirteen Irish sto- ries translated from the Gaelic ; "A Short History of Ireland to 1608," "A Child's His- tory of Ireland," and "Social History of Ancient Ireland." Science ALEXANDER AGASSIZ. Letters and Recollections of Alexander Agassiz. With a Sketch of his Life Work. Edited by G. R. Agassiz. Bos- ton: Houghton Mifflin Co. $3.50 net. Seldom does a biography record a more extraordinary personality and ca- reer than that of Alexander Agassiz as told by his eldest son. During a boy- hood of narrow means in Europe, alter his father, the great naturalist, Louis Agassiz, had come to the United Slates. he walked from one town to another to visit his relatives, and slept on the way under a haystack or in the house of a friendly peasant, when "almost anybody vould give such a tiny traveller a piece of bread or a bit of cheese," as he used afterwards to say. in his mature years in America he developed and became president of a great mining company, a man of well-earned wealth, a leader In
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Jan. 15, 1914] The Nation 65 zoology and oceanography, builder of a gri ;it museum, and Fellow of the Har- vard Corporation; in his later life he was the most active explorer of coral reefs the world has known, president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston and of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, and honorary member of many foreign academies, lie may well be regarded as the most eminent American of foreign birth that the present generation has seen: our country should be proud 01 having been his opportunity. Agassiz was born December 17, 1835, in Neuchatel, then belonging to Prus- sia. His father, Louis, a Swiss, our great teacher-naturalist, needs no intro- duction to American readers. His moth- er, Cecile Braun, a German, was a woman of "shy, sensitive, reserved, and artistic" temperament, and it was evi- dently from her, rather than from his father, that the son inherited certain well-marked personal qualities which tended to limit his acquaintance all through life; for while warmly regard- ed by the intimate friends who knew his charm, their circle was restricted, and upon outsiders he never exerted the wonderful attraction that endeared his father to thousands. It was only within this circle that he would show not only the superb Victoria Research medal, awarded him by the Royal Geo- graphical Society of London, but also his delight in having it: to those out- side the wall he showed neither. After his mother's death, the boy came to the United States in 1849, and was fortunate in loving and in being loved by his father's second wife, Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, a most admirable woman, who might well have been the prototype of the good stepmother, discovered as a new kind of heroine by modern writers; fortunate again in his wife, Anna Rus- sell, a most lovely girl, his pupil in his mother's school, who "knew the speech of courage and of kindness," and whom he married in 1860, but who died in 1874, a week after his father's death, leaving him a saddened man, more re- served than before. He bravely found refuge in unceasing and increasing work. He had even as a boy abundant courage, and as a man great strength, though not of robust health. He always had his own opinions, and never fear- ed to express them: in his early school years at Neuchatel, he refused to re- ceive certain prizes from an official whom he disliked, turned his back upon him, and walked out of the room. In consequence of the row that followed he led a band of young confederates to at- tack the castle of the Prussian Gover- nor, and smashed the windows of the dining-hall on the night of a large par- ty at which his father was present. The father, suspecting his boy of having a hand In the affair, hurried home, but there found Alex in bed and apparently asleep. The young Prussian was made to study the violin, which he loathed; so when he left Germany for America, he celebrated his departure from the land of compulsion to the land of free- dom by jumping on his violin and smashing it. He was bow oar of the Harvard University crew in the middle 50's, and always retained his fondness for rowing: in later years he occa- sionally appeared at the Museum so hoarse that he could hardly speak, and would sheepishly admit that he had been to a boat race the day before, and perhaps he "had shouted too loud." In spite of Agassiz's habitual reserve, he was of short temper, and easily pro- voked to "speak his mind," and on oc- casions did not withhold it even con- cerning one of his fellow-oarsmen, who gave Harvard, among several other things, its crimson color-emblem. Agas- siz was, moreover, over-sensitive to ad- verse opinion, and less patient in dis- cussion with those who differed from him than in his own work. He never sought to appear before the public, but rather withdrew from it, for he had nothing of his father's gift of scientific oratory; but he was of great force, long persistence, and enormous accomplish. ment. It is in this respect that his life was so altogether exceptional, and yet most of his work was done in compara- tively poor health, and under the shad- ow of sad bereavement. His first large task was the development in 1867-68 of certain unsuccessful copper mines, lat- er combined in the famous Calumet and Hecla Company, on Keweenaw Point in upper Michigan. Let it be here remem- bered that, just turned thirty, he had had. almost no training in business methods or in mining technique; that he had been brought up by a father who "possessed a hazy idea of the value of a dollar," and whose money affairs were sometimes "in a more than usually de- plorable muddle." He had, to be sure, after graduating at Harvard without distinction in 1855, studied engineering and chemistry in the Lawrence Scien- tific School, and he may have learned a little of bookkeeping when, as teacher in his mother's school for girls in Cam- bridge, he paid the other teachers and kept the accounts; he had for a. short time worked for the United States Coast Survey in the Far Northwest, and on returning to Cambridge in 1860 he took charge of Radiates in his father's Mu- seum, where for six years he had some more experience in accounts and in the "disentanglement of the financial diffi- culties into which the cheerful optimism of his father constantly plunged not only the Museum, but also (lie family purse"; and for a brief period he had the management of a coal property in Pennsylvania. It was on the basis or this largely irrelevant experience that Agassiz, early in 1867, was placed in charge of the Calumet and Hecla prop- erties, an appointment probably influ- enced by the fact that his two sisters had married Boston men, of whom one was then and the other later became largely interested in the mines. He put in "every cent" he had — some of it borrowed — and went to work with the avowed intention of making money so that he could afterwards spend it in becoming a "productive naturalist." He met incompetence, misrepresentation, mismanagement, and disloyalty, and overcame them all. Expenses were un- expectedly great and assessments had to be levied; a brother-in-law provided the sum called on Agassiz's stock. He was "driven to death" at one time, "fear- fully blue" at another, and "some days in utter despair." His brave wife join- ed him in the wilderness with a young boy and a baby; when she went out for a walk she carried a revolver strapped to her belt. Winter weather was se- vere, accidents in and about the mines caused delay and cost money, and put a heavy strain on the man in charge. In spite of all setbacks, the mines were in good working order near the end of 1868, when Agassiz returned to Cam- bridge. He was made president of the company in 1871, and held that office till his death, thirty-nine years later. Un- der his management the company paid its stockholders the fabulous sum of $110,550,000. And yet this was only the by-product of a man whose real life interest was abstract science; for the mine once in running order, he set it aside, except for visits of a month, spring and au- tumn, and plunged into work at the Museum. On November 8, 1868, he wrote to seventeen scientific correspon- dents, and said to one, in reply to a letter of a year and a half earlier: "Thank Heaven, I am now done with copper mines, and have returned with all my heart to my studies,, which I hope nothing again will interrupt." But the strain of work at the mines had in- jured his health; he was severely ill in the spring of 1869. A year abroad was then made possible by the generosity of a Boston friend, and he spent the time visiting museums preparatory to his famous work on sea urchins. It is interesting to note that he carried a letter from his father to Darwin, in which the elder Agassiz wrote: "You will find Alex more ready to accept your views than I shall ever be." He saw countless zoologists, fretted over the un- necessary formalities and delays in many museums, felt melancholy on see- ing how low the French had fallen through governmental corruption, was mistaken for Bismarck on the frontier during the Franco-Prussian War, and returned home in November, 1870. Al- though he lost a year's work by the
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66 Tlie Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2533 burning of many original drawings in the great .Boston lire, his first large publication, the "Revision of the Echini" (770 pages, 87 plates), appeared in 1872 as a four-part memoir, of which he wrote: "Nothing pleased me more than to have been able to present the cost of these volumes to the Museum." Then with a great scientific career well opened before him, in the middle year of his life came an overwhelming blow, the death of his father and his wife, and for a time he could find no incen- tive for further study. But he soon set bravely to work to complete the great Museum which his father had planned and as his father had planned it, and then began an unrivalled series of ex- plorations in all the oceans of the world. His voyages far exceed those of any oth- er scientific investigator. Forceful as he was in these great undertakings, he was minutely painstaking and cautious in his work. His wide acquaintance with the outdoor world taught him the complexity of things, and forbade alike a hasty statement of conclusions of his own and a hasty acceptance of conclu- sions reached by more hurried contem- poraries. This was particularly true regarding the theory of organic evolu- tion, which, as his father foresaw, he accepted as a general principle, but with- out admitting the correctness of elab- orate schemes of descent devised by oth- ers whom he thought over-rash. So in his study of coral reefs, he insisted on the great variety of the phenomena and on the necessity of recognizing many the- ories of origin, rather than only one. He was offered the position of Superinten- dent of the Coast Survey in 1885, but refused it because he felt himself unfit for a post that should be filled by a mathematician or a physicist, and also because he did not wish to sacrifice his own scientific work. In 1904 he was offered the direction of an expedition, to be liberally subsidized for five years by the Carnegie Institution of Washing- ton, to explore the tropical Pacific, but refused because of his age, sixty-nine; had this opportunity come five years earlier he would have "jumped at it." It is more of a loss to science than to Agassiz that he declined it. His death occurred in the mid-At- lantic, March 27, 1910, on his way home from a winter in Egypt, with his second son, Maximilian, his companion on many journeys: he was laid in Forest Hills Cemetery beside the wife of his youth, whom he had buried there thir- ty-six years before. Those who were privileged to know him well found a nature which they loved as much as they admired, and what they tell excites envy of their privilege among others to whom it w. nled. "The Family and Society," by John M. Gil- lette. Dr. Kdward O. Otis is the author of a new volume on "Consumption, its Cause, Cure and Prevention," which is announced by Crowell. Prof. Winslow Upton, for nearly thirty years head of the department of astronomy at Brown University and director of the Ladd Observatory since its erection in 1891, died last Thursday at the Rhode Island Hos- pital, in Providence. He was born in Salem, Mass., in 1853. He received degrees from Brown University and the University of Cincinnati. He became an assistant at the Harvard Observatory in 1877 ; assistant en- gineer of the United States Lake Survey in 1879; computer of the United States Naval Observatory in 1880 ; computer and assistant professor of the United States Signal Ser- vice in 1881, and professor at Brown in 1883. He published a "Star Atlas" for schools in 1896. Drama McClurg has in press a new volume in ill'- National Social Science .scries, entitled The New American Drama. By Richard Burton. New York: Thomas Y. Crow- ell Co. $1.25 net. The author of this book, profess6r of English literature in the University of Minnesota, exhibits a thorough acquaint- ance with modern theatrical products in this country, of which he furnishes a scholarly summary, but some of the conclusions which he derives from his review suggest that his critical faculty is defective. His judgment is too subser- vient to his enthusiasm for the newest forms of drama and to a spirit of op- timism which would confer the laurels of achievement upon every crude at- tempt. Yet he has a clear view of the true functions of the theatre, "with its rootages in play, in religion, and the universal love of life," and argues for it, ably and vigorously, at the beginning and end of the volume. He maintains that the tremendous influence of which the stage, in its different manifestations, is capable, should be subject to the same sort of intelligent direction that is em- ployed in orchestras and libraries. He does not, however, solve the problem how such a beneficial censorship — more and more favored by thoughtful persons — is to be established. The principle is simple but the application of it in- tensely difficult. Professor Burton eas- ily riddles the old managerial plea that the public must have what it wants, and points out that, even if it wore sound, it would not militate against the more enlightenorl policy of helping play- goers to appreciate and look for superior entertainment. He adds, justly, that the managers are not alone to blame in this matter, but that a certain measure of re- sponsibility rests upon the cultivated and respectable members of the commu- nity who remain apathetic When lie comes to comparisons of the existing theatre and that of the pre- ceding generation, the latest types of stage performers and their predecessors, he betrays the lack of personal experi- ence and of intimacy with actual theat- rical conditions. He is more of the theorist than the expert. He does not know the capacities of the older actors or the part which the old stock compa- nies played in their education. Appar- ently, he imagines that a modern dra- matic school can supply all the stage education really needed, and that the chief accomplishment of the old per- formers was artificial and monotonous declamation. The effect of this delu- sion, manifestly arising from inexperi- ence, is shown when he undertakes, somewhat superfluously, to defend the general public from the charge of in- capacity to appreciate the higher poetic drama. In advancing various reasons for the comparative failure of certain costly productions of poetical drama, he omits the most weighty of all, the pres- ent dearth of actors trained to speak verse decently or to interpret imagina- tive works with appropriate spirit and action. There is abundant proof, past and present, that the general public al- ways has been and still is ready to sup- port poetic drama when well played. It will not pay to see it butchered. The modern theatrical school, with which the Professor is so content, only pro- duces actors fitted for the plays of mod- ern life. Actors of the old school could be realistic or romantic as occasion de- manded. If the stage is to reflect the manners and the literature of more than one time, and that the present, we must have actors who can embody other char- acters than their own. In his chapter on Truth, dealing with plays of American life, he sings the praises of most of the native play- wrights, from Bronson Howard and James A. Hearne to Eugene Walter, and no doubt they have contributed some solid material towards the foundations of an American drama. But in his zeal for actuality he fails to discriminate between the plays which have depi aded entirely on melodramatic violence — the mere shockers — and the much rarer serious works constructed upon legiti- mate dramatic principles, and reflecl ing the truth of nature In the conflict of circumstance and character. Many of the pieces which he enumerates have no real artistic or dramatic significance The critical praise which he bestows, under the head of "Romance," upon the plays of Moody, MaeKaye, Mrs. Marks, and Rann Kennedy, is amply Justified, but his definition or "romance" muBl be extraordinarily elastic if it can be made to include the great majority of Hie plays which tie groups under thai cate gory. Many of these are flagrant exam pies r a most pernicious variety of melodramatic extravagance. The ohar
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Jan. 15, 1914] The Nation 67 acteristic attributes of romance are beau: ty, imagination, and essential truth, the three finalities in which all such pieces are conspicuously deficient. In discours- ing of humor and the social note, Pro- fessor Burton reveals powers of observa- tion and comparison which might have been applied with profit to more than one of his preceding chapters. He is apt to be happier in the enunciation of his theories than in the illustration of them by particulars. McClurg announces at an early date "The Green Cockatoo and Other Plays," by Ar- thur Schnitzler, and "Gerhart Hauptmann, his Life and Work," by Karl Holl. Profs. W. A. Neilson and A. H. Thorn- dike, general editors of the Tudor Shake- speare, have brought this edition (Macmil- lan) to completion with a volume devoted to "The Facts About Shakespeare." As an example of what accredited American scholarship can accomplish, the book, as in- deed the whole edition, is most instructive. What stands out is, as might be expected, the mass of details taken into account and the caution with which they are handled. Here is German industry combined with Yankee common-sense. The work differs from recent English editions of Shake- speare, for example, the Eversley, edited by Professor Herford, in the almost entire ab- sence of aesthetic and philosophical criti- cism. It is a serious lack, especially in an edition designed for use in schools and col- leges, which should endeavor to whet the student's imagination and zest. But of its kind the Tudor Shakespeare is by far the most trustworthy edition in existence. Its special virtues are perhaps best illustrated, in the present volume, by the chapter on Bio- graphical Facts and Traditions. In no oth- er place have we seen so succinct and or- derly an interpretation of the credible doc- uments bearing on Shakespeare's life; this is followed by an enumeration of the ru- mors and hearsay, the origin of each be- ing stated, which for two centuries after his death strove to clothe the skeleton of fact with picturesque, often fantastic de- tails. Everybody is familiar with the gossip which charged Shakespeare with poaching on the preserves of Sir Thomas Lucy, but interest is added to the rumor by knowledge of its source. In the chapter on Shake- speare's Reading, the list of books with which he must have been acquainted is also nicely based on the evidence. In this con- nection it might have been well to indicate more fully the advantage to which Shake- speare turned his reading, that is, the man- ner in which his imagination assimilated and recast it. There are enough striking instances of the sort which could have been drawn from Plutarch, Holinshed, and es- pecially Sidney's "Arcadia" to warrant a few illuminating generalizations. In plan the book, though a work of collaboration, is thoroughly consistent and even; but the styles of the two writers are easily distin- guishable, the one open, sometimes loose, the other compact yet clear. Romance, in all its shapes, has been ex- cluded from the local stage for so long in favor of the crudest forms of "realistic" melodrama that the successful production of such a piece as Percy MacKaye's "A Thousand Years Ago" in the Shubert Thea- tre is particularly welcome. This is not, in any sense, a great work, but it is enter- taining and has literary qualities of an uncommon kind. The story is the very old one, of the princess whose hand was to be the reward of any suitor who might be willing to lose his head if he could not solve her riddles. Not long ago she was the heroine in a spectacle by Reinhardt, which had a great success in Europe, but failed badly in London, probably on ac- count of inadequate performance. Now she is called Turandot, daughter of the Emperor of Peking. Mr. MacKaye follows the ancient tale closely enough in its main incidents, but freshens it by bringing in the comparatively modern figures of the Italian Commedia del' Arte, Scaramouch, Harlequin, and Panta- loon, as inspiring motives. These, under the leadership of Capocomico, come as strolling players to Peking, having been banished from their usual haunts by mod- ern materialistic critics, and virtually con- trol the whole action. In a prologue, Capo- comico bewails the banishment of romance from the theatre, its . legitimate field, and cites the fantasy of which he is to be the protagonist as sufficient justification for its recall. He pledges himself to cure the prin- cess of her aversion to matrimony in twen- ty-four hours, under penalty of death, if constituted emperor for that period, and the Chinese monarch promptly takes him at his word. Having discovered that the beggar with whom the princess is in love, and to whom she has thrown a rose, is identical with the Prince who is her latest suitor, Capocomico is able, of course, after the necessary complications, to fulfil his prom- ise within the prescribed period. The ele- ment of suspense naturally is slight, as the issue is never in doubt, but Mr. Mac- Kaye has handled his theme with a good sense of theatrical effect and has supplied dialogue of a vastly superior order to that of most modern spectacles. Several of his scenes exhibit graceful fancy, and one, at least — that in the prince's chamber — consid- erable dramatic force. The representation is also notable for some highly effective scenery, in which modern methods of light- ing and coloring are employed. A dream scene, with shadow pictures, and the scene in the prince's chamber, with part of the stage lighted and part in Cimmerian dark- ness, were especially striking. The City Gate at Peking and the Great Hall of the Emperor were also remarkable instances of the effects of spaciousness and gorgeous- ness to be obtained by the judicious dis- position of simple draperies broadly paint- ed. In their detail some of the sets were not altogether satisfactory, but in general design they were admirable and nicely ap- propriate to the fantastic theme. The act- ing was less felicitous than the play and its decorations, but Henry E. Dixey, as Capocomico, was a fascinating and graceful figure, and the veteran F. B. Warde demon- strated the value of an old-school training. He knew how to act and to speak. The Scottish Repertory Theatre is to re- sume at an early date. The directors have arranged a spring season, which will begin at the Royalty Theatre, Glasgow, on January 19. Lewis Casson, who was prin- cipal producer for Miss Horniman's com- pany at Manchester, is to be stage director and principal producer. The company will include several former members of the Scottish Repertory Company and others who have experience in repertory work. It is proposed to open the season with a re- vival of Arnold Bennett's comedy "The Honeymoon," with which there will be played a stage adaptation of Rudyard Kip- ling's "Badalia." Other productions will probably include, in addition to several entirely new plays, a characteristic ex- ample of the work of Bernard Shaw, one of Sir J. M. Barrie's earlier comedies, and an adaptation of one of R. L. Stevenson's short stories. In the death of William Hawtrey the stage loses an actor of much sound ca- pacity— if not much brilliancy — who was overshadowed by the popularity of his brother, Charles. He had acted in this country for fifteen years, and was asso- ciated with more than one emphatic suc- cess, but never established a position for himself in the first rank. Nevertheless, he knew his art, was capable of giving vitality to scenes of emotional power and pathos, and, in respect of versatility, was far su- perior to his more famous brother. But he lacked that peculiar vein of comedy which made Charles's fame and fortune. When they acted together in this city some years ago, William won his full share of applause without difficulty. "The Fire of Fate," "We Can't Be as Bad as All That," and "The Old Firm" were among the pieces in which he was prominent. He died in the New York Hospital, having been stricken suddenly in a trolley car. His age was fifty-seven years. Music "Richard Wagner, the Man and his Work," by Oliver Huckel, is announced by Crowd!. "Familiar Talks on the History of Music" is the title of a book just published by the Se.hirmers. The author is Arnold J. Gant- voort, of the Cincinnati College of Music. Albert Spalding, the American violinist, has not only been winning fresh laurels abroad, but he has just given to his fellow players, through the publishing house of G. Schirmer, six pieces for violin and piano, which are worth considering. They are strongly reminiscent of Mr. Spalding's long sojourn in Italy, two of them (a "Sicilinno" and a "Scherzo Giocoso") being dedicated to teachers under whom he studied in that country, and another ("Romance in C Mi- nor") being built on the cry of a vender of oranges in Florence. Frederick Corder and the London Musical ire agreed that it is time to stop teaching counterpoint according to the ar- tificial rules sanctioned by mythical au- thority, and follow the 1 1 from the practice of the acknowledged 1 of the art. "We all," says the Times, "bow down to Bach as the great exemplar of the possibilities of counterpoint, yet at the same time our self-imposed rules show him to be so wrong that he would not pass an elementary examination." The memory of America's great folksong
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68 Tlie Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2533 writer, Stephen Collins Foster, will be appropriately honored at a commemorative concert, consisting entirely of American compositions, to be given by the Modern Music Society (chorus of 100), and the New York Symphony orchestra, at Aeolian Hall, Friday evening, February 13, 1914. Maggie Tcyte will be the soloist, and a feature of the programme will be a group of Foster's songs, including the universally loved "Old Black Joe" and "Suwanee River," in new harmonizations made by Benjamin Lambord, the conductor, which, while enriching the effect, entirely preserve the original spirit of the songs. Other numbers of the pro- gramme will be orchestral compositions by MacDowell and Henry F. Gilbert, works for chorus by Edward Burlingame Hill, Blair Fairchild, and Benjamin Lambord, and songs with orchestra by Arthur Farwell and John Alden Carpenter. Mascagni was made famous largely by the winsome brevity of his "Cavalleria Rusticana." He has now gone to the oppo- site extreme. His latest opera, "Parisina," written in collaboration with D'Annunzio, lasted till two in the morning at the first performance in Milan. When it was re- peated, the whole of the fourth act was left out. Art Mural Painting in America. By Edwin Howland Blashfield. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Illustrated. $2 net. Ignoring the unsuccessful attempts to decorate the Capitol at Washington, we may date the revival of mural painting in America from John La Farge's dec- oration of Trinity Church, Boston, in 1876. Significantly it was the architect Richardson who got the commission for the painter. For thirty years to come La Farge was greatly to depend upon such architect friends as Hunt and Mc- Kim. In 1878, W. M. Hunt achieved the short-lived decorations for the Albany Capitol. Then, except for La Farge's steady activity, the movement languish- ed until in 1893 the Columbian Exposi- tion at Chicago employed, under F. D. Millet and C. Y. Turner as artist chiefs, Beckwith, Blashfield, Cox, Reid, Sim- mons, and others. The effect of these decorations, hastily improvised as they had to be, was such that mural painting came to be expected in all public monu- mental buildings. A few years later the completion of the Congressional Library at Washington still further popularized the movement. Mr. Blashfield is an eminently fitting person to record and moralize a genera- tion of achievement in which he person- ally has played a prominent and cred- itable part. His book, an amplification of the Scammon Lectures, delivered last year before the Chicago Art Institute, treats chiefly the business side of mural painting — the relations of artist, decorator, architect, and building com- missioner. We feel that this is a just emphasis — and, for that matter, Mr. Blashfield deals also with the education of the mural painter — because the de- fects of the new movement, are plainly chargeable in great measure to divided responsibility and ill-adjusted business relations. Suppose a building commission safely piloted by the architect beyond local fa- vorites and the alluring estimates of decorating firms to the choice of a capa- ble mural painter, there are still many chances of failure. The mural painting is, after all, only the most important feature of a complex interior decora- tion. The professional decorator who does the minor work is not subject to the painter's control; both work under the remote and often indifferent juris- diction of the architect. The estimates are cut so narrowly that the painter cannot provide the incidental and rein- forcing decoration which would put his work in place. Indeed, he has no right to intrude in the decorator's field. The building commissioner and his associ- ates are a constant source of difficulty. For reasons of convenience, the lighting of a room may be completely changed; for reasons of economy one lining stone or wood may be substituted for anoth- er. The mural painting meanwhile is in active progress, and for better or worse must fit into a light and sur- roundings for which it was never in- tended. In any case, the painting must often be adjusted to a room which is seen only in imagination. Puvis paint- ed the designs for the staircase of the Boston Public Library from the archi- tect's drawings and a sample of Siena marble. Had he seen the actual struc- ture, we might have had quite a differ- ent color scheme. Mr. Blashfield's remedy for this con- fusion is, first, that the architect should use his authority more strongly, and, next, that every room should be put in charge of one artist, who should be re- sponsible for harmonizing all the details of the decoration. Undoubtedly, a cer- tain relief might thus be procured, but these seem to us only palliatives. A mural painter's studio should be organ- ized so that all the decorative work could be done by his own assistants. In the Renaissance this was a matter of course. At times John La Farge's studio approximated this perfection of organ- ization. Nothing short of this as an ideal will serve, and if the amount of business involved be objected to, it should be said that no painter without organizing capacity has any business with mural painting. What is necessary is that the mural painter should work with artisans who know his ways and whom he can control. By allying him- self with a decorating firm, this kind of assistance can be got. It Is the ob- vious course for a mural painter who Is unwilling or unable to organize a work- ing studio. It should be said, too, that the best decorative ensembles in Amer- ica, not necessarily the best wall paint- ings, have been those of the professional decorators. Their shops provide the only form of artistic organizations in which an artist of the Golden Age would find himself at all at home. Either the architect should turn over the whole decorations of a room to the mural painter, or he should not or- der the pictures until the room is fin- ished. The attempt to come out even results in painting pictures for paper rooms. A lamentable example of the practice is the Congressional Library. These are matters of common-sense and business technique. A graver defect of the present system of mural painting is that the work is done in a poor me- dium and in the studio. We have the absurdity of painters imitating the ef- fects of fresco and tempera in oils, and the greater absurdity of painting a pic- ture on a mere guess of what its light- ing and surroundings are to be. We do not hold fanatically that all mural work should be done in place, but we do feel that a really competent decorator should be able to work in place and under con- ditions as taxing as those which con- fronted the fresco painter. In fact, noth- ing could better tone up modern mural painting than a revival of fresco paint- ing. That would enforce methodical and competent execution with monumental simplicity of design. To-day the whole thing is too facile, and three-quarters of the mural painting in America betrays only the prevalent easy eclecticism. Very few have the gift of La Farge and Ved- der of infusing such eclecticism with a distinguished and personal mood. We agree with Mr. Blashfield in find- ing it a gain that mural painting is -gen- erally wanted. The infelicities of the product are perhaps no more than should be expected in work often produced un- der cruel limitations of money and time. At least opportunity is offered to the artist. His task is to achieve such high- er gravity and competence that building commissioners will trust him more com- pletely and treat him more generously. It is a question at bottom of culture and education, both for the artist and for his employers. On all these matters Mr. Blashfield offers advice well consid- ered in substance and attractive in form. We wish his book a wide reading. Mr. Percy Gardner is bringing out, through Macmillan, "The Principles of Greek Art." A distinct land-mark In archaeological re- search, and a new standard In publishing the results of South Amerli-nn nnluoology, have been set by Prof. R. Verneau and Dr. P. Rivet in their "Ethnographic anclenne de l'fiquateur" (Paris: Gauthior-Vlllars). The treatment of the subject from the his- torical point of view is highly satisfactory; i
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Jan. 15, 1914I T h. e JSTation 69 the field work, carried on in connection with the French military commission, which measured an arc of the equatorial meri- dian in the years 1899-1906, has produced excellent results. The plates are marvels of the photographic art. and the authors are to be highly congratulated in having been able to reproduce stone, bronze, and pottery so artistically and with such veri- similitude. Two other volumes are promis- ed, bringing the anthropology of Ecuador down to date. If they maintain the high standard which has been set by the present volume, the authors will indeed have earn- ed a high place in South American re- search. The chief drawback to the utility of this scholarly quarto is the use, in the multitudinous notes, of numerical refer- ences to a bibliography "to be published later." Finance ALLOTTING "REGIONAL BANKS." It was a foregone conclusion, when the conference committee of House and Senate decided on a minimum of eight regional banks for the new banking sys- tem (with a discretionary maximum of twelve), that a vigorous campaign would at once be started by each of the prin- cipal cities of the Union to procure the allotment of such a regional institution to itself. It should be evident that this competitive movement was bound to be more aggressive, and, on the whole, the adjustment of the rival claims more difficult, with the larger number of such Federal reserve districts. In stipulating twelve such districts, the original House bill overlooked the necessity for strong institutions. It also missed the other considerations that harmonious action would be progres- sively more difficult in proportion to their number; that the disparity be- tween the district including New York or Chicago and those covering less pow- erful industrial communities would be emphasized by it, and, not least of all, that a regional bank's rediscounting power would be greatly hampered if it served a district whose industrial activi- ties were not diversified enough to dis- tribute their demands on credit over more than a single season. The Hitch- cock amendment, naming only four such •districts, recognized these facts; but the conference committee compromised with its minimum of eight and maximum of twelve. If the New York district were to be one of only four such banking areas, the task of geographical delimitation would not be difficult. But the larger number at once started controversy, in last week's hearings of the Organization Commit- tee, named in the Act to arrange the dis- tricts. It raised the question, whether a regional institution at New York should serve the district of which this city Is at present the central money mar- ket— a district including all of New Eng- land, New York, New Jersey, and possi- bly Pennsylvania — or whether, in order to equalize the strength of the several allotted districts, this Eastern territory should itself be divided. The weight of testimony has undoubt- edly been to the effect that the New York regional bank should be such as to possess a maximum of financial re- sources. It should be powerful enough, in capital resources and in its scope of au- thority, to perform the duties which will be imposed upon it, not only in serv- ing a district which is already mainly tributary to it, but in conducting the country's relations with the foreign markets, in controlling the gold move- ment, and in dealing directly with finan- cial Europe at an hour of home or international crisis. Yet the argument may be pressed too far. Mr. Conant's statement that it would be better to have one powerful regional bank and seven puny ones, rather than eight puny institutions, is sound enough, if any such alternative were probable. But that is scarcely the case. Nor was the argument that a regional bank must overtop, in its capital and resources, the largest private institutions of its dis- trict, entirely convincing. The Bank of England's capital is $72,500,000; its de- posits, public and private, $225,000,000. But at least two London joint-stock banks far surpass these figures; notably the London City and Midland, with its $114,500,000 paid-up capital and its $459,000,000 accounts current and depos- its. When the Bank of France took on its shoulders the task of meeting the world-wide strain of 1907, its paid-up capital and surplus was $45,000,000; that of the Credit Lyonnais was $75,- 400,000. The Deutsche Bank at Berlin is in such resources a larger institution than the Reichsbank. Meanwhile, the testimony before the committee as it moves from place to place, on the question which cities shall possess the regional central banks, has its amusing side. In manner and mo- tive, it is not unlike the presentation of claims by conspicuous individuals for knighthood on the King's birthday, or membership in the French Academy, or a niche in the University's Hall of Fame. The question is not entirely whether banking constituencies would be inadequately served without a region- al bank at this or that particular city, but whether it would not be a humiliat- ing slight for the city to be passed over. What would the character of the hear- ings have been, if conducted in the days when Chicago and St. Louis, Minneap- olis and St. Paul, Omaha and Kansas City, were hurling scornful epithets at each other's presumption? New York may be said, in all frank- ness, to have played its own part In character. In the delimitation of its district it will doubtless get, and for the purposes of the law it ought to get, a highly important stretch of territory. Yet, taken as a whole, the incidents of this banking legislation, in their rela- tion to New York, have an indisputably humorous aspect, and to the philosophic mind they may possibly explain that mystery baffling to the ordinary New Yorker — why the outside communities do not always love New York. Before the bill was proposed, the New York banking community insisted, with emphatic warnings, that unless the banking system was reformed immedi- ately (on the general lines later adopt- ed in the bill) calamity was imminent. When the present bill came up, the same community joined in protest against any legislation which should take con- trol of the system from the hands of the banks themselves. This being denied, a campaign of the most extraordinary mis- representation of the actual provisions of the bill was carried on — proceeding, it must regretfully be admitted, from New York. The campaign broke down; the bill was passed. New York joined in the plaudits, and at once set forth to the official organizers that pretty much all of the commercial East must be al- lotted to its own exclusive sphere of in- fluence. This interesting episode proves noth- ing either for or against the allotment to New York of its proper share in the Federal districts. But, on the other hand, it certainly does not exhibit, on the part of the New York banking com- munity at any rate, precisely that qual- ity which is known in private life as tact. When the new banking system is well under way, New York will perform the important part in it which this city has always performed in the country's financial and commercial progress. Prob- ably Wall Street will then forget about what preceded the introduction of the system, and will wonder at "the inte- rior's" prejudice against New York. BOOKS OF THE WEEK. Archiv fiir Kunstgeschichte. III. Lieferung. Leipzig: E. A. Seemann. Birmingham, G. A. The Seething Pot. Do- ran. $1.20 net. Bond, Francis. English Church Architec- ture. 2 vols. Oxford University Press. Bridges, Victor. Another Man's Shoes. Do- ran. $1.25 net. Catalogue of the William Loring Andrews Collection of Early Books in the Libra- ry of Yale University. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press. $1.50 net. Classen, E. Vowel Alliteration In the Old Germanic Languages. Longmans. Coffey, George. The Bronze Ae:e in Ireland. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis & Co. Colum, Padraic. A Boy in Elrlnn. Dutton. $1 net. Currier, E. R. Type Spacing. J. M. Bowles. Diplomacia Mexicana. Volumen Tercero. Mexico. Eddy, Sherwood. The New Era In Asia. Missionary Education Movement. 50 cents. Fitzmaurlce-Kelly, James. The Oxford Book of Spanish Verse. Oxford University Press.
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70 The ]NT a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2533 Glazebrook, M. G. The Layman's Old Tea tament-. Oxford University Press. Griffith, R. C, and White, J. H. Modern (Mioss Openings. Second edition revised. Longmans. $1 net. Haverfleld, F. Ancient Town-Planning. Ox- ford University Press. Heredla'a Les Trophees rendered into Eng- lish by E. R. Taylor. Fifth edition. San Francisco: The Author. Jackson, Fred. The Third Act. Desmond FitzGerald. $1 net. Laut, A. C. The New Dawn. Moffat, Yard. $1 net. Macalister, R. A. S. The Philistines, Their History and Civilization. (Schweich Lec- tures, 1911.) Oxford University Press. Mason, A. E. W. The Witness for the De- fence. Scribner. $1.30 net. Moffatt, James. The New Testament: A New Translation. Doran. $1.50 net. Nicoll, W. R. A Bookman's Letters. Do- ran. $1.75 net. Oily, E N. Kings of Wealth vs. American People. J. S. Ogilvle Pub. Co. $1. Onions, Oliver. The Story of Louie. Doran. $1.25 net. Peabody Museum Memoirs. Vol. V. No. 3. A Preliminary Study of the Prehistoric Ruins of Nakum, Gautemala. Cambridge. Rose-Troup, Frances. The Western Rebel- lion of 1549. London: Smith, Elder. Royal Historical Society Transactions. Third Series. Vol. VII. London: The So- ciety. Royal Society of London. Celebration of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anni- versary, July, 1912. Oxford Univ. Press. Sackett, W. E. Modern Battles of Trenton. Vol. II, From Werts to Wilson. Neale. $3 net. Scofield, C. I. No Room in the Inn and Other Interpretations: Selections chosen by M. E. Reilly. Oxford Univ. Press. $1. Stoddard, J. T. The Science of Billiards. Boston: W. A. Butterfleld. $1.50 net. Sweet, Henry. Collected Papers. Arranged by H. C. Wyld. Oxford University Press. Tapp, S. C. Sexology of the Bible. Kansas City, Mo.: The Author. $2. Tomkinson, J. R. Doris: A Mount Holyoke Girl. American Tract Society. War Department Library. Bibliography of State Participation in the Civil War, 1861-1866. Washington. Williamson, C. N. and A. M. It Happened in Egypt. Doubleday, Page. $1.35 net. The Jan. number of a new quarterly THE UNPOPULAR REVIEW Contains The New Irrepressible Conflict The Majority Juggernaut The Democrat Reflects The New Morality Prof. Bergson and Psychical Research Two Neglected Virtues The Unfermented Cabinet A Needed Unpopular Reform Our Tobacco: Its Cost Our Alcohol: Its Use The Microbophobiac The Standing Incentives to War The Machinery for Peace En Casserole 75 cents a copy, $2.50 per year Sample copies Kent subject to return or payment. Subscriptions may be re- voked at any time, and money returned i£ for unexpired time, Including #j preceding number. ^HenryHolt&Co.^S Now Ready G. K. CHESTERTON'S First Play MAGIC A Fantastic Comedy This is Mr. Chesterton's first play, and is of course characterized by the brilliancy and originality always found in any work from his pen. It is now appearing at the Little Theatre in London. With Portrait in Photogravure Price $1 net At All Booksellers G. P. Putnam's Sons "IZZ™ "TO LIBRARIANS " It is of interest and importance to know that the books reviewed and advertised in this may- azine can be purchased from us at advanta- geous prices by IMJIII.IC I.IIUIARIIOS SCHOOLS, COLLEGES AND UNIVKRSITilOS A. C. McCMJItft & CO., CIIICACO t fbening flogl (NEW YORK) SATURDAY ISSUE contains, in addition to its financial supplement and usual columns of current news, a number of regular features of con- stant interest to newspaper readers both in the city and coun- try. The Illustrated Evening Post Magazine Pages Devoted to Literature News of Army and Navy With a cover design and articles, sketch- es, a serial novel, and a short story, all with pictures; added to these whole pages of pictures of things worth seeing in New York and out of it, current plays, fashions, and the humors of the time as they are caught by the artists of the human comedy. Reviews of Books and Special Articles by men who speak with authority on matters relating to letters and authors. These are supplemented throughout the week by additional reviews of fiction, interviews with writers, excerpts from the latest books, comment on the current magazines, and miscellaneous literary matters. The week's happenings of moment in both branches of the regular service, and in the National Guard of the City and State, with special articles on army and navy prospects, plans, and personnel. Comprising a more com- plete presentation of what is going on in the world of churches and religious discussion than is printed in any other New York newspaper. WV-iafr Wnmpn Arp Doino- A Pa£e devoted to the Modern VVnat Women Are i^Oing Woman's interpretation of her part in the world's work. Part of a special programme with daily features to chronicle women's progress, as homemakers, as artists, as mothers, as business women, as civic workers. 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3-3 Li ▲> /, .Mass, The Nati bn VOL. XCVIII— NO. 2534 v THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 1914 ?2I; g^. PRICE YEN CENTS SUCCESSFUL BOOKS FROM A UNIVERSITY PRESS EARTH HUNGER AND OTHER ESSAYS. By William Graham Sumner, LL.D. Edited with an Introduction by Albert Galloway Keller, Ph.D. Price $2.47 net. postpaid. WAR AND OTHER ESSAYS. By the same author and editor. Uniform with "Earth Hunger." (Second print- ing.) Price $2.47 net, postpaid. THE RECORDS OF THE FEDERAL CONTENTION OF 1787. Edited by Max Farrand, Ph.D. Price $15.00 net, per set; carriage extra. THE FRAMING OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. By Max Farrand, Ph.D. (Second printing.) Price $2.18 net, postpaid. THE PRESIDENT'S CABINET. By Henry Barrett Learned. Price $2.70 net, postpaid. YALE BOOK OF AMERICAN TERSE.. By Thomas R. Lounsbury, LL.D., L.H.D. Second printing, price $2.45 net, postpaid. Special edition, Bible paper, full morocco binding, prices on application. GREEK REFINEMENTS. By William Henry Goodyear, M.A. 119 illustrations. Price $10.40 net, postpaid. ENGLISH LYRICAL POETRY. Price $2.45 net, postpaid. By Edward Bliss Reed. STELLAR MOTIONS. By William Wallace Campbell, ScD., LL.D. Price $4.25 net, postpaid. THE MEANING OF GOD IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE. By William Ernest Hocking, Ph.D. (Second printing.) Price $3.28 net, postpaid. SOME INFLUENCES IN MODERN PHILOSOPHIC THOUGHT. By Arthur Twining Hadley, Ph.D., LL.D. (Second printing.) Price $1.10 net, postpaid. THE REFORM OF LEGAL PROCEDURE. By Moorfleld Storey. (Second printing.) Price $1.45 net, postpaid. POPULAR GOTERNMENT, ITS ESSENCE, ITS PER- MANENCE AND ITS PERILS. By William Howard Taft. (Second printing.) Price $1.25 net, postpaid. THE ECONOMIC UTILIZATION OF HISTORY. By Henry W. Farnam, M.A., R.P.D. Price $1.35 net, post- paid. THE COLLEGE CHAUCER. Edited, with notes, glos- sary, etc., by Henry Noble MacCracken, Ph.D. Price $1.68 net, postpaid. PROBLEMS OF GENETICS. By William Bateson, M.A., F.R.S. Price $4.20 net, postpaid. THE MONROE DOCTRINE AN OBSOLETE SHIB- BOLETH. By Hiram Bingham, Ph.D., F.R.G.S. (Sec- ond printing.) Price $1.25 net, postpaid. LIFE OF DR. THEODORE THORNTON 3HM.li:, NEW ENGLAND MINISTER. By Benjamin Wisner Bacon, D.D., LL.D. Price $3.26 net, postpaid. 135 NEW BBhFSSSI: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 225 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK CITY urfif\»?.v.» PuOlic i.»b
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11 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2534 The Nation A WEEKLY JOURNAL. FOUNDED IN 1865. [Entered at the New York, city Poet Office as second-class mail matter.] The Nation Is published nnd owned by the New York Evening Post Co. Oswald Garrison Villard, President: John Palmer Gavit, Secretnrv and Treasurer: Emil M. Scholz. Business Manager: Paul Elmer More. Editor; Harold dcWolf Fuller, Assistant Editor. Three dollars per year in advance, postpaid, in any part of the United Slates or Mcarico; to Canada $8. CO, and to foreign countries comprised in the Postal Vnion, $4.00. Address THE NATION, Hose 704, New York. Publieation Office, 20 Vescy Street. CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER. The Week 71 Editorial Articles: Bryan and Wilson 74 The Cost of Manifest Destiny 74 A Real Social Evil Treatise 75 The First Garden City 76 "Stimulating" 77 Special Articles : Public Opinion and Popular Govern- ment 78 The American Political Science Asso- ciation 79 News for Bibliophiles 80 Correspondence : The Social Emergency 81 The Constructive Quarterly 81 The National Guard of Pennsylvania . 81 The American Historical Association. 82 Literature: Chu-Fan-chi 82 Irishmen All 83 The Great Plan 83 All Men Are Ghosts 83 History of the Reconstruction Pe- riod, 1865-1877 84 The Conquest of Mount McKinley. — My Life with the Eskimo 84 The Beginnings of Modern Ireland.. 85 Notes 86 Science : Radioactive Substances and Their Radiations 89 Drama 91 Music: The Life of Ethelbert Nevin 92 Art 93 Finance : "Business" and the Government 94 Books op the Week 94 JVST PUBJASIIE1> BURGAGE TENURE IN MEDIAEVAL ENGLAND Bj MORLEY HE WOLF HEMMEON, Ph.D., Formerly Austin Teaching Fellow in His- tory in Harvard 1 nlver Itj Harvard His Studies, Vol. XX. 8vo. Cloth, 234 Pages, $2.00 net. 'i be tenure of the Bng I! b mediaeval bor- .11 ted economic and Legs 1 condl 1 inn nr landboldlng similar to those ot Lily in regard to freedom ol a l, page article, outlines the purpose of this special "Haeckel Number," and in addition to words of congratulation, gives the trans- lation of an open letter from Haeckel appealing to his friends and followers to devote any offer- ing made in his honor to the pur- poses of the German Monistic League. Two illustrations taken by Dr. Carus when in Jena in 1907 are included — one of Dr. Haeckel, and a view from his study window. A SPECIAL five-page article by •*»■ Dr. Haeckel, written for the meeting of naturalists in Vienna in 1913, shows the evolution brought about in the last fifty years through the intellectual attitude toward mental and natural science, abol- ishing any distinct division into these two branches, and proving conclusively that natural science embraces all science. This article contains two portraits of Haeckel. FIFTY Years in the Service of the Evolution Theory," by Dr. W. Breitenbach, editor of the Neue Weltanschauung , gives a comprehensive resume of Haeck- el's scientific work, from the time of his first acquaintance with Dar- win's theory, to his interest in the establishment of the Monistic League. Seven illustrations ac- company this article, being repro- ductions of some of Haeckel's own artistic work. AMONG the other articles in this number are: "Religion in a Monistic Interpretation," by Dr. Paul Carus; "Wilhelm Ostwald, President of the German Monistic League," by Dr. Haeckel; "Con- servatism and Morality," by Dr. T. T. Blaise; "Time," a poem by Dr. Carus. A copy of this special Haeckel number will be sent to any address on receipt of ten cents The Open Court Publishing Co. 122 South Michigan Ave., CHICAGO Educational The WOLCOTT SCHOOL, DENVER.COL Superior climate. Accredited with Eastern College* (or g-lrls. Fine music advantages. 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LEGENDS AND SATIRES FROM MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE By Martha Hale Shackford This is a collection of translations of pieces of mediaeval literature not usually familiar to the general reader, who knows the Middle Ages chiefly through romances of chivalry. Among the works represented are many not hitherto accessible in translation, not- ably: "The Purgatory of St. Patrick," ren- dered into English from a Middle English version, Froissart's "The Pleading of the Rose nnd of the Violet,'' "Th.' Complaint of the Husbandman," "Sir Penny," selections from the lapidaries and the bestiaries, Rutebeuf's satire on the Parisian student, anil examples of homily and allegory .$1. 3.1 GINN AND COMPANY, Publishers Boston New York Chicago London Atlanta Dallas Columbus San Francisco Juat RtaAy TheModernShortStory BY LUCY LILIAN NOTESTEIN AND WALDO HILARY DUNN Professor in the University of Wooster, For students, teachers, prospective writers, and all interested in the most modern and artistic form of prose fiction. Price $1.00 net. Postpaid, $1.10 THE A. S. BARNES COMPANY NEW YORK The Art of Short Story Writing Simplified By >iom:sTi: n\\\is JORDAN Ijhlm 'Ihe WiHii'k Mn,m ../. Deals with the Form and Struc- ture of the Short Story, with lh<' Plot and Ita Development, with Motive and Climax. Price 50C| i'oni iuiIiI THE HANN1S JORDAN CO., Publishers '.'.- I '■■ion Nqnnri' KunI, Nov York. Autograph Letters or Celebrities Bough) inA B4ld Send for pilio lists. WalterR. 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Jan. 22, 1914] The Nation 111 The Flowery Republic By FREDERICK McCORMICK Is the most authoritative work on the new China. JS2.50 net. By mail $2.70. D. APPLETON & COMPANY, New York A new book by EDWARD HOWARD GRIGGS. THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART The menoliiK aoil relfitlon of sculpture, painting, poetry ami music. The author'* most Important work ao far published. 12ino. cloth, $1.50 net; by mall, $1.60 B.W.Huebsch.Publisher, 225 Fiftb avenue, NewYork DANTE'S DIVINA COMMEDIA First American Edition. Edited with introduction, arguments to each canto, and footnotes by Professor C. H. Grandgent, of Harvard University. Cloth, 886 pages. Price, $2.25. D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO F. M. HOLLY Established 1008. Authors' and Publishers' Representative 15r.w york.
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IV The ISTation [Vol. 98, No. 2534 Important New and Forthcoming Macmillan Publications BEARD. American Government and Politics. liy Charles A. Beard. A new, revised edition of this important work for students and the general reader. $2.10 net* BENSON. Industrial Chemistry for Engineer- ing Students. By Henry K. Benson. A concise manual of complete information, illustrated. $1.90 net BLOUNT. Intensive Studies in American Literature. By Alma Blount. Preparing BUTTENWEISER. The Prophets of Israel. By Moses Buttenweiser. A luminous study of the great literary Hebrew prophets. $2.00 net* CAUTLEY. Descriptions of Land. By R. W. Cautlet. Of great value for surveying, conveyancing, and title guarantees. 91.00 net COMMONS. Labor and Administration. By Prof. John R. Commons (Univ. of Wisconsin.) An excellent work on labor problems connecting ideals with efficiency. $1.60 net DAVENPORT. The Economics of Enterprise. By Prof. Herbert Joseph Davenport {Univ. of Missouri). 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The Nation \/n TORE, THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 1914. The Week The President's address to Congress repeats his policy of friendly cooperation with business which he announced seven weeks ago at the opening of Congress, and later in his speech on signing the banking bill. He assumes an "all but universal agreement in anticipation of our action"; speaks of the "atmosphere of accommodation and mutual under- standing" as "a matter of sincere con- gratulation" which "ought to make our task very much less difficult," and as- serts that "the antagonism between busi- ness and Government is over," and that, in squaring business methods to the law, "the Government and business men are ready to meet each other half-way." But what, then, of his explicit proposi- tions? Some are concrete and positive; others more or less tentative in char- acter. Interlocking directorates — de- scribed as such managing control of banking, railway, and industrial compa- nies as must "result in making those who borrow and those who lend practi- cally one and the same, those who sell and those who buy but the same persons trading with one another under different names and in different combinations" — are to be "effectually prohibited," though time is to be allowed in which to make the change "without inconvenience or confusion." Something will here de- pend on the full scope of the prohibi- tory law. Supervision by the Interstate Commerce Commission over new rail- way security issues is definitely advo- cated; and to this, we are inclined to think, even the railways will offer no objection. And further, on another occasion, that such an effort would involve the endless complexity of "a definition of the defi- nition." The Nation has consistently maintained that a radical or sweeping amendment to the law would tend to weaken its force and confuse its appli- cation. The suggestion of a trade com- mission— not "empowered to make terms with monopoly or in any sort to assume control of business," but as an inter- mediary body for investigating and de- termining the actual status of a com- pany, before invoking court procedure — is more obviously feasible. Difficulties will no doubt surround such an experi- ment, precisely as difficulties will sur- round the President's further distinct proposals for punishment of individuals rather than corporations when the law is violated, and for the absolute prohibi- tion of the "holding company." "Person- al guilt" can never be fairly established until what Mr. Wilson calls the debata- ble ground about the Anti-Trust law Is conclusively removed. an agreement can be rescinded later, if the Senate so votes. The effect is obvious. It will prevent tying up the Senate by one of those sly manoeuvres such as compelled a vote on the Hetch- Hetchy bill on a fixed day. Clever man- agers in the Senate have been in the habit of watching their chance, when only eight or ten Senators were in their seats, and obtaining unanimous agree- ment that this, that, or the other thing should be done at a future date, and then this agreement instantly became as a law of the Medes and Persians which altereth not. Willy nilly, the whole Sen- ate had to do what a half-dozen Sena- tors had agreed that it must do. That little trick cannot be played again. Mr. Wilson's further proposal for a "more explicit legislative definition of the existing Anti-Trust law" must be judged in the light of what such a defini- tion is to be. Ex-Senator Edmunds, a very eminent jurist and the real author of the Anti-Trust law, said two years ago of the plan for Congress to define more exactly its provisions: To whatever extent they change the law, they will spoil It. This for the simple rea- son that It does, In general terms, all that the Constitution permits it to do. We have thought it best to state thus frankly our feeling, not as to the merits of the President's new pro- posals, but as to their difficulties. It is not a programme to be has- tily conceived and hurriedly placed upon the statute books, and, fortunately, no such purpose seems to be entertain- ed at Washington. But there can be no reasonable doubt that a long step for- ward has been taken, through thus defin- ing of the ends which should be, if pos- sible, achieved by means of additional legislation, and by the new and friend- ly mutual attitude of Government and business. Little attention has been paid to a change in the Senate rules which was made last Friday. It might seem a trifling affair, but is in reality of much importance; for it relates to that fun- damental thing in the legislative pro- cedure of the Senate, "unanimous con- sent." The change is this: hereafter no agreement by unanimous consent — for example, to file an order of business or to take a vote at a given time — shall be entered into unless there is a quorum of the Senate present. Moreover, even such The Chairman of the House Commit- tee on Post Offices and Post Roads makes a gallant defence of the spoils rider to the Post Office Appropriation bill. If his argument has not much to commend it from the point of view of ordinary reason or practical good sense, it certainly has the merit of quite ex- traordinary elevation of thought. To the common mind, the question whether the 2,400 assistant postmasters are to remain under the rules of the competi- tive system or not does not touch the foundations of the Government, nor would it be thought to be intimately re- lated to the methods by which we elect our Representatives and Senators or the President of the United States. But Mr. Moon takes a higher and broader view. Here is the picture that is drawn by his statesmanlike vision: Not a single representative of the Federal Government, save the members of the House, and, by recent amendment, the Sen- ators, Is chosen by the American people at the ballot box. Your President is chosen by the Electoral College. ... If you wanted to make a monarchy of this republic, all you would have to do would be to apply the civil service to Congress, the President, and his Cabinet Thus that remote and short-lived past when the Electoral College was suppos- ed to exercise a real choice in the nam- ing of the President, receives in the Ten- nessee Representative's imagination the significance of an important present real- ity; and he dips into a future of which no man has dreamed, to conjure up a state of things when members of Con-
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72 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2534 gress and of the Cabinet may be chosen by competitive examination. The spoils doctrine is hard pressed indeed if it finds itself obliged to fly to such distant realms in search of arguments in its support. The action of the Senate Committee in seating Blair Lee, of Maryland, pop- ularly elected, at the same time that it rejected the credentials of Frank P. Glass, of Alabama, appointed by the Governor, puts a common-sense construc- tion upon the Seventeenth Amendment. It is decided that the amendment is self-executing, and that State legislation to make effective the direct election of Senators is unnecessary. The contrast between the two decisions points the im- plied rebuke to Gov. O'Neal, of Alabama. His State has nothing but the Gover- nor's obstinacy to thank for the fact that it has so long remained with but one representative in the Senate. He might have convened the Alabama Leg- islature some months ago, to call and regulate the Senatorial election; or he might, as Gov. Goldsborough, of Mary- land, has done, have issued writs of elec- tion on his own authority. Instead, in the face of general State sentiment and of the plainest warnings conveyed from unofficial sources, Gov. O'Neal chose to attempt filling by appointment Senator Johnston's old seat; and when his first candidate surrendered these dubious credentials, just in time to escape the Senate Committee's decision, stubbornly appointed another. It is gratifying that the Committee's action upon a matter of principle was decisively without regard for party lines. the New Orleans Item, it produced in a single year the stupendous commerce of one passenger and sixty-eight tons of freight upon the upper reaches of the river. Yet "the Red River ought to be a busy highway of commerce. . . . There ought to be lines of tank barges . . . cotton boats . . . packet boats." For these, the "pork barrel" way has been found a failure. The Item urges upon the disappointed inhab- itants of the Red River district support of the idea in the Newlands "river reg- ulation" bill, which looks towards co- operation between Federal and local au- thorities, not in merely spending money upon streams, but in making them navigable. How unavailing with respect to their ostensible end "pork barrel" river and harbor bills can be, is brought home to Louisiana by a decision of the Inter- state Commerce Commission that Red River, except for a short distance from its mouth, is no longer a "navigable stream," and that, consequently, rail- ways may fix their rates without refer- ence to any possible river competition in its territory.. Citizens of Louisiana may be excused for being surprised at this ruling, for as much as $3,000,000 has been spent by the Federal Govern- ment upon the river which the Commis- sion now rejects. But what was the re- sult of this expenditure? According to As vicious a bit of military legisla- tion as has appeared in a quarter cen- tury comes up again in the report that the Militia Pay bill lobby has obtained the Administration's support. It is erro- neously stated in certain newspapers that it is to supplant the bill providing for the organization of volunteers at the out- break of war. That is, of course, not possible. The Militia Pay bill is a raid on the Treasury, pure and simple, on behalf of the existing National Guard, and does not affect the raising of troops not now existing. For a century and more our State troops have drilled with- out pay; the plan is now to get the Fed- eral Treasury to reward them for ap- pearing at the armories once or twice a week, the excuse being that readiness to serve the State is so wanting that men must be paid to do what has been done cheerfully and willingly since the foundation of the Republic. This asser- tion is false on its face and ought to be resented. Never, for instance, has mil- itia duty been so well and so seriously performed as in some of our States to- day. Indeed, the bill is open to sus- picion, or ought to be, because it is urg- ed by the men who will profit pecuniar- ily by it; it is special legislation for them. months in jail for impersonating anoth- er at a civil-service examination. This act of pure kindliness and good will the voters of Boston do not seem ever to have held up against him; was it not a harmless bit of unselfish friendliness? Boston's plight is extraordinarily sug- gestive of New York's in the days when Grant and Gilroy and similar tools of Croker ruled the city. It is the same ele- ment in the population which rules Bos- ton to-day, and this despite the modern charter which was expected to divorce the city from partisan or factional poli- tics through an ideal ballot and an elec- tion remote from any State or national issue. The apathy with which the con- test between Kenny and Curley has been followed by the general public is also strongly suggestive of the condition of public opinion in New York about 1890. The great intellectual city of Boston is entitled to the widest condolence. Its voters have chosen Congressman James M. Curley as Mayor. It was a non-par- tisan election, the only candidates being two Democrats, and the less desirable one was elected. Some years ago the new Mayor of Boston spent a couple of Whatever may be the chance that the bill offered by Mr. Works to repeal the Hetch-Hetchy grant will receive serious consideration in Congress, the Califor- nia Representative did right in intro- ducing it. He gives a compact summary of his reasons for doing so. Of these, the first is that "the bill granting the right of way was passed without any adequate investigation and under a com- plete misunderstanding and misappre- hension of the facts." That it was pass- ed without adequate investigation is a simple matter of fact; that it was pass- ed "under a complete misunderstanding and misapprehension" may of course be disputed. And when we say that there was no adequate investigation we are by no means unmindful of the some- what elaborate report of the House Com- mittee; for it is impossible to read that report with care and not find that it ut- terly fails to meet the questions at is- sue, and that it is pervaded throughout with the spirit of the advocate instead of that of the judge. Although a con- siderable amount of time intervened be- tween the introduction of the bill in the House and its passage by the Senate, yet that passage took place under a hasty agreement as to the date of final action. What happened in this case was what happens so generally when the question of the sacrifice of public parks or the like is at issue. The Interest! eager for acquisition get in their work before the slow process of accumulating vigorous opposition hai tlflM to l» 0OUM effective.
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Jan. 22, 1914] The Nation 73 In a speech recently made in the Sen- ate by Mr. Walsh, of Montana, there is a great deal about a Mr. Perkins, who, according to testimony cited by tbe Sen- ator, played a conspicuous part in pre- venting the building of a railway in Alaska some years ago by private capi- tal. Nor is it possible to ascribe this conduct on Mr. Perkins's part to any dislike to the exploitation of Alaskan opportunities by capitalistic interests, for according to the testimony the rea- son assigned by Mr. Perkins for the re- fusal of the Morgan interests to coun- tenance the building of the railway was that the Guggenheims objected to it as an invasion of their own preserves. And as Mr. Perkins is quoted in the testi- mony as using the first person plural in this connection — thus, "we could not al- low a railroad to be built through the Susitna Valley into the Tamana" — it will be seen that the Mr. Perkins in question is none other than George W. Perkins, the eminent Progressive. Some persons may, in their haste, be inclined to pass an unkind judgment on him for what looks like sad inconsistency; but they should remember that all this al- leged sympathetic activity in behalf of the wicked Guggenheims occurred long before the day on which Mr. Perkins awakened to the necessity of making this country a fit place for his children to live in. For the State distribution of text- books, as a natural step in the pro- gramme of making education free, some- thing may be said; but State entrance into the publishing business is a different matter. California's experience was de- nounced two years ago by the San Fran- cisco Chronicle on the ground that "books printed at the State printery and sold at cost carry much higher prices than the same books are sold for in oth- er States." She has now, during 1913, according to the State Printer, distrib- uted 1,461,623 books at a cost of $316,- 000, or an average of about 22 cents each. This includes $87,371.52 paid in royalties to textbook companies and in- dividuals. Mr. Charles H. Thurber, join- ing with certain newspapers in attack- ing the plan, has quoted figures of the United States Commissioner of Educa- tion to show that the average expendi- ture throughout the country is slightly above 60 cents per pupil annually. Cali- fornia will therefore have to show that not more than three books per pupil are consumed each year. It should seem this could be done, but it must be remem- bered that the State-published books are admittedly flimsier than the old ones, and the purchase of some by the pupils ought to be encouraged. The matter is of growing national interest, for Kan- sas has apparently followed California, and other Western States are contem- plating the step. Considerations other than economy must be taken into ac- count, for in the development of the complex art of textbook-making much may be claimed for private competition and enterprise. "The extent to which he's winking at this moment!" whispered Caleb to his daughter. "Oh, my gracious!" Very much after the same manner in which Tackleton the toy-merchant "winked" at Caleb Plummer and his blind daughter in "The Cricket on the Hearth," the Powers are now laughing at our Mexican policy. Congressman Gillett is the latest critic to voice the impassioned complaint that our relations with Mexico have made this nation the laughing-stock of the world. Every- body is doing it. The German Foreign Office positively rolls with laughter as it announces its intention to do absolutely nothing in Mexico that will be displeas- ing to Mr. Wilson. Peals of Gallic cachinnation ring out as Paris once more declares that it will in all ways follow our leadership with regard to Mexico. Great Britain, with tears of mirth running down its face, makes it known that the British Minister at Mex- ico City, whom we do not like, will be removed from Mexico City. The London Times, grinning like a Cheshire cat, de- clares that "President Wilson has en- joyed, and apparently will continue to enjoy, complete freedom from anything which can be called diplomatic pressure from other Powers." Poor Mr. Wilson, who is thus set up as a laughing-stock for every diplomat from China to Peru! Is his cup of shame to be filled when Huerta, laughing like mad, goes scut- tling out of Mexico City? The wide approval in Canada of the Government's announcement that it would temporarily abandon the bill for a $35,000,000 naval appropriation marks a triumph of popular sentiment. For one thing, the opening of Parliament sees the country anxious to deal with fiscal matters, the tariff, and the redis- tribution of seats in the House; for an- other, every effort to arouse enthusiasm for an Imperial navy, as by the visit of the battle-cruiser New Zealand, has sig- nally failed. The Canadian people have not opposed the principle of an Imperial contribution, but by direct or indirect obstruction they have been glad to avoid the reality. Premier Borden's insistence last session upon an emergency bill for three Dreadnoughts was blocked by the Liberals on the ground that it placed the ships under Admiralty control, when both parties had declared in 1909 for control by the Parliament of Canada. But Canada has very complacently suf- fered the quarrel over the manner of contributing to suspend indefinitely the contribution itself. Papers like the Con- servative Toronto Globe regard the pres- ent shelving of the Dreadnought pro- gramme as unavoidable in the light of the new Anglo-German harmony; it cer- tainly relieves Mr. Borden of a great embarrassment as he advances to meet other very troublesome legislative ques- tions. The end of the Leeds strike has been long in sight, but that fact will not less- en British gratification at the uncondi- tional surrender of the municipal em- ployees. In part this is due to the sym- pathy evoked by the Leeds citizens, who manned the street railways, the gas and electric works, and other public utilities the moment the workmen stepped out; in part to the lesson afforded in the workings of Socialistic theory. As in the threatened Post Office strike, as in the South African railway strike, the workers were directly employed by the public; and they ought to have been pe- culiarly content with their position. They were better paid than those doing similar work in private employ, and — barring gross misconduct — were sure of their places for life. The whole affair is an interesting document in its bear- ing on the Socialist plea for universal Governmental employment. The crush- ing of the strike is especially pleasing in that the employees conspired to walk out so suddenly and unexpectedly as to inflict the greatest possible inconveni- ence upon the city; it is a victory of united public opinion over a kind of at- tempted extortion.
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74= The 3ST a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2534 BRYAN AND WILSON. Certain newspapers have been gravely announcing the speedy outbreak of a "war" between President Wilson and Secretary Bryan. It might come next week, or it might come next month, but come it must. The necessary prelim- inaries to hostilities have been duly noted. There have been differences and misunderstandings. The neat touch of the discovery by Mr. Bryan's friends ot a "conspiracy" against him has not been lacking. Ere long, we are assured, a full-fledged casus belli will appear, and then the cruel war will begin. But if it takes two to make a quarrel, it takes at least two to make a war; and it might be well for our military prophets to stop and ask what possible motive Mr. Wilson can have for making war on Mr. Bryan. Put the Secretary aside, if you please, as a being of stratagems and treasons, but ask how the case stands with the President. Look at the rela- tions of the two men, not as we may fancy they ought to be, but as they in fact are; consider, too, what are the ac- tual services which Mr. Bryan has ren- dered and is rendering the President; the question is simply whether Mr. Wil- son has any reason for regretting that he asked Mr. Bryan into his Cabinet, or for wishing him out of it to-day. The plain and hard fact is that Mr. Bryan, as a member of the Administra- tion, has been to the President a politi- cal asset of enormous value. If any doubt still lingers in anybody's mind that Woodrow Wilson is a skilful politi- cian, it would disappear after a study of the way in which he has annexed and utilized Mr. Bryan, at the same time that he has done him high honor. It was not a question of obligations to Mr. Bry- an, or of paying political debts. Those might or might not have been assumed to exist. But merely on the supposition that President Wilson had great mea- sures of constructive legislation at heart, it is now clear that he could not have chosen a better aide in that work than Mr. Bryan. This may seem a dark saying. But the facts throw light upon it. No one who has carefully followed the course of the tariff bill, and more especially the currency bill, through Congress can have failed to see what we mean — name- ly, that, given the conditions in the House and Senate, particularly in the House, President Wilson could not have got elsewhere the effective assistance which he has had from Mr. Bryan. This lay not so much in what the latter did as in what he prevented. It is a com- mon remark about the currency bill, for example, that the great wonder is, not that so much which is good was got into it, but that so much which is bad was kept out of it. Congressmen were not lacking who wanted to stuff the bad things in. In the large body of Demo- crats carried to Washington on the flood of 1912 there was a considerable sprin- kling of wild-eyed men. They were burn- ing with desires to do something star- tling against the Money Trust and oth- er monsters, and, if they had not been held in check by somebody, would have done their best to bedevil the currency bill. Who did most to hold them in check? William J. Bryan. This is the answer which the coolest observers at Washington make. Not that Bryan made himself conspicuous in laboring for the currency bill. He gave it his blessing, but he did not speak for it; certainly he did not lobby for it; there are those who say that he did not even understand it. But quietly and often in- directly, he exerted a powerful influence in maintaining its best features intact. He did it by discouraging the amending mania of some of the ogre-hunters in the House. And the very fact that he, the original champion of the people against the bankers and Wall Street, stood for a sound currency bill, undoubtedly brought many a fire-eater into line. If Bryan declared that the measure was all right, it was not for them to say him nay. But what they thought deep down in their hearts, and what they would in- fallibly have sought to do, had they not been held in leash, may be inferred from the things some of them are saying now. Thus Representative Henry is railing at Carter Glass as a tool of the bankers; and Senator La Follette affirms that the currency bill is a complete surrender to the Money Power. Now we only say that if Mr. Bryan was able greatly to aid the President in subduing the rag- ing of these heathen, then he did him a high political service. It is one that by itself would justify his selection for the Cabinet; and this sort of influence, if it is to be continued, is one that the Presi- dent has every motive for wishing on his side. When Mr. Bryan ceases to be a faithful adjutant of Mr. Wilson in pro- curing the passage of good laws, it will be time to talk about a "war" between the two. It is said, we know, that the President is mortified at the ridicule which has been poured upon his Secretary of State. And there have been many funny news- paper stories about the relations of Mr. Bryan to the foreign diplomats in Wash- ington. No doubt, the latter have their little jokes about Mr. Bryan's uncon- ventional ways, and his unconscious im- portation of Nebraska methods into the State Department; but at bottom they have, in fact, a genuine liking for the man. He sincerely desires to be at peace with all the world, and that makes their tasks easier; while they have come to believe him absolutely candid in all that he says to them. This may be a nov- elty in diplomacy, but the foreign Am- bassadors and Ministers do not find it unpleasing. There is certainly no fric- tion in that quarter. And if there is any criticism, well or ill grounded, of Mr. Bryan's policy in Mexico or else- where, the sufficient answer — so far as relates to any supposed coolness be- tween the President and his Secretary of State — is that Mr. Wilson is ultimate- ly responsible for it all, and must shoul- der it all. All told, we are convinced that a po- litical realist, intent upon seeing the facts as they are, could not help con- cluding that Mr. Bryan has been of very great usefulness to President Wilson. This may be admitted without retract- ing a single word about Mr. Bryan's flightiness or unsoundness in some mat- ters. All that needs to be insisted upon is that, under the circumstances in Con- gress, and with Mr. Bryan's honorable view of his duty to be in all respects loyal to the chief under whom he has taken office, he has been of such demon- strable value to the President, in carry- ing out his policies, that the talk of Mr. Wilson's being about to open a war on Bryan is mid-winter madness. THE COST OF MANIFEST DESTINY. A brief dispatch from Sofia gives us an idea of what the people of the Bal- kans have paid for the victories of the Christian nations of the peninsula over Turkey, and over each other. The Bg ures as they stand on their face are lta| goring. And when all necessary fledUC tions and explanation! have been made
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Jan. 22, 1914] The Nation 75 the result is still one which can only leave the heart sick under the burden of human waste through human cruelty. A census of the Bulgarian territories ac- quired by conquest in the war against Turkey shows that the male population of Bulgarian Macedonia was reduced in the course of hostilities from 175,000 to 42,500. In Bulgarian Thrace there are 225,000 male survivors out of a popula- tion of 494,000. In the district of Mus- tapha Pasha to the north of Adria- nople, and close to the old Bulgarian frontier, 4,000 men and boys remain out of a total of 33,000. These figures are only for Bulgaria. The complete account must take notice of what happened in the territories won by Greece from Bulgaria along the ^Egean coast, what happened in Servian Macedonia, and in Albania. The figures are so appalling that the mind can only seek refuge in the feeling that they cannot be true. One correction of these statistics of depopulation does suggest itself. The fighting in the Balkans was accompa- nied by a migration of the inhabitants. Especially in Thrace the Mohammedan villagers retreated before the victorious Bulgarian army in numbers that amount- ed almost to a Volkerwanderung. News- paper correspondents have vividly de- scribed this retreat of the Ottoman na- tion back into Asia, as it has been characterized in somewhat exaggerated terms. So, too, in that part of Mace- donia which has now fallen to Greece the inhabitants abandoned their homes according as the fortunes of war shift- ed. When the Bulgarians first poured down towards the ^Egean, a large part of the Greek population, mindful of old racial feuds, took refuge within the Greek sphere of influence. Later, when the murderous war between the allies broke out and the Greek armies forced the Bulgarian lines backward, it was the turn of the Bulgarian inhabitants to flee. But, on the other hand, such mi- grations must have been of entire fam- ilies. Only in rare instances is it be- lievable that the men of the family would escape and leave women and chil- dren to their fate. And the figures we have quoted are of a decrease in the male population only. Evidently it is this that has been the salient feature; and a large part, therefore, of the enor- mous loss recorded must be ascribed to actual slaughter. When the war between Turkev and the allies broke out it was inevitable that the sympathies of the civilized world should be with the Balkan nation- alities. There were those who may have regretted that the war should have come at a time when the Turkish na- tion was entering upon the road of con- stitutionalism and modern progress. A great experiment was spoiled; an ex- periment that would have shown wheth- er the non-European races have within themselves the capacity for modern civilization, or whether it is the fate of two-thirds of the human race to suc- cumb ultimately to Occidental domina- tion. But even regret for the frustration of so important a test in human capaci- ties could not swing the balance of sym- pathy against the Balkan allies. After all, they were the representatives of the higher civilization. The war might be costly, but the price would not be an excessive one to pay for ridding Europe once for all of the blight of Ottoman rule. The argument was frequently brought forward that better one sharp blood-letting operation and a cure than the slow process of slaughter and op- pression under which the Christian sub- jects of Turkey in Macedonia were agon- izing. It was the inevitable price that must be paid for civilization. It was an unavoidable price, if the peoples of the Balkans were to realize their destiny. Yet the horrible fact stands out that the price which has been paid by the Balkan peoples in appalling loss of life, in the indescribable misery of the wo- men and children who were left behind, was paid only in minor part for the tri- umph of European civilization over the Turk. In greater measure the dreadful saturnalia of murder and rape was the price paid for the fierce jealousies that arrayed nations of the same creed and the same race against one another. There is no getting away from the evi- dence that the misery inflicted by Bul- garian and Turkish armies on the villag- ers of opposite faith hardly measures up to the play of bestial passions that broke loose when Christian nations and allies flew at one another's throats. It was then no longer a struggle between a higher and a lower civilization. It was a ferocious grapple for territory, har- bors, and revenue. And if Turkey has been reduced to comparative impotence in Europe (though even now the peril of war between Turkey and Greece Is acutely felt), there has arisen in place of the old Balkan problem a Balkan problem more threatening than the old. The next ten or twenty years in Bul- garia are bound to be a period of savage hatred for Servia and Greece, a period of preparation for the day of vengeance. Civilization in the Balkans will take the form of inflated standing armies, naval expansion programmes, and an exhaust- ed populace crushed under the burden of taxes. There is a lesson in the Balkans for our own cheerful people who speak light- heartedly of armed intervention in Mex- ico on these same grounds of national dignity and destiny. Pressing indeed must be the destiny that would drive a nation into war with its attendant hor- rors, the loss of life, the economic waste, the hatreds engendered, the menacing problems stored up for our children to toil with and to "settle" in their turn at fearful cost. Man's astounding ability to forget is exemplified in the readiness with which we forget, and shall proba- bly continue to forget, what war means. To the unhappy people of the Balkans has been given the role of serving as a reminder. A REAL SOCIAL EVIL TREATISE. From the pen of Abraham Plexner has come the second notable volume in the series of four undertaken by Mr. John D. Rockefeller, jr.'s, Bureau of Social Hygiene, entitled "Prostitution in Eu- rope." Its publication is a noteworthy service. In the first place, it fills a great scientific need in straightforward, non- technical form. For years past the de- sirability of such a study has been mani- fest; no modern book covered this field with any genuine authority. To under- stand anything about the subject, it was necessary to read a great amount of medical literature and numerous detail- ed studies of what is the most difficult of all social problems. The result has been that there has been the loosest sort of talk, not only in the public press, but by mon in public life. Basing their beliefs on hearsay, or the most superficial ex- amination, many have inveighed against American methods by the easy assertion that the European policy of toleration and sanitation was the best These state- ments were difficult to refute, because of the lack of material at once accessible and scientific. Hereafter there will be no difficulty
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7G The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2534 on that score. Mr. Flexner was selected tor the task because he was a trained in- vestigator, skilled in analysis and famil- iar with social and educational pro- blems. Never having taken up this evil before, he brought to it an open mind, free from prepossessions, a fact which makes the results of his inquiry partic- ularly valuable. Let it be said at once that those who have had a patent rem- edy for this social sore, like the Single- Taxers and those Woman Suffragists who feel that the enfranchisement of v omen will end it all by the substitu- tion of laws jointly made by men and women for those made by men alone, will obtain little satisfaction from this volume. While its note is distinctly hopeful, Mr. Flexner presents no magic remedy or cure. He has merely ana- lyzed the problem, investigated supply and demand and the relation of the evil to the law and to public order, and has summarized at the end the outcome of all this European experience. If he finds prostitution far more extensive than is popularly supposed, he has dis- covered, on the other hand, like every other conscientious observer, new cur- rents and tendencies, like those in our own country, which give ground for be- lief that the era of intelligent dealing with the problem is at hand. At last we are beginning, by such works as this and the studies of the various vice com- missions in American cities, to know the problem as it really is. To our mind, the greatest cause for thankfulness is that Mr. Flexner has dealt a shrewd blow to the theory that toleration, official approval, and medical inspection form the really scientific method of dealing with prostitution. They are nothing of the kind. Aside from the fact that this means govern- ment partnership with vice, and inevita- ble moral deterioration of supervising officials, Mr. Flexner finds that regula- tion is losing ground everywhere; Its total abolition has been recommended in France by a special commission, whfle 48 out of 162 German cities have dis- pensed with it. The truth is that regu- lation never regulates, and medical con- trol never controls. Besides offending all decency, the medical examinations are often anything but scientifically con- ducted, and are usually so superficial as to be worthless, as the spread of dis- ease certifies. For the survival of regu- lation, Mr. Flexner declares, ignorance, tradition, misinformation, and baser motives are responsible. The officials connected with it naturally fight for their places. As for the morals police of Europe, they are in a position to sell favors, exemptions, and privileges, and, as W. T. Stead conclusively showed, are forever tempted to become procurers and abettors of the illegal system which the Government authorizes them to control. Particularly is Mr. Flexner impressed with the fact that wherever there is one registered fallen woman there are three unregistered. Many another myth besides that of regulation does Mr. Flexner expose. The alleged brief life of the prostitute; the alleged benefit to the streets where there is toleration; the alleged relationship of economic necessity to the entering on immoral practices, upon all of these he sheds surprising light that will not grat- ify, among others, those who a few months ago were shrieking that a mini- mum wage law is the one thing needful to protect the virtue of women-workers. But he does admit the almost universal unchastity of European men. What, then, is his conclusion as to the whole pro- blem abroad? It is that prostitution is a "modifiable phenomenon"; that summary repression offers little hope — it merely "penalizes an accomplished fact" — and is what the physicians call "symptomat- ic treatment," since it does not cure the disease. Yet he believes that intelligent study and scientific repression would vastly decrease human devastation, less- en disease, and render the demoralization of the woman "less complete, less over- whelming, less irretrievable"; surely very important gains, particularly if all this is done under "well-drawn, well- codified, well-executed laws." As for the rest, a slow process of social regenera- tion alone will bring the better day. As Mr. Flexner puts it: Further achievement depends upon altera- tions In the constitution of society and Its component parts. In so far as prostitution Is the outcome of Ignorance, laws and police are powerless; only knowledge will aid. In so far as prostitution Is the out- come of mental or moral defect, laws and police are powerless; only the Intelligent guardianship of the State will avail. In so far as prostitution Is the outcome of natural impulses denied a legitimate ex- pression, only a rationalized social life will really forestall It. In so far as prostitution is due to alcohol, to illegitimacy, to broken homes, to bad homes, to low wages, to wretched industrial conditions — to any or all of the particular phenomena respecting which the modern conscience Is becoming sensitive — only a transformation wrought by education, religion, science, sanitation, enlightened and far-reaching statesman- ship can effect a cure. . . . Sooner or lat- er, it [civilization] must fling down the gauntlet to the whole horrible thing. This will be the real contest— a contest that will tax the courage, the self-denial, the faith, the resources of humanity to their utter- most. THE FIRST GARDEN CITY. Just ten years after the founding of Garden City, or Letchworth, in England there appears a heavy volume, by C. B. Purdom, tracing its development. The tale unfolded is extraordinary. The orig- inal scheme was so goldenly idealistic; it was seized upon with such Utopian zeal, by men inspired half by Mill's so- cial ideas and half by Morris's artistic theories; its growth to reality has been so swift, and yet so substantial. It is only twelve years since Ebenezer How- ard's book, "Garden Cities of To-mor- row," was laughed at by the Times as visionary. To-day Letchworth repre- sents a corporation worth millions of pounds, stretching its 2,000 homes, fac- tories, and workshops over three par- ishes, and inhabited by 10,000 loyal citi- zens, employed in works drawn from all over the United Kingdom, and even the United States. Mr. Purdom's sketch was itself printed there, in J. M. Dent & Sons' publishing plant. Every main fea- ture of Ebenezer Howard's plan for or- ganizing in rural surroundings a work- man's city, to achieve "a healthy, nat- ural, and economic combination of town and country life," and "to find for our industrial population work at higher wages, at more regular employment, and under healthier surroundings," has been realized. The significance of Garden City to the outside world is as an attempt to revive the small town under twentieth- century industrial conditions. It is a mistake to think of It as a municipal or corporation enterprise, for it has been prosecuted by an association of private citizens. Nor is it to be confused with "garden suburbs," or extensions, often unwise, of existing cities. Were it this, it would only be of a kind with work long done in Germany, and now carried on In nearly every civilized land. Its idea is the daring one of building a new town, in tho shortest time rompatl ble with normal growth, "right out In the open"; a town with Its own parks
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Jan. 22, 1914] The Nation 77 and open spaces, its own agricultural belt, its own schools, theatres, and pub- lic utilities. Letehworth is itself situat- ed on an estate of 4,500 acres, thirty- five miles from London, purchased by the Garden City Company with a sub- scribed capital of $1,500,000. The com- pany lets building sites, with reserva- tions for parks; builds and owns the roads, gas and electric plants, and water system; and enforces regulations on the height, construction, and artistic qual- ity of all buildings. It thus shares in the government with the regularly con- stituted local bodies, to which, as its capital is paid in, it will gradually sur- render its functions. It is assiduous in promoting communal activity and the immigration of proper industries. Their testimonials, from motor factory to pot- tery works, are gathered into the vol- ume. The abundance of light and room for workshops, the healthy living condi- tions for the workmen, the low rents and water and lighting rates, are enu- merated as making for a better class of employees, while the smallness of the town gives the staff cohesion. After Letehworth attains a certain size, fur- ther growth is to be discouraged, main- ly by the establishment of rival Garden Cities elsewhere. The spontaneity of Letchworth's growth is proof of the need it filled, a need that is felt in every populous indus- trial land. Seemingly, it required only the book to create the company, and the company to call the town into be- ing; in reality it demanded a long train of conditions and circumstances. A main factor in its success has been its prox- imity to London; Londoners of means have invested in it, scores of trains a day carry its products to the metrop- olis, its people still feel a throbbing con- nection with the centre of English life. It should give an impulse to nothing so much as official city planning. "So far," writes Mr. Purdom, "we have seen in the new countries only a repetition of many of the follies committed in nine- teenth-century Europe. In Canada, in Australasia, in New Zealand there are opportunities for building fine cities that, not in magnificence, but in their simple decent order, may secure . . . health and well-being, and be the envy of the world." Similarly, the factors that gave Letehworth its astounding de- velopment are but the factors that in- duce our corporations to build model employees' villages, of which there are scores in the United States and Canada alone. This does not rob the individualism behind the Garden City plan of certain peculiar merits. The government of a new community by its founders and members should be at once more practi- cal, and touched by higher ideals, than a government by outside authority. The choice of a fresh site, the divorce from existent cities, give scope for the ex- pression of a real corporate personality. The circumstances of its organization, moreover, assist subsequent cooperation among residents. Letehworth has prov- ed an inviting field for the British Co- operative Wholesale Society, which fur- nishes all the commodities of life at cost. Mr. Howard points out that it should also offer ground for many in- dustrial enterprises carried on by com- binations of workers in the interests of workers. Men who have planned and built for themselves a better living en- vironment are a ready soil for other helpful social reforms. "STIMULATING." To-day the word is common currency, but one imagines it is the book-reviewers of a certain well-recognized class who popular- ized it It supplied a long-felt want. Since pragmatism carried the day it has obvious- ly been "unmodern" to speak of a thing or a book as being merely right or wrong, good or bad, beautiful or ugly. Literature, like the world, has become divided into books that tell the facts and books that are stimulating, books that uphold the ideal of moral goodness and books that are stim- ulating, books that concern themselves with the beautiful and books that are stimulat- ing. It is only an -old-fashioned book-re- viewer who will point out that when a writ- er speaks on page 22 of the battle of Wa- terloo as won by Wellington and on page 54 ascribes the victory to Blucher, he must be wrong either in the one case or in the other. The modern book-reviewer will find the discrepancy merely stimulating. And if the author gives evident signs of being quite out of touch with the literature on the Napoleonic wars, and occasionally spells the name "Blutcher," he is more stimu- lating than ever. This is not mem kindli- ness of criticism. It is an entirely new conception of criticism, which finds no use for the old definite forms of appraisal. It refuses to enter into sharp distinctions be- tween the sheep and the goats. In the mod- ern vernacular, the sheep are "cautious" or "conservative" and the goats are stim- ulating. There is a companion word : "sugges- tive." When a statement is obviously false, It is stimulating. When a statement has no meaning whatever, it is suggestive. To say that Queen Isabella was a pioneer of feminism when she sent Columbus on his voyage to the west, is stimulating. To write: "Ignorance is the advocatus diaboli in the swirl of cosmic evolution," is sug- gestive. Fortunate the book — and a great many books are fortunate nowadays — which lends itself to characterization as being both stimulating and suggestive! To say that the Fathers of the Constitution were a pack of rum-selling and slave-catching rascals is stimulating. To say that the Fathers of the Constitution were a body of unpractical idealists is also stimulating. It is the beauty of the new criticism that the two books which say these two precisely opposite things may be equally stimulating. But if the writer, after describing the Fathers of the Constitution as saints or blackguards, as the case may be, goes on to say that we are all the creatures of en- vironment, and that consequently the recall of judges is imperatively necessary, he has met the requirements of criticism com- pletely. Either as a stimulant or as a sug- gestive force he is a man to be reckoned with. Stimulating to what? Suggestive of what? Heaven only knows. It is true that one can easily imagine how the sociological treatise which the up-to-date critic finds stimulating might stimulate the scholar brought up in the older tradition of truth and falsehood to a fit of apoplexy. One can imagine how the ordinary stimulating book and lecture and interview on cancer cures and eugenics and criminology would stimu- late the true scientist to alternate rage and despair. But evidently that cannot be what the reviewer means. Does he mean, then, that the reading of one stimulating book stimulates the reader to the reading of another book equally stimulating? That is undoubtedly true. The flood of books which have eschewed the older methods of patient research, careful thought, and logical presentation, for the methods of stimula- tive authorship, is sufficient testimony on that point. The difficulties of authorship have, of course, been almost done away with by substituting stimulation for rea- son and fact. Only that there has arisen i another difficulty. There is the inevitable I law that stimulation, to remain effective, requires a constantly increasing dosage. And it is not every one, after all, that can keep on being more and more stimulating till we reach the tremendous hypodermic thrust of the stimulating Cubist and Fu- turist. Fortunately, the men who are doing the serious work of the world In the sciences and the arts— and in criticism— are not par- ticularly concerned with the ordinary book- reviewer's opinion. They are content to have their books described as cautious or conservative or even stodgy, by comparison with the stimulating writers who are busy turning out new worlds and new moralities and new artistic conceptions while you wait. Or they may even find the lltuatioo stimulating. The babel of ignorant talk and senseless talk, the revolutionary for- mulas that roll so smoothly off the tongue, the welter of loose thinking and unshaped speech, can only stimulate the honest work- er to tighten his lips and bend over his desk or his test-tubes a little more de- terminedly. He can afford to wait. Time will have its toll of the stimulators and the suggesters and the provoeatora and the various dispensers of the various other
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78 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2534 kinds of mental debauchery. Mr. Kipling's Intuition was right. It is only in the other world that the honest workmen are allowed to splash at ten-league canvases with brushes of comet's hair. In this world the good workmen are content with humbler tasks. They are satisfied to leave the ten- league canvases and the ethereal brushes to the stimulators. PUBLIC OPINION AND POPULAR GOVERNMENT. Oxfokd, January 7. Mr. Lowell's "Governments and Par- ties in Continental Europe" is for Eng- lishmen the best and the most trustwor- thy authority with regard to Continental constitutionalism. His "Government of England" is by far the most complete, as it is also by far the best, description of the English Constitution as it now exists and works. He and Bryce are, in short, for the whole English-speaking world the leading constitutionalists of the day; but I venture with some con- fidence to predict that Mr. Lowell's lat- est book,* when it has once become well known to English readers, will add a good deal to its author's already high and well-acquired reputation. The book looks at first sight like a course of lec- tures delivered some years ago to the students at Johns Hopkins University. But it is something much rarer than a good course of lectures addressed to in- telligent youths. It is, in truth, the work of a constitutional jurist who ex- plores with care and elucidates with success some of the many fundamental problems presented by the whole sys- tem of modern popular government as it is understood in the United States and in England. It shows that the writ- er of the book may be placed nearly on a level — and no greater praise can be given to any man — with Bagehot. The two writers are in some respects very unlike one another, yet they both have one quality in common: they both can take up old and well-worn questions and succeed in putting the inquiries with which they deal In a new light, and in a light gained, not by the use of para- dox, but by the enunciation of plain though forgotten truths. My object in this letter is to justify my high esti- mate of "Public Opinion and Popular Government." It is impossible for me to follow out many of the most inter- esting suggestions with which Mr. Low- ell supplies his readers. I shall there- fore vindicate the soundness of my lit- erary judgment by dwelling only upon two among the leading characteristics of a highly interesting book. The first among the notable traits of this essay is that it contains a new and 'PuhUe Opinion and Popular (Jovernment. By A. Lawrence Lowell, President of IIarvnr- mense regret that I cannot follow out
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Jan. 22, 1914] The Nation 79 tor your readers the most interesting conclusions which Mr. Lowell suggests as to the questions in respect of which no puhlic opinion can in reality exist, and the decision whereof should as far as possible be left to experts. The second leading characteristic of "Public Opinion and Popular Govern- ment" is the proof that an analysis of the nature of public opinion may make it possible, at any rate, to understand, if not always to solve, problems which puzzle thinkers and often harass the statesmen of civilized countries. Let me explain the meaning of this statement by one salient illustration drawn from Mr. Lowell's treatise. Most of the readers of the Nation have, it may be assumed, from time to time de- fended or attacked the system of party government. How many of them, 1 wonder, have distinctly asked them- selves the question, How does it hap- pen that in every modern democracy party government, whether we like it or hate it, exists? Our author, at any rate, forces this inquiry upon the attention of his readers. He shows us that men of rare ability have proposed very dif- ferent answers. The existence of par- ties, says a German writer, is to be at- tributed to natural diversities of tem- perament corresponding to the different states of maturity in man from youth to old age. The youthful man, whether he be young in years or young in spirit, is by nature a Radical; a middle-aged man is a Conservative; an old man is a Tory, or a reactionist. Other writers hold that political parties are caused by the conflict of interest between different forms of property. Gabriel Tarde, who I am glad to see receives from Mr. Low- ell the respect he so well deserves, traces the growth of partisanship to the contrast between the tendency to imi- tate traditional custom and the ten- dency to imitate new fashions, while Sir Henry Maine finds the origin of par- ties in the primitive combativeness of mankind. Each of these explanations of partisanship may contain an ele- ment of truth, but none of them exact- ly meets the question in hand, namely, why the system of party government ex- ists with more or less vigor under every form of modern democratic government. Our author supplies an answer, whether wholly satisfactory or not, to this spe- cific question. Democracy is, he lays down, in every modern state the attempt to govern in accordance with public opinion, and, further, to govern in ac- cordance with the public opinion of the vast mass of the citizens. Now, in a state which consists of many millions of citizens who, after all, can from the nature of things answer to any public question laid before them, only by a plain "No" or "Yes," it is absolutely essential that the persons, whether Con- servatives, Liberals, or Radicals, who on the whole agree together, should get the information and receive the disci- pline necessary for giving expression to their agreement. And party government is the best machine hitherto invented for collecting and expressing the opin- ion of millions of citizens. The party leaders, or the party managers, enable the voters to act in masses. Such lead- ers or managers are, in fact, to use a happy expression of Mr. Lowell's, poli- ticians who act as brokers. They may be honest brokers, who act with a view to the benefit of their country; they may be respectable brokers, who act with a view to the interest of the party which they lead and who generally are persuaded that the interest of their party may be identified with the inter- est of their country; they may be dis- honest brokers, who care for nothing except satisfying their own lust for pow- er, or, in the worst of all cases, their own love of money. The party sys- tem, however, is, according to our au- thor's teaching, the outcome neither of virtue nor of vice, but of necessity. It is the one method as yet invented for supplying to millions of voters the means, I might almost say the power, of common action. This, at least, is the inference which I draw from the teach- ing to be found in "Public Opinion and Popular Government"; it is an infer- ence of immense importance; it cannot be properly separated from the number of most ingenious and original sugges- tions made by our author as to increas- ing the utility and- as to lessening the evils of party government. On some other occasion I may be per- haps allowed to criticise the doctrine which I have tried to expound. I trust I may have succeeded in justifying my assertion that a sound analysis of the meaning to be attached to the term "public opinion" does, in our author's hands, lead to conclusions both of theo- retical and of practical importance. A. V. Dicey. THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION. Urbana, 111, January 10. The Association held its tenth annual meeting in Washington, December 30 to January 1. Its headquarters were at the Shoreham Hotel. The first session, on Tuesday afternoon, was devoted to International Law, and papers were read by Mr. E. M. Borchard, Profs. Frank A. Updyke. N. Dwight Harris, and F. "Wells Williams. In the evening of the same day presidential addresses were delivered by Prof. W. W. Willough- by, on behalf of the American Political Science Association, and by Prof. W. F. Willoughby, on behalf of the American Association for Labor Legislation. On Wednesday morning, December 31, a ses- sion was devoted to political theory, with papers by Prot R. G. Gettell, Dr. Ernest Brunken, and Mr. Alpheus H. Snow. Mr. Robert Lansing, who was to have presented a paper, was unavoida- bly absent. His paper, however, will appear in the Proceedings of the Asso- ciation. At the Wednesday afternoon session, which was devoted to legisla- tive reference bureaus, papers were pre- sented by Prof. Chester Lloyd Jones, Hon. Robert L. Owen, Mr. Donald Rich- berg, and Dr. Horace E. Flack. In the discussion that followed, Dr. Charles McCarthy, Mr. John A. Lapp, and Mr. Eliott H. Goodwin took part. Wednes- day evening was devoted to Congression- al procedure, with papers by Mr. A. Maurice Low, Prof. W. F. Willoughby, Prof. J. W. Garner, and Dr. J. David Thompson. Thursday morning was de- voted to a conference on instruction in government. Papers were read by Profs. Edgar Dawson and J. Lynn Barnard, and a committee report was presented by Prof. C. G. Haines. The discussion at this meeting was participated in by Profs. Clyde L. King, J. Q. Dealey, E. M. Sait, Dr. Arthur W. Dunn, and Hon. P. P. Claxton, Commissioner of Educa- tion. The Thursday afternoon session was devoted to the business meeting of the Association, and reports were pre- sented by Prof. C. G. Haines, chairman of the committee on instruction in gov- ernment; Dr. E. A. Fitzpatrick, secre- tary of the committee on practical in- struction in government; Prof. Ernst Freund, chairman of the committee on legislative methods; and Prof. Clyde L. King, chairman of the committee on city and county government. Prof. W. W. Willoughby's presidential address on "The Individual and the State" discussed the philosophical con- ception of the sphere of State activity, and concluded that there were no lim- its upon governmental action for the ac- complishment of social purposes. The state as an organ of society may prop- erly be employed to effect social ends. The presidential address of Prof. W. F. Willoughby, of the American Associa- tion for Labor Legislation, dealt with the "Philosophy of Labor Legislation" and favored a broad activity of govern- ment in that sphere. Dr. Ernest Brunken's paper on "Some- Political Tendencies in Modern Legis- lation" was one of the ablest presented to the Association, and attracted much attention. At the meeting devoted to- Congrcssional Procedure distinctly new suggestions were made by Prof. W. F. Willoughby and Dr. J. David Thompson. Professor Willoughby urged the more effective organization of Congress for the performance of its supervisory or non-legislative business, and Dr. Thomp- son presented among other things sta- tistical tables of the actual work per- formed by the various committees of Congress.
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80 The ]ST a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2534 The distinctly practical subjects dis- cussed at the sessions devoted to legis- lative reference bureaus and to instruc- tion in government attracted perhaps the greatest attention. Especially im- portant was the session on instruction in government, at which a committee report was presented by Prof. C. G. Haines. Mr. Claxton, the Commissioner of Education, at this meeting pledged his support to the investigation under- taken by the Association with refer- ence to political science teaching. The discussion of methods of teach- ing insisted upon the practical element, and this was still further emphasized by the report of the committee on practical instruction in government. This com- mittee was constituted for the purpose of considering plans for combining prac- tical experience with academic training in government, and during the year it had accomplished a great deal in the investigation of this subject. Important committee reports, on legislative meth- ods and on city and county government were also made to the Association. New committees were constituted to deal with the subjects of ballot forms and of freedom of teaching in American educational institutions. The officers of the Association for the year 1914 are: Hon. John Bassett Moore, president; Prof. Charles E. Merriam, first vice-president; Prof. G. G. Wilson, second vice-president; Prof. L. S. Rowe, third vice-president; W. F. Dodd, secre- <tary-treasurer. ' W. P. D. NEWS FOR BIBLIOPHILES. Reports were received last year at the New York State Education Department from 477 free lending libraries in the State, showing a total of 4,707 472 volumes in stock and a circulation of 21,530,294. These figures show a gain over the previous year of 13 in the number of libraries reporting, 285,571 in their stock of books, and 1,221,- 118 in circulation. Since 1893, when the present State system of supervision and aid for free libraries was adopted, there has been a five-fold growth in the number of volumes in free libraries, and a nine- fold growth in public use of the libraries. The per-capita circulation is now more than six times greater than in 1893, and notwithstanding the great increase in stock of books, the circulation per volume in stock has almost doubled. There are five times more books, and each book receives nearly twice the amount of use. In their financial statements for the past year the libraries of the State show a total of $3,814,875 available for the year's expenses. Of this amount $1,738,420 was provided from local taxation, $687,955 from interest on endowments, $196,447 from the State (including $136,860 for support and rehabilitation of the State Library), $79,- 023 from gifts, $21,317 from entertainment*, and $1,091,710 from balances on hand and miscellaneous sources. Library appropria- tions from local taxation were greater by $116/188 than in the preceding year. The amount expended for books, periodicals, and binding was $1,030,801, and for library salaries $1,661,104. Estimating salaries in terms of circulation, it appears that the libraries are paying iy2 cents in personal service for each book issued. This, how- ever, includes libraries where circulation represents perhaps less than half the ser- vice rendered. Of the 52 cities of the State, 46 are now provided with free public libraries, two others have subscription libraries available to all on the payment of a small fee, two provide limited library service through the public-school library, and two provide no public-library facilities whatever. The lat- ter, however, Lackawanna and Watervliet, are in a sense parts of neighboring cities, and individuals may obtain library privi- leges from those cities. There are 24 vil- lages in the State having each a popula- tion of 5,000 or above. In all but three of these, free or public libraries have been provided. They have an average stock of 9,174 volumes and an average circulation of 29,651. The total number of incorporated villages in the State is 456. In 224 of these, or just about one-half, there are regularly char- tered free libraries, and in about one-half of the remainder the school libraries pro- vide some free-library privileges. Outside of incorporated cities and villages, there are 134 communities or districts which have regularly chartered free libraries, support- ed in part by district or town taxes, but depending mainly on voluntary contribu- tions, membership fees, and proceeds from entertainments. Of the total of $1,738,420 appropriated from local taxes last year for library support, $1,651,324, or 95 per cent., was pro- vided by the cities. Greater New York provided $1,232,366, or 70 per cent., of this amount. Reduced to a per-capita basis, the figures mean that Greater New York is paying for each unit of population a li- brary tax of 25 cents, Buffalo 24 cents, Syracuse 32 cents, Rochester 14 cents, Utica 34 cents, Mt. Vernon 46 cents, Albany 14 cents, Yonkers 17 cents, New Rochelle 44 cents, Poughkeepsie 43 cents, Schenectady 15 cents, Binghamton 22 cents, Niagara Falls 25 cents, Watertown 26 cents, Troy 8 cents, Auburn 15 cents. The tax per vol- ume circulated in these cities was: Great- er New York 8.6 cents, Buffalo 10 cents, Syracuse 12.5 cents, Rochester 30 cents, Utica 14 cents, Mt. Vernon 9 cents, Albany 4 cents, Yonkers 7 cents, New Rochelle 10 cents, Poughkeepsie 12 cents, Schenectady 7 cents, Binghamton 6 cents, Niagara Falls 10 cents, Watertown 9 cents, Troy 6 cents, Auburn 9 cents. It is worthy of note that several of the cities which are paying the highest per-capita rate for their libraries are getting a more than corresponding cir- culation, so that their tax per unit of issue is among the lowest, illustrating the fact that In many cases an increased tax makes for positive economy In results. One hundred and ten different libraries were benefited during the year by gifts or bequests, each valued at $100 or more, the largest number of libraries ever thus ben- efited in a single year. The total amount of gifts and bequests is estimated at $1,- 123,291, the greater part of which was for buildings, grounds, or permanent endow- ments. The larger gifts were as follows: To Columbia University, a building to house the library of architecture and art, cost- ing $.",00,000, from S. J. Avery; to New York Public Library, by will of W. A. Spencer, one-half his residuary estate and his pri- vate library; to Glens Falls, by will of Henry Crandall, estate worth $500,000, to be applied at discretion of trustees to pub- lic park, Boys' Saving Club, and public library; to Hamilton College library, $100,- 000 for a building from unnamed benefac- tor. Of the 110 gifts reported, only three were from Mr. Carnegie, and these represent less than 3 per cent, of the total value of the year's gifts. It is worthy of note also that for every dollar given to libraries by the State, $32 was given by private donors. To complete this survey of the library resources and activities of the State, there must be added the statistics of library facilities and circulation provided by the State Library, with its unique department of travelling libraries, which serves as a free library for all the people of the State, particularly for those without other library facilities. Last year small libraries, aver- aging 41 volumes each, making a total of 45,651 volumes, were sent for local use to no less than 1,114 localities or groups of readers. This was a gain over any pre- vious year of more than 250 libraries sent out, and is double the number reported ten years ago. In the library situation of the State as a whole, the most striking feature is, of course, the rapid development and huge totals shown by the great city libraries. Thus of the total stock of 4,707,472 volumes in all the free libraries of the State, 3,459,- 359 are in the cities and 2,051,743 in Great- er New York alone ; and of the total annual circulation, numbering 21,530,294 volumes, 18,300,454 were issued to city borrowers. But when it is considered that 76 per cent, of the population of the State is contained in cities, and that the population outside of cities is now actually less than it was twenty years ago, the development of li- braries in the villages and rural districts of the State must be regarded as even more notable than that in the cities. Thus, of the 477 free libraries shown in the year's reports, 319 are outside of cities, and these have a total stock of books numbering 1,- 248,113 and an annual circulation of 3,228,- g40 — an average for each of these libraries of 3,912 volumes in stock and 10,122 circula- tion. Of the total gain last year of 1,221,- 118 in circulation from free libraries, 598,- 077, or nearly one-half, was from libraries outside of cities, representing only one- quarter of the population. The full strength of the showing in the smaller towns will perhaps best appear from a comparison with conditions reported in other States having State library com- missions or bureaus of recognized efficien- cy. Thus, Wisconsin is generally recog- nized in the West and Middle West as a model for other States in Its library sys- tem and its library propaganda. It has a population almost exactly equal to that of New York outside of cities. In the whole of that State, according to Its last report, there were 165 free libraries, 90 library buildings, 987,254 volumes, and a property in library buildings amounting I" $1,761,- 000. The extra-city pouiatlon of Now York has twice the number oj free llbrarlos, twice the number of building*. • quarter more books, ami a INfftter valuation In li- brary buildings than the whole Slat, ol \\ I: II iillHln.
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Jan. 22, 1914] The Nation 81 Indiana, with a population greater than that of rural New York and a model library law and commission, reports 145 free or public libraries and 106 library buildings, more than one-half the latter being gifts from Carnegie. Both in libraries and build- ings rural New York has twice the facili- ties reported for the whole of the Hoosier State. California, with a population substan- tially larger than that of rural New York, and with a model library system, reports for the whole State 124 free libraries sup- ported by city tax, 21 county library sys- 'l subscription libraries, and 60 as- sociation libraries, a total of 259, of which not more than 205 are free. It has 117 library buildings, 80 of which are Carne- gie gifts. The total of free libraries and buildings is at least a third less than that of the smaller population in rural New York. Even Massachusetts, which was the first State to establish a State department for library extension, and which boasts a free library for every township, has fewer free libraries in operation in proportion to population than the village and country part of New York. Asa Wynkoop. (Head of Public Libraries Section, New York State Education Department.) Correspondence THE SOCIAL EMERGENCY. To the Editor op The Nation: Sir: Concerning matters of sex and reproduction, there has been for many gen- erations a conspiracy of silence. The si- lence is now broken. Whatever may be the wisdom or the folly of this change of attitude, it is a fact, and it constitutes a social emergency. Throughout the nineteenth century the taboo prevailed. Certain subjects were rarely mentioned in public, and then only in euphemistic terms. The home, the church, the school, and the press joined in the conspiracy. Supposedly, they were keeping the young in a blessed state of innocence. As a matter of fact, other agen- cies were busy disseminating falsehoods. Most of our boys and girls, having no op- portunity to hear sex and marriage and motherhood discussed with reverence, heard these matters discussed with vulgarity. While those interested In the welfare of the young withheld the truth, those who could profit by their downfall poisoned their minds with error and half-truths. An abundance of distressing evidence show- ed that nearly all children gained infor- mation concerning sex and reproduction from foul sources— from misinformed play- mates, degenerates, obscene pictures, book- lets, and advertisements of quack doctors. At the same time the social evil and its train of tragic consequences showed no abatement. The past few years have seen a sudden change. Subjects formerly tabooed are now thrust before the public. The plain-spoken publications of social hygiene societies are distributed by hundreds of thousands. Pub- lic exhibits, setting forth the horrors of venereal diseases, are sent from place to place. Motion-picture films portray whlte- Blavers, prostitutes, and restricted districts, and show exactly how an innocent girl may be seduced, betrayed, and sold. The stage finds it profitable to offer problem plays concern- ed with illicit love, with prostitution, and even with the results of venereal contagion. Newspapers that formerly made only brief references to co-respondents, houses of ill- repute, statutory offences, and serious charges, now fill columns with detailed ac- counts of divorce trials, traffic in women, earnings of prostitutes, and raids on houses. Novels that might have been condemned and suppressed a few decades ago are now list- ed among the best sellers. Lectures on sex hygiene and morals are given widely, above four hundred such lectures having been given under the auspices of a single society. Fraudulent doctors, while obeying the letter of new laws, are bolder than ever in some directions, and use the alarm caused by the production of "Damaged Goods," for example, as a means of snar- ing new victims. Generations of silence, enforced by the powerful influence of so- cial custom, have been suddenly followed by a campaign of pitiless publicity, sanc- tioned by eminent men and women, and carried forward by the agencies of public education that daily reach the largest num- ber of human beings— namely, the press, the motion picture, and the stage. This far-reaching change in the customs of society is fraught with immediate dan- gers, because we do not know whether the mere knowledge of facts concerning sexual processes, vices, and diseases will do a given individual harm or good. The effect of such information upon any person is unquestionably determined by his physio- logical age, by his nervous system, by the manner and time of the presentation of the subject, above all by his will power and the controlling ideals that are ac- quired along with scientific facts. We have not discovered thoroughly trust- worthy pedagogical principles, administra- tive methods, and printed materials for public education in matters of sex. So difficult and complicated are the problems, and so disastrous are mistakes in this field of instruction, that the home, the church, and the school — the institutions to which young people should naturally look for truth in all matters, the agencies best qualified to solve the problems — are ex- tremely cautious and conservative. Great as are the industrial and political revolutions of modern times, it is doubt- ful if anything so deeply concerns the com- ing generations as our measure of success in confronting the present social emergency. Here mistakes will not do; here incom- petent teachers cannot be trusted. Ill- advised efforts to teach sex hygiene may aggravate the very evils we are trying to assuage. Because the subject is of vital importance, education in sexual hygiene and morals must proceed cautiously and conservatively; according to tried methods, psychologically sound; always under the control of men and women of maturity, who see the present emergency in Its many phases, who know how to teach, whose character Is in keeping with the highest ideals of their work. Unhappily, not all of those who have been stimulated by the new freedom of speech to thrust themselves forward as teachers of sex hygiene and as social re- formers, are safe leaders. Some are ig- norant and unaware that enthusiasm is not a satisfactory substitute for knowledge. Some are hysterical. At a recent purity convention a woman said, "I know little about the facts, but it is wonderful how much ignorance can accomplish when ac- companied by devotion and persistence." That declaration was applauded. Some peo- ple appear to believe that they will arrive safely if they go rapidly enough and far enough, even though they may be going in the wrong direction. Young people of op- posite sexes, finding evidence on every hand that the traditional taboo is removed, dis- cuss the subject for personal pleasure. The books in the field of social hygiene which have most scrupulously and successfully avoided everything that might be sexually stimulating are not the ones bought by the largest numbers. The demand for erotic publications is so great as to warn us in advance that the new freedom will prove dangerous for many whose minds are already unclean. The propaganda for chastity is unlike many others, in that there is special danger of doing injury to the very ones in special need of help. The American Social Hygiene Associa- tion and affiliated societies have arisen to meet the present social emergency. They are temporary expedients. Their chief aim is public education. They should frustrate the efforts of all dangerous agencies and hasten the day when the home, the church, and the school shall meet their full re- sponsibilities in the teaching of sexual hy- giene and morals. William Trufant Foster. (Vice-President Social Hygiene Association, President Pacific Coast Federation for Sex Hygiene.) Reed College Portland, Ore., January 14. THE CONSTRUCTIVE QUARTERLY. To the Editor ok The Nation: Sir: My attention is drawn to the ap- pearance of my name in the Constructive Quarterly for September and for December in the list of the Editorial Board. Will you kindly permit me to say in your columns that I resigned my connection with this publication last May and at that time re- quested that my name should be removed from the list? Dickinson S. Miller. New York, January 17. THE NATIONAL GUARD OF PENNSYL- VANIA. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: In your issue of January 1 you refer to the National Guard of Pennsylvania, and In the next paragraph you say: "In the street-car strike in Philadelphia in 1910, a company of militia was disarmed and made ridiculous by a mob of women, which was promptly handled and made to behave by a small body of police." To a person reading your article, who did not know the truth, It would appear that the company of militia was a part of the National Guard of Pennsylvania. As a matter of fact, It is no more a part of the National Guard than it Is of the State constabulary. It is called the State Fenci- bles, and at the present time It is merely a social organization of which most of the members are young boys. It receives no support from the State and is supported by the city of Philadelphia.
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82 T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2534 As a reader of the Nation and for seven years a member of the National Guard, I think it right that you should correct this wrong impression. In the coal strike of L902 the National Guard of Pennsylvania proved its worth and showed that it is as good as any other citizen soldiery in the country. Thomas a. Wood. Bristol, Pa., January 19. THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIA- TION. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: In the Nation of January 8 there appeared an account of the Charleston meeting of the American Historical Asso- ciation, in which a well-defined movement against certain existing methods was dis- missed as a "discussion of the system of electing officers." This movement was an important feature of the business meeting. I have awaited the appearance of the annual account of the meeting with some curiosity, as I rather expected that little would be said about the reasons which lie behind the well-taken objections to the present methods of electing the officers of the Association. As this is a vital ques- tion in a great and useful organization of students and scholars, I may venture to make some comments upon it. Section 4 of the constitution of the American Historical Association, as it ap- pears in the last official report, is as fol- lows: The officers shall be a president, two vice- presidents, a secretary, a secretary of the council, a curator, a treasurer, and an ex- ecutive council consisting of the foregoing officers and six other members elected by the Association, with the ex-presidents of the Association. These officers shall be elected by ballot at each regular annual meeting of the Association. The last sentence is plain and unmistak- able. It is the orgri:t:c l.iw regulating the election of officers of the American Historical Association. It is not possible to have a legal election of officers in any other way than thai laid down in the con- stitution. I have been an active, an interested, and an attending member of the Association for about twelve years. I have attended, if my memory is accurate, ten annual meetings, and it has never been my good fortune to see the provisions of the constitution re- lating to the election of officers carried out in an annual business meeting. May I commend this astonishing fact to the many learned gentlemen of the Associa- tion who specialize in constitutional in- terpretation? It may be interesting to know something about the methods in force in the Asso- ciation for the election of officers. They are something like this: The council, at its annual meeting, very obligingly, and in order that the Association may not be distracted from its scholarly repose, se- lects a nominating committee to name the officers. This committee keeps Its action a profound secret, for reasons of state, or perhaps because the council has not given out the list, until the business meeting. When the rank and file are assembled they are politely but firmly told who are to be the officers for the coming year. It may be called unparliamentary for one of the workers In the ranks from Mississippi to call such methods oligarchical, but the word certainly fits. It does not appear by what authority the council presumes to appoint this nomi- nating committee. The Association itself, the creator of the council, certainly has no authority to appoint such a committee, but it seems that the council has. That it has assumed such authority seems to be beyond question. There have been many and long-con- tinued murmurs beneath the surface against such methods, and they at last found expression at Charleston, much to the evident astonishment of some of the leaders, and to the manifest pleasure of the rank and file. The American Historical Association is suffering from a dangerous disease. It cannot be cured by homoeopathic treatment. It is a case for the knife. If I know any- thing of the sentiment of the modest, earn- est, scholarly men who sustain the Asso- ciation, they will not submit further to arbitrary and unconstitutional methods in the administration of the affairs of one of the greatest associations of scholars in the world. I have no personal criticism to make of any one. I do not wish to be understood as finding fault with the officers of the As- sociation, past or present. I am not an office-seeker, for I well know that my ac- tion at Charleston prevents me from ac- cepting an official position in the Associa- tion for years to come, if not for all time. Dunbar Rowland. Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson, Miss., January 12. Literature COMMERCE IN ANCIENT CHINA. Chu-Fan-chi: Chinese and Arab Trade in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. By Cbau Ju-kua. Translated from the Chinese and annotated by Fried- rich Hirth and W. W. Rockhill. St. Petersburg: Printing Office of the Im- perial Academy of Sciences. This Chinese treatise falls into two parts. The first part deals briefly with the various countries with which the Chinese traded, each geographical divi- sion having a separate short chapter, and offers many curious bits of informa- tion which the author has picked up in the older chronicles, or has heard from contemporary merchants or navigators. In the second part a number of products brought to China from foreign lands are passed in review. Here we have various kinds of incense, choice nuts and condiments, costly ornamental woods, a few precious stones, ivory and rhinoceros horns, tortoise-shell, decora- tive feathers, ambergris, and a special chapter devoted to parrots. The very full notes with which the work has been provided by its translators and editors constitute a veritable mine of valuable information from all attainable sources regarding the matters treated of in the text. The leading port of entry for these varied products was Canton, and the Government took good care to obtain a considerable share of the imports for itself. As a general rule, this share amounted to 30 per cent, of the goods, and as any attempt at smuggling was punished by the prompt confiscation of the entire cargo, there was probably but little loss on this score. The result, however, of an experiment made by China to augment this trade by the insti- tution of an active propaganda among the foreign traders and by the Issuing of especially favorable licenses to a number of importers, shows how risky a thing is governmental interference with the normal course of supply and demand. The volume of trade was, of course, greatly increased, but not enough buy- ers could be found, and the Government officials in the interior provinces had to bestir themselves to procure pur- chasers by offering inducements for bar- ter (p. xix). These mediaeval maritime traders had many difficulties to contend with be- sides those arising from the risks of navigation. If a ship got off her course and put into the first port at hand, a pretext was often found to confiscate her cargo. Then there were the inevita- ble "presents" which had to be bestowed on the port officers, and as these were virtually the same for all craft, there was little or no profit for the owner of a small ship. Moreover, the individual traders had not only to guard against the rapacity of outsiders, but also against the possible dishonesty of their fellow-traders on shipboard; during the voyage each trader slept on top of his goods. Chau Ju-kua tells us that some of the Indian traders carried with them, in opaqtfe glass bottles, a kind of "holy water," which would still tempests if it were poured out over the sea. This may have referred to water brought by Mohammedan pilgrims from the sacred well of Zemzem, in Mecca (p. Ill and p. 113, note 2). Possibly the use of oil to break the force of the waves, which has stood the test of modern investiga- tion, and was already practiced in the times of Aristotle and Pliny, may have some connection with this story. In a mediaeval record we need not be surprised to find mention of sorcery and sorcerers. It is stated that on the Somali coast there were many enchanters, who had the power to change themselves into "birds, beasts, or aquatic animals." and were thus able to terrorize the inhabitants. They were also greatly feared by the traders, for it was con- liib nily asserted that, by their charms, they could paralyze the movement of a ship, so that she could sail neither for- ward nor backward. It is stated that "the Government has formally forbidden (his practice" (pp. 130 ft). Marco PolO
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Jan. 22, 1914] The Nation 83 tells much the same story of these sor- ce*eis. Among the objects of value to be found in foreign countries, diamonds and pearls are not forgotten. Of the Indian diamonds it is said that they "look like fluor-spar" and that they would not melt "when exposed to fire an hundred times." To exemplify the hard- ness of the stone, Chau Ju-kua adds: "It can cut jade." The use of diamond dust for this purpose may have been of spe- cial interest to the Chinese writer, as a means of conquering the extreme tough- ness of jade, the favorite precious sub- stance in China. Pearls, on the other hand, were much better known to the Chinese, and have always been much more prized among them than diamonds. While the finest specimens came from the Cingalese and Persian fisheries, China herself had extensive fisheries in the southern islands off the coast of Li6n-ch6u-fu; these fisheries were al- ready exhausted in the sixteenth cen- tury. Of the perils encountered by pearl-divers in the pursuit of their voca- tion, Chau Ju-kua gives the following grewsome details: Pearl-fishprs, with ropes fastened around their bodies, their ears and noses stopped with yellow wax, are let down into the water about 200 or 300 feet or more, the ropes being fastened on board. When a man makes a sign by shaking the rope, he Is pulled up. Before this is done, how- ever, a soft quilt is made as hot as possible in boiling water, in order to throw over the diver the moment he comes out, lest he should be seized with a fit of ague and die. They may fall in with huge fishes, dragons, and other sea monsters and have their stomachs ripped open or a limb brok- en by collision with their dorsal fins. When the people on board notice even so much as a drop of blood on the surface of the water, this is a sign to them that the diver has been swallowed by a fish. Cases occur in which the pearl-fisher makes a signal with his rope and the man holding it on board is not able to pull him up; then the whole crew pull with all their strength, and bring him up with his feet bitten off by a monster. (P. 230.) The roundness of a pearl, a necessary characteristic of the finest, was deter- mined by putting the pearl on a plate; if it were perfectly round, it would roll about all day. To avoid the payment of duty, traders often sewed up their pearls in the lining of their garments, and sometimes concealed them in the hollow handles of their umbrellas. Transpar- ent stones, resembling cat's-eyes, were brought from certain streams in Mala- bar. They were believed to have been generated by the vitalizing force ema- nating from certain sparkling substances on the face of the cliffs rising above the streams (p. 88). The real cat's-eye was in the time of our author a favorite jewel for ring-setting, and these rings were frequently worn by foreigners in Canton. Indeed, the wearing of rings appears to have been looked upon as rather a foreign custom. The Ton- quinese, who favored the habit, had rings which were sometimes worth as much as "a hundred gold pieces." Some were set with the bezoar stone (mo-so in Chinese), and if any one took poison unawares he had but to lick the bezoar in his ring and this was supposed to act as an antidote. In Borneo, at this pe- riod, a finger-ring was one of the pres- ents to a bride, and in the Chola do- minion, on the Coromandal coast, en- gagement rings of gold or silver were exchanged between the respective repre- sentatives of bride and groom. It is pleasant to remark that in the time of Chau Ju-kua, the use of king- fishers' feathers for ornamental pur- poses was forbidden by lav/, the supply, such as it was (for luxury would not be denied), being smuggled in by dishon- est traders. As early as 1107 a. d., the reigning Chinese Emperor issued the fol- lowing edict against the use of these feathers, for the making of brocades, or for any other form of personal adorn- ment (pp. 235-6): The Ancient Rulers in their governmental measures extended the principle of humani- ty to plants, trees, birds, and beasts. Now the depriving of living creatures of their life, in order to get their plumage for a perfectly frivolous purpose, is certainly un- worthy of the kindness extended by the Ancient Rulers to all creatures. We there- fore order the officials to stop the practice on pain of punishment. The items we have presented here, gleaned almost at random, show what a storehouse of little-known and curious information the book is. There is a very full index. CURRENT FICTION. Irishmen All. By G. A. Birmingham. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co. In his latest work, a volume of char- acter sketches, Mr. Hannay shows lit- tle patience with countrymen who "play safe" at life, content with a bare living instead of taking risks. Many a college- bred man, we are to infer, casts about for a clerkship in a Government office which, at the most, will bring him but £300 a year. "He might," says the au- thor, "have gone into a stockbroker's office and learned to gamble. It is a dangerous sport, leading to bankruptcy sometimes, to jail occasionally; but the gambler has his great moments." Usual- ly, the writer's tone is less direct. In the chapter devoted to the politician, whom he loves even though he under- stands him, the story is of Timothy Sweeny, who, having insulted a police- man, received in turn a bleeding nose: Timothy, who had the instinct for effect possessed by all great men. held up his dripping hands and turned his faro, then rather streaky, to his admirers. "This," he said, "is the blood which I have shed for Ireland!" It was then, I think, that we first began to realize that Timothy Sweeny would make a good member of Parliament. Other chapters sketch the squireen, the country gentleman, the farmer, the publican, parish priest, etc. That on the farmer represents a subdued, tender side of the author which his fondness for farce all too frequently crowds out. The Great Plan. By Edith Huntington Mason. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co. "The Great Plan" is of suffrage in- spiration, and involves an alliance with a millionaire's pocketbook. That is what permitted Emma to carry out the pet scheme she had hit upon as presi- dent of the Vassar College Suffrage Club. Upon leaving college, she induced her father to buy her a little castle on the Rhine from which to direct operations towards the liberation of the soul of the German Hausfrau from the bondage of Kinder, Kiiche, and Eleider. Her plan was to induce the German Jurigfrau to emigrate from Germany — leaving the men behind her. The resulting depopu- lation of the Empire would undoubtedly bring the Kaiser to terms. Emma took up headquarters in her castle and in- stalled lieutenants in other parts of Ger- many. Then began the canvass for souls. The numher of women who had consent- ed to leave home had reached goodly proportions when the Berlin police put a stop to further operations. Forthwith Emma attacked the citadel — Berlin. Working upon her knowledge of female psychology — obtained at Vassar — she made the vote a "craze." Fashionable women, including princesses of the blood, left their homes, formed a Boy- cott League, and took up residence far from the men. Then the Kaiser, alarm- ed, showed his hand. He offered the ladies a court hall at which a prize was to be given for the most hecoming cos- tume. He had put the crucial test. Miss Mason introduces into her story prisoners in mouldy dungeons, lights gleaming in turret windows lit by the never-dying love of knights of yore, revels of crusaders at the witching hour of night, and reporters' attempts to write up the activities In the suffrage camp. How these occurrences were pos- sible, how the entire affair worked out, whether the soul of the German Halts- frau was freed from bondngo, whether Emma kept her vows of spinsterhood, the modest reviewer could scarcely com- pete with Miss Mason In the telling. HI |fe« Arc Gliosis. By L. P. Jacks. New York: Henry Holt & Co. In this volume are collected a num- ber of those exercises in the direction of fiction which the accomplished edi- tor of the Hibbcrt Journal puts forth from time to time. He is not a born story-teller; but the form of fiction Is no longer even theoretically reserved for
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si T n e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2534 that rare person. Few people now pre- tend to require that a story be a story: it may be a vehicle or a stalking-horse, a canal or a pulpit. Mr. Jacks is, we understand, a philosopher and a psychol- ogist; but he has a human hankering for a wider and perhaps more genial audience than is supplied by the Hib- bert Journal. And the best way to tie a knot on the street-corner is to don the robe and the posture of the professional story-teller. That Mr. Jacks is supporting the role with some success is proved by the fact that two of the narratives in this collec- tion— certainly the best two — have been printed in the Atlantic Monthly. In only one of them does he approach that touch- stone of the highest order of fiction, characterization. But no doubt he would be the last person to claim for himself the power of making people live and breathe on paper. His method is that of the philosophical satirist; his chief obstacle -a somewhat lumbering sense of humor suggestive of the eighteenth-cen- tury essay, rather than the brisk and allusive "short story" of to-day. For example, the idea of his longest sketch — that men are shadowy beings whose existence is doubted among all ghosts except a small and scoffed-at band of "researchers" — is essentially humorous; but the working out of the idea is clumsy and tedious. "The Magic For- mula," the motive of which is, on the face of it, far less clear and "available" as a motive of fiction, succeeds by vir- tue of its delicate seriousness and its touch of mysticism. The long story of the Eastern water-carrier and his strange adventures again takes us back to those of the eighteenth-century essay- ists who so loved the diversion of the allegorical "Oriental tale." But the nut of the present allegory is not for com- mon jaws to crack. SCHOULER'S HISTORY. History of the Reconstruction Period, 1865-1877. By James Schouler. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. $2 net. Thirty-three years have passed since Mr. James Schouler, a Boston lawyer in active practice, published the first vol- ume of his "History of the United States of America under the Constitution." It was completed in 1891, in Ave volumes. But the author thought best to add a sixth in 1899, and we now have a sev- enth, which, in spite of its distinctive title, is a consistent part of the whole. We are assured that it is the last we may expect from the author, and there is added to the present volume a gener- al index, but a poor one, of the entire work. Of the history as a whole, It should be said that the author has given it several revisions, modifying his state- ments as new materials have been made accessible to the public. In his final preface he properly asks that his book be judged by the last edition. If he has not written scientific history, he has at least appreciated its spirit, and he has made use of several of the large manu- script collections that have of late been opened to students. Despite his earnest effort to be modern, Mr. Schouler is an historian of the old school. He has not detachment, he does not escape from partisan bias, and he does not write with a due appreciation of cause and ef- fect. He is a narrator of events. In the book we have an unfolding pano- rama. His story is readable and in- forming. It abounds in good portrai- ture and shows a fine appreciation of the human side of history. It is the history for the average intelligent man. It has been a comfort to many an edi- tor, college student, and busy reader. It will survive in this sense, for it has ac- curacy of statement and sprightliness of narration. The decision to write a seventh vol- ume, we are told, was due to the perusal of the papers of Andrew Johnson, re- cently placed in the Library of Congress, and to the publication of the diary of Gideon Welles, a member of Johnson's Cabinet. Each source showed that John- son's Administration had been misrep- resented by contemporaries and badly described in history. That Mr. Schouler should have wished to vindicate the vic- tim of so much party feeling is evi- dence of the author's fairness of inten- tion. In his earlier volumes he was not free from the sectional point of view. Whether he wrote about the struggles of Federalists against Anti-Federalists and Republicans, or the progress of the great slavery controversy, or the war for the preservation of the Union, he wrote as a New England man, al- though it is evident he wrote in all sin- cerity. In his latest volume his point of view is without sectional cast. It is an illustration of the complete depar- ture of sectionalism from our conscious- ness within the last two decades. So long as the South seemed likely to con- trol the country in her own interest, and the North wished to control it in her own interest, there was sectional sus- picion, and it is hard for a man to use the historical material on which he must rely without reference to this feeling. In later years the divisions in our poli- tics have been by social classes rather than by sections. Until this seventh volume appeared Mr. Schouler could be said to be the last prominent American historian who wrote under the influence of sectionalism. His view of reconstruction Is present- ed with great distinctness. He not only admits the wisdom of Presidential re- construction, but agrees that the South did very well under it until Thaddeus Stevens obtained its overthrow in order to establish a system which was as much inspired by the desire to thwart John- son's political plans as to promote the interest of the negro. Stevens hated the President thoroughly, and he feared his project of uniting the milder men of the North with the Southerners in a moder- ate party which would wipe out of ex- istence the recently organized Republi- can party. Of the President Mr. Schouler says: "I think of Andrew Johnson as a strong and sturdy pine in the forest, which has grown up distorted by some rocky obstruction, twisted out of shape and crooked in trunk, and yet vigorous at the core. He was stubborn in politi- cal opinions where he thought himself right, defiant, ready to fight for them; yet those opinions were just, enlight- ened, and such as only a sound and inde- pendent statesman could have formed." It is doubtful if a juster characteriza- tion of Johnson could be written. During a portion of the reconstruc- tion period Mr. Schouler was in Wash- ington on professional business. Always interested in public affairs, he seized the opportunity to become acquainted with the important matters that were transacted under his eyes. Out of the information he thus acquired he has drawn a body of recollection which he incorporates in the volume with a mod- est apology. We thus get a glimpse of Washington life and many happy char- acterizations of public men. Especially interesting is a chapter in which the improvements in the capital are describ- ed, along with the failure of the at- tempt to establish self-government in the District of Columbia. These rem- iniscences are the most attractive part of a very good volume. The Conquest of Mount McKinley: The Story of Three Expeditions through the Alaskan Wilderness to Mount Mc- Kinley. By Belmore Browne. Ap- pendix by Herschel C. Parker. Illus- trations from original drawings by the author and from photographs and maps. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. $3.50 net. My Life with the Eskimo. By Vilhjal- mur Stefansson. Illustrated. New York: The Macmlllan Co. $4 net. It is impossible to analyze with cer- tainty the .amalgam of motives under- lying the ceaseless movement of north- ern exploration, but the lure of the dif- ficult and dangerous can hardly be less active than the desire to enlarge the bounds of human knowledge. In the three separate efforts that finally brought Mr. Browne and Professor Parker virtually to the crest of Mount McKinley, neither of these motives was destined to be fruitless, though it waa not In their original plan that a part of the fruit of the second should be a dem- onstration of the falsity of a previous claim to the same achievement. To the
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Jan. 22, 1914] The JSTatioxi 85 great majority of readers, surely, the most serious drawback in the literature of northern exploration at the present time is the probability that any new book in that field will be forced inevita- bly into taking up the problem of Dr. Cook, fro.a one angle or another. As he had claimed to have reached the summit in 1906, shortly after parting from Browne and Parker, they could do noth- ing less in their later explorations than sift such evidence as they found for or against that claim, and all the more so in view of the odious polar controversy Which hnd arisen in the meantime. We need only say that they found the ex- act place at which Cook's alleged sum- mit photograph was taken, and found it only a little more than 5,000 feet above sea level. Evidently, Dr. Cook's later failure to distinguish between the fctraight line and the crooked was no sudden psychological effect of the chilly vigils of his "Polar" expedition. The time when his name can pass perma- nently out of current polar literature will be heartily welcomed. In the 1910 expedition, while approach- ing the mountain from the southeast, from the valley of the Chulitna, they dis- covered Dr. Cook's peak. After bettering Cook's elevation by about 5,000 feet, Browne and Parker found this approach impossible, and withdrew. In 1912 they passed further up the Chulitna, and then, swinging to the westward, attacked the mountain from the north, this time successfully. We say successfully, al- though the few minutes' walk which would have led them to the absolute summit from the top of a series of steps which they had cut in the ice was de- nied to them by a fierce blizzard, with blinding snow, which would have made the recovery of their stairway impossi- ble if once they had left it. Their ob- servations place the summit 150 feet higher than the triangulations of the United States Government, or 20,450 feet. Professor Parker's appendix is confined to a few altitude and tempera- ture readings at different points on or near the mountain, with an explana- tory note on the method of determining altitude. In paper, print, binding, and cover decoration, the publishers have given the story an admirable setting. The storms which, as we gather from recent press dispatches, have carried Stefansson's ship from its base to some point at last accounts unknown to him have at least blown him good in attracting attention to his new book, telling of his life with the Eskimo, from 1908 to 1912. The work of these years was planned in consultation with the officials of the American Museum of Natural History, late in 1907, and, as Mr. Stefansson's purpose was mainly ethnological, Dr. Rudolph M. Anderson joined him, in the interest of natural history. The ultimate aim, geographically, was the southwestern part of Victoria Island, where Mr. Stefansson hoped to prove the presence of Eskimo in a region marked "Uninhabited" on official maps of the Canadian Government published as late as 1906. It was in the spring of 1911 that he succeeded in reaching this region, and it was here that he encoun- tered the "Blonde Eskimo" that have taken so large a place in the press dis- cussion of his voyage, though but a few pages are devoted to them in his book. There have been occasional references in Arctic literature to a people of this type, supposed to exist somewhere be- tween the better-known regions to the eastward and westward of Victoria, but it was Stefansson's good fortune to be able to put definite fact in the place of insufficiently supported rumors. He makes no attempt, as yet, scientifically to place them, but sees no historical or geographical bar to the possibility that they are descendants of the early Scan- dinavian colonists of Greenland. If the superficial resemblance to European types is really due to European blood, then he would regard the Scandinavian colony in Greenland as the only expla- nation. Such suggestions as that they are descendants of survivors of the dis- astrous Franklin (expedition are, of course, thrown out. The type is too well marked to be due to so recent an infusion of alien blood. Possibly, the linguistic material collected by Stefans- son may help to a solution of the pro- blem, when sifted by competent philol- ogists, and his accumulation of folklore may yield some light. When we find him, however, stating in an off-hand way that he "also wrote down several hundred thousand words of Eskimo folk- lore in English translation" during two months at Point Barrow, within which many other activities are recorded, we cannot help feeling a little uncertain as to the possible quality of folklore so easily procured. And this feeling is not lessened by the admission in a subse- quent chapter that it was only at a much later date, the last of his five win- ters among the Eskimo, that he could follow without effort the ordinary con- versations going on in their houses. Regardless of opinion on the point at issue, readers will tire, we think, of the frequent airing of his quarrel with the missionaries for disturbing the evolu- tionary balance of normal Eskimo life in general, and making it impossible for him to get any work out of an Eskimo on Sunday in particular. So far as the latter point is concerned, the baleful missionary influence seems to have swept the whole region like a blizzard, from Alaska eastward, even to settle- ments where the missionary himself has never set foot. That missionaries often interfere unwisely with native customs better adapted to actual conditions than any substitute from outside is true enough, but Mr. Stefansson reiterates his objections until one begins to won- der whether, after all, he is not in the position of the traveller who cannot bear to see the picturesqueness of old Naples threatened by any advancement towards cleaning it up and making it fit to live in. With all due allowances, however, the book records a very suc- cessful expedition, the full value of which can be determined only when ex- perts have had time to study the large collections brought back. As an explor- er and collector in this particular field, his ability to do large work with little and inexpensive equipment tells heavily in his favor. The Beginnings of Modern Ireland. By Philip Wilson. Baltimore: Norman, Remington & Company. $3.25 net. Under the above title, Mr. Wilson has given us the first fruits of a care- ful study of Ireland in the sixteenth century. The present volume, which is to be followed by a second, is based upon the best authorities in print, sup- plemented by much manuscript material in the Record Office and at Lambeth. The research has been most thorough, and the reverse of perfunctory. The author knows his subject, and he knows it vitally— he has vanquished his notes, although they surround him at every step. One reason why he has been able to do this is that the subject has for him more than an academic in- terest. He deals honestly with the facts, and writes in judicial temper; but he writes from profound convic- tions which the studied restraint of manner serves only to make more ef- fective. Mr. Wilson is, in fact, an Irishman who is concerned for the pres- ent state of Ireland, which he assumes to be one of "political disease"; and he is a scholar who is seeking the causes of that disease in "the past history of the country." It might be difficult, if the point were pressed, to say what precisely is "po- litical disease," but most men will agree that "there is something rotten in the state of Ireland," and it is not for the historian to deny that the pres- ent may be explained by the past. Now, there are different ways of regarding the past as cause of the present. The way to be profound in this respect is to say that the present is the necessary result of all the past— the outcome of "une trame continue de faits qui s'en- trelacent et se succedent sans cesse." Those who are interested to set Ire- land right will be more apt to hit upon some particular aspect of her history as the fundamental cause of all her troubles; and such causes have often been pointed out, as, for example, the innate political incapacity of the Celtic character, or the vicious influence ot
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HG The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2534 the Roman Church, or the incompati- bility of the English and the Irish tem- peraments. Mr. Wilson clears the ground by discussing all these theories at. some length, and with much acumen; and in the end he finds them inadequate or positively absurd. It is true that there is a national as distinct from a Celtic Irish character, true that the priests have often exercised a baneful influence; and both the Irish character and the influence of the priests greatly complicate the Irish problem now; but these are results, not causes, "not an explanation of the phenomena which it is our business to examine, but rather a part of those phenomena which re- quire to be explained." The conclusion is doubtless just. It is by being over- subtle that Irish history becomes an enigma. Put quite simply, the trouble is that for the most part Ireland has been exploited for the benefit of the English aristocracy, instead of being governed wisely in the interest of all concerned. And now, after centuries of folly, the multiplied errors of the past rise up to thwart the best intentions, and wisdom itself will scarcely prove effective. And this, we suppose, is the reason why Mr. Wilson has entitled his book "The Beginnings of Modern Ireland," although it deals with Ireland in the sixteenth century; modern Ireland being, from his point of view, the abnormal and diseased state of Ireland, he finds its beginnings in the inception of that mistaken policy on the part of the Eng- lish Government which has induced the disease. The present volume is there- fore concerned to present with all nec- essary detail the method and the imme- diate results of the establishment of English supremacy in state and church during the reigns of Henry VIII, Ed- ward, and Mary. The outstanding error of the period is naturally found to be the attempt to impose upon Ireland the English Ref- ormation settlement. Neither the breach with Rome nor the new ritual was popular with any class in Ireland. The rew ritual was unpopular, both because it was an imposition from England and because the ideas of the Christian Ren- aissance, which made it acceptable to Englishmen, had never gained any foot- hold in Ireland. The only effect of the breach with Rome was to weaken Eng- lish influence in the Irish church by binding the Irish priesthood hand and foot to the Pope. Hitherto, the Papacy, having granted Ireland to Henry II, had supported English supremacy; and this support was of immense advantage to the Anglo-Irish as a dominant caste, while at the same time it created a certain national opposition to the Pope. But after the breach between Henry VIII and Clement, the Papacy gave all its influence to strengthen the Irish op- position to England; and this change weakened the position of the Anglo-Irish by attaching the Irish priesthood to Rome. The substantial result of the Reformation settlement, therefore, was to "convert the vast majority of the nation into docile children of the Roman Catholic Church." It is not supersti- tion, but opposition to England, that gives the priests their hold upon the Irish at the present time. The political settlement of Henry VIII has been more often commended. Mr. Wilson admits readily enough that it had its advantages. It was advan- tageous to the chiefs; by surrendering their lands to the King and receiving them back in feudal tenure, they ob- tained the protection of the King against each other, and a more effec- tive control of their followers, who were subjected to them in the relation of tenants. But the settlement of Henry took on the character of a golden age only to those who looked back from the dark days of Cromwell's conquest; for if it had advantages for the chiefs, it had none for the mass of the people. As tenants, the people lost many of their ancient rights over the land, and the loyalty which they had shown to the elected leader largely disappeared when the leader became an hereditary over-lord. Henry had, in a word, "cre- ated Irish landlordism." And although Mary did much to restore religious tranquillity, the political and economic situation which confronted Elizabeth was more serious than it had ever been. There is singularly little to object to in Mr. Wilson's treatment of his sub- ject. He accepts as genuine the Bull Laudabiliter by which Adrian IV is alleged to have granted Ireland to Henry II. It seems to the reviewer that Scheffer-Boichorst and others have clearly demonstrated that the document is spurious. But Mr. Wilson's main argument does not depend upon the genuineness of Laudabiliter, for there is good reason to suppose that Adrian did offer to grant Ireland to Henry, although there is little to indicate that Henry ever accepted the offer. In con- nection with the debasement of the coin- age, Mr. Wilson says that "financial dis- honesty on a large scale dates, in Ire- land at least, from the blessed era of the Reformation." Many sins may be charged against the Reformation, but the debasement of the coinage is hardly one of them. It has been maintained, indeed, that the Reformation and the debasement of the coinage were both results of some more profound economic condition — we have forgotten now just what. Since Mr. Wilson does not say that the Reformation was responsible for financial dishonesty on a large scale, it would have been better perhaps not to have implied as much. It is, how- ever, not often, and never in any ma- terial point, that Mr. Wilson's sympa- thies carry him beyond the just mea- sure. Notes We may expect shortly from Macmillans a new edition of "South America: Observa- tions and Impressions," by James Bryce; "The American Doctrine of Judicial Su- premacy," by Charles G. Haines, and a new edition of "Mexico: The Wonderland of the South," by W. E. Carson. On Saturday Putnams issue "The Judg- ment of the Sword," by Maud Diver; a new edition of "One Generation of a Nor- folk Family," by A. Jessopp, D.D., and "18,000 Words Often Mispronounced," by W. H. P. Phyfe, which is an enlarged edi- tion of this author's similar work dealing with 12,000 words. To provide good historical German read- ing for schools and colleges Prof. W. A. Adams, of Dartmouth, has edited for D. C. Heath, with notes and vocabulary, Rogge's "Der grosse Preussenkonig," which is a life of Frederick the Great. A forthcoming book in the list of Paul Elder & Co. is "The Power of Mental De- mand," by Herbert Edward Law. In Dr. Richard C. Cabot's "What Men Live By," announced by Houghton Mifflin Co., the discussion centres on the topic, "The Call of the Job as the Doctor Sees It." Lord Avebury's "Prehistoric Times" will appear on Saturday from the press of Hen- ry Holt & Co., in a new and thoroughly re- vised edition. The whole question of the Eastern versus the Western attitude towards life is raised in Paul Dahlke's "Buddhist Stories," an- nounced by Dutton. A London publication analogous to the new Unpopular Review is the Candid Quar- terly RevieWj the first issue of which is promised by Mr. Gibson Bowles for Feb- ruary. It threatens with relentless ex- posure "insincerity, dishonesty, corruption, or aught that may bring danger or dis- honor to the State." Mr.Yone Noguchi, who is now lecturing in London, has placed with Elkin Mathews "Through the Torii," a volume of thirty- five essays, a number of which deal with English literature and art. The London Alhrnfriim notes with pleas- ure that Mr. Cecil Harmsworth has repair- ed and restored Dr. Johnson's house, at No. 17 Gough Square, and has thrown it open to the public. "A good part of the restoration consisted in burning off paint, six coats of which were removed from the woodwork of the staircase, which is left with the wood in its natural color." Dr. Johnson's own rooms on the top floor have been re- duced to one, as the partition between them had nearly rotted away. For the encouragement of historical re- search the American Historical Association offers two prizes, each of $200 : the Juitln Wlnsor prize in American history and tho Herbert Baxter Adams prize In Knropean history. Each Is awarded biennlnlly (the
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Jan. 22, 1914] The Nation 87 Winsor prize in the even years and the Adams prize in the odd years) for the best unpublished monograph submitted to the committee of awards on or before July 1 of the given year. The conditions of award can be learned by communicating with the respective chairmen of the committees — with Prof. Claude H. Van Tyne (University of Michigan) as regards the Winsor prize; with Prof. George Lincoln Burr (Cornell) concerning the Adams prize. In Pctcrmnnn'.i Mitteilungen for Decem- ger Graf v. Westarp describes a journey in Armenia and Kurdistan. The great agri- cultural wealth of the region, undeveloped from lack of means of communication with the world markets, strongly impressed him, as did the unlimited possibilities of electric power generated from the numerous moun- tain streams. Other subjects treated are the Spanish lake of Castafieda and the Ad- miralty Island, the least-known part of German New Guinea. There is also an ex- cellent map showing the new provisory boundaries of Servia and Bulgaria. "The Devil's Garden," by W. B. Maxwell. ed in the Nation last week and there credited to the London publishers, Hutchin- son & Co., is issued in this country by the Bobbs-Merrill Co. Mrs. Betham-Edwards is probably better known to American readers for her studies of French life than for her work in fiction, and the introduction of her "Lord of the Harvest" in the World's Classics of the Ox- ford University Press may cause some sur- prise— but it will give greater pleasure. Mr. Frederic Harrison furnishes a eulogistic preface which vouches for the authenticity of the pictures of rural life in Suffolk as the novelist knew that life in her girlhood. It is an exquisite and wholesome story. A superb piece of work from the River- side Press is the quarto reprint of "Wash- ington's Farewell Address," issued by Houghton Mifflin Company in a limited edi- tion at the price of $5 net. Montaigne type is used, and hand-made Italian paper. From the R. R. Bowker Co., of this city, we have received "The Reference Cata- logue of Current Literature" for 1913, pub- lished in London by J. Whitaker & Sons, Ltd. It is scarcely necessary to say that this standard work lists all the books now In print and for sale in Great Britain. As in the preceding issue, the Index is printed in a separate volume; it contains nearly two hundred thousand entries. For any one concerned in English publications the "Reference Catalogue" is indispensable. It was a happy idea of Dr. Jacob Zeitlin. of the University of Illinois, to collect In one volume the writings which justify such a title as "Hazlitt on English Lite- rature" (Oxford University Press). Be- ginning with the essay on the spirit of the Elizabethan age, he arranges these selected essays chronologically down to the studies of Wordsworth and Hazlitt's other great contemporaries. His purpose is to pre- sent Hazlitt's work in such form as to kindle in the student's mind some spark of the essayist's own magnificent enthu- siasm and gusto for literature. To this end also he has prefixed a considerable study of Hazlitt as man and writer — chiefly the lat- ter— which shows good mastery of the sub- ject. There is no attempt on the part of the editor to attribute to Hazlitt critical virtues which he did not possess; possibly, however, he might have forestalled a certain coolness towards Hazlitt's enthusiasm which is likely to arise in the student's mind af- ter the first shock of interest has sub- sided, by setting forth more clearly and frankly the weaker side of Hazlitt's genius. Though Hazlitt, for a man of so passionate an intelligence, was surprisingly fair and balanced in his literary judgments, one cannot but feel in him a certain lack of philosophic reflection, or of what might be called philosophic "character." He responds to good things immediately and sponta- neously and passionately, but these literary reactions are often at variance with his political and social reactions. He is often- est sound aesthetically by instinct; that is the quality of gusto; the higher facul- ty of taste would demand a consistent judgment from the whole nature of the man, aesthetic, mental, and moral. It is perhaps this trait of Hazlitt which makes him really more lastingly satisfactory in such personal essays as "My First Acquain- tance with Poets" and "On Reading Old Books," and Dr. Zeitlin has wisely included four or five of these in his excellent vol- ume. Miss Dorothy Brewster's "Aaron Hill, Poet, Dramatist, Projector" (Columbia University Press), has the merit, somewhat unusual in a doctorial dissertation, of deal- ing seriously with a minor character of literature without attempting to magnify his importance. Despite Hill's enormous and varied activities, and despite the fact that he belonged to one of the most inter- esting groups of men England has known, he himself somehow fails to interest us, and Miss Brewster's careful and exhaustive treatise, though well managed, suffers a lit- tle the penalty of its subject. But for one concerned with Pope and his circle the book will have considerable value. A French academician, not many years since, confessed himself unable, in spite of much rubbing of the eyes, to distinguish very clearly in English literature that note of national gayety which might be expect- ed from the inhabitants of a country praised to all the world as "Merry England." Although it is only fair to remark that the Frenchman was perhaps betrayed by the modern meaning of "merry" into look- ing for somewhat more in the way of high spirits than the original significance of the word warrants — the phrase no more represents an attempt to characterize the national temperament than the correspond- ing expression, "la douce France" — still, we are forced to agree with him that Eng- lish literature and English history are from beginning to end rather serious matters. Such an impression will not be greatly changed by a perusal of Prof. George H. McKnight's well-edited "Middle English Humorous Tales in Verse," issued in the Belles-Lettres series (Heath). The "Fox and the Wolf" is humorous enough in all conscience, but its humor is In large mea- sure hardly more than a skilful presenta- tion in English of what was already cur- rent in the European beast epic, to which England made only one other striking and apparently more original contribution, Chaucer's tale of the cock and the fox. To the cynical fabliau of "Dame Sirlz," the widely diffused tale of the weeping bitch, the word merry, in any of Its senses. could hardly be applied, and the humor of the minstrel romance, "Sir Cleges," is strictly of the slapstick variety. But hu- mor is a highly conventional and hence ex- tremely perishable commodity, and with all abatements the present collection serves as an excellent foil to contemporary pro- ductions at once more imposing and more dour. None of the three texts is conve- niently obtainable elsewhere, and an elabo- rate introduction discussing the numerous and widely distributed versions of the sto- ries, together with a detailed vocabulary, commends the volume to students. A new edition, with new matter, of Her- mann Hagedorn's "Poems and Ballads" (Macmillan) calls attention to his position among the younger poets of the day. As be- tween the two impulses represented by Al- fred Noyes and John Masefield, Mr. Hage- dorn is allied emphatically with the for- mer. Like Mr. Noyes, he turns by prefer- ence to the heroic and escapes from the meanness of the present by themes as scat- tered as Scandinavian mythology, Syrian love, Welsh legend, and Renaissance his- tory. In most of those subjects he is quite at home. They call for moods, not thought, for a sweeping verse, and for the choice image, in all of which properties he is al- most as facile as Mr. Noyes. Not that the forces of the day leave him entirely un- moved. He can chide a painted, powdered girl of fifteen, and find the heaven and hell in "this milky way of souls" which is New York, and grieve over the Senate's dis- crimination as regards the Panama tolls: Hot in the fevered blood of nations blazes The strife of souls. Only by clear-descried Intrepid equity can we endure. But to "live issues" the writer is less inclined than to mingling in that fringe of consciousness of the age which is the Ro- manticist's delight. At times consorting "too precisely" with this spirit makes him a mystic, as in a long outpouring, entitled, "Wings," where he is inarticulate and hys- terical : Hear it ! The Wind ! Wedge the shivering door, Tie firmer the blind. Wings ! The infinite sorrow Of broken things Clutches my spirit. Hear it ! His appeal is most effective in more fa- miliar, even trite themes which require him to be a simple poet, struck by beauty and slightly piqued by mystery. In this vein he sings charmingly of "The Humming- bird": Through the tree-top and clover a-whirr and away ! Hi ! little rover, stop and stay. Merry, nbsiirrt, excited wag — Lilliput-bird in Brobdingnag ! A-whirr again over the garden, nwny : Who calls, little rover? Bird or fay? Agleam and aglow, Incarnate bliss! What do you know that we humans miss? In the lily's chalice, what rune, what spell, In the rose's palace, what do they tell (When the door you bob In, airily) That they hush from the robin, hide from the bee? — Fearing the crew of chatter .nnl song And tell to yon of the chantless tongue? Wlien following his special Inclinations
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ss The UST a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2534 Mr. Hagedorn seldom falters; his verse has tlie desired "go." But until it contains some solid thought it is likely to leave the reader slightly cloyed. Clifton Johnson's skilful reporting, with I camera and pen, of American rural scenes, is carried into the sixth volume of Maemil- lan's Highways and Byways Series— "Prom the St. Lawrence to Virginia." As always, J the author's main concern is with rural 1 characters and rural talk, and the read- er interested in the scenery of travel will grow impatient of the consistent blurring of the background. The chief criticism of the series as a whole, indeed, is the mo- , notony which springs from this preoccu- pation with men and conversation. A farm- er of New York does not talk very differ- ently from a farmer of Wisconsin or Ok- lahoma, or of different matters. But hav- ing chosen his limited goal, the author achieves it with simplicity and truth, and preserves in print the picturesque flavor with which the inhabitants reveal their home life and employments. A certain dis- tinction is lent the present volume in its sketches of survivors of the Civil War. A visit to Gettysburg, and rambles through the Rappahannock and Shenandoah valleys, where in remote districts memories of the conflict sturdily persist, follow winter scenes in the Catskills and Adirondacks, and in the coal and oil fields of Pennsyl- vania. "Mercantile Credit" (Holt), by James E. Hagerty, considers in detail the nature of mercantile credit and its relation to bank and personal or consumptive credit. Sev- eral chapters are devoted to the credit man and his sources of information — mercantile J agencies, travelling salesmen, travelling j credit representatives, attorneys, banks, and a recently developed institution, the credit exchange. A study is made of the collector, his qualifications, his office system, and the most approved methods of collecting ac- counts. General readers will find of most interest the chapter on Mercantile Credit and Depressions. The author maintains that changes in distributive industry have a powerful effect upon the extension of credit and hence upon business failures and cri- ses. The department store, the mail-order ' house, the branch shop, the cooperative purchasing organization, direct selling by I manufacturer to consumer, all reduce the number of distributing agents, and there- fore lessen the volume of credit required. Thus failures and crises are rendered less likely. On the other hand, the frequency and extent of failures increase as the prod- ucts of a country become specialized and depart from the staple type. Credit based upon cotton, iron, or sugar Is less sub- ject to shrinkage in value than that rest- ing upon highly wrought manufactured products. These and other influences must be taken into account in determining the causes of recent crises. The author main- tains that an increase in credit transactions was more largely responsible for the crisis of 1893 than is generally believed. The book contains an historical and analytical ex- amination of the bankruptcy acts of the Federal Government, and a chapter on State insolvency legislation. Prof. W. W. 'Davis's stout volume on "The Civil War and Reconstruction In Florida" (Longmans, Green) adds another to the long list of monographs on American his- tory, economics, and public law for which we have to thank the Columbia Univer- sity School of Political Science, and to which the palm of definitiveness may con- fidently be awarded. The author modestly disclaims any pretence that his work adds greatly to the essential understanding of the period with which it deals, or that much that is new will be found in his pages. Students of American history are coming to see, however, that the working of public policy in the broad field of the na- tion is only to be understood fully when its course has been traced in the States also; and as an exhaustive study of a State dur- ing its seventeen most critical years, Professor Davis's work leaves little to be desired. Where the whole is so thoroughly done, comment upon the excellence of par- ticular features is hardly necessary. Es- pecially interesting and important, however, are the chapters on the economic adjust- ment of Florida to the war, with the sur- vey of industry, State finance, and agri- culture during the war period; on the con- duct and treatment of the negro from 1861 to 1865; on the operations of the ill- starred Freedmen's Bureau; and on the pe- riod of lawlessness and crime which attend- ed the imposition of Republican recon- struction. Never, perhaps, has the course of a great political party suffered such withering condemnation from historians as has that of the Republican party for the twelve years following Appomattox; and Professor Davis's study only confirms the general condemnation. The only material criticism to be passed upon the author's work is in the arrangement of the bibliog- raphy, where a fuller and more detailed annotation of the many rare items and of the Federal documents would have been helpful. It was something of an experiment to take a local history of recognized merit and expand it to twice its original con- 1 tent. In the case of the "History of Lex- ington, Mass." (Houghton Mifflin), the ex- periment has justified itself. Taking Charles Hudson's "History," published in 1868, the Lexington Historical Society has revised the text, and continued the story to 1912. The revision of text involved not only Identification of extracts, but the omis- ; sion of sentences no longer vital to the story, and a page-to-page comparison is re- quired to appreciate what has been done. Interest naturally centres on the account of the battle of Lexington, and the editorial committee could hardly pay a higher tribute to Hudson than by its statement that | "while some new light has been thrown upon that event by modern historians, few, if any, narrations of the Battle are so comprehensive, so well balanced, and so accurate as is Mr. Hudson's." Liberal notes add to Hudson's facts, but his text in these chapters shows few changes. In one In- stance, that of the note on Yankee Doodle, the committee has passed over Sonncck's very careful study of its origin and use. So far then as a new edition of Hudson Is concerned the committee has performed its task with Judgment and thoroughness. The added chapters, bringing the history of the town and its institutions to 1912, Indicate at expansion of town life since 1868, and how far Lexington has satisfied the needs of its population. As a record of such town life the two volumes are all that can be desired. No man of national importance, except Theodore Parker, has tome from its limits, and thus the connec- tion with national history is slight, com- pared with that of the town of Quincy; but this fact enabled the committee to lim- it its labors to the locality. The second volume is devoted to the genealogies of. Lexington families, in itself a great under- taking. In mechanical make-up the commit- tee has adopted the best, so that both in content and in appearance the issue stands among the first on local history. Prof. Charles H. Ambler's "Thomas Rit- chie, a Study in Virginia Politics" (Rich- mond: Bell Book and Stationery Co.) sup- plies much information on a little known but important phase of our political his- tory. Ritchie founded the Richmond En- quirer in 1804, and for forty years it was the mouthpiece of a powerful clique in State politics. He reflected the views of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, and in 1825 followed Van Buren, Crawford's heir, into the Jackson combination. He served the New Yorker faithfully, taking his side against Calhoun. In 1845 he went to Wash- ington to become editor of the Union, found- ed to express the views of the Polk Ad- ministration. He was not a great editor in the sense that Greeley and Bowles were great. He did not make sentiment so much as interpret it. He bent before the blast, and often had to readjust his sailing appa- ratus to suit a changing wind. Owing to his close relations with the various admin- istrations he was generally regarded as a good prophet of coming events, and through the weight Virginia had in Southern af- fairs he was a significant vehicle for ex- pressing the opinion of his State on sec- tional matters. Professor Ambler has drawn the material for his book from the editorials of Ritchie and from the corre- spondence of the same editor and of other important contemporaries. His treatment is chronological and the emphasis is pretty even. Yet his book is not easy reading for even the well-informed reader. It con- tains few attempts at interpretation. On the other hand, it is a treasure-house of valuable matter. It makes it possible to understand better than before the gradual decrease of Virginia's power in the South and the slowly increasing influence of the Gulf States. Ritchie and his friends fought hard to ward off the triumph of Calhoun, knowing that it meant disunion. The logic of the situation was against him. When he failed Virginia was obliged to bow her head and for the second time surrender leadership. When that was done the seces- sionists took control of the South. In "Italian Yesterdays" (Dodd, Mead) Mrs. Hugh Fraser's vein of reminiscence runs pretty thin. Of those vivid personal recollections which constituted the Oharm of her earlier volumes there is only a minimum. Much thai she reports is ro- 1, idlest, hearsay, more 1:; compilation from reading. What we really have Is a OOlleO tion of historical sketches ranging from the early Christ lat irtyrs to Plus IX. Qi 11 Joan of Naples. Mario, and the Man with the Iron Mask are roprosontatlvo lnlernie diate topics. Thoro is a good deal thai ll amusing In tho book, but the random nielli
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Jan. 22, 1914] T li e JST a t i o 11 89 od, with constant slants In all directions, grows tiresome, and the ratio of substantial grain of information to chuff of comment and illustration is unduly small. The death at the age of sixty is report- ed from Paris of Francis de Pressense, an eminent French political writer, who, for a few months in 1880, was Secretary of the French Embassy at Washington. He then resigned from the diplomatic career in or- der to enter active politics. He was not successful in his candidature for the Cham- ber of Deputies until 1902, when ne was elected to represent Lyons. He retired last year. M. de Pressense was president of the of the Rights of Man. One of his most important works was a history of the Union of England and Ireland. He was a constant contributor of political articles to the French press. Science RADIOACTIVITY. Radioactive Substances and their Radi- ations. By E. Rutherford, D.Sc, Ph.D., LL.D., F.R.S., Nobel Laureate, Lang- worthy Professor of Physics, Univer- sity of Manchester. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. $4.50 net. An indication of the interest of the general public in the subject of radio- activity may be found in the proposal of Secretary Lane to conserve all lands containing radiferous ores for the bene- fit of the public, this benefit being ex- pected to accrue in the possible cure of cancer. But this is not the reason for the interest in the book that lies before us, or the reason that its author, easily one of the two most important contribu- tors to this subject, was honored with the award of the Nobel Prize, and has recently been knighted. It is for the in- terest of the wonderful physical rela- tions and the adjustment of the hosts of newly discovered facts into a consistent body of theory that this book, the most recent and the most encyclopaedic trea- tise on the subject, demands attention. Nothing can give a better idea of the rapid development of contemporary physics than the thought that the whole of our knowledge of radioactivity is not quite eighteen years old. In 1904 Pro- fessor Rutherford published his treatise containing 382 pages, followed the next year by a second edition, but the pres- ent work, the greater part of which is entirely new, reaches no less than 670 pages, and in many places is forced to treat matters with a conciseness which, though necessary, is to be regretted. It was in 1895 that the world was astonished by the discovery by Rbntgen of the so-called X-rays, with their mys- terious power of penetrating opaque sub- stances and affecting the photographic plate, and causing fluorescence, or light- ing up, of certain salts exposed to their influence. This discovery suggested to xitnri Becquerel the tnought that cer- tain ordinary bodies might emit sim- ilar radiations, with the result that he stated, on February 24, 1896, that salts of uranium possessed the property of emitting a type of radiation capable of penetrating through a considerable thickness of matter impenetrable to or- dinary light. This power was found not to have, as at first suspected, any connection with the power of phospho- rescence, but to constitute an entirely new phenomenon. It has been found that very many bodies have this power, to which the name radioactivity has been given, and the study of radioac- tive phenomena has given rise to a new and very important department of physics. Besides the salts of uranium, the element thorium and its compounds were learned to have these properties in large measure, and after the examina- tion of great quantities of minerals con- taining uranium and thorium, Madame Curie was able to isolate a new element several million times as powerful as uranium, to which the name radium was given. It may be remarked that the very high price which radium com- mands (at present about $80 per milli- gram) is due to the enormous concen- tration that is necessary, and that the methods of preparation are no secret, having been described at length by Mme. Curie. In the ton of mineral handled by her there was present about 200 milligrams (about one-one-hundred-and- fiftieth of an ounce) of radium. Besides these most important substances, may be named the new elements: polonium, discovered by Mme. Curie; actinium, by her colleague Debierne, and ionium, by the American Boltwood, of Yale. The table given in the first chapter by Ruth- erford contains the names of thirty- two distinct radioactive substances, ar- ranged in three families, according to their genesis. To the original method of study of radioactivity, that of the impression on the photographic plate, was soon added a more powerful one, given by the ef- fect of the new radiations in making gases conduct electricity, or, as it is call- ed, ionizing them. Chapter ii is there- fore devoted to the phenomena of ioniza- tion of gases, a subject studied at such great length by Sir J. J. Thomson and his students, of whom Rutherford was one. In the act of ionization the mole- cules of the non-conducting gas, neutral as regards electricity, are broken up into parts, charged respectively with positive and negative electricity, which constitute the ions (goers) that, under the influence of electric forces, travel and carry the electricity whose motion constitutes the current. One of the tri- umphs of Sir J. J. Thomson was the counting of the number of ions produc- ed in a gas and the determination of the charge, always the same, and constitut- ing the original package of electricity, now denominated the electron, the small- est thing we know, nearly two thousand times lighter than the atom of hydro- gen. This ionization of the gas, then, generally air, is measured by the sim- plest of electrical instruments, the elec- troscope, whose charged gold leaves collapse when the air is ionized by the radiations in question, the rate of col- lapse being faster as the radiations are more powerful. It is one of the strik- ing things connected with radioactivity that all the work is done with extreme- ly simple apparatus, so that many of the figures in this book might have been drawn by a child, frequently rep- resenting a metal tube or box with lit- tle inside. One of the chief results of the study of ionization comes from the fact that a moving ion is deflected by a magnet, the deflection being greater the lighter the ion. It is also deflected by an elec- tric force, the deflection being greater the larger the electric charge of the ion; and it is by combining both these actions that we are able to find the ratio of its electric charge to its mass, a quantity of prime importance. In chapter iii we have treated the various methods of measurement of the radiations, compris- ing the photographic, electric, and the method employing the luminosity pro- duced by the rays on screens of zinc sulphide or similar fluorescent sub- stances. Several forms of electrometer are described, the purpose always being to measure the ionization current pro- duced by the radiations. As an example of the care necessary in manipulation, it is stated that all sources of active matter should be kept in sealed vessels, otherwise the whole laboratory may be- come contaminated, and make measure- ments impossible. It was soon found that the radiations are not all of the same kind, but they may be sharply divided into three kinds, known as a, /S, arid 7 (alpha, beta, and gamma) rays. Examined by the action of a magnet, it is found that the /3 rays are str ugly deflected, In such a direction as to show that they are negatively charged with electricity, and they are shown to be composed of small particles travelling with nearly the velocity of light The most remark- able thing about them is that the charge of each particle is found to be the same as that of the particles composing the cathode rays in exhausted tubes, with which the (i rays are substantially identical. The o rays ,ue but little deflected by a magnetic field, and in the opposite direction, showing that they are positively charged. They move about fifteen times more slowly than light. They are also small particles. many times heavier t' an the >i kit- tftfea. The y ravs ;iro not flevi.v ,> all, and are probably not material par- ticles, but waves similar to the X-rays.
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90 The JSTation [Vol. 98, No. 2534 The a rays are readily absorbed and stopped by thin metal foil or by a lew oentixnetr.es of air. The p rays are about 1UU times as penetrating, and the -, rayd 100 times as penetrating as these, being able to be detected after passing through eight inches of solid iron. These properties enable the dif- ferent rays to be distinguished, and a common way of measuring the activity of substances is to enclose them in an envelope thick enough to let only the 7 rays pass. It is not to be wondered at, then, that many experiments are done with the radioactive substance sealed up in a glass tube. The ionizing effect of the rays is different from the penetra- tion, the a rays producing the most of the ionization, the 7 ravs the least. One of the most extraordinary experi- mental feats connected with the a rays is that of Rutherford himself of counting the a particles shot off from radium and of making a single a par- ticle visible, at least by its effects. This was done by putting the radium in an exhausted tube at a considerable dis- tance from a small hole through which the particle must go to reach the ioniza- tion chamber. In order to make the ef- fect of a single particle perceptible, an electric field of considerable strength was imposed on the gas, so that the ad- ditional effect of the arrivii g a paiticle was magnified several thousand times, and was sufficient to move the electrom- eter. In the appendix we actually see a photograph of the motion of the in- dex of a string electrometer, every tooth upon the record corresponding to the arrival of one a particle. The magni- tude of this performance may be esti- mated when we consider the result that the number of a particles expelled per second from one gram of radium would be 13.6 times a number represented by 1 followed by ten ciphers. Of course, it is only an infinitesimal fraction of such a number that are allowed to go through the hole and register. After four chapters on the three kinds of rays and their properties, we come in chapter viii to the continuous produc- tion and decay of radioactive matter. In fact, while the early experiments had seemed to show the surprising fact that the activity of emission of the rays went on undiminished with time, more care- ful measurements showed that the activ- ity of all bodies was subject to contin- ual decay, according to the very simple law of compound interest, namely, that the rate of loss is proportional to the amount remaining, or, to put it other- wise, if in a given time one-half of the substance has decayed, in the same time one-half of the remainder will have decayed, and so on. To account for this the hypothesis of disintegration of the atom was put forward by Rutherford and Soddy. That is to say, in a sub- stance like uranium, the atoms are not permanently stable, but on an average a constant small fraction of them (about one in a million million millions, or 1018; breaks up each second. The atom- ic explosion is violent, and results in the expulsion from the atom of one, or possioly two, a particles with great velocity. The remaining atom has a smaller atomic weight than the original one, and has quite different properties. Thus we have a spontaneous transforma- tion of the elements, so long looked for by the alchemist and chemist. But the transformation is quite different from ordinary chemical change, in that it is absolutely not affected by temperature or other physical circumstances. It is for this reason that radioactivity is not to be classed under chemistry. The new atoms may disintegrate again, and thus we have the evolution of the radioactive substances, and their arrangement in families, with parents and descendants, of which we have spoken. Thus it has been found that uranium is the grand- parent of radium, its parent being ion- ium, while radium has a long list of descendants, ending with polonium. Some of the descendants are gases, such as the emanation studied by Rutherford, of which there is one for the radium family, one for the actinium, and one for the thorium. It must not be sup- posed that these various generations are equally long-lived, for while the half- value period for uranium is six billion years, that for actinium A is hut two- thousandths of a second. We may be allowed to wonder how the former num- ber may he determined in the short time available here helow, and also to be somewhat skeptical as to the relative accuracy of determinations of quantities of such enormous disparity. In chapter ix we have an account of the radioactive gases, the emanation of radium having its half-period determin- ed with considerable exactness as 3.85 days. The emanations are condensed to liquids by cold, like any gas, and can be absorbed by water and removed by boiling. They also diffuse like ordinary gases, and can have their molecular weights thus determined, the radium emanation being found to have a high molecular weight. In chapter x we have an account of the "active deposit," which is deposited on the surface of substances exposed to emanations, and constitutes a more or less complex radio- active substance. In chapter xiii, on radium and its emanation, in which among other things we find the spec- trum of the latter, we get an account of the separation of metallic radium, ac- complished for the first time by Curie and Debierne in 1910, by the electrolysis of radium chloride. After several chapters on radium, ac- tinium, thorium, and their products, we come in chapter xvil to the very Inter- esting subject of the production of he- lium and the emission of heat. Helium is a gas that was discovered spectro- scopically by Lockyer, in 1868, as exist- ing in the sun. No evidence of its ex- istence on the earth was discovered un- til 1895, when Ramsay showed that a gas found by Hillebrand in Washington to be given off on solution by certain minerals was identical with helium. Helium is chemically a very inert gas, and as it was found in considerable quantities associated with uranium and thorium, it was suggested by Ruther- ford and Soddy that it might be a dis- integration product of the radio ele- ments. Additional weight was lent to this suggestion by Rutherford's discov- ery that the a particle expelled from radium had an apparent mass twice that of the hydrogen atom, and might prove to be an atom of helium. This was found by Ramsay and Soddy to be the case, and they eventually had the satisfaction of seeing a tube of radium emanation in which the spectroscope revealed no helium at first, after stand- ing four days, develop the character- istic helium spectrum. This was an event of great importance, as it was the first definite evidence of the pro- duction of a known element during the transformation of radioactive matter. It was finally shown conclusively by Ruth- erford that the a particles from all types of radioactive matter were iden- tical and consistea of helium atoms car- rying two unit positive charges of elec- tricity. From the measurement of the rate of production of helium and the amount of it already found accumulat- ed in certain minerals, it is reckoned that some of the primary uranium and thorium minerals are more than 200 mil- lion years old. One of the properties that have at- tracted the most attention and given rise to the most discussion is the con- tinuous emission of heat by radioac- tive bodies. The first definite measure of the amount of heat energy radiated was given by P. Curie and Laborde in 1903. They found that a radium com- pound kept itself continuously at a tem- perature several degrees warmer than that of the surrounding atmosphere. The amount of heat emitted by the radium was more than enough to melt per hour an amount of ice equal to its own weight. An active discussion arose as to the source of all this energy, and it was asked whether the doctrine of conservation of energy was overthrown, or whether the radioactive bodies pos- sessed some hitherto unknown means of taking up energy from outside and converting it into heat; but it is now pretty generally admitted that the ener- gy is stored in the atom, and is not In- exhaustible, though very great In quan- tity. The enormous amount of energy released in transformations accompa- nied by the exi uls'Oli f a rns may be seen from the statement that the
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Jan. 22, 1914] The Nation 91 emanation during its successive trans- formations gives out more than ten million times as much energy as the combination of an equal volume of hydrogen and oxygen to form water, al- though the latter reaction is accompa- nied by a larger release of energy than by any other known to chemistry. It is no wonder then that radium can pro- duce burns and destroy diseased tis- sues. The radioactive transformations also throw much light on the structure of the atom, models of which have been pro- posed by Lord Kelvin and Sir J. J. Thomson, representing it as a sphere made of positive electricity, in which circulate in nearly circular orbits swarms of negative electrons. It has been shown that under certain circum- stances such an arrangement can be- come unstable, and one or more elec- trons would be expelled, as in radioac- tive changes. At any rate, it is evident that the atom is far more complicated than our old-fashioned ideas, which sup- posed it indivisible. In the last chapter we have an account of the radioactivity of the earth and atmosphere. As has been hinted above, it turns out that nearly everything is more or less radio- active, earth, air, rain, and snow. Geol- ogists like Joly and physicists like Strutt have attempted careful estimates of the distribution of radioactive mat- ter in the earth's crust, and have shown that there is more than enough to ac- count for the internal heat of the earth. In fact, if they are right, there will not be much cooling of the earth for the next hundred million years. It will be seen how these results entirely upset Lord Kelvin's estimate of the age of the earth, made without any assumption of internal production of heat. In an appendix we find two remark- able photographs showing the track of a and ./3 particles made visible bv their effect in condensing water vapor, and the registration of the expulsion of a particles mentioned above. We feel then that these modern magicians have actually made us see the formerly hypo- thetical atom. At the end we find a set of tables and an excellent index. Throughout the book one is impressed with the calm and unsensational tone adopted, absolutely free from the hys- terical statements which we so often see in the press, and from any non- sense about the application of the great stores of energy of radium to drive en- gines, so eagerly desired by the sensa- tional novelist. May we not in conclu- sion congratulate Sir Ernest Ruther- ford on what he has accomplished in forty-two years, and wish him an equal- ly productive remainder of his life. Dr. Edward Charles Spitzka, who dropped dead last week at his home in New York, was prominent as a neurologist. He was born in New York, November 10, 1852. He attended the College of the City of New York, 1870-73, and the New York University Medical College in 1873. From 1873-76 he studied in Leipzig and Vienna. Dr. Spitzka was a specialist in internal diseases, par- ticularly of the nervous system, and served as a medical expert in cases of mental disorder; at the trial of Guiteau, the as- sassin of President Garfield, he testified to the prisoner's insanity. From 1881 to 1884 he was the editor of the American Journal of Neurology. He was the author of a "Treatise on Insanity." Dr. Benjamin Osgood Peirce, Hollis pro- fessor of mathematics and natural philoso- phy In Harvard University, died on Wed- nesday of last week at his home in Cam- bridge. He was in his sixtieth year. Pro- fessor Peirce was born in Beverly, Mass., February 11, 1854; he graduated from Har- vard in 1876, and three years later obtained the degree of Ph.D. at the University of Leipzig, after which he studied for a year in Berlin. Returning to America, he taught in the Boston Latin School, 1880-1881, and then became an instructor in mathematics at Harvard. In 1884 he was made assistant professor of mathematics and physics, and in 1888 he became Hollis professor. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, American Mathematical Society, American Physical Society, Astronomical and Astrophysical Society of America, So- ciete Franchise de Physique, Circolo Mate- matico di Palermo, a Fellow of the Ameri- can Academy of Arts and Sciences, and of the American Philosophical Society. Among his published works are "Theory of the Newtonian Potential Function," "Table of Integrals," and "Experiments in Magnet- Ism." Drama W. S. Maugham's "The Land of Promise" will be issued shortly by Edward J. Clode in a profusely illustrated edition. It is clear that as long as the world goes round moths will rush into candle flames, lawyers will dash into the Bacon-Shake- speare controversy, and professors will ex- plain the sonnets and pluck at the heart of Hamlet's mystery. Wilbraham Fitzjohn Trench is an ex-professor, late of Univer- sity College, Galway. He knows his Furnegs, his Dowden, the recent work of Professor Bradley, and much else. But highly as he regards, for example, Mr. Bradley's valuable work, he finds that solid critic's interpretation of Hamlet "quite in- compatible with mine." And so he pre- sents us "Shakespeare's Hamlet, a New Commentary" (Smith, Elder & Co.). He is of the opinion that he offers something "more or less new" on the source and na- ture of Hamlet's madness, on the Pyrrhus speech in Act II, Sc. ii, on the authorship of the sub-play (that it is all by Hamlet's I hand and is not the Gonzago murder story), on Ophelia's character and her insanity, on the difference between "stage effect" and the "Shakespearean conception of dramatic effect." Mr. Trench, like most of his re- cent predecessors, feels that the distinctive I feature of his exposition is its objectivity, j its freedom from impressionistic conjec- ture. It is not likely that any other stu- dent of Hamlet will be impressed by his objectivity. To the writer of this note, for instance, his conception of Hamlet seems grounded less firmly on the facts of the play than that of Professor Bradley, his treatment of Ophelia occasionally sugges- tive but on the whole slanderous, and his theory of the authorship of the sub-play a mere "cranky" whim. If we had a volume at our disposal, we could set forth the rea- sons for the faith that is in us; we could explain to him that— "The rest is silence." "Shakespeare and Stratford" (Little, Brown), a recent addition to the Literary Shrine series, by Henry C. Shelley, is a pleasantly written and well-made little book, which will be useful to tourists mak- ing a first visit to the Shakespearean coun- try. It contains nothing new, of course, but offers a convenient, consecutive, and accurate epitome of the known facts and most of the legends relating to the poet, his family, and his neighbors. The author wisely refrains from theorizing on his own account and exhibits a judicious skepti- cism in dealing with the more or less plau- sible guesses of impressionable and credu- lous enthusiasts. He depends chiefly upon the researches of such qualified scholars as Halliwell-Phillipps and Sir Sidney Lee, and does not hesitate to quote the indis- putable dates which prove that Shake- speare was not born in the cottage common- ly revered as his birthplace, although he doubtless lived' in it as child and youth. Of the authenticity of a good many of the so-called relics he disposes in curt and ef- fective fashion, and he has some pertinent comments to make upon the petty and sor- did commercialism, long a discredit to the town of Stratford, which is much more con- cerned about the extortion of the nimble sixpence than the glorification of the bard. It is well that a word of warning should be given to simple-minded pilgrims con- cerning the manifest fraudulency of the "mulberry tree" and other mementos of which the annual sale is enormous. That the original New Place mulberry may have been the actual property of Shakespeare is not unlikely, considering the slow growth of those trees and the great age to which they attain, but the last scrap of it must have been used up long ago. Of the early days and gradual development of Stratford Mr. Shelley, quoting freely from the writ- ings of Irving, Hawthorne, and others, gives a full and interesting account, and he has a very pleasant and instructive chapter upon the Shakespeare villages, Charlecote, Hampton Lucy, Snitterfield, Wilmcote, and Shottery, plentifully illustrated with un- commonly artistic photographs of the buildings and spots most intimately asso- ciated with the poet and his connections. He has composed an admirable guide-book and has supplemented It with some notes for tourists which will well repay observa- tion. Sir Herbert Tree has formulated his plans for His Majesty's Theatre in London for some time ahead. To succeed "The Darling of the Gods" he has a dramatized version, by Norman MacOwan and Charlton Mann, of "The Blue Lagoon," the novel by H. de Vere Stacpoole, and a new drama by E. Temple Thurston, on the subject of "The Wandering Jew." He also has commissioned Louis X. Parker to make a new stage ver- sion of "David Copperfleld," in which he
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€>2 Tlie JSTation [Vol. 98, No. 2534 proposes to double the parts of Daniel Peg- gotty and Wilkins Mlcawber. It may be doubted whether he has the ruggedness or sincerity for Peggotty, but he ought to be able to do something striking with Micaw- ber. At the London Vaudeville Theatre Nor- man McKinnel and Frederick Whelen are to produce a new four-act play, entitled "Mary Girl," by a woman dramatist, who makes her first venture on the West-end stage, Mrs. Leonard Merrick. Her heroine is a woman in humble life, married to a man of aus- tere, though loving, disposition. The two live happily together, content with their por- tion in life. Then Mary is transported into a world of which she has but the dimmest consciousness, with the result that her views, her ambitions, her outlook upon ex- istence are materially altered. Out of this situation spring various dramatic and in- teresting incidents. The parts of husband and wife are to be played by Norman Mc- Kinnel and May Blaney. Oscar Asche and Lily Brayton, newly re- turned from Australia, will soon revive "Kismet" in London. George Slythe Street, appointed examiner of plays in England, in the place of the late Charles Brookfield, has edited an edi- tion of Congreve's plays, in a series of which the late W. E. Henley had the chief charge. He was one of the circle which in- cluded Kipling, Barrie, and Wells, and is himself an author of several books. Prob- ably his best-known novel is "The Trials of the Bantocks," which appeared in 1900, but a more popular work is his "Ghosts of Piccadilly." Mr. Street is London born. He received his education at Charterhouse School before proceeding to Oxford. His only appearance as a playwright was at the Stage Society, which produced his com- edy, "Great Friends," eight years ago. He has been a not infrequent contributor to reviews and magazines. The production in Paris of "The Playboy of the Western World" by M. Lugne-Poe was marked by the utter discomfiture of the critics. Partly this was owing to the in- capacity of the French language to re- produce Irish cadences. Pegeen Mike's de- spairing cry, "Oh, my grief, I have lost him surely! I have lost the only playboy of the Western world," was denatured into "Oh, douleur! Je ne le verrai plus jamais. Je ne verrai plus l'unique baladin du monde Occidental." The play was various- ly described as "an Irish Peer Gynt," and "a rural Bernard Shaw." Some critics found a close relation between Synge and Swift. But all united in condemning the wit as being uncongenial to the French tempera- ment. Prof. Rudolf Genee, who was best known in England and this country for his writ- ings and lectures on Shakespeare, is dead in Berlin; he was in his ninetieth year. A graduate of the Gymnasium zum grauen Kloster and the Kdntgliche Kunstakademie, he became in 1859 editor of the Dam iger /' ttung and two years later of tbe B oow ger Zeltung. (lis Shakespearean lectures took him to the principal university towns of Germany and were carried on from 1865 to 1887. But Shakespeare was his specialty, Dot tbe limit of his scholarly interests. He wrote on English mystery and morality plays, besides much on the contemporary German stage. He was the author of mono- graphs on Goethe, Hans Sachs, A. W. Schleg- el, Kleist, and Bismarck. His latest work on the great English dramatist is entitled "William Shakespeare in seinem Werden und Wesen." As. a young man he himself was a dramatist of some promise. Music The Life of Ethelbert Nevin. By Vance Thompson. Boston: Boston Music Co. $2.75 net. Vance Thompson believes that Ethel- bert Nevin's place in the history of music is permanent; that his songs, "born of an impulse at once personal and mysterious, have the eternal youth of the world's folk-songs." In any case, few of the world's folk-songs have been sung more frequently than his "Rosary," and few piano pieces played oftener than his "Narcissus." In distant Algiers Nevin heard a young fellow whistling it. Street musicians ground it out every- where. He himself continued playing this piece because the audiences demand- ed it, but he came to the point of re- ferring to it in a letter as "that nasty little 'Narcissus.' " As for the "Rosary," a sentimental semi-religious song, dear to the public, Mme. Schumann-Heink has called it her favorite American song. She thinks it great because in it are "heart interest and beautiful mel- ody." She has sung it numberless times, not only in the United States, but in Germany, where the public "went wild" over it, even though she presented it in English. Wherever she sings it, she and the whole audience are "swept along in artistic transport to that anguished cry for a happiness that has escaped us. A song like that, to make all hearts beat together, is a work of genius." It isn't — but let that pass. Nevin himself knew he had written much bet- ter things — songs like those which Philip Hale praised as characterized by "spontaneity of melodic invention" and "subtleties of harmonization." Rupert Hughes, in his book on "Contemporary American Composers," went so far as to say that one of Nevin's songs, "Au- tumn Mood," which did not win im- mediate popularity, was to him "as great as the greatest of the Lieder of Schumann, Schubert, or Franz." In view of the fact that Nevin lived only thirty-eight years (he died in 1901), the list of his compositions is surprisingly large; it fills six pages of this volume, in which they are arranged according to the year of publication. Most of them are for solo voice with piano, or for piano alone; but there are also a few pieces for violin and piano, choruses for men's or mixed voices, and a <:in- tata, which appears to have been his longest flight. The biography prepared by Vance Thompson consists largely of extracts I from Nevin's letters to his family, par- ticularly to his mother; those to his wife were considered too intimate and most of them were destroyed before his death. She was to him a critic as well as a helpmeet; during the thirteen years of their married life she saved everything that bore the mark of his thumb-print, thus facilitating the biog- rapher's task. Apart from the revela- tion which this book gives of the per- sonality of one of America's most me- lodious and popular composers, it re- minds one a little of Amy Fay's "Music Study in Germany" because of the vivid pictures it gives of the life of American students abroad. Before he went to Germany, Nevin studied in Boston, of the musical life in which town he also gives some account. His aim was to become a concert pianist, and al- though he was never in robust health, he worked ten to twelve hours a day. Often he despaired of reaching his goal. One day, after climbing Savin Hill and gazing at the boats and steamers below, he wrote to his mother: "I almost wish- ed I could bury myself in one of the ships, away out in the deep, and give up all the toil and worry of trying to be an artist. Oh, how discouraged I am! I don't think I shall live to be great, and I don't see how I can live if I'm not." It was his good fortune to have for his principal teacher B. J. Lang, who stood at the top of his profession in the Boston of that day. This eminent musician, of whose methods and activi- ties Nevin gives interesting glimpses in his letters, soon discovered his pupil's exceptional gifts and gave him unusual opportunities. At first the master some- times got angry with the pupil, but this was nothing to what Nevin had to en- dure when he went to Berlin and be- came a pupil of Wagner's great friend, Professor Klindworth. He used to meet the pupils of this celebrity coming from their lessons, "white with anger and tears streaming down their faces"; and from what he heard he expected the professor to fling busts of Beethoven at his head, or throw him out of the win- dow. He was promptly informed he had "much to learn," was coldly crit- icised, and got no praise; but when he hoard that Klindworth had told one of his pupils that he had an American named Nevin who was one of the most talented fellows he had ever seen and who was sure to make a stir in tbe musical world, he was consoled; and subsequently ho realized that Klind- worth's treatment bad made him work harder than any other might have sm- ceeded in doing. Two years he remained with this pedagogue, who gradually treated him with more ooniideratlon lie also studied with Hans von BulOW, Returning to America lie Ii.ul a hard
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Jan. 22, 1914] The 3STation 93 time trying to make his living as a teacher or a player. Pittsburgh wel- comed him at his debut as pianist, but subsequently ignored him when he needed to raise money by his playing to marry. Fortunately, his composi- tions began to sell, and thus he was able to give up his idea of becoming a trav- elling virtuoso. As a player he more and more confined himself to his own works. A critic who spoke of him as being, with MaeDowell, one of the two leading American composers, declared that "MaeDowell plays more like the devil" while "Nevin plays like a poet." Failing health compelled him to make a trip to Algiers. In his earlier let- tors the reader follows him through his adventures in Florence, in and near Ber- lin, the Spreewald, Heidelberg, and Bay- reuth. He worshipped Wagner, and much of his time was devoted to coach- ing singers in Wagnerian roles. These and many other details are told In en- tertaining fashion by Mr. Thompson. His volume is adorned with a number of portraits and other pictures, and there are some pages of music by Nevin not heretofore printed. The Vienna Royal Opera has paid over to Richard Wagner's heirs more than 1,000,000 crowns in royalties during the last thirty years. This makes an average of more than 33,000 crowns, or $6,600, annually paid to the Wagners from this one institution alone. From this an estimate can be made of the enormous income that Wagner's heirs have derived from the thousands of per- formances in all parts of Europe during these three decades. The Philadelphia Orchestra, at its twelfth pair of concerts, played the funeral march from the "Eroica" symphony in memory of the late Dr. Weir Mitchell. The programme book printed also a poem on that distin- guished citizen by Harvey M. Watts. G. P. Putnam's Sons have made arrange- ments with Lilli Lehmann for the publica- tion by them of a translation of her valu- able and entertaining Memoirs. The trans- lation is now in preparation by Mrs. George W. Seligman. Elena Gerhardt, the famous lieder sing- er, is a great admirer of the songs of Eugen Haile, and she has put some of them on her programmes. Other singers would do well to follow her example, as these songs are far superior to many of those often sung, being modern yet melodious. And amateurs, by buying them, would help the composer, whose ill-health prevents him from earning his living. Arnold Schoenberg, whose quartet in D minor will have its first public perform- ance in this country by the Flonzaley Quar- tet, Monday evening, January 26, was born in Vienna, September 13, 1874. Now looked upon by some as a composer "whose every chord is the outcome of an emotion," he states it as his mission to free harmony from all rules. He once taught harmony in such academic institutions as Sterns Con- servatory, Berlin, and the K. K. Akadamie fur Musik, Vienna. As master-symbolist in music, he has, as Huneker says, "the courage of his chromatics." Concentration is the leading motive of all he does, and he has already accomplished much. Besides the Quartet in D minor, there is another, a string sextet, a symphonic poem, "Pelleas and Melisande," and a set of pieces for orchestra; choral works, piano pieces, and many songs. In 1910 he published a book on harmony which illustrates his theories. Art The collector, whether professional or amateur, will find in "Staffordshire Pot- tery and Its History" (McBride, Nast), by Josiah C. Wedgwood, much valuable and heretofore inaccessible information about the North Staffordshire potteries; yet the author has not aimed to pro- duce a connoisseur's book. As hon- orable secretary of the William Salt Archseological Society, he dedicates his book "to my constituents who do the work," and he believes that it will be chiefly in- teresting to people to whom "the potbank and the shard ruck are as familiar and as full of old associations as the cow shed to the countryman or the nets along the links to the fishing population." He mod- estly hopes "that many students of history and sociology will find such a trade history as this of some value in their researches." They will. The book contains much to sup- plement such works as Cooke-Taylor's "The Modern Factory System" and Jonathan Thayer Lincoln's "The Factory System." Its tone is temperate and liberal. The Tory, truculently opposed to the present British Government's schemes of social re- form, will find no comfort in this state- ment, anent a recent prohibition of the potter's right to poison his employees: When one remembers the intense hostility to this Home Office interference, it is cu- rious to see how satisfactorily and easily the rules have worked out in practice. Pot- ter's asthma is nearly extinct, and lead poisoning cases in the potteries have fallen from an average of 362 a year in the period 1896-8 to 93 a year over the years 1905-7. . . . The chief credit for this new de- parture should be attributed to William Owen, of the Potter's Union, and to the Duchess of Sutherland and Sir Charles Dilke. The changes wrought by capitalism in a trade which began in the sixteenth century as a peasant industry, conducted in rude sheds in backyards, and which to-day is highly specialized, Mr. Wedgwood traces with wealth of illustrations and circum stantial detail. One suspects him of lean- ing backward in praising the work and character of competitors of his distin- guished ancestors. While the narrative does not purport to be critical, it leaves the reader in no doubt as to the author's opinion of the periods of good taste and those of aesthetic decadence. The story of Methodism in the potteries is essential, for this influence, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, changed the potter's characteristic amusement from cock fight- ing to psalm singing. It affected the com- munity's business life. "If you worked for Job Ridgway, you had to attend his chapel also." The potteries, like the textile towns, have had disturbances due to labor- saving machinery. Mr. Wedgwood, in op- position to a prevailing belief in the value of any and all machine production, asserts that "the pottery workers themselves have lost something through the introduction of machinery. The proportion of women and young persons employed in the industry is double what it was in 1850, and the work of married women is not good for the rest of the people." "Hans Holbein the Younger," by Arthur B. Chamberlain, scrupulously sets down whatever is known about the great por- traitist. This involves an enormous amount of detail and of incidental history. The work has been done painstakingly and ac- curately. Numerous appendices and an ex- cellent index stamp the work as a scholar's book. It would be idle to remark that nar- rative ease and criticism are not to be ex- pected. In such regards the treatment is merely adequate. Kenyon Cox's capital essay would have explained the surprising archaisms of Holbein's English manner. Mr. Chamberlain brings a judicial mind to the main problems of connoisseurship and biography. He inclines to think the little Madonna of 1514 at Basel an Ambrosius Holbein. Against many critics, he holds the famous Windsor chalk portraits to be relatively intact. The Nostell Priory ver- sion of Sir Thomas More's family he takes to be a badly garbled original, of which the face of More and the composition are Hol- bein's, the execution generally that of an inferior follower. Naturally, Mr. Cham- berlain makes light of the romance of Magdalena Offenburg, the model for the Venus and the Lais Corinthica. Since he discusses contemporary British portraiture at length, he might well have included the Cranmer of the Metropolitan Museum, which until quite recently bore Holbein's name. Towards the Lady Lee of the Alt- man collection Mr. Chamberlain is non- committal. We agree with Roger E. Fry that it is very difficult to see the actual workmanship of Holbein in this admirable portrait. Mr. Chamberlain's book imme- diately becomes the standard source of ref- erence. While the appeal is chiefly to scholars, the handsome printing and excel- lent illustrations, many in colors, of the two folios should eminently qualify them for a gentleman's library. The manufac- ture ifl English, the publisher Dodd, Mead & Co., the price sixteen dollars net. "Forty-three Drawings by Alastair" (Lane) is published in a choicely made folio at $12, the edition being limited. Robert Ross contributes what he calls an "exclamation point." Without this title it would be hard to tell it from the usual laudatory preface. The young cosmopoli- tan draughtsman Alastair — he is said to have French, English, and Spanish blood, and he certainly lives in Germany — is in many ways a reincarnation of Beardsley. He has the same exquisite sense of spotting and placing, the same piquant juxtaposi- tion of bold blots and minutely penned pat- terns; and withal a very similar morbid imagination. The most powerful study in the album is the portrait of Signora Duse, a masterpiece of the overstrained sort. Without exception, the work is inspired by a curious and revolting pruriency, and the technical merits which we have in Justice noted by no means redeem the essential filthlness of the things expressed.
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94= The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2534 No tourist with a grain of artistic sensi- tiveness can travel through rural England without being impressed by the subtle charm of the domestic architecture of that land of homes. The source of the impres- sion is not always consciously perceived, for many of these homes, set back from the highways and embowered in trees, are so integral a part of the landscape that one does not readily dissociate them from their surroundings. Apart from the unpretentious straightforwardness of their design and the pleasing proportions of gables, wings, and roofs, their chief merit consists very largely in this oneness with their environ- ment; and this in turn is due in large measure to the fact that they are built of the local materials, so that their style and aspect vary from one district to another with the geology and topography of the dis- trict. The contrast with modern American practice is striking in this respect, for the materials for our houses are brought from "all over," and style and design depend much more on the individual taste of owner and architect than on the kinds of storife and timber found in the vicinity. American architects are beginning to appreciate and to study English models in the effort to discover the secret of their charm and to impart something of the same quality to their own designs. The multiplication of books by English writers in this field has by no means yet exhausted the subject, and such an addition to the list as Louis Am- bler's "The Old Halls and Manor Houses of Yorkshire" (Scribner) is sure to be cordial- ly welcomed on this side of the ocean as well as on the other. Finance "BUSINESS" AND THE GOVERN- MENT. Last Tuesday's address by the Presi- dent to Congress, on the Administra- tion's programme for new company leg- islation was not only almost the single topic of this week's financial discussion, but may be described as the objective point towards which the markets have for six weeks past been moving. As denned on Tuesday, Mr. Wilson's pro- posals differed in no essential regard from the forecasts which had been free- ly sent out from "Washington during the week preceding. By themselves they are fairly drastic. If proposed in the earli- er stages of the Anti-Trust controversy, they would surely have occasioned great uneasiness in financial and business cir- cles. Yet definite reports of this new policy have been accompanied by the al- most continuous six weeks' rise on the Stock Exchange, by the turn for the bet- ter in general business, and by a rise in prices, after brief hesitation, even when the text of the message had been read. In part, this altered attitude Is certain- ly explained by the reasonable and con- ciliatory attitude taken by the Presi- dent and his law officers in recent dis- solutions, and by the distinct assurance of this week's message that the Admin- istration's purpose is "not to unsettle business or break its established courses. But the financial community's attitude also has some relation to the underlying soundness of tbe financial position itself, when the new proposals were set forth. It would be a pretty subject of de- bate, whether the Administration at Washington is more fortunate in the rising stock market, because the rise throws a glamour of popularity over its policy towards business, or the stock market more fortunate in the Adminis- tration's policy, because that gives a concrete and continuing explanation for the rise in prices. "Whichever view is taken, the "Wilson Administration's good fortune must be admitted. There have been times when the Stock Exchange, with the best intentions, could scarcely have given this week's cordial response to the series of announcements. A sur- render of recalcitrant corporations to the Government, announced when finan- cial affairs were as deranged as they were in the summer of 1903 or the au- tumn of 1907, would either have fallen flat, so far as concerned the judgment of the financial community at large, or else, more probably, would have been denounced as the cause of all the trou- ble. The extent to which a rising stock market, and the trade revival which is apt to accompany it, help the party in power and its leaders, is an old story. It has caused interesting conjectures as to the probable course of political history on certain occasions, if Prosperity, and its index in the Stock Exchange, had not moved as they did. Supposing that the Harrison Administration had ended on March 4 of 1895 instead of 1893; that the great panic of the last-named year had therefore occurred in the same Presidential term as the legislation of which it was partly the fruit, and that Cleveland's second term had then begun when the sudden business recovery of 1895 was under way — how many things in politics might not have happened which now stand on the records? Or if McKinley had taken office in 1894 in- stead of 1897 — thus starting in a year of disastrous and unavoidable liquida- tion— would a Dingley high-tariff law have won the same place in popular tradition as the "Wilson low-tariff law actually did, or not? So far as regards the present, it would not be wholly easy to determine just how much of the better feeling (and of the rise on the Stock Exchange) is directly attributable to the new relations between the Government and the com- panies. Certainly not all of Jt is; and yet some part of it must be. Cause and effect are Inextricably mixed In all such matters. This much may be said with- out hesitation — that the mere prospect of somehow removing most of the un- certainties which have so long sur- rounded the question of the "Anti-Trust suits" was bound to be welcomed in financial circles. Even people who recognized that there was no way to check the monstrous ten- dencies of 1901 but by invoking the full sweep of the Anti-Trust law, and even people who cordially approved the forci- ble dismemberment of the Northern Se- curities and the Standard Oil and the American Tobacco, had nevertheless to admit that a mass of chaotic possibili- ties was left. How the law would there- after be applied, where it would be ap- plied, to whom it would be applied, were questions which nobody could an- swer confidently. There were a dozen different schools of interpretation. A spirit of uneasiness in conservative cir- cles, and a spirit of wild suggestion in radical circles, were the inevitable re- sult of such conditions. "We are presently to see, no doubt, how far the recent striking events in the field of government and Big Busi- ness have actually pointed the remedy. It will be said on the one hand that vol- untary dissolution of a powerful com- pany is no more favorable an outcome, so far as regards the enterprise itself, than compulsory dissolution after suit. But, on the other hand, it will certain- ly be suggested that, if the great com- binations break themselves apart with so little inconvenience, disturbance, loss of usefulness, or sacrifice of intrinsic value, as officers of the New Haven Railway and the Telephone combination have professed in the case of their own dissolutions, then the terrors of the Anti-Trust law, as applied to all the rank growth of the eight short years which began in 1899 and ended in 1906, must have been strangely exaggerated. The public has had its fill of argu- ment on the other side. For years it has heard how such mammoth combina- tions as these were "suited to the spirit of the age," how only through them could we "hold our place in world-com- petition," and how, if we were to give them up, we should "revert to the busi- ness methods of fifty years ago." Since most of the same public was alive and capable of observation as long ago aa 1899, it has always taken this reasoning at an easy valuation. But It would none the less be enormously relieved to have the weight of constant unsettlement and uncertainty in some degree removed. No doubt the Stock Exchange has reflected such a feeling. BOOKS OP THE WEEK. Allen, N. B. Industrial Studies— Europe. Boston: Ginn. 80 cents. Caldwell, Robert. Comparative Grammar of the Dravidlan or South-Indian Family of Languages. Third edition, revised and edited by J. L. Wyatt and T. R. Plllat. $4 net. Carus, Paul. Nietzsche. Chicago: Open 1', .ml Pub. Co. $1.25 not. 1 'in ilterton, G. K. The Flying Inn. Lane. |1.80 net.
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Jan. 22, 1914] The JNTation 95 Doon, E L. Joan's Green Year. Macmil- lan. $1.50. Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Possessed : A Novel in Three Parts. Macmillan. $ 1 .50 ne*. Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics. Ed- ited by James Hastings. Vol VI, Fiction- Hyksos. Scribner. I. Rudolf. Knowledge and Life. Trans, by W. T. Jones. Putnam. swell. On with Torchy. E. J. Clode. |1.26 net. R. F. Royal Auction Bridge with Nullos. Stokes. $1.20 net. Frazer's Golden Bough. 2 vols. Macmil- ];in. $5. Gillette. J. M. The Family and Society. -io : McClurg. 50 cents net. F. P. A History of Education in Modern Times. Macmillan. $1.10. Ore . Zane. The Light of Western Stars. Harper. (1.35 net. Gurncy, L. M. Things Mother Used to Make. Macmillan. 50 cents net. Hamel, Frank. Lady Hester Lucy Stan- bope. Cassell. Hartley, C. G. (Mrs. w. M. Gallichan.) Women and Morality. Chicago: The Lau- rent ian Publishers. $1 net. an, L. F. The White Sapphire. Har- per. $1.25 net. Haughton, James. The Holy Spirit and the Prayer-Book. Second edition. Dutton. $1.25 net. Hengelmiiller, Ladislas. Hungary's Fight for National Existence. Macmillan. $3.25. Holmes, Edmond. The Tragedy of Educa- tion. Dutton. $1 net. Howard, Clare. English Travellers of the Renaissance. Lane. $2.50 net. Innes, A. D. A History of England and the British Empire (four vols.). Vol. II, 1485- 1688. Macmillan. $1.60. International Studio, Special Number. The Great Painter-Etchers from Rembrandt to Whistler, by M. C. Salaman. Lane. $3 net. II. H. L. The Eschatology of Jesus. Macmillan. $1.50. Is There a Hell? A Symposium by Leaders • ■I Religious Thought. Funk & Wagnalls. 6ft cents net. Jackson, Holbrook. The Eighteen Nine- ties: A Review of Art and Ideas. Ken- nerley. $3.50 net. Keltie, J. S., and Howarth, O. J. R. His- tory of Geography. Putnam. 75 cents net. Kenyon, Charles. Kindling: A Comedy Drama. Doubleday, Page. 75 cents net. Kings College Lectures on Colonial Prob- lems, edited by F. J. C. Hearnshaw. Mac- millan. $1.40. Kinne, Helen, and Cooley, A. M. Foods and Household Management. Macmillan. $1.10. Kuhn, Albert. Roma. Part II. Benziger Bros. 35 cents. Kluchevsky, V. O. . A History of Russia. Vol. III. Trans. t>y C. J. Hogarth. Dut- ton. $2.50 net Lagerlof, Selma. Liliecrona's Home: A Novel. Dutton. $1.25 net. Lai. Her. II W Boycotts and the Labor Struggle. Lane. $2 net. Library of Business Practice. Vol. I, Business Management. Index. Chicago: A. W. Shaw Co. Loeb, Morris. Scientific Work, edited by T. W. Richards. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press. $2 net. Lynch, Charles. American Red Cross Abridged Text-book on First Aid. Min- ers' Edition, Police and Firemen's, Rail- road, Woman's. Philadelphia: Blakiston. 30 cents each. Male, Emile. Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century. Translated by Dora Nussey. Third edition revised and enlarged. Dutton. $6 net. Manuccl, Niccolao. A Pepys of Mogul In- dia, 1653-1708: Being an Abridged Edi- tion of the "Storia do Mogor." Trans, by \V. Irvine; abridged edition by M. L. Ir- vine. Dutton. $3.50 net. Mapes, C. H. Some Other Things. Put- nam. Mead, G. R. S. Quests Old and New. Mac- millan. $2.25. Mever. F. B. Life and the Way Through. Funk & Wagnalls. $1.25 net. Monroe's Cyclopedia of Education. Vol. V, Pol-Zwi. Macmillan. $5. Montgomery, Florence. Behind the Scenes in the Schoolroom. Macmillan. $1.35. Morley, M. W. Will 0 the Wasps. Chica- go: McClurg. $1.25. Notestein, L. L., and Dunn, W. H. The Modern Short-Story. A. S. Barnes Co. Pankhurst, Christabel. Plain Facts about a Great Evil. Sociological Fund of the Medical Review of Reviews. $1. Property: Its Duties and Rights. Essays by various writers, with an introduction by the Bishop of Oxford. Macmillan. Purdom, C. B. The Garden City. Dutton. $3.50 net. Quintana, D. M. J. La Vida de Vasco Nunez de Balboa. Edited with notes by G. G. Brownell. Boston: Ginn. 65 cents. Rogers, W. T. Dictionary of Abbreviations. Macmillan. $2. Royal Belfast Academical Institution. Cen- tenary Volume. Belfast: M'Caw, Steven- son & Orr. Salaman, Malcolm C. French Colour- Prints of the XVIIIth Century. Phila- delphia: Lippincott. $12 net. Shore, W. T. John Woolman, His Life and Our Times. Macmillan. $1.50. Shorter, D. S. Madge Linsey and Other Poems. London: Maunsel & Co. Smith, W. P. Oral English in Secondary Schools. Macmillan. $1. Thomas, E. J. Buddhist Scriptures. Dut- ton. 70 cents net. Towne, C. H. Beyond the Stars and Other Poems. Kennerley. Treves, Frederick. The Country of "The Ring and the Book." Cassell. United States Geological Survey: Mineral Resources of the U. S. Calendar Year 1912, Part II— Nonmetals. Washington. Usher, A. P. History of the Grain Trade in France, 1400-1710. Cambridge: Har- vard Univ. Press. $2 net. Vale, Charles. John Ward, M.D. Mitchell Kennerlev. $1.25 net. Wallace, A. R. The Revolt of Democracy. Funk & Wagnalls. $1 net. Ward, F. E. The Montessori Method and the American School. Macmillan. $1.25. Ward, Mrs. Wilfrid. Horace Blake. Put- man. $1.35 net. Wilby, T. W. A Motor Tour Through Can- ada. Lane. $1.50 net. EURIPIDES AND HIS AGE Gilbert Murray SHELLEY, GODWIN, AND THEIR CIRCLE . . H. N. Brailsford NERVES D. Fraser Harris, M.D. COPARTNERSHIP AND PROFIT SHARING . Aneurin Williams THE OCEAN Illustrated Sir John Murray LATIN AMERICA With map William R. Shepherd New Volumes Just Ready Each 50 Cents net The Home • University Library S« Complete list on request. XL HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY "<%%? REMARKABLE DISCOVERIES IN EGYPT PROF. FLINDERS PETRIE now devotes his entire time to the Egyptian Research Account (So- ciety), whose discoveries relate to the history, arts and sciences of ancient Egypt, and to its pre- -dyniistie age. The Society, managed hy a Com- mittee of forty eminent men and women, publishes -an annual quarto volume, profusely Illustrated, of great value, that should be In hundreds of public and private libraries. 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Descriptive circular on requi Small, Maytiaru .V Co., Publishers, Honton BROWNING'S COMPLETE WORKS Thin paper, large-type Pocket Edition. Edited by Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke. 12 vols. Cloth, $1.00 per vol.; leather, $1.50 per vol. "By far the most desirable edition yet published." — [The Dial. THOMAS Y. CROWELL CO., New York THE MEDICAL INSPECTION OF GIRLS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS By CATHARINE CniSHOLM, B.A.. M.D., 'Medical Inspector of the Girls' High School. Manchester. England. With fl diagrams. «vo. Pp. xii + 208. $t.lu net. (Postage 7 cents.) School hygiene has become more and more the foundation of our educational structure. Much lias, of course, already been discov- ered through the medical Inspection of pri- mary schools: but in secondary schools ire have still much to learn. This book was written to .■villain the methods and alms of medical inspection in lii-lier schools and will be useful to the authorities of second- ary schools for girls, and all who are re- sponsible for the upbringing of young people. LONGMANS. GREEN, & CO. The Sonnets of William Shakespeare Now l.iuM find Old I'.viilriiec. By COUNTESS DE CHAMBRUN 12 full-pane illustraHoni. $1.75 nc(. Ill/ mail, $1.90. This new Edition of the Sonnets contains a readable as well as schol- ontributloo to a most unset- tled literary problem. There Is new ev- idence solidifying some old theories. And there are ingenious suggestions opening up new vistas to the explor- ing mind. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, Publishers, New York
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FIRNESs,Pli.l>.,l.l..l>.,l.lH.l>. Being the Btgbteentb Volume. Royal 800. ciiiiii, gift top, iiiiciii edges, *i 00 net iiuii morooco, gilt <"/'. unoui edges, $8.00 net. Carriage ewtra. Tills volume wee the but work from the r in nf the late Dr, [Purness. Ihe continuance of this edition is fortunatelj assured under the editor ship of Horace Howard Purnees, Jr., who ■ 1 j years association with bis Father in the work bat well equipped him Coi the ts b of editing the r<- malnlng plays. | .1. B. LIPPIBOOTT CO., Ptalla., i"n. \ betters like the above are frequently received by The Nation, in whose columns IT PAYS TO ADVERTISE BOOKS As a weekly review of Lit- erature, Science, Art and P o 1 i t i c 8, it reaches the scholar, the student, the thinker and the professional man, as well as the homes of people of intelligence; all book readers and book buyers.
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1 i «^JLX^- Wellealey, Mass. The Nation % VOL. XCVIII— NO. 2535 THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 1914 k \. PRICE TEN CENTS TWO USEFUL AND STIMULATING VOLUMES What Men Live By By RICHARD C. CABOT, M. D. This book is a physician's contribution to the conduct of life. A doctor sees people down and out. He knows that they need more than medicine or surgery to put them on their feet. He watches and studies to learn what actually picks them up when they have fallen down. He sees all sorts of remedies tried — rest, travel, solitude, nature study, Christian Science, manual training, marriage, divorce, self-culture, deep breathing, theosophy, the simple life, the strenuous life, and many more. His application of work, play, love, and worship to daily life and his experience of their healing powers are set forth in an inspiring and readable way. $1.50 net. Postage 15 cents. 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u The USTation [Vol. 98, No. 2535 The Nation A WEEKLY JOURNAL. FOUNDED IN 1865. [Entered at the New York City Post Office an second-class mail matter. ] The Nation is published and owned by tue New York Evening i'ost Co. Oswald Garrison VMard President : John Palmer Gavlt, Secretary and Treasurer: Bmli M. Soholz. Business Manage-- Paul Elmer More, Editor; Harold deWolf Fuller Assistant Editor. 2 hree dollars per year In advance, postpaid, in V" Hario0f the United States or Mexico; to Canada $3.50, and to foreign countries comprised in the Postal Union, $4.00. Address THE NATION, Box 794, New York Publication Office, 20 Vesey Street. CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER. The Week 97 Editorial Articles : The New Trust Bills 100 Between Two Worlds ', 100 Is American Vitality Declining? 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LOCKWOOD A MANUAL lor use in the course in freshman Eng- lish, containing chapters on college life b David Starr Jordan, William DeWitt Hyde, Charles William Ellol Willli rami . John Bul>ublis!iers,Roston,NcvvYork,Cliicago F. M. HOLLY Established 1005. Authors' and Publishers' Representative 156 FIFTH AVENUE. NEW YORK. Hates and full Information sent upon application. Educational The WOLCOTT SCHOOL, DENVER.COL. Superior climate. Accredited with Eastern Colleges tot girls. Fine music advantages. Gymnasium THE F1SK TEACHERS' AGENCIES, J. Evbeitt O. i'ikk & Co., Proprietor!, Boston, 2a Park st. Denver, 817 Mas, 'ivm. New Voiii successful ex perlence In bringing togetbei good scl is 1 1 1 teachers unci for Bulletin, si Chapel .si . Albany, N. Y.
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Jan. 29, 1914] The ISTation 111 THE OPEN COURT PUB- LISHING COMPANY has just issued a new complete Catalog of its Books on Sciences, Religions and Philosophies, of nearly 100 pages, attractively arranged and voluminously illustrated Sent Free on lOqucst. Ill South Michigan Av., Chicago. m HUMANISTS' LIBRARY ANNOUNCEMENT IN the Spring of 1914 two new volumes will be pub- lished in The Humanists' Library. These are: PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA . A Platonick Dis- course upon Love. GIOVANNI DELLA CASA. The Galateo— 01 Manners & Behaviour The books are printed in red and black on hand- made paper, and are sold at $3.00 net each The edition of each volume is limited to subscrip- tions received before publication. Persons inter- ested should send for a descriptive circular to D. B. UPDIKE The Merrymount Press, 132 Summer St., Boston Women and Morality m By three distinguished writers, including C. Gasquoine Hartley (Mrs. Walter M. Gallichan), the brilliant author of The Truth About Woman. Wallace Rice, in his masterly Introduction, speaks of Mrs. Gallichan's con- tribution as follows: She sees men toith the clarity of vision they have always secretly bestowed upon one another, and grasps the nature of her own sex with an assurance no man can hope to attain in this generation. An intensely interesting and frank discussion. Price $1.00 net; by mail, $1.06. Motley Measures By Bert Leston Taylor ("B.L.T.") The cleverest, wittiest volume of 1 i Klit verse published in recent years. Over SjOOO copies sold in Chicago filmic, during the tiro weeks preced- ing Christmas. An all-the-year- 'round book. Price, 75c net; by mail, 80c. The Beginning of Grand Opera in Chicago By Karleton Hackett. Limited edition, printed from the type on hand-made paper. An un- usually beautiful example of fine bookmaking. Appeals to all lovers of music and the operas. Price, $1.00 net; by mail, $1.05. m THE LAURENTIAN 900 STEINWAY HALL ■ PUBLISHERS CHICAGO THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS ny ZANB GREY. Here in Zane Grey'a new novel Is the color of tiic Southwest, tbe Intoxicating wine of wide spaces, tbe dangers of border life, the lure of a woman's beauty. Ami more still ; the making of a strong man by a woman's trust in him. $1.8S Del HARPER & BROTHERS. NEW MAGAZINE ON EGYPT An Illustrated quarterly magazine, beautifully Illustrated, with news or late discoveries, edited by PROF. rETRTE. began with the January niim- nor embellished with frontispiere of jewelry in ci :ors. Price $2 a year. The tllseoveries by Petrle and others for the EGYPTIAN RESEARCH ACCOUNT (Society) relate to the arts of Ancient Rgypt and to its predynastlc age. An annual quarto volume, profusely illustrated, and the magazine should be In all public and many private libraries. Circulars of these publications freely furnished. Address REV. DR. W. C. WINsr/nv, G2r> Beacon Street, Boston. SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS First Folio Edition. Edited by Char- lotte Porter. 40 vols. Cloth, 75c per vol.; leather, $1.00 per vol. "By all odds the best edition now accessible." — [The Living Age. THOMAS Y. CROWELL CO., New York $3,000 YEARLY BUSINESS OF YOUR OWN; mall order; success sure; honest, legitimate; small capital : original methods. Write M. CLEMENT MOORE. Specialist. New Egypt. N. J. •.»t»tt«M»«f,VAM\Vttt»t»\W«ty, I "/n buying books for our \ library we are pretty much governed by THE NATION; by its adver- tising as well as its re- $ views.'7 , Librarian, Publie Library. Schools and Colleges Will find it to their j advantage to place f their printing with | THE NATION PRESS f 20 VESEY STREET | NEW YORK p Telephone, Cortlandt 83 . Letters like the above are frequently received by The Nation, in whose columns IT PAYS TO ADVERTISE BOOKS As a weekly review of Lit- erature, Science, Art and Politics, it reaches the scholar, the student, the thinker and the professional man, as well as the homes of people of intelligence; all book readers' and book buyers. 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IV The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2535 APPLETONS' NEWEST BOOKS THE AMERICAN YEAR BOOK Edited by FRANCIS G. WICKWARE With the Co-operation of a Supervisory Board Representing Forty-three National Learned Societies. This standard reference work is indispensable to teachers, students, scientists and all men in- terested in public affairs. It contains a readable and authoritative survey of the year's progress in all branches of human knowledge. Two thousand topics are treated, and each article is followed by a bibliography. It is the only publication of its kind and is the one source for instant information on current tendencies. Ready February 1st. 892 Pages. Small 8vo. Cloth. $3.00 net. By mail $3.24. THE VATICAN By the Rt. Rev. EDMOND CANON HUGUES DE RAGNAU A comprehensive description of the government of the Roman Catholic Church throughout the world. "Those who desire to understand exactly how the Church is governed will find here a valuable and trustworthy statement of the main facts from the orthodox point of view." — N. Y. Evening Sun. Sz'o. Cloth, gilt top, uncut edges, $4.00 net. By mail $4.20. THE PHILOSOPHY OF NIETZSCHE By G. CHATTERTON-HILL An exposition and an appreciation of the teach- ings of the philosopher. "The entire discussion is clear, thorough and reasonably untechnical." — The Dial. 8vo. Cloth, gilt top, uncut edges. $2.50 net. By mail, $2.70. PSYCHOLOGY IN DAILY LIFE By CARL EMIL SEASHORE Professor of Psychology and Dean of the Gradu- ate College, University of Iowa. A presentation of the general aspects of mental affairs which are involved in the regulation of practical interests. "Here is a handbook for those who want to bring order out of mental chaos." — Chicago Rec- ord-Herald. Conduct of Mind Series. $1.50 net. By mail, $1.62. JUNGLE DAYS By ARLEY MUNSON, M.D. The experiences of an American woman doctor in India. "It must have been a sad day for the women of India when Dr. Munson packed her surgical in- struments and medical kit and left for America." — Jeannette L. Gilder in The Sun, New York. Profusely illustrated. 8vo. Cloth, gilt top, uncut edges. $2.50 net. By mail, $2.70. WOMAN IN SCIENCE By H. J. MOZANS, Ph.D. Author of "Along the Andes" and "Doivn the Amazon," etc. Theodore Roosevelt in The Outlook says : "The book is emphatically timely, dealing as it does with the right of woman to the opportunity to develop her life precisely as the man has the right to develop his. . . . The book is a storehouse of facts and arguments for all who in this struggle take the side of reason and justice. . . . It is impossible to give even an abstract of the mass of interesting facts accumulated by Dr. Mozans." With Frontispiece, 8vo. Cloth, gilt top, uncut edges. $2.50 net. By mail $2.70. Have You Read "OLD MOLE," by Gilbert Cannan, author of "Round the Co rncr Circulars or Full Descriptions Sent on Request. D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 35 West 32nd Street, NEW YORK
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The Nation \ / H YORK, llll UHDAY, JANUARY 29, 1014. The Week The first steps towards calling the third Hague Peace Conference have at- tracted surprisingly little attention. The meeting the other day, at which were present Andrew D. White and Admiral Mahan, delegates to the first Conference in 1899, Charles H. Butler, delegate to the second Conference in 1907, and Judge George Gray and Oscar S. Straus, members of the permanent peace tri- bunal, is to be followed by a second meeting, at which a national committee will be appointed. The hope of those be- hind the movement is to prompt the State Department to send notes to the nations signatory to the Hague Con- vention, reminding them of the recom* mendation of the Conference of 1907 that its successor should meet in 1915, and seeking an agreement to a meeting next j ear. It seems generally agreed that the initiative will lie with the United States. The action already taken cer- tainly cannot be criticised as premature. The last Conference urged that an inter- national committee should be appointed two years in advance of 1915. This was for the preparation of a programme; but the committee has not been ap- pointed. Mr. Taft has admirably summed up the anomalous position of aliens in this country under a Federal government that confers rights without being able to enforce them. Twenty years ago the situation presented itself acutely to Mr. Blaine when the State of Louisiana would not take steps for the punishment of a mob guilty of murdering Italians, and the Federal Government stood help- lessly by. Mr. Taft's fears of what an outbreak of mob violence directed against Japanese residents on the Pa- cific Coast would mean are justified. The difficulties with Japan over Califor- nia's restrictive land laws are vexatious enough, but the patient attitude of the Japanese Government has shown that the two nations are in no danger of go- ing to war over the matter. It is the specific instance of mob outrage, for which no redress is offered, that stirs a people to war fury; and our national interests demand that if in some such untoward event a State court and jury refuse to punish mob violence, the Fed- eral Government shall see to it that jus- tice is done. Mr. Taft makes an excel- lent point when he shows that, while Federal authority is constantly extend- ed into spheres that earlier generations never contemplated, the essential au- thority of the Federal Government in its own natural sphere of foreign rela- tions is virtually frustrated. The failure of the Shackleford good- roads bill to procure a rule permitting consideration of it as a "rider" on the Post Office Appropriation bill checks a measure only less objectionable than the Moon attack on the civil service, also defeated. Without a studied plan of expenditure, it would have appropri- ated $24,987,500 during the coming year to State road construction, and made it a national policy to subsidize post-road improvement. It would have done this without waiting for the re- port of ex-Senator Bourne's commission of inquiry, created a year ago. Finally, by either of its two hazy schemes, It would have offered opportunity to the spoilsman. If Federal aid to road-build- ing is ever to come, it should only be after mature consideration. Unofficial- ly, ex-Senator Bourne has computed that road-construction will require the expenditure of a billion dollars in the next half-century. Plainly, a beginning should not be made by a skulking amendment to an appropriation bill. Secretary of Labor Wilson is the lat- est inventor on the market with an im- migration test. The invention of immi- gration tests has become one of the most popular indoor games in Washing- ton and its environs. Every other man you meet has a little formula up his sleeve by which you can exclude the kind of alien you wish to exclude and admit just the kind you wish to admit. As a result of the new craze for immigration tests, the sciences are booming in Wash- ington. Geography is written anew by Congressmen who are reconstructing the boundaries of Asia. And astonish- ing contributions to anthropology are made by representatives of the Ameri- can Federation of Labor, whose scent for racial distinctions is nothing short of marvellous. New principles of eco- nomics are embodied in bills providing for an international sliding wage-scale test. Now comes Secretary Wilson with the simplest of all tests, a weighing ma- chine, a tape measure, and a dead-line fixed at thirty-five years. A Wisconsin Circuit Court has de- clared unconstitutional the recently enacted law making a physician's cer- tificate a prerequisite to a license to marry. This, of course, is not final, and the conclusion of the highest court in the State on the subject will be awaited with interest. The whole matter is of interest and importance in more than one aspect. The law itself, quite apart from any question of constitutionality, appears to have been a hasty piece of work, considering the profound impor- tance of the subject it deals with. If we are to have regulations of this char- acter, it should be only after the most careful consideration, both of their prop- er scope and limitations, and of the mechanism of their execution. If re- ports from Wisconsin are to be trusted, the actual operation of this law has been anything but satisfactory. And the ex- perience is interesting, too, from the standpoint of the merits and defects of our Federal system — of the division be- tween State and national jurisdictions. Under that system, it is possible to ex- periment with innovations like this without producing a country-wide dis- turbance, and without either arousing those antagonisms or encountering those difficulties which would attend an at- tempt to force them upon the accept- ance of all the extremely diverse popu- lations of the various States. But be- yond both these aspects of the matter lies one that is of far more fundamen- tal import than either — the question of the limits which it is intrinsically desir- able to set upon the exercise of govern- mental control over marriage selection. Wisconsin's workmen's compensation act of 1911 was held "the greatest piece of legislation yet put forth in the State." It followed two years' legislative inves-
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s The INT a t i o ri [Vol. 98, No. 2535 tigation and was the last of many ten- tative drafts submitted to general crit- icism. But it was improved by amend- ment last summer, and the chairman Of the State Industrial Commission now reports it working better than ever. The act is optional, but 88 per cent, of the employers have accepted it, rather than take their chances under the common law. The estimate is that 6,636 cases were settled during 1913, at an average cost of $62.89 each, or $417,374 as the total. Adding medical charges, "we have $626,061 as the probable cost of compensation for 88 per cent, of the in- dustrial accidents of Wisconsin in one year." "The amount paid injured work- men is more than three times what they received under the old law." Yet cost to capital is the same, for through liti- gation "the injured workmen did not receive 25 per cent, of the sum paid by employers." Old-line insurance rates have been twice reduced during the year. Now the United Mine Workers' con- vention has attempted to boycott In- dianapolis by removing the meeting to another city, on account of the repres- sion of disorder during the recent strike there. Indianapolis is a hopeless city, anyhow, as was shown by her connec- tion with the capture of men concerned in the conspiracy to blow up bridges and other works constructed by non- union labor. The least that the United Mine Workers can do is to heed the ad- vice of a speaker who said last week: "Men, don't spend any more than you absolutely have to in this city." If they are of the right stuff, they will eat only one meal a day in the depraved city, and sleep in the parks. But boycotting must not stop here. How many cities are there in this misnamed land of the free in which have sat courts that have granted injunctions, Governors that have called out the militia to keep or- der, regardless of who might be making the disturbance, juries that have con- demned men for warring upon their fel- low-men? Every one of these cities should be put under the ban. And it should be a thoroughgoing action. No product of such cities should be bought, no railway trip taken that involved go- ing through one of them. All that is required is a little of the spirit of the man who got even with his face by bit- ing off Lis nose. To deal with the flood problem was the first task of the Ohio Legislature last week. The measure, prepared after general agreement between engineers, lawyers, and the legislative reference bureau, is interesting from several points of view. Partial application of the local-option principle is permitted. The "conservancy act" rests primarily on the organization of districts, each un- der its board of directors; and no dis- trict may be established except on peti- tion of a specified number of freehold- ers. But as only ten months ago Ohio was suffering from a flood that cost scores of lives and $200,000,000 in prop- erty, unanimity of action is almost cer- tain. Once established, the governing body has large powers: it may condemn lands, issue bonds, and exercise police powers, subject, of course, to court review. It is to regulate, widen, and deepen stream channels, reclaim wet and overflowed land wherever possible, and improve drainage. The work, by State direction, will be pushed first where the peril is greatest, and "ex- tended to all sections where potential flood dangers exist." The reclamation of waste lands and conservation of wa- ter power are expected to be incidental but substantial benefits. The magnitude of Los Angeles' work in bringing most of the Owens River 250 miles over the lower Sierra Ne- vadas and the Mojave desert has been duly recognized in the illustrated press. It is one of the enterprises vaguely call- ed "second only to the building of the Panama Canal." The disinterestedness and courage that went into it might well rebuke San Francisco. But it is chiefly notable in justifying the deci- sion of the city to go into business for itself rather than submit to what it regarded as the extortion of contrac- tors. When the bids were opened eight years ago for the first engineering divi- sion, twenty-three miles, the lowest pro- posal was $500,000 in excess of the chief engineer's estimates. His prompt re- quest to undertake the job with city la- bor was granted, and the division com- pleted at a figure $700,000 below the lowest bid. Later, as a means of com- parison, one section of twelve miles, :! per cent, of the whole, was let. Basing the total cost on this contract, the city would have had to pay $40,000,000 in- stead of $23,000,000 for the aqueduct. Whether this project could have been carried out so successfully in any com- munity headed by a corrupt Government is a question that will promptly occur to readers of the businesslike summary in the National Municipal Review. Misery loves company, but not such company as Senator Bristow is having in his campaign for reelection. If things were only as they were in the prehis- toric year 1909, when Bristow was first elected! But since then has come the deluge, and in Kansas it is very hard to know which is the true Ark. Bristow thought about it a good while, and final- ly made up his mind to go into the Re- publican boat. He would have been tak- en into the Progressive ark for the ask- ing, but he concluded that enough of his friends would follow him into the older boat to make it preferable. Still his friends hesitated. Now a new element is injected into the situation by the an- nouncement of ex-Senator Curtis that he, too, proposes to return to Washing- ton in the Republican craft. The seri- ousness of this announcement lies in the fact that Curtis has submitted his popu- larity to a severe test since the Chicago Convention by running against the re- doubtable Stubbs for the nomination in 1912, and beating him on the popular vote, losing only by failing to carry a majority of the legislative districts. Can Bristow hope to win against a man who did that? To add to his troubles, Wil- liam Allen White, who might have been his ardent supporter if he had selected the Progressive ark, has coined an epi- gram that has been caught up all over Kansas. "Bristow is guilty of a politi- cal felony," it runs. Shunned by the Progressives, suspected by the Republi- cans, how he must long for the good old times when all that one had to do was to expatiate upon the utter inability of the Democrats to manage the affairs of a great government! Why are Americans ceasing to read good literature? It is the fault, of course, of the tango. Beneficial as the new dance may be in certain respects, its most ardent advocates do not claim for it that it Induces a longing for Shakespeare or even Alfred Noyes, But the tango does not stand alone In this respect The automobile must bear part
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Jan. 29, 191 4] T li e Nation 99 of the blame. We are the surer of the ■oundneu of this contention when we recall that some years ago one of the greatest hindrances to the spread of good literature was the hicycle. What it was before that is less clear, although we imagine that the record would show that in the thirties good literature was neglected because of the influence of the railway, just as still earlier the in- vention of the steamboat caused people to lose interest in worth-while books. It is thus the unfortunate truth that in every age of the republic there has been something which has made us cease to care for good literature. Every genera- tion has been devoted to books of the highest value, but every succeeding gen- eration has ceased to care for them. Some day, perhaps, we shall have ex- hausted every other form of activity, and then our native love of good litera- ture will no longer be denied. rigmes Protection Society in England, that body undertakes international ex- pansion. Lords Curzon, Cromer, and Bryce are urging the estabiisnment of an American branch. An affiliated soci- ety has been organized in South Africa. The opening of a branch in Germany within the month has attracted no lit- tle public attention. In Italy, the Soci- ety has helped rouse the Government to protest to Portugal against the slavery in San Thome and Principe. The Soci- ety was established in 1838 as the re- sult of a Government inquiry under Bux- ton, co-worker with Wilberforce and Macaulay, into the treatment of the in- digenous population of the colonies. With the growth of colonizing activity in other nations, the time was ripe for extension of the Society's influence. Cer- tain recent and widely scattered abuses have roused the feelings of men inter- ested in backward races, and given the Society a new claim to recognition. In the midst of the various contro- versies over Panama, it is a comfort to come across one point that is absolute- ly free from the possibility of dispute. In his address to the American Manufac- turers' Export Association last week, Prof. Hiram Bingham, of Yale, drew at- tention to the fact that the opening of the canal would not bring the east coast of South America a mile nearer than it was before. Everybody knows this, to be sure, but not everybody bears it in mind; and, moreover, when we say ■"everybody" we are perhaps too inclu- sive, in view of the kind of letter-ad- dressing cited by Charles M. Pepper, tormerly adviser to the State Depart- ment, as being of frequent occurrence in American business houses. The man who thinks Buenos Ayres is in Chili probably thinks that since the canal is a short-cut to South America, it is a .good-enough short-cut for him to any part of South America. The western part, to which the distance by sea will be shortened, is, as Professor Bingham said, only about one-fifth of the whole. But here we at once get into complexi- ties again. For the economic impor- tance of access to a region is not to be •measured by its area, and it is the vast mineral possibilities of the western re- gions of South America that are attract- ing greatest interest. Just seventy-five years after the founding of the Anti-Slavery and Abo- The Reichstag has adjourned after giving expression to its bitter discon- tent with militarism in something more than words. The introduction of bills prohibiting the army from making it- self a self-constituted authority for the maintenance of public order shows how deep popular resentment runs over the Zabern affair. The Government, as usual, has carried things with a high hand. Not content with the acquittal of Col. von Reuter, the Kaiser has seen fit to turn his guns against the people of Zabern. The honors of the game rest with the militarists. The incident may seem another in the long chain of hu- miliations to which the representatives of the people have had to submit. But though Chancellors and War Ministers may continue to lecture the members of the Reichstag like so many schoolboys, the spirit of popular resentment appar- ently increases. The very frequency with which the Government is called upon to scold the Reichstag argues an unsatis- factory state of affairs. The effect of such untoward incidents is cumulative. Another Zabern affair may show that even the traditional patience of the Ger- man people has its limits. the conclusion that peace has its men- aces no less than war. in the best parts, Berlin and Hamburg bankers have built so many villas that the German summer population threatens to equal the indigenous. Hotels and steamboat lines belong to the Germans; walls and signboards are covered with German in- scriptions; in certain watering-places, like Sandkaas, all the bathers are for- eigners. The finest portion of Bornholm has been bought by a Hamburg finan- cier, who is promoting there a German city, which he has already called "Neu Berlin." Similarly, the most scenic parts of Moen have passed into th« hands of a German company, which pro- poses to construct a group of great hotels. The Governors of these islands, the Copenhagen press, and the democrat- ic leaders have raised the alarm. A bill has been introduced into Parliament to expend a half-million crowns in repur- chasing the site of New Berlin; and without awaiting the vote, individuals are circulating a public subscription list, which has produced 115,000 crowns. It might seem that this heated senti- ment against the German economic in- vasion would of itself operate to lessen or stop sales. Observers of Denmark's access of de- fensive zeal last spring must have felt that patriotism is less a mountain maid than the goddess of small countries in general. That nation has now reached It is natural that in Spain, more than in any other country, the devastating struggle in Mexico should be regarded with sorrow and apprehension. But the appeal for reconciliation addressed to Huerta and Carranza by Spain's leading statesmen and men of letters is a cry ror peace when there is no peace. Pre- cisely because the war has been fought so long and so stubbornly the time has passed for a temporary truce. The Mex- ican forces now at war cannot be har- monized in a cheery get-together spirit. One need not be a blind partisan of the Constitutionalist cause to perceive that if Mexico is to have a stable govern- ment, that government must issue out of the throes of the revolution. Peace will not come to Mexico without a fairly definite transfer of power from the oli- garchy that ruled the country under Diaz to the classes that have hitherto been kept in subjection. Madero's ruin was brought about in large measure by the refusal of the old ruling class to admit that it was beaten; as events showed, it had not been thoroughly beat- en. That necessary process is now working itself out.
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lOO T li e Natio n [Vol. 98, No. 2535 THE NEW TRUST BILLS. Publication at Washington of the bills drafted to carry out the recommenda- tions of the President's message was ac- companied by the promise of ample hearings on them and full debate. Any other course would be folly. No such measures should be rushed through at either the report stage or the voting in Congress. Wise as their authors may be, their work cannot be considered perfect from the beginning. These bills do not leap full-panoplied from the heads of their Jove-like framers. They come, rather, as tentative plans, to be fully discussed. To drive them through under Administration whip and spur would be a huge blunder. The bill to prohibit interlocking direc- torates, allowing, as it does, two years' time in which to break up existing practices, is the one which meets with most public favor. It will probably not be opposed seriously. This is not to say that it should not be minutely scrutin- ized, to see that no injustice is done or abuses invited. A measure so sweeping in terms might well be in need of qual- ification, here and there; and exception- al circumstances may need to be recog- nized by exceptional provisions. As to the main intent and effect of the bill, however, there is pretty general agree- ment. The aim is to do away with a custom which has come to be freely ad- mitted by all concerned to be bad. It Js bad for the properties, railway or bank- ing, bad for the directors, and bad for the public. Such voluntary withdrawals from directorates as we have lately wit- nessed show not only what the just feel- ing on the subject has become, but with what readiness the law making such withdrawals compulsory will be com- plied with. Much more doubt will gather about the bill creating an Interstate Trade Com- mission. Its purposes are rather vague- ly defined, but the powers confided to it are very great, and might be made both vexatious and hurtful. Most of them, it is true, are already given to the Bu- reau of Corporations. The chief thought seems to be to create a Government agency which may act as a sort of first assistant to the Attorney-General. At present, an immense burden is placed upon the Department of Justice. It has to investigate endlessly in preparation for possible suits under the Anti-Trust law; it has to study intricate proposals of adjustment made by threatened cor- porations, and to assume responsibili- ties almost too heavy for a single offi- cial unaided. In so far as the Inter- state Trade Commission will be able to give the Attorney-General needed aid — in the way of inquiry, of passing upon a state of facts, and by having referred to it, with a hope of settlement, cases in an early stage of litigation — the in- tent is commendable. No one, however, can look at the drastic provisions giv- ing the Commission the right to delve into all the details of private business without a little gasp of astonishment at the advocacy of such bureaucratic con- trol by a political party which, in its early life, wrote into the Constitution the Fourth Amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against un- reasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated." Most questionable of all, in our opin- ion, is the attempt made to add new definitions to the Anti-Trust law. The great danger is that, where these are not unnecessary, they will be mischiev- ous. On this point, the former Attor- ney-General, Mr. Wickersham, has writ- ten in the New York Sun with much force. The real questions involved seem to be confused in the public mind. There is a loose notion that the Anti-Trust law has proved ineffective. This is the rea- son given for proposing to insert more "teeth" into it. But Mr. Wickersham clearly shows — as other lawyers have shown before him — that the Sherman law, as interpreted and applied in a series of decisions by the Supreme Court, has been made one of the most effective statutes ever written. As a matter of fact, nearly all the practices aimed at in the new definitions now proposed have already been held by the Court to be obnoxious to the existing law. Most of them were discussed and entered into the reasoning of the Court in the Stan- dard Oil and Tobacco decisions. Mr. Wickersham pointedly asks how it came about that many corporations have made the "honorable surrender" to the law of which President Wilson speaks in congratulation. The obvious reason is that they and their counsel have at last found out that the Anti-Trust law is not only capable of enforcement, but Is enforced in a very effective way. The reasons why it seems unwise now to amend a statute shown to be inclu- sive and efficient are plain. There is, first, the danger which Senator Ed- munds pointed out before Mr. Wicker- sham did, of "defining the definition." The law has now undergone complete judicial exposition. To introduce new phrases into it might have the result both of disturbing what is settled and of provoking a great deal of new and needless litigation. And the second dan- ger is even graver. It is that the process of prohibition may be pushed so far — as by the Stanley bill, or some of the clauses in the new bill defining unfair trade practices — as either to make the law a dead letter or business a dead thing. If the attempt is seriously made to put all commerce into a strait-jacket, and to take away from the courts the right to discriminate between reasona- ble and unreasonable restraints of trade, we know what will follow practically and we ought not to forget what will follow judicially. For the Supreme Court plainly announced, in the Stan- dard Oil decision, that if the rule of reason were not to be permitted in the interpretation of the Sherman law, then the Court would be compelled to declare the entire act unconstitutional. BETWEEN TWO WORLDS. The death of Edward Ginn removes a man in whom the ancient idealisms bravely persisted. A lover of peace, he labored for it with voice and pen; nor did he forget his purse. Generously supporting in his lifetime an organiza- tion for the furthering of peace, he left it by will $1,000,000. It is not the amount of this benefaction — though, all things considered, it deserves to be ranked with Mr. Carnegie's gifts to the same cause — that impresses one so much as its spirit. It is a form of si- lent but constant protest against strong tendencies of the day. These are partly warlike, partly materialistic. The at- tempt is made to bind up national dig- nity and national development and the well-being of the people with an ever- mounting preparation for war. Yet, as the militarists grow more aggressive, so do the peace-men become more out- spoken. Every needless Dreadnought means a needed Edward Ginn. There is nothing new in the struggle between humane ideas and foroo. Hut
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Jan. 29, 1914] The Nation IOI it docs seem to have been accented and made to appear unusually pathetic in our day. Never was there so great a stirring of the social conscience; never so many men and women spending themselves upon work for their less for- tunate brothers and sisters; never so widespread an interest taken in back- ward or oppressed races. Yet at the same time never was the demand for armament so great, never was the argu- ment of pike and gun more freely used by responsible statesmen, never were war taxes in time of peace so crushing. U'f seem, in all this, to be standing be- tween two worlds, one dead, the other powerless to be born. How active and humane men are dis- tract ed between the two we see vividly illustrated just now in England. An is- sue is made within the Liberal party on the question of expending even higher sums on the navy. Fully one-third of the Liberal members of Parliament have joined in a protest against any increase in the naval estimates. The Cabinet is of two minds about it, the militarists being led by Winston Churchill, while Lloyd George is on record as holding that the time is ripe for a revision and cutting down of the appropriations for army and navy. Now, whatever else may be said of Lloyd George, it cannot be denied that he represents in a pe- culiar way the inarticulate strivings of the working-classes in England. It is because he is dreaming of vast policies of social reform that he looks with jealous eye upon anything that seems like squandering of the national re- sources upon unproductive and money- devouring battleships. Not a Little Englander— for Lloyd George has more than once uttered the large note of British pride and determination in over- sea affairs — he is mainly a champion of the poor; and as such, his opposition to the extreme militarists makes his fig- ure one that serves to typify strikingly the drag of two conflicting forces upon public men to-day. They would be re- formers and renovators, yet there is the peril of war to be provided against! They would advance boldly along the paths of civilization, yet fears of recur- ring savagism deter them. They would be humane and merciful and generous, yet they would be the strong man armed! To Americans the problem is pre- senting itself just now mainly in the form of our national policy as respects the Philippines. The question is ob- scured by many incidental matters, thrust into its discussion, but the cen- tral choice which the country is called upon to make is that between force and self-government, between exploitation and unselfishness. Now, as we have said many times before, honest men and good men differ in their interpretation both of the facts and of our duty in re- gard to the Filipinos. It is a fair sub- ject for public debate. But every man who engages in it should first search his own heart to make sure that he has no selfish interest in arguing for a con- tinued holding of the islanders in sub- jection. We can listen with patience, if not with agreement, to ex-President Taft, for no one supposes that he is speaking aught but his sincere belief, uncolored by any thought of private ad- vantage. But the case must be differ- ent with men who are avowedly engag- ed in enterprises to make money out of the Philippines, and who desire that American control shall be indefinitely prolonged in order to further their projects. For such people to set them- selves up either as authorities or as dis- interested guides, is a piece of effron- tery. They may be right in their opin- ion. But they at least ought to have the grace to keep still, when it is so evident that they are arguing for their own pockets. High reasoning on des- tiny and international relations is cer- tain to fall to the ground with a thud when it is known that the high reason- ers are intent upon capitalizing their convictions, and turning their opinions into cash. Here is the worm in the bud of tran- scendental militarism and manifest des- tiny— this haunting suspicion of self-in- terest, this chuckling of armament-mak ers over a war-scare being "good enough" to mean their booking of more orders, this lurking fear of corruption in the purchase of guns and ships. Even the knightly Bushido of Japan is in dan ger of being tainted, if we may believe the evidence given in a German court about bribes paid to Japanese naval of- ficers. Human nature has many un- plumbed depths, but it is hard to think of a lower deep than that in which schemers, in the name of national glory, seek to coin money out of the blood and tears of men and women and chil- dren. IS AMERICAN VITALITY DECLIN- ING ? In an editorial which appeared in the Nation on January 15, under the above heading, we took the position that the statistics of increased death-rates among persons between the ages of for- ty-five and sixty-five do not warrant the conclusion that there has been a de- terioration in American vitality or in American living conditions. "We are not asserting," we said, "that the conclusion is false, though we are inclined to think it so; but we do say it does not follow from the premises." We print to-day a criticism of that editorial by Mr. Louis I. Dublin, statistician of the Metropoli- tan Insurance Company; and the weight to which his judgment is entitled, the intrinsic importance of the subject, and its prominence in present-day discussion make it worth while to revert to the question again. In order to make the matter clear, we must insist first of all on the fact that our position was purely critical. We did not assert that the above-mentioned increase of mortality is "entirely due to the advances" in medical science, etc., that have taken place; we merely point- ed out that the figures are capable of this favorable interpretation instead of the unfavorable one put upon them by the authorities we referred to. Mr. Dub- lin makes a good point when he draws attention to the fact that the figures relating to females seem to militate against the hypothesis we put forward, and to indicate that there are "other causes at work.1- But we ourselves sug- gested that other causes may be at work, and in particular we pointed out one such possible cause with great empha- sis; but, strange to say, Mr. Dublin has taken its significance to be precisely the opposite of what it is. The point is im- portant, and has apparently escaped the attention of writers on the subject. Imagine the population divided into two halves — an upper and a lower half, say — in respect to living conditions. Sup- pose that the proportion of persons in the lower half who live to ages above forty-five is much smaller than that in the upper half. And now suppose that absolutely no change takes place in the situation except that conditions In the lower half are so improved as greatly to increase the proportion of persons in that half who live to ages abore forty- five. The effect of this upon death-rates
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io^ The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2535 in the various age-groups would be pre- cisely of the nature of what has actually been observed. The death-rate in age- groups below forty-five would of course be reduced; but the very improvement that had taken place in the lower half — unless it was so great as to bring its condition up to that of the upper half — would push into the age-groups above forty-five an increased percentage of per- sons belonging to that half, and subject to a higher death-rate than the average. Taking the population as a whole, there- fore, there would be a decrease in the death-rate in the age-groups below for- ty-five and an increase in the death-rate in the age-groups above forty-five. We do not assert that this is what has ac- tually taken place; but so far from hav- ing shown that it has not taken place, the proponents of the conclusion we are contesting seem never to have so much as considered the possibility. To test the question, it would be essential to have some means of finding the trend of death-rates classified not only by age- groups, but also by economic conditions. Of course, if it were, as Mr. Dublin ap- pears to think, "generally agreed" that living conditions among the working classes are worse than they were thirty years ago, no statistical inquiry would be necessary; but we are quite unaware that any such general agreement exists. Upon other points brought forward by Mr. Dublin we can touch but very brief- ly. He acknowledges the complexity of the subject, and is himself inclined to believe that the drift to the cities and the influx of immigrants have "played an important part in our total results"; but so long as no numerical estimate has been made of the influence of these factors, as well as others that are known to enter into the question, with what as- surance can one put forward the con- clusion of a real decline in vitality or deterioration of conditions? Even as to the factor of the saving of life in the earlier ages as the true explanation of many deaths at the later ages, Mr. Dub- lin admits its reality, both in his pres- ent letter and in his article in the Amcr- nn Journal of Public Health; and as to its xte.-.t no one has any quantitative data. And we cannot refrain from sug- gesting that, while it is perfectly true that the lives saved by modern advances In medicine and sanitation represent the best stocks as well as the worst, yet he would hardly deny that those ad- vances do interfere in some measure with the selection, by survival, of tne hardiest constitutions. As for the moral effect of casting doubt on the unfavorable interpretation of the statistics, that is something which should hardly be allowed to interfere with the plain requirements of scientific reasoning. But as a matter of fact we do not admit that the moral effect of doubting that conditions are growing worse, or believing that they are grow- ing better, is such as he fears. The most conspicuous - case of progressive and unquestioned improvement relating to living conditions among the poor is that of the saving of infant lives. But the appetite for such achievement grows by what it feeds on. The more the in- fantile death-rate is reduced, the hard- er we work to reduce it still further. Health departments do not seek to en- list public sympathy or public funds for their work by concealing or belittling what has been accomplished, but quite the contrary. Whether conditions among the people who live lives of hard and life-shortening toil are better or worse than they were thirty years ago, we all know that there is plenty of reason for improving them. But in many ways it does make a great deal of difference whether the one thing or the other is true; and we shall not do well to assert either until we have gathered and thor- oughly analyzed the necessary data. STRATHCONA AND CANADA. It is seldom that the growth of an in- dividual and of a nation coincide so closely in time and incident as the ca- reer of the late Baron Strathcona and of the Dominion whose most distinguished citizen he was at the time of his death, with the possible exception of Sir Wil- frid Laurier. The sturdy Scotch lad came to Canada in 1838, the very same year that the Earl of Durham was sent to study conditions in British North America and to draft the famous report which led two years later to the union of Ontario and Quebec. For thirty years, while the problems of union were work- ing out in eastern Canada, he was en- gaged, as factor and representative of the Hudson's Bay Company, in the vast territories of the Northwest from which was to be carved out the new Canada upon whose remarkable development the attention of the world has been fixed for a decade. He became head of the Hudson's Bay Company in Canada in 1808, the year after the establishment of the Dominion, and by virtue of his posi- tion played a leading role in the trans- fer of the company's lands to che new Dominion Government. Precisely as in the case of the new-born United States, the new Canadian Federation found in its Northwest Territory a bond of union among the older provinces, and the con- dition and guarantee of national expan- sion. Baron Strathcona's death leaves James J. Hill, at first his rival and later his firm ally, as the last survivor of the giant race of railway builders. In ac- tual wealth production the lands of our own Northwest may have shown a richer return. But Strathcona's great achieve- ment, the Canadian Pacific Railroad, im- presses itself more deeply on the imag- ination. It meant the linking up of two oceans. It testified to the bold faith in its own future by a nation hardly out of its swaddling clothes. When our first transcontinental railway was complet- ed we were a people of nearly forty mil- lions. When the Canadian Pacific was completed Canada had a population of a little more than four millions. When one speaks of the faith of a nation in its own future, one means, of course, the faith and the prophetic outlook of its boldest spirits. The future Baron Strath- cona had bitter opposition to overcome before the Canadian Parliament would give its sanction and its support to his transcontinental road. Like our own railway builders, he was interested in politics only to the extent that politics furthered or stood in the way of his dreams of expansion. He changed his party affiliations whenever a change was necessitated by his pioneer work. To- wards the end of his life, with his wora completed, he stood above partisan re- lations. He was the one man designat- ed by logic to serve as representative abroad of the Canadian nation. It was in 1896 that ho was appointed High Commissioner of Canada in Lon- don. His baronial title came the fol- lowing year. His services took largely the form of procuring population for the regions his railways had opened up. While men like Clifford Sifton carried on missionary work in the United States, Strathcona did brilliant prea* agent work for Canada in the home countries. Heavy though Hie How of emigration has been from Hie United
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Jan. 29, 1914] The Nation 103 States into Canada, it has in later years been equalled by the inpour from the United Kingdom. In 1908-09 the British Isles sent some 52,000 colonists to Can- ada. In 1912-13 the number had risen to nearly 140,000. From Baron Strath- cona's native Scotland the drift to Can- ada has become an exodus, to the point where Scotland finds itself concerned over a depopulation problem. Strath- cona's effective publicity work for Can- ada has been imitated, but hardly ap- proached, by the other British dominions beyond the seas. In this aspect of his career Baron Strathcona attained Imperial impor- tance. By stimulating the flow of emi- gration from the motherland he not only • contributed to the development of the Canadian Northwest, but supplied a counterbalance to the rapid dissemina- tion of "Yankee" influence in the North- west through the rapid inrush from the United States. Just as his earlier ca- reer at home was coincident with the rapid internal development of the Do- minion, so his later career as Canadian plenipotentiary to the mother country coincided with the strengthening of Im- perial sentiment which has been so not- able a phenomenon of recent Canadian growth. His equipment of a regiment of horse for service during the Boer war was, like his entire career, a sym- bol of national development and a con- tributing cause. If Canada has wit- nessed the virtual disappearance of the annexation idea with regard to the Unit- ed States and the appearance of a spirit of proud self-sufficiency in relation to this country, credit must be given in large measure to Strathcona's labors in behalf of Imperial patriotism. TILLAGE IMPROVEMENT. The typical American village, from New York to New Mexico, is often want- ing in civic spirit. That fact is writ large upon its face. It has one focus of interest in the school, and half-a-dozen in the churches and lodges. But it lacks the solidarity that would mani- fest itself in a true village pride; it is a population small enough to be really a unit, and permanent enough to strike its roots deep, yet it does not organize itself. This is not true of the towns of New England, which fifty years ago looked after their lyceums, their com- mons, shade trees, and white palings. But the dreariness of most Western, At- lantic, and Southern villages testifies to the rule; they bear an unkempt aspect which, as William Allen White wrote, requires the touch of twilight to give it kindliness. If the traveller glances about for a cause, he may think he finds it in the rather sordid atmosphere. The country town seems preoccupied with the day's work. But the true reason lies deeper. In a volume which Parris T. Far- well, of the Village Improvement Com- mittee of the Massachusetts Civic League, has just issued, are summariz- ed recent attempts to deal with the gen- eral carelessness about village appear- ance. The society chosen as a model, it is true, is the Laurel Hill Association, in Massachusetts, which has done re- markable work since 1853; and to New England the book gives most space. But there are also examples from the Da- kotas, the South, and the Pacific North- west which tell of accomplishment out of all proportion to their short history. There are States wherein the villages are characterized as interested in one aspect of improvement only — roads and streets, sanitation, or libraries and parks. But it is implied that their leav- ening power is great, if only in spur- ring emulation. Over one aspect of the situation in the Mid-West there is much seemingly shortsighted rejoicing. It is that outside stimulation has generally prompted local effort. A State Good Roads Association brings about the mac- adamizing of the streets. A travelling library system, as in Iowa and Wiscon- sin, results in the founding of local li- braries. State horticultural societies have done wonders in provoking plant- ing of trees and shrubs. In hundreds of small towns the railway adornment of station grounds has furnished an ob- ject-lesson. State Universities have been useful agents. But would not the im- pulse be healthier and longer-lived if it were self-born? The want of spontaneity springs nat- urally from the constitution of the ordi- nary American village. It fails of initi- ative within itself because conditions scarcely favor the production of lead- ers or the recognition of leaders. As in- dicated by a group of writers in the Atlantic in recent years, there is a want of imagination, of larger inter- ests, manifested in a petty round of gos- sip and of .'jalousies, and in a painful sense of personal or family reserve. Giv- en a group small enough, and Neigh- bor Jones will be loath to suggest a lo- cal improvement, because it savors of interference with Neighbor Smith's af- fairs. The other conditions may be, at most, contributory causes. One that has to be considered is the rapidly changing personnel of many villages. They are not, as in Europe, inhabited from gen- eration to generation by a family in the self-same trade, but by ever-shifting names. It would be a serious matter if the American village's indifference to at- tractiveness rested on blunted percep- tions. Then the proper method would be a revival of lecturers of the Oscar Wilde type, who with sunflower bou- tonniere could make the Chautauqua circuit echo a new gospel. Such men could point out that there is no reason why the flatness of Illinois should not be made beautiful, and deliver to Lead- ville's or Deseret's residents a new ver- sion of Ruskin on the mountain glory. But any town which has gone far enough in the concerted action of its citizens to provide itself with a Chau- tauqua is likely to be thinking also of its civic beauty. Possibly the amphi- theatre itself rests in a specially de- signed park, part of a plan of local im- provement which the distant future will consummate. With the process of nat- ural selection between fit and unfit buildings, the prospect of our small towns is not so cheerless as the present ugly state of many would indicate. Much will depend upon the extension of those general or State agencies of which we have spoken. But at bottom, the change must follow upon the birth of a new social spirit in the village itself. Wherever, in the future, we have a beau- tified centre, we may be sure a set of social-minded people has been created. THE MERRY ANARCH. It is no longer true that to be born the eldest son of an English peer is the happiest fate one might pick out. To be born an English intellectual revolution- ist is infinitely jollier. No one In Lon- don manages to get so much fun out of life as Mr. Bernard Shaw, unless it be Mr. Chesterton or Mr. Belloc. It does not matter what particular school of revolutionary thought a man belongs to. He may be an Ibsenian revolutionist
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104 Tne Nation (Vol. 98, No. 2535 like Mr. Shaw, or a mediaeval revolu- tionist like Mr. Chesterton, or a Cath- olic revolutionist like Mr. Belloe. it only a man stands up against things as they are, he has tapped the sources of inexhaustible merriment. The Atlantic cable hums with the lighthearted pranks of men whose professed business it is to undermine society. Between social ex- plosions they are a lot of schoolboys. They hit one another with bladders, they make faces at one another, they scribble one another's names on the fences, and when they have drawn a crowd of curious citizens, they trip down the sidewalk with their arms over one another's shoulders. Sometimes they have mock trials with Mr. Chesterton as judge and Mr. Shaw as foreman of the jury. Sometimes Mr. Belloc writes a burlesque novel and Mr. Chesterton draws ludicrous cartoons to illustrate it. Sometimes Mr. Chesterton writes a book about Mr. Shaw. Sometimes Mr. Shaw writes a vaudeville to accompany a serious play by Mr. Chesterton. It is hard to imagine them as enemies of so- ciety. One would rather think of them as a band of cosmic cut-ups. We are thus driven to believe that the traditional type of revolutionary— the sinister, heavily-bearded, and unwashed enemy of society — no longer exists out- side of the books of E. Phillips Oppen- heim. The up-to-date sapper of the so- cial order does not slink through alleys and subterranean passages, but prefers to keep in close touch with the Asso- ciated Press. British philistinism can- not spoil Mr. Shaw's temper; it only in- spires him to write a jolly farce like "Fanny's First Play." The cruelties and stupidities of modern life stimu- late Mr. Shaw to the point where he goes out and has M. Rodin model a bust of him. When Mr. Chesterton contem- plates the unholy alliance between priv- ilege and finance which makes up mod- ern government, when he thinks of the pretentious ineptitudes of parliamen- tary oratory, when he finds himself en- compassed by the schemes of self-seek- ing fanatics and reformers, he feels so depressed that he immediately dashes off a ballad or two in praise of brown October ale. Foreigners who have long admired the peculiar traits of the An- glo-Saxon temperament will find anoth- er illustration in the revolutionist who goes about his work of destruction with a merry snatch of song on his lips. For- eigners more distantly removed in time, say, Isaiah or Amos or Jeremiah, would find it very difficult indeed to make out this new kind of prophet, who finds that the world is so full of a number of mis- erable and reprehensible things, he is sure we should all be as happy as kings. The one person above all others who has a rather sad time of it to-day is precisely the supposedly comfortable, supposedly self-satisfied suburban citi- zen against whom Mr. Shaw has waged the warfare of a lifetime. Remember all that Mr. Shaw and his fellow-revolu- tionists have said about the British Philistine and the elaborate conventions which he has built up to save himself the trouble of independent thought and conscience. Behind this wall of moral conventions, religious conventions, con- ventions of social propriety, the citizen is pictured as going about his exclusive business, which consists in the satisfac- tion of his own material wants; a stupid ruminative life, but pleasurable in a low way. Yet what are the facts? While Mr. Shaw and Mr. Chesterton are romping about and throwing stones and shout- ing aloud in the joy of their hearts, your stolid middle-class citizen worries. He worries over his duties as a citizen, over the Poor Law, slums, child labor, milk kitchens, eugenics, military train- ing, model dance halls, hospitals, model tenements, the decline of the rural pop- ulation, the peril of moving-picture the- atres, the tango, and the slit-skirt. Mr. Shaw is never so amused as when he contemplates the suburban citizen pot- tering about the business of reform, since every revolutionist knows that re- form is itself only a stupid convention, a cheap balm for the conscience. And your moderately progressive citizen is indeed a stupid animal. Else he would recognize that this business of patching up society only brings worry, whereas the revolutionist kicks over the whole mess at once and is happy as the day is long. Some day the stodgy middle-class citi- zen will discover the secret wnich the revolutionists have long mastered. Then everybody will turn against things as they are and life will be one loud peal of merriment. Thousands of good peo- ple will imitate Mr. Chesterton and call for barricades with the fine, orotund hilarity in which one calls for a pint of ale. Other thousands will Imitate Mr. Shaw and indite roundelays against the marriage tie and in favor of state support of children. Our problems will be solved when we are all one jolly crew busily engaged in scuttling the ship of state. CANADIAN BOOKS OF 1913. Ottawa, January 7. Contemporary Canadian literature — using the word in its broadest sense — reflects to a large extent the spirit of the country. That spirit is to-day frankly materialistic. It takes pride in the vast material resources of the Dominion, in the development of great industries, in the ever-widening net of railways, in the growth of national wealth. Its idols are of the flesh. It worships the great god Success. It is too much preoccupied with the things that make for physical comfort or lux- ury to give much thought to those that are merely intellectual. This material- istic spirit is reflected to a large ex- tent in the contemporary literature of all countries, but at present we are concerned with Canada alone. One finds it not only as the animating spirit in books of every description, but as a deadening factor in the circulation of books that contain a higher motive. Doubtless in all ages books have been commonly read in inverse ratio to their true worth as literature, but that was never truer than it is to-day, in this age of universal education and enlight- enment. To what extent this material- istic spirit tends to deaden the develop- ment of the higher forms of literature it would be difficult to say. Whatever the reason, Canada has as yet produced no genius in literature, though it has counted, and counts to-day, many writ- ers of fair ability, and a very few of higher rank. This ponderous and rather pessimis- tic introduction is the result of wad- ing through a formidable pile of books, of all sorts and sizes, written in or about Canada during the year 1913. By all odds the two most important books of the year are "Goldwin Smith: His Life and Opinions," by Arnold Haul- tain (Toronto: McClelland & Goodohild), and "Correspondence of Goldwin Smith," edited by Arnold Haultaln (New York: Duffield). Just how far Goldwin Smith may be counted as a Canadian Is, of course, a debatable point. He was born and educated In England; his heart was throughout a large part of his life with Cornell; but for many years his home was in Toronto, and al- though he always seemed a man apart, he took a deep Interest In Canadian affairs. His criticism was always too caustic and tactless to be acceptable to his contemporaries, but there c:\nnot bo any reason to doubt that, in some
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Jan, 29, 1914] The IsTation lOo respects at least, his influence upon Canadian life and thought will be real- and lasting, lie was largely instrumen- tal in founding and supporting several of the best magazines Canada has pos- . the old Canadian Monthly, the X at ion, the Week, and the Bystander. The last-named he edited himself for several years, and any student of Cana- dian affairs is lucky who possesses a set of Hi is almost forgotten periodical. In his Life, which is rather material for biography than biography proper, as well as in his Correspondence, the man stands revealed, a rather lonely and friendless figure, with a distinctly poor opinion of most of his contemporaries and little faith in their works, but with- al a champion of intellectual things in a very materialistic age, and a master of English when English was least un- derstood. Mis was the voice of one cry- ing in the wilderness, but the message may not in the end be fruitless. In Canadian biography not much else of importance appeared in 1913. Sir George Ross's "Getting into Parliament and After" (Toronto: Briggs) is a read- able volume of reminiscences, by one who has been what is known in Canada as a Liberal of the old school. Sir George Ross was chief lieutenant to Sir Oliver Mowat in the Ontario Govern- ment, and succeeded him in the Pre- miership. For several years he has led the Liberal party in the Dominion Sen- ate. Emma A. Currie's "Story of Laura Secord and Canadian Reminiscences' (St. Catherines: Currie) contains some of the useful material from which his- torians get their sidelights on pivotal events. In the general department of history, the year's publications are much more varied. The close of 1913 saw the prac- tical completion of the ambitious work, "Canada and Its Provinces" (Toronto: Puhlishers' Association), which is ap- pearing in more than a score of vol umes, under the general editorship of Dr. Arthur G. Doughty, Dominion Ar- chivist, and Prof. Adam Shortt, former- ly of Queen's University and now Civil Service Commissioner in Ottawa. About half the work has been issued, and the balance is now in the hands of the print- ers, with the exception of an elaborate index which is to fill a final volume. The various phases of the country's his- tory, general and provincial, were en- trusted to writers each of whom was recognized as an authority in his own particular field, and with the painstak- ing editorial supervision to which every article has been subjected, the result will be a work of unusual value, cred- itable alike to Canada and to those engaged in the undertaking. Two hooks of more than ordinary In- terest, though possessing nothing in common, are Col. William Wood's "In the Heart of Old Canada" (Briggs) and William Ogilvie's "Early Days on the Yukon" (Toronto: Bell & Cockburn). The former deals with a variety of top- ics related to the history of Quebec, and has the double charm of romantic sub- jects and very attractive treatment. The value of the late Mr. Ogilvie's book is in its matter rather tnan its manner, and yet there are vivid flashes in this little narrative of stirring events in the early days of the northern gold- fields. Several volumes of informing material, perhaps of larger interest to the local student or the historian than to the general reader, are Miss K. M. Lizars's "Valley of the Humber" (Briggs), setting forth the place of this romantic stream on the outskirts of Toronto in Canadian history; Miss Janet Carnochan's "History of Niagara" (Briggs), in which is described by an acknowledged authority the story of the little town at the mouth of the Niagara River, once the capital of Up- per Canada; W. S. Herrington's "His- tory of the County of Lennox and Ad- dington" (Toronto: Macmillan), the story of one of the United Empire Set- tlements in Ontario; Emily P. Weaver's "Story of the Counties of Ontario" (Bell & Cockburn), somewhat superficial but readable; Barlow Cumberland's "Cen- tury of Sail and Steam Navigation on the Niagara River" (Toronto: Musson), in which romance and commerce are en- tertainingly combined; and Dr. Alexan der Fraser's "Brock Centenary, 1812 1912" (Briggs), containing an account of the celebration at Queenston Heights, Ontario, on the 12th October, 1912. An important addition to the scanty literature of the Northern fur-trade is Isaac Cowie's "Company of Adventur- ers" (Briggs), in which the author gives an account of his own experiences and adventures in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company from 1867 to 1874. L. J. Burpee's "Scouts of Empire" (Musson) is a small book in the same general field, dealing with the lives of such Western explorers and fur-traders as Henry Hudson, Alexander Mackenzie, Simon Fraser, etc. TheDominion Archives issues a volume of "Documents Relating to the Invasion of Canada and the Surrender of Detroit, 1812," edited by Col. E. A. Cruikshank, and has in press a second series of "Canadian Constitutional Documents" and a volume of "Pioneer Legislation." The Champlain Society did not actually issue a volume in 1913, but the annual report announces several works as eith- er in press or approaching completion, among others volume three of Lescar- bot's "History of New France," edited by Professor Grant; the "Journals of La Verendrye," edited by L. J. Burpee; the "Knox Journal," edited by Dr. A. G. Doughty; the "Journal of David Thompson," of the Northwest Company, edited by J. B. Tyrrell; the first volume of the new edition of the works of Champlain; and Col. William Wood's "War of 1812." A most interesting volume is Elihu Stewart's "Down the Mackenzie and Up the Yukon" (New York: Lane), a pop- ularly written story of Mr. Stewart's of- ficial journey in 1906 as Superintendent of Forestry for Canada. Two readable and attractive books dealing with the Province of Quebec and its peculiarly interesting people are Beckles Willson's "Quebec, the Laurentian Province" (New York: Stokes), and J. Castell Hopkins's "French Canada and the St. Lawrence" (Bell & Cockburn). A par- ticularly attractive reprint of an old Canadian book that has come to be recognized as a classic is Susanna Moodie's "Roughing It in the Bush" (Bell & Cockburn). Clarke's the "Heart of Gaspe" (New York: Macmillan) de- scribes with sympathetic insight ian out-of-the-way corner of Canada, whose picturesque scenery and simple-minded inhabitants deserve to be better known. In the broad field of economics and public affairs there have been published during the year several books and pam- phlets of considerable interest. One of these is Prof. O. D. Skelton's "Economic History of the Dominion" (Publishers' Association); another is John Mac- Dougall's "Rural Life in Canada," an exhaustive treatment of a neglected subject of prime importance. Prof. Stephen Leacock has brought out a new edition of his "Elements of Po- litical Science" (Boston: Houghton). Hamar Greenwood's "Canada as an Im- perial Factor" (London: Collins); "Can- ada and Sea-Power," by "Christopher West" (McClelland); J. S. Ewart's "Kingdom Papers" (Ottawa: Ewart) ; John L. Morison's "British Supremacy and Canadian Autonomy" (Kingston: Queen's University); Henry Bourassa's "Spectre of Annexation" (Montreal: he Devoir), and A. H. F. Lefroy's "Can- ada's Federal System" (Toronto: Cars- well) are also contributions to our know- ledge of problems of Canadian citizen- ship. Nothing has been said so far of Can- ada's contributions to belles-lettres dur- ing the past year. Unfortunately, in the realm of pure literature there is little to record, beyond a very few vol- umes of verse and essays. The only notable contribution to Canadian poetry is Miss Marjory Plckthall's "Drift of Pinions" (Montreal: University Maga- zine Co.). While somewhat unequal in quality, this first little volume of Miss Pickthall's contains several short poems of exquisite delicacy and feeling, sufficient in themselves to mark the writer as one from whom even better things may be expected in the future. Miss Virna Sheard's "The Miracle" (To- ronto: Dent) is a somewhat more am- bitious volume, of magazine verse of fair quality, In the main readable and
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lOG ± lie JNation (Vol. 98, No. 2535 attractive, but never rising much above mediocrity. The volume of poems by the late George Murray (Murray) con- tains one or two historical ballads, and several translations that make the book one worth remembering. George Mur- ray many years ago was an intimate friend of Sir Edwin Arnold. For half a century he was closely identified with the educational and intellectual life of Canada. Since the death of Pauline Johnson, a new edition of her "Flint and Feather" (Musson) has appeared, with a number of additional poems. This edition appears with a sympathetic introduction on the life and genius of the remarkable Indian poet, who so strikingly revealed in her work the qual- ities of the two races from which she sprang. It remains to mention the "Ox- ford Book of Canadian Verse" (Toron- to: Oxford University Press). The se- lection was in the hands of a Canadian poet, Dr. Wilfred Campbell, and to some extent the hook reflects the dis- advantages as well as the advantages of entrusting such work to a poet, but on the whole the collection is an admira- ble one and represents very fairly the characteristic work of the principal Canadian poets. A volume of prose sketches by Pau- line Johnson, "The Moccasin Maker" (Briggs), shows that she could write admirable prose, though lacking per- haps the distinctive charm of her poetry. The tenderness and gracious- ness with which she tells the story of her own mother's life is not unworthy of comparison with Barrie's "Margaret Ogilvie." The book contains an intro- duction by Sir Gilbert Parker and an appreciation by the Western Canadian poet, Charles Mair. In "Behind the Be- yond" (Bell & Cockburn), Stephen Lea- cock brings together another collection of those delightfully amusing sketches which have marked him as a humorist with a manner that is altogether his own. His last book is hardly equal to "Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town," but there are passages in It that one would not willingly have missed. L. J. B. NEWS FOR BIBLIOPHILES. The latest publication of the Bibliograph- ical Society, No. xvi of Its Illustrated Mono- graphs, is likely to prove the most generally useful work it has yet produced. Mr. Ron- ald B. McKerrow, who now shares with Mr. A. W. Pollard the duties of honorary secretary, has listed all the printers' and publishers' devices which he has found used by English or Scotch printers from the beginning in 1485 to 1G40. Such a list, with facsimiles of the 428 devices, would by it- self have been invaluable to those who have occasion to try to answer the puzzling questions which arise In connection with so many old volumes. Mr. McKerrow has done much more than bring this material together. Jle has In- dexed the devices according to size, the only practical means of identifying many of them, and also by names, mottoes, and Initials. He has made a contribution to our knowledge of the English book, print- ing, and publishing trades by his notes on the transfer of devices from one estab- lishment to another, while his readable in- troduction raises a number of questions for further investigation. In connection with the detailed descrip- tion of each device, Mr. McKerrow has shown a courage which would have been danger- ous on the part of a less conscientious searcher. With each description, he has stated not only where he found the device, but the earliest and latest use of which he is aware. Every student who uses the book is likely to extend these dates — a single American library has carried one of them forward from 1513 to 1521— but this only goes to prove how greatly this feature adds to the practical usefulness of the volume. The fact that a woodcut in a book printed in 1521 was also in use In 1496 is not in itself important. Taken in connection with other facts, however, it helps to an understanding of what Richard Pynson's workshop was like, to know that this particular block was still in use fif- teen years after he had it made. To the possessor of some old fragment in which the device is the only clue to when and where the book was printed, the importance of this fact Is likely to seem very great indeed. Mr. McKerrow's volume adds to the con- fusion in regard to one cut which has long been the cause of various theories among students of American books. In 1548 Edward Whitchurch, of London, print- ed Erasmus's "Paraphrase upon the New Testament." The title was enclosed in an elaborate border, with the royal arms at the top and those of Queen Catherine Parr at the foot. In the lower corners were the printer's initials, "E. W." The next year this border was used again by Whitchurch for the title of the first edition of the Book of Common Prayer. Whitchurch was the principal printer engaged in bringing out the Edward VI Prayer Book, a fact which may account for his exclusion from the general pardon proclaimed at the be- ginning of "Bloody Mary's" reign, in 1552. He thereupon disappeared from the shop at the Sign of the Sun in Fleet Street, and his scattered stock gradually reappeared in the hands of at least six other printers. The marriage of Mary to King Philip II of Spain, and the closer commercial rela- tions between London and the Spanish ports which followed this union, has been thought to be the probable explanation for the reappearance of Whitchurch's Prayer Book border In the City of Mexico, where It was used in 1559 for the title of Friar Maturino Gilberti's "Vocabulario en Lengua de Mechuacan," the native dialect used In the region beyond Lake Chapala. The cut had made a long Journey from the heretical shop in Fleet Street, and the search for reasons to account for its travels has given ample play to the bibliographical imagination. So far the facts have in- volved nothing at all impossible or Im- probable. Now, however, comes Mr. McKer- row with the confusing information that he has seen the identical cut of the 1548 Erasmus and the 1549 Prayer Book, with the arms of Catherine Parr and the "E. W." whittled away, in use in London in 1554, in 1559, and, worst of all, in 1562. On the Mexican title-page of 1559 the arms have been altered, a common habit of the old wood-block cutters, but the letters "10. W." are in the place they occupy in the title of the Prayer Book. There seems to be only one explanation of the facts as they now stand. When the Book of Common Prayer was ordered to be used in the churches throughout England, all the avail- able presses, working at their best, were unable to meet the demand for copies. At least six different issues of the Prayer Book appeared during the spring and sum- mer of 1549, and these have given rise to various bibliographical questions, few of which have been answered satisfactorily. One of these, which apparently has not before been asked, is whether there were more than one of the "E. W." border cuts in use upon different presses printing the titles to the Prayer Book. If there were two, the seemingly impossible is explained. George Parker Winship. Correspondence IS AMERICAN VIGOR DECLINING? To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: In your issue of January 15. you commented editorially on the question "Is American Vitality Declining?" and you were kind enough to quote some figures from my paper in the December number of the American Journal of Public Health, entitled "Possibilities of Reducing Mor- tality at the Higher Age Groups." In your opinion, the figures do not warrant the conclusions drawn, viz., that there has been a deterioration in American vitality. You would have us believe that the in- creased mortality between the ages of forty-five and sixty-five is entirely due to the advances in medical science, which have prolonged the lives of persons until this age-period who previously would have died at the younger ages. Indeed, you even suggest that this factor may in itself be sufficient to account for a larger in- crease in the mortality at the higher ages than has actually been observed, and that there may very well have been an improve- ment in the conditions of life rather than a deterioration. I realize, of course, the importance of the sequela? of the acute infections of early life, and pointed that out in my paper. My only quarrel with you is that you have seen fit to make this single point carry the entire burden of explanation. In this, I believe, your position is untenable. Let us take the mortality of females. There has been a much larger decrease in their early mortality than that observed among males; but their mortality at the higher ages shows practically no increases, as we should expect from your explana- tion. In other words, there must be some other causes at work. These, I believe, in- clude the Increased consumption of alco- holic beverages and, more especially, the industrial conditions that have prevailed during the last thirty years. The difficulty in your argument results from your primary assumption, namely, that the advances in medicine merely pro-
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Jan. 29, 1914I The Nation 1U7 long life. Nothing In nature corresponds to your hypothetical case. The saving of a life In Infancy is not equivalent to giv- ing the individual a lease of life for a limited term of years, as you conceive it. As Newsholme pointed out in his famous controversy with Pearson, the babies saved through present-day infant hygiene must not be classed as weaklings, but include the best and worst stocks in the community. Recent Hfe-savlDg campaigns have direct- ed their attention not so much to 'curing the sick as to the prevention of sickness itself. Indeed, improved milk and water supplies have been much more potent fac- tors in reducing mortality at the younger ages than the advances in medicine. In the larger number of cases, therefore, there are no good reasons why the life Which has been saved in early years should not run on to sixty-five and over. Our present anxiety is due to the fact that the Increased mortality Is occurring in the age-period between forty-five and sixty-five. We should like to see the acceleration in mortality begin after age sixty-five when no serious social damage would result. Do you not virtually admit the weak- ness of your case in your last paragraph? You point out that "It is quite possible that the increase in the number of deaths at the ages above forty- five may be due to a larger number of persons reaching these ages among the classes engaged in hard and life-shortening toil." That was exactly the point we desired to make. In the first place, the classes engaged in hard and life- shortening toil form the major part of our population, and secondly, it is the hard and life-shortening toil itself which must be considered as an important cause to which we must ascribe the increased mortality under discussion. It is generally agreed among students of industrial conditions that the changes in the trades during the last thirty years have been of a nature to make life harder for those engaged in them. For- tunately, these conditions are now being im- proved voluntarily by employers, and through the Influence of labor legislation. The question under discussion is one of the most complex in the whole realm of vital statistics. The several causes to which I directed attention in my paper are important, but I do not contend that they are all-sufficient. A number of intensive studies must still be made to determine, for example, what effects have followed from the concentration of our population in the cities. We must also determine the effects of changes in the composition and characteristics of our population. During the last ten years, there has been an influx of Italians, Hungarians, Rus- sians, Poles, and Jews, largely of adult age, who may have had an unfavorable in- fluence on our figures of mortality. It is important to observe in this connection that they have congregated largely in our registration States, and that in every case the mortality rates of their native coun- tries are higher than those to be observed in the registration area of the United States. These two factors have undoubted- ly played an important part in our total results; what that is, can be determined only by further research of the most inten- sive character. In conclusion, you will permit me to di- rect attention to the fact that your con- clusions are likely to have an effect very m from the one you contemplated. (Those agencies which are now engaged in 1 improving the conditions of labor, etc., are I likely lo be hindered in their work if there I be agreement that the increases in mor- tality in later life are the result of the 'survival for many years of some lives less hardy than the average which in olden days >vould have disappeared much sooner." I am certain that you are hardly prepared to take such a stand. Yet there will be those who, in defence of their anti-social conduct towards industrial workers, will take refuge behind your encouraging inter- pretation of American vital statistics. Louis I. Dublin, Statistician of the Metropolitan Life Insur- ance Company. New York, January 19. THE HARVARD-TECHNOLOGY MERGER. To the Editor of The Nation : Sir: The editorial in your issue of Jan- uary 15 on the Harvard-Technology merger contains some half truths which are mis- leading. In that editorial Harvard's "non- success in the field of applied science" is measured by the number of graduate stu- dents. The statement is made that Harvard has less than sixty graduate students of applied science, while Technology has 250 graduates seeking its degrees. These num- bers are incorrect and not comparable. Har- vard has 139 students enrolled in its Gradu- ate School of Applied Science, and taking courses leading to degrees in applied science. The 250 graduate students in Tech- nology are the total number of graduate students there, which therefore includes the students in all branches both of pure and applied science. Such information as is ob- tainable indicates that the number of gradu- ates at Technology taking courses in those fields of applied science which are offered at Harvard is barely, if at all, greater than the number of graduates in the Harvard School of Applied Science. If, however, the figures were as stated by you, they would not indicate "non-success" at the Harvard School. The School is quite new; certain of its departments are not as yet fully manned ; its courses are more rigorous and its standards higher than those of other technical schools in this country; its curriculum occupies the whole of the twelve months with practically no break, and it is as yet known only to a small minority of the students graduating from the colleges in this country. Many students are deterred from entering the Harvard School by the high standards main- tained there, or by the absence of summer vacations, or because they must have their summers free to earn money to enable them to go on with their studies. I would submit, however, that numbers are not a satisfactory indication of success. The Instructors in the School of Applied Science are virtually a unit in believing that the experiment which Harvard Univer- sity has started has turned out most suc- cessfully; that the students who have been attracted to the School show a high average of earnestness and capacity; that the gradu- ates leave with better equipment than is possible in an undergraduate or a mixed graduate and undergraduate school ; that there has been success In turning out men with thorough technical grounding, a broad outlook, and enthusiasm for their profes- sion. As other engineering schools have started to follow in the path set by Har- vard University, this success should be stated, as an encouragement to continue the experiment which has been so abrupt- ly terminated by the governing boards of Harvard University. In another respect also, your statement of facts is misleading. No faculty of Harvard University was informed of the merger un- til it had already been passed by the cor- poration of Harvard University and the ex- ecutive board of Technology. It is true that the faculty of the School of Applied Science had an opportunity to ask questions about it two days before it was finally ratified by the overseers of Harvard University; but the overseers did not seek the advice of any of the faculties or of individual mem- bers of the teaching staff, and naturally ap- proved what was submitted to them by the corporation. The faculty of arts and sci- ences learned of the completed merger only from the daily papers, though it is a matter of much importance to that faculty, because the position of the pure sciences in the University is greatly weakened by the re- moval of the applied sciences. The trustees of the McKay Fund also obtained their first news of the merger from the daily press. Mr. McKay had specifically refused to aid Technology; but the merger is based entire- ly upon the University giving up to Tech- nology all real control over two-thirds of that fund. These matters, which are of common knowledge in the University, have some im- portance to the community in relation to the growing sentiment against autocratic- control of universities by their presidents or governing boards. It is interesting to note that one member only of the governing boards urged delay, in order that proper consideration might be given to a matter of so much importance; and that that one person was the sole member of the teaching staff on the governing board. Harvard has thrown away its unique School of Engineer- ing, and not one person whose opinion was of value on that subject was consulted. It Is surely time that the faculties of our universities should have a larger voice in the control of educational policies. Harvard has two other graduate profes- sional schools which might be merged with other local schools. The Harvard Law School would enrich the Boston University Law School if absorbed by it. The Har- vard Medical School might do a like ser- vice to Tufts Medical College. The argu- ments that might be advanced for these combinations are precisely those which carried through the Harvard-Technology merger. X. Cambridge, Mass., January 23. THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCI- ATION. To the Editor of The Nation ; Sir: I am very grateful to Dr. Rowland for his communication, published in the X a lion on January 22, which states at length the most interesting feature of the recent business meeting of the American Historical Association — a feature to which I could allude only most briefly In my re- port of the meeting, owing to the cruel
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108 The JSTution [Vol.98, No. 2535 bonds of space limitation and not to any oligarchical attempt at suppresslo veri. For 1 feel, in common, I believe, with every other member of the Associa- tion, including the officers, a keen appreciation of the courageous way in which Dr. Rowland stood up at Charleston to criticise the methods of the election of officers of the Association and to voice the opinion that the power of the Council "has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished." It is well that the members of the Association should be aroused by him to the fact that they have been too indifferent. It is quite natural that the steadily wid- ening membership and the increasingly va- ried activities of the Association, together with the human experience that it is oft- ener easier to do a thing one's self than to get some one else to do it, should have inevitably led to an increase in the powers and activities of the Council. I do not conceive of the Council as an oligarchy grasping for power, but rather as a hard- working body having increased labors thrust upon it. The Constitution of the Association says nothing about committees or their appointment. But as the work of the Association has grown with time, com- mittees have had to be appointed. What was more natural than that they should have come to be appointed by the Council? So now we have reached the brink which Dr. Rowland has opportunely revealed. What is to be done? If Dr. Rowland, or any one else, thinks that the general will of the members of the Association as to the choice of officers would be expressed satisfactorily and with- out criticism by simply following the letter of the clause in the constitution which he italicizes ("These officers shall be elected by ballot at each regular annual meeting of the Association"), I fear his optimism is excessive. For two objections would be raised. Only a small proportion of the members are able to attend the annual meeting. Not a tithe of the 2,843 members went to Charleston. Would not the ab- sent ones say in criticism that they also ought to have some rights? They might. But in an organization like the His- torical Association, in which the chief opportunity for activity is in attend- ance at the Christmas meeting, a sufficient reply to such critics would be that they have a right to attend the an- nual meeting and there ballot for officers, and that if they do not take enough inter- est to do this, they should not criticise. This objection, therefore, is not, so it seems to me, of serious consideration. However, in the plan outlined below, absent members would have some influence in making nominations even though they did not take part in the final ballot. There is another objection, however, which is vital and fundamental. As some one pointed out at Charleston — I think it was Professor Burr — it requires very little acquaintance with political assemblies, student organi- zations, and even college faculties to ob- serve that a simple election by ballot is by no means likely to give general satis- faction. What usually happens In such cases is that a small group of men, more zealous or less scrupulous than the rest, come together beforehand, agree to support certain candidates, and spring upon the assembly an unseen slate which has enough organized support to carry the elections in a wholly unorganized mass of discon- certed electors. By a caucus of this sort a small and irresponsible minority may engineer elections by no means generally desired by the great majority. To avoid the possibility of this and to af- ford an agency for ascertaining the real general wishes of the members of the As- sociation, the Council has been in the habit of appointing a nominating commit- tee. The Council and the committee, as they stated at Charleston, have genuinely made some effort, in going to and fro in the earth, to consult members whom they happen to meet in regard to desirable nominations for the December meeting. The only difficulty is that many an individual member may find, as does Dr. Rowland, that he himself did not happen to be one of those whom the committee happened to consult. Some years ago also the Council earnestly attempted to procure nominations by sending out to members, along with the bill for annual dues, a blank ballot for suggestions. But from some two thousand members they received less than two score replies. The experiment did not seem to be worth repetition. In view of this situation I venture to re- peat a suggestion which I heard favorably discussed on our homeward "way from Charleston. As it is essential that some canvass of opinions be made before the final balloting at the annual meeting, I suggest that the nominating committee, after learning as much as it can of the sentiments of the members by conversation, shall draw up a list of several nominations for each of- fice to be filled, leaving space for, and ex- pressing the hope of receiving, additional nominations. Let this list be sent to each member some weeks before the annual meeting in order that he may mark his preference among the suggested names or add nominations of his own. These mark- ed nomination lists, returned to the com- mittee, should be the basis for the final ballot to be voted upon at the annual meet- ing. This may be a little clumsy and in- volves some work, but it is similar to systems found fairly satisfactory by some colleges and universities for electing over- seers, trustees, and alumni officers. \It would not be likely to meet such apathy as did the efforts of the Council a few years ago, mentioned above; because a mod- est man who would hesitate to urge candi- dates whom no one has mentioned, is like- ly to be ready and eager to express a pref- erence among names brought to his no- tice; and the provision for additional nom- inations would always give adequate oppor- tunity to those who thought the nominat- ing committee had not done its duty in bringing forward fairly representative names. Sidney B. Pat. Dartmouth College, January 24. lette has no right to offer legislation upon the subject matter, of which he admits that he has no expert knowledge. If the professor's reasoning is valid then a prosecuting attorney has no right to draw up an indictment for murder by poi- soning unless he is an expert on the phy- siological effects of poisons. But obviously the framing of a proposal and the taking of evidence upon it are very different operations. Identical rules do not apply. William P. Morrison. Boston, January 19. CAFETERIA. To the Editor of The Nation : Sir: You published some time ago an article on the word cafeteria and then later another one on "Pequeno Larousse Ilus- trado," but failed to combine the two. If you had looked for the word in the dic- tionary, you would have found the follow- ing explanation: "Cafeteria, f. Cub. Tienda donde se vende cafe por menor." Joseph de Perott. Worcester, Mass., January 16. LAWMAKER AND EXPERT. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: Professor Sadler writes In the Na- tion of January 15 that If a committee of Congress declines to hear opinion upon the ground that It is not expert opinion, the logical conclusion Is that Senator La Fol- A QUESTION OF HEREDITY. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir : The Nation has already printed two attempts to translate into English the mathematical symbols of Professor Pear- son's study of the children of Edinburgh drunkards; permit me to suggest a third. Mine has at least the advantage of being somewhat more flattering to the intelli- gence of the world's first scholar in his field. As I understand Professor Pearson, the comparison is not, as is commonly assum- ed, between children of drinkers and non- drinkers, or of drunkards and moderate drinkers, taken as general classes. That is to say, it is not simply a comparison of children whose parents are damaged by al- cohol with children whose parents are not damaged by alcohol. The point of the study is that the two groups are on the same social level. In other words, the comparison is be- tween the children of parents who are now at a social level where they naturally be- long and the children of parents who nat- urally belong on a higher level, but whose alcoholism has dropped them down to the level where they actually occur. The question, then, is this: Given a child with a certain heredity and a certain envi- ronment, how will this child compare with another child whose environment, though substantially the same, is on the whole made rather worse by the parental habits, but whose heredity is on the whole distlnc- ly better? That the second family Is, on the whole, "better" than the first. Is as- sumed to be proved by the fact that, in spite of its alcoholic handicap, it still main- tains itself at the same social level as the first. The answer turns out to be precisely what every disciple of Darwin would expect It to be — the better native protoplasm more than offsets the alcohol, and the children of hard-drinkers prove to be slightly superior to their neighbors. Whether, therefore, one agrees or not with the opinion of your correspondent, that Professor Pearson's "conclusions aro ob-
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Jan. 29, 1914] The JSTation 1Q9 vlously most untrustworthy and jnislead- ing," for the reason that "there was no com- parison with children in normal, tempe- rate families," must turn on one's under- standing of what the eminent biometrician was actually trying to do. If he was study- ing the physiological problem of the ef- fect of alcohol on offspring, the criticism is well made. If, on the other hand, he was studying the genetic problem of the distri- bution of native quality In different so- cial classes, and selected the families of hard-drunkards merely as a convenient ex- ample of a "declassed" group who still re- tain something of their class quality, the weakness of his logic is by no means so ob- vious. All we need to know is that one group has damaged Its social status by drink more than the other. Which of these two interpretations of the paper is correct, can be settled only by the original text. E. T. Brewster. AmioK'i, Mass., January no. Literature LI HUNG CHANG. Memoirs of Li Hung Chang. Edited by William Francis Mannix, with an In- troduction by Hon. John W. Foster. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. $3 net. The remarkable biography of the late Empress Dowager of China, compiled a few years ago from the original docu- ments, has prepared the English-speak- ing world for almost any surprise when the curtain is lifted which reveals the inside of Chinese life among the mighty. The "Memoirs of Li Hung Chang," purporting to be derived from a great mass of manuscripts left by that statesman, may be accepted in the West- ern world without much comment, be- cause we now know that the Chinese are subject to like passions as ourselves and are able to commit indiscretions in their letters and diaries like other peo- ple. In other words, the figment of the "inscrutable" Chinaman has begun to disappear. It is not, therefore, the amazing frankness or the naivite of these pages that excites suspicion as to their entire genuineness, but the fre- quency with which statements occur in them that are not in accordance with known facts. Amid so many discrepan- cies it is noteworthy, moreover, that the editor not only refrains from comment in the case of new material, hut fails to substantiate the authenticity of certain papers included here which were grave- ly impugned when they appeared in the newspapers some years ago. Either the translator is much at fault or Li had a romantic contempt for accuracy that renders his testimony upon events in which he was an actor a source of fresh anxiety to future historians. The Grand Secretary may have been confused or indifferent in recording incidents in places, like Windsor and San Fran- cisco, where he had never been. But how could he have declared that he, with representatives of all the foreign Gov- ernments, personally saw the execution of the Tientsin rioters? According to the report of the British Consul, W. H. Lay, then at Tientsin, the Parliamen- tary Blue Book informs us that no for- eigners were present at the execution, which occurred at 5:30 on the morning of October 18, 1870 — a month after the date of the excerpt attributed to Li in this volume — nor was Li himself there. Jther instances occur which, if we may trust the translation, seem to imply Li's inability to speak the truth even to him- self. The documents from which the con- tents of this book are derived were translated, we are told, by one Major R. Emmet Roberts, a secretary of the late Viceroy, assisted by two Chinese, who are so named in the preface as to ren- der them impossible of identification. The originals, written on scraps of pa- oer at various periods during the Vice- roy's official career, contain more than a million and a half characters, only a tenth of which have been thought to be worth translating. It does not ap- pear that these notes were written with any other motive than the relief which an active mind finds in mere literary exercise — and Li, like many cultivated Chinese, was an acknowledged master of style. Such material at best could be arranged and condensed to useful pur- pose only by its author. It has fallen into the hands of foreigners whose de- sire to render it into idiomatic English and present only such fragments as would attract Western readers, arouses a doubt as to how truly these memoirs reproduce the actual statements and opinions of the putative author. The editor's reticence suggests that he at least has no mind to be counted among those who step in where angels might fear to tread. To his ignorance of Chi- nese must be attributed the rather nu- merous errors in the transcription of proper names, but a little diligence with easily accessible authorities on modern China might have equipped him with more sensible interpolations than those inserted between the translations of the diary. No one, for instance, who reads his Chinese history could call the un- fortunate and demented Issacher Rob- erts (not Robberts) "the chief Christian missionary of the time in the kingdom." Upon the most outrageous public act in Li's whole career, the murder of the surrendered Tai-ping Wangs at Suchau, the editor makes no comment at all. This savage stroke occurred, according to Boulger's "Life of Sir H. Macartney," in Li's camp, which was within a pali- saded enclosure where Macartney saw the decapitated bodies lying on the ground. From these memoirs we learn that the Governor was entertaining the captured chiefs — who had surrendered on solemn promise of personal immu- nity— on his boat lying near the city gate, when a great horde of lawless fellows, some of them Imperialists, but a majority of them drunken fellows of the Wangs' army, pour- ed through the gate killing and assaulting. I was one of the first to hear the great uproar, and believing the marauders might be intent upon dispatching me— for threats had been made in many quarters — I made my escape from the barge and hurriedly entered the city. Immediately I sent or- ders, by officers we met, to get troops as soon as possible and arrest all the rioters; but the orders were not quickly obeyed, and a scene of wholesale slaughter occurred up- on the barge. The description does not tally witn those recorded by others who were there, but even if we are to believe Li's ac- count of this sorry affair, we could wish that it did not leave him open to the suspicion of treachery from which foreigners are not likely to acquit him. For these foreigners he entertained at first an aversion which gradually chang- ed during his long intercourse with them to something approaching admira- tion. "It is not the men personally that I dislike," he writes in 1863, "but it is their airs of wonderful superiority. Each and every one sings the same song: 'I will do this, and I will do that; I will drive them out, or I will kill them all; I'll make your army more glorious than ever; but you must let me have my own way and not interfere with me!' That is the whole style of these foreigners." Twenty years later he was moved to write: "Fully appreciating what the Christian nations did for us in a late emergency, I cannot say that I am not friendly to the people of the West." There is hearty admiration for Gordon's talents and forgiveness for his hot temper — it was much like his own — but no sympathy whatever with his chivalry towards a fallen enemy or his consideration for his soldiers. Li's greatness was intellectual, not moral. He never approached the military genius of his older contemporary, Tseng Kuo- Fan, to whom is due the credit of quell- ing the Tai-ping rebellion, but he at- tained his success in this stormy period by superior subtlety, ruthless energy, and an appreciation much beyond his coadjutors of the advantage of employ- ing foreign military skill in the ser- vice of his Government. Yet, though conscious of the necessity of equipping China with the scientific knowledge and armaments of the West, his avarice could not resist the temptations of profit- ing personally by the opportunities of high office. He grew rich while the troops of the new army he created were left unpaid, and the defences of the Em- pire crumbled under the first attack largely through the cupidity of their sponsor. The Viceroy's association with the famous Empress Dowager constitutes
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no The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2535 perhaps the most interesting and ob- scure phase in his public career. Though be was called to Tientsin as early as 1870, and was thus brought into close relations with the Palace, we neverthe- less have nothing in these papers that brings Li into political contact with the Old Buddha (the Empress) un- til the Japanese War. In this in- terval of twenty-five years the alli- ance betwen the two chief exponents of government by graft was so suc- cessfully cemented that the Metropoli- tan Viceroy became the richest sub- ject in the Empire. The two Viceroys, Chang Chih-T'ung and Liu K'un-Yi, made it clear before they died that they thought him a partner also with the no- torious eunuch, Li Lien-Ying, and re- sponsible with him and the Dowager for a state of political corruption unequal- led in China since the Ming dynasty. With his cynical indifference to any moral law that interfered with the exer- cise of his master passion it does not seem probable that Li could have failed to write some of the million and a half characters preserved in his various yamens upon this engrossing topic; but his family may observe a natural reti- cence as to the sources of his stupendous fortune. Yet, despite his insatiable ap- petite for gold, he could pretend admira- tion for honesty in others, like the high- minded Prince K'ung, whose death he laments in the days of the coup d'etat of 1898: "If I could bring him back I would turn over, for the nation's sake, more than one-half of what I own; even though K'ung himself never helped me to accumulate a dollar, but rather put himself in my way two or three times.' The formula is one we might expect to find in the diary of a Tammany chief, if one of these ever committed the in- discretion of keeping a diary. The Empress herself comes in for one or two descriptive touches. While not averse co the introduction of Western learning, he approved her treatment of the reformer, K'ang Yu-Wei, and of the young Emperor, because the former was an extremist and the latter would not Msten to Li's advice. In 1900 he calls her "perhaps the best personal friend I have in the world outside my own fam- ily and domicile." Yet she gave no heed to his advice, either, and when he tried to press her regarding her plans in the Boxer crisis, "she had been," he writes, "so cordial and amiable in comparison to her ordinary wont that I did not be- lieve my further inquiry would offend her, but in an instant she was alive with wrath and angry words, and I immedi- ately withdrew. I have seen women something like her before, but they were in my house and it was not necessary for me to get down on my knees to them." The old statesman, though dis- credited for a time, was again called upon to rescue the nation after the debacle which ensued, but this was their last interview; he died ere the Empress returned from her flight to Sian. Both made what reparation they could at the end of their lives for the disasters which their unbridled avarice had brought upon their country, but they must share alike the odium of hav- ing prostituted their splendid talents in their indulgence in the most ignoble of vices. CURRENT FICTION. From the Angle of Seventeen. By Eden Phillpotts. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. Our regret at learning that Mr. Phill- potts intended to close his studies of Dartmoor life with "Widecombe Fair" was not quenched by the story that fol- lowed, "The Joy of Youth." It was amusing and brilliant, but lacked the solidity of the Dartmoor tales, without altogether shaking off their manner. "From the Angle of Seventeen" has no such reminders. It is so unlike any- thing else by Mr. Phillpotts that one can hardly believe it is his. A humorous sketch, it would be called, rather than a story — a year out of the life of an Eng- lish boy chronicled by himself. We meet him at the moment when he ceases to be head boy in a big school, and be- comes a clerk in a London "fire-office." He is greatly impressed with this "busy hive of industry," which "teemed with men of the greatest ability," and him- self feels "like a mere insect in a sol- emn cathedral where a mighty service was going on and everybody was doing their appointed part but me." He lives with an aunt who "was quite old her- self, and might have been at least forty. She was not yet withered, like the very old." Of young Mr. Corkey's labors in the "fire-office," and his success in making a respectable place for himself in that hive, or cathedral; of his contact with the rude world of the streets; his aspi- rations towards the stage, achievements in poetry, athletics, and social life, these pages treat. We are conscious of a Mr. Phillpotts smiling over the writer's shoulder, but never taking the pen from him. When Corkey shows the record to his aged aunt (of thirty-eight) she piques him by laughing. For a moment their relations are strained; but he for- gives her, "because she's really a jolly old thing, and of the greatest assistance to me behind the scenes, so to speak. Besides, everybody knows that the fem- inine sense of humor is merely dust and ashes. No doubt if I had written with badinage or pleasantry, in a light and transient vein, enlivened by sparks of persiflage and burlesque, she would have taken it in a tearful spirit and cried over it. . . . We must remem- ber that they are not as we are, and treat them accordingly." From begin- ning to end there is no flaw in the de- licious boy-style, with its artless slang and its equally artless pursuit of thread- bare "literary" phrases. It Happened in Egypt. By C. N. and A. M. Williamson. New York: Double- day, Page & Co. What happened to the Williamsons in Egypt is very much like what has happened to them before this in other climes dear to the tourist. The writers do not divulge the secret of the Sphinx or other matters sacred to Egypt, but they do concern themselves with infor- mation of a more practical nature. They are particularly successful in hitting upon the most picturesque corners of the country at the most favorable mo- ment. In the matter of adventure, neither variety nor quantity is lacking. To a large extent, the story revolves about two young men who are negotiating with the Government for the rights to excavate "The Golden Mountain," near Cairo. One of the two is blessed with a title, the other with a romantic his- tory and a romantic disguise. They are invaluable assets to a rich promoter who organizes expeditions de luxe on the Nile. To draw the millionaire crowd, a titled guide to lecture on Egypt is es- sential. So he buys the rights to the Golden Mountain and consents to cede them, only if the young men will agree to pilot rich tourists on the Nile. The young men consent, and then things be- gin to happen in Egypt. Among those who consent to be piloted is, of course, a young American heiress, whom uord Borrow has met on the steamer. The Sphinx in the Labyrinth. Maude Annesley. Duffleld & Co. The mere storv of the book is its most suggestive criticism. The love between a beautiful invalid artist and her hus- band, who gave up a brilliant career in law to take card of his wife, is so deep and affecting that it moves to tears the wife's lovely cousin, a poetess, who is living with them. To the very end of the book the wife and her husband adore each other. This does not prevent, how- ever, the husband from falling passion- ately in love with the cousin also. The author explains this very simply: "It has been said over and over again that a man cannot love two women simul- taneously. If this is so, then Stephen Warren was the exception which proves the rule." The cousin fully returns the husband's love. But she also loves the ether woman deeply, and from a sense of duty to her determines to go away and forget, if she can, the guilty love she feels. To her amazement and that of the husband, the wife, whose acute Intuition lias kepi her Informed of the love between her husband and her 1 ou sin, tells them both that she approves of
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Jan. 29, 1914] The USTation 111 their love affair and loves them both all the more for it. The wife dies of an unsuccessful operation. The widower, after a decent period of intense grief, comes to the poetess and asks her to marry him, as their love for each is stronger than ever. To his great sur- prise, the poetess refuses, saying: "I can't take you away from her," refer- ring to his dead wife. "If Camille [the wife] had remained with us, I — I — things would have remained as they were, . . ." she explains. "She un- derstood, and it did not hurt her. . . . But now she cannot tell us what she thinks. Now she may feel differently. . . . I loved her so. I can't, oh, Stephen, I can't run the risk of hurting Camille's soul!" 'lh< foe, and Other Tales. By Alexan- der Harvey. New York: Mitchell Ken- nerley. In his prefatory note of acknowledg- ment the author says that he is espe- cially grateful to the editor of the St. Louis Mirror for accepting "The Toe" when "leading New York magazines re- fused it." We gather that the joke is supposed to be on the leading New York magazines. He also thanks the editors of such publications as The Smart Set and Town Topics for using some of these stories, and expresses his great indebtedness to Mr. George Sylvester Viereck "for encouragement and sym- pathetic criticism." We mention this note by way of permitting Mr. Harvey to place himself. His stories have the qualities esteemed by a certain group of writers in New York. There is a good deal of straining after novelty of theme, and a kind of eroticism prepared for a special audience of bachelors — lingerie eroticism, it may be called. Two of the tales, indeed — "The Toe" and "Frou- Frou" — are elaborate rhapsodies on the beautiful theme of female undercloth- ing. SOURCES OF HISTORY. English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century. By C. L. Kings- ford. New York: Oxford University Press. $5 net. Mr. Kingsford's ability as an histori- cal critic with no mean powers of gen- eralization has been established by his editions of the "London Chronicles,' Stow's "Survey, and his studies of the Crusades and of Henry V. The fifteenth century is lacking in the unity and concentration of purpose which gives so much interest to the Angevin and Tudor periods. The old order of society was breaking up in the transition from mediaeval to modern England. The resulting confusion and decay render the age difficult to inter- pret; but the creative forces were at work which were to make the Tudor pe- riod memorable in history. Tnese cnar- acteristics of the fifteenth century are clearly reflected in the pages of contem- porary histories. In the early years of the century the historical form was still the Latin chronicle, dry and annalistic, written by and for persons whose exper- ience did not extend far beyond the con- fines of the monastery. They show mediaeval historiography in the last stages of decay. The French wars, the rapid development of trade and com- merce, the growth of civic life, and the introduction of the New Learning from Italy resulted in the awakening of na- tional consciousness, in the spread of education, and in the rise of a new type of history, written in English in- stead of Latin. The "London Chron- icles," the chief historical source of this period, were written for men of affairs. Interspersed with accounts of national events is a wealth of local allusions, such as elections, fires, prices, and com- mercial transactions. This element of utility led Nash in the following cen- tury to make the scarcely just criticism that the writers were "lay chronograph- ers that wrote of nothing but of Mayors and Sheriffs and the dere yere and the great frost." The "Brut," the most popular and widely spread history of the time, was written to be read for pleasure. The mere love of a good story is well expressed in the naive remark by Caxton, one of the later compilers: "Yf I could have founden moo storyes I wold have sette in hit moo." Mr. Kings- ford laments the disrepute into which the "Brut" has fallen among modern historians, for it faithfully reflects pop- ular opinion on national events and policies. Artless and crude as these early productions in English are, they reveal a new interest in national af- fairs by the middle classes. Through the pages of Hall, Stow, Holinshed, and particularly Shakespeare, they fixed for centuries the popular conceptions of this period. Verse was a natural medium of popu- lar narrative, political controversy, and satire. Such lines as the following, written in the early part of the century, are significant: For common is the fairest flour That euer God sette on erthely crown. Poems like the "Libel of English Pol- icy," which foreshadowed the Mercan- tile System, not only gave expression to the opinions of the commercial classes, but undoubtedly exerted a powerful in- fluence upon national policies. Under the influence of national con- sciousness and the spread of learning a new era in historical writing had dawn- ed by the opening of the sixteenth cen- tury. The histories were then written in the language of the people, from a na- tional standpoint, with a conscious ef- fort to handle the material critically and to give a well reasoned account. Sir Thomas Mores "History of Richard III," "the first historical work of out- standing literary merit in the English language," exhibits the strongest possi- ble contrast to the Latin chronicles with which the fifteenth century opened. "Viewed in this light," Mr. Kingsford says, "English historical literature in the fifteenth century has a real unity. In no period of equal length can we trace a development of such great im- portance." Most of the sources discussed have ap- peared in the Rolls Series, in the Cam- den Society Publications, or in separate volumes. Many of the early editions, particularly those of Riley, Hearne, and Giles, are faulty, and have been severe- ly criticised in recent years. Mr. Kings- ford has provided in convenient form the results of later investigations, and by a careful study of internal evidence and a comparison of the original manu- scripts has offered many original sug- gestions. While too minute and techni- cal to be discussed in this review, these should be carefully weighed by future students working in this period. He has discussed several sources hitherto unpublished and has printed in a long appendix portions of more than a score of them. The volume is furnished with a full index and a useful bibliography of printed and manuscript sources. As an evaluation of historical ma- terial along lines somewhat more re- stricted than Molinier's "Les Sources de 1'histoire de France," the work is admir- able. Though the reader frequently feels that Mr. Kingsford is overstrain- ing the theme of literary development in a conscious effort to appeal to a wider circle, the volume will nevertheless prove valuable to the students of Shake- speare and sixteenth-century literature in general, for it traces to their origin many of the tales preserved in the lit- erature of that period. Mr. Kingsford has made a contribution of historical and literary significance in tracing back many of the legends of Henry V to the middle of the fifteenth century, to a work now lost which purported to be "Reminiscences of the Earl of Ormonde," who accompanied the King into France. In the historical plays of Shakespeare l.p observes a remarkable perception of the unity of the fifteenth century which is too often overlooked: "The downfall of Richard II, the glories of Henry V, the long struggle of Lancaster and York ending in the happy union of the rival houses, were all stages In the prepara- tion for a greater Age." L'Anaoase de Xfriophon, avec un Com- taire historiQue et militaire. By Col. Arthur Boucher. 48 maps and plans; 400 pages folio text. Paris: Berger-Levrault. 25 francs. In the days of the American small college three books of Xenophon's "Ana-
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112 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2535 basis" were universally required in the with actual measurements in kilo- quantum of Greek which was thought essential to a liberal education. Alexan- der the Great learned the art of war in Xenophon. Napoleon quoted him. Gen. Fevrier, who has been the great tacti- cian of the French army in recent years, replied to questions: "You will find it in Xenophon — the only master I have had." After so many centuries, profes- sors who follow campaigns in documents have begun to depreciate the historical and military value of the "Anabasis," following, perhaps, Col. Mure's suspi- cion that "the author, without fear of contradiction, seeing that all the main actors were now dead or scattered, could assume an importance quite beyond that warranted by the real facts" (Mahaffy). The German General von Hoffmeister — ■ "Durch Armenien und der Zug Xeno- phons" (Leipzig, 1911) — has, in his turn, gone over a part of the line of re- treat of the Ten Thousand and tried to upset many received interpretations. What with old and new college students, with military students desirous of go- ing through a praxis followed by lead- ers of armies for more than two thou- sand years, with readers of history who wish to know if Grote's admiration of Xenophon is justified, with those who are interested in countries which Tur- key's disasters are opening at last, this very painstaking translation and com- mentary of a superior French officer, al- ready known for his studies of Greek tactics and German strategics, should not lack a public. For the Greek profes- sor, for the reference table of students even not advanced, it is a godsend. In the minute introduction there is a statement of the historical questions in- volved, with a table of the marches from place to place, day by day, in parasangs and kilometres. Besides the aid fur- nished by geographers like Richard Kiepert and Felix Oswald, by men on the ground, like Prince Engalitscheff and the Governor-General of Erivan, our commentator has had the unique col- laboration of a Dominican missionary who — the first in modern times — has made reconnoissances of the difficult mountain region in what is still un- known Turkey. A complete analysis follows of military questions exempli- fied in Xenophon's account and their use in modern manoeuvres. The translation (the Greek text is not given) has been made in literal and very readable French, with particular reference to military exactness. Each chapter, according to the divisions of the Teubner edition revised by Gemoll, is followed by its commentary. Thus, as a sample of its richness and complete- ness, the second chapter is accompa- nied by an analysis of the Greek forces; a map with description of the route and a road-sketch from Ramsay; a valua- tion of the length of the parasang in Xenophon and Herodotus, compared metres; days' marches estimated by time; a table of the troops under review in separate divisions by commanders; a full explanation of the military organ- ization of the Greeks and their forma- tion in battle; and their order of en- campment with the Persian troops of Cyrus, with plan. Perhaps not a sin- gle point of the text of Xenophon, which is a journal of march as well as a his- tory, is neglected, down to the point where the retreating Greeks take to the sea, which calls forth an explanation of "ships in use at the time of the Ten Thousand." The conclusion is: The "Anabasis" is a veritable monument from the historical and geographical point of view; It is also one of the most beautiful and exact books of war left us by past cen- turies; And it is one which men of war, especial- ly to-day, have most interest to meditate upon and to apply its teachings. Notes month are: "Sunshine Jane," by Anne Warner (the late Mrs. French) ; "The Sub- stance of His House," by Ruth Holt Bouci- cault, and "Success at Golf," the last a vol- ume which is prefaced by John G. Ander- son, and to which chapters are contributed by Harry Vardon, Alexander Herd, George Duncan, Wilfrid Reid, Lawrence Ayton, and Francis Ouimet. Capt. R. B. Otter-Barry and Mr. Perry- Ayscough, of the Chinese postal service, have collaborated in a book entitled "With the Russians in Mongolia," which Lane will publish at an early date. Spring publications of McBride, Nast & Company include the following miscella- neous volumes: "Panama: Its Creation, Destruction, and Resurrection," by Philippe Bunau-Varilla; "The Political Shame of Mexico," by Edward I. Bell; "How France Is Governed," by Raymond Poincare; "Lord London, a Tale of Achievement," by Keble Howard; "The Blue Buckle," by William Hamilton Osborne; "The White Gate," by Warwick Deeping; "Ashes of Vengeance," by H. B. Somerville; "Modern City Plan- ning and Maintenance," by Frank Koester ; "The Fairies — Here and Now," by S. R. Lit- tlewood; "A Book of Inscriptions," by Es- ther Mason; "Syria, the Land of Lebanon," by Lewis Gaston Leary; "A Little Book of Killarney and Southern Ireland," by Rob- ert Medill; "Quiet Roads and Sleepy Vil- lages," by Allen Fea; "Caravanning and Camping Out," by J. Harris Stone; "Irish Land and Irish Liberty," by Michael J. F. McCarthy; "Training the Dog," by Robert S. Lemmon; "Cecil Rhodes: The Man and His Work," by Gordon Le Sueur; "The Au- tobiography of Charlotte Amelie, Princess of Aldenburg (1652-1732)," translated and edited by her descendant, Mrs. Aubrey Le Blond, and "The Antarctic Penguins," by G. Murray Levick, member of the scien- tific staff of the Scott Antarctic Expedition. Wanderings in Tunisia and Tripoli are described in an interesting way by Mr. Frank E. Johnson in the National Geo- graphic Magazine for January. He was able to get into close touch with the people so that his account of them is more real and vivid than that of the ordinary trav- eller. The desert even is made attractive. "Heat, thirst, and danger are forgotten ia the glorious landscape, with its iridescent colors." An interesting incident was the visit to a wonderfully productive date plan- tation, the French owner of which assured him that he attributed "a great part of his success to the Department of Agricul- ture at Washington, D. C." The 114 illus- trations add much to the interest of the ar- ticle, and to many the remarkable beauty of the women, laden with ornaments, will be a revelation. "Who's Who, 1914," comes to us from Macmillans, certainly, now as always, one of the most welcome books of the year. The present issue extends to above two thousand pages, and at this annual rate of growth the volume will soon become lncon- v, mil nt ly bulky. Unlike the American and other dictionaries of the kind, the English "Who's Who" is not confined to citizens of one land, but includes famous names from nil over the world. In his "Famous Houses and Literary Shrines of London," reviewed in the Nation Houghton Mifflin Co. is about to issue a guide-book of Japan by T. Philip Terry. Included in Henry Holt's early spring list of announcements are the following: "When Ghost Meets Ghost," by William De Morgan; "Napoleon," by H. A. L. Fisher; "English Literature, a Survey from Chau- cer to the Present Day," by G. H. Mair; "Clay and Fire," a discussion of the spir- itual versus the material life, by L. W. Crippen; "Six Years a Wanderer," by A. Loton Ridger; and the following additions to the Home University Library; "Chaucer and his Time," by G. E. Hadow; "Common Sense in Law," by P. Vinogradoff ; "Latin America," by William R. Shepherd, and "Unemployment," by A. C. Pigou. "Silent Sam," a book of short stories by Harvey J. O'Higgins, is announced by the Century Company for publication next month. "The New Ideals in the Gospel," an- nounced by Dutton, is an English version of a book by Dr. Hermann Schnell. Mr. Frederic Mathews is publishing, through Doubleday, Page & Co., "Taxation and the Distribution of Wealth." Twelve volumes are now ready in the Wayfarers' Library, a new series planned by Messrs. Dent, of London. The follow- ing are the headings under which the books are classified: Romance and Adventure, Social and Domestic Fiction, Historical Fic- tion, Humour, Belles-Lettres and Essays, and The Open Air. A translation has been made by Mr. C. K. Ogden of Dr. Kerschensteiner's book on "The Schools and the Nation," and for this edition Lord Haldane has written a preface. The work will be issued shortly by Mac- millan. The same house has in preparation a sec- ond part of Dr. Arthur S. Way's transla- tion of the works of Sophocles into English verse. Among the books which Little, Brown & .. Company will bring out the middle of nextlof October 3, 1912, A. St. John Adcock wrote
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Jan. 29, 1914] The ]ST a t i o 11 113 pleasantly of the buildings in London as- sociated with the names of men and women who have left their mark on letters. His lat- est volume, "The Booklover's London" (Macmlllan), is in a measure the comple- ment of the former one. Here he deals not with authors, but with their creations, and the London that he shows us is peopled with the figures that walk through the pages of the imaginative literature the scenes of which are laid in the city. Here we come to Pie Corner in Smithfield, where poor Falstaff was arrested at the in- stance of Mistress Quickley; or we watch the Canterbury pilgrims as they sally forth from the Tabard Inn; or we rebuild the walls of old Newgate and see the shivering form of Fagin as the poor wretch huddled sleepless through his last night listening for the clock to boom out the inexorable hours, while outside, in view of the old inn that still stands, workmen were busy erect- ing the gallows and throwing black paint- ed barriers across the road to keep back the curious crowds. But when we come to Dickens quotation ceases to be possible. London is pervaded with his characters, and there is scarcely a page of Mr. Ad- cock's book in which we are not invited to visit some scene or another which Dickens has immortalized. Indeed, if we felt in- clined to criticise so pardonable an en- thusiasm, we might assert that the figure of Dickens looms unduly large in these pages, sometimes to the exclusion of others whose claims to a share of the scene are equally just. But Mr. Adcock has an ingenuous way of disarming criticism. He has attempted, he tells us, nothing In the way of research, and declares that "as a fairly miscella- neous reader, my plan has been simply to select a route and to go along it gos- siping of what memories I have of the im- aginary men and women connected with the places we pass by the way." Had he select- ed any other method the result might have been a more complete, possibly even a more scholarly, work, but it is doubtful whether it would not have lost in charm more than it might have gained in completeness. As it is, besides having written a very delight- ful book, Mr. Adcock has demonstrated that if there be nothing new under the sun there is also nothing so old that it can- not be viewed from a fresh angle, for we fancy he is correct in the claim put forth in his preface that there does not exist "any book on a large scale devoted to Lon- don's associations with the imaginary folk of the novelists and dramatists— with those familiar citizens who are literally free of the city and live where they will in it un- fretted by landlords or tax-collectors, and who, having once walked into one or an- other of its streets through certain books, are walking in it always for whoever act- ually knows London." In "A Short History of English Liberal- ism" (Putnam) Mr. W. Lyon Blease makes a vigorous and idealistic, but not unbiassed, analysis of English politics, foreign and domestic, during the last 150 years. His book is not so much a history of events as a reading of them in the light of his own conception of Liberalism. For him Liberalism is not the legislative record of the Liberal Party nor the policy of the Liberal Government. Far from it. "The failure of the [Asquith] Government to deal liberally with this [suffrage] question has been an interesting revelation of the incom- pleteness of self-styled Liberalism" — a dis- play of "Toryism, in matters of sex, as com- plete as that of Castlereagh." In Foreign Affairs Sir Edward Grey, by his support of France in Morocco and of Russia in Persia, has sadly fallen away from Gladstonian principles, and brought dismay and disgust to Liberals like Mr. Blease. Liberalism and the deeds of so-called Liberal minis- ters are unfortunately too often widely di- vergent. Liberalism, according to the au- thor's conception of it, is not a policy, but a habit of mind. The Liberal is the man who looks upon each of his fellows as of equal worth with himself and as entitled to equal opportunities with himself for self-expression and self-development. To Mr. Blease's Liberal, "all artificial condi- tions which prevent or hinder growth are perpetually obnoxious. Upon class distinc- tions in society, privileges of sex, rank, wealth, or creed, he wages unceasing war." In foreign policy the Liberal extends his recognition of the equal worth of individ- uals within the nation to a recognition of the equal worth of all nations; and nations in their dealings with one another are to be bound by the same moral rules as individuals. The antithesis of Liberalism is egoism, imperialism, and "Toryism." With this con- ception of Liberalism as a touchstone, Mr. Blease tests the legislation and foreign pol- icy of England since 1760 and deals out praise or blame according as Liberalism finds expression or not in the acts of Min- isters. The Younger Pitt "was one of the greatest politicians and one of the worst statesmen England has ever had. The Pilot who weathered the storm flung all the cargo out of the ship, and steered from the high seas into dangerous shallows, from some of which she has not yet escaped." "Peel's most conspicuous virtue was his incapacity to make permanent resistance to sound ar- gument." Cobden, Bright, and Gladstone are naturally the shining lights. "Lord Rosebery, a splendid orator, could never lead the people, because he could never understand them." Mr. Asquith, in view of his attitude on equal suffrage, is a man of little imagination: It is the large imagination, ever ranging beyond the bounds of the practicable and the expedient, and detecting in the obscurity of chaos the currents of new social forces, which distinguishes the greatest statesmen from those who are merely great. Peel had it, though in him it was often blind and groping. Disraeli had it, though spoilt by his mean and tawdry ideals. Gladstone had it, in full measure, and so, with less practical gifts, had Campbell-Bannerman. The mantle of leadership descended in 1908 upon the shoulders of a man who had all the qualities of a great leader except the greatest of all. Mr. Blease's volume is not so much a history of Liberalism as a history of the partial realization of Liberalism in legis- lation and foreign policy. For the Liberal- ism of his conception was no historical evolution; it is fixed and eternal; it does not develop by a process of evolution like the programme of a political party, chang- ing from age to age. It embodies many of the same eternal verities and aspirations, minus the singing, which characterized the Progressive movement in our last Presi- dential campaign. The author's closing pages are devoted to a vehement refutation of some of the anti-suffrage arguments and to a fierce denunciation of forcible feeding; in fact, his whole book is incidentally used as a vehicle for helping forward the cause in behalf of which he has already written "The Emancipation of Women" and "Po- litical Prisoners." In "Along France's River of Romance" (McBride), Douglas Goldring has most hap- pily thrown his guidebook conscience, if he ever possessed any, to the winds, and as a result has produced a readable book of travel in the Loire district of France. When, after some strenuous climbing, he stood looking at the source of the Loire high up among the peaks of the Cevennes, the determination came upon him to follow the river along the whole of the six hun- dred and twenty-five miles of its course to St. Nazaire, where it empties itself into the Atlantic. The present volume is an ac- count of the journey, on which he set out with a mind open to impressions of all sorts and a heart full of good fellowship for any chance companions of the way. Mr. Goldring's style is quite refreshing in its buoyancy; there is in it something of the gypsy zest for life, a Borrovian curiosity about men and things without Borrows introspection. And so the trivial adven- tures of the road become entertaining for the reader simply because the author him- self was so hugely entertained by them. The descriptive passages stimulate instead, as so often happens, of wearying the at- tention. Mr. Goldring describes only what he wishes to describe, and gives historical reminiscences only when they happen to in- terest him personally. He is familiar with the literature of his subject, and where a piece of descriptive or historical writing has caught his fancy he inserts it bodily in his pages. He has also a particularly pleas- ing habit of quoting freely chansonettes, many of them picked up by ear and remem- bered, from the folk poetry of the land. No- credit is assigned for the illustrations, in color and in black and white, which add to the attractiveness of the book. "Sidelights" (Scribner), by Lady Blenner- hassett, is a collection of leisurely, well- informed essays on various historical and biographical subjects. Though the papers are translated, rather heavily, from the German, the type of work is much that of the British quarterlies. The siege of Paris, 1590; .Taine's Study of Napoleon; Count Reinhard, a German in the service of the French; Marco Minghetti and the Risorgi- mento, are the topics involving large his- toric perspectives. Lady Blennerhassett han- dles these matters with dignity and fair- ness. Of the purely biographical studies, Chateaubriand is perhaps the best, though an interesting train of reminiscence is started in Claude Fauriel's Correspondence with Mary Clarke (Mme. Mohl), while in the study of Marie Bashkirtseff a very modern case is analyzed. To all these sub- jects the author brings a well-stored mind and broad sympathies which never degene- rate into sentimentality. It is not a book to read in the train, but attractive to a certain type of reader precisely for its hu- mane gravity. Since writing his "Cities of Umbrla" in 1904, Edward Hutton has dealt successively with Northern and Southern Tuscany, Rome, Venice, and the cities of Lombardy. In "The Cities of Romagna and the Marches" (Mac-
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114 T li e 1ST a t i o ii [Vol.98, No. 2535 mlllan), the eighth of the scries, he takes 11 c paral Ively little know q, \\ e do not always agree with his judgments, which are often almost entirely subjective, and, tike the rest of us, lie lias his likes and dis- likes. Thus the splendid bustle and traffic of Ancona only move him to bewail "the appalling noise and vulgarity they call civil- ization"; he labels the decisive battle of Castelfidardo "a pathetic and miserable af- i'air, which every other people would have been glad to forget"; and, when speaking of the Pineta at Ravenna, though he recalls Dante, Boccaccio, and Byron, he says no word of Garibaldi. Yet "Garibaldi's hut" is still to be seen there, a small museum in the wilderness; and, for some of us at any rate, (laribaldi is well nigh as stimulating a memory as Italy can provide. If, however, Mr. Hutton is strangely unappreciative of United Italy and the splendid, steadfast advance of the modern Italian nation, he loves the Italy of his dreams ; he is a master of words, and he has given us a book to be grateful for. More than two score towns and villages are separately dealt with, historically, informatively, and im- pressionistically, and there is never a dull word in the whole volume. It is, we think, the best of all the series, and our author is to be congratulated on having produced a work which is at once learned and beauti- ful. No traveller who intends to visit Ro- magna or the Marches can possibly do with- out it. Few men of equal prominence are less well known than the central figure of Ver- non Staley's monograph "The Life and Times of Gilbert Sheldon" (Milwaukee: The Young Churchman Co.). Born in 1598 and educated for the church, he was Fello\y of All Souls' College, chaplain to Charles I, and rector of Ickford before the outbreak of the Civil War. For his loyalty to king and church he suffered during the Common- wealth and was rewarded after the Restora- tion. In 1660 he was made Bishop of London, and in 1663 Archbishop of Canterbury. He died in 1677. A man of high character, Sheldon did his duty as he saw it without regard to consequences, whether it were a matter of standing out against the powerful Laud, or following the Stuarts into exile, or dispossessing the Presbyterian clergy, or rebuking Charles II for immorality, or braving death in the plague. His talent took a practical turn; he was a man of affairs whose excellent business and administrative capacity proved useful in reorganizing the church after the Restoration ; but he seems to have had neither great intellectual power, nor the gift of speech, nor literary ability, nor any compelling spiritual or emotional fervor. A dull sermon, delivered before Charles II at Whitehall in 1660, is the sum of his published literary remains. He made some enemies and apparently but few de- voted friends; and hitherto he has had no biographer. Mr. Staley is the present rector of Ickford, and he has been inspired to write this work apparently because Sheldon was once his predecessor. He has aimed "to clear this great servant of the English Church from obloquy, and to rehabilitate him in his true historical setting." Pro- fessor Burrows, in his "Worthies of All Souls," has already vindicated Sheldon, as Mr. Staley admits. To "rehabilitate him in his true historical setting," is a work well worth doing; but it cannot be said that Mr. Staley has done that, it is to be feared that he has neither sufficient knowledge of the seventeenth century, nor the requisite insight into history and character, nor the desired open-mindedness, to accomplish so difficult a task. What we should most wish to have is a careful study of Sheldon's work in reorganizing the church after the return of the Stuarts. The material for such a study is mainly in the Clarendon and Shel- don papers in the Bodleian Library. But there is little evidence that Mr. Staley has made particular use of these sources. In fact, there is little to be learned from the present biography which has not already been presented by Professor Burrows, or in the brief account in the Dictionary of Na- tional Biography. In "Famous Modern Battles" (Small, Maynard & Co.), A. Hilliard Atteridge de- scribes in a popular and readable manner. and with commendable accuracy of detail, fifteen battles of the last sixty years. The author has chosen to arrange them in chro- nological order, with the idea probably that such an arrangement will best reveal the changes which have occurred in the char- acter of military operations during the last half-century. And in the end this pur- pose is attained in some respects, although it is a little disconcerting at first to jump from Solferino to Chancellorsville and from Gettysburg to Sadowa. The first Napoleon found it essential to stand where he could see the whole field of battle at a glance; and this was still possible and desirable in the third quarter of the nineteenth cen- tury. But one has only to contrast Louis Xapoleon, overlooking the Austrian army at Solferino from the bell tower at Cas- tiglione, with Oyama, sitting in a room many miles from the field of Mukden, por- ing over maps and charts, and directing his forces by telephone and telegraph, to be aware that the modern commander has a more complex problem to solve and solves it in another manner than his predeces- sors. These external changes, which the author has noted, are, however, less impor- tant than certain less obvious changes in training and discipline which have been brought about by new conditions. The com- mander who directs the operation of 300,000 men dispersed over eighty miles of terri- tory in a battle lasting a week cannot as- sume responsibility for every important move. And therefore an effective army is one in which the old automatism of the soldier has been replaced by a greater de- gree of intelligence and initiative on the part of subordinate officers, and even of men in the ranks. "We are all agreed," says Sir Frederick Maurice, "that this ab- sence of control from above must be the normal experience of present-day war. We are seeking to combat it by developing the initiative and resourcefulness of all sub- ordinates, each in his proper sphere, so that each may learn to act intelligently in default of orders from above." This les- son was first learned by the Germans in the wars of 1866 and 1870. Intelligent training combined with an interest in the cause is thus of much greater importance to-day, in comparison with mere "slavish discipline" and the hardened habit of lit- eral obedience to orders, than formerly a fact which was strongly enforced by the experience of the Russo-Japanese war, and the recent war in the Balkans. Mr At teridge's general conclusion that "war, if more terrible, is also far less frequent" now than it used to be, may well be ques- tioned. In some respects it is more ter- rible, in others much less. During the last sixty years there have been twelve wars, and during the last twenty years there have been six — short wars they were, but frequent enough, and stupid enough, most of them, in all conscience. When Baron de Pollnitz died, June 23, 177.5, Voltaire wrote to Frederick, "Well, Sire, Baron de Pollnitz is dead; he also wrote." And Frederick replied: "He did some cheating even the day he died, that it might be said he died as he lived. No one regrets him but his creditors." The best tiling the Baron ever did was to write his Memoirs; and these, together with his let- ters, Mrs. Edith E. Cuthell has made the substance, by means of long quotations strung together by chatty comment, of two thick volumes under the title of "A Vaga- bond Courtier" (Brentano's). The title is well chosen. Pollnitz was a clever adven- turer, who lived a long time and had a varied experience. He saw some military service in the war of the Spanish Succes- sion, but spent most of his life drifting from court to court seeking favor and money. He never got a great deal of either, but he came into contact, in the endeavor, with many famous persons. He was with- out convictions or honor; lied freely; never paid his debts if it could be avoided; changed his religion as often as convenient. An anecdote which the author quotes from Thiebault gives the measure of the man and indicates the manner in which he was regarded by people of intelligence general- ly. Having asked Frederick the Great for some position, the King told him that if he were only a Catholic there might be a canonry for him. That very evening Pollnitz abjured his faith, and next morn- ing came running to the King. "I am really dreadfully sorry," said Frederick, 'but this morning 1 gave away the canonry which I spoke to you about. This is a cruel contretemps! But how could I guess that you were so willing to change your re- ligion yet again? What can I do? Ah! I remember that I have still a rabbi's post to give away. Have yourself made a Jew, and I will promise it to you." The Memoirs of such a man are not to be relied upon for facts or judgments. But they are lively and interesting, and of some value for the descriptions of famous persons which they contain, and as an illustration of the man- ners and morals of the century. "In Byways of Scottish History" (Scrib- ner), by Louis A. Barbe, is a collection of twenty essays, short for the most part, dealing with various aspects of Scottish history and literature, mainly in the six- teenth and seventeenth centuries, which one finds little mention of in ordinary histories. The author has lived long in Scotland, is familiar with its traditions, and knows Its people well. He writes with sympathy, but without prejudice, and his scholarship, so far as the reviewer can Judge, is thorough. The first six essays deal with Queen Mary, with her manner and personality, and with the four maids of honor— the four Marys of history, who were not. quite the .same &l the ballad has it, "Marie Beaton and Mnrlo Beaton and Marie Carmlchael and mo." Tho dag of Mary Stuart, Malster Randolphs'!
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Jan. 29, 1914I The Nation 115 Fantasle, Edinburgh and her Patron Saint, James VI as Statesman and Poet, The Story of a Ballad— "Kinmont Willie"— are the titles of other studies. The last and long- est essay is English rather than Scottish in its interest. It is an historical sketch of the myth, widely believed on the Conti- nent 'luring the Middle Ages, that all Eng- lishmen had tails. Most students of early English will be familiar with the explana- tion of the legend as it is given in Laya- mon's "Brut." But the reproach finds con- stant expression in ballad literature, and there are other explanations of the origin of the belief than that in Layamon, all of which are discussed by Mr. Barbe. Mili- tary historians will be interested in the essay on the Old Scottish Army, and the student of towns in the short essay on Riotous Glasgow. "The Story of Rome" (Stokes), by Mary Macgregor, an English writer, is a beauti- fully printed and illustrated volume, in- tended for boys and girls. One dislikes to discourage any sincere effort to maintain an interest in ancient Rome, but in this case we are not convinced that the plan has been very well considered. In expression, there has been a very manifest effort to get down to the level of children, and this has been done at a sacrifice of such quali- ties as would make the book enjoyable to older readers as well. Again, the story suf- fers from its unsuccessful handling of leg- ends included for the sake of complete- ness, but distorted out of regard for the age of the intended reader. Even the most pronounced devotee of Greek and Roman studies may well doubt whether children too young to profit by a more virile han- dling of such a subject have any real need of a Story of Rome drawn out to the length of more than four hundred pages. A good collection of individual stories from this field, of which there are a number already in existence, seems more likely to accom- plish the end desired. "Deliver us from our friends" is still a useful prayer, not heard as often as it should be. Dr. W. J. Holland, the direc- tor of the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh, who has just published "To the River Plate and Back" (Putnam), admits in his pre- face that it "may appear to be a daring act" for him to add another tale to the many that have been told by travellers. "At first I hesitated, but finally yielded to the persuasions of certain of my friends." It is to be hoped that these friends will be satisfied with the product of their enthu- siasm. Attractive in appearance, and fully illustrated with excellent pictures, the volume makes a good impression, and the sub-title, "The Narrative of a Scientific Mission to South America, with Observa- tions upon Things Seen and Suggested," promises an unusual book. But the "scien- tific mission" consisted in taking a cast of the skeleton of that gigantic prehistoric animal, the Diplodocus Carnegiei, from Pittsburgh to the La Plata Museum. Sim- ilar casts had already been presented by Mr. Carnegie to various European mu- seums, and Dr. Holland deserves great credit for his skill in accomplishing this difficult feat. Naturally, in going to Ar- gentina on this undertaking, the author met the local scientific authorities, and his ex- periences are particularly interesting from the zoologist's point of view. Unfortunate- ly, the important scientific observations ' constitute a relatively small part of a fairly large book. Furthermore, in his observations on Argentina, where the author comes into competition with such keen analysts as Clemenceau and Bryce, and such painstaking writers as Koebel, Hirst, and Winter, he is at too great a disadvantage; especially as he gives no evidence of having fitted himself by reading or study to understand the people he met. If Dr. Holland had cut out two-thirds of the book, including fa- miliar topics already better done else- where, and most of the trifling personal details, his book, even though smaller, cheaper, and less striking, would have been far more acceptable. George Spring Merriam, a son of one of the brothers who founded the company which has long published Webster's Dic- tionary, died in Springfield, Mass., on Thursday, aged seventy-one. He was born in Springfield, in 1843, graduated from Yale in 1864, and, after studying theology, turned to literary work. For five years, from 1870, he was editor of the Christian Union, now the Outlook, under Henry Ward Beecher. Since 1875 he had lived in Springfield. Per- haps his best-known book is "Life and Times of Samuel Bowles," in two volumes, published in 1885. He was the author also of "The Negro and the Nation," "The Man of To-day," and several other books. Science A Review of the Primates. By Daniel Giraud Elliot. 3 volumes. New York: Published by the American Museum of Natural History. The wonderful vigor which has al- ways characterized the production of the splendid series of monographs of Dr. El- liot is fully sustained in the present elaborate work, in three quarto volumes, and we can well believe that it repre- sents five years of continuous study. A part of the preface reads: For over a century the Primates have been a subject of careful study by natural- ists of all lands, some most eminent zo- ologists having devoted their investigations to them almost exclusively, and, conse- quently, the types of the many species were scattered throughout the various museums of the world. To examine and compare these important examples was a necessity, for, without a thorough knowledge of their characteristics, no satisfactory progress toward the solution of their proper scien- tific standing could be reached. With rep- resentatives of the Primates, either from the Eastern or Western Hemisphere, the museums of the United States were but poorly provided, and a reliance for the ma- terial to prosecute the work was therefore to be placed upon the collections contained in European museums and zoological gar- dens, and also in those of Eastern lands. Consequently, the author was obliged to visit all these various institutions and study their collections. Twice were the museums of England and the Continent visited, and many months passed each time examining the collections, and during a journey around the world the museums and gardens of the Far East were also visited and their collections carefully studied. The author has seen and taken a description of nearly all the types of the primates extant in the world to-day, and there is not a col- lection of these animals of any importance existing at the present time with which ho is not familiar. Dr. Elliot has gathered together all the results of study of past and present workers in this field, thus obviating the first two difficulties, and by means of more than one hundred photographic plates of skulls, giving lateral, frontal, ventral, and dorsal views, the close stu- dent of the monkeys has all the world's types, as it were, brought to him. The value of these plates cannot be over- estimated, and the work would be a notable one were it merely a portfolio of them. This feature of illustration is all the more fortunate as Dr. Elliot gives little or no attention in the text to osteological or dental characters. The author's presentation of this unexcelled series, each plate significant of new striking facts, together with his com- plete failure to utilize them, almost par- allels the great unconscious contribu- tions which Agassiz made to the theory of evolution, believing all the while in special creation. The method of treatment of each mem- ber of the order is best told in the au- thor's own words: First, a general review is held of the genus accepted, the type fixed, and descrip- tion given; then remarks are made on the appearance and general habits of the spe- cies the genus contains, followed by a re- view of the literature and the geographi- cal distribution, and a key by means of which it is possible that all the species of that particular genus may be recognized. Then each species is taken up in regular sequence, its synonymy given, and the type, locality, and geographical distribution re- corded; the present location of the type, if existing, is then told, after which the pe- culiar characters of the species, if it pos- sesses any, are given, followed by such re- marks as may be necessary upon the rela- tionship the species under review may have with some other in the genus; then a full description and measurements of the type, it possible, concluding with an account of the habits, so far as they may be unques- tionably known. More than one hundred pages of intro- duction deal with classification, varia- tion, and geographical distribution, a chronological list of generic names pro- posed and a synopsis of the classifica- tion adopted. The repeating of the dis- tribution first in running text and then linearly seems rather needless. In the 1,351 quarto pages, 2 suborders, 8 fam- ilies, 55 genera, and 588 species and sub- species are dealt with. The recognition of subgenera is a distinct advance in the classification of these animals. As to nomenclature. Dr. Elliot has the cour- age of his convictions and binds him-
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116 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2535 self uncompromisingly by the law of priority. One of the many most star- tling results is the removal of the name Simia from the orangs or chimpanzees to the Barbary ape. The new shifting of titles has resulted, in the case of the ( rang and chimpanzee, in the allitera- tive names Pongo and Pan, respectively. The curiously illogical working of the mind in modern nomenclatural opinions is shown by Dr. Elliot in his custom of emending all names which do not con- form strictly with etymological princi- ples. This arbitrary ruling, resulting in changes such as Ateles to Ateleus, and Lepilemur to Lepidolemur, would seem to be foreign to a mind willing to ac- cept priority at any cost. Greater good would have resulted from a more care- ful editing of the author's own Greek. This strongly emphasized personal atti- tude characterizes the entire work, thereby both strengthening its value and narrowing its field. The most severe criticism of the routine specific treat- ment is the paucity of life histories. This phase is one which is becoming con- stantly more important, and the ap- proaching extinction of many of the primates makes its neglect all the more lamentable. Dr. Elliot has certainly succeeded in the preparation of an unequalled "Re- view" of this phylum. But as a mono- graphic treatment, in the widest sense of the word, one finds defects. As the subject deals solely with living forms, without reference to fossil primates or man, it is guided by no evolutionary principles whatever. The extent to which the classification is wholly inno- cent of phylogenetic guidance is shown throughout the three volumes. The very first species, the aye-aye, is entirely sep- arated from the lemurs, and takes rank with Tarsius, whereas it is well known that the former is only a specialized lemur. Owing to the prominence given to superficial characters, the ideas of classification, even of the living forms dealt with, are at times almost Cuvier- ian. A good example of this is the sen- tence on page xxi, "It is a moot point with some whether the Lemurs should be considered members of the order, having any rank whatever within it, as about the only claim they have to the position is the possession of the oppos- able great toe, which, however, is also found in a species of an altogether dif- ferent order, the Opossum of the Car- nivores. But, no matter how slight may De the pretensions of the Lemurs for admission to the ranks of the primates, yet, by the almost general acquiescence of mammalogists, they have of late been accepted as occupying a recognizable place in the order." As a summary of known facts the "Re- view" is unsurpassed, though the lack of any adequate account of the wild life of the animals and their ecological rela- tions deprives the lay reader of much pleasure in the work and detracts con- siderably from its value. On the other hand, the superficial character of the technical descriptions and the omission of phylogenetic treatment leaves the field open for a work of real creative matter, making use of all the carefully collated facts which Dr. Elliot has pro- vided. The colored plates are good, the type and paper of the best, and the American Museum is to be thoroughly congratulated on this work published under its auspices. Prof. J. Arthur Thomson will soon pub- lish, through Holt, "The Wonder of Life," which contains chapters on such topics as Marvels of Instinctive Behavior and The Persistence of Characters. McBride, Nast & Company have in their list of spring publications the following science books: "Making a Garden of Small Fruits," by F. F. Rockwell ; "The Garden- er's Pocket Manual," by the same; "The Book of Perennials," by W. A. Vollmer, and "Making Fences, Walls, and Hedges," by W. H. Butterfield. Sir David Gill, the great Scottish astrono- mer, died in London on Saturday. He was born in 1843, in Aberdeen, and was educated in the university of that town. Having constructed a private observatory in Aber- deen, he devoted himself to his studies and had attained to something more than local celebrity when he made the acquaintance of the Earl of Crawford, then Lord Lindsay, who was at that time considering the es- tablishment of an observatory at Dunecht, near by. He offered the charge of this to the young astronomer, who accepted it, and directed it from 1873-76, during which time he organized Lord Lindsay's transit of Venus expedition to Mauritius. He also corrected the longitudes of Berlin, Malta, Alexandria, Suez, Aden, Seychelles, Mau- ritius, and Rodriguez, and measured the base line of the geodetic survey of Egypt, near Cairo, for which he received from the Khedive the third class of the Medjidie. In 1877 he proposed and carried out an expedition to Ascension Island to deter- mine the solar parallax by observations of Mars, and for this he received the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society and the Valz prize of the Institut de France in 1882. He also organized transit of Venus expeditions in South Africa, and he photographed the Great Comet of 1882. It was he who pointed out the desirability of employing photography for complete cataloguing of stars to any required order of magnitude. He proposed in 1880, or- ganized in 1885, and directed and carried to completion in 1896, the geodetic survey of Natal and Cape Colony, and in 1896 he was sent to Berlin to arrange the details of a boundary survey between British Beehuanaland and German Southwest Af- rica, a work which was completed under his supervision. In 1897 he organized the geodetic survey of Rhodesia, and in 1898 tii erected the large telescope presented to the Cape Observatory. He was knighted in 1900. He received the degree of D.Sc. from Oxford, Dublin, and Cambridge, and he was an officer at the Legion ol Honor of France, the Watson gold medallist of the National Academy of Science, Washington, in 1900; a knight of the Prussian Order Pour le M6rite, and the author of many works on astronomical subjects. Drama The Century Company will publish next month Prof. Charles Mills Gayley's "Beau- mont the Dramatist." "The Continental Drama of To-day," by Barrett H. Clark, and "Nowadays," a play in three acts, by George Middleton, are announced by Holt. Paul Hervieu's domestic tragedy, "Le D6- dale," which was first produced at the Com§- die Frangaise, in 1903, has been put into English by Barrett H. Clark and Lander MacClintock — "The Labyrinth" (Huebsch). Mr. Clark furnishes an introductory sketch of the author, together with a brief bibliog- raphy. It must be said that separated from the neat turns of French idiom the play seems theatric. Like the great run of French domestic drama this piece makes an a priori demand upon the specta- tor. He must yield to a conception accord- ing to which love may be urged as a su- preme excuse for what may be termed cas- ual transgression. For the Frenchman there is magic in the time-honored cr^y, "C'est plus fort que moi," and he is easily swayed to believe that it is prompted by love and not passion. In the present drama Marianne, having left her husband, who has been unfaithful to her and who has married the object of his passion, is now enamoured of Guillaume, whom she desires to wed. Her father is at length won over to the idea, but the mother, believing di- vorce impious before God, disapproves, though she makes no open objection, and the wedding is consummated. The heroine has had two blissful years when Max, whose second wife has died in the mean- time, demands to see more of his young son by Marianne than she has hitherto per- mitted. The interview leaves her strangely wrought up. She is next seen at the coun- try home of Max and his mother, whither she has been summoned by the news that the boy has diphtheria. It is, of course, natural that while watching over their child they should feel the force of old as- sociations. But an Anglo-Saxon audience would not view with satisfaction the sub- sequent hounding of Marianne by Max, nor think tremendously significant her yielding to him when he has cornered her in her bedroom virtually exhausted by loss of sleep. One must keep saying to one's self, "C'est plus fort que moi," in order to stifle the impulse to cry out, "Be a man!" Yet the author has contrived a powerful picture, so far, that is, as to show the ineffaceable inner union of two parents. That thiB, re- newed by the presence of their child at the point of death, should make the woman so far forget herself as to offend against her second husband, whom she adores, is not so evident. There is decided promise in "The Dead lock," by Margaret Turnbull, which the Drama Producing Company lias pul upon the stage of Maxine Elliott's Theatre. But the piece Is weak dramatically In two n 1 ecta in r.i . in ii exi eeeive uie r Improb
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Jan. 29, 1914] The Nation 117 able coincidence to bring about a particular situation, and, secondly, in its presentation of a problem which could only arise in very rare circumstances, and to which, clearly, there can be no general solution. Here is the plot: Felix Kildeen, destined by his father, a devout Roman Catholic, for the Church, while studying in Europe falls in love with a singer and marries her. Then he has a desperate Illness, during which his father gets possession of him and carries him off to America. While he is still on a sick- bed the father sends word of his death to the deserted wife, and, when he recov- ers, tells him that he Is a widower. Be- lieving the lie, Felix takes Holy Orders, and In course of time becomes a devoted and popular priest. Ten years later he Is con- fronted with his wife, now a famous prima donna, and his little son. Explanations follow, and It appears that the pair, sepa- rated by an infamous but barely credible deception, love each other as fondly as ever. Several emotional scenes, of indis- putable theatrical value, follow. The fath- er, resolute in his bigotry, maintains that the marriage is void, and the child, whom he offers to adopt, illegitimate. The son is frantic, torn by the struggle between conjugal and parental love on the one side, and his sense of clerical and spiritual obligation on the other. The wife, a free- thinker, boldly asserts her legal rights and ridicules the notion that Church dogma can override the authority of the State. Here is a triple controversy which is conducted by the playwright with a strong grasp of character and a keen sense of dramatic effect. Only the manifest artificiality of the scheme prevents the action from being emotionally impressive. Love of the grand child, in whom he discovers the heir he had longed for, induces the stubborn old grandfather to yield to his daughter-in- law's demand for full recognition, but the priest, faithful to his vows, declares that his future course must be decided by his ecclesiastical superiors. This is a logical and artistic ending — the only one consist- ent with the author's design and the pre- scribed character of Felix — but it is also theatrically futile. Moreover, the sup- posed "deadlock"' is not absolute, inasmuch as its validity depends, in this country at any rate, not upon the operation of law, but the workings of the individual con- science. The representation was made no- table by the performance of the part of the heroine by Edith Wynne Matthison, which was eminently artistic in its refine- ment, sincerity, eloquence, dignity, and absence of cheap theatrical exaggeration. Ben Greet has been invited by the Edwin Booth Theatre Association to become di- rector of the stage and of the School of Acting, which is to be started at once. The theatre will follow. Mr. Greet hopes to raise up a new school of actors from the American universities where material }s abundant now that dramatics are often part of the college curriculum. In England he recruited nearly fifty Oxford and Cam- bridge men and women in ten years, many of whom now occupy prominent places on the English stage. Mr. Greet's experience should make him very valuable to the As- sociation. "The Poor Little Rich Girl" had a dis- astrous experience in London. Her career at the New Theatre lasted barely two weeks. Israel Zangwill's "The Melting Pot" is to have a hearing in England at last, but not in one of the regular theatres. It is to be produced at a special performance by the Play Actors. This will be the first rep- resentation of the piece in English in Great Britain, but a Yiddish version of it was played successfully in the East End of London. The Scottish Repertory Theatre has made a new start at the Royalty Theatre, Glas- gow, the opening attraction being Mr. Ar- nold Bennett's comedy, "The Honeymoon." Among other plays arranged for are Monck- ton Hoff's "The Little Damozel," "The Man of Ideas," by Miles Mallison, and "East is East," by P. E. and G. Logan. Later it is hoped that plays by Sir J. M. Barrie and Bernard Shaw may be presented. Lewis Casson will act as stage director and prin- cipal producer, a position he has filled with Miss Horniman's Manchester Reper- tory Company. The following communication from Mr. G. S. Street, published in the London news- papers, throws a new light upon the pro- cesses of theatrical censorship in England, and partly accounts, perhaps, for some of the extraordinary consequences of it: I have the permission of the Lord Cham- berlain to make a brief statement of fact in regard to the office of examiner of plays. Most of the newspaper comments on my re- cent appointment, kind and flattering to myself as they were, assumed that I had been made a censor of plays. That is not the case. My senior colleague, Mr. Bend- all, and I merely examine and report on plays for the information of the Lord Chamberlain; the granting or withholding of a license is a function of the Lord Chamberlain, assisted by an advisory board, of which we are not part. Music Richard Wagner. By John F. Runciman. New York: The Macmillan Co. $3.25 net. According to Rubinstein, the greatest five composers were Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, and Glinka. Accord- ing to John P. Runciman, the greatest personality amongst all the musicians — indeed, the "greatest man who has yet lived" — was Handel. After him come Gluck and Beethoven; and, finally, Wag- ner, "whose supreme genius and indom- itable perseverance made him either an idol or a terror to all who came in contact with him." In writing a new book on this composer Mr. Runciman has, as he avers, avoided both "prepos- terous eulogy" on the one hand and "vampire work" on the other; but his foolish remarks on the plot of "Parsi- fal"— evidently an echo of Huneker and some crazy pamphlets printed in Ger- many— verge on the latter, while some of his praises of the other operas sound very much like gush, especially as com- ing from the pen of an English critic noted for his caustic wit and slashing style. One would have supposed that one who so worships Handel would have been impressed above all things by the quasi-religious music of "Parsifal," which has often moved even agnostics to tears; but this music has "no charm" for Mr. Runciman, though he finds in the opera "passages of marvellous love- liness." This last chapter is an unfortunate blot on what is otherwise an excellent book. It will not appeal to those who wish to read the romantic and tragic story of Wagner's life, for while the main incidents are recorded, it is done in a summary way that does not appeal to the imagination; only eight lines, for instance, being used to tell the thrilling episode of King Ludwig's attempt to find Wagner and bring him to Munich. By such condensation Mr. Runciman succeeded in saving most of his 421 pages for analyses of the operas and comments thereon, which are among the very best that have been made, being intelligent and appreciative without ceasing to be critical. The libretto of the "Flying Dutchman," for example, is pronounced "a manufacture, not, like 'Tristan,' a growth"; but on the whole the opera is assuredly "a great work. . . . Had he not lived to write anoth- er note, his memory would live by the 'Dutchman.' " Nevertheless, it is in "Tannhauser" that "we first find the godlike Wagner hurling his thunder- bolts." In the analysis of "Lohengrin" the author sanely rejects the theories of those who search for moral ideas in it. To him it is simply a charming fairy opera. Mr. Runciman's admiration for "Die Meistersinger," both as a poem and a musical masterwork, is unbounded, and equally great is his enthusiasm for the Nibelung operas as a whole, though he fails to appreciate the grandeur of the third act of "Siegfried," which really overtops everything except the last act of "Gotterdammerung." To him "Tristan and Isolde" is "the finest opera in the world. ... It is impossible to imagine such a feat ever being done again. Those of us who live on for an- other five hundred years may see some- thing like it. . . . The breath, the spirit, which is eternal life, is in it, and it can only perish when the human race perishes." Will any one say after this that the English are unemotional in their atti- tude towards music? Mr. Runciman's enthusiasm includes Wagner's charac- ter, as well as his music and his poetry. He "not only was the most stupendous personage born into the nineteenth cen- tury: he was also one of the noblest, most generous men that have lived. There is not a mean trait in his charac- ter"— a statement which must be taken con grano, like some other exaggerations in this volume, such as the sneer at present-day Bayreuth as having "lapsed into the limbo of tenth-rate things." There is less exaggeration in the state-
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118 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2535 nient that Wagner not only created the music-drama, hut the modern art of conducting as exemplified after him hy Biilow, Richter, Levi, Seidl, and oth- ers. This being the case, it is surpris- ing to read in this book that Wagner was "well paid" for the work he did in London. It is not stated therein what he got for rehearsing and conducting a whole season of Philharmonic con- certs; it was one thousand dollars, or less than some Wagner singers receive for one evening's work. Nor is it cor- rect to say that the one cause of all Wagner's grumbling in London was "the character of the bulk of the music he had to conduct." He had many other causes, one of which our author him- self dwells on very briefly: the venom- ous criticisms of nearly the whole press. In a letter quoted Wagner intimates that he could have received favorable notices if he had paid the critics; upon which Mr. Runciman comments: "When I re- flect on the smallness of the critics' of- ficial salaries and the splendor in which some of them lived, I cannot but think he was right." A few weeks ago Victor Herbert conduct- ed in Chicago the thirtieth performance of his "Natoma," the only grand opera com- posed in America that boasts such a rec- ord. Last Saturday the Metropolitan Opera House produced the second venture on grand-opera lines of one whose supremacy in operetta is uncontested so far as this country is concerned. "Madeleine" is its name; it was sung by Alda, Sparkes, Alt- house, Pini-Corsi, and De Segurola, who were recalled with the conductor and the composer fourteen times at the close of the curtain. The libretto is an adaptation of "I Dine With My Mother," a dainty lit- tle comedy by Decourcelles and Thibaut; as set to music, it lasts a few minutes less than an hour. Madeleine is a prima donna, the idol of the public, who takes it into her head to persuade some one of her ad- mirers to dine with her on New Year's Day, when every Frenchman is supposed to be at home. One after another they de- cline, all for the same reason, and finally she dines alone, facing the portrait of her mother. There is hardly enough action in this story even for a one-act opera. In setting it to music, Mr. Herbert adopted the conversational style of music cultivated by Strauss and Wolf-Ferrari, and with suc- cess; but his admirers would have prefer- red the more melodious and romantic style of "Natoma" and the operettas which have : made him famous. Some use is made of leading motives, and the orchestral score ' contains many delicate and subtle details. | At least forty-five foreign opera _houses. produced "Parsifal" within a few days af- ter the expiration of the copyright on the first of this month. In Berlin, Prague, and Budapest two companies performed it sim- ultaneously. In Berlin the house was sold out in advance for twenty-four perform- ances, and the Royal Opera gave it every night in the week, two casts being pro- vided. From everywhere come reports of the deep Impression made by Wagner's semi-religious drama. Gounod's "Faust" had been sung 1,226 times at the Opera in Paris last Septem- ber. It led all operas at that institution during the last year, having been given twenty-two times in twelve months. Saint- Saens's "Samson et Dalila" came next in popularity, with nineteen performances; "Rigoietto" had seventeen; "Ai'da," six- teen; "Lohengrin," thirteen; "Meistersing- er," twelve. In Germany, the most popular of French operas, and, in fact, of all operas, is Bizet's "Carmen." This is shown by the figures, not for one year only, but for ten years. During the decade 1901-1910 "Car- men" had 3,956 performances in German opera houses. Then came "Lohengrin" (3,458), "Tannhauser" (3,243), "Mignon" (2,777), "Freischutz" (2,658), "II Trovatore" and Offenbach's "Contes d'Hoffmann" tie, with 2,486 each; "Pagliacci" had 2,188, "Zauberflote" 1,859, "Die Walkure" 1,814, and Gounod's "Faust" 2,077. It is worth noting that, of these eleven favorite operas, four are French, and only two are Italian. It is also worth noting that the five favor- ite German operas had only 1,536 more performances during the decade than the four favorite French operas. Debussy has honored the American vio- linist, Arthur Hartmann, by promising to play at a recital on February 5 the ac- companiments to three of his songs which Hartmann has arranged for violin and piano. The three songs, "Minstrels," "La fille aux cheveux de lin," and "II pleure dans mon coeur," have been printed by Durand. siclans in Chicago, valued equally as pian- ist, teacher, editor, and critic. Among his own teachers were Liszt, Erlich, Dorn, and Kullak. As a lecturer he was much in demand in the West. He also composed some pieces for the piano. Art The most extravagant of the musical cubists, Igor Stravinsky, has, oddly enough, written a fairy opera which is to be pro- duced in Moscow and St. Petersburg. A personal friend of Stravinsky gives the following details about this opera in the Music Student. The opera is based on "The Nightingale," by Hans Andersen. He has changed the story but little, the principal addition being that he makes one of the fishermen mentioned therein play a part| similar to that of the chorus in a Greek tragedy. The real nightingale has a role, likely to be very effective, but certainly not easy, and the opportunities afforded, tor humor in the pompous courtiers' search- | ing for the bird, the mechanical bird (senti with great ceremony by the Japanese Em- peror), the Kapellmeister, etc., are notj neglected. The third act, in the dying j monarch's bedroom, should also not missj its effect. The composer brings out the, poetic and philosophic meaning of Hans Andersen's beautiful story very fully. Speaking of the late Frangois Cellier, who for years conducted the Gilbert and Sul- livan operas at the Savoy Theatre, the Lon- don Times says that, at the time of his death, he was in the midst of writing a book of reminiscences of the Gilbert and Sullivan productions, and also of the | D'Oyly Carte Company. Mr. Cellier was held in high esteem by Sir Arthur Sullivan, ,who left him in his will two original scores, j ;that of "Patience" and that of "The Pirates] of Penzance." From Chicago the death is announ ed Ol Emll Liebling, who, though he was born in j Germany (Pleas, In Silesia, in L8B1), came1 to this country as long ago a 1 since 1872 had been one of the leading mu- Art books in the spring publications of MeBride, Nast & Company include: "House Furnishing and Decoration," by Abbott McClure and H. D. Eberlein; "Baroque Ar- chitecture," by Martin S. Briggs ; "The Co- lonial House," by Joseph Everett Chan- dler- "The Craft of Hand-Made Rugs," by Amy' Mali Hicks; "Making Built-in Fur- niture" by Abbott McClure, and "A Court Painte'r and His Circle, Frangois Boucher (1703-1770)," by Mrs. Bearne. When Henry Peacham, in his "Compleat Gentleman," expressed his disapproval of. the heraldic efforts of "Painters, Gla- siers Carvers, and such," he voiced not only the indignation of the Cavaliers at the armorial abuses of their day, but also the, protest of many a modern pursuivant of arms against such works as W. H. St. John Hope's "Heraldry for Craftsmen and De- signers" (Macmillan). This protest is not ag°ainst the book itself, which is well or- ganized and written in a pleasing style. The protest is rather against the author's point of view: his assumption that heraldic em- blems exist primarily for the purposes of ornament, and that the artist is at liberty to ignore heraldic law, or to revert to the armorial usage of an earlier day, merely because he finds the present usage inartis- tic Mr. Hope notes, for example, that In early heraldry the device of quartering was used but sparingly, and that in later times, as the quarters were multiplied through intermarriage, "the artistic effect of the old simple shield was lost or destroyed. Without stopping to consider why, in the passage of time, this multiplication of I quarters was advantageous and inevitable, he cites an instance of "a dreadful confu- I sion of twenty-eight quarters," asserts j I hat "from the artistic standpoint, there ! cannot be any doubt" that this is wrong, i and concludes his discussion of the use of quarters with the declaration that "there I «an be no question that in general a shield ' looks best without any at all. ... To re- duce them to a reasonable few is often a most desirable thing." The custom of com- bining the arms of an heiress with her husband's by means of an escutcheon of pretence Mr. Hope dismisses likewise as ■ugly and most inconvenient." Of the bar- onet's badge, he says, "Some artists wisely leave it out altogether"; of the use of a lozenge for a lady's arms, there is no cause why the custom should not be set aside "for artistic reasons"; and, again, "From the artistic standpoint, it would certainly be desirable ... to revert to the freedom of pre-Elizabethan times." In short, a large ,;„ , of the heraldic usages that have made armorial insignia of greatest value to ,ans and genealogists, all the flne dis- tinctions of 'Scutoheona of honor and pretence, Quartered In old armorial aort, Mr, Hope would w Ipe ou1 as Inai tl tlo
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Jan. 29, 1914] The Nation 119 er, he would effect this reformation not through the action of the Heralds' Col- lege, but at the whim of every cha ligner. Slmll we revert to the alleged sim- pli.ii. of earlier days? If so, let us at mi mber that, In "king Edward the flrste his time," it was ordained— if Gerard Leigh speak true— "that no goldsmith, cop- persmith, glasier, painter, or marbler should have to do with Armes, without the consent ol the king of Amies of that province." Peter A. Gross, an American landscape . who had lived in Paris for the last forty years, died suddenly on Satur- day in Chicago, where he was to have open- ed an exhibition of his art works. He was born in Allentown, Pa. When he first went abroad he lived on the Heights of Mont- martre, and later, when many of his com- patriots moved across the Seine to the Latin Quarter, he continued to maintain his home near the Place Clichy. Mr. Gross brought with him to this country Frago- nard's celebrated painting of Benjamin Franklin, painted in the Louvre when Franklin was Ambassador to France. Eu- ropean collectors had made him offers for the canvas, but it was his hope to establish a museum of art in his native town, and he took the portrait there. Among paintings which he owned were works of Corot, Theo- dore Rousseau, Delacroix, and other mas- ters of the French school. For many years he was a regular contributor to the great art exhibitions of Paris. He was a cheva- lier of the Legion of Honor and a member of several other French societies. Prof. Louise Rogers Jewett, head of the department of art at Mount Holyoke Col- lege, died suddenly in South Hadley, Mass., on Wednesday of last week. She was born in Moravia, N. Y., and graduated from the Buffalo Seminary. She studied at the Yale School of Fine Arts, and under Lefebvre and Benjamin Constant at the Academie Julian, Paris. For several years she taught at Dana Hall, Wellesley, and in 1901 came to Mount Holyoke as professor in the art department. In 1912 she was made head of the department. Two of Miss Jevvett's pub- lications are "Masterpieces of Painting, Their Qualities and Meanings," 1906, and "History of Italian Painting; Outlines and References," 1908. In 1910, in collabora- tion with Prof. Mary W. Calkins, of Welles- ley College, she edited "The Poems of Sophie Jewett, Memorial Edition." Finance THE NEW TURN OF AFFAIRS. When the stock market suddenly bursts into such activity and strength as that which the past two weeks have witnessed — with the "outside public" unquestionably buying, with prices ris- ing day after day, and with more sep- arate securities dealt in on the rise than in any week in the past four years — the question at once arises, What should have brought about this remarkable sit- uation. It is certainly remarkable in this respect, if in no other, that it fol- lows barely nine weeks after a market in which Stock Exchange business fell on one day to the lowest ebb in twenty- five years, and from which the StocK Exchange was apparently convinced, first, that the "outside public" as a fac- tor in the market was gone, never to re- turn, and, secondly, that the stock mar- ket itself, as a field of profitable activ- ity, was played out. What, it may very reasonably be inquired, has happened in this nine weeks' interval, of so por- tentous a character as to reverse thus completely the action and attitude ot Wall Street, Stock Exchange, and "out- side public"? The question might be answered mere- ly by saying that the 57,000-share day of November 24 was a landmark show- ing that liquidation was complete, all possible evils discounted and overdis- counted by the preceding decline of prices, and the market, therefore, sure to rebound effectively when any one really made up his mind to buy. But as everybody knows, the nine weeks' in- terval has also included a rather note- worthy series of events. They may not of themselves have changed the position in finance, but they certainly brought into sudden and strong relief some very important changes which had already been gradually occurring, which had al- ready created a new situation, but which Wall Street was still considering from its distorted perspective of the past twelve months. First, and very soon after the "dull day" of November, came the announce- ment from the White House of the new policy towards business; the settlement with two great combinations, the enactment of the Currency bill, and its enthusiastic reception by the business community. These events dislodged two factors of misgiving of which much was heard during 1913 — the prospect of vio- lent assault on Wall Street and Big Bus- iness by the Government, and the pros- pect that the Democratic party would be incapable of useful or conservative legislation. Up to the middle of this month, other scattered incidents occur- red which pointed in the same direc- tion; but a week ago began a most il- luminating series of events. On Friday of week before last, British consols, whose depression during 1913 had reflected the troubled waters of Eu- | ropean finance and the utter congestion of the foreign investment market, rose nearly 1 per cent., their price rising sub- sequently 2 points further, to a higher level than that at which they stood at the outbreak of the Balkan War. At the end of that same week the New York Danks, which in December had been talking most doubtfully about the future, reported the largest surplus reserve for this time of year since 1897. On Monday of last week a sharp decline in money rates occurred on Europe's markets, on the heels of the earlier Jan- uary declines; the Wall Street money market following, and Paris rates giv- ing way for the first time in 1914. On Tuesday the President's special message reiterated and amplified his pol- icy of peace, with the purpose outlined "not to unsettle business, or anywhere break its established courses," and the assertion that "the antagonism between business and Government is over." On Wednesday came the offering of the $51,- 000,000 New York State loan for pub- lic subscription, the covering of the of- fer five times over by the bidders; the allotment of the bonds to a banking syndicate, at a higher price than had been deemed possible a month ago, and their instantaneous reallotment to in- vestors, at a further advance in price. Swiftly following this, on Thursday six great central banks of Europe — at Lon- don, Berlin, Brussels, Geneva, Stock- holm, and Copenhagen — reduced their official discount rates to a lower level than had been fixed by any of them since the Balkan War began; the open market rate at Paris, though the Bank of France made no reduction, falling be- low the rate which the Bank would have established had its own rate been lowered. With just this sequence of events a fairly clear explanation of this week's movement on the Stock Exchange is at hand. Summing up all of these numer- ous successive occurrences, it may be said in a general way that the particular doubts and apprehensions — some of them well warranted, some purely imagi- nary— which prevailed throughout 1913, have, so to speak, been suddenly ex- ploded. Wall Street need not now ap- prehend that the party in power is handling the ship without a rudder, or with the black flag at the mast. Mis- giving over the New York bank position would be entirely misplaced. The dead- lock in the market for new securities is at least temporarily broken. Financial Europe (as yet excepting Paris) has given the plainest intimation that the strain on the foreign money markets is over. The response of the markets was as emphatic as it was inevitable. The sharp-sighted Stock Exchange is the first to reflect such change, and every one knows how it has reflected it. Specula- tors and investors have instantly laid in the supplies of investment securities which they had done without, during many months. The turn of general trade comes next. It will come when middle- men and consumers, who have for months been notoriously conducting their affairs on a hand-to-mouth basis, lay in new stocks of merchandise and fill their almost empty shelves and yards. When the Wall Street market halts, after a period of prolonged re- vival, attention is logically turned to the revival of general business — precipe- ' ly as every experienced person, after the
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12Q The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 253s long decline on the Stock Exchange had ended in November, watched expectant- ly for the business reaction, which, in fact, ensued. BOOKS OP THE WEEK. Anderson, A. J. Betty Standish. Dodd Mead. $1.25 net. Baedeker's Egypt; Southern France Scrlb- ner. $4.50; $2.40. Bailey, H. T. Art Education (Riverside Series). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 60 cents. Barber, Samuel. A Matrimonial Experi- ment. Ogilvie. 25 cents. Begbie, Harold. The Crisis of Morals Revell. 75 cents net. Bolton, Florence. Exercises for Women Funk & Wagnalls. $1 net. Browne, Frances. Granny's Wonderful Chair. Dutton. 45 cents net. Cannan, Gilbert. Old Mole. D. Appleton. $1.35 net. Carus, Paul. Nietzsche, and Other Expo- nents of Individualism. Chicago- Open Court Pub. Co. $1.25 net. Chisholm, Catherine. The Medical Inspec- tion of Girls in Secondary Schools. Longmans. $1.10 net. Cooke. G. McG., and Morrison, C. W. Wil- liam and Bill. Century Co. $1.25 net. Croce, Benedetto. 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Just Ready Clayton Hamilton's STUDIES IN STAGE CRAFT A companion volume to the author's "The Theory of the Theatre," already in its 4th impression. $1.50 net. A New and Thoroughly Revised Edition of Lord Avebury's PREHISTORIC TIMES Entirely reset, with 3 colored plates and »~ 283 other illustrations. 8vo. $3.50 RHenryHolt&Co.,^^ Foreign Books and Magazines Correspondence Solicited E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 681 Fifth Avenue, near 54th Street NEW YORK A. Dew book by EDWARD HOWARD GRIGGS. THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART The meaning and relation of sculpture, painting, poetry and music. The author's most Important work so far published. 12mo, cloth, $1.50 net; by mail, $1.60 B.W.Huebscb.Publisher, 225Fifthavenue, NewYork the prose romances william" morris POCKET LIBRARY A DREAM OF JOHN BULL HOUSE OF THE WOLFINGS LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON LIFE OF WILLIAM MORRIS. 2 vols. NEWS FROM NOWHERE POEMS BY THE WAY ROOTS OF THE MOUNTAINS. 2 vols. STORY OF THE GLITTERING PLAIN SUNDERING FLOOD. 2 vols. 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The N&noii VOL. XCVIII— NO. 2536 THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5,1914 ?S?: oin«. PRICE TEN CENTS LONGMANS' NEW BOOKS THE PROSE ROMANCES OF WILLIAM MORRIS (Longmans' Pocket Library) A DREAM OF JOHN BALL THE HOUSE OF THE WOLFINGS THE LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON NEWS FROM NOWHERE THE ROOTS OF THE MOUNTAINS (2 vols.) THE STORY OF THE GLIT- TERING PLAIN POEMS BY THE WAY THE SUNDERING FLOOD (2 vols.) THE WATER OF THE WONDROUS ISLES (2 vols.) THE WELL AT THE WORLD'S END (2 vols.) THE WOOD BEYOND THE WORLD Price of each volume: Cloth, $0.75 net; leather, $1.00 net g>tuote£ tn $tetorp, €conomtca anb public Hato Edited by the Faculty of Political Science of Columbia Univenity The Policy of the United States Towards Industrial Monopoly By Oswald Whitman Knauth, Ph.D. 8vo. Paper covers. $2.00. The Civil Service of Great Britain A Study of the History of Competition and of Intel- lectual Aristocracy By Robert Moses, Ph.D. 8vo. $2.50. Paper covers, $2.00. Wbt MestmtnsJter Mrarp The Early Church in the Light of the Monuments A Study in Christian Archaeology. By the Right Rev. Mgr. A. S. Barnes, MA. With 37 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. Pp. xx+223. $1.50 net. (Postage 10 cents.) Jgoofes; for ICent The Life In Grace By Rev. Walter J. Carey, Pusey House, Oxford. With an Introduction by the Bishop of London. Crown 8vo. $0.90 net. (Postage 6 cents.) "I have read it carefully through twice, and I find it c- hopeful, clear, stimulating, and, above all, a real book." — From the Bishop of London's Introduction. Life's Power: a Word of Help for the Days By the Rev. Jesse Brett, L.Th., Chaplain of All Saints' Hospital, Eastbourne. With a Frontispiece. Crown 8vo. $1.00 net. (Postage 6 cents.) Faith and the Faith The Bohlen Lectures, 1914. By Samuel Hart, Dean of Berkeley Divinity School. Crown 8vo. Pp. xii+144. $0.80 net; by mail, $0.86. Educational Aims and Civic Needs By James H. Baker, M.A., LL.D., President of the Uni- versity of Colorado, Author of "Education and Life," 'American Problems." 12mo. Pp. viii+183. $0.90 net; by mail, $0.97. American Citizen i^erteg Edited by Albert Bushnell Hart, LL.D. Public Opinion and Popular Government By A. Lawrence Lowell, President of Harvard Uni- versity. Crown 8vo. $2.25 net; by mail, $2.38. "Lowell and Bryce are, in short, for the whole English-speaking world, the leading constitutionalists of the day. ... It shows that Dr. Lowell may be placed nearly on a level — and no greater praise can be given to any man — with Bagehot ... A highly in- teresting book." — A. V. Dicey in the Nation. The Medical Inspection of Girls in Secondary Schools By Catharine Chisholm, B.A., M.D., Medical Inspector of the Girls' High School, Manchester, England. With 6 Diagrams. 8vo. Pp. xii+208. $1.10 net. (Postage 7 cents.) Vices in Virtues and Other Vagaries By the Author of "The Life of a Prig," etc. 8vo. Pp. viii+96. $1.20 net. (Postage 7 cents.) Contents: The Vices of Gardening— The Vice of Loving without Liking— The Ungentlemanliness of Ladies— The Fool and His Adjective— The Vice of Common Sense— Vices in Charities— Talking to Think — The Joys of Indigestion— The Vice of Unselfishness— The Vice of Being Too Previous — Reviewing— The Vice of Finishing— Fleeting Pleasures— Principles— Misers, Ancient and Modern— Ill-health as a Profession. The Sorrow Stones An Unfinished Story. By Maud E. Williams. Crown 8vo. Pp. viii+285. $1.35 net. (Postage 10 cents.) "I have never read a book in which human speech was so perfectly rendered; and for that alone Miss Williams's work would be memorable. . . . 'The Sorrow Stones' is very beautiful and very moving."— The Bookman, London. The Energy System of Matter A Deduction from Terrestrial Energy Phenomena. By James Weir. 8vo. $2.00 net. (Postage 12 cents.) This volume is designed to present an entirely new concept of the association of matter and energy based on a rational coordination of experimental phenomena and entirely uninfluenced by speculative considerations. "An interesting book in which the author discusses some of the results of his study of natural phenomena in research work in physics, extending over many years. ... It is clearly written and an interesting book to read. All physicists should become familiar with the views here advanced . . ."—School Science and Mathematics. Wnibet&itp of Honbon #?i£rtortcal g>eriea The Reign of Henry VII, from contemporary Sources By A. F. Pollard. Vol. II. Constitutional, Social and Economic History. 8vo. Pp. vi+348. S3 00 net (Postage 12 cents.) Published by Xongmans, <5reen, & Co, Fourth Ave. and 30th St. New York Welleslej Free Library ' lass.
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11 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2536 The Nation A WEEKLY JOURNAL. FOUNDED IN 1865. [Entered at the New York City Post Office second-class mail matter. ] The Nation is published and owned by the New York Evening Post Co. Oswald Garrison Villard, President; John Palmer Cavit, Secretary and Treasurer; iCm i i m. Scholz, Business Manager; Paul Elmer More. Editor; Harold deWolf Fuller, Assistant Bditor. Thrrc dollars per year in advance, postpaid, in anil part of the United States or M erica ; to Canada 18.50, and lo foreign countries comprised in the Postal Union, $4.00. Address THE NATION. liox 794, New York. Publication Office, 20 Ycsey Street. CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER. Turc Week 121 Editorial Articles: The "Trade Commission" Bill 124 Government as an Exact Science 124 Taxation Facts and Fancies 125 Athletics and Character 126 Heredity, Environment, and Duty 127 Ballads in America 128 Special Articles: William Cobbett 129 News for Bibliophiles 131 Correspondence : The Currency Act and the Banking Principle 131 The American Historical Association. 132 The Toronto "Globe" 133 Canada's Treatment of the Indians... 133 The Logic of the Direct Primary 133 "National Supremacy" 134 Literature : The Story of George Crowninshield's Yacht, Cleopatra's Barge, on a Voy- age of Pleasure to the Western Isl- ands and the Mediterranean, 1816- 1817 134 The Health Master 135 Idonia 135 A Term of Silence 136 Tristan and Isolt 136 Public Utilities, Their Cost-New and Depreciation 137 Aramaic Incantation Texts of Nippur. 137 Notes 138 Science 140 Drama: Our Irish Theatre 140 Music: Music in Paris and New York 142 Art: An "Art Commission Movement".... 142 Finance : Financial Europe's Sudden Recovery 144 Books of the Week 144 READY FEBRUARY 7 SELECTIONS FROM THE FEDERALIST Edited, with an introduction, by William Ben.mktt Munbo, Professor of Municipal Government in Harvard University. 12mo. 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Feb. 5, 1914I The Nation 111 NEW MAGAZINE ON EGYPT An Illustrated quarterly magazine, beautifully Illustrated, with news »f late discoveries, edited i.v PROF PBTBIE, began with the January num- ber embellished with frontispiece f Jewelry In c :rs. I'rlce $2 I year. The discoveries hy IVtrie nn.l others for the EGYPTIAN RESEARCH A' 1 hi NT (Society) relate to the arts of Ancient Egypt anil to Its predynastle age. An annual quarto volume, profusely Illustrated, anil the magazine should be In all public and many private libraries. Circular* at tUeee publications freely furnish,,!. Address REV. DR. \v. C. W1NSLOW, 525 Beacon Street B OUR COMPLETE CATALOGUE by, Bud litera- ture will be • TIk- DnlTerslt: i, Illinois. JAN VERMEER OF DELFT By PHILIP L. HALE. Ilic only himk in the lOiinlinh lan- guage on "the jcrreatext puinter who ever lived." In the Boston Transcript of December 17 Mr. W. II. 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His modesty, his wit, his bubbling humor, coupled with a certain sensitive restraint and self- repression; his generosity, his kind- ness to younger men; his fidelity to all high ideals are emphasized. . . . It is a book to be treasured by every lover of architecture." — Boston Tran- script. Lavishly illustrated. Boxed $6.00 net. Postage extra. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN CO., Boston and New York McClurg's New Catalogue of Rare & Fine Imported BOOKS Selections from the finest collection in the country Copy sent free on request A. C. McCLURG & CO. Dept. P. 218-24 S. Wabash Avenue CHICAGO JUST PUBLISHED! Trans-Atlantic Historical Solidarity Four Lectures delivered before the University of Oxford in Easter and Trinity Terms, 1913, by CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. Cloth.8vo. $1.75 "It Is a fascinating story as Mr. Adams treats It. . . . His analysis of the condi- tions which finally determined the sway of State sovereignty In the South and of na- tional sovereignty in the North Is keen, CaAdid and convincing. ... II is ex- amination of Lee's achievements ami defei ts as a commander is acute and of incense Interest." — New York Times. For sale by aU booksellers. Oxford University Press American Branch SS WEST :CNI) STREET, NEW VollK The White Sapphire By I.Ki: FOSTER H1HTMAIV. An absorbing mystery Mory ai.iiK ilro getber unusual lines, and not a little fun. but no murder and bloodshed. There Is a go about every phase of fhe tale, ami a charming girl at the very crux of the situation. ^/.2,7 net. HARPER A BROTHERS. F. 31. HOLLY Established 1908 Authors' nnd PnhllnherH' Rcprenentntive 168 riFTH AVBNTJB, m:\v York. Rates and full Information Rent upon apptlcatlom.
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IV The Nation (Vol. 98, No. 2536 NEW MACMILLAN BOOKS OF SPECIAL IMPORTANCE You want to know the truth about the Philippine Islands! The most important of accessions to United States territory I Now Ready. Prof. Worcester's new book THE PHILIPPINES PAST AND PRESENT By DEAN C. WORCESTER, Secretary of the Interior, Philippine Insular Government, 1901-1913, author of "The Philippine Islands and Their People," etc. This timely, valuable, up-to-date and authoritative work is of especial interest just now, as the recently appointed administration has again sharply brought up the whole question of our policy with regard to the Philippines and their future. To impress on the American people the exact truth of the situation, is the primary object of the Hon. Dean C. Worcester's new book, and this work will answer more questions on the subject than any other. Profusely illustrated with full-page plates. Two volumes. $6.00 net. ON POLITICS AND HISTORY By VISCOUNT MORLEY, O. M. An important new work, a world- wide review of present conditions and future prospects, written with the deep insight, widespread inter- est, and high authority character- istic of this distinguished author's works. Cloth, $1.00 net THEODORE ROOSEVELT An Autobiography Colonel Roosevelt's Own Story of His Life. "A book of extraordinary personal fascination." "The most readable book that has come from the press." "No critic can deny either its human interest or its historical importance." Richly illustrated. $2.50 net MEXICO The Wonderland of the South By WILLIAM E. CARSON A new, revised and up-to-date edi- tion of this timely work, giving an accurate picture of the country and the people. "It would be difficult to find a book upon this most inter- esting land which would be more satisfactory." Profnsely illustrated. $2.25 net A WOMAN RICE PLANTER By PATIENCE PENNINGTON Introduction by Owen Wister. "Everyone who read 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' should read 'A Woman Rice Planter.' It is a large part of the South under the camera." — Unity. "A book of rare charm ... as en- tertaining as fiction." Profnsely lllnstrated. $2.O0 net The COUNTRYSIDE MANUALS I MOTHERING ON PERILOUS I. THE SUBURBAN GARDEN GUIDE By Parker Thayer Barnes. "The best, most compact, and hand- iest of garden manuals published." Cloth, 50 cents net II. THINGS MOTHER USED TO MAKE By Lydia Maria Gurney. The good, old-fashioned, but ever new recipes for the best products of kitchen cookery. Cloth, 50 cents net THE TREASURE KATHLEEN NORRIS'S New Novel By the author of "Mother," etc. A new novel by this fascinating author, redolent again of the home atmosphere and those intimate touches which make the book seem a part of the reader's life. 1 11 tint ruled. $1.35 net SANDY S. R. CROCKETT'S New Novel By the author of "Patsy," "The Stickit Minister," etc. A hero this time, as captivating as Mr. Crockett's previous attrac- tive heroine, "Patsy." As satisfac- tory a novel as Mr. Crockett has ever written, full of life, vigor, wit and humor, illustrated. $1.35 net By LUCY FURMAN "A book as limpid, as refreshing, as invigorating as a mountain stream . . . Recalling Myra Kelly . . . her style is graceful and clear and her narrative . . . the diary of a teacher among the mountain whites in Kentucky . . . fascinat- ing." Illustrated. $1.50 net VAN CLEVE MRS. WATTS'S New Novel By the author of "Nathan Burke," etc. "Nothing but praise for 'Van Cleve' . . . another true, red-white- and-blue American story . . . clean, sweet, wholesome . . . thoroughly American in its good humor, charm and optimism ... A good story told with skill." Cloth, $1.35 net Leading reviewers unanimously declare that his new novel THE VALLEY OF THE MOON is the best story ever written by JACK LONDON the versatile author of clever and popular tales, Including "THE CALL OF THE WILD," of which book alone over half-a-million copies have been sold. '"The Valley of the Moon' is as winning, as genuine an idyl as one can desire . . . breath- ing the atmosphere of the open that heals and brings contentment . . . American to the core . . . pic- turesque, wholesome, romantic, practical."— JV. Y. Tribune. "A chant of triumph ... a rapturous hymn of praise."— Indianapo lis New?. "The most broad-minded and well-balanced story of Jack London'8 fa'.her- in^." — Chicago Inter Ocean. "The best story that Jack London has written." — Boston Advertiser. Colored frontispiece. $1.35 net Published at 64-66 Fifth Ave., N. Y. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY On Sale Wherever Books Are Sold
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The Nation yEW YORK, Till B8DAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1914. The Week The Foreign Affairs Committee's ap- proval of the arbitration treaties fore- shadows the early consummation of a great purpose which has long been thwarted by persistent opposition, and of which the prospects only a little while ago seemed highly doubtful. The service which the adoption of the trea- ties will render to the cause of peace can hardly be overestimated, whether viewed as an example and precedent in their general character, or regarded in their more specific bearing. We all re- member the way in which awful possi- bilities of undefinable danger to the na- tion's honor were put forward in Presi- dent Taft's time as objections to the ratification of general treaties of arbi- tration; and later the Panama tolls question and other particular subjects of national solicitude have given motive for opposition. But it now looks as though, by the simple process of close- range common-sense persuasion, Presi- dent Wilson had succeeded in smoothing out all the rough places that stood be- tween the treaties and their ratification. If the only qualifications for the post of American Ambassador to Russia were a sense of propriety and the ability to recognize the hard facts of a situation, the Nation would be glad to retract all that it has said regarding Henry M. Pindell's unfitness for the St. Peters- burg post. His letter of resignation places him in far more amiable light than those ill-advised friends who were instrumental in enticing him into an impossible situation. Even had Mr. Pin- dell originally possessed the qualifica- tions for the Russian Ambassadorship, his usefulness must have been destroy- ed by the circumstances attending his appointment; and one of the most im- portant places in the diplomatic ser- vice, in view of the questions that are soon bound to come up between this country and Russia, would have remain- ed worse than unoccupied. One can hardly blame Mr. Pindell for not send- ing in his resignation till he had been "vindicated" by the Senate. His latest act leaves President Wilson under great- er obligations than ever to Mr. Pindell. It is somewhat disconcerting to learn that no one appeared at the first hear- ing in Washington on the new Trust bills, and that the Committee has notice of but few who desire to be heard. An explanation could doubtless be found, but it would not be very creditable. It may be that some who think of appear- ing in opposition to certain provisions of the bills believe that the time is not ripe. They may be recalling the cur- rency bill, which was introduced in the House in one form, passed in another, and had a like fate in the Senate, get- ting its final and crucial shaping in con- ference. Possibly the opponents of the Trust bills are of the mind to wait till those measures reach a more critical legislative stage. But such an attitude would be mistaken. The conference be- tween the two Houses of Congress does not give public hearings. They are in- vited now, we do not doubt in good faith, for the purpose of getting crit- icism early. The bills are confessedly in "tentative" form at present, and any- body who is able to point out serious blunders or dangers in them ought to do so promptly. The report of the Interstate Com- merce Commission, condemning and in- ferentially prohibiting the granting of rebates or allowances, on through trans- portation rates, to manufacturing com- panies whose mills are connected with the railway by a short side track, has occasioned two very different infer- ences. It is clearly favorable to the railways, in that it strikes off payments made by them to such customers, esti- mated at not less than $15,000,000 per annum. But it also contains an unpal- atable hint. The advance in Eastern rail- way rates now under consideration, the report proceeds, "has a very definite and immediate relation to this proceeding," because "the very carriers that are aug- menting their expense accounts and dis- sipating their revenues in this manner, to the extent of many million dollars a year for the benefit of a comparatively few shippers, are now complaining that their present earnings are insufficient, and on that ground have asked our per- mission to make a substantial increase in their general rate schedules." From this the inference was possible that the Commission, on that ground, would re- ject the application for an advance in rates. A good part of the outcry made by op- ponents of the Alaska railway bill over "the dangerous new policy" involved im- plies forgetfulness of our own history. What have those who bear down so hard on the perils of "socialistic experimen- tation" in spending public money on a railway to say of the great subsidies to the Pacific railways? Between 1862 and 1872, the Union Pacific and Central Pacific, with connecting lines, got grants of 33,000,000 acres, besides loans of mon- ey from the Treasury. Similar grants were made to mid-Western roads. In the twenty years ending 1871, Congress had voted more than 150,000,000 acres to railways engaged in Western develop- ment. The question of such government- al assistance was then thought of as one of expediency, not principle. The Senate is reported to be waiting for a lead from President Wilson on the Burnett-Dillingham Immigration bill. Mr. Wilson is believed to be hostile to the literacy test embodied in the bill, and we hope he will lose no time in mak- ing his position clear. In the face of great pressure Mr. Taft vetoed essen- tially the same bill, because it involved a revolutionary departure from an his- toric policy underlying the very spirit of our institutions. What Mr. Taft found it possible to do, his successor should find it easier to do. Let it be recalled that Mr. Taft, as a believer in Protec- tion, had to face the charge that he be- lieved in protecting the American manu- facturer against foreign competition, without protecting the American work- ingman against the competition of immi- grant labor. The charge cannot be form- ulated against the man who has gone so far towards destroying tariff privileges. The case reduces itself to this: that the literacy test is not intended as a test, but as an instrument of restriction. Its proponents would be just as well satis- fied with a physical test or a supernat- ural test that would have the desired ef- tect of cutting down the flow of immi-
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12° <i The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2536 gration. What Mr. Wilson must decide is whether we have really come to the parting of the ways with our old tradi- tions, whether the "burden" of immigra- tion is greater than we can bear, and whether we must now serve notice on the world that America can no longer mean what through four centuries it has meant to humanity. That the number of unemployed in New York is greater this winter than usual, there seems every reason to be- lieve. The figures of the New York De- partment of Labor for the State, cited by Mayor Mitchel at the conference on the subject, confirm the conclusion de- rived from general impression; and, as the Mayor said, the situation is one that demands attention, irrespective of com- parison with previous years. But that it demands care and forethought, as well as earnestness, in its treatment, should be impressed on the public mind by the remarks of Commissioner of Charities Kingsbury. He spoke of the widespread philanthropy in the city, and the ease with which free food and shelter are to be had, as causes contributing to the swelling of the number of the unem- ployed here; and this consideration makes it plain that any measures of relief which may be taken must be of such character as to guard against any avoidable creation of fresh cases to re- lieve. On the other hand, to let things drift would be far from satisfying the demand of our time in the matter. Current notions about the plutocratic income of Western farmers are hardly borne out by the figures of a Govern- ment "survey." The average capital in- vested in the 257 typical Illinois, Iowa, and Indiana farms, in the typical year 1911, is $30,606. The farmer's average receipts for the year were $3,076; his average expenses, $1,138; leaving an average income of $1,938. The world casts an envious eye at this sum, with- out stopping to figure the $1,530 inter- est on the average capital, which leaves the owner's labor income a paltry $408! We quote: The assertion that farmers are making large profits is erroneous. They are living on the earnings of their Investment, not on the real profits of the farm. A farmer having an investment of $20,000, with no mortgage, may receive a minus labor In- come, yet have nearly $1,000 as interest on Which to live. On official authority, this has value as against popular impressions. But some qualifications are obvious. The labor earnings do not include food products furnished by the farm. The fact that the capital estimate is swollen by the great increase in land values within the dec- ade, and therefore represents unearned increment, is not mentioned. As for the prevailing optimism concerning a new day in agriculture, it is not impair- ed at all. The majority of the farms earn far more than $1,938 yearly; it is only a minority of holdings, still man- aged as they were in 1875, that reduces the total. One of many illustrations is a table on "education as it affects farm earnings." The farmer with a common- school training gets from $301 to $742 for his labor; the man with a high- school training, from $651 to $1,268; the college-bred farmer, from $796 to $1,721. The profit-sharing announcement made a day or two ago hy the Farr Alpaca Company, of Holyoke, Mass., derived special interest from its coming so close upon the heels of the Ford Motor Com- pany's announcement, which was a na- tional sensation. It is locally explained, however, that the Holyoke company's plan was maturing long before Mr. Ford startled the industrial world with his project; so that there is here no rela- tion of cause and effect. And It is upon the deliberate launching of such plans, by skilfully and prudently managed con- cerns making good but not phenomenal profits, that the spread of the profit-shar- ing idea must depend. The Holyoke company's arrangement is to give to each employee a bonus bearing the same percentage relation to the total of the wages he has received during the year as the annual dividend bears to the capital stock. Accordingly if, as is ex- pected, the shares of stock get this year an 8 per cent, dividend, a worker who has earned ten, fifteen, or twenty dollars a week will have for his share of the profits forty, sixty, or eighty dollars, re- spectively. This is not a bonanza, but it is a good thing; and if all goes well, it Is subject to increase. The figures of automobile killings in New York city in the first month of 1914 are such as to indicate that the year is to witness a further growth of the dreadfully increasing slaughter. The number is reported as twenty-eight for January. The total of these killings for 1913 was 302, which is more than double the total for 1911 — a startling showing. In 1912 the total was 221, as against 142 in 1911, an increase of more than 50 per cent, in a single year. The National Highway Protective Association and the Association for the Prevention of Reck- less Driving are exerting themselves to procure such reform in the law and in its administration as will check this out- rageous taking of human life. By far the greater part of this automobile slaughter is caused by people driving for pleasure or desiring to save a few min- utes of time in getting from one point to another. The enormous passenger traffic of the trolleys caused only 108 deaths, as against the 302 caused by au- tomobiles. Those who ride in automo- biles are a small minority, fortunate in the possession of a luxury and a con- venience to which nine-tenths of the peo- ple have no access. They have the bene- fit of the use of the public streets in a degree far beyond what is commensur- ate either to their numbers or to any specific contribution they make towards the cost of the streets. To this nobody objects; but it is intolerable that they should be permitted to put the rest of the people in danger. We like the idea of General Coxey's proposal to celebrate the twentieth an- niversary of the exploit that made him famous by leading another Army to Washington on May 1. This time he Is to muster 500,000 unemployed in buck- ram, "and more if I can assemble them." There ought to be no difficulty about this. General Coxey is now understood to be a comfortably rich man. If tramp- ing to Washington brought him wealth within twenty years, he should be able easily to recruit a large Army, with the sufficient word to the wise unemployed that like causes will be followed by like results. But it is no idle demonstra- tion that General Coxey Intends. He has a definite and sure remedy to pro- pose. All that it is necessary for Con- gress to do to make everybody both em- ployed and happy, Is to authorize the issue of a billion or two of "non-Interest bearing bonds," upon these bonds as security to base bank circulation, and then compel the banks to "lend money direct to the people." Thero is a straightforward simplicity about this
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Feb. 5, 1914] The Nation 123 which is the mark of genius. Direct primaries, direct legislation, direct elec- tion of United States Senators— who shall say that the fitting cap-stone of the arch is not direct loans of money to the people? It is certain that mil- lions will want such loans — and want them directly. The work of the Northwest Mounted Police in parts of Canada bears a grow- ing analogy to that which would lie be- fore a State Constabulary here. Com- missioner Perry, for example, traces the "excess of crime" with which the force has dealt during 1913, among other fac- tors, to the difficulty of assimilating an immigrant population to Canadian stan- dards. The Mounted Police's efficiency in preserving order over vast areas and among a shifting rural population is witnessed by his statistics. A force of 763 officers and men, scattered through Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta, and Yukon Territory, made 15,443 arrests in the year, and procured 12,985 convic- tions. Most were for slight offences, only 44 murders being recorded; even vagrancy was repressed by 2,135 sen- tences. A proposal to supplant the Mounted Police by local authorities would be thought preposterous. Its established reputation for vigilance, quickness of action, and length of reach is alone a great moral force in suppress- ing violence. Washington testified under cross-exami- nation that he did not think it unpatriotic or disloyal to circulate such matter. — [News Item. The Washington charged with disloy- alty was not George, but Alfred, adver- tising manager of the Western Newspa- per Union, to whom Canada paid $42,000 annually for supplying our rural news- papers with "patent insides" describing Canada as a farmer's paradise. When Mr. Washington said that he did not think it disloyal to induce American farmers to expatriate themselves and become the subjects of a British mon- arch called George, he was telling the truth. He did not think of abstract matters, in the face of $42,000 worth of advertising space each year. But even if he had thought, a fine moral issue arises. Where does business end and patriotism begin? Is the business of ex- patriating American citizens more dis- loyal than the business of selling war munitions to a nation that might use them against us? Is it more unpatriotic to induce American labor to emigrate than it is to make American capital emi- grate in the face of labor troubles? Still another George, of the Harvester Trust and the New Nationalism, was once of a mind to remove his mills from New York State to Germany. Mr. Al- fred Washington might have argued that, by sending American farmers into Canada, he was far from disloyal; that he was, in fact, the agent of a process of peaceful penetration which at one time had patriotic Canadians seriously worried. High-handed is a mild term to de- scribe the action of the South African Government in deporting ten of the principal leaders in the recent general strike. The assumed justification is that it was done under warrant of martial law. But that the degree of martial law in force in the Transvaal does not in- volve the suspension of civil law is plain from the action of the labor leaders in appealing to the Supreme Court of the Union, with the Chief Justice's declara- tion that if he had been aware of the plans of the authorities he should have promptly enjoined them. Thus neither legality nor expediency — the strike by this time is virtually over — can justify an act whose consequences are bound to be extremely embarrassing for the Im- perial Government and the Liberal par- ty. The Labor party in England has been at odds with its Liberal allies. Some of the Liberal defeats in recent bye-elections have been brought about, not at all by the Home Rule issue, as the Opposition has maintained, but by the defection of the Laborites who have named candidates of their own and split the normal Government majority. The South African incident will naturally widen the breach. Protests have already gone up from trade-union quarters and the Radical press. It would be hard to find a more dra- matic tale than that furnished by an Auckland correspondent to the Spring- field Republican on the recent collapse of syndicalism in New Zealand. Last October's strike was really against the world's first compulsory arbitration act. English and Australian agitators, begin- ning in 1910, took advantage of a new labor immigration to form a "federa- tion of labor" which slowly induced al- most all unions to withdraw their regis- tration under the act. New Zealand be- ing cut off by sea from ready importa- tion of workmen, they reasoned that a general strike would infallibly reduce her to subjection; while the dependence of her 1,100,000 agricultural people on imported manufactures made the ports key positions. Upon the beginning of the strike, every vessel was abandoned, every wharf emptied, the carters quit, the trolleys ceased running, and brick- layers, masons, factory-hands, carpen- ters, and even shop-girls left work. "It would be hard to imagine a situation," writes the correspondent, "in which the doctrines of the syndicalist could be re- duced to practice with greater promise of success." Yet the cities alone han- dled the troubles. In Auckland, where 10,000 men struck, 1,000 volunteers were called from the youths under compul- sory military training, and they clear- ed the wharves. Two hours later 1,800 farmers, representing a cooperative as- sociation embracing thousands near the city, rode in and set to work under arms loading vessels. The same procedure in other cities resulted in the hurried formation of new unions under the arbi- tration act. In three weeks the strike was crushed, and without violence. "Syn- dicalism and its methods have been ut- terly discredited," writes the correspon- dent, "and those who cling to it have gone back to Australia." The establishment of Confucianism as the state religion of China expressly disclaims interference with religious liberty, and embodies an ambition to set erring young China back on her an- cient and native foundation of ethics, culture, and social principles. The atti- tude of tolerant missionaries has long been favorable to a system whose con- servation is still the land's best bulwark against moral chaos. "There is in Con- fucianism," wrote Dr. John Ross in China of last July, "nothing incompati- ble with the progress, social, political, or spiritual, of the Chinese people. The missionary should claim Confucius as an ally, not oppose him as a foe." If Con- fucianism is abandoned, parts of thb country will lack a chief inspiration to maintenance of their ancient civiliza- tion.
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124. The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2536 THE "TRADE COMMISSION" BILL. It has been announced from Washing- ton that the Mouse Committee on Inter- state Commerce will soon begin public hearings on the measure for an "Inter- state Trade Commission." A thorough and deliberate inquiry is of the highest possible importance, because there are very strong reasons why the bill, in the form in which it was introduced in the House of Representatives, should not be passed. The dispatches report certain modifications already made in commit- tee; but these corrections touch its de- fects only in part. Mr. Wilson, in his speech of January 20, laid stress chiefly on the value of "the advice, the definite guidance and information," which such a commission could provide, in the effort "to make definition possible, at any rate up to the limits of what experience has disclosed." This description, framed as it was in general terms, contained much that was suggestive. But it is details, quite as much as general purposes, which deter- mine the character of such legislation, and the Clayton bill goes far beyond such provisions as the President's lan- guage would necessarily imply. It subjects to the direct and intimate supervision of the proposed commission not merely the "great corporations" to which Mr. Wilson somewhat indefinite- ly referred, but "all corporations en- gaged in commerce among the several States or with foreign nations, except common carriers." It declares that this body of incorporated enterprises, large and small alike, "shall furnish to the Commission" information regarding their business, financial condition, and management "to such degree and extent, and in such form, as may be prescribed by the Commission." It gives the Com- mission or its agents "complete access to all records, accounts, minutes, books, and papers of such corporations, includ- ing the records of any of their execu- tive or other committees." It further provides that "the information so ob- tained shall be public records, and tne Commission shall, from time to time, make public such information, in such form and to such extent as it may deem necessary." A moment's consideration is enough to show the highly inquisitorial possi- bilities of such a law. The act which created in 1903 the present Bureau of Cornorations, was far more scrupulous- ly guarded. Under that law, the Com- missioner had authority, subject to the direction of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, to investigate "the organiza- tion, conduct, and management" of an interstate corporation. But the single avowed purpose of such inquiry was to gather data "which will enable the Pres- ident of the United States to make rec- ommendations to Congress for legisla- tion"; the information was to be ob- tained for the President "only as he shall require," and it was to be made public only "as the President may di- rect." The modifications now said to be contemplated by the Interstate Com- merce Committee of the House would prescribe that the inquisitorial powers shall not cover such matters as trade processes or lists of customers. This is an eminently proper change, but it fails to reach the real evils of the measure as it stands. Even with such amend- ment, the bill would still compel the fil- ing with the new commission of inti- mately private information as to the finances of any and every corporation doing business across the border of a State. It would authorize the publi- cation of such data at the Commission's will — even though the company affected had no public importance, and even though such publication might gravely jeopardize its business interests. Mr. Herbert Knox Smith, an ardent Progressive and former chief of the Bu- reau of Corporations, in his Jamestown speech last week opposed most of Presi- dent Wilson's policy towards corpora- tions, but approved of the Interstate Trade Commission. What Mr. Smith's own ideas on the general problem are may be judged from his somewhat naive restatement of Mr. Roosevelt's fulmina- tions of 1912 against the Sherman law. The attempt to check the big concentra- tion of business would "turn the hands of the clock back to the days of our fathers, to the era of the blacksmith's forge, the grist-mill, the stage coach, and the cobbler's bench." This amusing nonsense is coupled with the familiar tirade against the Standard Oil disso- lution for not having been carried far enough; with the remark that "the Dem- ocrats are still fumbling blindly with the old notion that all we want is com- petition"; and with the suggestion that when a really monopolistic corporation is discovered, it be dealt with "by plac- ing a supervisor, for the time, in control of the company, to carry out the orders of the Commission." Holding these fantastic ideas, Mr. Smith and his fellow-Progressives nat- urally ridicule all that is cautious and conservative in the Administration pro- gramme. But the plan for a Trade Com- mission gets his endorsement. "That point," Mr. Smith declares, Mr. Wilson "got from the Progressive platform, for it was not in his." The assertion is cor- rect. The Democratic platform of 1912 merely declared for "the prevention of holding companies, of interlocking direc- torates, of stock-watering, of discrimina- tion in price, and the control by any one corporation of so large a proportion of any industry as to make it a menace to competitive conditions"; and it favored more drastic application of the Anti- Trust law itself, especially in its crim- inal provisions. The Progressive plat- form favored a strong commission, with "permanent active supervision over in- dustrial corporations engaged in inter- state commerce," and with enforcement of complete publicity. But even the Pro- gressive platform would have applied such supervision of interstate corpora- tions "to such of them as are of pub- lic importance," and would have requir- ed complete publicity only "of those cor- porate transactions which are of public interest." GOVERNMENT AS AN EXACT SCIENCE. I am much mistaken if the scientific spir- it of the age is not doing us a great dis- service, working in us a certain great de- generacy. Science has bred in us a spirit of experiment and a contempt for the past. It has made us credulous of quick improve- ment, hopeful of discovering panaceas, con- fident of success in every new thing. . . . I should fear utter destruction from a revo- lution conceived and led in the scientific spirit. . . . These words are from an address de- livered by a Princeton professor four- teen years ago. The fact that he is to- day the President of the United States does not take away from their signifi- cance. He may, in the interim, have changed his mind about some men and some measures, but he cannot have al- tered his fundamental attitude towards the methods of politics and the process- es of government. Indeed, his country- men now pretty well understand that though Woodrow Wilson Is a doctor of philosophy, he is not a doctrinaire' If
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Feb. 5, 1 914] The JSTation 125 anybody should seek to win his coun- tenance for the idea that government can be made an exact science, a refusal If not a rebuff would almost certainly follow. where, however, different notions are held. For example, at the College de France, recently, commemoration was made of the work of Claude Ber- nard. Scientists and philosophers — Bergson inevitably among the latter — paid their tribute to what Bernard had done for the advancement of knowledge. Special reference was made to his "M6- decine expe>imentale"; and the Minister of Public Instruction, M. Viviani, seiz- ed upon this as an argument for intro- ducing the exact methods of science into the work of government. Indeed, he contended, the thing has already been done, to a large extent; and nowhere are the methods of nice observation and careful experiment and painstaking veri- fication more employed than by those who make laws and administer them. So good a Socialist as M. Viviani, though just now under suspicion for having tak- en office, could not refrain from pointing out that all Socialist legislation is the product of the m6thode expcrimentale. We greatly doubt if they order these things so much better in France. Even there we seem to have heard of public finances chronically deranged, and of Parliamentary committees consulting expert opinion only to flout it. Ameri- can governmental practice, at any rate, has been about as far removed from scientific precision as could easily be imagined. It is not necessary to enumer- ate all the laws that have been passed merely on the chance that they might not do much harm. One example, now prominently before the country, will suffice We refer to the provision tack- ed to the Panama Act making the Canal free of tolls to American coastwise ves- sels. This step was taken without any inquiry, we will not say in the scien- tific spirit, but in any spirit of reason or prudence at all. Everybody knew that there was at least grave doubt if we were not bound by treaty not to pass any law of the kind. It might mean embroilment, or at all events needless friction, with Great Britain; and would surely give other countries the impres- sion that it was hardly worth while to enter into treaties with the United States, since we were not scrupulous about living up to them. But all this was blithely left on the lap of the gods, and the bill was passed. It was also open to objection on the financial side. Tolls were remitted when there was no certainty — indeed, quite the contrary— that they would not be needed for up- keep of the Canal. The figures laid he- fore Congress by the most competent au- thorities showed that there would be a deficit in the fixed charges of the Canal for the first ten years, even if tolls were charged upon all the ships that could possibly be expected to use it. But Congress gayly disregarded these consid- erations, too. Its motto seemed to be: "Hang the treaty and hang the ex- pense." From the consequences of that excess of rashness, the President is now calling upon Congress to retreat. In do- ing so, it is not necessary to speak of the neglect of any of the refinements of scientific method; all that need be insist- ed upon is that Congress made a huge practical blunder, which it ought to undo as speedily as possible. Slap-dash and short-sighted legislation is, of course, everywhere to be con- demned; but in the repulsion which it causes, and in the endeavor to supplant it by better methods, it will not be wise to seek to conjure with the word science. To make our lawmakers scientific would be impossible; while to commit the enactment of laws to scientists would be both impossible and undesirable. It is easy to assume that some branches of science are more exact than they really are. Goldwin Smith, whose father died of an obscure brain disease, uttered a cynical word, which was at the same time anguished, on the scientific meth- ods of the physicians who were flounder- ing about in their effort to determine the malady. Per contra, it is also easy to assume that legislation is more hug- ger-mugger than it is. There has been a great improvement in its quality. Bill- drafting is more carefully done than it used to be. Legislative reference bu- reaus have not been established in vain. Side by side with statutes, like the in- come-tax law, which seems like a Ser- bonian bog in which armies whole of lawyers are lost, we are getting acts like the currency bill, which cut plain paths through the forest. We do not need to despair even though few of our legislators are savants. Evils in govern- ment come from the lack of a scientific spirit, no doubt; but other evils, of the kind intimated in the words quoted from Woodrow Wilson, would flow from at- tempting to apply that spirit too rigidly. TAXATION FACTS AND FANCIES. Even in Wisconsin, unpatriotic resi- dents are raising the cry of "tax-eating commissions." "Taxes are bigher this year," they are saying, "because there has been a riot of extravagance in the State Capitol." So serious has the situ- ation become that La Follette's Weekly has had to leap into the arena. It re- gards the present assault as peculiarly vicious, since it is made just when Wis- consin "has become known as 'the model' for other States seeking freedom from the political boss and the preda- tory corporation." Will not these other States falter in their crusade for free- dom if they are led to believe that it raises the cost of government? La Fol- lette's meets the peril by announcing a series of articles on taxes in Wisconsin by a recognized expert. He, Prof. T. S. Adams, has little trou- ble in disposing of the charge of "tax- eating commissions." Wisconsin is fa- mous for commissions, but all that they cost the taxpayer is twenty-four cents in every hundred dollars of his tax-bill. At tbe same time, no concealment is made of the fact that taxes have gone up, that it does cost more to run the government of Wisconsin to-day than ever before. "Local taxes are higher, county taxes are higher, State taxes are higher." We seem to recall something like this from the pen of another Gov- ernor. In 1893, Gov. Glynn pointed out not many weeks ago, the State of New York's expenses were $2.39 per capita; in 1913 they were $5.10. And the Gov- ernor, like the Wisconsin expert, made an analysis of the expenditures, show- ing how much of them went for educa- tion, how much for highways, how much for sinking fund, and how much for "the rest." Even colder comfort than columns of figures is offered by Professor Adams. After raising one's hopes by remark- ing that the increase in taxes "has an exceedingly bright side," he immediate- ly dashes them by explaining that the increase "promises to create a real and lasting interest in the actual adminis- tration of government." Perhaps. Lord North could testify as to the real and lasting interest in the actual adminis- tration of a certain Government which
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126 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2536 resulted from increase of taxation. Gov. Glynn is not so philosophical. Living in New York, he is less sanguine over the prospect of increasing hy higher tax- es interest in the actual administration of government. "We cannot materially Increase our receipts," and so "we must decrease our expenditures." Like other Governors before him, he is not too spe- cific concerning the places where a de- crease may be made. To be sure, there is the "general fund," where expendi- tures increased twice as fast in the past six years as in the preceding six; there is the agricultural division, where expen- ditures increased three times as fast in the later period as in the earlier; and there is the regulative division, which made the proud record of increasing its expenditures five times as fast in the one period as in the other. But waiv- ing the point of the necessity of these increases, we note simply that, huge as the percentages are, the actual increase amounts to less than $2,500,000. That is, if there had been no increases at all in these departments, our per capita tax, instead of being the tremendous sum of $5.10, would be the comparative- ly trivial sum of $4.85. It is easy to make an annual motion that taxes have increased, are increas- ing, and ought to be diminished, but the question is, Do we really wish to diminish them? That is, do we desire to do without the things they buy for us? Some of these things our fathers went without — the kind of roads we de- mand, for example. Then it is to be noted that we are spending increasingly in fields that yield returns in the shape of additions to our fundamental re- sources, as witness Wisconsin's bold un- dertaking to educate her entire farmer population to a more profitable employ- ment of their land. We have come to desire Government to do many more things than it did less than a generation ago, besides doing all that it then did, only better. Our standard of living has risen, public along with private. Hon- est and efficient management can pre- vent waste from making the increase more than it ought to be, but no man- agement, no economies, will enable a State to live on a higher scale as cheap- ly as on a lower one. They will not, at all events, until the Cubists are permit- ted to draw up our public balance- sheets. It is not necessary to cry mercy upon extravagance; but It was not our generation that coupled taxes with death as an example of the inevitable. ATHLETICS AND CHARACTER. Sharp controversy is bound to be arous- ed by the severe arraignment of preva- lent athletic ideals and athletic meth- ods in the schools and colleges, as pre- sented in the current Atlantic by the headmaster of Phillips Andover and a faculty member in one of our Western universities. Drawn up independently, as we believe these separate indictments to have been, they are remarkably alike in their charges and their conclusions. They depict a state of moral deteriora- tion which, as one writer puts it, seems to many college administrators so seri- ous as to justify the abolition of the whole system of intercollegiate competi- tions. The evil may be summed up in a phrase — the triumph of the win-at-any- cost spirit. Baseball is bad, as Dean Briggs has recently argued. But foot- ball is worse. In football the "mucker" ideal has imposed itself on the under- graduate mind. Not what is sportsman- like, not what is fair, but what will "get by" the umpire, is the demand, and dis- grace consists entirely in being found out. The fault is not primarily with the student body. Both writers in the At- lantic recognize how easily malleable is the undergraduate psychology, whether for evil or for good. The college student is astoundingly submissive. He bows before immemorial traditions that may be as much as five years old. He sur- renders his individuality to the stan- dards and loyalties that prevail at the time he pays his matriculation fee. If the standards to which he adheres are unworthy, the responsibility is with those who have set them up and those who tolerate them. Thus, both writers insist that the "mucker" spirit in ath- letics is imposed on the college student by the athletic coach; and there is little or nothing to choose between the pro- fessional coach who feels that he must win games to draw his salary, and the loyal alumnus who is called upon to pull a team together for a single season. But in the last resort responsibility rests with the college authorities, who, be- cause they are indifferent or because they approve or because they find it ex- pedient, tolerate practices which are morally debilitating. It is within the power of the college authorities to do away with evil practices, not by a mere show of force, but by educational ef- fort; for, contrary to the general belief, "undergraduates are influenced in their views of right and wrong by the general attitude of the faculty." The controversy which we foresee will arise, in the first place, of course, over the question of fact. Were the writers in the Atlantic not so positive in their assertions, so ready with specific exam- ples and the promise of many more in- stances than the limits of their articles would allow, one would dismiss their charges at once as being greatly exag- gerated. Among the general public the impression is that the morale of athlet- ics is steadily improving; that instances of brutality in football are the excep- tion where they were once the rule; that where such incidents occur they should be ascribed to the passion of the moment rather than to calculated savage- ry. But, then, the public's impressions are probably based on the game as play- ed in the big universities. Games be- tween teams of the first rank are played in the glare of an enormous publicity where rough tactics are as unsafe as they are probably unnecessary, since the combatants are players of exception- al skill. It may be different, it probably is different, with the small colleges, of which undeniably a large number are either in chronic disrepute or shoot up into evil eminence for a season or two until intercollegiate ostracism brings them to their senses. But once we ad- mit the case against the small college, we are admitting more than half the case. Yet another explanation is possible. It is one suggested by the comparison which both Atlantic writers draw be- tween the "mucker" spirit in athletics and the "mucker" spirit in the world of business and politics, against which we are now in full revolt. The headmaster of Phillips Andover draws the parallel at length: "The underlying weakness which threatens our national life. . . . The rank dishonesty so widely prevalent In our business life. . . . The growing contempt of the law. . . ." It is the Increasing sensitiveness of the national conscience towards business and politics which justifies such strong language. Where a tougher generation admired the football hero who ato up and "got" his opponents with Impressive regular-
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Feb. 5, 1 9 1 4] The Nation 127 ity, we now refuse to tolerate practices far less reprehensible. This, we admit, is only a possible explanation. It will hardly be accepted by the editor of the Atlantic, who, in a prefatory note, de- clares that "underhand, perverted, and dishonest practices are, with honorable exceptions, still part and parcel of un- dergraduate athletics." This very comparison between foot- ball and the business of life illustrates the very great difficulties that confront our college administrators. For it shows that the question is one much broader than athletics, much broader than the college, that it runs deep into the basic facts of our national psychology. No man of honor will defend the "win-at- any-cost" ideal in play. But neither are we ripe for the English ideal of play purely for the game's sake. Our own ideal is to play to win, fairly no doubt, but to win nevertheless. Englishmen Bcoff at the elaborate training processes which our athletes go through. The tre- mendous seriousness which we put into our play may be overdone; but there is nothing morally reprehensible in it. And there the difficulty arises. We may say that to be beaten is no disgrace, but at heart we feel that to be beaten is some- thing of a disgrace. Is it any wonder that the adolescent undergraduate con- science should at times fail to notice the narrow line which sometimes di- vides playing passionately to win from playing unfairly to win? HEREDITY, ENVIRONMENT, AND DUTY. We no longer agonize over the ques- tion of free will or necessity in the ab- stract. One may read thousands of pages of current discussion of the great ques- tions of life without ever coming across so much as a mention of predestina- tion or original sin. But in the concrete nothing is more constantly the subject of solicitous thought than the question whether those who "go wrong" do so because of their native qualities or be- cause of the circumstances which have surrounded them. To say that this ques- tion is the same as that of free will and necessity would be going too far; but it is hardly too much to call it the nearest equivalent that the attitude of the mod- ern mind can furnish towards the pro- blems of the universe. No man of sense imagines that every child born into the world is inherently as likely as any oth- er to turn out well. Neither does any sensible person believe that education and environment may not have a deci- sive influence on an individual's moral destiny. But how much of the emphasis should be put upon heredity and how much upon environment is a question that is ever in dispute. In the Century for February, there is an article on "The Boy who Goes Wrong" which, while offering no fresh contribution to the subject, brings out vividly some of its familiar aspects. Of the classic case of the Juke family, the writer, Mr. H. Addington Bruce, makes effective use; not, as might be suppos- ed, to show the fatal quality of an evil heredity, but to show how cautious we ought to be in taking the fatalist view of any human being. He recites the well-known tale of the seven genera- tions of descendants of the five Juke sisters, 709 individuals in the aggre- gate, of whom all but a handful became criminals, prostitutes, or paupers; but he goes on to tell of one descendant in the eighth generation, a foundling baby boy, who came under the care of the Children's Aid Society, which, interested in the published facts of the appalling story of the Jukes, determined to see what a refined environment and good family care could do for this ill-starred youngster. The result, though not at- tained without special attention and ef- fort, was that he became "an alert, vig- orous, forceful young man, of sterling character." Other instances of children rescued by individuals are cited, to sim- ilar effect; and, what is far more con- clusive, the carefully reported experi- ence of the Children's Aid Society with the 28,000 children it has looked after in the course of more than half a cen- tury is quoted as showing in how very large a percentage of cases children hav- ing behind them a bad family history have been enabled to grow into prosper- ous and useful citizens by placing them in carefully selected homes, or by find- ing work for them in the country. It is impossible to doubt that there is room for an indefinite increase of this kind of beneficent effort — truly life-saving work in the highest sense. To circumstance, then, and particular- ly to the home environment and the home education, must be traced in large measure the failure of an individual to come up to the requirements of a re- spectable life. But when it comes tr laying down broad generalizations, af- fecting those notions of individual re- sponsibility which are "the long result of time" and which form the chief but- tress of morality and decency, we are at once confronted with serious danger from the standpoint not only of practi- cal effect but also of intellectual in- tegrity. One of the cheap short-cut methods of disposing of the matter is to say that, since almost every child could be made to go right if placed in the right surroundings, it is society and not the individual that is responsible for the individual's criminality. This is as slipshod in thought as it is dangerous in effect. If we are to admit the idea of responsibility at all, the idea of respon- sibility either in society or in the indi- vidual, we have to recognize that in either case it is a relative matter. If it is to be taken for granted that the indi- vidual has done the best he could under the circumstances, it is equally to be taken for granted that society — which, after all, is but a collection of individ- uals— has done the best it could under the circumstances. And if this is not to be taken for granted — as indeed it is not — then the case against the individual is far clearer than that against society. For whereas the pickpocket or the murderer has gone thoroughly wrong in circum- stances precisely identical with those of millions who have kept thoroughly right, it is impossible to point to any actual instance of such mastery of the infinitely complex circumstances of civ- ilized society as would be required for the rescue of all its members from their proclivities or temptations to vice, crime, or shiftlessness. The article to which we have referred is quite free from this sort of hazy and vicious generalization. The writer's chief conclusion is that "the blame for the boy who goes wrong does not rest with the boy himself, or yet with his re- mote ancestors. It rests squarely with the parents, who, through ignorance or neglect, have failed to mould him aright in the plastic days of childhood." And he goes on to urge the extreme Impor- tance of parental care and foresight, and of the parental example. As prac- tical counsel, surely nothing could be more sound. But, after all, we are here placed, in point of doctrine, In a viclou. circle not unlike that into which the old-time disputants on frro will and ne-
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128 Tlie Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2536 cessity were continually drawn. The par "ents are what they are; it is true that they should do the best they can for their children, but unless they them- selves are made over their best is sure to fall sadly short of that degree of per- fection, whether in wisdom or in vir- tue, that is to be desired. What then? Are the children to wash their hands of the result? Are those who are lazy, or dishonest, or sensual, to fall back on the fact that their parents did not take the measures necessary to cure them of these defects? That way madness lies. By all means, let us impress upon par- ents the desirability of their being firm and yet patient, self-sacrificing and yet not indulgent, serious and yet sympa- thetic and companionable. But when- ever parents fail to come up to this stan- dard, are the children who go wrong to be held blameless? There is no start- ing-point at which the obligations of duty begin to be effective; if we unload our own upon our parents, they can do the like upon theirs. After everything has been admitted as to the responsi- bility either of society in general or of one's parents, it is upon one's own self, and nowhere else, that the real respon- sibility for right living must rest. BALLADS IN AMERICA. No less a body than the United States Bureau of Education has joined in the search for Autolycus and his ballad- mongering progeny. The collections of American ballad survivals already made by Prof. C. A. Smith and others are con- siderable, as they are summarized in the South Atlantic Quarterly; it is now pro- posed to make the inquiry official. Its prospects are hard to appraise. Varia- tions of 56 of the 305 English and Scot- tish ballads which Professor Child made canonical have been discovered in Amer- ica, and the Bureau believes them the fruits of "a search that has hardly be- gun." This implied prediction, however, should not delude the searchers into sup- posing that they are not gleaning in a field long ago autumnal. Ballad sing- ing was a lost art almost as long ago as ballad-making. It is a century since even the British collector, in search of a capping couplet, could skilfully choose time and place to intone, like Scott's hero, Are those the links of Forth, quoth she, Or are they the sands of Dee? To have his air at once taken up by peasant girl or shepherd from the li ill- side, Or the bonny woods of Warroch Head That I so fain would see? And it is doubtful if ballad recitation or oral preservation, in old country or new, is more than vestigial. Professor Child himself tried to stimulate the gar- nering of such remains as live on the lips of folk in Great Britain and Amer- ica; the result he pronounced scanty, and Professor Kittredge wrote that his thoroughness had made it "clear that little or nothing of value remains to be collected in this way." At any rate, it is certain that if our versions are not quickly collected, they will shortly be forever obliterated. Fear that the Bureau can do but lit- tle will not lessen the good wishes of every one with a feeling for the past, or taste enough to find, like Sidney, the thrill of a trumpet in a ballad like "Chevy Chase." That mind has a poor background in which the thought that half a hundred folk songs, by force of folk tradition, have been kept alive from the days of Cospatrick and Guy of Gis- borne, and through generations removed over three thousand miles of sea and dispersed into a wilderness environ- ment, does not awaken ideas and rev- erences. It is striking proof of race homogeneity, of the vitality of oral tra- dition, and of its power to transmit masses of material through centuries. Merely as- one of the final chapters in the history of ballad collection, inter- est will attach to the search. The 300- odd ballads the world owns are but a tithe of the mass that has perished. Since Percy found his manuscript folio of ballads "lying dirty on the floor un- der a bureau in the parlor" of Hum- phrey Pitt's country house, serving the maids as kindling for the fires, and sav- ed it by a stroke as lucky as that which preserved the one copy of the "Cid," no story is of more interest to literary scholarship. The zest with which Hurd and Walter Scott, Ramsay and Buchan, followed in Percy's steps and the steps of his predecessors, Maitland and Ban- natyne, Samuel Pepys and the learned Selden, was one of the soundest enthusi- asms of the romantic renaissance. Young poets stopped collecting only to write imitations. Scott's anecdote of Ley- den, eager to piece out a fragment, is typical of the half-antiquarian, half- poetic rage. "Two days afterward, a sound was heard at a distance like the whistling of a tempest through the torn rigging of a vessel. It increased as it approached more near; and Ley den, to the great astonishment of the guests, burst into the room, chanting the desid- erated ballad with the most enthusiastic gestures. ... He had walked be- tween forty and fifty miles, and back again, for the sole purpose of visiting an old person who possessed this precious remnant of antiquity." But those were the days when ballad-collection held something of the outdoor zest of moun- tain-climbing or fox-hunting. Professor Child, in the act of defini- tively compiling many versions unrecog- nized before, had to carry discovery into a dozen tongues and thousands of books, rather than into the open air. Once cot- tages were to be ransacked for the print- ed broadsides, pasted to the walls, or gathered into bundles; songs to be cop- ied from singers' lips; old libraries searched for MS. collections, and shop shelves fingered. Always there was the chance that antiquary Oldbuck would light on some Elspeth, wildly chanting "a genuine and undoubted fragment of minstrelsy," or a cotter be found with some jewel of a refrain in his head, or a corner of a shed yield up, as it did to emissaries of Ritson or Buchan, some new "Hughie the Graeme" or "Little Musgrave." Professor Child, and all his later generation of Furnivalls and Kittredges and Gummeres, could have no such intoxicating adventures. Child's struggle with Ecton Hall to have the original Percy folio printed; his find among the manuscripts of Abbotsford library; his dozen contributions procur- ed from oral sources by Mr. Newell, of New York— alone lit up the necessary and scholarly toil of amassing, collat- ing, and arranging texts, of comparing ballads of all nations to determine the historical and foreign relations of each of his pieces, of piling up introductions and notes. Scholarship's last cold task of criticism and compilation is a far cry from the day when Scott knew not only singers of the "Douglas Tragedy," but men who credulously and minutely pointed out the exact rockmarked spot, in the exact Yarrow glen in Selkirk- shire, where the melancholy event had occurred. Survivals will inevitably bo most sought in the still medltcval-mindcd Ap- palachians, so akin in speech, custom,
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Feb. 5, 1914I The JSTation 129 and superstition to the folk among whom balladry was common three cen- turies ago. Boswell recorded seeing a dance in Skye, called "America" in hon- or of the emigration movement, on just such an occasion as a primitive commu- nity would use for ballad singing. From many communities the ballad was read- ily transplanted to remote slow-moving localities. Southern scholars like Belden of Missouri, Lomax of Texas, and Smith cf Virginia have made most of their finds in high Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia. But the ballad is not lo- calized. Two Professor Child discovered in Maine, ten in Massachusetts, five in New York, and one each in Pennsylvania and Maryland. The present inquiry for variants should serve the ends of more than a select group of scholars. It will give a new excuse for being to local and State folk-lore societies. It ought to lend an impulse to the collection of Ser- vian, Polish, Czech, and a score of oth- er national folk-songs, of which recent immigration must have brought great store. Finally, it should add interest to a new movement, already of strength — that for the collection of American-made ballads, of folk-origin, like the cowboy songs, on American themes. WILLIAM COBBETT. Cobbett took measures against oblivi- on by diffusing himself through more than a hundred volumes, which, as he assured contemporaries, would preserve his celebrity "long and long after Lords Liverpool and Sidmouth and Castle- reagh are rotten and forgotten." The very massiveness of the monument makes the man himself, like an Egyp- tian ruler laid away in the heart of a pyramid, a little hard to come at. Three or four earlier biographers had drawn freely upon his fresh and savory auto- biographical writings and had tunnelled into the formidable bulk of his journalis- tic works without exhausting the subject. It remained for Mr. Melville to make extensive use of manuscript materials, mainly in the possession of the Cobbett family and of the British Museum.* Of these perhaps the most important are a series of above a hundred admirably written letters from Cobbett to William Windham; an astonishing series direct- ed to Queen Caroline at the time of her trial; and a considerable mass of pret- ty intimate and confidential correspon- dence between Cobbett and various members of his family and his publish- mThe Life and Letters of William Coooett. By Lewis Melville. New York: John Lane Co. 2 vols. flO net. er. The perusal of this fresh material leaves one entertained, instructed, yet tantalized. It seems clear that signifi- cant and revelatory passages have been edited out of the family letters, par- ticularly with relation to just those pecuniary transactions which subjected Cobbett in his lifetime to the charges of duplicity and downright dishonesty. Mr. Melville has apparently made no attempt to check up the scores of his hero's assertions which ring rather hol- low and "queer."' For the most part, he allows Cobbett to speak for himself. Cob- bett speaks copiously and brilliantly, but really does nothing to remove the historic doubts which have hovered about his reputation. We are left to draw our own conclusions as to what manner of man he was. I. Carlyle, who had some insight into character, saw in Cobbett a man "with singular humanities and genialities shining through his rough skin, a most brave phenomenon"; and Professor El- ton, in his recent notable "Survey of English Literature, 1780-1830," strikes the same friendly and approving note, proposing the health of the big Tory farmer of the eighteenth century, with his gift of transparent expression. Cob- bett himself has supplied us with the colors for painting him in this char- acter. He sprang about 1762 from the rugged stock that, in the words of Ec- clesiasticus, "holdeth the plow, and that glorieth in the goad; that driveth oxen; and is occupied with their la- bours; and whose talk is of bullocks" — ■ and all his life he was passionately de- voted to agriculture. He took a thrifty wife, not above his station, whom he first saw and loved one morning at daybreak, "out on the snow, scrubbing out a washing tub." He never "dan- gled" after his wife nor "walked out" with her, but he was a model husband and an indulgent father of a large fam- ily in the old patriarchal manner; the children, one and all, swear by the "Gov- ernor" and twang off the very accents of their sire when they are assuring one another that those "villains" — his creditors — shall "never get one far- thing" of father's money. He served for a term as a loyal and exemplary soldier of Farmer George in the prov- ince of New Brunswick. During his second sojourn in America, 1792-1800, he is a brawling and picturesque cham- pion of England in Philadelphia; he adores Burke; assaults "system-monger- ing" Priestly and "atheistical" Paine; and vilifies all Jacobins, French, Eng- lish, and American. In 1800 he shakes off the dust of this country in perfect disgust at the "demo- cratical mob," and he congratulates him- self that he has never been in a single instance the "sycophant of the Sover- eign People," cursed by what he had termed the "abominable system of uni- versal suffrage." Arrived in England, he expresses to Windham, the political offspring of Burke, his "unequivocal hatred of innovations." In 1801 he de- clares to the same gentleman that the revolutionary temper of the "lower or- ders" is an "awful consideration." Ten days later he laments that the Minis- ters "flatter this swinish beast" — the common people. "If there were only a little courage left in the members of Parliament," he continues, "if the whole nation were not become advocates for soup-shops and Sunday-schools, there would be some hope; but now there is none. The cant of humanity will drown the united voice of reason, of jus- tice, and of self-preservation." What need we add but that Cobbett, like Sir Wal- ter, yearned to be a large landholder; that in 1810 he bought up "one-half of the parish of Hursley"; and that he lov- ed the sports and pastimes of Old Eng- land, encouraged boxing and single- stick playing, and occasionally hunted the hare with the enthusiasm of the an- cient squirearchy of his island? There is the big Tory farmer of the eighteenth century. But Cobbett, as everybody knows, did not spend his thirty-five years in the nineteenth century as a mere survivor of the preceding age. As one studies him more closely he appears less and less like an heirloom and more and more like a portent. For this peasant Colossus stands most curiously with one stout leg in the "old system" and one stout leg in the new. Four or five years after the opening of the new cen- tury he began, as his biographers put it, "to take the popular side in politics." He lifts his loud voice to denounce the infamous "borough-mongers," and swells the clamor for parliamentary reform. He becomes the fined and imprisoned champion of free speech and free press. And as a convert to the financial the- ories of the once execrated Paine, he carries the great revolutionist's bones to England, and proposes the erection by public subscription of a splendid monument to his memory. He thunders at pauperizing poor laws, and on the floor of the House reminds the Duke of Richmond that his Grace's nobility is derived from a bastard. He clasps hands with Daniel O'Connell and attacks the Protestant Reformation. And through the medium of Two-Penny Trash he threatens the overthrow of "vested in- terests" by the organization of the dis- content of cottage and hovel. There Is your public-spirited radical reformer and fearless "friend of the people." II. Precisely when and why Cobbett strad- dled is a disputable point upon which the Windham letters throw considerable light. In 1800 the flattered Ajax of American journalism was invited to
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130 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2536 dine with Pitt and Windham, who had cast their eyes upon him as a writer likely to be serviceable to the Govern- ment. Cobbett, still remembering the plough-tail and the blue smock-frock and the little nailed shoes of his child- hood, felt a ruddy glow about his vitals as he sat there "waited upon by men in gaudy liveries," and reflected that lit was there solely by virtue of his intrin- sic merits. "I was proud," he says. "The distinctions of rank, birth, and wealth all became nothing in my eyes; and from that moment (less than a month after my arrival in England) I resolved never to bend before them." This account of his sentiments, how- ever, he did not offer to the public till 1818. What appears from the corre- spondence is that he began to court Windham in 1800 assiduously, and that he assured him at frequent intervals that he — Windham — was the one man to "save the country," an assurance coupled in 1802 with a reminder that "he who makes the best use of the press will finally triumph." The statesman, for his part, invited Cobbett to establish the Political Register, and provided funds for the project; apparently, also, he sent Mrs. Cobbett a fresh hare from time to time, and received in return fresh salmon from the Cobbett estate. They were on very easy terms. The courtship continued unbroken till 1806, in which year Windham got his chance at helping save the country as Secretary for War and the Colonies in Lord Gren- ville's Ministry of "All the Talents." With customary promptness Cobbett indicated to the new Minister the pro- priety of making certain appointments, and especially of dismissing Freeling, Secretary of the Post Office, who had, according to the journalist, grievously abused his authority to hamper the cir- culation and prosperity of the Porcu- pine. Upon Windham's refusal to com- ply with these suggestions, a sharp rupture ensued, and the correspondence of six years was abruptly terminated. Cobbett had declared, in a letter breath- ing beautiful public spirit, that for him- self he wished no office, and would not touch a farthing of the public money, though, as he observed some years lat- er, "every one thought that my turn to get rich was come." But from the tenor of the entire correspondence, it is obvious that he had come to think of himself not merely as distinctly "on the inside," but as virtually the creator, through the Political Register, of Wind- ham's political fortunes and as his natural and equal colleague in the great task of saving the country. Having confidently expected to be the power behind the throne, he is suddenly made aware that he cannot even dictate the dismissal of a Secretary of the Post Of- fice. The scales fall from his eyes. "When I consider," he says, "what I have done and what I am able to do, . . . when I thus consider and thus compare, conscious superiority beats at my breast, and bids me turn from sucn treatment with disdain." From this time forth he throws off all reserve, and presently avows his conviction that the one man who can save the country is Cobbett. He continues to remind Windham that he who makes the best use of the press will finally triumph, but his reminders now take another form than that of the confidential letter. Three years after the breach between them, Windham makes this significant entry in his diary: "Nearly the whole time from breakfast till Mr. Legge's coming down, employed in reading Cob- bett. More thoroughly wicked and mis- chievous than almost anything that has appeared yet." III. If his public professions of faith be- fore and after 1806 are taken at their face value, the two halves of his life fall apart and grin at each other. But the glaring contrast between the earlier and the later periods does not extend far below the surface; does not reach to the motives and essential character of the man. There is more sound than fury in his contempt for the "lower orders" and his friendship for the governing class previous to 1806; after 1806, there is more rhetoric than passion in his con- tempt for the Duke of Richmond and his friendship for the working class. Cobbett was never a Tory as Johnson, for instance, was a Tory; he had no deep-seated reverence for constituted au- thority; he felt nothing necessary or sacred in the hierarchical order of so- ciety. He was never a Radical as Fox and Mill were Radicals; he cherished no generous illusions concerning the rank and file of his fellow-men; he was as hard as nails. He was never any- thing inwardly, honestly, and perma- nently but a Cobbettite. There is this firm core of consistency in him. His allegiance to other men was notorious- ly fickle; he sloughed off, in turn, Burke, Pitt, Windham, Fox, Burdett. But Cobbett's allegiance to Cobbett was never shaken. There is no reason to suppose that the impulses which governed his rela- tions with statesmen were nobler than those which he exhibited in his more private affairs. He threw off his debts, took a peculiar pleasure in cursing his creditors, and flatly informed them that they need expect nothing from him till he had amply provided for himself and his family in a fashion suitable to their position and prospects. He wished to dismiss Howell, the able editor of his "State Trials," apparently for no other reason than that Howell was of the "author" class and a university man. "If you can get rid of H.," he wrote to his factotum Wright, "I shall be very happy. I know what your college gen- tlemen are. They always have, and will have, the insolence to think themselves our betters; ana our superior talents and industry and power and weight only excite their envy. . . . Damn their college insolence." Before the con- nection was severed, however, Cobbett gave directions that Howell should oe thoroughly "pumped" with regard to his plans for the later volumes of the series, and "take care in your conversa- tions with him," enjoined the canny employer of the college expert, "to pro- vide yourself with information as to the sources of information." It may be add- ed that Cobbett subsequently broke with the long-trusted Wright, and damned him for a villanous caitiff and a fraud, but that Wright in a suit for libel re- covered a thousand pounds damages. The swift vindictiveness of Cobbett and the ingenuity of his malice are strikingly illustrated by an incident of his third return from America in 1819. On September 14 he sent one of his boys aboard the packet Amity to procure his passage. The captain informed the boy that there were already seven passen- gers who had all declared that if Cob- bett went in the ship, they would not. Cobbett writes at once to the captain demanding the names of the passen- gers. Apparently, they are not forth- coming, for under date of September 20 Cobbett dispatches the following letter to his son William in London: My dear William— The yellow fever rages to a great degree. We keep out of town, about 3% miles. The following notifi- cation will be necessary to be put in the Register if you have put in the notification about my intended return in the Amity: Mr. Cobbett will not, in all probability, come home In the Amity as he had intended. The yellow fever raged In New York on the 20th of September. The danger was such, that it had been proposed to remove the Post Office and the C«stom House to without the city. The Amity had not her cargo in. and it would be impossible for her to be laden without taking her cargo from the Store-Houses, which were the very seat of contagion. The owner, Isaac Wright (a very cunning old Quaker), told Mr. Cobbett, on the 15th of September, that they were -working it to get a clean Bill." They had, he said, got the ship round to the North River; and they meant to try and get her cleared out from Amboy (a small port In New Jersey), in order to avoid the quaran- tine at Liverpool. Whether they would play this trick Mr. Cobbett was not certain; but, as passengers (all except Mr. Cobbett, who lives in the country) and cargo would go from the seat of deadly contagion, it would be a very base and fraudulent act to clear the ship out from Amboy. At any rate, Mr. Cobbett was resolved to come by a clean ship; and, it was, on the 20th of September, probable that he would sail before the Amity. Now, be sure to put in, and to repeat, the above notification. I wish it to be done by all means. If you should have no Regi*- ter to put it in, put it into some other newspaper. It is very Important that it should be published in England the moment you get it. I shall write by every ship. James and I are very well. Mr. Morgan Is hero, and he
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Feb. 5, 1914I The Nation 131 sends his love to you all. God bless you.- I- s.— Dou't omit a word of my above notification. Evidence of this character is abun- dant to indicate that the controlling passions of Cobbett were an intoxicat- ing egotism, selfishness, jealousy, and revenge. Evidence is lacking to show that he once willingly sacrificed to the welfare of England, which was ever in his mouth, one iota of his personal pow- er, preeminence, or property. It has been urged that he was not a "pecu- niary self-seeker" — presumably on the strength of his profuse professions that he would accept nothing from the Gov- ernment. But wny seek to be Chancel- lor of the Exchequer for Great Britain at a salary of £2,452, when you can be editor and publisher of Cobbett's works, with an annual income of £3,000, and that in the year following your poli- tical bankruptcy? It is clear, at any rate, that Cobbett's familiar letters steadily point the children to the earthly para- dise in which they shall be "as rich as we ought to be"; and daughter Anne confides to brother James in New York that, "We are all monstrously bitten with a fancy for getting some money to- gether." Furthermore, to what public office could Cobbett have aspired with an influence a hundredth part as great as that which he could exert through the press? He had discovered some- thing greater than the power of office; he had developed an instrument that could intimidate and control the office- holder. Seeking his own from the dawn to the dusk of his political career, he had turned to the Tories before 1806, because he believed that they had the wit and the power to utilize his talents and build up his estate. If he turned to the people after 1806, it was because he had become convinced that the power was to lie with them, and that he had the wit to use it. It may be set down as a guiding principle in Cobbett crit- icism that when he speaks most egotis- tically, he speaks most sincerely; and we may take the measure of his disin- terestedness and "public spirit" in pas- sages like the following from a letter of 1822 to Dr. Taylor, of New York: "I know that I could rescue the country from its perils, but I also know that not a suggestion will I give to be acted upon by any other man than myself. It is my duty to do all I can for my coun- try, but not to do it to exalt them and to keep myself in a state of abasement." IV. Truly, a most brave phenomenon! Naive, this passage, in its crude con- ceit, in its unabashed admission of readi- ness either to rum or to rule the state. It is the spirit here revealed in its nakedness that justifies us in calling Cobbett a portent rather than a surviv- or. Indeed, take him in all his works and ways, he is almost a man of the hour in the new democracy which he helped to create. He is the redoubta- ble self-made man of the new age. He is our tremendously efficient, unscrupu- lous, materially-minded, half-educated egotist of talent. He reveres property, and he respects brains, which are the means of acquiring property. He is en- tirely absorbed in those occupations of which the object is to make us "as rich as we ought to be." Immersed in agri- culture, business, journalism, and con- temporary politics, he values other ac- tivities only in so far as they are con- tributive to these. He has no concep- tion of the mind that "doth ambition shun, and loves to live i' the sun." He is indifferent to art and literature, too serious for the pleasures of life, too overbearing for society, too busy to eat his meals like a Christian. Yet he has views on religion: the Church is, or might be converted into, an effective political machine; or, again, church tithes are taxation without representa- tion and parsons are meddling magpies. He has views on education, too, and in- tends to enforce them: all that is essen- tial is to be found on the "five^foot shelf" of Cobbett's own works on politics and agriculture. He holds, furthermore, that it is idle to read the "punning and smutty Shakespeare," and for a boy to be engrossed with Greek and Latin "never, by any possibility, can extend the sphere of his usefulness, or tend to give him the smallest consequence in the eyes of the world." Clean-cut and practical like a modern business man or an up-to-date educator; no frills, no nonsense. He stands a degree above the wor- shippers of Mammon; not that he loves riches less, but that he loves power more. Risen from the masses, he un- derstands them, and inwardly despises them as unintelligent rabble. Yet when he has promulgated a half-informed opinion, he is willing to appeal for sup- port to the brute numbers of the to- tally uninformed. Secretly desiring to hold first place in the seats of the mighty, he despises those who are really his superiors in breeding and culture, and does not understand them. Missing the preeminence that he thinks is due him, and agreeing with Wesley that it is better to rule in hell than serve in heaven, he is ready to seize upon the proletariat as upon the jawbone of an ass, and make havoc of all that thwart him. It is too much to expect that such a prodigy should be an honest man. Suf- ficient is his praise, if we say that he is a great master of English, and, what is more than that, a superb journalist, and, what is more than that, a versatile poli- tician. In his hands is our salvation, and in the day of his triumph Heaven pity those who are left in the minority. Stuart P. Sherman. NEWS FOR BIBLIOPHILES. In the second volume of "The Life and Times of Frederick Reynolds: Written by Himself" (London, 1826) appears the fol- lowing anecdote (pp. 167-8) : Soon after my election into the club [the Marylebone], I attended a grand county match at Moulsey Hurst. Our headquarters being at Kingston, the Duke [of Richmond], who was of our party, asking me, the fol- lowing morning, whether I would not rather ride to the cricket ground, offered the loan of one of his horses. I accepted the pro- posal, and cheerfully, without "peril or adventure," till we encountered a party of soldiers ; when to my utter alarm, and to the surprise of the red coats, the horse I rode began capering, curvetting, and pirouet- ting so perfectly a la Vestris, that like an- other John Gilpin, I first lost my hat, then my balance, and then pitched on the ground . . . I need not pause to describe the universal amusement; nor the great grati- fication that his Grace manifested, during the performance of this whimsical "pas de deux" ; but I must stop to say a word in explanation. The Duke had lately purchased the horse of Astley, and the military rider who trained it, dressed in full uniform (purposely to excite attention), at length produced so deep an impression on his pupil, that ... on the appearance ot . . . any redcoat, the animal . . thought with Chrononhotonthologos, "Fir«t,. let us have a dance." When this first "prac- tical joke" was concluded, the Duke hoped* that I was not offended — I replying . . . "tout au contraire," we resumed our ride,, and it concluded without further prank from either Duke or horse. The first story, "The Ravenswing," in Thackeray's "Men's Wives" has a humorous Incident in which Capt. Walker gets the better of one of the suitors for the Ravens- wing by making him appear ridiculous. The method used is to persuade the love-lorn swain, Mr. Eglantine, the famous hair- dresser of Bond Street, to ride a horse, that, in the words of Mr. Snaffle, was "the celebrated Hemperor" and "the wonder of Hastley's some years back." This horse is only safe to ride on Sundays, when there is no music in the streets, because the animal has been trained to die to the tune of "God preserve the Emperor"— a thrilling episode in the third act of the "Battle of Hoysterlitz." Capt. Walker, in possession of these facts, arranges for a friend to play this identical tune, with the result that Mr. Eglantine falls both from the horse and from the favor of his mistress. "The Ravenswing" was published in Fra- ser's Magazine in 1843, and it seems to be clear, either that Thackeray borrowed the incident from Reynolds's memoirs, or that the anecdote of the performing horse and the unwitting rider was passing current in the theatrical tales of the day. J. R. Crawford. Correspondence THE CURRENCY ACT AND THE BANK- ING PRINCIPLE. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: The Banking Principle is a term used In the theory of money in contradis- tinction to another theory known as the Currency Principle. The battle between these two theories was fiercely waged In the second quarter of the nineteenth cen- tury, ending, by the passage of the English Bank act of 1844, in a complete victory la
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132 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2536 Kngland for the supporters of the Cur- rency Principle. While these terms are familiar to all students of banking, a con- cise statement of their meaning will not! be out of place to many of your readers. In brief, the advocates of the Banking Principle maintain that a currency com- posed of specie and paper, if the paper is easily and readily convertible into coin on demand, will behave in all respects just as if the whole body of money consisted of specie alone. "We are willing," says one of the leading champions of this school, "to consider a metallic currency as the type of that to which a mixed cir- culation of coin and paper ought to con- form. But, further, we contend that it has so conformed, and must so conform, while the paper is strictly convertible." On the con- trary, the advocates of the Currency Prin- ciple maintain that simple convertibility is not sufficient; that a body of money com- posed of coin and paper is not subject to the same laws as one composed wholly of coin; that some check on the issue of the paper is necessary; otherwise it is liable to over-issue, with consequent inflation and rise in prices. In the numerous treatises and discus- sions which we have read on this subject, no writer seems to lay his finger on the weak spot in the Banking Principle. This lies In the small amount of the specie reserve necessary to meet redemption needs. No- body would deny that if, for every note issued, a dollar-for-dollar specie reserve were maintained, such a currency would conform in all respects to a specie stan- dard. But, just as in the case of deposits payable on demand, a 5 or 6 per cent, cash reserve is found sufficient to meet cur- rent needs, so a 5 per cent, specie reserve is sufficient to meet all redemption re- quirements. There is a vast gulf between this and a dollar-for-dollar reserve, and i it should seem almost certain that the Banking Principle leaves ample opportu- nity for inflation. This appears to be a simple and conclusive objection to the soundness of the Banking Principle, so sim- ple, in fact, that it seems almost incon- ceivable that the argument has not been made in this form by the opponents of the theory. It hardly falls short of an axiom to say that a note issue based on a 5 per cent, specie reserve cannot be the same thing as one based on a dollar-for- dollar reserve. The 40 per cent, gold reserve required by our new Currency Act is one of its most important features, and, together with certain other safeguards against over- issue, ought to prove an ample guaranty against inflation. Among the redemption provisions, none is more to be commended than that which forbids under heavy pen- alties a bank of issue to pay out any notes except its own; all other notes must be sent to the original bank of issue for re- demption. This is the only way to insure a prompt contraction of the currency when growing redundant. Such notes will be merely dead capital to any bank which fails to send them in for redemption, while the original bank of issue is not likely to reissue them unless the requirements of trade will make it profitable. This pro- vision was doubtless suggested by what is known as the Suffolk System, so success- fully employed in Massachusetts nearly a century ago. The average life of a Bank of Kngland note is six weeks, that of a Hank of Scotland note thirty days, and as the same notes are never reissued, notes in those countries are always clean and crisp. On the other hand, the average life of a national bank note is two years, a fact which proclaims only too eloquently that the importance of speedy and prompt re- demption as a factor in elasticity was to- tally neglected under the old system. Another consequence of the new act, and one of far-reaching significance, is the complete divorce of the circulating medium from the bond-issuing and debt-paying power of the Government. These are two entirely different functions, and their con- nection and mutual dependence could only be justified in a period of stress, as was the case with the National Bank Act. It was a fiscal measure devised during the Civil War by Secretary Chase, primarily to pro- mote the sale of United States bonds, only secondarily to act as the basis of a mone- tary system. With the power of note issue on commer- cial paper, and the facilities for re- discount, all the disastrous effects of strin- gency and panics seem to be completely forestalled by the new bill, and it will be interesting to wait and see its practical operation at such times. Glanville Terrell. Lexington, Kv., January 28. THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIA- TION. To the Editor of The Nation : Sir: I have no love for controversy, but as I was chairman of the nominating com- mittee of the American Historical Associa- tion in 1913, and am responsible to that extent for the nominations which were presented at the Charleston meeting last December, I owe it to my colleagues of the committee as well as to the Association, to make some reply to the criticisms of Mr. Dunbar Rowland in your issue of the 22d instant. I only regret that, in my unavoidable absence from the Charleston meeting, the unexpected duty of defending the action of the committee had to fall upon Prof. Clarence W. Alvord, who acted as chairman in my absence; but while I do not know what Professor Alvord said on that occasion, I have no reason to think that it was anything with which I should not heartily have agreed. If Mr. Rowland's statement that the nom- inating committee "keeps its action a pro- found secret . . . until the business meet- ing" is only a rhetorical way of showing the intensity of his feelings, I have no quarrel with it; but if it implies that the committee, either with or without the con- currence of the Council, sedulously hides its "slate" until the last moment in or- der that no iconoclastic champion of lib- erty may have a chance to break it, I can only say. that such implication corresponds to nothing in the action of the committee of which I have any knowledge. What the procedure of former committees may have been I do not know, but the procedure of the committee in 1913 I feel free to state. The committee comprised, besides myself, Professor Alvord, of the University of Illinois; Professor Bassett, of Smith; Pro- fessor Riley, of the University of Missis- sippi, and Dr. Krehblel, of Leland Stanford. All the suggestions regarding nominations that were received by me were laid before each member of the committee; and such suggestions as were received by other mem- bers, and sent to me, were similarly trans- mitted. As a matter of fact, we received very few suggestions from any source. If there is, among the members of the Asso- ciation, any widespread revolt against "ar- bitrary and unconstitutional methods," the nominating committee were not made aware of it. Even Mr. Rowland himself does not appear in the list of the commit- tee's correspondents, although he had due notice of the appointment and personnel of the committee, and might at any time, for the sum of two cents, have laid before the committee both criticisms and suggestions. We did not suppose at the time, and I do not think now, that the committee were expected to circularize the membership of the Association in the search for candi- dates, or devise some sort of a primary through which candidatures might be nursed. Under these circumstances, the committee did what all such committees do; it went over the list of apparently available candi- dates, considered carefully the few sug- gestions made to it, and made up the best list of nominations that it could. The com- mittee considered geographical or sectional arguments, as well as the scholarly stand- ing of the man and his record of active in- terest in the Association. The several mem- bers of the committee, widely distributed geographically, were all more or less in- timately acquainted with members of the Association in their immediate locality or section; and we were further aided by a memorandum prepared by the committee of 1912, setting forth, so far as that com- mittee understood it, the prevailing opin- ions in the Association at that time re- garding desirable nominations. I am not so vain as to imagine that the nominations finally agreed upon were ideal, or that sev- eral lists equally good might not conceiv- ably have been made up; but I know that our decisions were made with a view to what we believed to be the best interest of the Association. To say, as Mr. Rowland does, that "when the rank and file are as- sembled they are politely but firmly told who are to be the officers for the coming year," is nonsense so far as the committee for 1913 are concerned. Mr. Rowland characterizes the methods of nomination as "oligarchical." I have been for twenty years a member of the As- sociation, serving for eight or nine years of that time as a member of the Public Archives Commission, and for three years as a member of the Council. I know of no oligarchy in the Association. I know only a group of men, all of them distinguished scholars, who have been willing to spend time and money in building up the Associa- tion, and in organizing and advancing his- torical interest and historical scholarship throughout the United States. On one point I hope that I may be al- lowed to reassure Mr. Rowland. At the close of his Interesting letter ho expresses the conviction that his action at Charleston will prevent him "from accepting nn of- ficial position in the Association for years to come, if not for all time." This, I feel sure, ,is not the case. The Association fights Its battles in the opon, cherishes no
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Feb. 5, 1914] The Nation 133 1, and marks no man for banishment. If Mr. Rowland continues to render, as dl- MCtor of the Department of Archives and History in the State of Mississippi, the distinguished service that he has ed in the past, he may rest assured that the Association will be only too glad to honor him, and that he will be as free as ever to accept any office which the As- sociation can bestow — provided, of course, that he is nominated and elected. William MacDonald. Brown University, January 31. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: Dr. Dunbar Rowland is, I know, in- capable of intentional misrepresentation; yet I think that his letter respecting the American Historical Association, printed in your issue of January 22, is likely in two particulars to mislead your readers (in so far as they take any interest in the affairs of the American Historical Association) ; on the one hand, as to the methods which the Association now follows in respect to Its elections to office, and on the other hand as to the amount of discontent with those methods that was evinced at Charleston. The practice of the Association is not noticeably different from that of many other large bodies which hold annual meetings at- tended by but a small part of their member- ship. The Committee on Nominations was appointed a year ago by the Council, from among members of the Association who were not members of the Council. Members were urged to write to these five gentlemen respecting their preferences. It appears that the committee, in addition to the letters that they received, took considerable pains by conversation and some letter-writing to elicit the sentiments of others. The nom- inating committee then made up a slate against which no member, so far as I know, not even Dr. Rowland himself, has expressed the slightest objection. The reader would certainly infer from Dr. Rowland's com- munication that the list was dictated to this committee by the Council. On the contrary, no member of the Council had any know- ledge of what the nominations would be. The nominating committee made its report in the usual manner of nominating com- mittees. Any one who had other nomina- tions to make could have made them. The only trace of illegality that I could dis- cern in the proceedings was that by vote of the Association (to which there was no dissenting voice) the acting secretary was instructed to cast a ballot for the list brought in by the committee. I think that such a vote is objectionable, and I have heard that it is illegal; but such societies usually follow such a practice, because if no other nominations have been made it saves time. At all events, I see nothing oligarchical about it. Perhaps it could be improved upon, but I am surprised to learn that neither the Association nor the Council has authority to appoint a nominating com- mittee. Are all our seventeen committees, through which the Association does so great a variety of interesting work, illegal? Secondly, one would not learn accurately from Dr. Rowland's communication just what happened at Charleston. He rose and made a vehement speech of protest, and believes that he had the warm approval of those whom he calls the rank and file. I can only say that, of all who spoke after him (and all were free to speak) none expressed dissatisfaction with the existing method of nominating officers, nor approved his suggestion that ballots should be sent out in the autumn to the 2,800-odd members — for this method had been tried three times and proved a failure. Neither does he re- cord that, at the end of the discussion, it was voted that the new nominating com- mittee should take the whole procedure of nominations into consideration, and report at the next meeting. My own conviction is that, whatever the- oretical qualms may have been felt by some, most members of the American Historical Association, as is the case in most similar bodies, perceive that the affairs of the Society will under any system be chiefly ad- ministered by those who are most interested. I think they regard the Council as dis- tinctly accessible to new membership and to new ideas, and on the whole approve nearly all that it has done. I think they should do so, for my observation has been that it is an unselfish and right-minded body, mak- ing its best endeavors to care for the inter- ests of the whole membership. J. Franklin Jameson. Carnegie Institution of Washington, January 2G. THE TORONTO "GLOBE." To the Editor of The Nation : Sir : In one of the editorial paragraphs of your issue of January 22 you refer to the "Conservative Toronto Globe." The Globe is and always has been the leading Liberal newspaper not only of Toronto but also of all Canada. Moreover, at the present time it is striving to inculcate principles of real, progressive liberalism, when a large section of the party is inclined to temporize and equivocate. W. K. Stewart. Hanover, N. H., January 26. CANADA'S TREATMENT OF THE IN- DIANS. To the Editor of The Nation : Sir : In a recent editorial (Nation, Jan- uary 15), you speak of the Canadian In- dians and say, "In their prosperous absorp- tion into civilization is a constant proof of the wisdom of Canada's policy," etc. I am not familiar with the Indians of any other provinces except New Brunswick and Nova Scotia ; but I can assure you that there has been no "prosperous absorption," or any absorption at all, into civilization, if this phrase means in any way the amal- gamation with European blood, or living with the rest of the inhabitants. And the Indians of these two provinces most cer- tainly do not "compare favorably with the Dominion's other residents." The Micmacs of Nova Scotia have no vote, and are treat- ed quite as a separate people. Their whole treatment, in fact, conduces to keeping them in a state of tutelage. This Is the more astonishing, as the problem in Nova Scotia is very old, and one might think that by this time the Indians would have had some encouragement to amalgamate with the rest of the inhabitants. As it is they intermarry somewhat with negroes only. There are many cases where the In- dian agents take little or no trouble to see that the children go to the appointed schools. It may be wise to treat the rem- nant of the race in a way to discourage totally the ambition to become members of the body politic, but I always had a great sympathy with the Micmacs. There is no reason in the world why those of them who wish to enter into the life of the other inhabitants of the province should not have a chance to do so, and eventually to be en- franchised. Whatever the law now is, there is certainly no encouragement in that di- rection. Edward Breck. Boston, January 27. THE LOGIC OF THE DIRECT PRIMARY. To the Editor of The Nation : Sir: If the proverbial visitor from Mars were to look into the current discussions of the direct primary question, it may be guessed that his first impression would be that the participants in the controversy ars generally very much obsessed by the exist- ing order of things. He, being a complete alien, completely unprejudiced — being, in fact, not a practical man, but a theorist — would wonder why so few of our political experts have had theory enough to per- ceive that the direct primary system and the party system are, so far as the conduct of elections is concerned, mutually exclu- sive. Having to get the whole matter up in an elementary way, the Martian would first learn the essential thing in the direct pri- mary system to be that the voters have two progressive opportunities for record- ing their choices, the first establishing some limitation upon the second. A pri- mary system along with the party system, as he presently understands, means that the voters within each party elect their candi- dates, and then, in the second or regular election, the final choice is made between the candidates of the different parties. But the unavoidable difficulty is obviously with the primary qualifications of the voters. How is it justly determined who is in each party? All the practical schemes for pri- mary elections which our inquirer is able to find seem to make it possible, even it not creditable, for a citizen to vote in the primary of one party and then in the final election vote for the candidate chosen by the other. If he honestly is disappointed In the candidate chosen by the primary of the party in which he first voted, this Is de- fensible. But it is perfectly well known that he may have voted in the primary of one party with the definite purpose of pro- curing the nomination of a weak candidate, his sympathies being with the other party with which he finally votes. The trouble with all the existing schemes is that they are based upon the Idea of defined party groups in the primary elec- tion. Our Martian theorist presently con- cludes that a logically workable direct pri- mary system must not be based upon the hypothesis of fixed parties at all; and he formulates his simple scheme for the elec- tion of candidates as follows: Let there be two elections, a primary election and a secondary, or final, election. At the first, the voter without the slightest allusion to his party Is to have a name- less ballot, with a blank space for each of the offices to be filled. He Inserts any name he pleases, whether suggested by his un-
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134 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2536 .mini fancy or by a convention of himself and his friends, his "party," or his news- paper. With the source of his preference the law would have absolutely nothing to do. Upon the counting of these primary ballots, many of the candidates,, receiving only scattering votes, would be eliminated. Let the two or three or four — the law would prescribe the number— receiving the highest number of votes for each office have their names put upon the ballot for the final election, grouped, of course, under the title of the office according to the Massachu- setts ballot system. Neither party organi- zations nor parties would be mentioned in the ballot law. Everything they do would be from the legal point of view "infor- mal." The results of their activities would be simply a lot of suggestions for the vot- ers, by which every legitimate influence could be exercised. The problem is evidently not merely of the weakening of party "machines," that easy mark for the denunciations of the choir-leaders of reform. It is of the logi- cal working of the idea that the people should themselves do their own nominating, by means of a primary election. Any at- tempt to couple this with the legal recog- nition of fixed parties in the election is bound to be — the Martian thinks — complex and futile. Allan Ball. New York, January 30. "NATIONAL SUPREMACY." To the Editor of The Nation: Sir : Permit me to correct one or two misstatements of fact by your reviewer in his notice of my "National Supremacy" (Na- tion, January 15). He asserts that "the view which I discard has received the emphatic approval of a writer whom I cite frequently," referring to ' Mr. Butler's "Treaty-Making Power.'' This is a great mistake. Of the passages cited by your reviewer, in that work, only the two final purport to state Mr. Butler's own conclusions, and these are emphatically in support of my position. I quote one of them (Vol. II, p. 64) : In fact, it must be conceded that the cases cited in the last chapter in which treaty stipulations have so operated as to prac- tically change, or nullify, State laws of succession and inheritance, and in which they have rendered nugatory anti-Chinese legislation, show beyond all peradventure that State laws are in all respects subor- dinate to the treaty-making power of the central Government. Also, the reviewer's statement that I press my view of the treaty-power "much further than Mr. Root does" his similar view is without warrant in fact. Mr. Root upheld the national position in the San Francisco school controversy without qualification, and this is the extreme case. (See Am. J. of Nat'l Law, May, 1907.) Edward S. Corwin. I'liuccloii, N. J., Jauuary 24. [Notwithstanding Mr. Corwin's letter of complaint, the reviewer is satisfied that he made no misstatements of fact on either of the points referred to. He is quite content to leave the question of obliquity to any fair-minded person who will undertake the irksome task of read- ing the book, the review with the au- thorities cited therein, and the letter. Tin: Reviewer.] Literature THE FIRST AMERICAN SEA-GOING YACHT. The Story of George Crowninshicld's Yacht, Cleopatra's Barge, on a Voy- age of Pleasure to the Western Islands <uid the Mediterranean, 1810-1817. Compiled from Journals, Letters, and Log-Book, by Francis B. Crownin- shield. Boston: D. B. Updike. $15 net. To the memory of Cleopatra's Barge z. special interest clings, not only be- cause she was the first sea-going yacht to be built in America, but on account of the romance with which tradition has surrounded her maiden voyage. George Crowninshield's father and grandfather had been prosperous merchants of Salem. The opening of trade to China and the West Indies after the Revolu- tion very rapidly increased their wealth. George and his five brothers went through the severe nautical train- ing then held necessary for entry to the Crowninshield counting-house. At ten their education as seamen began; at twelve they were studying navigation; before they were twenty, five of the six (and the sixth had died at sea at the age of fourteen) had served as masters of merchant-ships. They were then qual- ified to sit at a desk. This is more rea- sonable than it sounds, since to become ship-masters they had been required to learn not only navigation and the prin- ciples of ship design and construction, but "the cargoes to be bought and sold, foreign governments, moneys, weights, measures, and the various products of the different countries to which their vessels might go." Only one of the brothers rescued from this experience a genuine love for the sea. This was "Captain George," whose fondness for ships and knack with them led to his being detailed, at the time when the firm's business was at its height, to the duty of building and fit- ting out its vessels. He was a small man, but of notable strength and cour- age, a man of action. He was a man to be looked to in emergencies, saved three men from drowning, and a number of others from death by fire. His first yacht, the Jefferson — the first American yacht of any sort — he used not only for pleasure, hut "after a storm he would sail, taking with him extra men and stores with which to render assistance to vessels which might have been dis- abled." The Jefferson's own story Is of interest: she was one of three priva- teers sent out by the Orowninsliiclds in 1812. She was too small for the work, and made only one cruiRe, In the course of which she took three prizes. New York has claimed the honor of the first yacht, in the Diver of John C. Stevens, but it appears that the Jeffer- son must have been the elder by some years. The Jefferson was of only 22 tons. The America, the fastest and most successful privateer of the war, was a merchant vessel of 600 tons. She was George Crowninshield's favorite ship, and served as model for the yacht Cleopatra's Barge. Privateering was the most profitable use the astute Cap- tain George could have put his vessels to at the time. The Crowninshield firm had dissolved as early as 1809. The embargo had almost put an end to com- merce. One of the sons, Jacob Crownin- shield, to whom Jefferson had offered the post of Secretary of the Navy, had died at Washington in 1808. Two other brothers now went into business for themselves. The old father and two sons, George and Benjamin, retained what was left of the business. The War of 1812 put an end to that; but the value of the America's prizes was, at actual sale, $1,100,000. In 1814 Benjamin Crowninshield went to Washington to serve as Secretary of the Navy under Madison; shortly after, old George Crowninshield died, and young George (forty-nine years old) was left rich, unemployed, and free to follow his hobby of ships and the sea. To Mr. Retire Becket, the best ship- builder of Salem and builder of the America, was given the commission of building a yacht which was to be not only a nine days' wonder in New Eng- land, but wherever she touched abroad. Cleopatra's Barge was laid down in the spring of 1816, and launched in October. The name finally given her is fanciful enough. The owner's family had fears of something worse, which were almost realized, as is shown by a letter from his sister-in-law to her husband Ben- jamin at Washington: "He told me he had received his letter & Passport — but unfortunately the name was Car of Concordia, and would not do. How many times you have said he would get some foolish name that would be laugh- ed at!" Captain George was evidently regarded as the family crank. A cer- tificate had to be obtained attesting the change of name, and Cleopatra's Barge the new yacht became. She was an hermaphrodite brig, of nearly 200 tons, and looked like a small man-of-war. Her fittings were luxur- ious beyond all precedent. Captain George intended her for a home as well as for a pleasure craft. He planned to set out for the Mediterranean early in January, but a rigorous winter set in, delay followed delay, and people began to suspect that she would never sot out at all. Meanwhile her owner was not unhappy. TTo lived aboard, and was busy receiving the crowds which flocked to see this "perfect specimen of nautl-
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Feb. 5, 1 9 14] The Nation 135 cal architecture and sumptuous accom- modation'— a godsend for winter-bound New England. Eighteen hundred ladies visited her in the course of one day. His sailing-master grew restless, but Captain George seems never to have tired of en- tertaining his guests, and displaying the perfections of his toy. Not till March 30 did Cleopatra's Barge actually weigh anchor and begin to prove her mettle on the seas. Her captain was a nephew of Captain George's, Benjamin Crowninshield, who had been a captain of merchantmen, and of one of the Crowninshield privateers. His son was taken as passenger, appar- ently because of his literary ability, and the present record of the voyage is chief- ly made up of his "Private Journal." The ship's log is of the most meagre sort; and Captain George was a notor- iously cramped letter-writer. Young Benjamin had a very pretty knack with his pen, and an inquiring eye. He also had the moralizing bent of his contem- poraries, and is often deliciously in- genuous. The helpless celibacy of the daughters of the French Consul at Fayal well-nigh moves him to tears: "How inestimably better," he cries, "is the condition in America, where we have an extent of country sufficient for our de- scendants to the thousandth generation. American ladies are, therefore, ready to display all the charms of female excellence. Ever prompt to appear in public at the ball, at church, in their walks they are always social, always amiable; if not beau- tiful, they cultivate the mind; if not wealthy, all else that renders them desir- able. Every one is full of hope, every one is happy! Alas! This is not true of ladies who inhabit a country of crowded population. They must waste their lives in single blessedness, in a nunnery, or wither! wither! under their parental roof." Yet he does not lack moments of humor, as in his description of an Annunciation in the cathedral at Malaga: "A lady in the costume of our grandmothers, pinch- ed almost off at the waist, sits reading, and before her kneels the angel in the same costume, with wings sticking on hia shoulders, most respectfully ac- quainting the old lady with some par- ticulars." Unluckily, "Philosopher Ben," as he was nicknamed, seems to have been, like some other persons of genius, rather hard to live with. He was not taken upon some of the most interesting ex- peditions ashore, notably to Civita Vec- chia and to Rome. The taking aboard of some Frenchmen as passengers, who were not introduced to him and who supplanted him at the head-table, seems to have been the finishing touch. At Gibraltar he abandoned the Cleopatra to her fate. He afterwards wrote somewhat un- kindly of Captain George, but apparent- ly did not suspect a possibility which was later magnified by legend into fact: namely, that Cleopatra's Barge was built with the distinct object of rescuing Na- poleon from St. Helena. The compiler of these records does not deny that there were circumstances which might colorably give rise to this belief. It was two years since Napoleon had escap- ed from Elba. George Crowninshield was a Democrat and a great admirer of the Emperor. He was just the sort of man to attempt such an adventure. Cleo- patra's Barge visited Elba, and Crownin- shield met certain members of Napo- leon's suite, who still lived there. Af- ter touching Elba, no letters were writ- ten to America from the yacht. Her master bore letters and packages to the Bonapartes at Rome, and brought home a number of souvenirs of Napoleon, a ring, a snuffbox, etc., which were given him by Pauline Bonaparte. The Cleo- patra received orders to be ready to sail from Civita Vecchia within fifteen minutes of her master's arrival on board, was closely watched by French men-of-war, and finally brought away with her from Civita Vecchia four French officers, including the captain of the ship in which Napoleon sailed from Elba and a surgeon on his staff. These were the passengers who discomfited Philosopher Ben. They made the voy- age to America in Cleopatra's Barge, but the Emperor remained on St. Hel- ena. "Yet in spite of these circum- stances," says the compiler, "I am con- vinced that no such idea ever seriously entered his [Captain George'sl head." The voyage home was dull and un- comfortable. Cleopatra's Barge reached Salem in October, 1817. A month later Captain George died suddenly on board the vessel, which he had actually made his home. After his death she was sold and transformed into a merchantman. Shortly after, she became a packet-boat in American waters. Then she made the passage round Cape Horn to the Sandwich Islands, became the private yacht of King Kamehameha I, and was presently (1821) wrecked on a Pacific reef. So passes this world's glory. This book, with its beautiful letter- press and many illustrations, is a worthy monument. CURRENT FICTION. The Health Master. By Samuel Hopkins Adams. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. From the title-page, with its descrip- tion of the author not as a writer of this, that, and the other novel, but as an Associate Fellow of the American Medi- cal Association, through the dedication to the health officer of Rochester, N. Y., and on to the end, no reader of this story can be in doubt for a moment that the plot's not the thing. So far is this carried that the one excellent chance for love-making is sternly rejected, and the lovely Miss Ennis, having served her purpose as a subject of the "health master's" skill, drops out of the narra- tive promptly and finally. The motive of these pages is enlight- enment of the public concerning the im- portant matter of health, and it is to be said with little reservation that they ful- fil this purpose in a satisfying way. Now and then there is a touch of exaggera- tion, and the events of the story are apt to fall out rather too favorably to the in- terests of the main design. But nothing but good can come from the warnings against patent medicines, quack doctors, and outworn traditions which the "health master" presents to the mem- bers of the family of Mr. Thomas Clyde and gradually to a larger community. The value of Mr. Adams's discussion of these things is greatly increased by his fearlessness in naming names. Peruna, Mrs. "Winslow's Soothing Syrup, Hall's Catarrah Cure, Duffy's Malt Whiskey, Swamp Root, Jayne's Expectorant, Rex- all Cholera Cure, Kohler's One-Night Cough Cure — these and other widely ad- vertised "remedies" receive no mercy from the "health master," who relent- lessly analyzes them into their constit- uents of opium; alcohol, morphine, and so on. Equally beneficial should be his scientific discussion of such troublesome enemies of health as the common cold, and of preventive measures against the various ills that assail the household. The range of the book may be judged from the fact that it includes a consider- ation of cancer and of venereal dis- eases. Idonia. By Arthur F. Wallis. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. Heroes of romance usually deserve Hazlitt's description of them as insipid, but they are seldom so witless as Denis Cleeve. They are generally lucky, but few of them need such constant help from Fortune as Denis requires. These are the two distinctions of the hero of "Idonia." In sheer muttonheadedness he easily surpasses any hero of our ac- quaintance, and from the varied scrapes into which this trait naturally leads him he is rescued by what he would call "unremitting" good luck. Mr. "Wallis has affected a style elab- orately though not quite consistently Elizabethan. His archaisms, sometimes incorrectly used, constantly distract the reader's attention from the story. The author's own interest, indeed, appears to be more in his style than in his mat- ter. Occasionally he coins a good phrase or telling sentence, and it is fair to quote him at his best. "Such sweet words of a maid," says the hero, referring to Idonia's promises, "are not singular, I think, hut rather be common as death; to which for the first time they give the only right meaning, as of a little ford
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186 rp JO h e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2536 that lies in a hollow of the highway ot love." A Term of Silence. By Forrest Halsey. New York: Desmond FitzGerald. Indignation at the abuses of our State prisons seems to have been the inspira- tion of Mr. llalsey's story. The hero, George Goodwin, is a weak young man, cashier of a bank, who has been led into theft by an older clerk. His wife is so- cially ambitious. When the theft is de- tected, the chief offender gets off with a suspended sentence; the hero gets ten years in the penitentiary. Here, in the grip of the contract labor system, and at the mercy of a corrupt warden and his brutal satellites, he is slowly tor- tured to death. His wife, who feels that she is the cause of his guilt, meanwhile suffers mental agony outside. Of course, there is a child, born soon after Good- win's imprisonment. The one ray of hope comes from the fearlessness of the prison doctor, who is at sword's points with the warden. The devotion of his wife and the chivalry of the doctor at last nerve the hero up to an act of cour- age which exposes the warden and de- feats his plot to get rid of the doctor. In his assault on the reader's sympathies Mr. Halsey describes all the shocking details in flaring journalistic rhetoric. THE STORY OF TRISTAN. Tristan and Isolt: A Study of the Sources of the Romance. By Gertrude Schoepperle. Ottendorfer Memorial Series of Germanic Monographs (New York University). No. 3. Frankfort a-M.: Joseph Baer & Co.; London: David Nutt. The student of the legend of Tristan and Iseult (to employ the usual Eng- lish spelling of the name) starts with an advantage that is rare in Arthurian studies — namely, a general agreement on at least one point of fundamental im- portance, which is, that the principal extant versions of the story are not de- rived independently from oral tradition, but have a common source in a lost French metrical romance. Nothing is more frequent in the study of stories than the assumption of hypothetical lost versions. For the purpose of proving a theory, such hypothetical versions ob- viously furnish a far more plastic ma- terial than the stubborn texts that have been actually handed down to us in the manuscripts. In the case of the famous legend before us, however, the evidence is too plain, and even the most skeptical must concede that here we have a real instance of a text of the highest impor- tance— the one that first doubtless gave this immortal story its standing in Eu- ropean literature — yielding to tne "in- iquity of oblivion." In a study of the sources of the leg- end obviously the first problem is to re- Construct from the extant versions the narrative of this lost French archetype — the estoire, as following Miss Schoep- perle's example, we may call it. In his edition of Thomas's "Tristan" Bedier had attempted such a reconstruction, his principle being to assign to the archetype all narrative features that are found in at least two of the extant versions. In Miss Schoepperle's opin- ion, however, this table of concordances has no value, partly because Bedier has been unconsciously biassed in his in- terpretation of the various versions and partly because he has neglected to con- sider that where Thomas's text is lost we cannot tell whether coincidences be- tween Gottfried von Strassburg (whose work is in the main based on Thomas) and Eilhart von Oberge may not be due to direct imitation of the latter by the former. She herself argues at length that Eilhart's "Tristrant" represents with substantial accuracy the lost estoire. The main point involved is the different conception as to the duration of the influence of the love-potion. In the Beroul version, so similar in many respects to that of Eilhart, this influ- ence lasts only three years; in Eilhart it endures in full strength for four years (until the end of the forest episode), but then weakens, although it never ceases entirely; in Thomas and the prose "Tristan" there is no abatement of the influence, as long as the lovers live. According to Bedier, the concep- tion of the estoire is reproduced by Thomas; according to Miss Schoepperle by Eilhart. The difference of concep- tion, we may remark, affects especially the portion of the narrative in the two versions which follows on the return of the lovers from the forest. In re- gard to this question, we should our- selves be inclined to side with Bedier. It is difficult to believe that in the primitive form of the story any term was set to the efficacy of the love-potion. Miss Schoepperle, herself, seems to grant this. Now, inasmuch as Thomas sets no such limit, it is likely that in this feature he represents the estoire most exactly, for otherwise we should be obliged to suppose that the author of this lost archetype of the extant ver- sions modified the original conception, but that Thomas, who was drawing ex- clusively from the estoire, changed It again in a way that rendered it identi- cal with the primitive conception. This process does not strike us as probable; Eilhart's modification looks rather like an effort to explain the possibility of Tristan's long absence from Iseult of Cornwall, after he had fled to Brittany. There are other evidences of degraded narrative in Eilhart, as in his inade- quate motivation of the false statement of Iseult of Brittany concerning the color of the sails which led to Tristan's death. Miss Schoepperle tries to prove that the German poet here does imply the same motive as Thomas — namely, jealousy — but it seems to us without success. In her discussion of the date of the estoire Miss Schoepperle shows on what slender grounds Bedier has referred this lost romance to the early part of the twelfth century. We agree with her that the evidence on which this con- clusion was based is too uncertain, and that, on the other hand, the ideas of courtly love with which the poem was strongly marked point rather to the second half of the century. Miss Schoep- perle, however, does not seem to note, herself, how important a bearing this question of the date of the estoire has on the old debate as to whether there were Arthurian romances before Chre- tien de Troyes; for, after all, the exist- ence of an early "Tristan" romance sup- plied the strongest argument in favor of that theory. The greater part of the book is de- voted to an analysis of the elements of Celtic and general popular tradition, respectively, in the estoire. No one be- fore Miss Schoepperle has performed this task with anything like the same thoroughness. She appears to have gone through the whole body of extant Celtic saga material (which is, of course, mainly Irish) in search of parallels for the motifs in the Tristan story, and it is safe to say that this part of the work will never have to be done again. The net result is to render it probable that this story of tragic passion owes much more to Celtic tradition than Bedier or Golther has admitted. In some other respects her conclusions do not differ from those of her eminent predecessors. That is to say, she regards the story of Tristan's youth and the story of Iseult of Brittany as of subsequent and non- Celtic origin. It was from such Celtic sagas as that of "Diarmaid and Grain- ne" that the love-story of Tristan and Iseult, in her judgment, was derived. She might have added that the identity of the Tristan story with the Celtic saga just named was a favorite theory with the late J. F. Campbell. Miss Schoep- perle does not attempt to determine in what part of the Celtic territory the legend of Tristan and Iseult had its origin. This is an excellent book. In thor- oughness of research it leaves nothing to be desired, and the reasoning, though close and acute, is always clear. The orderly arrangement of discussion and evidence throughout is one of its con- spicuous merits. It is refreshing to come across a work of Investigation in the history of stories that exhibits so well-balanced a judgment and so true a sense of proportion.
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Feb. 5, 1914] The Nation 137 Public Utilities, Their Cost-New and De- preciation. By Hammond V. Hayes, Ph.D. New York: D. Van Nostrand Co. $2. The volume of literature on valuation of public-service enterprises grows apace, and it is fair to assume that it will continue to grow while the stupen- dous task of railway valuation is in pro- cess of completion. Mr. Hayes has, ac- cording to his preface, attempted to show three things to those whose busi- ness it is to assemble facts for the pur- pose of making a valuation: First, that it is the duty of the appraiser, not to ascertain the fair present value— that function belongs to the court or commis- sion— but to ascertain with accuracy such figures as are necessary evidences of value and loss of value; second, that the original cost can be obtained without inordinate dif- ficulty, and is a figure of importance to those who must rule as to what the fair present value should be; and, third, that depreciation is affected only indirectly by inefficiency, and that as a necessary conse- quence depreciation is dependent wholly upon the relation of the age to the life of the perishable property. His book contains a readable summary of the main principles recognized in de- termining "original cost," "cost-new" or "replacement cost," and of the most scientific methods of treating the mat- ter of "depreciation," and it may be recommended (with Whitten on "Valu- ation of Public Service Corporations") to those who desire such acquaintance with these matters as may become a well-informed layman. The reviewer has no fault to find with Mr. Hayes's discussion of the purely en- gineering and accounting questions in connection with valuation. But in his treatment of "increased land values" he makes it clear that there is some con- fusion in his mind as to the matter of "unearned increment" — so-called — in valuations for rate-making purposes.' He admits that the public service company appealing to the courts for relief against confiscatory rates must receive credit for this "increment" in any statement of "present value," but insists that in the regulation of rates by the State "orig- inal cost" should be the rule for land. And he goes so far as to say, "It is thus seen that there are two different fair present values (sic!) for the same prop- erty— one value to be determined and used by the State in the regulation of rates and another to be determined and used by the courts when a question arises as to whether an imposed rate is equivalent to a confiscation of the prop- erty of the undertaking" (p. 210). With all respect to Mr. Hayes, this is surely not sense, and it may be wondered that, after writing the words "two different fair present values" above quoted, he did not stop and reconsider the whole matter. There may be such a thing as a "fair present value" for taxation and another "fair present value" for rate- making, but there can only be one "fair present value" for rate-making. Mr. Hayes is not the only writer on this subject to go astray on this matter of land values: Mr. Whitten in his book committed himself to almost as great an absurdity by favoring the theory that increased land values should not be al- lowed for rate-making, but should (in some way not explainable or susceptible of rational accounting) be prorated over a number of years and considered as "income"! Apparently, the thing that confuses this question for many people is the uni- formity and extent of the increase in land values generally in the past. Mr. Hayes quotes the Minnesota Railroad Commission (1908) as saying, "It must be apparent to all that if the constantly increasing value of railroad properties is to be taken as the basis for comput- ing proper returns, without regard to the original cost of the same, it is only a matter of time when transportation companies will by absorption own a dis- proportionate share of the wealth of the country" (p. 67). That balderdash of this kind should be uttered by a State Commission and gravely quoted in a serious work shows how much need there is of a clear understanding as to the rights of private capital invested in the public service. Mr. Hayes will help a little to this clear understanding if in future editions of his book he will elim- inate such portions of his remarks on land values as constitute a pronounce- ment on what is and what is not "fair present value." Aramaic Incantation Texts of Nippur. By J. A. Montgomery. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum, Publications of the Babylonian Sec- tion, Vol. III. Professor Montgomery, well known by his authoritative work published some years ago on the Samaritans, has under- taken the very difficult and most un- selfish task of publishing the large se- ries of incantation texts on clay bowls which were found in the upper layers of the mound at Nippur, excavated un- der the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania. The catalogue of the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania Museum counts more than one hundred and fifty speci- mens of such bowls, but a large number are in so fragmentary a condition and the writing on them, moreover, so il- legible that Professor Montgomery was wise in excluding them entirely from his publication. He has confined him- self to forty-two more or less complete specimens, and we wish to commend especially the careful copies of the text embodied in the thirty-eight plates at- tached to the publication. The bowls vary in shape, but most of them are about the size of a modern porridge bowl, with the writing running round the bowl, generally beginning in the centre. The question as to the exact date of the bowls, of which large numbers have been found elsewhere in Babylonian mounds, is an exceedingly difficult one. Some guidance is furnished through the stratum in the mound at Nippur. From this and from other indications Profes- sor Montgomery concludes that the texts should be placed not later than the sixth or the beginning of the sev- enth century. This date will probably turn out to be correct, though, of course, it is possible that some of the bowls may be considerably earlier than oth- ers. The interest of the inscriptions on the bowls is twofold: First, the lan- guage, and, secondly, the proof furnish- ed through them for the persistence of superstitious beliefs in connection with the dead. The language on most of the bowls is Aramaic and closely allied to the variety of Aramaic found in the great rabinical writings known as the Babylonian Talmud. The inscriptions thus furnish new material for the study of the Semitic dialect that was current among the Jewish and Christian settlers of Babylonia after the old Babylonian language had disappeared. The inscriptions themselves are full of appeals to angels, demons, and spir- its, invoking the protection of the good powers and endeavoring to prevent the evil ones from interfering with the re- pose of the dead. The inscriptions thus lead us into a world filled with super- stitious dread of demons, precisely of the same order that we encounter in the ancient religion of Babylonia and As- syria. Indeed, some of the names of the demons are Babylonian deities who have been degraded in their rank. So- we find the Babylonian sun-god Sha- mash, the moon-god Sin, the goddess Nana, and other gods, like Bel and Nergal, invoked. But the main feature of the list of angels, demons, and spir- its is their eclectic character. They appear to be gathered from all parts of the world, though Persian influence is predominant. The formulas themselves used in connection with the invoking or the exorcising of spirits and demons are naturally monotonous — the same ideas are emphasized over and over again. The demons are adjured through powerful charms to flee, not to appear, never to come back, "neither in dream- ing by night nor in slumber by day." In the course of these appeals to the demons curious devices are introduced. So, for example, in one case the for- mula of exorcism imitates the terms of a decree of divorce, some of the terms of which are introduced verbatim. There can be no doubt from the contents of the inscriptions that the Jews and Chris- tians, as late as the seventh century and probably considerably later, still
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138 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2536 clung to the belief that demons were continually lurking near, and that they were particularly dangerous to the dead unable to protect themselves. The bowls, with their magic inscriptions, were, therefore, placed with the dead as a protection, and frequently, to sym- bolize the hoped-for release from the demons, two bowls were cemented to- gether with the representations of the demons on the inside, signifying their imprisonment. The work is thus of interest to a stu- dent of the history of popular supersti- tions, and it is to be particularly com- mended because of the many valuable notes scattered through it. The glossary attached includes the material derived from earlier publications of simil; r texts, so that it is a full concordance for the study of such incantation for- mulas. Notes Messrs. Longmans announce: "The Pass- ing of the Reform Bill," by J. R. M. But- ler, and "The Confederacy of Europe," by W. Alison Phillips. We may expect from Putnams, within the next few weeks, the following volumes: "One Year of Pierrot," by the Mother of Pierrot; "The Marriage of Cecilia," by Maude Leeson ; "The Shears of Delilah, Stories of Married Life," by Virginia T. Van de Water; "The Peacock Feather," by Leslie Moore; "Fremont and '49," by Fred- erick S. Dellenbaugh; "Mountaineering and Exploration in the Selkirks," by Howard Palmer; "The Shadow of iEtna," by Louis V. Ledoux; "The Backward Child," a practi- cal manual by Barbara Spofford Morgan ; Jean Finot's "The Science of Happiness." translated from the French by Mary J. Safford, and the two books by Emile Faguet in translations by Sir Home Gordon — "In- itiation into Literature" and "Initiation into Philosophy." Two new volumes by Samuel Butler, en- titled "The Humor of Homer" and "The Fair Haven," concluding the complete edi- tion of his works, will be issued at an early date by Mitchell Kennerley. The same house has in preparation "Monologues," by Richard Middleton, which, according to a statement by his literary executor, is the last collection that can be made from his manuscripts and papers. The second series of Theodore Hunt's "English Literary Miscellany" is in the press of the Bibliotheca Sacra Company, Oberlin, O. The Page Company of Boston will bring out this season a new book on Bulgaria and Macedonia by Prof. Will S. Monroe. "The Indian History of the Modoc War" has been written by Jeff. C. Riddle, son of Wi-ne-ma, called the heroine of the war, who Is still living. The book Is announced by D. L. Moses, of San Francisco. "Ein Charakterbild von Deutschland," an- nounced by Heath, is designed for German rending in intermediate classes. It has been put together by Elizabeth Merhaut, the Ger- man author, and Prof. M. B. Evans. Mr. John Spargo is bringing out, through Huebsch, "Socialism and Motherhood." Among the books on social questions which Mr. Murray, the London publisher, Is preparing, are a study of the land system by J. A. R. Marriott, and Mrs. Bosanquet's history of the C. O. S., "Social Work in London, 1869-1912." "Morocco the Bizarre," by George E. Holt, and "Troubled Mexico," by Hamilton Fyfe, are announced by McBride, Nast & Co. Forthcoming books of the Oxford Univer- sity Press include: "The Gods of Northern Buddhism," by Alys Getty; "Pestilence in Literature and Art," by Raymond Crawfurd; "The Law of Associations," by Herbert A. Smith; "Bibliography of the Works of Dr. Johnson," by W. P. Courtney, and, in the Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History, edited by Paul Vinogradoff, Volume IV: "The Early His- tory of Contract," by W. Barbour, and "The Abbey of Saint-Bertin and its Neighbor- hood, 900-1350," by G. W. Coopland. The first number of the Political Quarter- ly will be published immediately by the Ox- ford University Press. It will contain arti- cles on the Home Rule situation, the Dub- lin labor dispute, the United States Senate, the registration of titles to land, municipal government in Birmingham, the school in relation to civic progress, the state in recent political theory, and reviews of events — the political year in Canada, the Imperial Par- liament, etc.— and of books. It is said that M. Anatole France is busy on a new work, to be entitled "Les Anges," and the question has been asked whether, in view of his recent visit in England, the title In any way reflects Pope Gregory's "non Angli sed angeli." "La Vie & Paris," the weekly chronicle which the late Jules Claretle wrote for the Temps, will be prepared henceforth by M. Abel Hermant, the novelist. A pension has been given to M. Faguet, who recently retired from a professorship at the Sorbonne, held since 1890. We are glad to welcome the "Collected Poems" (Putnam) of Grace Denio Litch- field, whose work in scattered form has been known to the public for the last two decadls. Brought together in a volume of nearly 350 pages, her verses will impress readers as a substantial achievement whose level is distinctly high. For Miss Litch- ! li I'l has unmistakably real poetic quality. Having gone to school to Keats and Shelley and Tennyson, she has formed the instinct of seeing life in terms of beauty. Indeed, her fluency in contriving choicest imagery is her chief defect. The reading of smh a poem as her "Narcissus" must hold for ordi- nary mortals much of the confused delights hi rushing down a scenic railway past shim- mering landscapes ranging from sunlit glaciers to still and fragrant tropical in lii There is no straining for effect, she manifestly writes as she lives, the votary of precious overtones. Individually, line after line arrests one by its happy effect of pre- cise observation heightened i.y poetic reel- ings. Of a mountain lake she says, Or If DO light was, ilrcw the il:l rkness down Ami wore it like 11 clunk of eiderdown. ID hM fancy, u i id flOOd bAlloelOg up the hind. She makes of Baldur, lying dead, In another poem, A fallen star, lu his own light enshrouded, And coffined in the darkness of the world. Nor is Miss Litchfield's interest confined to the sensuous; the prick of thought is usually to be felt beneath her velvety sur- faces. Besides three long dramatic poems, which it is not necessary to review here, Miss Litchfield's volume contains a hundred pages of short lyrics. On the whole, these do not seem to the present writer to have quite the merit of the longer work. But the lack appears to be owing less to native ability than to choice of theme. The gen- eral tone is forlorn and even a bit melo- dramatic, as if issuing from a heart too much engrossed with the sharp-practice of love. But in a few instances she has achieved perfection, as in the following stanzas: Into my life she came One golden day, Softly as blossoms come Into the May. I only knew that she was there By the fragrance in the air. Into my heart she came One day of days, Stilly, as on night's dark God's stars outblaze. I only knew that she was there By the glory everywhere. "R. L. S." (Macmillan), by Francis Watt, is not a biography. There is not at this hour a deafening clamor for a new biog- raphy of Stevenson. It is not a critical study. To produce that the author would have to probe more deeply for Stevenson's qualities as letter-writer, playwright, rhymer, and stylist, and add another chap- ter on the romancer; he would have to turn a stronger search-light on his women- characters, his religion, his own charac- ter. Perhaps Mr. Watt wishes to satisfy a gossipy interest in "originals." He sure- ly keeps close upon Stevenson's heels among the many scenes and persons that reap- pear in his books, including even the historical characters that creep into them in various transformations. At any rate, between the carmine covers of the volume are most of the matters that would engage that ever new public which knows not Ste- venson but would like to learn from a book that is not too "deep." From the time of the Veda until to-day the singing quality has never been lost from India's voice. It reached its height about the fifth century of our era — that la a millennium and a half gone by — In the poet Kalidasa, the master genius of Sans- krit literature, and one of the world's greatest dramatists and lyrists. With the ini.nl interest in the work of the living Bengali poet, Tagore, it seems particularly opportune now to draw attention to a vol- ume entitled "Kalidasa: Translation of Shakuntala and Other Works," by Arthur W. Ryder, professor In the University of California, published in Dutton's series of Everyman'B Library. In this book the play of "Shakuntala," or "Cakuntala," Is trans- lated In full. The rendering by Dr. Ryder, as a scholar Is thoroughly faithful, even though limited by the wholly Justifiable adaptation at t VAtfari ntyla in English sent what was highly literary In Sanskrit. AhridKinent.s are given of the two
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Feb. 5, [914] The 1ST" a t i o 11 139 other romantic dramas handed down from Kalldasa, together with outlines of the story of the poet's two literary creations in the art-epic line, interpreted through versified sele< tlons in English. E stanzas, well turned in verse, show the beauty of Kalidnsn's poem on "The Sea- sons"; while his lyric masterpiece, the "Cloud Messenger," is excellently rendered In a five-lined rhyming stanza that con- veys an idea of the exquisite poetic feel- ing which runs through the poem in the original Sanskrit. Continuing her studies in mysticism, Miss Evelyn Underhill has turned her attention to the beginnings of Christianity and the early history of the Church ('The Mystic Way"; Dutton). She has succeeded in giv- ing to this much studied subject a fresh and suggestive interpretation. In her view the mystic is a separate species as sharply marked off from the rest of mankind as "normal" mankind supposes itself to be narked off from the higher apes. The mys- tic uses the whole or a relatively large part of man's psychic life, rather than a little patch of consciousness. Under the spur of his vivid faculty of intuition he thrusts for- ward his whole personality on a new path. This step forward in the life of the race is not fully taken until the appearance of Jesus of Nazareth. For the mystery of the mystic way was only partially solved by the Indian mystics. They attained union with reality, but at the cost of forces which should have been stimulated by such union. And the Hebrew prophets gave only a hint of what was to come. In his effort to re- veal the great "secret" Jesus was only par- tially successful as far as his immediate followers were concerned. But Paul and the writer of the Fourth Gospel developed and diffused this new type of consciousness. The fourth Gospel is described as the pro- duct of a mystic seer writing a record of a new kind of life; as an account which tells us more of the writer's experiences than of historical facts in the life of Jesus. After the death of these men the process by which the knowledge of the new way of life is spread is somewhat more obscure. Psychological conversion gives place more and more during the second, third, and fourth centuries to formal belief. The average Christian changed his religion but not his mind. The promise of the "new life" becomes identified not with psychological change but with eschatological hopes. Yet the "new life" flowed on, expressing itself now here, now there, but above all in mo- nasticism. To St. Macarius the Great, writ- ing in Egypt about the middle of the fourth century, Miss Underhill points as the first scientific Christian mystic. By him were the experiences and intuitions of the New Testament giants first reduced to a clear and orderly system. His account is, moreover, touched with the vivid light of personal ex- perience. Nor was it Dionysius the Neo- Platonist, but rather Macarius, that con- stituted the vital link between East and West in the chain of the Christian mystics. He was indeed a thoroughfare of the spirit of new life. Monasticism was, then, an es- sentially mystical movement. It provided a professional training school for the mys- tic, in spite of the fact that its history, like that of the Church, was characterized by perpetually recurring lapses from the mys- tical to the mechanical. In monasticism tlni mystic spirit found a channel on the confines of the Church. But in the Church's I very heart, its ritual, the mystic spirit also created for itself a place in which to live and whence to give forth its influence. In the ritual life of the Church, particularly in the mass, the author attempts to trace a reflection of the experiences of the mystic way. To the American traveller who thinks of Canada as too near to be interesting, or who recalls, after a journey across it, only Quebec and the Rockies, Mr. Joseph K. Goodrich's "The Coming Canada" (Chi- cago: McClurg) may be commended. The historical chapters, which fill a third of the volume, are of the slightest; and the accounts of commercial and industrial de- velopment, railway expansion, agriculture, and sport could hardly be more superficial. For those for whom it obviously is writ- ten, however, the book can hardly help proving useful; and we hope it may in- crease American understanding of a coun- try which not only does most things very well, but which also contrives to manage a number of things — taxation, banking, ad- ministration, and justice, for example — ap- preciably better than we manage them in the United States. A gratifying evidence of the increasing interest in historical scholarship shown by local societies, organized for purposes of good fellowship and the perpetuation of the memory of ancestors, is seen in the occa- sional publication under their auspices of works of a serious historical character. Under the title, "Forerunners and Com- petitors of the Pilgrims and Puritans" (Brooklyn, published for the Society, 1912), the New England Society of Brooklyn has recently issued, in two elaborate volumes edited by Dr. Charles H. Levermore, a collection of narratives of early voyages, designed "to show how many adventurers were visiting, exploring, describing, and even trying to occupy the New England coast during the years immediately preced- ing the successful settlements at Plymouth, Salem, and Boston." The series includes the text of some twenty-five narratives, begin- ning with 1601 and extending to 1625, of voyages to the New England coast, mean- ing thereby the region from Cape Breton to the mouth of the Hudson River. The se- lections are, in a majority of cases, ex- tracts only, and the longest and most im- portant portions are those taken from the narratives of Champlain, Lescarbot, Biard, and John Smith. Though the title is in- felicitous and somewhat obscure, the work is well edited and printed, and brings to- gether for the first time in a continuous series a valuable group of narratives. It bears no marks of either originality or novelty, but it does furnish a convenient collection of the narratives of voyages made by persons other than the Pilgrims or Puri- tans of the Bay Colony to the shores of New England. The editor's introduction on the development of the trading companies is representative of present-day interest in the part which the companies played in the settlement of America, though it might have been made more timely by including the results of recent investigations upon the subject. In 1904. a group of Oxford medievalists planned a calendar of the royal acts of the kings of England from 1066 to 1154, to be issued under the title "Regesta Regum, An- glo-Normannorum," as an "instrument de travail" to assist in their private research- es. All but two of the original collaborators fell away from the undertaking, but the work has gone on, and now the first volume has appeared, "Regesta Willelmi Conquesto- ris et Willelmi Rufi," carrying the subject to 1100 (Oxford University Press). Two more volumes are to follow, one containing the charters of Henry I, a series rich in new documents, and of Stephen, a smaller and less valuable group, and the other the charters issued by the Empress Matilda and by Henry of Anjou in the years 1153 and 1154. The general editor, H. W. C. Davis, has directed the work and coordinated the material, and the other surviving collab- orator, R. J. Whitwell, has given regular and continuous assistance in the search for documents and the preparation of a part of the index. Others, too, among whom is Professor Haskins of Harvard, have come to the rescue, either furnishing copies of documents, contributing notices of printed material, making critical observations, or undertaking the thankless task of reading the proof. The volume now published, which will be the shortest of the three, contains 487 items, chronologically arranged and critically edited, of which 92, hitherto unprinted, are given in full in the appendix. The list covers diplomas, grants, charters, notifica- tions, precepts, confirmations, memoranda, accords, letters, mandates, writs, ordinances, gifts, inquests, and canons, a few of which did not issue from the royal chancery and were not even attested by a sovereign. Some of the documents calendared or printed are pretended, others spurious. The editor's in- troduction, an elaborate and learned dis- quisition, discusses the value of the docu- ments for general history, and contains es- says on the old English chancery, the chan- ceries of William I and William II, an itinerary of William I, the household offi- cials of William I and William II, justice and administration of the charters, a list of manuscript sources, a bibliography of printed books, and an index of grantees and beneficiaries. The volume closes with care- fully prepared indexes of persons and places. For the general student of English constitutional history, the essay on "Justice and Administration" will be found especial- ly serviceable, as throwing useful sidelights upon the subject, though few of the points noted are strictly new. The portions re- lating to local administration and local custom are distinctly the most interesting, and the discovery of three cases of itinerant justices holding iters under William I and William II, such as are afterward found taking place under Henry I and Henry II, is a noteworthy addition to knowledge. SGbastien Castellion's noble plea for tol- erance, the "Traltfe des Heretiques a savolr, si on les dolt pers^cuter," hitherto almost "introuvable," has been known through the extracts in Ferdinand Buisson's "Castel- lion," or In the rare Latin text, "De Haere- ticls an sint persequendl," published at Basel, 1554. Two Genevan pastors, Olivet and Choisy, have published through Julllen of Geneva an excellently printed three- franc relmpresslon of the French text of
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140 The ISTation [Vol. 98, No. 2536 1554 from the two copies still In existence il is. Kid ami Geneva. Pastor Choisy, who Is also professor in the University and au- thor of two volumes on Geneva in Calvin's and Beza's days based on careful research in the archives, stands sponsor for the scholarship of the reprint. In his brief preface he concurs in Buisson's judgment and the testimony of Beza that the "TraitS" was a piece of collaboration mainly by Cas- tellion, who edited it and contributed the two prefaces, the selection from the preface to his own translation of the Bible, and the "Refutation" of reasons for persecution, the last under the pseudonym of "Basile Mont- fort." The "Traite" included selections from Luther's and Calvin's earlier and milder views, from Erasmus, Brentius, Conrad Pel- lican, Urbanus Regius, Augustine, and ear- lier church fathers. The full text justifies Buisson's conclusion that it was "not a mere foreshadowing of tolerance, but a ra- tional and methodical defence of full re- ligious liberty" — though it might be added that Castellion's "principal points of the true religion" could not all be accepted by liberals of to-day. The work refutes Lit- tre's thesis, so far at least as theory is concerned, that there is not to be found a spark of tolerance in the sixteenth century. The editors deserve thanks for making available Castellion's cogent treatise with its real insight into the nobler and more essential principles of Protestant thought. One regrets that there is not some state- ment as to how far the "simplified" spelling of the sixteenth century has been standard- ized, and wishes that Professor Choisy's modesty had not prevented his giving some estimate of the value of the "Traite" and of its place in the history of tolerance. Mrs. Marie Robinson Wright, author, who travelled two thousand miles on muleback in Mexico and Bolivia and three times crossed the South American continent, in 1904 making the record trip over the Andes, died on Sunday in Liberty, Sullivan County, N. Y. She was born at Newman, Ga. She was the author of "Picturesque Mexico," "The New Brazil," "The Republic of Chile," "Bolivia," and "The Old and New Peru." Brig.-Gen. James Grant Wilson died on Sunday in New York city. He was born in Edinburgh in 1832, and was educated in this country, largely by private tutors. He served during the greater part of the Civil War, being active in the Vicksburg campaign, and in 1865 was appointed brig- adier-general. He resigned this post the same year, and lived, with the exception of some years of travel abroad, in New York. For his part in raising a memorial to Co- lumbus in this city he was knighted by the Queen Regent of Spain. As an editor he is remembered for his work on the Chicago Record, of which he was proprietor before the war. He also edited the poems of Fitz- Greene Halleck and other volumes; and was the author of several books, among them "Sketches of Illustrious Soldiers," "Bryant and his Friends," "Love in Let- ters," "Life of General Grant," and "Thack- eray in the United States." The death is reported, on January 15, of Baron Hermann von Soden, since 1901 chief pastor of the Jerusalem Church In Berlin. He was born in 1852 at Cincinnati and was educated at TUbingen. His specialty in scholarship was textual criticism and study of the Holy Land, which he had visited many times. Among his books are "Pales- tine and its History" and a work in four volumes, completed a few months ago, on New Testament texts. The death is reported from Nice, France, of Paul Deroulede, the French writer and politician. He was born in Paris in 184fi. He entered the army, and was captured at Sedan, September 1, 1870. After the capitu- lation of Paris he took part in the second siege of that city against the Commune. He had reached the rank of lieutenant, and had been decorated with the cross of the Legion of Honor, when, on account of a severe fall from a horse, his health was so much impaired that he was obliged to quit the service. He was at one time a Deputy, president of the League of Patriots, and was an ardent supporter of the late Gen. Boulanger. M. Deroulede was noted throughout his life for his patriotic out- bursts in the columns of the newspapers, and his writings led him into many duels. He was banished from France in 1900 for trying to substitute a plebiscitary republic for the parliamentary republic, and re- mained abroad for five years until he was pardoned. His literary work was very ex- tensive, embracing poetry and romance, and patriotic exhortation of all sorts. Science "The Life of the Fly" (Dodd, Mead), by J. Henri Fabre, contains all the essays on Diptera and all the purely autobiographical essays of the "Souvenirs entomologiques." As a whole, the volume is perhaps less im- pressive than "The Life of the Spider," but any of Fabre's writing is eminently readable; his passionate curiosity, endless patience, and life-long devotion to an ideal, are revealed afresh in this new collection of essays. The translation, by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, is of more than usual excellence. More significant even than books dealing with State and county bird-life is J. H. Gurney's "The Gannet" (London: Witherby & Company), which treats of a single spe- cies in 567 unpadded pages. Chapter head- ings give an idea of the range of treat- ment— Names, Distribution, Colonies, Num- bers, Nidification, Habits, Flight, Mortal- ity, Age, Plumage, Osteology, and Anatomy. The work includes an historical preface, bibliography, and five appendices dealing with allied species, tropical boobies, para- sites, historic remains, and fossils. The name "gannet" first occurs in "Beowulf." The part it has played in literature and history, from the writings of old explorers and voyages, down to the most recent tech- nical anatomical treatises, has been care- fully studied and abstracted, one of the best accounts having been written by one Martin Martin, and published in 1698. There are estimated to be about one hundred and one thousand gannets to-day, living in the northern seas. The book contains many beautiful photographs and Is attractively made. At the back of "Wild Animals at Home" (Doubleday, Page), by Ernest Thompson Seton, Is an appendix containing a list of the mammals living in the Yellowstone Park, most of which were observed by the author in 1912. The book deals with bits of the lives of these animals. Their actual hab- its as observed in the Park are supple- mented by tales of earlier days and inci- dents of other trips, the chapters affording easy and light reading, with about the range of treatment of a popular lecture. A few headings selected at random are The Cute Coyote, The Weil-Meaning Skunk, and Sneak-Cats, Big and Small. We could wish that, even in so evidently popular a book, the author had put something of comparative comment, the leaven of a philo- sophic touch here and there. Even a sin- gle page of discussion of the strange in- stinct which drew the bull back to the bloody milk, time after time and finally to its death, would have been much more worth while than the mere narration of the episode. We are glad to read the five "nots" of the beaver, that it neither uses its tail as a trowel ncr uses big logs for its dam; neither drives stakes nor throws trees any given way, and does not finish its lodge outside with mud. But we fear the author is gullible in believing the story of the crippled buffalo bird which wintered with a bull, searching for seeds during the day and roosting at night for warmth deep buried in the woolly fur be- tween the horns of the great animal. Is not the cowbird the buffalo-bird of olden times, and not the normal nesting black- bird? The comical thumb-nail sketches are good, the photographs fair. It is an ideal book for the Pullman car en route for the West. The most important thing which can be said about a book of this type is that the light and frivolous pat- tern of its diction is woven on a frame- work of real scientific truth. Prof. George Poe, cousin of the poet, Ed- gar Allan Poe, and a noted scientist and inventor, died in Norfolk, Va., on Monday, aged sixty-eight. He had been mentioned for the Nobel prize for scientific attain- ment. In 1875 Pro.essor Poe liquefied ni- trous oxide for the first time, which was hailed as a great scientific discovery. He was a native of Virginia and a veteran of the Civil War. Drama Our Irish Theatre. By Lady Gregory. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. $1.50 net. In this book, which she describes as a chapter of autobiography, Lady Greg- ory sketches the origin and early career of the Abbey Theatre. For the most part it is a rehearsal of facts already well known, but her lively relation of them, for the future information of her little grandson, is likely to find many other interested readers. The story of the humble beginnings of the Irish Na- tional Theatre and of the astonishing results achieved, in the face of most dis- heartening difficulties, by the courage, ability, and zeal of a few enthusiasts, has a significance that makes It well worth the retelling. And Lady Gregory, a vigorous and attractive writer, fresh-
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Feb, 5, 1914] The Nation 141 ens it by Intimate reminiscence of her associates in the enterprise of which she w;is always a mainstay. She devotes a particularly interesting chapter to J. M. Synge, his slow and laborious develop- ment as a dramatist, the inspiration that he found in his prolonged sojourns among the peasantry of Western Ire- land, his wit and geniality, when once his natural shyness had been overcome, and his brave but hopeless fight against mortal disease. It was a pity that he could not live to give his finishing touch- es to his "Deirdre of the Sorrows." His tongue was very sharp sometimes. He said of one actress whom he disliked that she turned the Deirdre of W. B. Yeats into the Second Mrs. Conchubar, and he spoke of a vehement English- woman as an example of civilization in its most violent form. Naturally, the point of view of Lady Gregory is characteristically and often delightfully Irish. Nothing in her rec- ords is more amusing than her account of the duel between the Abbey Theatre management and the Dublin Castle au- thorities over the production of "The Shewing Up of Blanco Posnet." In this encounter she had the artful aid and encouragement of that adroit and spe- cious councillor, the author, Bernard Shaw. The play had been banned by the English censor, whose authority does not extend to Ireland; but subordi- nate Castle officials, not wishing to run the risk of offending the powers in Lon- don, asked the Abbey directors to with- draw the play and thus avoid possi- ble trouble, at the same time pointing out that it could not be considered Irish and scarcely came within the limits of the theatre's charter. Into the merits of the question it is not at all necessary to go. What is tolerably plain is that Lady Gregory and her associates quick- ly discerned that the veiled threats from the Castle to annul their patent were in the nature of bluff, and they prompt- ly availed themselves of the opportunity to put the Lord Lieutenant "in a hole." Unquestionably they out-manoeuvred their opponents from first to last, and conducted their campaign with admira- ble tact and unflinching resolution. De- claring that the very existence of the Irish Theatre was at stake, and that they could never accept the principle of subserviency to a British censor, they defied consequences, and gave their per- formance without any interference, gain- ing a big moral victory and reaping all the advantages of a tremendous adver- tisement. It was a master stroke in its way, and the Castle, by its own blunder- ing, was made to look superlatively fool- ish; but Lady Gregory's hearty subscrip- tion to Mr. Shaw's assertion that the piece is one of deep religious intent and purport will provoke a smile. About one-third of the book is occu- pied with the adventures of "The Play- boy of the Western World" in the old world and the new. That play has been the subject of as much discussion as it deserves. Lady Gregory, of course, pays it the tribute of unalloyed admiration. It is, however, worthy of note that, as she remarks, the original manuscript was so full of bad language and objec- tionable sentences that both she and Yeats insisted upon liberal expurgation, which was effected. With a little strict- er editing, possibly, much needless of- fence might have been avoided. She ridicules the stupidity of those who fail- ed to appreciate the spirit of Synge's fantasy. No one is likely to dispute the assertion that much of the characteriza- tion and incident in it is purely fantas- tic, but it was not in the guise of whim- sical or satirical fantasy that the piece was presented, but as a comparatively realistic picture of Irish life and char- acter. There may have been no excuse for the rioting indulged in by the ob- jectors— however much it contributed to the financial success of the production — hut no one should be surprised that, among imperfectly educated Irishmen, a somewhat illusive symbolism should have been mistaken for deliberate mis- representation. Paul Elder & Co. have in press "The Foot of the Rainbow," a drama by Myrtle Glenn Roberts. English translations of Volumes III and IV of Hauptmann's Dramatic Works, now in the press of Huebsch, will be ready this season. The first of the two volumes con- tains "The Reconciliation" and "Colleague Crampton," translated by Roy Temple House; "Lonely Lives," translated by Mary Morison, and "Michael Kramer," translated by the editor, Prof. Ludwig Lewisohn. The other volume has "Hannele" and "The Sunken Bell," translated by Charles Henry Meltzer, and "Henry of Aue," translated by Mr. Lewisohn. Maurice Bourgeois has been authorized to translate into French "The Playboy" and "The Well of the Saints," and has pro- visionally reserved the rights of the other works. "The Playboy" is to appear in the Grande Revue and to be produced by the Theatre Subventionne de l'Oeuvre. We should say that he was exceptionally well qualified to serve as Synge's official inter- preter in Paris. He relishes his author without losing his head over him ; he has digested the history of the dramatic move- ment in Ireland, and his analysis of the European, the Irish, and the personal ele- ments in Synge's work is sounder and full- er than anything else we have seen. To other students of the subject, his biblio- graphical appendices, amounting with the index to more than eighty pages, will be invaluable. There will be a remarkable cast for the coming revival of "The Tyranny of Tears" in London. It will include Robert Loraine, Fred. Kerr, Alfred Bishop, Ethel Irving, and Evelyn D'Alroy. Oscar Asche and Lily Brayton, who have Just returned to England, played foe six- teen weeks in South Africa. Their itiner- ary covered the four large towns — Durban, Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Cape Town — and their repertory included "Kismet," "Othello," "Antony and Cleopatra," and "The Taming of the Shrew." Mr. Asche has taken the Globe Theatre for a season of several months, and "Kismet" will be his opening production. He has in reserve a new play which is the result of a meeting between Sir H. Rider Haggard and himself in South Africa. It is an adaptation, for which the actor is responsible, of Rider Haggard's story of Zulu life, "A Child of Storm." Of this piece Mr. Asche said in a recent interview: "The only white man in the story is Allan Quatermaine. All the rest are Zulus, and one of the reasons of our visit to South Africa was to see the kraals and get the necessary local color." The annual Grasmere folk-play has just been performed. It is called "A Woman of Property." Here is an outline of the plot: A Miss Postlethwaite, a woman of middle age, has suddenly come into pos- session of a rather important fell-farm and an omnibus business. She needs the help of a certain William Braithwaite, a retired farmer who lives near by, to look after her sheep, and she employs Isaac Forrest, a village joiner, to see to her char-a-banc. These men become rivals for her hand and heart, but she is indifferent to both of them. A neighbor, Mrs. Dobson, is taken into her confidence, and Miss Postlethwaite tells her that the only man she thinks would suit her is Mrs. Dobson's brother, John Holmes. Mrs. Dobson goes off determined to bring the match about. But John, as he tells his sister, is "nea hand at coortin," being really in love elsewhere, and Miss Postlethwaite realizes that she had better make up with William Braithwaite after all. William, who knows how the land lies, and that John is determined to leave Mill- beck Farm, determines to help him to mar- riage, and offers him the post of hind at his farm at Scandale. Then Miss Postlethwaite herself proposes marriage to William Braithwaite in the following words: "How wad it be thinks ta, ef thou was to— to gi thy hoose up i' t' village, and come and bide at Millbeck and give an eye to f sheep, ay, and f stock and a'?" To which William replies. "As shepherd does ta mean?" "Nay," she rejoins, "I was meanin — like— as f maister. Will ta come, Wil- liam?" "Why, Matilda," says the old suit- or, "thou knas weel eneuf its whor I've been wantin to be at for years." Many well-known Englishmen are sup- porting the scheme for the establishment of a national festival theatre at Glaston- bury for religious and choral drama. Prep- arations are so far advanced that it may be possible to stage the first production in August. The building will be in the form of an amphitheatre, and will seat about 1,200 people. There will be a suitable stage, with modern appliances, and a hidden orchestra. Prominent performers will be entrusted with the leading parts, and the chorus will be recruited from local choral societies. The proposed theatre Is for "the expression of the national spirit in music, drama, and the all'ed arts." The term "al- lied arts" Includes folk-lore, folk-songs, and dancing. The festival this year will last for one week, during which there will be three performances of "The Birth of At-
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14,2 Tlie JSf'ation [Vol. 98, No. 2536 thur," a music drama, by Regiuald tt, Buck- ley and Rutland JJoughton. A London critic, writing of the perform- ance of Miss Christopher St. John's English version of the old Latin play, "Paph- nutius," by the Abbess Hroswitha, says: The play is one to be seen, and we can hardly imagino that the last of it will have been heard in these two presentments. In spite of a production necessarily ham- pered a little by a transference at short notice from the King's Hall to the Savoy, and of a performance of the title-part rath- er sadly lacking in the elementary quality of a correct memorization, the presentment was followed with deep interest by a large audience. Music MUSIC IN PARIS AND NEW YORK. A wail about musical conditions comes from Paris. Gabriel Astruc, who gave the city a third opera house — the ill- fated Theatre des Champs Elysees, which had to be closed four months af- ter it was opened — has been telling his woes and expressing his opinions, in an article entitled "A Fallen Temple." It was as a temple of music that he built that theatre. He did it in spite of the skepticism of his friends, among them Camille Chevillard, who asked him: "Are you sure that music is loved in Paris?" This eminent orchestra con- ductor understood the situation, knew that there are in that city only ten thousand persons who are willing to spend from 20 cents to $2.40 for a musi- cal entertainment. A Beethoven festival, says M. Astruc, cannot be given in Paris unless some Wagner numbers are interpolated. He thought the Parisians had developed an interest in Russian music, but found that what they really loved was "the Russians" — their costumes, their scen- ery, their dances and fairy-tales; and even this fad was ephemeral. The mod- ern Parisian, it seems, has no time to go to the opera. He goes to his "tango" (as one goes to his club), where profes- sional and business men of every age and size congregate. At eight he goes home, takes his bath, dines, and when all this is done it is ten o'clock — too late for the opera or the theatre; so he takes a peep at a moving-picture show and goes to bed. Sports, tennis, football, polo, golf, bicycling, automobiling, and aviation — all these are hurting music; "it may even die from them." While M. Astruc's pessimism is natur- ally deepened by personal losses, there is nevertheless a considerable amount of truth in his indictment. Paris has fall- en wofully from its former musical pre- eminence, the days when Chopin, Liszt, Meyerbeer, and a host of other foreign musicians joined the French celebrities to make it the musical centre of the world; the days when there were at the OpSra galaxies of bright stars whose names make most of the present-day singers there seem like tiny planets or satellites. But that there is still a love of the best is shown, to name only one instance, by the extraordinary popular- ity of Fritz Kreisler, who can give as many recitals in Paris as he pleases, al- ways to crowded and enthusiastic audi- ences. Nor must we forget the Conser- vatoire and its influence. The brilliant operatic stars that used to shine in Paris have been visible for some decades at our Metropolitan Opera House. We have performances of Ital- ian operas such as the Parisians used to enjoy, but which now are a mere mem- ory. We have performances of German operas far better than the French can hear at home, or even in Berlin, Dres- den, or Munich. In French opera alone are the Parisians ahead of us. We could wrest even that supremacy from them if we would; teste Oscar Hammerstein at his Manhattan Opera House. A comparison of conditions in the French metropolis with those among us cannot but dispel gloomy forebodings about the latter. It is not only the great singers of the operatic and concert stage who come here. The violinists, pianists, and other virtuosos cross the Atlantic in bewildering numbers, and what is sig- nificant is that they usually find our con- cert halls more profitable than those of foreign countries. One of the leading American composers, Rubin Goldmark. whose orchestral works have won admiration in Boston as well as in New York, has been engaged by the New York Philharmonic to deliver two lectures, on February 28 and March 7, at the Hotel Astor. The subjects are: "The Orchestra, Its Instruments, and How They Are Used," and "The Development of Symphonic Music from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Pres- ent Day." On March 25, at the Waldorf-Astoria, there will be an "Evening of Light Music" by the Philharmonic Orchestra, under Mr. Stransky's leadership, for members only, with one guest each. On the "Evening of Light Music" selections from operettas and dance music by such master composers as Johann Strauss, Offenbach, Suppe, Sullivan, and others ("Fledermaus," "Orpheus in Hades," "Beautiful Galatea," "Mikado," waltzes, etc.) will be rendered, giving the rare opportunity of hearing tuneful and light music performed by an organization of the first rank. Lilli Lehmann, an English version of whose memoirs is in preparation, Is the vocal wonder of the age. Born as long ago as 1848, she still sings in opera as well as at song recitals. She will appear in "Don Giovanni" at the Salzburg Mozart Festival next summer, together with Gad- skl, Gteraldina Earrar, and other members of the Metropolitan Opera Company. A few weeks ago she gave a recital In Ber- lin, concerning which the leading critic, Leopold Schmidt, wrote that her voice had all the power and beauty of former days. The audience was disposed to ask for a repetition of every number, and she had to add a number of extras. Liza Lehmann, widely known as the com- poser of song cycles, has been appointed one of the teachers of singing at the Guild- hall Music School. The London Daily Telegraph calls attention to the fact that she used to be well known as a concert singer, and that she has written an ex- cellent book on the art of singing. More- over, "she had the rare privilege of re- ceiving hints from no less a celebrity than Jenny Lind, and also acquired from Clara Schumann the traditions of the Lieder that her husband bequeathed to the world." From England come rumors of a decline in violin playing. Increasing devotion to sports is given as one reason. Another is that people have come to realize that the violin is a difficult instrument. At a recent conference W. W. Cobbett declared that when "bridge" came on the scene after-dinner music was almost knocked on the head. Moreover, the fallacy that music — the art of Bach and Beethoven and such-like virile men — is effeminate was not yet exploded. What he called pleasure-drunkenness was becoming more and more prevalent, and young people were shrinking from hard work, such as was needed for the achieve- ment of efficiency in the playing of stringed instruments. Carl Goldmark, the composer of the "Queen of Sheba," will be eighty-four next May, but he denies he is an old man, be- cause he still can compose. He is at work now on a composition — whether an opera or a symphony he refuses to divulge. Italo Montemezzi, whose "Love of Three Kings" has proved a decided success at the Metropolitan, thanks largely to a good libretto and the delightful art of Lucrezia Bori, has chosen Rostand's "The Distant Princess" as the subject of his next opera. Nikisch has taken up Schonberg. At a recent concert in Leipzig he conducted his "Kammersinfonie." "At the end," we read in the AUgemeine Musik-Zeitung, "there were lively expressions of displeasure, but the applause of the composer's adherents was louder." Art AN "ART COMMISSION MOVEMENT." Our readers may remember that a sort of Congress of municipal art com- missions was held in New York last May. Delegates from seven cities met in conference, accepting the invitation of the New York Commission; and to- gether they discussed the many ques- tions relating. to public art, in cities and States. As a means of giving form to the general conclusions reached, the con- ference appointed a committee to work out a scheme for the further organiza- tion and extension of art commissions in this country. The report of this com- mittee has just been published; and on account both of its subject and of its scope it deserves more than passing ( eminent. We will say at once that any
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Feb. s, 1914] The Nation 143 one desiring copies of this report may obtain them by applying to the Art Com- mission, City Hall. it is not necessary to dwell upon the larger aspects of this movement. Their significance is universally perceived. We are turning our back upon the happy- go-lucky period of our public art. It was for a long time possible for any- body to give anything to a city, call it a work of art, and be sure of having it accepted with thanks. But nowadays we have nearly all gone over to the view that it is necessary to look even a gift- statue in the mouth; to get expert judg- ment about fountains and arches; to prevent court-houses from being made at once robberies and frights. The very conference of last year was a clear sign that the idea of exercising some form of control over municipal art has not only come, and come to stay, but has spread rapidly and widely. What New York has tried to do has also been attempted in Baltimore and Milwaukee and Los Angeles, to mention only a few of the scattered places. The huggermugger era has closed, and we have come out into a new point of view. All that is left to do now is to agree upon the lines of progress hereafter to be followed; and to standardize, as it were, the whole pro- cess of so organizing commissions, with power to supervise and veto, that our public art will be less often an affliction and more frequently a delight. This is the work which the committee under- takes in its report. It presents, indeed, only what it calls "suggestions," but these have been ma- turely considered, and are embodied in the concrete form of draft bills to estab- lish art commissions and define their functions. These proposed acts are in three forms — a bill for an art commis- sion in cities of the first class, one for cities of the second class, and a bill for a State art commission. We cannot go into the details, but it is obvious that they have been studied in the sensible desire to adapt control of public art to differing, and local conditions. Any mu- nicipality or State contemplating legisla- tion of this sort would be sure to find in these draft bills the results of experi- ence and of special skill to guide it. Discussions in the conference last May touched upon a number of points, but the most important of them had to do with the make-up of art commissions and the range of their powers. There is, for example, the question whether an art commission should be composed wholly of professional men — painters, sculptors, architects. The general agree- ment was that the lay element should be represented. It comes in, perforce, in the person of the Mayor, or Gover- nor, who should always be, in the com- mittee's judgment, a member ex officio. But the report, thinks it also desirable that other laymen should be appointed. \ So far is it from the intention to set up artistic exclusiveness. Yet it is felt that no commission should be made so large as to be clumsy, the recommendation being that the membership should not go above nine, or, as a rule, below five. Should art commissions be empowered with an absolute veto? Or should their power be made advisory only? These are vexed questions. The report holds that a municipal art commission should have the final right to say what plans for public buildings should or should not be accepted, what designs for stat- ues or monuments should be permitted execution. But in the case of a State commission, the opinion is that the full veto power could not be wisely con- ferred. It is pretty certain, however, that the advice of a State commission, properly constituted, would be taken with little demur. One recommendation made in the report is obviously of great moment. It is that an art commission should have a continuing right of super- vision over buildings or works of art the plans or designs for which it has ap- proved. As everybody knows, slack or faulty execution may easily lead to what amounts to another work than the one originally accepted. The report urges a form of contract by which final pay- ment shall not be made until the art commission shall have passed upon the completed structure or monument. This is but one indication of the thorough- ness with which the committee has con- sidered all features of the art commis- sion movement. As the American city bids fair soon to come to its own in bet- ter government, it is important that it come to its own, too, in matters of pub- lic art; and we know of nothing more hopeful in that line than this report on art commissions. "Le Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs, et graveura," two volumes of which have al- ready appeared, is nearing completion, ac- cording to an announcement of the publish- ers, Roger & Chernoviz. The general edi- tor of the work is M. E. Benezit. The third Lieferung, plates 41 to 80, of Archiv fur Kunstgeschichte (Leipzig: See- mann), brings the usual interesting array of novelties in excellent collotypes, mostly from originals in private possession. Per- haps the most remarkable works are very fine portrait drawings by Diirer and Cra- nach and a fantastic landscape by Goya, in the Havemeyer collection. A fragment by Crivelli, a series of Legends of St. Bona- ventura by Francisco Herrera, an Annun- ciation by Paolo Veronese, a Honthorst, and a Joos van Cleve portrait illustrate the catholicity with which the editors make their selections. Their enterprise is sug- gested by two publications from the City of Mexico, a Pedro Campafia and a Bouts schoolpiece. Of almost topical interest is a most pacific bust of a bishop, sixteenth century, from the town of Zabern of recent military notoriety. An elementary and thoroughly feminine little book is "First Steps in Collecting" (Lippincott), by Grace M. Vallois, an Eng- lishwoman. It abounds in epistolary sen- tences like this one concerning John Dwight, gentleman potter of Fulham : "He must have been a singular man, one does not believe all the strange stories told of him, but allowing for exaggeration, he must have been what we call a 'crank.' " The work is essentially a compilation, showing no especially important results of research, though the author is herself a collector and descendant of collectors. Fre- quent citations prove her familiarity with the standard works on furniture, pottery, glass, and tableware. She also quotes from books, ancient and modern, which illustrate social or commercial conditions amidst which the objects described were produced and used. She is especially indebted to the "Verney Memoirs." This sentence from the preface truthfully describes the read- able and entertaining pages that follow: My books are not learned — there are plenty of those — but I aim at interesting my readers, and so enticing them towards more robust efforts, when the more tech- nical and advanced books will, I hope, be sought for with ardor. Old English china, in the collector's sense, means porcelain made in England between the middle of the eighteenth century, when the factories at Bow and Chelsea were es- tablished, and 1820, the beginning of the great decadence of the arts of design. This is the period of ceramic history covered by "The China Collector, a Guide to the Porce- lain of the English Factories" (Dodd, Mead), by H. William Lewer. While the book is not intended primarily for experts, it presupposes a certain apprenticeship in collecting. The works described and illus- trated are not usually the great state pieces, but those of a more modest sort, such as a middle-class collector may now and then acquire. Each pottery has a sep- arate chapter in which under appropriate headings are given the main facts about its history, glazes, decoration, production, characteristics, chronology, and marks. These chapters are admirably condensed, as one notes in the summing up of the Lowestoft controversy. Marks are exten- sively reproduced and emphasized, but the author sagely urges that they "must not always be regarded as the sole test of ori- gin or excellence." The illustrations, made from color sensitive plates, are remark- ably good, for an inexpensive book. This work, in a general way, may be recom- mended to collectors who are without ac- cess to larger and more costly works. It Is to be noted, nevertheless, that what Is called china collecting in this country is not concerned with many of the wares dis- cussed by Mr. Lewer. Charles Edmund Dana, well known as an art critic, died Friday at his home in Phil- adelphia. He was born at Wilkes-Barre, Pa., in 1843, and studied In Paris, Dresden, and Munich. From 1893 to 1904 he was professor of art at the University of Penn- sylvania, and since then had been a lecturer at this institution. Among his writings is a four-volume work on "Glimpses of Eng- lish History." George William Sheldon died on Wednes- day week at his residence in Summit, NT. J., at the age of seventy-one years. He was born at Summerville, S. C, and graduated from
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14=4: Tlie Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2536 Princeton in 1863. After being Princeton and an instructor of Oriental languages in the Union Theological Semi- nary, of New York, he took up literature | as an occupation. For several years he | was art editor of the New York Evening Post, and subsequently, from 1890-1900, liter- ary adviser at London of the publishing firm of D. Appleton & Co. Among the books pub- lished by him are: "American Painters," "Story of the Volunteer Fire Department of New York City," "Hours with Art and Artists," "Artistic Homes," "Artistic Coun- try Seats," "Recent Ideals of American Art," "Ideals of Life in France." He re- ceived the degree of L. H. D. from Prince- ton in 1896. Augustus Koopman, American painter and etcher, died on Saturday in Etaples, France. He had held a number of exhibitions in New York in recent years, and a collection of his etchings has a place in the perma- nent collection in the public library. Mr. Koopman was born at Charlotte, N. C, in 1869. He studied at the Pennsylva- nia Academy of Fine Arts, in Philadelphia; under Bouguereau and Fleury, and at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts, in Paris. From 1896 to 1899, he taught painting in Paris, and later lived in London, 1902-6, specializing in portraiture. He had since made his home in France, passing a portion of each year at Etaples, on the northeast- ern coast of France, where there is a large colony of French and American artists. Mr. Koopman was the winner of the first Wil- liam Clarke prize, American Art Associa- tion, Paris, 1899, and among other awards which he received were the second Wana- maker prize in 1908 ; bronze and silver med- als at the Universal exhibition in Paris, in 1900, and medals at the Buffalo and St. Louis expositions in 1901 and 1904, respec- tively. Besides the collection of his works in the New York Public Library, Mr. Koopman was represented in the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, the Con- gressional Library, in Washington; the Philadelphia Art Club, and the St. Louis, St. Paul, and Detroit Art Museums. tutor at kan War, announced a reduction to 3^-, every sort, when engagement in "un- Finance FINANCIAL EUROPE'S SUDDEN RE- COVERY. Last month's remarkable rise on the New York Stock Exchange, having con- tinued to the extent of turning the whole community to prediction of better times, was checked two weeks ago. The period of lower prices and diminished activity, usual on such occasions, fol- lowed; but at precisely that moment, a series of equally remarkable events oc- curred on the foreign markets. Two weeks ago to-day, the official discount rates of seven great European central banks came down. Last Thursday the Bank of England, which had already twice reduced its rate this month, cut it down a full 1 per cent. The Bank of France, which up to that time had kept its rate at the 4 per cent, level fixed in October, 1912, at the crisis of the Bal- These reductions were of high signifi- cance, in their bearing upon the world- wide money situation. The London bank rate has now been lowered three times within three weeks, from 5 per cent, on January 8 to 3 last Thursday, and the present rate is actually lower than any fixed at the end of January in a decade, except for 1909 and 1905. The action of the Bank of France, last Thursday, was of even larger interest, because the maintenance of the "Balkan panic bank rate" had been widely accepted as proof that the French situation was still grave. Simultaneously with these changes in the money market, British consols, long the focus of depression in high- grade investment securities, rose with great violence — touching a price 5 points above that of January 6, and higher than any reached in 1913. French Gov- ernment rentes advanced 2 points, and the general London stock market burst into an enthusiastic rise. There has been much conjecture, of a somewhat bewildered sort, over this sudden and complete change in Europe. The truth is, such a change was long overdue. For six months, financial Eu- rope had been a victim of imaginary terrors; a time was bound to come when it would recognize the facts, and that time was likely to be the hour when the accumulated capital of the European in- vestor was rushing back into the "Jan- uary market.'' But why did those apprehensions dis- appear so suddenly, in face of financial Europe's own obstinate prediction, throughout December, that the reasons for them were sure to continue? Why did the European stringency not turn to ease in July, when it became evident that the Powers would not come to blows; or in September, when any one could see that the Continental markets and the Continental banks had sur- mounted whatever crisis had been ahead of them? That is the really singular problem. It adds to the atmosphere of unreality which pervaded the whole of 1913. In the perspective of later history, it will probably be accepted that there were four separate influences at work in shaping the strange situation which be- gan in European finance in October, 1912, and which has ended only with this present year. The Balkan War, with the heavy burden which it imposed on capital, was one. The breakdown of an over-extended credit position, espe- cially at Paris and Vienna, was another. The crisis in Europe's high diplomacy, over the partition of Turkey, was a third. The last was the extent to which, despite the financial embarrassment brought about by the other causes, Euro- pean capital was still committed to new foreign loans, rashly undertaken in a prodigious aggregate by financiers of derwritings" was the fashion. This final source of apprehension survived, long after the others had been removed. We seem to be hearing less from Eu- rope, since last month's important change in the foreign money markets, of the "impending new flotations" which grew so wearisome from perpetual itera- tion, but which Lombard Street, only a month ago, was confident would stand in the way of return to normal markets during 1914. What has become of them? A not unreasonable theory would be, that there are just as many impending now as there were in December or Sep- tember; that European capital was as well able to absorb them then as it is now; but that not until the test of the New Year money markets had proved how abundant the supply of capital real- ly was, did financial Europe come to understand its own condition. BOOKS OF THE WEEK. Abbott, J. F. Elementary Principles of General Biology. Macmillan. $1.50. Agnew, W. N. The Industrial Traffic De- partment: A Treatise. Chicago: La Salle Extension University. American Bar Association Report. Vol. XXXVIII, 1913. Ashmun, Margaret. Modern Short Stories. Macmillan. $1.25 net. Avebury, Lord. Prehistoric Times as Il- lustrated by Ancient Remains. Seventh edition. Holt. $3.50 net. Benett, W. Religion and Free Will. Ox- ford Univ. Press. Bibliography of Irish Philology and of Printed Irish Literature. London: T. Fisher Unwin. Bostwick, A. E. Earmarks of Literature. Chicago: McClurg. 90 cents net. Burdge, Dwight. Home-Made Verse. Bat- tle Creek, Mich.: The Author. $1. Buttenweiser, Moses. The Prophets of Israel. Macmillan. $2 net. Cabot, R. C. What Men Live By. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. $1.50 net. Caine, William. The Irresistible In- truder. Lane. $1.25 net. Cameron, W. J. In Arcady, and Other Poems. London: Erskine Macdonald. Cannan, Edwin. Wealth. London: Kin? & Son. Continental Legal History Series. Great Jurists of the World. Boston: Little, Brown. $5 net. Crockett, S. R. Sandy. Macmillan. $l.o5 net. Davies. Randall. The Greatest House at Chelsey. Lane. $3. net. Disraeli, Benjamin. Whigs and Whiggism. Political Writings. Macmillan. $3. Diver, Maud. The Judgment of the Sword. Putnam. $1.50 net. Gardner, Percy. The Principles of Greek Art. Macmillan. $2 net. Gillmore, I. H. Angel Island. Holt. $1.35 net. ,,__ Giraud, Victor. Les Maitres de 1 Heure. Paris: Hachette. fir:) bo, C. H. The Art of the Short Story. Scribner. Haines, C. G. The American Doctrine or Judicial Supremacy. Macmillan. $2 net. Hemmeon, M. de W. Bugage Tenure In Mediaeval England. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Herbert, Alice. Garden Oats. Lane. $l.JO net, Hobart, G. V. Boobs. Dillingham. 75 cents net. Hodgea, George. The Battles of Peace; lli. Heresy of Cain. Macmillan. $1.25 net, each. Home University Library. Nos. 73, 74, 75, 76. 77. Holt. 50 cents net, each Jeeaopp, AuguetuB. One Generation of a Norfolk House. Putnam. $2.25 net
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Feb. 5, 1914I The ISTation 1-45 Jost, Ludwig. Plant Physiology. Supple- ment. Oxford University Press. Km.i nth. O. W. The Policy of the United - Towards Industrial Monopoly. (Col. I'niv Presi.) Longmans. is. J. C. Across Siberia Alone. Lane. $1 :;5 net. Lingo, ' L. Bases for Freight Charges. igo: La Salle Kxtension University. Loeb Classical Library. Julian. Vol. [I, i by W. C. Wright. Macmillan. Jl.50. Lutz, O. L. H. The Best Man. Phila.: I.ippincott. $1.25 net. McCain, C. C, and Shelton, W. A. Freight Lessons Nos. 5, 6, 7, and 8. Chi- La Salle Kxtension University. .or, W. A. The Industrial Training of the Boy. Macmillan. 50 cents. Mi nn, M. E. Mrs. Day's Daughters. Doran. $1.25 net. \. B. A Primer of Political Economy. Chicago: McClurg. 50 cents net. Mead, E. S. The Careful Investor. Phila. . Lippineott. $1.50 net. Morley, Viscount. Notes on Politics and History: A University Address. Macmil- lan. $1 net. Moses, Robert. The Civil Service of Great Britain. (Col. Univ. Studies.) 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I Taylor, C. K. Character Development. Phila. : Winston Co. $1 net. Vanardy, Varick. The Return of the Night Wind. Dillingham. $1.25 net. Vedder, H. C. The Reformation in Ger- many. Macmillan. $3 net. PROKOSCH'S LESE- und UBUNGSBUCH By EDUARD PROKOSCH, Profes- sor in the University of Texas. vi+117 pp. 12mo . . 50 cents This attractive first year book pre- sents a collection of forty simple Read- ing Texts, all dealing with Germany. They are so arranged as to enforce sys- tematically the principles of grammar already taken up, and further to give a systematic acquaintance with Ger- many in its various geographic parts, and with German history, life, and lit- erature. Fragen accompany each text, and the explanatory notes are in Ger- man DAVID'S CHEZ NOUS By HENRI C. E. DAVID, Assist- ant Professor in the University of Chicago, x+394 pp., 12mo. 80c. A very elementary reader which aims to provide for beginning French classes the same kind of lively, fresh material and the same spirit of the language that is offered to beginners in German by Professor Allen's successful 13 Herein and Daheim. Mb Henry Holt&Co. JOr «& FRANCISCO GOYA By HUGH STOKES With 48 full-page illustrations. $3.75 net A study of the work and personality of the Eigh- teenth Century Spanish painter and satirist. Goya's life was as full of incident as that of Ben- venuto Cellini. His satire as sharp and telling as Hogarth's. A superb etcher. A famous court painter — and a rabid republican. This eventful life is sup- plemented with excellent reproductions of the ar- tist's work. At all booksellers. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS So°nrk The Flowery Republic By FREDERICK McCORMICK Is the most authoritative work on the new China. 82.50 net. By mail $2.70. D. APPLETON & COMPANY, New York RARE ROOKS Wc can supply the rare hooks and prints you want. 15:{ classified catalogues issued. When in Europe, cull and see us in Munich. Over a million books and prints in stock. Always send your wants to The Ludwig Rosenthal Antiquarian Book Store Hildegardstr 14,Munich,Lenbachplatz 6,Germany Founded I860 Cabi.ks : Lrjnnos. MuNicn Foreign Books and Magazines Correspondence Solicited E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 681 Fifth Avenue, near 54th Street NEW YORK THE PROSE ROMANCES OF WILLIAM MORRIS (LONGMANS' POCKET LIBRARY) A DREAM OF JOHN BALL THE HOUSE OF THE WOLFINGS THE LIFE AND DEATH of JASON NEWS FROM NOWHERE POEMS BY THE WAY THE ROOTS OF THE MOUN- TAINS. 2 vols. THE STORY OF THE GLITTER- ING PLAIN THE SUNDERING FLOOD. 2 vols. THE WATER OF THE WON- DROUS ISLES. 2 vols. THE WELL AT THE WORLD'S END. 2 vols. THE WOOD BEYOND THE WORLD Price of each volume. Cloth, $0.75 net. Leather, $1.00 net LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 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146 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2536 SOME BOOKS FOR LIBRARIES Published by Little, Brown & Co., 34 Beacon St., Boston, Mass. ASCHAFFENBURG, GUSTAV. Crime and Its Re- pression. (In the Modern Criminal Science Series.) 331 pages. $4.00 net. A serious statistical study of a high order, marked by Teu- tonic thoroughness of psychological analysis, lack of senti- mental social ideals and disbeliefs in broad generalizations. . . . This work must rank as one of the classics of Euro- pean criminological literature. — American Laic Review. BARROWS, ISABEL C. A Sunny Life: The Biography of Samuel June Barrows. Illustrated from photo- graphs. 322 pages. #1.50 net. This story of his rarely beautiful and inspiring life is told by his wife with much literary charm and with the sym- pathetic appreciation which came from an active interest and participation of his work. — A. L. A. Booklist, October, 1913. CHAMBERLIN, FREDERICK. The Philippine Prob- lem. With 16 illustrations. 240 pages. $1.50 net. A brief, informing resume of what has been accomplished under American rule, ending with a discussion of Philippine independence. — A. L. A. Booklist, December, 1913. CRAWFORD, MARY CAROLINE. The Romance of the American Theatre. With 64 half-tone illustra- tions. 408 pages. $2.50 net. Miss Crawford has succeeded in adding some flesh to the dry bones of the history of a really notable phase of our na- tional life. — Review of Reviews. FILON, AUGUSTIN. The Prince Imperial. With num- erous portraits and illustrations. 248 pages. $4.00 net. His tutor, in this richly illustrated biography, gives us a vivid account of his (Napoleon Ill's son) charming personality and brilliant mind. — Literary Digest, New York. FULLER, J. BAMPFYLDE. The Empire of India. (In "All Red" British Empire Series.) With 24 illustrations and map. 393 pages. $3.00 net. A complete survey of modern India, this volume is perhaps the best in this series, as well as one of the best which have recently been written on Indian problems. — A. L. A. Booklist, June, 1913. GRIBBLE, FRANCIS. Romance of the Men of Devon. Fully illustrated. 282 pages. $1.75 net. A chatty and entertaining book abounding in curious in- formation and anecdote not likely to be already familiar to the reader. — Dial, Chicago. HOPKINS, TIGHE. Wards of the State. 340 pages. $3.00 net. "An unofficial view of prison and prisoner." — Subtitle. Gives examples from all over the world, has short, simple de- scriptions of finger-print identification, care of criminal in- sane, the book in the cell, and such topics. An excellent general, non-technical work, with less personal bias than most books on the subject, though not as authoritative as Wine's Punishment and Reformation. — A. L. A. Booklist, November, 1913. JACKSON, HELEN HUNT. Ramona. (Tourists' Edition.) With 24 illustrations of actual scenes. 308 pages. $2.00. Attractive edition, well printed on good paper, and illus- trated by twenty-four full-page halftones taken from photo- graphs, to aid the traveller searching for the historical sites of the story. — A. L. A. Booklist, December, 1913. MACOMBER, WILLIAM. Engineers' Handbook on Patents. Illustrated. 288 pages. $2.50 net. The best book of Us type. It shows what an invention is, how to patent, what may be patented, and when there is need of a lawyer. Cannot be taken as infallible as its scope Is limited by Its size, but It gives a great deal of useful Informa- tion will) brevity and clearness. — A. L. a.. Booklist, November, L918 JAMES, GEORGE WHARTON. The old Franciscan Missions of California. Illustrated. 287 pages. $1.50 net. A guide-book in the best sense of the term. . . . Mr. James possesses an abundance of knowledge about the early history of California and the founders of the missions — Boston Transcript. MAHAN, ADMIRAL A. T. The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence. With maps and diagrams. 280 pages. $3.00 net. It offers the opportunity of obtaining a valuable contribu- tion on the first war with England in one attractive volume. — Providence Journal. PAUL, HERBERT. Famous Speeches. (2nd Series.) 382 pages. $3.00 net. Contains the speeches of such famous men as Lord Mac- aulay, Abraham Lincoln, Lord Derby, Lord Beaconsfiefd, Charles Stewart Parnell, Mr. Gladstone, the Duke of Argyll, James Russell Lowell, and others, with introduction and notes. PIER, ARTHUR STANWOOD. The Story of Harvard. With 16 illustrations from drawings by Vernon Howe Bailey. 256 pages. $2.00 net. Story of the founding of Harvard College, its later de- velopment and history, its ancient customs and traditions, and its present undergraduate life, with interesting anecdotes and sketches about the men who have presided over it and about graduates who have become famous men. Good illustrations from pencil drawings.— A. L. A. Booklist, December, 1913. POLEY, ARTHUR P. Federal Systems of the United States and the British Empire. 453 pages. $3.50 net. A comprehensive account of the history, nature, and de- velopment of the four Constitutions of the United States, Canada, Australia, and South Africa. SAVAGE-LANDOR, A. HENRY. Across Unknown South America. With nearly 300 illustrations, 8 in color, and map. 2 vols. 816 pages. $10. net. Account of the daring and adventurous journey under- taken for the purpose of acquiring a first-hand knowledge of the unexplored interior of Brazil, of studying the native tribes and resources, and of reporting upon its possibilities for com- mercial development. The expedition covered also some little- known parts of Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. The book is therefore a scientific record of value as well as a thrilling book of travel.— A. L. A. Booklist, January, 1914. SHELLEY, HENRY C. Shakespeare and Stratford. With 16 illustrations from photographs. 207 pages. $1.25 net. An excellent historical and topographical handbook. The photographs are excellent. The author sticks to facts so far as possible, so that this little volume will be a valuable com- panion to those who intend to visit Stratford. — New York Sun. The Tragedy of Mary Stuart. Fully illustrated. 294 pages. $3.00 net. Concentrates attention on the swiftly-moving fifteen months— on the murder of Darnley, the Bothwell marriage, the imprisonment in Lochleven Castle, and the battle of LangSlde —passing over in the prologue and epilogue the less eventful twenty-four years. A readable, fairly unbiased chronicle based on original and contemporary documents, ninny utilized lor the first time, but not cited. Well illustrated.— .1. //. .1. BookUat, November, 1913. WHITING, LILIAN. Athens, the Violet-Crowned. With 32 pages of illustrations. 361 pages. $2.50 net. But let no reader mistake the worth of the book. It will tell him a great deal about Greek art and life as shown in the architectural and sculptural remains at Athens, ami n «mi tell liim also a great deal about the present aspectl and re sources of thai iiiy- Outlook, New Fork,
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W 38. Ine JNation VOL. XCVIII— NO. 2537 THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1914 Reg. D. S. Pat. Offlee. PRICE TEN CENTS The Truth About the Philippines JUST PUBLISHED The Hon. DEAN C. WORCESTER'S New Book THE PHILIPPINES PAST AND PRESENT By DEAN C. WORCESTER Secretary of the Interior, Philippine Insular Government, 1901-1913. Author of "The Philippine Islands and Their People," etc. This new book may be justly described as the only really valuable, up-to-date and authoritative work on the Philippine Islands. It is a work that everyone interested in our insular possessions and in the future of our Nation should read, especially as the new administration just appointed has once more brought up sharply the whole question of our policy with regard to the Philippines. To bring home to the American people the truth as to the situation in the Philippines, is the pri- mary object of the Hon. Dean C. Worcester's new book on our South Pacific Archipelago, and this work will answer more questions on the subject than any other. The New York Evening Post says : "Timeliness in a double sense adheres to Dean C. Worcester's 'The Philippines.' The question of the Philippines is undoubtedly one which the Wilson Administration will be concerned with when the more pressing problems of domestic legislation and foreign policy are disposed of. About the person of Dean C. Worcester, who is now on the lecture platform in this country, lively controversy has arisen, Mr. Worcester being at the present moment a most active advocate of the retention of the status quo in the Philippines. His knowledge of the Philippines goes back more than twen- ty-five years, to 1887, when he was a member of a scientific expedition to the islands. He made a second visit in 1890. From 1899 to 1901 he was a member of the Philip- pine Commission, and from 1901 to 1913 was Secretary of the Interior to the Insu- lar Government. In 1899 ne published 'The Philippine Islands and Their People.' " This, a record of personal observation and experience, with a short summary of the more im- portant facts in the history of the archipelago, has ever since been the acknowledged standard work of information concerning the Islands. In Mr. Worcester's valuable new work, past and present conditions are minutely reviewed with regard for strict accuracy of statement. The author's position giving him free access to all the gov- ernment records, much of the information thus made available has never been before made public. With practically unlimited material on which to draw in the way of illustrations, very fine and rare photographs intimately related with the text emphasize the lessons which they are respectively intended to teach. The result is a work of the greatest importance as well as of the greatest interest to all concerned as to the future possibilities of the Philippines and as to the course the United States Government should pursue in the interest of the several peopies of the Islands. Profusely Illustrated. Two Volumes. $6.00 net Published by THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64-66 Fifth Ave. New York
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11 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2537 rr The JNation A WEEKLY JOURNAL. FOUNDED IN 1865. [Entered at the New York City Post Office as teooni-oUus mail matter.] The Vatton i* published and owned by the New York Evening Post Co. Oswald Garrison Villard, Presldenl ; John Palmer Gavit, Secretary and Treasurer; Emll M. Scliolz, Business Manager; Paul I'.'ruiT Store, Editor; Harold tleWolf Fuller, Assistant Editor. Three dollars per year in advance, postpaid, in any part of the United States or Mexico ; to "anada $3.50, and to foreign countries comprised in the Postal Union, $4.00. Address THE NATION. Box 704, New York. Publication Office, 20 Vescy Street. CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER. Thh Week 147 Editorial Articles: Wilson and Congress 150 Federal Power and Child Labor. . . . 150 American Judges and the American Temper 151 The Story of a Legislature 152 Parliamentary Bores 153 The Tilden Centenary 153 Special Articles: Franco- Americana 154 News for Bioliophiles 155 Correspondence : Socialist Politics 155 West Point and Annapolis in Civil Service 156 The Beginning of John Brown's Career 157 "Tragic Possibilities" 157 O Henry 157 Literature : A History of Chess 158 The Witness for the Defence.— The Story of Louie 159 The Tale of Lady Daventry 160 The White Sapphire .-.. 160 The Life and Letters of George William Frederick, Fourth Earl of Clarendon 160 The Spiritual Drama in the Life of Thackeray 161 The Ottoman Kmpire, 1801-1913. ... 162 The Vanishing Race 162 Notes 163 Science: Sport and Folk-Lore in the Hima- laya 165 Drama : Three Plays: The Stronger, Like Falling Leaves, Sacred Ground.. 166 Music: Massenet's "Don Quichotte" 167 Art : The Revival of Indian Art 168 Finance : The Question of Business Revival. . 170 Books ok THH Wbbk 171 .JUST PUBLISHED COMPLEX HYPERBOLIC AND CIRCULAR FUNCTIONS VOL. 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Feb. 12, 1 9 14] The Nation 111 THE OPEN COURT PUB- LISHING COMPANY has just issued a new complete Catalog of its Books on Sciences, Religions and Philosophies, of nearly 100 pages, attractively arranged and voluminously illustrated N'')it i'i ee en 1'1 Quest. 122 South Michigan Av., Chicago PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON AND HIS CABINET "Tta New Administration," u de Luxe Brochure Ining Interesting and accurate lives "f the President, Vice President, Members of the Cab- inet nnc Bound In Royal Blue Cloth, with Bold lettering and border, for $1.00. Agents wanted. Address Depl 7 WALTON ADVKRTISING .V PRINT INQ '". I', (i. Box 1758. Boston, Muss LINCOLN Bare Souvenir, very suitable (when fram- ed, with or without portrait) for Library, School or Den. Send $1, currency, for one nf few choice AUTOGRAPH copies ..r slmrt. un- published hut copyrighted poem on Lincoln, by well-known Author. Address: "Lincoln " enre R. I! n . 33 Cornell Avenue. Park Hill Yonkers. N. Y. 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The Flowery Republic By FREDERICK McCORMICK Is the most authoritative work on the new China. $2.50 net. By mail »2.70. D. APPLETON & COMPANY, New York A new book by EDWARD HOWARD GRIGGS THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART The meaning and relation .if sculpture, painting, poetrj and music. The author's most important work so fur published, 12mo. cloth, $1.50 net; by mail, $1.60 B.W.Huebsch.Publisher, 225 Fifth avenue, NewYork JUST PUliLISUEDl Trans Atlantic Historical Solidarity Four Lectures delivered before the University of Oxford in Easter and Trinity Terms, 1913, by CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. C10th,8vo, $1.75 • it la u Fascinating story as Mr. Adams treats It. . . . His analysis of the condl- t i, ,u s which finally determined the sway of Slate sovereignty In the Smith and of na- tional sovereignty in the North is keen. candid and convincing. . . . His ex- amination of Lee's achievements and defeats as a commander is acute and of intense interest." — New York 'rimes. v /,/, ,, '/ booksi tiers. Oxford University Press American Branch 35 WEST 32XD STREET, NEW YORK GRADUATE, AMERICAN, FOREIGN UNIVERSITIES (Ph.D.), specialty Germanics, but having tight Errencb, Spanish, ESagllsh, History, seeks re-engagement, College, Normal, High or Private School, having recently spent three ad- ditional years abroad. Tnt.il European resi- dence, nine years: ten years' experience teach- ing iii College and ili^h School; sonic estab- lished reputation as Anther, Lecturer. High- est possible credentials, references. Salary ear (it engaged early) secondary con- sideration. Might consider rear of substitute work. Address PROFESSOR J., care The Nation. NEW MAGAZINE ON EGYPT An illustrated quarterly magazine, beautifully lllustrated, with news of late discoveries, edited by PROP. PETRIE, began with the January num- ber embellished with frontispiece of jewelry in colors. Price $2 a year. The discoveries by Petrle and others for the EGYPTIAN RESEARCH ACCOUNT (Society) relate to the arts of Ancient Egypt and to its predynantic age. An annual quarto volume, profusely illustrated, and the magazine should be in all public and many private libraries. Circulars of these publications freely furnished. Address REV. DR. \V, C. WINSLOW. 626 Beacon Street. Bust 11. ' 'In buying booths for i our library we are % pretty much governed I by THE NATION; I by its advertising as l Well as its reviews. " \ , Librarian. J Public Library. Letters like the above are frequently received by The Nation, in whose columns IT PAYS TO ADVERTISE I BOOKS I As a weekly review of Lit- * erature, Science, Art and ♦ Politics, it reaches the \ scholar, the student, the i thinker and the profes- t sional man, as well as the homes of people of intel- * ligence; all book readers 5 and book buyers. i Unpopular Government in the United Slates By ALBERT M. KALES This 'illume by a prominent member of the Chicago bar is an especially timely buik, presenting with great clearness an 1 in | mimic of the political needs of the country, particularly the necessity of the short ballot. The author points out that the establishment in the United States of state and municipal governments, according to the plan of splitting up the power of gov- ernment among many separate offices and requiring the widest and most frequent use of the elective principle, has cast so great a burden upon the electorate that an Intelli- gent citizen is reduced ti a slate of political ignoraace inconsistent with self-government. Ibis situation lias made it possible for a well-organized hierarchy to acquire the real power of government and to retain it. in the face of popular disapproval, for selfish ends. He discusses various expedients for restoring the American Ideal of democracy and considers constructive proposals like the commission form f government for smaller cities, and the application of the principles underlying this form to larger Cities and the state, and to the selection of Judges. 270 pages, 12mo, cloth; postpaid, $1.62 The University of Chicago Press CHICVfiO. ILLINOIS. AGENTS The Baker and Taylor Company New York TheCambridge Univ. Press, London and Edinburgh Karl W. Hiersemann Leipzig The Maruzen-Kabushiki-Kaisha, Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto FOR SALE AT A MODERATE PRICE A COMPLETE FILE OF THE JOURNALS OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF AMERICA FROM 1885 THROUGH 1913 APPLY TO T. HOAGUE, 84 State St., BOSTON, MASS. AUTOGRAPHS BOUGHT AND SOLD Catalogue of 4485 Titles Free GOODSPEED'S BOOK SHOP BOSTON The o.v/.v itoolc in its Particular liria THE BOOK OF THE EPIC BY II. A. til 'KKIIER II1//1 Hi ill us! rn lions. I2m0. Cloth. ?2.00 net. Postpaid $2.12. "A valuable book — In fact the first hook pub- lished which contains all the (treat epics In Pi it. .1. n. Ltpplncotl Co., Philadelphia, Pa. JUST hUBL'S.JLD A New Novel by HAMLIN GARLAND The Forester's Daughter A Love Story of the West — ^ l( Altl'ICll A niiO'l'llrlHS. i SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS First Folio Edition. Edited by Char- lotte Porter. 40 vols. Cloth, 75c per \ol ; leather, $1.00 per Vol. "By all odd* the best edition now accessible." — [The Living Age. THOMAS Y. CROWELL CO., New York
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IV Th© Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2537 AMONG THE NEW BOOKS OF E. P. DUTT0N & COMPANY PUBLISHERS NEW BOOKS REISSUES OF IMPORTANT NOVELS THE WAY OF ALL FLESH By SAMUEL BUTLER A novel which such men as Arnold Bennett and George Bernard Shaw rate as "one of the great novels of the world." It is interest- ing too for what it reveals of the character of the famous author of "Brewhon." Cloth, net $1.50. THE GREEN GRAVES OF BALGOWRIE By JANE H. FINDLATER Cloth, net $1.35. OVER THE HILLS By MARY W. FINDLATER Cloth, net $1.35. Intensely vivid pictures of Scotch life and character, with an undercurrent of keen Scotch wit, and that singular charm of spirit which dis- tinguishes the work of the authors of "Crossriggs," etc. A NEW NOVEL BY TICKNER EDWARDES HONEY-STAR An interesting story set against the fragrant back- ground of an English bee- keeping countryside. By the author of "The Lore of the Honey-Bee." Cloth, net $1.35. NEW VOLUMES OF THE WISDOM OF THE EAST BUDDHIST SCRIPTURES A selection from the Pali. By E. J. THOMAS Net 70c. THE DIWAN OF ZEB- UN-NISSA From the Persian. Net 70c. ABU'L-ALA THE SYRIAN By HENRY BAERLEIN Net 70c. Carriage extra, hv mail, 5 cents per volume. A HISTORY OF RUSSIA By V. O. Kluchevsky Professor in the University of Moscow. Vol. III. Just ready, net $2.50 The Set of Three Volumes. Now complete, net $7.50 The final volume of the only History of Russia which gives any complete and rounded view of each period surveyed. Fearless in his criticisms, as well as independent in his methods, the author discusses the economic, legal, and re- ligious institutions of ancient and modern Russia as well as its political history. THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE NEW COLONIES UNDER LORD MILNER, 1902-1905 By W. Basil Worsfold In two volumes, with a map. Demy 8vo, net $7.50 An adequate account of the exceedingly important administrative work done in political and economic reconstruction of the former Boer Republics. It is based on much unpublished material, and is a record of the solving of problems common to all colonies in which any work of reconstruction is necessary. THE PRESS GANG AFLOAT AND ASHORE By J. R. Hutchinson Illustrated from rare prints, etc. Cloth, 8vo, net $3.00 Interesting from very different aspects. It is a lively history of a system of obtaining men for the navy which was certainly the grossest imposition to which a free people ever submitted. It was a large factor in bringing about the War of 1812. From another point of view it is the story of a running fight between the growing power of Trade, claiming exemptions, and the Admiralty seeking men. A vivid and racy book. A PEPYS OF MOGUL INDIA, 1653-1708 A popular abridged edition of the "Storia do Mogor," by Niccolao Manucci. Translated by William Irvine. Edited by Margaret Irvine. With frontispiece. Demy 8vo, net $3.50 A naive and entertaining narrative of what the great Venetian adventurer saw and said and did, and his intimate observations of the life of the Moguls such as few Europeans were able to make. THE ROMANCE OF NAMES By Ernest Weekley Author of "The Romance of Words." Cloth, 12mo, net $1.25 Full of bits of the curious and often romantic history to be discovered by searching into the origin of surnames. RELIGIOUS ART IN FRANCE, XIII CENTURY By Emile Male Translated by Dora Nussey, with 189 illustrations. Royal 4to, net $6.00 The aim of this book — which was crowned by the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres — is to read the riddle of mediaeval art through mediaeval literature. It is full of interest and significance, both for the student and for the traveller — especially the traveller in northern and central France. EAT AND GROW THIN By Vance Thompson An account of the famous "Mahdah Diet." Cloth, 12mo, net $1.00 A collection of menus and recipes specially designed for people who are trying to reduce their weight and their fat. It includes the famous "Mahdah Menus," hitherto unpublished, for which Americans are paying fifty-guinea fees to leading London and European fashionable dieticians, York Davis, Doyen, and others. THE TRAGEDY OF EDUCATION By Edmond Holmes Author of "What Is and What Might Be." Cr. 8vo, Cloth, net $1.00 An essay upon present methods, suggestions for remedying their defects, and an interesting study of the methods and Ideals of the Montessor] System of Education. THE NEW BOOKS OF ALL PUBLISHERS, WHEREVER ISSUED, ARE FOR SALE BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY publishers 681 FIFTH AVENUE new york
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The Nation *EW YORK, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1914. The Week The maximum strength developed by the supporters of the Burnett-Dilling- ham Immigration bill, which was pass- ed by the House last week, fell short of the two-thirds necessary to pass the bill over a Presidential veto. The bill was passed by 241 votes to 126, but Representative Goldfogle's motion to recommit the bill and strike out the literacy test rallied 140 votes against 239. Assuming that this latter vote rep- resents the temper of the House on the epecific issue of a literacy test, it is plain that a veto by Mr. Wilson could not be overriden in the House. A transfer of five votes from the minority to the ma- jority last February would have put the bill on the statute-book in spite of Mr. Taft. It would need a change of four- teen votes from the present showing to pass the bill over Mr. Wilson's head — not a very wide margin, but wide enough, if one considers how bitterly tought the issue and tightly drawn the lines. Hence it is more than ever the duty of the President to make his oppo- sition to the bill effective. "No merger" is the answer of the Maine Progressives to the suggestion that they join with the Republicans. No other answer was possible in the pres- ence of the eminent anti-mergerist, Mr. Perkins, whose record in such matters is part of his country's proudest history. The temptation to unite with their for- mer associates was rejected the more easily because of the assurance that the National Committee would send both money and men into the State to assist in the fight. Party loyalty and the nat- ural human inclination not to allow any- thing to go to waste unnecessarily thus combined to insure the continuance of Democratic success in the State of Reed and Dingley. A stranger to our politics might suppose that it was the Democrat- ic National Committee that was promis- ing sinews of war to one wing of a di- vided foe, but this would be to apply logic to politics too thoroughly. Think of the glory of the Maine Progressives in defeating, not one party merely, but two; and if worst comes to worst, there is always the certainty of a moral vic- tory. It is difficult to believe that William Allen White and the Emporia Gazette take Armageddon as seriously as they ought. Just because that newspaper, long the only Republican paper in its county, by turning Progressive has left "hundreds of sincere and worthy men and women without a party organ," it will, during the coming campaign, "print, without charge, as news, the Re- publican ticket two or three times a week." Republican announcements will be accepted at the usual rates, but Dem- ocratic announcements, as heretofore, will not be accepted at any rates, "as the Democrats have their own paper." More: Mr. Mason, who contributes a column in the paper, is free to support the Re- publican ticket and the Republican can- didates, if he chooses to, and during- the months of September and October the Republican State and county committees may have a column in the Gazette, with- out price, to edit as they please. Speaking for an Absent One, we desire to know why a Progressive newspaper should give any space to Republican lies when from the very beginning of the Progressive movement the columns of all of the important newspapers have been closed to it, under orders from Wall Street. A short-ballot measure for New York State elections has been introduced in the Senate by Mr. Murtaugh and in the Assembly by Mr. Stoddard. It proposes an amendment of the Constitution pro- viding that the Secretary of State, the Attorney-General, the Treasurer, the Controller, and the State Engineer shall be appointed by the Governor, these ap- pointments not to be subject to confirma- tion by the Senate. They are to be re- movable at the pleasure of the Governor without limitation, except that in the case of the Controller a statement of the reasons for the removal must be given to the incumbent. If this amendment should be adopted, the only offices ap- pearing on the general State ballot would be those of Governor, Lieutenant-Gover- nor, and judges. The sentiment in fa- vor of the short ballot is strong and gen- eral, and we believe that opposition to it is very slight among the members of any party, exclusive of those who are "in politics." It is difficult to point to any public end that is served by the election of the heads of the State depart- ments that would not be better served, or at least equally served, by their ap- pointment by the Governor. The fur- ther shortening of the State ballot by the elimination of the judgeships — either through making them appointive or through holding judicial elections at s different time — would add greatly to the benefit sought by this proposal. Necessity is the mother of scientific financing. Of this fact, New Jersey is the latest exemplar. With expenditures outrunning receipts, her legislators are now forced to consider the problem of the State's finances from the point of view not of political advantage merely, but rather of financial sanity. If a di- rect tax were not so fearsome a thing, nothing, apparently, would stand in the way of voting money without reference to revenue. But elections may turn on the imposition or the increase of a di- rect tax, and so there is nothing for it but to resort to downright study of the balance sheet. This is very dull com- pared with the careless acceptance of whatever estimates the State depart- ments happen to submit, but it is a ne- cessity in more States than New Jersey. What a well-regulated Government might be expected to do instinctively we are thus forced to do by the woful con- dition of our State finances. Some sav- ings will doubtless be made in New Jer- sey as a result of close examination of the existing budget, but they will almost certainly go only a small part of the way towards turning a deficit into a surplus. The Legislature will have to face the hard alternative of not attempting so much or finding the money to pay for whatever is attempted. Secretary Rex has compiled a table showing the expenditures by American cities of 30,000 or more population for municipal market facilities. Of the 193 cities of this size, 14 reported expendi- tures of more than $10,000 each in 1911; 50 spent between $1,000 and $10,000; 45 expended less than $1,000 each. This has to do with Chicago's munici- pal-markets commission. A represen-
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148 The 1ST a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2537 tative of South Water Street itself tes- tified that the business done there, of $250,000,000 11 year, is "wasteful, un- economic, and unsanitary." Small dis- t ursements for retail markets are in general profitless unless preceded by a building-up of wholesale terminal mar- kets. The Chicago commission believes that the first step is the establishment of such a central wholesale market. The City Club committee of New York, which studied the local problem in 1912, sim- ilarly reported that the retail markets were conducted at a loss, and that "the institution of properly located wholesale markets . . . would seem to be the policy for the future." No American city has yet organized markets that com- pare with the better ones of Europe. The Halles Centrales of Paris cost about $10,000,000, and the Berlin system $7,- 000,000. The political outlook in Pennsylvania is more interesting than any that has been presented in that State for several decades. The announcement that Rep- resentative A. Mitchell Palmer is a can- didate for the Democratic nomination for the Senatorship, with the backing of President Wilson, at once gives the situ- ation national importance. It is half a century since the country has thought of the possibility of any such represen- tation of Pennsylvania in the United States Senate. Not only has the State been sure to send to that body hide- bound protectionists, but the Senator- ships have been regarded almost abso- lutely at the disposal of the Republican machine built up and controlled by the Camerons and Quay. Mr. Palmer repre- sents the opposite of all this; and the significance of his candidacy is ac- centuated by the statement, which he makes in announcing it, that, as he un- derstands, "Vance- C. McCormick, /of rfarrisburg, who from the beginning has been a leader in our movement in Penn- sylvania, will be a candidate for Gover- nor." With the Progressives in the field to divide the Republican vote, and with Gifford Pinchot as their probable candi- date for Senator, the prospect of Palm- er's succeeding Penrose is distinctly en- couraging. This result would be justly acclaimed as a big showing for the di- l' ction of United States Senators at one of its first important tests since the adoption of the Seventeenth Amend- ment. Southern Senators who have always been loud in asserting their Interest in wedding the negro to the soil now neat- ly contradict themselves in connection with the Lever bill. Its purpose is to further agricultural education by grant- ing $480,000 immediately, $3,000,000 ulti- mately, for "cooperative extension work" between the State agricultural colleges and the Department of Agriculture. One would think that Senators Smith and Vardaman would leap at an opportunity to train the negro for farm work, and thus keep him out of other occupations. Instead, they are fighting tooth and nail for a provision that appropriations made to each State "shall be administered by such college or colleges as such State may direct"; with the avowed object of permitting Southern Legislatures to cut off every cent from institutions for ne- groes. To the amendment of Senator Jones, guaranteeing to colleges for the colored their share, the Senators retort with their threadbare argument that the negro can never amount to anything ex- cept by white guidance, and must there- fore receive all his money through the whites. What has become of all their protestations that the negro's place is on the farm? That "there are 2,273,603 illiterate males of twenty-one years of age and over in the United States" is a statisti- cal fact, and it is a fact of importance. What ought to be done about it is a question worthy of attention. But the additional statement, made in the report of the House Committee on Education, that this number is "enough to deter- mine any national election at any period of our history" is childish nonsense. It would perhaps not be worth commenting en were it not an example of a vicious custom, extremely common among re- formers of all sorts in our time, of blow- ing great bubbles of imaginary evil out of the figures relating to whatever thing the particular reformer is interested in. The evil of illiteracy is what it Is; why try to make of it what it is not? As to the figures themselves, however, it is to be noted, in the first place, that of the 2,273,000 illiterate adult males, only 617,000 are native whites — includ- ing both those of native parentage and those of foreign or mixed parentage. The aegro illiterates, 810,000 in number, .ire, of course, almost entirely Included among the Inhabitants of the Southern States in which the negro vote is power- less to affect the result; and, what is a more cheerful tiling to point to, that Dumber for 19 lu stands against 976,000 lor 1900 — a decrease of 157,000 in the number of illiterates among the negro male adult population, while the total of that population shows an increase ot 398,000. The process of improvement is not as rapid as it should be, but it is going on. As for the foreign-born adult males, the total number of illiterates among them is 788,000; and in view of the fact that about this amount of net immigration takes place every year, that it takes five years for an immigrant to be naturalized, and that many never get naturalized at all, it is safe to say that only a small fraction of this 788,000 are voters. But a most interesting point re- mains, concerning the natives of for- eign or mixed parentage. These (we are speaking of the adult males all along) number in all 4,500,000; and among this great multitude only 60,000 are illiter- ate. The proportion of illiteracy in the second generation of our immigrants was thus, according to the Census of 1910, only 1.3 per cent, as against 4.2 per cent, among native whites of native parentage; and as against 2.0 per cent, shown for that same second generation in the Census of 1900. We confess to being deeply disappoint- ed with Mr. Henry Ford, of Detroit. In response to a telegraphed invitation from a member of the State Executive Committee of the Progressive party ask- ing him to accept the party's nomina- tion for Governor, he has said no — it be- ing obviously proper for a party so em- phatically devoted to the rights of the people to offer the Governorship by tele- graph through a member of the State Executive Committee. We are disap- pointed with Mr. Ford, because in so re- fusing he has written himself down as inconsistent. Initiator of the most far- reaching scheme of profit-sharing on rec- ord, Mr. Ford has refused to join hands with the greatest profit-sharing political party on record. Rlghl from the start the Progressive party has shown its readiness to embrace si srj popular imii vidual in the vicinity, and to share the profits of his popularity with him. To be prominently in the public eye, to evince the promise of greal Btrength at the polls, has been accepted is proof
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Feb. 12, 1914] The Nation 149 that a man was born to be a Bull Moose For Mr. Ford to refuse to share the profits of the huge advertising he has recently enjoyed is, as we have said, inconsistent. Could the flabbiest of mollycoddles have spoken out so sharply against the excesses of athleticism in the colleges as Mr. Courtney, of Cornell, did the other day? In speeches before Cornell alumni associations in the West, the greatest of American rowing experts, the field-mar- shal of countless victories, has explicit- ly declared that the legitimate work of the university is suffering from too much athletics. Too many men on pro- bation are on the football team, the track team, and even the crew. The strain of too many games and races is bad for the men. The extraordinary de- velopment of athletic finance and poli- tics is bad for the morale of the uni- versity. The plea that the good ath- letes are the men who succeed in life will no longer hold. Business men were formerly glad to procure the services of college graduates who had distinguished themselves in athletics, but this is no longer the case. The heads of great man- ufacturing concerns would rather have men who attended to their class work. The reason, indicated by Mr. Courtney, but not put in so many words, is that probably the athlete of former days was an all-round man, whereas to-day he is an expert — and little else. It is proposed to alter the name of the Ohio State University to the University of Ohio. The matter is highly compli- cated. In the first place, the name Ohio State University was chosen to distin- guish the new institution from the older Ohio University at Athens. To change the name to the University of Ohio, it is objected, would obscure the distinction between the two universities in the pub- lic mind, and thus be a breach of cour- tesy towards the Athens institution. That is, there is a greater difference be- tween the names Ohio University and Ohio State University than between Ohio University and the University of Ohio. Apparently, the authorities of Ohio Northern University and Ohio Wes- leyan University are not particularly concerned with the proposal. The Leg- islature, or somebody, should do some thing to keep these various Ohio Uni- versities from being confused with one another. The case is similar to that of the American Boy Scouts and the Boy Scouts of America. Those who watch developments in journalism with something of a profes- sional interest will keep their eyes on the experiment which the Philadelphia Public Ledger is making. At a time when there is so much hasty talk about the need of making newspapers cheaper and commoner, the Ledger, under its new management, has boldly struck out in the opposite direction. It began by abandoning its Sunday "comic" — that feature of American journalism which is so utterly incomprehensible to intelli- gent foreigners. The Ledger also raised its price to two cents, and set about giv- ing the money's worth. It prints more news than any one-cent paper can, and looks carefully after its quality. Its ad- vertising rules have been revised with a view to correct standards invariably maintained. In a word, the Ledger, in- stead of flinging itself upon the love of sensation and vulgarity, has made its appeal to intelligent readers. We claim that the repressive method has been tried and tried unsuccessfully for over a dozen centuries, and has suc- ceeded only in making this subject [sex] — a subject full of deepest beauty and truth — a matter of shame, secrecy, un- cleanness, and dirty jokes. Thus one ardent defender of the new sociology. It is a confession of faith which invites much speculation, but for the moment one point will suffice. Where do the new sociologists get the an- thropologico - statistico - historical infor- mation which they bring forward so eas- ily for our confounding? Just how did the writer in question determine that it was a dozen centuries ago that the sup- pression of sex discussion began? How is it to be reconciled with the other equally authoritative and familiar state- ment that the suppression of sex and sex-frankness began about ten thousand years ago when the "matriarchate" went to pieces, and male dominance took its place? Did Puritanism begin twelve centuries ago? Was Fielding suppressed in the eighteenth century? Amazing! Here are the Frazers, the Leckys, the Havelock Ellises, who spend a lifetime in formulating the merest timid approx- imations to the history of human institu- tions, and along comes Vassar, '08, or Columbia, '11, and has no difficulty in asserting that in 776 a. d. the sex taboo fell upon Europe, and in 1649 the pall of Puritanism settled over England. Where do they get it all? Mr. Balfour has been performing an extraordinary intellectual feat. It con- sisted in giving the Gifford Lectures ^t Glasgow University, in which he dealt with the most abstruse subjects of phi- losophy, metaphysics, and theology, with- out a manuscript. All that he had be- fore him was some notes on the back of an envelope. Few men in the world could be so sure of thinking on their feet, or finding the right word, when treating of topics which demand the clos- est application of the mind. And it must also be remembered that Mr. Bal- four was addressing a highly cultivat- ed and critical audience. Its composi- tion was humorously defined by a uni- versity poet, at the time when Max Miiller delivered the first Gifford Lec- tures, thirty years ago, as follows: . . . There were bookworms, lank and bilious, There were sons of the Bill and the Brief and the Till, All sleek and supercilious; . . . Theologians wise, in such glossy ties, That they shone like the face of Moses; And elderly dames, of Progressive aims. With spectacled Roman noses; And Queen Margaret girls, their teeth like pearls, And their cheeks as red as roses. Now it is Sweden which suffers with a. rush of militarism to the head. The reason — there is always a pressing rea- son for armaments — is found in Russia's military preparations in Finland. An amazing Power, this Russia. Eight yea™ ago the world was sneering at the Colos- sus of the North with the feet of clay. To-day Russia is the trump card for the jingoes of almost half a dozen nations. Sweden is warned against Russia. Aus- tria-Hungary has just been told that Russia has sworn never to rest until her flag floats over the Carpathians. Ger- many's great war-loan was largely con- ditioned by the supposed revival of Rus- sia's military strength. Rumania will be urged to defend her recently acquired gains from Bulgaria against Russian re- sentment. In the Far Kast, China is arming against the Czar, and Japan nat- urally watches Russia with mistrust. In the meanwhile the Russian General Staff must be wishing that things within the Empire were only half as well as the jingoes across the border insist they are.
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15Q T h e Natio ri [Vol. 98, No. 2537 WILSON AND CONGRESS. The President is about to make a new pnd severe test of his influence with Congress. He has let it be known that he is against the clause in the Panama Act exempting American coastwise ves- sels from Canal tolls, and will urge Con- gress to repeal it. But instead of ad- dressing himself directly to Congress, he has given out a letter which he has writ- ten to Mr. Marbury, of Baltimore.' It states his position unmistakably, and with a courage and moral elevation which command admiration. Not for him, he declares, is it to indulge in a haggling debate when the national hon- or is involved. If there is even a doubt that we are keeping our solemn prom- ises, if our adherence to our pledged word is so much as debatable, then the case has already gone against us in the high court of honor. Having blundered, or been betrayed, into a false position, there is nothing to do but to retreat from it without quibbling, evasion, or delay. Let Secretary Knox, if he will, set up a pettifogging defence to Great Britain's charge that we were proceed- ing in violation of a treaty; let him call Sir Edward Grey's attention to the fact that no "actual injury" has yet been done, insist that the whole question is as yet "contingent," and gravely remind the English Secretary for Foreign Af- fairs of a forgotten maxim of "munici- pal law"; President Wilson will have none of these tricking facilities. He goes straight to the moral core of the whole matter. Undoubtedly, there are difficulties to be met in Congress. A first obstacle to be got over is the Baltimore plat- form. It roundly declared: "We fa- vor the exemption from tolls of Amer- ican ships engaged in coastwise trade passing through the Panama Canal." A large and rational view of this declara- tion would be that it was inserted into the platform by three or four men, that it was never discussed by the Conven- tion, probably not one delegate in fifty having even heard of it, and that it is absurd to suppose any such chance ut- terance to be binding on the party. We admit, however, that it will be difficult for Mr. Wilson, after some things he has said about the platform, to dispose of the matter In this way. In addition, he has to face the fact that a decisive majority in both Houses voted for the exemption clause. To induce Congress to reverse itself is harder than to per- suade it to venture upon new legislation. Nevertheless, it is already evident that Mr. Wilson's direct and forcible appeal to the honor of the country is having its effect, and that without any prolonged fight Congress will repeal the clause granting exemption to American vessels. It is obvious that this Panama tolls matter does not stand by itself. In the President's mind, it must be linked with the whole aspect of our foreign rela- tions, at present, and particularly with the trouble and peril which threaten us in connection with Mexico. We do not know what Mr. Wilson said to the Con- gressmen on the foreign affairs commit- tees whom he summoned to the White House a fortnight ago, but what he might well have said would be some- thing like this: "Gentlemen, we are fac- ing a delicate and even critical situation. To refrain from going into Mexico with arms in our hands, and at the same time to satisfy European Powers and Japan that their interests there are safe, is immensely difficult. We have to call upon all those nations to exercise great forbearance. Their patience and their good will we court and we need. Now, I put it to you whether, in these circum- stances, we ought not to do everything in our power to display our good will to them. If any one of them says that we are not living up to a treaty with it, ought we not to look earnestly into the rights of the matter? If several of them say that we are pigeon-holing arbitra- tion treaties which we asked them to negotiate, ought we not to brush the dust off those treaties and ratify them as soon as possible? If Japan is sensi- tive about any action in Congress against her citizens in this country, pending a new diplomatic arrangement covering the question of Japanese immi- gration, ought we not to refrain most carefully from any such action? The plain truth is that we are asking the Powers to act in concert with us about Mexico, and that it would be the height of folly not to remove every possible cause of friction with nations whose help we are seeking. As we cannot think of going ahead with a policy of isolation, the only thing for us is to show the greatest friendliness and fair- ness when we turn to acting in unison." If the President makes his pica to Congress and the country in some such manner as this, there can be little doubt of the result. The Chicago Inter Ocean, not friendly to President Wilson, recent- ly spoke of his "visible control over Con- gress," which it frankly said was "greater than that of any other Presi- dent within living memory." It pro- ceeded to give several reasons in expla- nation, such as the disappearance of once-powerful Democratic leaders in Congress, the number of new men there who feel that their political lives de- pend upon doing what Wilson desires, and so on. Some force must be conced- ed to this, but the true account must not omit to reckon with President Wilson's unusual qualities and with the directness and effectiveness of his methods. He is not afraid, on occasion, to go against powerful party leaders. Both Mr. Un- derwood and Senator O'Gorman are strongly for the Panama-tolls exemption, for instance. On some features of the currency bill, the President asserted himself in opposition to several Demo- cratic "war-horses." He has succeeded, thus far, by going at the business in the most straightforward way, by quietly as- suming that Congressmen are his "col- leagues," and by bringing his powers of reason and persuasion to bear at the points, not of least resistance, but of greatest. It is because he has been thus inventive, while perfectly simple, as a President anxious to compass certain legislation, that he has been so fascinat- ing a study to those who like to see how old government institutions can be made to start into fresh life and vigor in new hands. FEDERAL POWER AND CHILD LA- BOR. Congress has gone so far as to provide that no work for the United States Gov- ernment, even on private contracts, shall require full-grown men to work more than eight hours a day. Unless some Constitutional question is involved, which we have not been able to discover, we do not see how Congress can refuse to pro- vide at least as much protection for lit- tle children. These remarks of the Secretary of the National Child Labor Committee refer to the bill, introduced at tho instance of that committee last week, prohibiting the shipment in interstate commerce of goods produced by any establishment in which child labor — as defined In tho bill — is employed. With the object aimed at in that bill, the elimination of child
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Feb. 12, 1914] The ]STatioii 151 labor, it is needless to say that the Na- tion is in hearty sympathy. But to has- ten its accomplishment by such a strain- ing of the Constitution as would be in- volved in this bill — in essence identical with the Beveridge bill of six or seven ,igo — would be dangerous. Mr. Lovejoy may be quite right in the opinion, indicated in the foregoing quo- tation, that such a law would not be de- clared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. The power conferred on Con- gress by the Constitution "to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several States" is not limited by any words of that instrument. What limit, if any, the Supreme Court would regard as set by the whole spirit not only of the Constitution but of our entire polity as it has existed in fact from the foundation of the Union, we cannot pre- tend to predict. But the burden of main- taining the spirit of the Constitution, the spirit of our whole life as a nation, cannot justly, and cannot safely, be plac- ed exclusively on the shoulders of the Supreme Court. In the largest way, this duty rests primarily on Congress and the President. And the issue brought up by this bill is one that concerns the larg- est way imaginable. Nobody pretends that the measure proposed has for its real object the regulation of interstate commerce; its real object is the regula- tion of the ways of life of the people of the several States. And the question before Congress is whether its power over the commerce among the States shall be used as a club to compel any re- form of conditions within the States which a majority of Congress may deem desirable. The passage of this bill would be a precedent of almost boundless po- tency for the assertion, as occasion may present itself, of Federal authority over one department after another of the life of the people of the several States. If experience showed that the end could be attained in no other way, it might be urged that the importance of the specific object outweighed the grav- ity of these general considerations, seri- ous as they are. But no such plea can be maintained. It is true that in a num- ber of States progress in the abolition of child labor has been slow. But in many of the States it has been very rapid; and in those which have remained back- ward as to legislation or administration or both, public sentiment is evidently gaining force at such a rate as to In- sure the achievement of the purpose in a fairly near future. Nor are we requir- ed to rest on experience relating to this matter only. The closely related sub- ject of workmen's compensation has had a history of the most significant charac- ter. State after State is adopting ad- vanced measures for lifting from the working people the burden of distress due to industrial accidents. And the comprehensive body of laws adopted by the State of New York for the general improvement of factory conditions, after only a year or two of agitation of the subject, bears eloquent witness to the possibilities of separate State action on this whole class of questions. The ola cry that no State will act upon them be- cause of the fear that other States may not do the same has lost almost all the force that once was ascribed to it. The means necessary to the effective enforcement of a national child-labor law give added emphasis to the objec- tion that lies against it. Its advocates complain of the inadequate enforcement of existing child-labor laws in some of the States, quite as much as the slowness of others in adopting such laws. In order to insure the enforcement of a national law, therefore, it would obviously be nec- essary for Federal authorities to inter- fere, on an extensive scale, with a mat- ter touching in an intimate way both the lives of individuals and the conduct of private business. Any one can see how far this would go towards breaking down our traditional ideas of the limita- tion of Federal power; how easy it would be to justify by the precedent any new invasion of the domain of local self- government. The figures of the national census show a rapid diminution in the percentage of child labor engaged in the country's industries. The Childen's Bu- reau was instituted by Congress less than two years ago, and its publicity work is sure powerfully to stimulate this movement throughout the nation. To rush into a measure of national com- pulsion in these circumstances would be, in our judgment, a deplorable error. AMERICAN JUDGES AND THE AMER- ICAN TEMPER. In this city two judges were this week pronouncing sentence in two cases of un- usual interest. In both cases, the guilt of the accused had been established, to the full satisfaction of the court. Judge Thomas sentenced the brothers Littauer to six months' imprisonment for smug- gling and conspiracy to defraud the Gov- ernment; but he suspended the sentence, so that it becomes inoperative except as a personal humiliation. Justice Jaycox sentenced Cassidy, the boss of Queens, to eighteen months' imprisonment for the attempted sale of a judgeship, and de- clared that no lighter punishment could meet the requirements of justice. That the judge who did not flinch from the imposition of the penalty was right, and that the other judge's clemency was mis- placed and regrettable, is doubtless the general opinion, and it is emphatically ours. But the remarks addressed to the guilty men by the judges in passing sen- tence have something in common which throws an instructive light on the gener- al course of criminal justice in this country- Judge Thomas castigated the Lit- tauers severely, but felt that their public humiliation was sufficient punishment; Judge Jaycox sternly performed his duty as to the sentence, but felt that it was no more than fair to give Cassidy credit for courage in his career as a politician. And in all probability it was no more than fair. It gave the judge a certain feeling of acting "on the square" with Cassidy; there was about it a human quality to which every American instinc- tively responds. We cannot find it in our heart to blame the judge for it. And yet in their own way these friendly and sympathetic words addressed to Cassi- dy betray, as does in a different way the leniency shown to the Littauers, a weak- ness which, in one form or another, is continually manifested by American judges. It goes against their grain to maintain, in a case of which the "hu- man side" has been in any way brought sharply home to them, that cold, inflexi- ble, and impersonal attitude which is an essential element in the effective opera- tion of the criminal law. Paradoxical as it may seem, it is largely owing to our very democracy that our courts are open, so much more frequently than those of less democratic countries, to the charge of being respecters of per- sons. Inflexibly to set aside one's own impulse to be humane and considerate, when that impulse is Inconsistent with the stern requirements of the judicial of- fice, requires a constant and paramount sense of the elevation and isolation of that office; and this runs counter to our democratic habits of thought— indeed, it
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152 rJ? li e JNT a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2537 runs counter to the national good nature \\ blob is closely related to our democrat- ic habits of thought. But in actual operation all this works out results the reverse of democratic. For it is quite out of the question to carry on the ordinary business of the criminal courts in any such spirit. In grinding out their daily grist of com- monplace convictions and sentences, they act mechanically enough. It is only when there is some special appeal to the feel- ings that there is a chance to get the human sympathy of the man interposed between the criminal and the sternness of the judge. And this can be done a hundred times for the man of wealth, the man of good standing in society, the man with powerful or respectable friends, to once that it can be done for the poor and friendless violator of the law. The feeling that has grown up, with only too much basis, that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor, owes its origin in the main not to corruption, not to legal chicanery, not even to any class partiality, but to the accessibility of our judges to the effec- tive human appeal of any individual case. This being impossible in the com- mon run of cases, we have the spectacle of the noteless and humble ruthlessly condemned to suffer the full penalty of the law, while those who in one way or another stand out above the crowd have a chance for some form or other of miti- gation in their punishment. Unfavorable comparison of our crim- inal justice with that of other nations is no more familiar than is the like com- parison in regard to our elementary and secondary education. It is constantly pointed out that our young people take a year or two longer than those of Eu- ropean countries to be prepared for uni- versity studies, and that when they do take up those studies their preparation is found to be less thorough. Now, what- ever other causes may contribute to this, we feel sure that there is almost com- plete unanimity among competent au- thorities that the predominant cause is the lack of rigid discipline. And this is no accident. The severity of an exact- ing discipline at school, a discipline bas- ed on the idea that the claims of schol- arship are paramount and that the busi- ness of the teacher is to assert them as ?n undeviating rule, is not congenial to the American temper. If teachers or school authorities were to attempt to en- force it, they would have not the sup- port but the opposition of the typical American parent. When we really wish to have it, wish it from our hearts, we shall get it. And so, too, we shall get a firm ana unsentimental administration of justice when we desire it from our hearts; we shall not get it so long as, in our hearts, we care more for the claims that the individual culprit may have on our forbearance or sympathy than for the stern demands of a justice that is really and truly no respecter of per- sons. THE STORY OF A LEGISLATURE. From San Francisco comes a volume giving an account of the California Leg- islature of last year, the session made nationally notable by the visit of Secre- tary Bryan in connection with the Asi- atic exclusion legislation. The story as told is a long one, but readable and apparently fair. It is written by Mr. Franklin Hichborn, the correspondent ot the Sacramento Bee, and is the third such publication he has put out. His previous volumes are credited with hav- ing been' read by every newspaper edi- tor and every candidate for the Legisla- ture, and with having had much to do with recent political developments in California. The session of last year at- tracted wide attention. It was the first Legislature in regular session under the initiative, referendum, and recall, under the legislative recess arrangement, and chosen at an election in which women participated. No act could become a law until ninety days after the Legislature, had adjourned, and not then if the ref- erendum was invoked against it; in that case, it had to await the verdict of a popular vote. The Legislature was overwhelmingly Progressive. This fact, coupled with the fact that the preceding Legislature had been Progressive, too, and had thrown off the railway domination which had long prevailed, put the session of 1913 in a peculiarly favorable position for constructive work. The old engine had been relegated to the scrap-heap, and The People — Mr. Hichborn always capi- talizes the words — had only to open the throttle of the new one. But difficul- ties confronted the majority at the very beginning. A proposal was made for a I non-partisan caucus to decide upon the I officers of each house. Objection was made, however, that such a joint cau- cus was unprecedented; it was almost equally hard to arrange a caucus in which party Progressives and progres- sive Republicans could all participate. But why, with a large Progressive ma- jority, bother about Republicans of any sort? Well the "logical candidate" for President pro tern, of the Senate was a hold-over Republican who could not see his way clear to entering a purely Pro- gressive caucus. In the end, however, good officers were chosen, including the "logical candidate" for President pro tern. But the distribution of patronage was not affected by the new political ideals. It "was conducted upon the same vicious sysiem of division among mem- bers as had ruled during the days of 'machine' domination." Nor can a favorable verdict be passed upon the subsequent proceedings of the Legislature. As Mr. Hichborn confesses: "For the first time in the political his- tory of California, the Legislature was put to the test of constructive work. It was found unequal to the task." The most conspicuous cause of this failure, we are told, was the lobby. What! one exclaims, a lobby in California? What was the recess for if not to give The People op- portunity to say what they liked and what they did not like among the bills that had been introduced? This was the idea; moreover, "the Legislature had acted in accordance with the spirit of the new provision" by not passing many bills before the recess. It also provided for distribution of the bills throughout the State, each member being permitted to send full sets to as many as ten con- st ituents. Thus "the Legislature had done its part. It remained for The Peo- ple of California to do theirs." But con- sider what this meant. There were 5,738 bills and 149 constitutional amend- ments pending. One newspaper divided these into 227 sections, and published a synopsis of each bill and a complete in- dex. Another devoted two columns a day to them, but managed by this meth- od to deal with less than one-seventh of the total number. The upshot was that one or two measures especially brought to tho public attention wore aided by the recess. On the other hand, even the weapon of the recess was seized upon by favor-seeking persons to ad- rance their interests, and Tho Peopli were either puzzled or deluded by 10018 Of them! Vet Gov. Johnson and the Pro
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Feb. 12, i f> 14J The Nation 153 gressives were in absolute control. One thing is evident: there is no short and easy path to political perfection, and it is time that root-and-branch reformers ceased to cajole The People into think- ing that there is. PARLIAMENTARY BORES. A member of the House of Commons was one of the speakers the other eve- ning at a dinner of the Authors' Club in London. For years, he said, he had watched with fascinated interest a group in the House that provided a goodly quantity of material for sketch-writers; he meant the Parliamentary bores. They consisted, he explained, of three classes. There was the unconscious bore, a pa- thetic type of man, who thought that he was giving pleasure, and so went on in order to give more. Then there was the semi-conscious bore, almost but not quite pathetic, a man with lucid inter- vals during which it occurred to him that he was not altogether a success; he went on in order to achieve that only half-won success. Finally, there was the open, avowed, brutal bore, who knew what he was doing and gloried in it. He always "went on." Besides these out- and-out bores was the expert, not neces- sarily a bore, but often falling into that class. For instance, the educational ex- pert. How numerous this group of bores has sometimes been thought to be was illustrated by a remark made to the speaker when he first went into the press gallery. Finding there a veteran of forty years' service in reporting what took place on the floor below, the new- comer spoke of what a bore it was when men made such long speeches. The philosophical reply was: "My dear fel- low, what does it matter? If one fool is not talking, another one will be." Would it be treason to wonder wheth- er, along with more important things, we have inherited from the mother of Parliaments the tendency to have states- men Who think too little, and who talk too much? One recalls the immortal figure of the Representative from Buncombe County, who frankly confessed that his flow of words served no public end. Arizona was the proud sponsor of another such orator not many days ago, when Sena- tor Ashurst was under the painful neces- sity of actually preventing a vote upon a measure which he is desirous of bring- ing to a vote, owing to the fact that he had a three hours' speech in his system which he had to get out. The Senate rules are careful to provide that, in a contingency of this sort, the vote must not be taken until the speech has been delivered, since it is better that ninety- nine measures should be talked about than that one should come to a vote. It was all very well for Byron to write: His speech was a fine sample, on the whole, Of rhetoric, which the learn'd call "rig- marole." But where has freedom flourished with- out a vast deal of rigmarole? Indeed, if mere survival is anything, the Parliamentary bore is justified. Every legislative body has tried to sup- press him. And it has done this by more than formal resolution. Formal resolution may be adequate for such matters as declaring war and making peace, but no one knows better than a Congressman that, for the really dis- turbing things of life, more drastic ac- tion is required. This drastic action has been taken. The rising of the bore to address the chair has been made the sig- nal for general withdrawal on the part of his audience. Has this affected the man with a speech tearing at his vitals? Quite the contrary? Deprived of the ears of his contemporaries, he addresses those of posterity, and as a consequence probably lengthens out his remarks fur- ther than was his original intention. It is occurrences like this that show how completely we are under the control of convention. Otherwise, would not every Parliament have a rule that A might speak whenever and as long as he pleas- ed, but that B could have the floor for only five minutes every other Monday? There is a slight approach to this ideal in the practice of our House of Repre- sentatives in extending the time of a member who is pleasing it, but how of- ten this means merely amusing it! One result of this custom is to drive the bores to seek election to the Senate. We should not let our prejudice against Parliamentary bores carry us too far, however. The peril in the situa- tion is seen when it is asked who shall be the judge of the facts in the case. A man who shakes his fist at the backs of his retreating colleagues and thunders after them that their seats may be va- cant p.-rmancntly because they refuse to heed his words, is likely to be the big- gest bore of all, yet he may turn out to know what he is talking about. In this instance, the country decided that La Follette's enemies were the bores, or at all events the greater bores. Then it must be recognized that one man's bore is another man's delight. There are peo- ple who are actually thrilled when a man in a frock coat extends a long arm into the air and gives vent to his con- victions on the subject of what William Sulzer is and is to be. The discouraging thing is that the method we are told to follow with reference to other ills is in- applicable to this one. What can't be cured, we are admonished, must be en- dured. But endurance is the very thing that the Parliamentary bore craves and, alas, usually gets. THE TILDEN CENTENARY. Commemoration of the hundredth an- niversary of the birth of Samuel J. Til- den is not due to any fond cherishing of his personal qualities. He was not a man of fascinating gifts. It was not within his power to bind great numbers of men to him in warm and devoted friendship. His was a cold nature. Nor can it be said that a fame which has mounted since his death, or the discov- ery of unsuspected virtues in him through the publication of letters and other documents, has heightened admira- tion for the man himself and led to the celebration of his centenary. Tilden was in no way ennobled or made to seem an ideal figure by what was put in print about him after he was gone by even so sworn and loyal a friend as John Bigo- low. In his "Recollections" Mr. Bigelow does not attempt to conceal the some- what disappointing impression that Til- den made upon him after the loss of the Presidency. There are, indeed, many dis- counts to be made in the total estimate of Tilden's title to long remembrance. But frank mention of them does not, af- ter all, alter the fact that he played a great and worthy part in our history, and that he deserves to be recalled and praised for what he wrought. It was his rare good fortune i date his name as leader with a period of political re-birth. To-day it is hard lor any one whose memory does not go irivldly to the yean L872-1874 to realize the atmosphere then enveloping American politics. It was a sordid time. Public life had seemed to go not only
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154L The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2537 stale but corrupt. What befell the Re- publican party, drunk with power, one needs only to turn back to the famous speech in the House of that good Repub- lican, George P. Hoar, to understand. His arraignment of his own party for corrupt tendencies is good historical evi- dence, on Voltaire's theory that we are safe in believing the evil which public men assert, not of their opponents but of their associates. It is certain, at all events, that a great many Americans vere depressed and almost despairing in the face of political conditions in those years. Lowell s poem on Agassiz dates from 1874, and he wrote in Florence of the "festering news" which came from the United States — public scandal, private fraud, Crime flaunting scot-free while the mob applaud, Office made vile to bribe unworthiness. Now it was at such a time that Sam- uel Tilden gave promise of a better day. By his great services in the uncovering of Tweed's rascalities, by his determined and successful fight upon the Canal Ring — made up, as it was, of thieves of both parties — he made himself a national pro- tagonist of reform. In his attitude and in his ability, people saw a hew hope. And the rising to him was remarkable. It was, to many puzzled Republicans, like the breaking up of the fountains of the great deep. They saw their sons turning eager glances towards Tilden. In the colleges there was a great stir. The hearts of young men burned within them as they read the speeches and the powerfully written messages of the reforming Governor of New York, saw him attack one abuse and fraud after an- other, and make himself the inevitable leader of his party in the nation. A new spirit was abroad in the land. It was, as we have said, a time of political renais- sance; and for the energy which ne, more than any other, imparted to it, for the impetus which he gave to others, for the high hopes which he roused and, in part at least, fulfilled, Samuel J. Til- den is rightly held in undying remem- brance. This was his chief title to fame. He was able, however, to impress himself in many other ways upon his generation. It is needless to dwell upon these now. His skill in the law, his consummate ability as a political organizer, the lit- erary power, combined with political courag", which be exhibited, tor pie, in his letter of acceptance — all these things are of record. But the main rea- son why we pause at the hundredth year since Tilden was born is that it was given to him to energize the reforming spirit in American politics, and to do it at a period when conditions were at their worst and the outlook seemed peculiarly gloomy. Out of him went a virtue which in the lapsing years gave us oth- er men to take bosses by the throat — a Cleveland, a Hughes, a Wilson. Reason enough, then, for marking with a white stone the Tilden centenary. FRANCO-AMERICANA. Paris, January 31. The* first volume of a fifth edition, completely revised and copiously anno- tated, of the "Histoire du Canada" (Al- can; 665 pages, large 8vo, 10 francs), by Frangois Xavier Garneau, is virtual- ly a new book; and it keeps its pecu- liar interest as a French-Canadian clas- sic amid the clash of French and Amer- ican historians. The author's grand- son, Prof. Hector Garneau, of Mon- treal, has supplied the work with an In- troduction, giving a needed account of its writing seventy years ago; constant notes and bracketed additions to the text, bringing it up to the present state of research; and 212 Appendices, form- ing a storehouse of documentary, biblio- graphical, and controversial informa- tion. For the history of Canada was matter of controversy even in the mak- ing, an inevitable consequence of the colonization from the start. This is recognized in the preface to the present volume by M. Hanotaux, of the French Academy: "A double ideal drew to un- known North America explorers and missionaries." Colonial functionaries and traders on the one hand bore uneasily the restraint of the persisting missionary ideal on the other. In New England, the relig- ious ideal held sway as completely and longer; but the missionary element was wanting. In his first edition, Garneau remarked: "The United States owe their greatness, in part, to the Bible's privilege of fanaticising, so to speak, the spirit of the nation for the things of the earth, even more than for those of heaven"; and ho cites the example of the Jews (p. 192). More significant still in the varying evolution of the French and English colonies was the fact that New England virtually gov- erned itself from the beginning, where- as Canada, to the end of French dom- ination, was regulated in each detail of its civil life from the King's Court across the seas. "When I wish to judge the spirit of the administration of Louis XIV and its vices, I have to go to Canada,' said Tocqueville ("L'Ancien Regime et la Revolution"). It is meet and also just that the new and influential Comite France-Amer- ique should choose this work of Garneau for its first publication. Parkman, in spite of many inherited prejudices and natural ignorance of foreigners of the past, has written a real history of the French in North America; but native French writers of to-day scan unable to understand the nature or merit or consequences of the work of Old France in Canada. In the chapter on Frenca colonization written for Seignobos's "Histoire Moderne" by Prof. Albert Metin (Minister of Labor in the pres- ent French Government), a single short paragraph is given to "Catholic mission- aries who came in behind traders and seigneurs" ; by whose means "the Church became and remained the great- est seigniorial landowner of Canada"; who are responsible for "Catholics only being allowed to settle in Canada" (in M. H. Garneau's Appendix, page 574, Cromwell orders that no Catholics be allowed in Acadie, already settled by the French); who "worked for the Church, kept lay Europeans from their villages of converted Indians, and so entered into conflict with the Gover- nor, who wished his authority to ex- tend over all the establishments of French missionaries." Of the French missionaries in Canada as explorers, pioneers, martyrs, even of Marquette's share in the discovery of the Missis- sippi— of that least amount of the his- tory of France in North America which, in the United States, every public-school boy is expected to know and to which Protestant Parkman has given volumes and Congress statues — French Univer- sity students are told nothing. M. Hanotaux has reason to say: "The French will never study the history of Canada enough." This history of Canada by Garneau, even with the new enlightening notes, will not satisfy all parties, though he was "faithful to the end to his Cath- olic faith and Liberal ideas." "He does not see men and things at the religious angle only [in fact, scarcely at all, but the new notes and appendices fur- nish material to allay much controver- sy]. . . . His history is properly the political and lay history of Canada. . . . He prefers to give his attention to the improvement and progress of the colony." With a single chapter for those missionary explorations to which Parkman gave his volumes, Garneau keeps closely to the permanent French settlements. There was a lack of orig- inal documents when lie began his life- work. Before his death in 1866, gaps had been filled, and !n> profited by this in this third edition. Aiti r I five years of patient labor be bad brought his bonk down to L840 Thl
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Feb. 12, 1914) The Nation 155 to his work when the French tra- ditions of Canada were still living and strong. The book holds a place which has not by otuer historians; and it reaches further than mere colonial an- nals. In it, as in reality, world his- tory and local story commingle. The present volume reaches to 1744, when the French colony of fewer than 50,000 souls was strong interiorly, but little supported by the mother country. The competent outsider, Munro, says: "The Canadian habitant was much better off than his prototype, the French censi- taire"; moreover, under early English rule: "If anything, the habitant was worse off than he had been before the conquest" ("Seigniorial System in Can- ada"). "L'AmGrique et le Reve exotique dans la Litterature francaise au XVIIe et au XVIIIc siecle" (Hachette; 456 pages, 12mo, 3.50 francs) continues the inter- esting work which Prof. Gilbert Chi- nard, of the University of California, began with a previous volume on Amer- Ican "exotism" in French literature of the sixteenth century. A further vol- ume on America in Chateaubriand's writings is promised. This is a new and it is a sensible point of view from which to estimate the influence of Amer- ica in European thought. The book is a brilliant example of the method of his- torical inquiry, so favored by the French University of to-day. The author has had to seek out all that was written about America in the various centuries, and then, card-cataloguing endless flches, to bring into rational order the ideas they suggest. The result depends on the assimilative and judicial power of the historian, as it did in the older methods, which could scarcely have been applied to the present matter. Professor Chinard has done his work well. It was worth doing, and it is an important acquisition both to American and French history: Tn a former volume I tried to show how the first travel stories, with their naive enthusiasm for the savages, their admiration for the simple free life of these New World tribes who lived without priest or law or king1 and. most of all, knew no difference between meum and tuum, seemed to foretell the most daring: theories of Rousseau. It seemed to me worth while inquiring; whether some of these ideas which, in the sixteenth cen- tury, had caused a veritable moral revo- lution and been summed up by Mon- taigne in his chapters "Cannibales" and "Coches," had disappeared during a long interval, only to show themselves once more with the philosbphes. Even if they are not to be found in the great litera- ture of the eighteenth century, it is still possible, thanks to the narrations of travellers and missionaries, to follow their development for more than a century, and reconstitute the links of the chain which binds Jean-Jacques Rousseau to Montaigne. ... As a whole, this Americanist literature is very definitely anti-social. It could not be otherwise. After a clear introduction, the first part of the book takes up the Isles and South America, particularly in the ro- mance-writing of the seventeenth cen- tury. The second part follows New France from Jesuits and their adversar- ies to Fenelon. The third takes the eighteenth century to the coming of Rousseau; and the fourth reaches from that prophet of the new age to Bernar- din de Saint-Pierre. There is an excel- lent chronological table of books pub- lished in this matter between 1598 and 1788. The author says far too modest- ly: "In the present state of science, this book could be neither complete nor final." It is competent for its object, and its value is permanent. S. D. NEWS FOR BIBLIOPHILES. In the Athenaeum of July 29, 1876, ap- peared the second instalment of a se- ries of "Notes on Shakespeare's names" by C. Elliott Browne. Among these was one on Lamound ("Hamlet," IV, vii, 93), the Norman whose horsemanship so im- pressed King Claudius. It reads: Lamound, the name of the Parisian friend of Laertes, was thought by Malone to have been formed from La Mode, but it is not impossible that it may be an allusion to Pietro Monte (in a Gallicized form), the famous cavalier and swords- man, who is mentioned by Castiglione ("II Cortegiano," b. I) as the instructor of Louis the Seventh's Master of Horse. In the English translation he is called "Peter Mount." Now, one does not need to refer to the text of the "Cortegiano" or to the note on Pietro Monte in Cian's edition (Bk. I, sect, v, 1. 20) to discover the blunder perpetrated here. Louis the Seventh reigned — most of us have to consult some book of reference to find out when. The Louis of Castiglione's day, the only Louis of the sixteenth century, as we know when we stop to think, was Louis the Twelfth. And the origin of the blun- der seems to be equally clear. Mr. Browne probably sent in the name as "Louis XII"; the typesetter mistook the X for a V (X and V are easily confused in hasty manuscript) ; and the name ap- peared spelled out at length as "Louis the Seventh." Had the numeral been printed "VII," the slip would certainly have been discovered before long, for every careful worker is on his guard against misprints in numerals; but "Sev- enth" does not look as if it could be a mistake for any other number. At this time Dr. Furness was seeing his Variorum "Hamlet" through the press. In the note on IV, vii, 93, he quotes the bulk of Browne's paragraph (including "Louis the Seventh") with the remark: "I regret that these valuable Notes on Shakespeare's Names reached me too late to be inserted in due place in the commentary under the first ap- pearance of each character." Lamound, however, did arrive in time; for his first and only appearance in the play is to- wards the close. The haste with which he was thrust into the commentary is the cause, let us hope, of Dr. Furness's accepting "Louis the Seventh." Once admitted to the respectable com- pany of the Variorum, the blunder be- gan to make its way. Nobody questioned its antecedents; because, for one thing, the reputation of Dr. Furness obviated suspicion; because, for another, nobody took very seriously the allusion to Pietro Monte. The name of the Norman cava- lier ("Lamound" in the folio, "Lamord" in the quartos) was too uncertain for any one to spend time in considering a possible connection with "Peter Mount.'" So the note became a mere curiosity, to be used by successive editors when there was room for it; and "Louis the: Seventh" escaped exposure. To attempt a complete list of those who have helped to keep him in good society would be to break a butterfly up- on a wheel. With the help of a friend, however, I have looked into all but two of the editions set down in the "Cam- bridge History of English Literature," and a few others of credit, such as the Tudor Shakespeare. Several of the editors omit all reference to Browne's idea, but the majority think it worth recording, always with the accompani- ment of "Louis the Seventh." The ma- jority are: 1878— W. J. Rolfe. 1890 — Arthur Symons, Henry Irving Shakespeare. 1895— Israel Gollancz, Temple Shake- speare. 1895 — E. K. Chambers, Arden Shake- speare (D. C. Heath). 1899 — Edward Dowden, Arden Shake- speare (Methuen). I899 — C. H. Herford, Eversley Edition. 1903— Charlotte Porter, Helen A. Clarke, First Folio Edition. 1904 — A. W. Verity, Student's Shake- speare (Cambridge Press). (Repeated in Pitt Press Shakespeare, 1911.) Most of us, as ftoys, played the old game of follow-my-leader. Those of us who have edited classics will have had occasion more than once to join in a variety of it known to commentators. But it is surely not often that so many dis- tinguished litterateurs and scholars may be observed careering along, one after another, into so obvious a mistake, on the heels of a misguided typesetter. R. E. Neil Dodge. Correspondence SOCIALIST POLITICS. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: Recently protests from member* of the Socialist party have appeared in the Socialist press against the order of the Central Committee of Local New York (Manhattan) Socialist party, for- bidding the branches of the local from selling or distributing the New at public or propagandist meetings. The Neio Review is the most scholarly and perhaps the ablest Socialist magazine in the T'nlted States; among its contribut- ors are some of the foremost Socialist! In America and Knrope. The reason why this publication was thus summarily blacklisted and boycotted was because Its
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156 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2537 editor, Mr. Herman Simpson (himself a member of the Socialist party) took occa- sion in a recent issue to publish an editorial over his signature calling- at- tention to thi! extraordinarily large fall- ing off in the dues-paying membership of the Socialist party throughout the United States. After quoting from the Party Builder (published by the national office of the Socialist party, and, therefore, its official organ) that on June 28 last there were nearly 50,000 less members than a year previously, the New Review editorial went on: The statement struck us with amaze- ment. We could not believe our own eyes. At last we concluded that the number given must be due to a print- er's error. To be sure, no candid ob- server could have failed to perceive nu- merous sinister signs that there was something rotten in the State of Den- mark. But a loss of 50,000 members, two-fifths of the entire number of or- ganized Socialists at the end of March, 1912, seemed impossible, inconceivable. But our incredulity soon had to give way to indubitable certainty. The financial report of the national office for the month of June, 1913, shows receipts from dues amounting to $4,084.45, which is the exact equivalent, on the five cents per capita basis, of 80,961 members. The average membership for the first quar- ter of 1912 was given as 125,826, so that there was a loss of nearly 45 000 mem- bers in fifteen months. The printer made no error. The loss Is appalling, but in actual fact it is even larger than is indicated by these figures. We know that from March to midsummer in 1912 the mem- bership of the party kept on growing, although we do not have the figures on hand. An intensely fought Presidential campaign . . . must have brought tens of thousands of new members into the party organisation. The actual loss of members during the past eight months is. therefore, not 50,000, but very prob- ably 75.000. and possibly more. A loss of three-fifths of the membership of the Socialist party organization in so short a period is well calculated to rouse even the most indolent and lethargic among us to serious thought. The New Review editorial then pro- ceeded to discuss what seemed to be the reasons why so large a number of So- cialists had left the Socialist party. It is not the purpose here to enter into any discussion of these impelling reasons, but simply to point out the action following the publication of that editorial. The politicians controlling the party were in- furiated that a Socialist magazine should publish the facts of the tremendous loss of membership under their leadership; evidently what they especially feared was the dissemination of those facts broadcast, both in and out of the Social- ist party. Local New York, controlled by the most powerful of those leaders, soon retaliated by the formal order of prohibition already referred to. Thereupon the Board of Directors of the New Review Publishing Association formally protested against that order. "This board," the protest read in part, "regards the action of the Central Com mittee as a usurpation of authority, which, if permitted to stand, threatens to destroy within the party all freedom of speech and prei and • <■ suppress all honest and free discussion." The bo A ■ md blacl listin however, is still in force; and any mem- ber violating H would soon find a series of charges, entailing suspension or ex- pulsion, preferred against him. 1 have here related the indisputable facts. One more fact is essential. The pretext upon which the Central Com- mittee of Local New York passed this order was that if the facts were known, converts to Socialism would be discour- aged from joining the party! A Former Member. New York, February G. WEST POINT AND ANNAPOLIS IN CIVIL SERVICE. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: The United States Military Acad- emy at West Point arid the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis were estab- lished for the express purpose of pre- paring intelligent and industrious Ameri- can lads for the military and naval ser- vices of our country. They have been successful in their mission, as has been shown by the wonderful achievements of their sons in both governmental and civic activities. They both give promise of a greater future. As the education and training acquired in these academies is exceedingly thorough and of extraordi- narily high grade, there are scores of cadets in both academies who should in the future add to the honor and glory of both their country and their alma mater. Notwithstanding all this honor and glory due to our Government academies, every thoughtful American ought to con- sider their real condition. Although, as stated above, they both give promise of bright futures in many ways, it cannot be denied that they also give promise of serious deficiency of service. This may sound paradoxical, but it is all too true. They not only give promise of such de- ficiency, but they are now, and for sev- eral years past have been, unable to ren- der sufficient service to the nation. It is not the academies that are respon- sible for this, however — it is the fault of the appointing powers. There are but very few competent candidates appointed to the academies, and consequently there are not nearly enough cadets graduating from the academies to supply the con- stant needs of the army and navy. Sta- tistics show us that admission is refused to about two-thirds of all the candidates for these academies because they are ab- solutely unfit mentally, or physically, or both. Most of those to whom admission is refused are rejected because they are so hopelessly unprepared mentally. It is true that the entrance examinations have been noted for their rigidity, but up- on careful investigation we may find that they are no harder than an ordinary student who is preparing for a technical education should expect, and, to quote Col, if. L. Scott, ex-superlntendent of 1 'oint, "it has always been a ct to the West Point authorities that . tin ir enl ranee < its have epi so low, but. it is recognized that they cannot well be otherwise. The class of candidates sent here, as to phys- ical and moral characteristics, in i" the hands of the appointing powers alone." These "appointing powers" air. the nt of the United States and the rs and the Representatives In Con gress. We find that many of their ap- pointees show a serious lack of educa- tion in the very elementary subjects. At a recent examination several candidates even showed unpardonable ignorance of the correct use of their own language. Some of their answers were written in such English as would be almost a de- plorable disgrace to a fifth-grade gram^ mar-school pupil. There are, neverthe- less, as Gen. Barry, the former superin- tendent of West Point, states, "thousands of young men in the country well pre- pared in the required Subjects, who would welcome an appointment to enter West Point." In consideration of this fact, Gen. Barry has earnestly urged that some efficient method might be employed that should cause the competent candidates to be separated from the incompetent be- fore they are examined finally at West Point. We may admit that strong evidence tends to show that the majority of the candidates who enter the academies come to their positions honestly, and that some of our Congressmen are successful in judging their appointees. It is also plain- ly evident that since about 66 per cent, of the candidates recommended fail to pass the examinations, there must be something radically wrong somewhere with the appointing powers. It is true that many Senators and Congressmen apparently select their candidates by competitive examinations. When there is a vacancy in his district, the Congress- man notifies the public through the news- papers that any young man in the dis- trict within the proper age limits may present himself for examination at a designated time and place. The exami- nations are conducted by examiners au- thorized by the Congressman. The ap- parent system is to appoint the com- petitor who attains the highest rank. But since these examiners are selected by the Congressman himself, what is there to hinder the examiners from rank- ing the Congressman's favorite and most influential candidate in such a way as to insure him the appointment? There is abundant evidence that such schemes have been practiced again and again, the supposedly "competitive" examination serving to hoodwink the public. Other Congressmen appoint their fa- vorite candidates outright, without an examination of any kind. It may be that the Congressman has never seen his appointee, and perhaps he has never even heard of him, save through the would-be cadet's rich uncle, or some po- litical demagogue with whom the young man's cousin's brother-in-law has a "pull." Again it should lie stated that it would require a very unreasonably radical person to believe thai such meth- ods are successfully employed by all Con- gressmen, but is ii not readirj possible? An instance in a New Jersey district may be offered as a. typical example. \ certain young man, tin- .'.en of an In- fluential citizen, wished to procure an appointment to the Naval Academy at .lis. I Infortunately, bowe\ er, Ins Con) 1 was of a different polltioal faction from thai of his father, After the lad bad spent about three years in ;i inn I'll \11napol1s. and al t6r hav ing virtually given up all b"i"' o1 pro
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Feb. 12, 19 1 4] The Nation 157 curing the appointment because of tlfe lack of political "pull," the father was Interviewed by one of the Congressman's faction workers. The latter informed th< Catbei that the Congressman's faction 1 his political influence, and prom- ised him that his son would be appointed to Annapolis if he would but turn to the opposite faction. The father refused to accep1 the bribe, and thus disgrace him- self. Consequently, his son did not re- celve the appointment, and there is ab- solutely no hope of his ever receiving it from that district while such political demagogues reign there. In place of the present unsatisfactory ing candidates for West Point, Col. Clarence P. Townsley, the i superintendent of West Point, urged in his recent report to the War De- parttnent the adoption of an open com- petitive system as follows: 1 I ie cadetships belong to the people of the district, State, Territory, etc., and should be open competitively to all the youths eligible to compete, and it is my recommendation that a law be enacted requiring competitive examinations to be held for each vacancy; that youth to be appointed who passes successfully the best mental examination and who is physically and morally qualified. The 1 amination questions should be prepared by the Academic Board, and a successful passing of the competitive examination should qualify a youth to enter, so that no other mental examination need be re- quired. The details of conducting such examinations should, I think, be left to the Secretary of War. By announcing in the local papers some ten months or a year in advance that such a competitive examination will be held, stating its scope, it is believed that there will be a large number of eligible youths who will pre- sent themselves for examination in each district from which a vacancy is to be filled. A system quite similar to that proposed by Col. Townsley is now used in select- ing men from civil life to be second lieu- tenants in the regular army and in the Marine Corps, and it has long since proved a success. Should this method be adopted for the selection of cadets for both West Point and Annapolis, all va- cancies at the academies would be filled, and the academies would then be able to supply the demands for more trained of- ficers in the army and navy. James Milton Conover. St. Matthew's School, Burlingame, Cal., Jan- nary 31. THE BEGINNING OF JOHN BROWN'S CAREER. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: I desire to call attention to a source of information in regard to John Brown of Osawatomie, which has been overlooked by his biographers. I refer to a series of Pioneer Reminiscences of the Western Reserve by his cousin, Rev. Edward Brown, published in 1892 in the Northwestern Congregationalist, Min- neapolis. In one of these articles the writer narrates an Incident which fur- nishes the answer to a question raised by Mr. Oswald Garrison Villard in his excellent biography: "When was it that John Brown . . . first conceived what he calls in his autobiography 'his great- est or principal object' in life— the forcible overthrow of slavery in his na- tive land?" According to the testimony of John Brown's cousin, as will be seen, this determination to wage war against slavery had its definite beginning in No- vember, 1837. The following quotation is taken from Edward Brown's article, printed in the journal referred to, October 21, 1892: Among the earliest of the pioneers at Hudson, O, was Owen Brown, my fath- er's brother, in after years a trustee of Oberlin College. His eldest son, John, a very bright and energetic young man, making a religious profession at sixteen years of age, was desirous of studying for the ministry, incited thereto chiefly by that ardent founder of the American Board, Samuel J. Mills, a kinsman. Un- able to furnish him money, his father gave him two horses, which he took, rid- ing one and leading the other, to Con- necticut and sold. Then he went to Plainfield, Mass., where, at an academy and under the private instruction of one Moses Hallock, he was fitted to enter the junior class of Yale College, which he was prevented from doing by a chronic disease of the eyes. . . . With his father he was among the earliest of Abolitionists. He had been a surveyor in the mountains near Har- per's Ferry, Va., and had often remark- ed that, with a good leader, the slaves, escaping to those fastnesses and fortify- ing themselves, could compel emanci- pation. Prof. Laurens P. Hickok (since presi- dent of Union College and a distinguish- ed preacher and writer of philosophical works) became, in 1836, professor of theology in Western Reserve College. He was regarded as conservative on the question of emancipation. One afternoon in November, 1837, we heard a rapid tramping through the college halls, and every room entered. Soon we saw it was Professor Hickok, who entered greatly excited. He said, "I want you all to come down to the old chapel-room immediate- ly on the ringing of the four o'clock bell. I have some very important news to tell you." Promptly on time the room was filled with both faculty and students. Professor Hickok had brought an account of the murder of the Rev. Elijah P. Love- joy and the destruction of his press at Alton, 111. (where he was publishing a religious paper of decided anti-slavery views), by a Missouri mob from St. Louis. They had before destroyed his presses, both at St. Louis and at Alton. After reading it, he proposed to us to call a meeting at the Congregational church in the village two days later. The next day he mounted his horse and rode all over the township, calling at every house and inviting the people to the meeting. At the meeting he made a most eloquent speech, burning with in- dignation, in which he said, "The crisis has come. The question now before the American citizens is no longer alone, 'Can the slaves be made free?' but, 'Are we free, or are we slaves under Southern mob law?' I propose that we take mea- sures to procure another press and an- other editor. If a like fate attends them, send another, till the whole country is aroused; and if you can find no fitter man for the first victim, send me." Dur- ing the afternoon many speeches were made and strong resolutions passed. Just before the close of the meeting, John Brown, who had sat silent in the back part of the room, rose, lifting up his right hand, saving, "Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery!" His aged father then rose, and, with stammering speech (for he was a great stammerer), said, "When John the Baptist was be- headed, the disciples took up his body and laid it in a tomb and went and told Jesus. Let us now go to Jesus and tell him." Then, in a very fervent prayer, weeping (but not stammering, for he scarcely ever stammered in prayer), he closed the meeting. . . . It will be noted that this account ex- plains two other points mentioned by Mr. Villard: the oath which John Brown ob- tained from several members of his fam- ily to do all in their power to abolish slavery, and the reference which he made to Lovejoy in his "Words of Advice" to the "Gileadites." J. Newton Brown. Ardmore, Pa., February 5. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: I thank you for having shown me Mr. J. Newton Brown's interesting let- ter. Stories like this one about John Brown are afloat without number. It is true, however, that the Harper's Ferry raider was at Hudson at the time of Elijah Lovejoy's murder, and doubtless attended the meeting. But undocument- ed recollections are a trap a wary his- torian must usually shun, particularly if recorded by one well on in years. Oswald Garrison Villard. New York, February 7. "TRAGIC POSSIBILITIES." To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: There is a curious and suggestive similarity of language in Hardy between a description of Egdon Heath and of Sue Bridehead. In "The Return of the Na- tive," Egdon is introduced to us with: "It had a lonely face, suggesting tragical possibilities." And it seems to me more than a mere coincidence to come in "Jude the Obscure" upon this same phrase in reference to Sue Bridehead: "How per- manently it was imprinted upon his vision — a face suggesting tragic possi- bilities." In both books there is a play of light and shadow in which no single figure holds the stage. The interdependence of plot and setting is perfectly plain in "The Return of the Native." All through the book the Heath is the principal charac- ter, an ever-active protagonist; they who are in harmony with its "suggestiveness" succeed in their ambitions and are happy. In like fashion, the fates of all the chief characters in "Jude the Obscure" are directly circumstanced by the actions of Sue Bridehead; so long as these people live in accord with her nature, prosperity and fortune follow them. In the terrestrial scheme developed by the novels of Hardy's maturity is not the influence of woman synonymous with that of nature? Lloyd Adams Noble. Cambridge, Mass., February 8. O. HENRY. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: The chronology of O. Henry's life has not yet been satisfactorily given — for various reasons. There is, however, no reason for the conflicting statements (1 to his birth-year. "Who's Who" persistently gave the year as 1867, a date that is also given in numerous maga- zine articles, in Mr. Frederick Taber Cooper's "Some American Story Tellers," and in Nelson's Encyclopaedia (1913); Payne's "Southern Literary Readings" (1913) declares that Porter was born In 1864; while the New International Web- ster's mystifies the searcher with a ques- tion-mark instead of a date. The New Standard Dictionary, on the other hand,
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158 T li e JST a t i o ii [Vol. 98, No. 2537 states that O. Henry was born on Sep- tember 11, 1862. This statement is cor- rect. Such is the date given in the Por- ter family Bible. In the volume of O. Henry's stories called "Rolling- Stones" one may find a list of births and deaths that is copied from this Bible; and it is worth noting that both O. Henry and his father preferably spelled their given name as Sidney, not Sydney. liVDER E. ROLLINS. University of Texas, February 3. Literature ORIENTAL AND MEDIEVAL CHESS. A History of Chess. By H. J. R. Mur- ray. New York: Oxford University Press. $12. Mr. Murray, son of Sir James A. H. Murray, of Oxford Dictionary fame, has done a notable piece of scholarly work in this book, although it scarcely an- swers to its title. What one would have expected under that rubric would have been an account of the development of the game we know, the evolution of the gambits, the change in strategy produc- ed by match play, biographies and anec- dotes of the chief masters and cham- pions, with examples of the most bril- liant games and problems. Mr. Murray gives something of all this, it is true, in the last hundred of his pages, but he himself, with his instinct for thorough- ness, would be the last person to call this a history of modern chess, and even this sketch is cut short with the era or chess magazines and journals sixty years ago. What he has given us is something more difficult and, in a measure, more valuable. He has written the fullest and most accurate account of Oriental and mediaeval chess — of the Indian Chaturanga, of the Persian and Arabic Shatranj, and of the Ludus Scacorum of the Middle Ages; in other words, he has taken up again the chief problems dealt with by Van der Linde in that curious amalgam of bibliography, anec- dotage, scholarly research, and egotism which he called "Geschichte und Litter- atur des Schachspiels." And it may be said at once that he has beaten the Dutch scholar on his own ground, not alone in extent of research — he gives double the number of Oriental and medi- aeval end-games — but also in thorough- ness of treatment and soundness of judgment. One can never say that a piece of work is final, but it Is difficult to see how Mr. Murray's work can be bettered for a long time to come. He appears to have consulted all the acces- sible manuscript sources relating to mediaeval chess, many of which he has edited or abstracted for the present work, and until further material of this kind turns up it would scarcely seem worth while doing over again what Mr. Murray has done so well. The conclusions which he reaches as to the origin and development of the game and its transition from the Orient to mediaeval Europe do not differ wide- ly from those of his predecessors. He naturally rejects Forbes's claim of a five-thousand-year antiquity for the game, since, even in India, it cannot be traced further back than the seventh century of our era. Mr. Murray believes that it originated as a two-handed war game played with dice on an Ashtapada board of 8 by 8 lines. The Chaturanga or "four-limbed" game represented the four elements — chariots, cavalry, ele- phants, infantry — of the Indian armies (with the addition of the king and his vizier), and these elements are still ex- tant as rooks, knights, bishops, and pawns. Mr. Murray throws out the sug- gestion that chess may have been in- vented by a Buddhist desirous of re- placing real war by a game, but the only basis for the suggestion is that the earliest mentions of the game in India are connected with Buddhists. Nor has Mr. Murray been able to solve the intricate problem of the tran- sition from India to Persia, which was the decisive stage in the development of the game, as indeed is indicated by its name. The Arabic annalists con- nected this transition with the introduc- tion of "Indian numerals" which we, in our turn, call Arabic figures; and Fir- dausi thought so much of the incident that he made it part of the national epic, the far-famed "Shah-namah." Al- most the only clue is afforded by the tradition that the game was brought to Persia at the same time as the book of Indian fables known as "Kalila-wa- Dimna," which is always associated with the name of Chosroes I (531-578 a. d.). The only difficulty about accept- ing this comparatively early date is that there is no reference to chess eith- er in Indian or Persian literature till the next century. Yet a fairly trustwor- thy Muslim tradition connects the game with the Caliph Omar, in whose cali- phate Persia was conquered by the Arabs. Mr. Murray is at his best in dealing with Arabic chess. He has consulted the whole manuscript literature with great diligence and gives not alone 553 end-games, but an analysis of the main middle positions in Arabic chess derived from an unpublished treatise by Al- Lajlaj, who died in 970 a. d. Owing to the restricted moves of vizier and ele- phant (our queen and bishop) the op- posing forces did not come to close grips enough in the first ten or a dozen moves to allow of anything like our modern openings or gambits. As regards the introduction of chess into Europe, Mr. Murray, by an interest- ing application of phonetic laws, proves that it took place at the beginning of the tenth century, though the earliest literary references are about a hundred years later. The Low Latin scacus, derived ultimately from the Persian shah (but meaning "chessman," and not "king") could have taken that form only, he contends, in the tenth century. It may here be remarked that, like a true son of his father, he pays the greatest attention |to the names of chessmen in their different forms, and is often guided by phonetic evidence where actual historic reference is inac- cessible. It would have been interesting in this connection, if he had thrown some light on the newest etymology of checkmate, "the Shah is hopeless" from the Persian instead of "the sheikh is dead" from the Arabic. Mr. Murray is equally thorough in his treatment of the mediaeval game, of which he gives something like 750 ex- amples, with solutions where these are possible; for it is characteristic of the mediaeval problem that it was frequent- ly unsound, and Mr. Murray, following Van der Linde, suggests that such pro- blems were made the subject of bets. In this part of his work he edits a consid- erable number of problems in Old French and Middle English. It would have been as well if he had attached so- lutions in modern notation, as he does in other cases. Not everybody interest- ed in chess is fully acquainted with the mediaeval forms of French and English. Mediaeval chess is almost the same as Muslim chess, and suffers from the same want of strength due to the limited range of the queen and the bishop. When their moves were extended to the end of the board in the last decades of the fifteenth century, modern chess, as we nowadays know it, came into exist- ence. The increased powers of these two pieces enabled the players to bring a strong attack against their adversar- ies in the first four or five moves, ren- dering, indeed, a "fool's mate" possible within the first four. So, too, the pawn, since it could become a queen on the eighth row, gained so much in sig- nificance by this increased range that pawn-play became more important in corresponding measure. Mr. Murray gives, from as-Suli, a comparison of the relative values of bishop and queen in the Muslim game, and contrasts them with those given by the authorities for modern chessmen, taking the rook'a pawn as the unit of value in both games. Whereas the Arabic "fil," or bishop, was worth twice this value, the modern bishop is reckoned as equal to 5.3 times. Still greater is the disparity between the "firzan" of Muslim chess, reckoned by as-Suli at three times the value of the rook's pawn, with the mod- ern queen estimated at L5.5. Those two changes at once alter the character of Hi.' whole game, aw was recognized by
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Feb. 12, 1914] The Nation 159 the Italians, who probably introduced them, but called the new form of the game "scacchi alia rabiosa," or "mad chess," which, from French translations, Mr. .Murray shows referred to the "mad moves" of the queen in the new game. The first printed work on chess, by the Spaniard Lucena about 1497, gives pro- blems both of the old and of the new chess. But it is characteristic that he, for the first time in chess literature, analyzes the openings, including the King's, Bishop's, the Philidor, the Pe- troff, the Giuoco Piano, and the Ruy Lopez gambits. With Lucena's work modern chess begins, and Mr. Murray's detailed his- tory virtually ends. He gives, indeed, a few chapters containing a sketch of the development of the modern game; but these contrast markedly with the thoroughness of his earlier treatment, and leave room for a history of chess as applied to the modern game. He is thoroughly justified in thus restricting his task to that portion of the field in which his wide linguistic powers find their fullest play. It should be remarked that Mr. Mur- ray devotes as much attention to the archaeology and the Culturgeschichte of his subject as he does to its literature. He reproduces chessboards and chess- men from all parts of the world, and often deduces interesting points from their shapes. He treats at less length, but quite adequately, some of the vari- ant forms of the game, though he leaves aside the more modern chess eccen- tricities. He even takes into account other board-games, like backgammon, fox and geese, and "merels." He gives in full the Muslim legends about the origin of chess and the mediaeval moral literature leading up to Caxton's work, thought by Scott's Antiquary to be the earliest English printed book. The whole subject has wider bearings than might appear at first sight. Thus Mr. Murray takes occasion to point out that the dominance of Persian players of chess in Islam is only another example of the immense influence of Persia upon Mohammedanism. He expresses the opin- ion that the Muslim players show more subtlety than their European confreres in the Middle Ages, but, at the same time, points out that it was only in Eu- rope that the game received its full de- velopment by the changed powers of the queen, which has in turn reacted in modern times upon Oriental chess. Anecdotes, witticisms, and locutions re- lating to chess are given in profusion from Oriental manuscripts and mediae- val romances. He has, however, put so much into his book that it is by no means easy reading, however much the author helps by convenient summaries. When a scholar of such ability and equipment devotes sixteen years to a restricted field of research like the his- tory of chess, it seems both ungrateful and impertinent to point to a few solar spots in his treatment of the subject. But, if only to evidence a certain care in the perusal of his book, one might notice a few cases where Mr. Murray's skill and knowledge have failed him for the moment. Thus it is Incorrect to state that the Arabic version of "Kalila-wa-Dimna" is the immediate source of the mediaeval European ver- sion (note on page 155); the Latin translation of John of Capua, entitled "Directorium Humanae Vitas," was the real source. Mr. Murray calls the West- ern versions of this literature "Fables of Pilpay," showing that his knowledge of this literature is rather scanty or antiquated. This is especially unfortu- nate, as the transition of chess and of the fables from India to Persia was probably simultaneous. So, too, he neg- lects the references to chess in the "Thousand and One Nights," on the plea that they can only be placed in the Mamluk period in Egypt. Recent re- search is beginning to trace back por- tions at least to a much earlier period. Reference might have been made to the celebrated game of chaupur of Rajah Rasalu in Indian legend, and de Goeje's name should not have been misspelled Goege, as on page 163. Mr. Murray seems to be unaware that the Arabic sections in Van der Linde's work were contributed by M. Steinschneider with- out acknowledgment on Van der Linde's part. In referring to modern "cham- pions," the name of Zukertort is omit- ted, who had a right to the title after beating Steinitz in a championship se- ries. The index is not quite so full as it might be; one would have been glad to recover again the reference to Montaigne, who is quoted in the text but whose name is omitted in the in- dex; and there is an earlier quotation from Piacenza than that given in the index. But one is almost ashamed tq point out such minute blemishes in one of the most thorough pieces of research that English scholarship has produced in recent years. CURRENT FICTION. The Witness for the Defence. By A. E. W.Mason. New York: Charles Scrib- ner's Sons. The Story of Louie. By Oliver Onions. New York: George H. Doran Co. Murder, as Mr. Mason's heroine and Mr. Onions's hero commit It, is hardly what you would call a crime. Looked at rightly, i. e., with a ready willing- ness to be guided by the author's inten- tion, it is scarcely more than an unde- served misfortune. To understand all is to forgive all. The question then Is — as we imagine an up-to-date author putting it to himself — What degree of murder can the reader be made to un- derstand? Just how heavy a homicidal handicap is it safe to impose upon a fa- vorite character? What delicious fool- ing can be extracted from the absurdi- ties of such a proposition has been dra- matically demonstrated by the whim- sically audacious Mr. Barrie. But Mr. Mason and Mr. Onions, not having en- visaged their self-imposed task shrewd- ly enough to realize its intrinsic thank- lessness, have addressed themselves in all seriousness to the devising of mur- ders that shall answer to the definition and still attach as little odium as possi- ble to their perpetrators. Both of them have hit upon the expedient of making the villain the victim of the violent tak- ing off, and thereby greatly simplified the problem. Mr. Mason's heroine shoots a hard- drinking and peculiarly malevolent hus- band who "keeps all his drunkenness for her." Having thus peremptorily ended her seven years of domestic purgatory in India, she is acquitted upon jury trial and returns to her girlhood home in England. The exact degree of her guilt remains her secret until almost the end of the story, when inquiry into the evi- dence is privately revived by the per- turbed relatives of a young man who wishes to marry her, and she is unex- pectedly confronted with the witness whose testimony at the trial had cleared her. This personage, a barrister of con- siderable reputation and an M.P., had dined with her and the husband of de- testable memory on the very evening of the murder, and so had been in a posi- tion to have his evidence believed, though by no means to believe it him- self. Furthermore — and here we get back to the original root of bitterness — this same perjured witness for the de- fence is the very man who years ago had deliberately preferred his ambition to her love. Her confession as finally made to him — and us — just fails to bring the shooting within the plea of self-de- fence, but succeeds fairly well in shift- ing the responsibility for her ill-advised marriage and the consequent tragedy to his shoulders. Under conviction of sin he is more than willing that they should expiate their errors together; but a pun- ishment better fitted to his crime is meted out to him, and Stella Ballan- tyne's welfare is given into the safe- keeping of a younger champion. The crime upon which "The Story of Louie" centres is justified — quite in the current mode — solely as a prophy- lactic measure. The hero saves the girl he loves from worse than death by strangling a noxious little beast whom she is about to marry. Two volumes have already been devoted to this af- fair from the executioner's point of view. Their readers will remember that the confidante of his crime was not the commonplace Evie in whose interest it was undertaken and whom he after-
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1GO Tiie JSTation [Vol. 98, No. 2537 wards married, but another woman, whose gratuitous ottering of understand- ing and protection was always inexplica- ble to him. We have now a volume ex- plaining Louie and her divinations — a whole life history. She is accounted tol- as the daughter of a lady and a pugilist, inheriting something of hauteur from the Honorable Emily, and physical per- fection, loyalty, and endurance from the manly "Buck." Arrived at womanhood and realizing herself barred from her mother's class, she propounds to herself the problem of self-support, and in one way and another, as cashier, model, or typist, manages to solve it for herself and the illegitimate son whom she ac- quires early in the game. Mr. Onions has that rare patience which we are so often encouraged to confound with ge- nius; his design is elaborated down to the very last detail. If his inspiration has not quite sufficed to build a wonder- ful spiritual drama around this frame- work of repellent fact, at any rate the attempt comes near enough to success to compel rather respectful admiration. What he appreciates is the man of Na- poleon-of-commerce type and his discon- certing appearance in the midst of the English social order. Of the simplicity of heart which such a man can retain in his personal relations we have heard a great deal in American fiction, and Mr. Onions insists upon it strongly. But we recall with some misgiving that he has used this, and at least one other of his best ideas, before in "The Exception." The world being so full of a number of things, this is somewhat disappointing. And as for a murder, an apoplectic stroke, and two suicides — we hope he will not again tax our capacity for trag- ic appreciation so far. The Talc of Lady Daventry. New York: Brentano's. An adventuress with a brain and will "equal, if different to" Napoleon's and Luther's, is the heroine of this anony- mous tale. She is a country girl, as we see her in the beginning, of scant ac- complishments, great beauty, greater ambition, and "with ice, not blood, in ter veins." She frankly marries the witty, wicked old lord for his wealth and position; she promptly intrigues with his grown son, whom she hates, to bring about the birth of an heir to the title; and she then fabricates a story of outrage in order to accomplish the ruin of the man whom she has played false. The old lord dies, after some years, in a frenzy of rage at the woman who has thus betrayed him, disfiguring her with a dagger as he gasps his last; and when her son, on attaining his majority and coming into the estate, learns by chance of his paternity and his mother's vil- lany, he promptly commits suicide. She is thus left in the ruins of the structure she has built. As a toil to all this thunder and melo- drama, the reader follows the fortunes ci Margaret Lester, daughter of a ten- ant of the Daventry estate, who is as good as the Lady Daventry is bad. She goes to London and makes her way there as an author, marrying in happiness and triumph at the very moment of Lady Daventry's final misfortunes. The con- trast between the two threads reeks of poetic justice, though a student of nar- rative technique will object to the crudeness with which they are inter- woven. People of unquiet nerves might be warned against the book, were not the protagonist too unreal to carry alarming conviction. The White Sapphire. By Lee Foster Hartman. New York: Harper & Bros. The subtitle, "A Mystery Romance," indicates the dual interest of this story. Half is romantic and half detective. The story has the merit of an unexpected climax, with still another climax for the final page. The action takes place in a country house in the Berkshires, and has to do with the theft of a precious ruby which has been abstracted from a safe, evidently by a burglar expert in the use of a steel drill. But that he should have taken twenty dollars and the ruby and left behind fifteen dia- monds lying next to the ruby constitutes the mystery. This is finally solved, to the confusion of an old-time villain, by a guest at the house, a young cosmopoli- tan American, who, though an amateur at sleuthing, has once confuted Scotland Yard. That he is aided by a knowledge of radioactivity indicates the utter time- liness of the story. MAXWELL'S LORD CLARENDON. The Life and Letters of George William Frederick, Fourth Earl of Clarendon. By the Right Hon. Sir Herbert Max- well, Bart. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. Two vols. $8.50 net. For about twenty-five years, from 1845 to 1870, the name of Lord Clarendon stood next to those of Lord John Rus- sell and Palmerston among British For- eign Secretaries. On the European Con- tinent it had, deservedly, a great pres- tige: how great, is illustrated in this story told by his biographer. In 1871 Lord Clarendon's daughter, Lady Odo Russell, sat next to Bismarck at din- ner, and was astonished at his saying: "Never in my life was I more glad to hear of anything than of your father's death." At Lady Russell's amazement, Bismarck patted her hand and added: "Ach, dear lady, you must not take it like that. What I mean is that, If your father had lived, he would have pre- vented the war." Whether Clarendon could have prevented France from rush- ing into the net which Bismarck spread for her is debatable; but that Bismarck thought he could is a sufficient tribute to Clarendon's ability. George Villiers, born in 1800, was de- scended from the great Earl of Claren- don, and on his mother's side from Cromwell. His people belonged to the powerful Whig oligarchy, and although they had comparatively small means (until, through the death of his uncle, Clarendon succeeded to the earldom in 1839), their habits and associations were wholly aristocratic. Young Villiers ma- triculated at St. John's College, Cam- bridge, in 1816, took his M.A. four years later, and was attache at St. Peters- burg until 1823, when he became a com- missioner of customs. Out of that post, which often threw a damper on young men of promise, he was fortunately lifted and sent on a special mission to France in 1831. The next year Palmerston appointed him Minister at Madrid, where he served until 1839. On his return to England, he declined in quick succession the Gov- ernor-Generalship of Canada and the Mastership of the Mint, but accepted of- fice in Melbourne's Cabinet as Lord Privy Seal. Thenceforward, whether he was in office or in opposition, Clarendon stood high in the esteem of both par- ties; and, indeed, although bred a Whig, he did not hesitate to join Lord Aber- deen's coalition Ministry as Foreign Sec- retary. Previous to this, he served as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland during the terrible famine years. As head of the Foreign Office from 1852 to 1858, Clarendon shared with the Premier, Lord Aberdeen, the responsi- bility for "drifting" into the Crimean War, and, with Lord Palmerston, he de- termined the British attitude at the Congress of Paris. In 1864 he resumed his seat in the Cabinet; was Foreign Secretary after Palmerston's death, and again in Gladstone's first Ministry. He died June 27, 1870, less than four weeks before the outbreak of the Franco-Prus- sian War. This list of Lord Clarendon's chief public services by no means represents the range of his political influence at home, much less of his importance as a statesman of international fame during the first half of Queen Victoria's reign. He possessed two qualifications for deal- ing with great public affairs: he saw very clearly what he desired to do, and he did it promptly and decisively when left to his own initiative. He had also the discretion and the tact, coupled with rare personal Impressive- ness, which counted for much In that period when diplomats still had the man- ners of grands seigneurs. Sir Herbert Maxwell's biography Is personal rather than political, b taxA which adds greatly to its interest for the general reader, it shows us Clarendon far more Intimately than fflvelyn Ashley showed Palmerston, or than Spencer
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Feb. 12, 1914] The Nation 161 Walpole showed Lord John Russexl.* Take him for all in all, Clarendon stands out as the embodiment of the higuest type of Whig peer. He is as evidently representative of that remarkable spe- cie s, now extinct, as the late Lord Salis- bury was of the antipodal type of Tory peer. One wonders at first, why it was that Clarendon, in spite of his known efficiency as an administrator, in spite of his recognized eminence in his party, never rose to actual leadership. He was thought of for Premier, and Queen Vic- toria, at least, would gladly have had him in that office rather than Palmer- ston or Lord John, but he could not suc- ceed in forming a Ministry. His biog- rapher suggests that the lateness at which he entered Parliament — he be- came a peer only in his fortieth year — deprived him of early acquaintance with the personnel and with the ways of that body. Although he was a vigorous writer — his dispatches being among the best of that period — he lacked both elo- quence as an orator and readiness as a debater. He lacked also that quality of imposing himself on his party which was the common possession of politi- cians as different as Disraeli and Par- nell. Had he been really masterful, he would not have remained at the For- eign Office when, contrary to his pur- pose, England "drifted" into the war with Russia. He would have done what Lord John and Palmerston did when- ever they were opposed: either persist regardless of consequences, or resign. Although this memoir is not primarily political, it throws many sidelights on British and international politics. Be- ginning with the civil war in Spain, where Clarendon labored to secure Queen Christina against the Carlists, it touches on most of the political events and personages of Western Europe dur- ing the next forty years. Louis Philippe and the Spanish marriages, the Irish famine, the rise and progress of Louis Na- poleon, English action during the Amer- ican Civil War, the emergence of Prus- sia— these are some of the topics in which Clarendon's correspondence is abundant and fresh. His own letters to his intimates are written without reserve. Nothing could be more entertaining than his remarks on men and things. His rich vein of sarcasm spares neither the Queen nor the Prince Consort — whom he refers to under the aliases "Eliza" and "Joseph" — neither Dizzy, nor Pam, nor lesser per- sonages. One gets from his letters a sense of the banality of much of the court life. We infer from them Queen Victoria's lack of regard for public busi- ness—she would often stay at Osborne, which involved at least a twelve-hour journey on the part of her Ministers, at a critical moment when her presence at Buckingham Palace was most desired. Clarendon also recalls how the Queen herself sent to the Times a letter in her own handwriting, protesting against be- ing criticised for remaining secluded in her widowhood, and how the Times printed it with the signature "Anon- yma" (April 6, 1864). Clarendon, how- ever, always writes sympathetically of her bereavement, and for several years she sought his private advice on public matters. Then, perhaps for the reason that one of his earlier satirical remarks had reached her, she turned against him; and when Gladstone proposed him for the Foreign Secretaryship in 1868, the Queen declared that she would not consent to his occupying any position whatsoever. Why she gave way, after a fortnight's stubbornness, does not ap- pear. The biographer prints many extracts from the diary of Lady Clarendon and makes us wish that all the important passages in the diary, which covers thir- ty years, may be edited. As she shared her husband's political confidences, she often supplies information on matters which are not mentioned in his corre- spondence. The letters of Emily Eden, caustic and entertaining, bring Victor- ian high-life vividly before us, and those of Mrs. Villiers paint society at its rev- els under that "blackguard," the Prince Regent. Charles Greville, Cornewall Lewis, Granville, and many others lay bare the state of public opinion at a given moment, or add to our knowledge of its shapers. Sir Herbert Maxwell has achieved a well-rounded biography, in which we draw close not merely to Clarendon the statesman and diplomat and the Whig grandee, but to the very man himself. Sir Herbert, though a Tory, writes with perfect fairness. He 'has arranged his material clearly and has been happy in choosing what is vital. The Spiritual Drama in the Life of Thackeray. By Nathaniel Wright Stephenson. New York: George H. Doran Co. $1.25 net. With a tardy indignation, Professor Stephenson is fired by Charles Whib- ley's "Thackeray," which appeared a decade ago. In that study Mr. Whibley said little of Thackeray, the man, speak- ing almost exclusively of Thackeray, the writer, drawing sometimes unflattering comparisons with his contemporaries and applying French ideals of art in fic- tion with rather less than the proverb- ial love of the biographer. He produced indeed a critical commentary on Thack- eray's achievement. With this attitude Professor Stephen- son has no patience. It represents an author, he asserts, "as a trinity of pen, ink-pot, and sheet of paper." When the critic declares that what Thackeray "was at the beginning he was at the end — a man of letters to whom time and ex- perience gave not a new style, but mere- ly better control of his material," he waxes warm: "Mr. Whibley ignores en- tirely the inward drama of Thackeray's great life. ... He is blind to that long, slow, but at length victorious, war- fare of Thackeray's religion against his weakness." This essential struggle is divided into three acts. "Pendennis" ends the first, where a malign fate presides over the destinies of men, and Sorrow sits em- press. "We see goodness linked always with futility; evil, splendid and trium- phant." The year 1851 is the crisis; the writing of the lectures on "The English Humorists" the turning-point. Thack- eray now awakes to the falsity of his earlier view of life. There seems to be no "curtain" for this act, but it closes with "The Newcomes," where "all the vices of Thackeray's earlier thinking have disappeared." The third act is short but serene, containing "Philip" and "Denis Duval," and presenting a conviction that whatever is is right, a genuine faith that "all's right with the world." What shall one say of this novel view of the Victorian master? What proof is brought forward? The evidence found is in the novels themselves, whose charac- ters are cunningly dissected, whose meaning or structure is explained by means of picturesque imagery. But the tone of the third period was apparently suggested to the author by some felici- tously phrased but conventional ideas in a letter of condolence written by Thack- eray to a cousin on the death of an aunt. These words are echoed and reechoed in the descriptions of his final works in a way that is almost amusing. Though Professor Stephenson dis- plays on nearly every page a love pass- ing that of the biographer, his handling of evidence reveals two fundamental misconceptions. The first regards Thack- eray, the man. Mr. Whibley did glance too seldom at the writer's personality, but in proving him wrong, Professor Stphenson commits a more disquieting error. The dividing of a man's life into periods, always a difficult and ques- tionable procedure, is in Thackeray's case particularly dubious. His whole work expresses a personality of rare charm, but with an art that is instinc- tive rather than conscious. His charac- ters dictated their conduct to him. To the end he was governed by his material instead of moulding it by clearly seen principles towards preconceived effects. One cannot by taking thought add a cubit to one's stature; much less can a novelist who writes from the heart rather than from the head alter his personality. That this amiable, elegant, but disillusioned sou! should be the scene of a lifelong conflict between relig- ion and disappointment is not only a >!it a refreshing assertion. The second misconception regards
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1G^ The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2537 1 ray, the writer. To Professor Stephenson, maintaining his view of the master's final optimism, "Vanity Fair' becomes unmanly and pernicious. Ad- dison becomes the' central figure of "Es- mond" because he is the most hopeful and successful character. "Philip," which every one regards as little more than an echo of earlier productions, be- come s "a ripe apple beautiful without and sound within," while " 'Pendennis,' for all its external brilliancy, is worm- eaten at the core." "Denis Duval," a fragment too short for almost any gen- eralization, and particularly for con- clusions with regard to the author's view of life, becomes "a pinnacle whence we view the entire field of Life and be- hold all the parts of it related in a sin- gle design, the meaning of which is that His will is done on earth as it is in heaven." So much does a figure of speech distort one's sense of values. For even if the tone of robust op- timism that Professor Stephenson dis- covers did exist in Thackeray's later work, it would detract from rather than augment that classic novelist's vogue. No one goes to him to learn that God's in his heaven, All's right with the world. He stands for a mood of realism, an ironic presentation of life, an attitude of brave sadness in the face of the mani- fold disappointments of this world, a purpose, as Trollope puts it, always to encounter "melancholy with buffoonery and meanness with satire." To find in him the apostle of an all-conquering optimism would rob the English lan- guage of one of its greatest satirists of life and manners. Though Professor Stephenson nas written an interesting book, it is with Mr. Whibley's conclu- sions that the student and the lover of Thackeray can the more easily agree. The Ottoman Empire, 1801-1913. By Wil- liam Miller. Cambridge University Press; New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. $2.50 net. The policy of the 'Cambridge Histori- cal Series, and not Mr. Miller, has no doubt caused this book to belong, not in the class of those that interpret and en- lighten, but of those that set forth in classified chronological order a large number of selected facts. The facts, moreover, are not taken from the so- cial, economic, religious, and cultural fields except incidentally. The course of political events, wars, treaties, and poli- cies make up the substance of the nar- rative, and the reader must for the most part establish causal connections for himself. Yet the author himself must be charged with a failure to devel- op adequately an important element of his story. It would be unfair to ex- pect Mr. Miller to feel sympathy with the Ottoman Turks, but he ought to give their story a more distinct place in a book entitled "The Ottoman Empire." Their proposals in the direction of re- form should not be dismissed sneering- ly (pages 151, 361); their actual re- forms should not be omitted entirely; their Constitution should receive at least as full exposition as that of any Balkan state (pages 174, 371, 414); their name should find a place in the index. The fact is that in writing of the Otto- man Empire Mr. Miller has looked main- ly at the empty part of the cup. His book would more accurately have been entitled "The Near Eastern Question, 1801-1913 (with Special Reference to the Development of the Balkan States)." Actually, the Turks have had much history in the past one hundred and twelve years. Each of their Sultans has possessed individuality, from Selim III, martyr to reforming zeal, and Mahmud II, destroyer of the reactionary Janis- saries, to Abdul Hamid II, restorer of ruthless despotism, and Mohammed V, friend of liberty and progress. The Turks have made great changes in their lives and institutions, and no century but the nineteenth could have regarded the Turks of that century as unprogres- sive. When a nation has striven to make within a hundred and twenty-five years such an advance from mediaeval to modern times as England made be- tween Henry II and George V, and has arrived only at the time of the first George, has not that nation done very well? Mr. Miller devotes to the really great constitutional progress of Turkey not more than a half-dozen pages, scat- tered here and there. He gives as much space (pages 348 to 353) to the "drama of Oropos," an episode of murderous brigandage, which in the year 1870 em- broiled Greece with England. Such is the outcome when the friend of the sheep writes the history of the dying wolf. For Mr. Miller is a Philhellene. Ful- ly one-fourth of his book is given to the story of modern Greece. Her sins are not covered, but neither are her achieve- ments suppressed. Her rapid progress is indicated well, as is that of the other states which fill up the territory held in 1801 by the Ottoman Empire. Especially valuable is the development of the his- tory of the past thirty-five years. The Italo-Turkish War perhaps receives too scant attention. The Balkan wars could not be brought beyond the failure of the London Conference in February, 1913. It was hardly to be expected that an Englishman would overlook, as Mr. Mil- ler has done, the brilliant beginning of the career of him who became Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, when in 1812 he expedited the conclusion of the Treaty of Bucharest, which not only released the Russian armies for resistance to Na- poleon I, but saved Rumania, to become, not another Finland, but an effective buffer state between Russia and Turkey. Mr. Miller, however, has throughout made little attempt to develop the vast diplomatic background to the Eastern question in the chancelleries of the great Powers of the world. The book has hardly any faults be- sides those of omission and dispropor- tion. It is clear, sober, accurate, and nearly always fair. The maps are di- rectly adapted to the text. The good bibliography shows the use of books in seven languages, which yet do not in- clude Turkish or the Slavic group, Ser- vian, Bulgarian, and Russian. The vol- ume constitutes a welcome and timely contribution to the study of the com- plex situation in Southeastern Europe. The Vanishing Race. By Dr. Joseph K» Dixon. Illustrated. New York: Dou- bleday, Page & Co. $3.50. Further than to say that, as its title implies, it is about Indians, this book is not easy to classify. In the broader sense it is not history, and in the nar- rower it is not ethnology. With the sociological problem presented by the condition of the aboriginal race it makes no pretension to deal. The chapter with which it opens, on the habits, dress, re- ligion, and other characteristics of the Indians, makes no new contribution to our knowledge of these subjects. In its "record of the last Great Indian Coun- cil, participated in by eminent chiefs from nearly every Indian reservation in the United States"— we quote from the title-page — the performance scarcely bears out the promise. From such an announcement the uninitiated reader might infer that the multitude of tribes still surviving here had been in the habit of holding an associated council from time to time, that arranged by Dr. Dixon concluding the series. As a mat- ter of fact, a convention of that sort was as much a novelty to the Indians concerned as it will be to the public who are invited to read about it. Moreover, the statement that it was attended by representatives of "nearly every reservation in the United States" is not supported by the evidence of the text, which shows most of the Indian worthies in the assemblage to have come from a handful of Northern groups, and not from "nearly all," or even from a considerable number, of the one hun- dred and fifty and more reservations un- der the jurisdiction of the Federal Gov- ernment, to say nothing of those con- trolled by individual States. For exam- ple, the reader will search in vain for any spokesman from a great body like the Navajo, equally famous in war and in peace, and numerically one of the largest, if not actually the largest, of our native tribes, Neither do we Bnd in the gathering any of the pueblo or mission Indians from the territory ced- ed by Mexico, or any memben of the
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Feb. 12, 1914] The Nation 163 so-called five civilized tribes of the old Indian Territory. The nearest we come to the latter is through a Kiowa, an Apache, and a Southern Cheyenne. By far the largest number of the 1 to the interpreters for Dr. Dixon s benefit belonged to the Crow tribe or to one of the several brandies of the great Sioux nation. It Is for this reason, doubtless, that so much of the book is written around the story of the destruction of Gen. Cus- ter's command, narrated from the point of view of the few living Indians of promim ace who took part, directly or tly, in the battle. This is by far the most important feature of the vol- ume, and the speeches reported bear a ness which give them real value as exponents of Indian char- acter anc' thought, whether or not we are ready to accept their testimony as absolutely accurate after so long an in- terval. The illustrations, which number eighty, are photogravures, some being portraits of notable Indians and others nig various phases of Indian life amid a wild environment. Artistically, they follow the trail first marked by Mr. Edward S. Curtis. They are, as a rule, fine examples of posing, and in their mechanical execution leave nothing to be desired. Especially noteworthy among the scenes are A Glimpse Backward, War Memories, and The Sunset of a Dying Race, which have an atmosphere quite independent of artifice in composi- tion. Of the portraits, those of Two- Moons, Bear-Ghost, Pretty-Voice-Eagle, and Running-Bird stand easily first in quality. Well printed and handsomely bound, "The Vanishing Race" will fill a conspicuous place on the library table, irrespective of the part it may play among the soberer contents of the shelves. Notes Included in the March publications of Frederick A. Stokes Company are the following: "Bat Wing Bowls," by Dane Coolidge; "The Woman's Law," by Mara- vene Thompson ; "Every Man's Money and How the Bankers Use It," by Louis I'. Brandeis; "Montessori's Own Hand- book," by Maria Montessori, and "Ameri- ca Through Oriental Spectacles," by Wu Ting-Fang. "The Reconnaissance," a novel by Gor- don Gardiner, is about to be published Vy Macmillan. Mr. William J. Locke's new novel, "The Fortunate Youth," is promised by John Lane Company for the end of March. Forthcoming books in the list of the Century Company include: "Dodo's Daughter," by E. F. Benson; "Barna- betta," by Helen R. Martin; "The Things He Wrote to Her," by Richard Wight- man; "Little Essays in Literature and -Lite," by Richard Burton; "Idle Wives," by James Oppenheim, and "Bedesman 4," by Mary .J. H. Skrine. Baron von Wolzogen's musical novel, "Kraft-Mayr," which has proved a great success in Germany, is soon to be pub- lished by Huebsch in an English trans- lation with the title, "Florian Mayr." Paul Elder & Co. announce a hand- some limited edition of "Out of Bond- age," a volume of poems by Fanny Hodges Newman. A volume dealing with an almost un- known Alaskan race is announced by the Fleming H. Revell Co., under the title "A Study of the Thlinglets of Alaska.' The author, Livingston F. Jones, has la- bored among this people as a missionary for twenty-one years. Other books announced by Revell are "Asia at the Door," by Kiyoshi K. Kawa- kami, and "The Crisis of Morals," by Harold Begbie. Houghton Mifflin Co. will have ready at an early date the following volumes: "Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the Story of his Life," by Mary Thacher Higginson; "The Precipice," a novel, by Elia W. Peattie; "Burbury Stoke," a nov- el, by William J.Hopkins; "The Satchel Guide to Europe, 1914," by W. J. Rolfe, edited by H. W. Dunning; "In Freedom's Birthplace," an account of the Boston negro of to-day, by John Daniels; "In the Old Paths," a book of essays, by Ar- thur Grant; "The Passing of Empire," a book on British rule in India, by H. Fielding-Hall; ".SCgean Days and Other Sojourns," by J. Irving Manatt; "Poems," by Walter C. Arensberg, and "The Americans in the Philippines," by James A. Le Roy, with an introduction by Wil- liam H. Taft. Among the books announced for spring publication by the Yale University Press are: "The History of the Department of State," by Gaillard Hunt; "Memorials of Eminent Yale Men: A Biographical Study of Student Life During the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries," by Anson Phelps Stokes; "University Sermons," by Henry Sloane Coffin, D.D. ; "Christianity Old and New: Proposed Reconstructions Viewed in the Light of Historic Develop- ment," by Benjamin Wisner Bacon, D.D. ; "Trade Morals, Their Origin, Growth and Province," by Edward D. Page (Page Lectures) ; "Writings on American His- tory, 1912," compiled by Grace Gardner Griffin; "Studies in Taxation Under John and Henry III," by Sydney K. Mitchell, Ph.D., Yale Historical Publications; "The Colonizing Activities of the English Puri- tans," by Arthur Percival Newton, Yale Historical Publications; "The Diary of a Voyage to the United States, 1793-1798," by Moreau de Saint-Mery, edited with an introduction by Stewart L. Mims, Yale Historical Publications; "Influences of Isocrates on Cicero, Dionysius and Aris- tides," by Harry M. Hubbell; "Poems," by Brian Hooker, and "Selections of Latin Verse," by the Latin Faculty of Williams College. The spring list of E. P. Dutton & Co. includes, in fiction: "The World Set Free, a Story of Mankind," by II. G. Wells; "The Story of Helga," by Rudolph Herzog, authorized translation by Adele Lewisohn; "Liliecrona's Home," by Selma Lagerlof, translated by Anna Barnwell; "The Green Graves of Balgowrie," by Jane H. Findlater; "Over the Hills," by Mary W. Findlater; "The Governor of England," by Marjorie Bowen; "The Honey-Star," by Tickner Edwardes; "A Wayfaring Soul," by Walter Raymond; "Drum's House," by Ida Wild; "The Passing of Oul-I-But," by Alan Sullivan; "Buddhist Stories," by Paul Dahlke, and "Korean Folk Tales," translated from the Korean of Im Bang and Yi Ryuk by James S. Gale. — Biography, history, and. politics: "Christina of Denmark (1522- '90)," by Julia Cartwright (Mrs. Ady) ; 'Wagner, as Man and Artist," by Ernest Newman; "The Philosophy of Ruskin," by Andre Chevrillon; "A History of Rus- sia," in three volumes, by V. O. Kluchev- sky; "The Reconstruction of the New Colonies Under Lord Milner (1902-'05)," in two volumes, by W. Basil Worsfold; "The Press Gang Afloat and Ashore," by J. R. Hutchinson, and "The China Year- Book for 1914," edited by H. T. Montague Bell. — Travel and adventure: "A Pepys of Mogul India (1653-1708)," an abridged edition of the "Storia do Mogor," by Nic- colao Manucci, translated by William Ir- vine, edited by Margaret Irvine; "Things Seen in Oxford," by Norman J. Davidson ; "The Life and Thought of Japan," by Okakura-Yoshisaburo, and "Tiger Land, Reminiscences of Forty Years' Sport and Adventure in Bengal," by C. E. Goulds- bury. — Religion and philosophy: Bud- dhist China," by R. F. Johnston; "Mech- anism, Life, and Personality," by J. S. Haldane; "The Theology of the Roman Church," by the Rev. Father Herbert Thurston, S. J., and "The Message of Zoroaster," by Ardaser Sorabjee N. Wa- dia. — Miscellaneous: "The Romance of Names," by Ernest Weekley; "English Dramatic Poetry," by Felix E. Schelling; "English Historians and Schools of His- tory," by R.Lodge; "English Elegiac, Di- dactic, and Religious Poetry," by the Rev. H. C. Beeching, D.D., and the Rev. Ronald Bayne; "The Tragedy of Education," by Edmond Holmes; "Higher Nationality," by Viscount Haldane of Cloan; "English Domestic Clocks," by Herbert Cescinsky; "Public Library Administration," by W. S. C. Rae, and "A Pilgrimage of British Farming (1910-12)," by A. D. Hall. We have received a copy of the third edition, revised and enlarged, of "The Immigration Problem" (Funk & Wag- nails), by Jeremiah W. Jenks and W. Jett Lauck. Tho clan and scope of the work have not been materially altered. Yet the changes show a marked shift of attitude in the book. Several pas- sages which tended to minimize the so- cial aspects of the immigration problem and to maintain the ease of assimilation have been modified, and two critical sections (pages 211-213 and 369-370) 11 added, dealing with the dan- gers of the present situation. Thus the argument is more definitely on the side of restriction than in the first edition, apter on Recent Immigrants in Agriculture has been quite rewritten, with the use of the data of the Thirteenth Census. The statistical tables have been ary, and a large
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164 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2537 number of new tables have been added.] The appendices also include the text of the most important of the recent acts and proposed bills dealing with immigra- tion. This book will continue to bold its position as the authoritative digest of the reports of the immigration Commission, and as such will serve a widely useful purpose. Scribners have been well advised to is- sue a new edition of "The Voyage of the Discovery," Capt. Robert F. Scott's rec- ord, in two volumes, of the National Antarctic Expedition, which he command- ed during- the years 1901 to 1904.- In the list of "ship's company" we note the name of Shackleton, who was later to try again for the "farthest South," and that of Dr. Wilson, whom we take to be the Wilson of the last, fatal expedition. The book has absorbing interest, and though it cannot add nobility to the Capt. Scott revealed in the diary of his final dash for the Pole, it does at least enlarge and sweeten the portrait. Appropriately dedicated to Ernest Thompson Seton, "On Nature's Trail: A Wonder-Book of the Wild" (Doran), by F. St. Mars, is a book of tales in which the author sentimentalizes nature with- out a single token of a troubled con- science. Most of his animals are blood- thirsty villains, who do wild deeds with abandon, and who are characterized, if anything, more definitely than the vil- lains of melodrama. All of the tales are sure to "thrill" satisfactorily ; one of the most agreeably thrilling is "The Master of the Situation," which tells of the aston- ishing adventures of Krar, a hoodie crow whose beak "suggested the business end of a pickaxe" and who was "a winged disaster and a servant of the Evil One." Another typical story deals with a quick- hatch, "whose name the trappers of the Rocky Mountains use when they want to call one by a worse name than devil." Mr. St. Mars's wild heroes dwell in sun- dry parts of the world — in Scotland, in Tibet, and elsewhere. The small volume of "Indian Historical Studies" (Longmans, Green), by H. G. Rawlinson, professor of English literature at the Deccan College, Poona, contains a number of papers in part already pub- lished in India. The author's purpose has been to present to a general public portions of India's past for the benefit especially of the modern Hindu. The Western student of Oriental history will find in this book excellent though brief sketches of the lives of Buddha and Asoka, a good account of the Greek dy- nasties of the Punjab, an entertaining of the travels of Chinese pilgrims in India, and a judicious estimate of the political importance of Akbar and Sbivaji. ri be adventures of Robert Knox, an in- voluntary pilgrim in Ceylon, and tl the lively [fn Batuta are related in an aer, and the fori la will filled with the history of the Sikhs in i be last century. The final chaptei is devoted to the question of foreij n In- b in the civilizal Ion of India, where Mr. Rawlinson leavi firmer path oi history tor the ti ocl of spr. Shaw is convinced that, if the Emperor were not "a first- rate monarch, he would probably be a I rate artist." But, t he aul 1 all says, "in what r61e would he not have well?" In spite of such doubtful con led ares, 1 be book, on 1 he whole, is ([uite readable, and may be ret 0 tended tor its general accuracy and Its fairness. It has, however, more than its share of the careless proof-reading which seems to be inseparable from the process of hur- rying through the press book after book about Germany and her Emperor. "Odo Russell" for John Russell, "Emmanuel II" for Victor Emanuel, "Grossler" for Gossler, "Gari Melchior" for Gari Mel- chers, "Admiral Nogi" for Gen. Nogi, and such hybrids as "Frederick Karl" and "Burghertum" are among the minor blemishes with which the book teems. The Transactions of the Royal Histori- cal Society of Great Britain for 1912 (London: Offices of the Society) opens with two presidential addresses — the first, that of Archdeacon Cunningham, continuing his inquiry into points of con- trast between English and Scottish his- tory by an examination of the guildry and trade incorporations in Scottish towns; the other, that of Professor Firth, on the development of the study of sev- enteenth-century history, constituting a noteworthy bibliographical and critical contribution to English history. One of Dr. Cunningham's remarks, which is particularly suggestive as coming from the author of "The Origin and Develop- ment of English Industry and Com- merce," is worth quoting: The economic expert who turns his at- tention to history is tempted to lay stress on the sordid side of life; he has formed the habit of dwelling upon motives that are susceptible of money measurement, and when he sees evidence that a famil- iar motive is at work, he seems to think that everything is explained. If we are content merely to look on the surface when examining the condition of indus- trial and commercial life in the past, we are likely to find in them a reflection of human nature as we know it in our own century. But if we penetrate deeper, through these economic phenomena, we may get to know something of the minings of national progress and the sources of national character. As a comment on the so-called material- istic interpretation of history, this re- mark deserves careful consideration. The remaining articles in the volume are interesting, but with two exceptions are designed for the specialist rather than the general reader. The essay by Mr. Webster on the Polish-Saxon ques- tion at the Congress of Vienna is an il- luminating study of a much-vexed pro- blem, and throws new light on the pur- pose and policy of Castlereagh. A fur- ther examination of the work of the same statesman is seen in the paper by J. E. S. Green, who likewise defends the acts of the British Minister and endeavors to throw some of the responsibility for the customary misinterpretation of Castle- failure at Verona in 1822 upon the shoulders of Canning, his former ri- ! cal, who, Mr. Green thinks, designedly ■ i Pat ii: ill and 1 ae c 1 s 1 h. other articles In the volume are more technical In character, as Indicated by their titles: "The P< digi 1 e of Earl 1 cMiuin," with a table; "Some Men of Henry of Lancaster, L827 1880," "Side- lights upon the Assessment and Collec Media \ al subsidies," bj 1 "i ■ I. of the University Of Co! and "The Order of the Holj Crow (Crutched Friars) in England," ■ study ,i an order « hose memorj Is Kept alive
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Feb. 12, 19 14] The Nation 165 to this day by the name of a street in tin' city of London near the Tower. New material concerning Hawthorne is collected In Caroline Ticknor's "Haw- tborne and his Publisher" (Houghton Mifflin). Thirteen years of his life — from 1851, when he published "The House of the Beven Gables," to his death in 1864 ore with the help of excerpts from his miscellaneous writings pretty wi 11 covered In these letters to his pub- Uaher, William i>. Tlcknor. In the early part of the narrative Ticknor is promi- nent, and all the way he is a revealing figure. Hawthorne somewhere says that he thinks 00 other author ever was bless- ed with sucb ;i publisher. He appears to have been right. The shy, seclusive ge- nius relied on Ticknor in all practical matters — in arrangements for his por- trait, in purchasing gloves on a journey, in paying the bills of his tailor. Ticknor was bis banker and business manager, accompanying him to Washington to con- clude for him the negotiations concern- ing the Liverpool consulate, and later even sailing across the ocean to start him in the duties of the office. In short, he was unwearied in his attentions. His death directly resulted from his care for Hawthorne, about whom he wrapped his own overcoat on an unexpectedly chilly drive in Philadelphia and from whom he three days later took his eternal fare- well. Several chapters have an intimate lit- erary interest. After some letters from Miss Margaret de Quincey, Ticknor jour- neyed to "Mavis Bush," at Lasswade, where, despite her warning that the "cot- tage is too small to offer you beds," he spent the night very pleasantly, finding De Quincey "a noble old man and elo- quent," who "wins hearts in personal in- tercourse." Delia Bacon also reappears. Hawthorne was of opinion that women "are only to be distinguished from male authors by greater feebleness and folly," and he once exclaimed to Ticknor that he considered "all ink-stained women de- testable." But his generous assistance of the author of the "Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded" is well known. What is added here is the vigor with which he lent this assistance. Without consulting his publisher, he had half the edition that was printed in Lon- don at his expense sent to Boston with "Ticknor, Fields & Co." on the title-page. He wrote that, "having tried to help this poor woman, I do not like to desert her without doing my utmost. ... By the by, Miss Bacon herself does not know of my pecuniary responsibility; so say nothing of it to anybody." The letters add something even to Theodore Bacon's bulky "Sketch" of his aunt's life. Haw- thorne's interest was maintained to the end, when he confided: "The 1,000 copies, as they come from the printer's (ex- clusive of binding), have cost £238 7s. 9d. However, I do not repent me of what I have done; nor will I, even if I lose by It." And he did in fact lose nearly all of this sum. Many of the remain- ing letters deal with "The Marble Faun," its writing and revision, and his uncer- tainties and difficulties concerning the title, as Smith and Elder were "determined to take a title out of their own heads." He was not so diffident as usual about the book: "If I have written anything well, it should be this romance; for I have never thought or felt more deeply, or taken more pains." But up to the last moment he was willing to change the title he had clung to, if Whipple so ad- vised. Naturally the chief interest of the book is in Hawthorne himself. His elusive personality is made in these pages to show more of its human side than we find in previous collections of his writ- ings. He does not reveal all in these in- timate letters. Though he lived in a stirring period, he seldom touches on poli- tics, except to express his humorous dis- like of the British and his intermittent love of England as a place of residence. He is equally sparing of literary criti- cism, discovering little more than that he could not abide poetry and did not eagerly follow the work of contemporary writers. What he does tell us in these passages, what is scarcely hinted in "Our Old Home" or indeed in "Notes of Trav- el," is his preoccupations as head of a family, especially during the Liverpool consulship. The intangible and some- what puzzling image of the man that floats before most of us becomes a solid and easily recognizable earth-born com- panion and fellow-mortal. At close range and in commonplace details he seems much as other men are. His pathetic longing for means and leisure, his im- patience with the routine of official duty, his reluctance to submit his writings to the criticism of the public, his kindliness of heart struggling with common sense whenever an appeal for aid came to his ears — these and a score of other features in his daily life come to light in the let- ters which Caroline Ticknor has at length rescued from oblivion. This substantial and comely volume will accordingly be welcomed by every lover of our great American romancer. Dr. James Douglas, in his "New Eng- land and New France" (Putnam), essays the task, as persistently difficult as it is perennially fascinating, of drawing his- torical parallels. In this instance, of course, the contrasts are more than the resemblances; and the chapters in which Dr. Douglas sets over against each other the history of the New England colonies and of New France tell, for the most part, independent stories, and there- by bring out, in striking fashion, the fundamental difference between the two regions in almost everything that relates to political theory, economic establish- ment, and governmental control. One suspects that the author either knows his New France better than he knows New England, or else that he likes it better; at least, the accounts of French co- lonial development show a range of in- cident and thoroughness of treatment less observable in the sketches of New Eng- land experience. The long chapters on the establishment of Plymouth and Mas- sachusetts, for example — one notes, in passing, that for most purposes New Eng- land, with Dr. Douglas, comprises only Massachusetts — consist mainly of ex- tracts from Bradford's "History" and Winthrop's journal. Much more interest- ing and original are the chapters on the status and careers of women in New France and New England, the contrasted state of education and religion in the two regions, and the successes and failures of Catholic and Protestant missions. Here the author's really wide acquaintance with his subject shows itself at its best, and the material is effectively handled. The agreeable sketch of habitant life in the Chaudiere valley, originally written for the Nation in 1902, fares well with time. The illustrations reproduce some forty-five contemporary pictures and maps. The Rev. Albert Whitcomb Snyder, a retired Episcopal clergyman, who died last week in New York, aged seventy- one, was at one time chaplain of Lehigh University, and had been rector of var- ious churches in Illinois and New York. He was the author of "The Living Church," "The Chief Things," "Confirma- tion," "Church Doctrine for the People," and was also an editorial writer in re- ligious and secular journals. (Science Sport and Folk-Lore in the Himalaya. By Capt. H. L. Haughton. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. $3.50 net. The author of this book, like so many Anglo-Indians, kept a journal while on duty, and after long hesitation has been persuaded to come into print. Unlike many of his fellow-countrymen of corre- spondingly weak wills, however, he has observed a good deal which is well worth the reading. The book is a Kashmiri potpourri, jumbled together beyond all hope of selection, and one's last hope of making it a work of reference vanishes when the miserable index is examined. The author is a keen observer, and has made many notes of really novel inter- est. But all this is as completely lost in the volume as if still hidden in Kash- mir. Under the title Gilgit we read, pages 41, 44, 97, 98, and so on, to forty- seven meaningless references. An ex- haustive index would have made this book thoroughly worth while. By far the weakest portion is the so-called folklore, which hardly deserves this name, so local and circumscribed are most of the tales. It seems proba- ble that the shikaris who narrated cer- tain of the legends drew as frerly upon their own imagination as upon any widespread lore of their people. Much better are the accounts of hunting ex- periences with bears, markhor, moun- tain sheep, and ibex. The habits, amounting almost to life histories of the animals, are very cleverly and unobtru- sively woven into the account of the hunt itself. The versatility of the au- thor is shown In chapter v, Some Pages from the Life Story of a Bear, where the account is from the bear's point of view, and well done. The picture of the
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166 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2537 mother bear in the hollow tree at the end of winter, first driving out her two yearling cubs to shift for themselves, then giving birth to two helpless things with slits for eyes and gaping toothless mouths, is absorbingly written, and the subsequent development and adventures of this trio is worthy of a high place among nature stories founded on fact. Bui the best of the work is that de- scriptive of the people themselves, chier- ly natives of Gilgit and Kashmir, and seldom has a writer given more vivid or accurate sketches of these pictur- esque natives. The chapter on A Gilgit Jalsa. is especially good. A passage from the long account of the spectators at the afternoon's games deserves to be quoted: First come some smart little Gurkhas ot the Kashmir Infantry and a party of long- limbed Punjabi Mohammedans belonging to the Mountain Battery. Close upon their heels follow several mounted officers, head- ed by the general commanding the Kashmir troops, a courtly old Dogra gentleman with over forty years' service, but active and up- right though he has seen generations come and go during his many tours of duty in Gilgit. We have no time to talk to him now, or he might tell us of the hardships, the victories, and reverses of the Kashmir armies in these regions, before a handful of Sahibs came to organize and see that the troops got their rations and occasion- ally some of the pay that was due to them. . . . Other chieftains and men of rank quickly follow ; the Mehtarjao of Yasin, in whom we may at once recognize the Chit- rali strain by his round, almost child- like eyes. He looks the picture of jovial kindheartedness, bubbling over with boyish good spirits, and so he is — at times! For the rest, let us remember that he is a Chit- rali, and then we shall not be surprised if on some future occasion we hear of him involved in some cruel intrigue, or see his now smiling face glowering with anger and hatred of some rival. But to-day he is riding and talking with the Governor of Punial, though "they that know" say there is but little love between them. This reads more like a mediaeval ac- count of the attendance at lists, than of people living in the present year. It is this faculty of making these interesting natives individually alive that forms the chief charm of Capt. Haughton's book. o" the songs of the birds in the tropics and a colored plate of the wood thrush to illustrate the "educational leaflet," No. 72. Peter mann's Mittettungen for January contains an account by Dr. W. Bach- mann of his journey from Mosul to Van in central Kurdistan, with numerous il- lustrations and three colored charts showing heights, cultivated districts, forests, and roads. The remarkable promontory of Monte Argentario in Tus- cany is described by Prof. G. Braun. The new boundaries of the Balkan states are treated in the military department from the geographic and ethnographic point of view, as well as the strategic value of inland ship canals. The Yale University Press will publish this spring "Mental Health of School Children, the Psycho-Educational Clinic in Relation to Child Welfare," by Dr. John Edward Wallace Wallin, director of the Psychological Clinic and professor of clinical psychology, University of Pitts- burgh, and "The Fundamental Bases of Nutrition," by Graham Lusk, M.D. The distinguishing feature of Bird- Lore for January-February is the census taken last Christmas of the bird-life of our country. The number of returns was greater than on any of the previous thirteen years. Two observers on Staten Island saw 1,008 birds of 30 different species. The artist, Louis Agassiz Fuer- tes, contributes a pleasant appreciation Drama Three Plays: The Stronger, Like Falling Leaves, Sacred Ground. By Giuseppe Giacosa. Translated from the Italian by Edith and Allan Updegraff. (The Modern Drama Series, edited by Ed- win Bjorkman.) New York: Mitchell Kennerley. $1.50 net. There is a rich undercurrent of ideal- ism in Italian literature of the nine- teenth century. The liberalism of the revolution and the wars of independence fed on it. Free Thinkers, Catholics, and Reactionaries are alike inspired by it. The most corrupt Governments and the most violent reformers have advanced their programmes in its name. It has been deeply colored by scholastic philos- ophy and by Catholic insistence on free will and individual responsibility. It has been less social than individualistic, more ingenuous than effective, more Utopian than practical. Going back to early Restoration days, we find this idealism in conflict with despotism; with the succession of middle-class Min- istries and the growing consciousness of industrial problems, we find it in con- flict with the spirit of greed and bour- geois materialism. Tt is this latter struggle that Giacosa understands and that he studies most successfully. He had, to be sure, a cer- tain sympathy with romantic sentimen- talism. But when we think of Giacosa's creations it is neither Iolanda nor Diana that comes before us. "The Game of Chess" and the "Triumph of Love" are too lightly worked. Giacosa's lyric emo- tion was never clearly analyzed by him- self, and the delicate humor that plays over that background, while it never lacks charm, has nothing particularly suggestive or profound. One feels ac- cordingly that in making these selec- tions from Giacosa's rich offering, Mrs. Updegraff has gathered together the most typical illustrations of his genius in a work that will give to the Ameri- can public all of Giacosa it needs or will care to know. Ilor translations also are among the best that have appeared in the Italian field. Of all the recent out- put, they are the only ones to be com- pared with the high standards set by Mrs. Wharton in the versions of Suder- mann and D'Annunzio. We have had translations of Giacosa coming from the professorial ranks. A glance at Mrs. CJpdegraff's work is enough to convince one that it was worth while to do the work over again, whether we consider accuracy of translation or efficacy of form. It is not that these latest trans- lations are exact interpretations of Giacosa's thought. In a number of cases the subtleties of Italian idiom have surpassed the translator's linguis- tic competence. But even in such cases her dramatic sense has preserved both the coherence and the movement of text, so that the versions create quite the impression of original works. The unpretentious introduction re- views sympathetically Giacosa's life and work. It might have been more useful had it taken its point of departure from research on Giacosa's visit and recep- tion in America in 1892, rather than from a comparison of him with D'An- nunzio. The comparison rightly con- cludes that there is no comparison pos- sible. It wrongly credits Giacosa with superiority "as a student of real life"; and it wrongly gives these two men "recognized preeminence in modern Italian dramatic literature." Surely, a dozen names occur to one instantly as more essentially "dramatic," more re* sponsive to Italian life, more enduring in vogue on the contemporary stage, and the statement that "Giacosa may safely be cited as the only modern Italian play- wright who ever mastered" the "art ot writing a play," needs no comment. These slight, and often gratuitous, er- rors are such as to be easily remedied in future volumes from the Italian drama which are planned for the series. "John Millington Synge and the Irish Theatre" (Macmillan), by Maurice Bour- geois, impresses one as a new invention. Here is a subject on the literary "firing- line," written up as for a Sunday maga- zine, yet soberly and judicially handled, and supplied with the elaborate critical apparatus of a doctor's dissertation. As a matter of fact, it was received with "mention tres honorable" for the Diplome d'Etudes SupSrieurs at the University of Paris. The author has apparently read everything written anywhere on Synge up to September 1, 1913. In an effort to add fresh touches to his biographical por- trait, he has also interviewed Lady Greg ory, Yeats, George Moore, G. B. Shaw, Masefield, relatives of Synge, and, one is tempted to say, every one else in In- land whose path the poet crossed. The aftermath of biographical facts is not heavy. We learn that Synge 'ii>i nol ape the green-faced decadents In Paris; but was "always very plainly drei •<< wcaiing a <<iiuioid collar and heavy boots, and generally muffled up in a while neckerchief and long black cape."
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Feb. 12, 1 9 14] The Nation 167 His language was at times "almost in- credibly gross, and he indulged in mag- nificent swear-words which had some- thing of the Elizabethan or Rabelaisian licentiousness," yet, adds the historian, he "always remained as chaste and pure as ever man was." He was fond of Bor- row, Pater, Loti, Anatole France, prided himself on his relationship to Lafcadio Hearn, and was in general far more in- timately acquainted with contemporary literature and art than Mr. Yeats has al- lowed. He had no conversation, was re- served and silent and of a "peculiar tene- brosity of mind." Towards the end of his life he was occupied with an unpub- lished play dealing with the slums. The day before his death he desired to be moved into a room where he could see the Dublin mountains. "But he could not see them, and wept. The next day, at five in the morning, he said to the nurse, 'It is no use fighting death any longer,' and, turning over, passed away." The spectacular revival of "Othello," which William Paversham has made at the Lyric Theatre, is a respectable but not remarkable achievement. To the scenery, admirable alike in design and color, almost unstinted praise may be awarded. It is the work of Joseph Har- ker, of London. But, as usual, the text suffered on account of the inevitable waits. R. D. MacLean, the Othello, was trained in the robust school of John Mc- Cullough, but has acquired a welcome moderation. His view of the Moor is that of a rough, simple soldier, and he played the first and second acts most effectively, with fine restraint and unaf- fected virility. In the later acts his acting was uneven. At times he sound- ed notes of genuine tragic emotion, but he could not sustain himself on the heights. Of some of the most exquisitely pathetic passages, he made little or nothing. But his performance was dig- nified and meritorious. Mr. Faversharn, as the manager, chose Iago and kept him in the centre of the stage as much as possible. His interpretation was clever in its elaborate technique, but superfi- cial, failing to indicate the power of an intellect and will necessary to provoke a catastrophe of such proportions. In striv- ing to make Iago natural, colloquial, and plausible— as he often ought to be— he made him trivial. He failed to give any of those flashes of self-revelation in the soliloquies which imparted such vivid- ness to the impersonation of Edwin Booth. He was interesting, but not ter- rible. Pedro de Cordoba was an excellent Cassius, but Constance Collier was a sec- ond-rate Emilia and Cecilia Loftus an exceedingly feeble Desdemona. It should be noted that the performance was re- ceived with favor by a crowded house. The hundredth performance of G. K. Chesterton's "Magic" has just been given in the Little Theatre, London. A week or two ago the piece was doing so badly that its last performances were announced. Then there was a rush to see it, and the house has been full ever since. The prob- ability is that all Mr. Chesterton's friends and admirers intended to see it at some time or other, but thought that there was no occasion for haste. The notice of with- drawal sent them all scurrying to the theatre at once. It is somewhat curious that the piece was so coolly received in the first instance, as it has many attri- butes which might be expected to be pop- ular. Most of the critics treated it very unjustly. As a matter of fact, it is far more interesting than most persons would suppose after reading the published re- ports. Oscar Asche and Lily Brayton will re- open the London Globe Theatre, which has been redecorated, on the 9th of March, with "Kismet." They expect to remain in London, or England, for a long tlmo to come. Laurence Irving and Mabel Hackney have left England for Montreal, where they start their Canadian tour on Feb- ruary 9. They have with them four plays, "Typhoon," "The Unwritten Law," "The Lily," and, by arrangement with Sir George Alexander, "The Importance of Being Earnest." On his return to Eng- land Mr. Irving will complete prepara- tions, already well advanced, for the pro- duction of Herman Bahr's comedy, "Bonaparte," which depicts the love story of Napoleon and Josephine. Mr. Keble Howard has completed ar- rangements for a second season of "reper- tory" at the Grand Theatre, Croydon, near London, starting on March 9. On this occasion he will act as sole director and producer. Not only has he in hand all the requisite plays, but he has also en- gaged the full company. The keynote of the season will be comedy, and English comedy at that, as he is of the opinion that last year's programme was some- what too heavy. The Incorporated Stage Society of Lon- don has in preparation two plays by Ana- tole France — the first, a light one-act comedy, "Au Petit Bonheur"; the second, the "Comedy of the Man Who Married a Dumb Wife." Both have been translated by Ashley Dukes. Edward Compton, who for thirty years has been acting old English comedy in the English provinces, starts his spring tour next week. His repertory includes Lord Lytton's "Richelieu." "Money," and "The Lady of Lyons," together with "Davy Garrick," to be given in conjunc- tion with the screen scene from "The School for Scandal." "La Danse devant le miroir" is the name of a new play by Francois de Curel which has just been produced at the Paris Ambigu. The title is explained in a speech by one of the characters: "When two lov- ers are perfectly in love, each sees himself or herself in a mirror, thinks that the image is that of the other lover, and gazes raptly at himself or herself without noticing really that he or she is alone." The conclusion is that love always is "dancing before a looking-glass." Regine is rich, and loves Paul. Paul loves Regine, but is ruined. In fact, he has already tried to commit suicide. He will not be supported by a wife, even though it were a love match. "But would you not take me if I were in trouble and dishonored?" Of course he would — and he imagines that thought of such an interpretation, but uses it to find out whether Paul is as dis- tressed as a real lover should be. Paul finds that the whole story is an inven- tion, and rejoices. He is assured again by Regine herself that it is all too true. A fortnight before the wedding he finds out finally that it is all false. On the wedding day all is explained. She is pure and he is a gentleman. If her tale had been true he would have married her out of devotion and shot himself afterwards. She holds him in her arms. He is her real hero — and he takes a pistol out of his pocket and does shoot himself. The pic- ture she had formed of him was so noble that he was afraid he could not live up to it. Music MASSENET'S "DON QUICHOTTE." The Philadelphia-Chicago Opera Com- pany (known in Chicago as the Chi- cago-Philadelphia Opera Company) has inherited Mary Garden and several oth- er popular artists of the Parisian school from Oscar Hammerstein, which ex- plains why French opera remains its mainstay, especially when it visits the Metropolitan Opera House, where French operas are not in favor with the man- agement. This year four of these in- vasions are planned. The first of them, last week, gave New York music-lovers their first opportunity to hear Massenet's romantic opera, "Don Quichotte," which was produced under the direction of Cleofonte Campanini, with a cast in- cluding Mary Garden, Hector Dufranne, and Vanni Marcoux (at present a mem- ber of the Boston Opera Company), whom Massenet himself called a "superbe artiste," and who has sung the part of Don Quichotte in Paris 150 times. At least a score of musical works have been based on the great novel of Cer- vantes, the first of them dating back to 1690. Massenet's opera can be classed with them only so far as the Knight and Sancho Panza and the episode of the windmills are concerned. For the rest, the plot is based on a play produced in Paris in 1904, its author, Jacques Le Lorrain, being a provincial cobbler who, like Hans Sachs, was "a poet, too." He died shortly after the production of his play, which was entitled "Le Chevalier de la longue figure," and Henri Cain converted it into a libretto. In this opera book Dulcinea is a cour- tesan, whom it amuses to be adored by Don Quichotte as a model of virtue. When, after a duel with one of her ad- mirers, he proposes marriage, she mock- ingly consents on condition that he shall restore to her a costly necklace stolen by the terrible T6n6brun. He promptly starts with his Roslnante and Sancho in quest of the robber band. See- she has been betrayed. She had never ing a windmill, he takes it for a menac
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168 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2537 ing giant, charges, and is knocked off his steed, without being seriously In- jured, in the next act he comes across the robbers, and again charges, but is soon disarmed and condemned to death. As they arc preparing the halter, he makes them an address, telling of his mission in life to succor the poor and the op- pressed. Tenebrun is moved to tears, and not only allows the knight to de- part, but gives him the stolen necklace. With it he returns to find Dulcinea in the midst of festivities. She is delight- ed to recover her jewels, and so touched by his devotion that, after a fit of hilar- ity over his renewed offer of marriage, the tells him what sort of a woman she is; whereupon he retires, broken-heart- ed, with his faithful Sancho, to the depths of the forest, where he dies lean- ing against a tree, after once more see- ing and hearing Dulcinea in his delir- ium. As presented on the stage and intensi- fied by Massenet's music, there is real pathos in this portrayal of the adven- tures of that grotesque mixture of fanat- icism, blind impulsiveness, true chival- ry, and kindliness known as Don Quijote de la Mancha. By way of con- trast we have Sancho Panza, who sea- sons his devotion with a humor which reaches its climax in a tirade against all womankind, with which he tries to per- suade his master that Dulcinea is mere- ly having fun at his expense. The music is most impressive in the final scene, and in the festivities of the open- ing scene, where Spanish rhythms lend piquancy to the merry strains. The Don's serenade is commonplace, nor has Massenet provided Dulcinea with even one of those original and impassioned melodies which occur in those of his operas that have become famous. His "Don Quichotte" was not produced till 1910; when he wrote it he was beyond the age when composers seem to be able to create such melodies. In all other respects, however, the score reveals the practiced hand of a master of his craft. There are exquisite bits of orchestral coloring here and there, and Dulcinea's song to the accompaniment of her guitar in the fourth act has the true Spanish atmosphere and sprightliness. One of the finest effects occurs during the attack on the windmills, where the vigorous accents of the music are as ex- citing as the scene presented to the eyes. But it is in the introduction to the last act (which had to be repeated) and the subdued melancholy music accompany- ing the Don's last words to Sancho — on whom he bestows all he owns, the "Isle of Dreams" — that Massenet most nearly approaches the art which enabled him to place "Werther," "Manon," and espe- cially the "Jongleur de Notre Dame" among the masterpieces of the French operatic stage. We may expect shortly from the I'ut- nams' press "JLatin Songs, Ancient, Medi- eval, and Modern, with Music," by Calvin IS. Brown. I alii Lehmann has contributed 200,000 crowns (about $40,000), to the Mozarteum to be opened with a festival on August 12 at Salzburg. One feature of this festival will be the conducting by Dr. Muck and Arthur Nikisch, at the head of the Vien- na Philharmonic Orchestra, of a series of pieces illustrating the evolution of sym- phonic music on Austrian soil. The New York Philharmonic Orchestra has already engaged as one of next sea- son's soloists Fritz Kreisler, who returns under the management of Charles E. El- lis. Puccini was in Vienna not long ago, where he attended the one hundredth performance of his "Madama Butterfly" and the 172d of his "Boheme." Cincinnati will have another May fes- tival this year. These festivals have been held every other year, with a few excep- tions, since 1874. The May Festival As- sociation has never had to call upon its guarantee fund, and has accumulated a sinking fund of about $100,000. According to the French composer, Ra- vel, who has lately taken to writing criti- cisms, modern composers owe their de- fects as well as their merits to Liszt, whom he admires greatly. It is to Liszt's defects, he writes, that "Wagner owes his turgescence; Strauss, his churlish enthusiasms; Franck, the ponderousness of his ideality; the Russians, their, at times, tinsel picturesqueness; the modern French, the simperings of their grace. But," he adds, "it is to him that all those dissimilar composers owe the best of their qualities." Art THE REVIVAL OF INDIAN ART. London, January 30. The creation of Delhi as the seat of Government of British India, necessitat- ing, as it does, the building of a new metropolis adjacent to the present city, at a cost of $20,000,000, as the officials compute it, or twice that sum, as some authorities assert, is quite naturally re- garded as a potential event in the an- nals of Indian architecture — and for that matter, of Indian art. It has led to a heated discussion over the point as to whether the projected capital is to be erected by native master-builders in harr.i.ony with its surroundings, embody- ing the best features of Moghul, Bud- dhist, and Hindu architecture, or is to be constructed by Occidental architects in the classical, Renaissance, or purely modern style. Questions pertaining to the ideals and forms of art at present occupy the centre of the stage in the land of Ind, and are attracting the at- tention of the rulers as well as of the ruled, both of which communities, but a short time back, wore justly accused of being apathetic towards such problems. But whatever the Government may de- cide to do in the matter of dispensing its patronage to architects, there is no mistaking the fact that this wrangling has exerted a strong influence upon the natives, impelling them to appreciate indigenous art, and patronize Indian artists. This is really not a new im- pulse generated by the controversy. For some years past the cultured classes of Hindustan have realized that it would be most unfortunate if the process of modernization should kill the native artistic genius and reduce the Indians to mere imitators of Occidental artists. This sentiment found dramatic ex- pression when Dr. Ananda K. Coomara- swamy, who was in charge of the art section of the Allahabad Exhibition of 1910-11, barred the paintings of Ravi Varma, whose work, done in the style of the British Royal Academicians, had been rendered familiar to millions of na- tives, educated and ignorant, by cheap oleographs and collotypes, and many of whose masterpieces, bought at fancy prices, were hanging on the walls of the Laxmi Vilas palace — the favorite resi- dence of the Gaekwar of Baroda, reputed to be one of the most discriminating Indians of his generation. The man who issued this mandate was a doctor of science of the University of London, steeped in the philosophy of William Morris, and recognized in Europe as an art critic of considerable discernment. He was only partly an Indian, the son of a Ceylonese knight who had married an Englishwoman, and had spent most of his years out of Hindustan. His de- cision to exclude Ravi Varma's paint- ings from the Allahabad Exhibition rais- ed a commotion throughout India. But the cultured Indians gave him their in- fluential support. Several years prior to this a similar stir had been created when the gallery attached to the Calcutta School of Art was purged of all portraits done in the modern style, by Mr. E. B. Havell, in his capacity of principal of that institu- tion. Mr. Havell's action, proceeding, as it did, from an English artist many gen- erations of whose family had followed the same profession, gave deep umbrage to his countrymen; they accused him of resorting to such tactics to curry favor with Indians. Strange to say, it also of- fended many natives, who took the view that the alien artist was seeking to pre- vent the brown man from mastering the principles and technique of Western art. But the Briton refused to bo daunted by opposition, and not only declined to undo his work, but repudiated the meth- ods then prevalent in the Calcutta School of Art and introduced in their stead B curriculum of traditional ideals. He furthermore called attention to the (act that the useful arts of India were dying out: (1) because the Moghul Court which
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Feb. 12, 1914] Th.e Nation ie>9 patronized the artists had passed away and tin: BrltiBh administration gave qo support; it) because Western- educated Indians wire too materialistic as loi e or taste tor art; (3) be- cause Hi" wealthy Indians gave encour agement to foreign and pseudo-foreign objets d'art; and (4) because the tour- ists and ■ cport traders compelled the In- dians to produce articles that vulgarized their genius. Over and above this, he d, the handicrafts of the country were suffering from the alien im- ports— a competition which could be overcome if the native workers were to employ improved hand-looms and other modern tools, and if the cultured classes were to patronize their wares. This agitation was unpopular, especially with the British, who deemed it a thrust at their civilization and a direct incite- ment to native insolence. To this prob- ably is due the fact that, though still in the prime of life, Mr. Havell had to re- tire from his Government position on the plea of ill health. As the result of Mr. Havell's endeav- ors, the Calcutta School of Art has fos- tered a cult of imaginative and idealis- tic art. Those who belong to it do not seek to reproduce minute details, but, with a sweep of the brush, produce the broad, general outlines of the subject. The general impression that these paint- ings leave on the mind of the critic is that they are intended more to depict ab- stract thought than concrete form. The artists are Hindus steeped in the philos- ophy and mythology of their race, and the subjects they choose are generally of a sacerdotal and allegorical character, suggested by the lore of the Vedic and Pauranic periods. Yet the campaign of revival lacked life and force until about the middle of the last decade. Then the Japanese vic- tories on the Manchurian battlefields and in the Tshushima Straits stirred Hindustan out of its torpor. The spec- tacle of an Eastern Power defeating a Western foe came almost simultaneously with the partitioning of Bengal by Lord Curzon — an act which the educated In- dians, rightly or wrongly, construed to be an unforgivable affront offered by the alien Administration to native pub- lic opinion. The two incidents combined to increase faith in the destiny of the Eastern races. The Indians stampeded back to the ideals of Vedas and in- digenous asstheticism; and began to crave for spirituality instead of ma- terialism, hand-manufactured goods in- stead of machine-made merchandise, and articles of purely native design and workmanship. When this intellectual reaction came, native art was in a most depressed and degraded condition. The majority of Indians educated in the West, not hav- ing any conception of aestheticism or any love for it, made little attempt to adorn their homes and beautify tneir Burroundings: the few who did selected foreign art products for this purpose. Oftentimes the native penchant for Oc- cidental trumpery led to bizarre eu'eets. In more than one drawing-room in In- dia the writer has seen common hat- stands strewn about to decorate the par- : lors. In a Maharaja's palace, the walls I were lined with plate-rails on which ; were placed cheap vases of every de- scription, tall and short, slender and thick, glass, china, and pottery-ware, standing as close together as they could ' be crowded, while tables, cabinets, and what-nots groaned under a similar 'awdry load. The desire to patronize foreign wares was especially strong In the half-educated, and even more so J among the barely literate, who thought I they should be able to make up for their I lack of Western culture by surrounding themselves with articles of Occidental manufacture. Since the leisured classes largely consisted of poorly educated per- sons, it came to pass that the men whose progenitors took the keenest delight in encouraging the native artists now transferred their favor to Vilayat — Eu- rope. The insensate length to which this was carried can be inferred from the fact that one wealthy Indian sent his soiled linen over-seas to Paris to be laundered. Whenever these people who were rich in resources and poor in culture patronized Indian artists, they did so only on condition that the crafts- men would consent to copy European rubbish. For instance, the generality of landlords employed builders whom they kept busy erecting houses, mostly pat- terned after barracks. Indian painters began to produce weird pictures in which Hindu gods were portrayed dress- ed in European costumes, and in a Western environment. Krishna was shown seated in a phaeton along with a number of devotees, while Siva was seen sitting in a chamber lighted with candles with glass shades. The women of India also evidenced the desire to possess the flimsy mulls and silks wov- en by machine in Manchester and Paris, compelled the native gold and silver- smiths to copy patterns of bijouterie from catalogues of British firms, and forced the makers of kitchen and din- ing utensils, the embroiderer, and the weaver, to imitate Westerners. The political convulsion, in addition to turning the sympathies of the In- dians towards the encouragement of na- tive artists and traditional methods, provided a direct impetus to the revival of Indian handicrafts, and especially to hand-loom weaving. This impulse pro- ceeded from the boycott that the Ben- galis instituted against British goods in 1905. Since the output of power-driv- en Indian mills was pitifully small com- pared with the requirements of the country, the boycotters found that they must patronize the hand-looms. Conse- quently the native weaver began to re- ceive support such as he had not en- joyed for decades. Hand-loom weaving, at that time, had become a moribund in- dustry. The wtavers virtually confined themselves to producing coarse cotton cloth (which they often wove from ma- chine-spun yarn), which held its own in the market only because it was stronger than that produced by machinery, and which, for that reason, was largely con- sumed by illiterate Indian villagers. Yet the weavers earned such miserable pit- tances that yearly hundreds of thou- sands were forsaking the hand-looms for factories and mills. Those whose fore- fathers had been engaged in weaving muslins of gossamer fineness, and pat- terns of intricate and artistic designs, were in a still more depressed condition, their number having decreased almost to the point of extinction. The boycott came to these people as a saviour. In the ebullition of feeling, coarse cloth was used in preference to the thin, ma- chine product, by men and women who, a few years before, would not have deigned to look at it. Those who wove fabrics of a better grade were patron- ized even though the hand-made cloth cost more than did the products of the Manchester mills. Improved hand-looms were invented or imported so that the weaver could do more and better work with less expenditure of time and labor. Societies sprang up everywhere to help advance the cause of Swadeshi — India- made goods. Shops were established ex- clusively for the sale of country manu- factures. The boycott did not last long, nor did it materially hurt the British trade; but it exercised a revivifying in- fluence upon hand-loom weaving and other handicrafts. The Nationalist movement (of which the boycott was a transitory phase), however, appears to have come to stay in Hindustan, and is giving an impetus to Indian art, relig- ion, philosophy, and culture in general. With the calming of Hindostan's po- litical temper, the insane repugnance for Western institutions, exhibited by many : atives immediately after the Japanese victories and the partition of Ben- gal, has disappeared. Therefore, the tendency to belittle and reject all W< st- ern civilization has vanished. Indians to-day are not resisting all modernizing influences, nor do they refuse to nize and admire the beauties of Occiden- tal art and life. But the crisis of the past decade has given them discernment which safeguards the artistic heritage of ages, and which insures the indigen- ous traditions of art. S\i\r N'urvi. Singh. !■:. P. Dutton A Co. have in their list of spring announcements: "Gothic Arch- itecture in Spain." by George Edmund Street: "Religious Art in France. XIII Century." by Ktnile Male, translated I y
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170 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2537 Dora Nussoy, with 189 illustrations, and "The Great Art Treasures," edited by C. H. Collins-Baker. The middle of March the Arnold Otto Meyer-Hamburg collection of drawings of the old masters will be sold at auction at the shop of C. G. Boerner, Leipzig. The collection contains many treasures of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seven- teenth centuries, among- them being1 original drawings by Rembrandt, Aver- camp, Bega, Breugel, Cuyp, Everdingen, Goyen, Hobbema, Leyden, Ostade, Ruys- dael, Terborch, and others, besides a large portrait of the Emperor Maximil- ian on horseback, by Burgkmair. A cat- alogue of the collection may be obtained from the firm of Boerner for three marks. Mr. John V. Van Pelt's "The Essen- tials of Composition as Applied to Art" labors under the disadvantage of a too ambitious title. It is a second edition, revised and enlarged, of an earlier book which, under the more modest title of "A Discussion of Composition," has during the past ten or twelve years found con- siderable favor among both teachers and students of architecture. Based primarily, it should seem, on "La Composition de- corative" of Mayeux, with amplifications showing the results of a varied though somewhat limited reading, it embodies the substance of lectures delivered to the students of architecture at Cornell Uni- versity, and has the advantages and de- fects common to such books. It must of necessity be elementary in character to fit the stage of mental and aesthetic training of the students to whom it was addressed; and the casual and offhand allusions and obiter dicta, as well as the familiar style of the language in which they are expressed, seem at times somewhat beneath the dignity of a seri- ous treatise. Moreover, it includes a number of topics which, proper enough in a manual for students of architectural design, are hardly appropriate material for a treatise on the essential principles of composition in art — such topics, for instance, as the programme for a riding- school, the proper arrangement of sta- bles, or the right way to indicate "mo- saic" in a plan. It would have been bet- ter to acknowledge frankly the evident field of usefulness for such a book by a title such as "A Manual of Suggestions for Students of Architecture"; for its scope is not that suggested by the title, and it nowhere handles aesthetic theory with broad philosophic grasp. On the other hand, it shows an alert mind, broad in its outlook and sympathies, and in its specific maxims and propositions and counsels it is generally sound. Its style is familiar, but readable, and it may be safely commended to students of architecture and of the arts most nearly allied to it. (The Macmillan Co.) Charles Volkmar, one of the best- known art ceramists in America, died Friday at his home near Mctuchen, N. J., ieventy-two. He was the son of the late Charles Volkmar, of Baltimore, a portrait painter, and studied painting himself in the studio of the French land- scapiat, Harpignies. He was said to be the flrel artist In America to paint un- derglaze upon tiles, and his vases, jugs, and bowls in soft-toned glazes, manu- factured in the pottery at Metuchen, brought him fame and were featured in all the exhibitions of arts and crafts in the country. Finance THE QUESTION OF BUSINESS RE- VIVAL. Since the remarkable recovery on the New York Stock Exchange in January, followed by a similar revival in London (which the conservative London Econom- ist describes as "the most important recovery that has taken place since the Boer War"), a general reaction in prices has ensued. It has resulted, at New York, in loss of a considerable part of the January gain in prices. At London, it has caused the loss of nearly iy2 point in British consols, following the extraordinary 6-point rise of the three preceding weeks. It is true that evidences of a world- wide return to sound conditions in the money market have not ceased. On the contrary, in the face of the Stock Ex- change reaction, two of the great Euro- pean banks last week made further re- duction in their rates, while the open market price of money reached still low- er figures, both at London and at New York. There have also been signs of re- viving activity in our steel trade, where prices, last week, advanced sharply for the first time since 1912, with orders on hand 10 per cent, above the January average and 20 per cent, above Decem- ber. But even this left the mills work- ing at only 65 per cent, of full capacity, and there have as yet been few distinct indications of revival in other indus- tries. Absence of such fulfilment of the re- cent inferences of Wall Street from the "bull market" then prevailing, and the fact that the market itself was moving down again, have caused the occasional remark that the action of Stock Ex- change prices, during January, must have been illusory. But this suggests the inquiry, whether a stock-market movement like last month's may be safe- ly taken as a forecast of general busi- ness prospects, and if so, why trade is making no response. Those questions are best determined in the light of precedent. One is re- minded, to begin with, of the markets of 1897, when the movement really be- gan under which American finance and business were swept from the most ex- treme depression into what grew to be unparalleled prosperity. People famil- iar with that period, cither through ex- perience or through tradition, know that a great rise on the Stock Exchange oc- curred. But under what 1 ii 1 '( -u instances, in relation to the general position, and to what extent simultaneously with trade revival? The year before 1897 had been one of great hardship, In both finance and trade. Sales on the Stock Exchange in 1896 had been, with one exception, the smallest in sixteen years. It was in May, 1897, that the stock mar- ket began to rise; it went up 6 or 9 points in June, 10 points in July, and 8 or 10 in August — sales on the Exchange in the last-named month being the larg- est of any month in a decade. But trade, during that vigorous three months' rise in stocks, did not revive at all; on the contrary, iron production, even in July, was 10 per cent, smaller than the year before; steel prices were lower than in January; unsold supplies had increased month by month, and bus- iness failures were more numerous. In September of 1897 the rise of stocks was replaced by a violent reaction. Prices fell 8 or 10 points that month, and the break continued. But at just that mo- ment the trade recovery, which was to have so remarkable a later history, but of which there had previously been few signs, began. In the three autumn months of 1897, during which the de- cline on the Stock Exchange continued, iron production increased 20 per cent, to a higher weekly total than had ever before been reached. With the suddenly enlarged activity of trade, the country's bank clearings in September rose 50 per cent, above 1896. The obviously interesting point of this retrospect is that trade revival did not really begin until three months after the rise in Wall Street started, nor until Wall Street prices were moving down again. The story of 1904, when recov- ery set in from the financial and indus- trial depression of the gloomy year which came before it, is equally interest- ing. From a condition of apathy in the first half of 1904, the stock market in July began to rise. In August the lead- ing shares advanced 8 or 10 points; In September the rise was equally great; the market of October and November as- sumed the proportions of a boom. But as late in that period as Septem- ber, prices were demoralized in the steel trade and business at large was halting. It was only towards the close of that month — nearly three months after the stock market rise had got under way — that an upward turn came in the steel trade, and it was December, when Stock Exchange prices were indulging in a "perpendicular decline," which witness- ed the first revival in the field of gener- al business. So also reads the testimony Of the first trade revival alter the panic of 1907. On both Stock Exchange and IB markets, the early recoveries of 1908 were the brief and abortive ' Sunshine movements." It was Novem- her of that year when the financial pub- lic took the bit in its teeth ami ran away with stock-market prices; but It
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Feb. 12, 1914] The Nation 171 was April of the following year before the (Inline in price of steel was check- ed, and a recovery began which rapidly : proud to the whole business held. In due course, we shall see to what extent, if at all, such a sequence of events is to be observed in the various markets of 1914. Precedent at least seems to prove this — that when real re- covery is under way, the Stock Exchange not only indicates it first, but completes Its forecasting process some considera- ble time before the industrial recovery which it prophesied has itself begun. If one asked the reason for this relatively slow response of the business world, the answer of experienced people probably would be that the plans of trade and in- dustry can be changed and reversed only with slow deliberation, even when favorable underlying conditions are unanimously recognized; whereas the Stock Exchange, if it discovers such con- ditions overnight, can begin to "reflect" them energetically next morning. BOOKS OP THE WEEK. Baerlein, Henry. Abu'I Ala, the Syrian. (Wisdom of the East series.) Dutton. 70 cents net. Bardoux, Jacques. Croquis d'Outre- Manche. Paris: Hachette. Barry, J. D. Outlines: A Collection of Studies. San Francisco: Elder. Bird, Richard. The Gay Adventure. In- dianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. $1.25 net. B join son's Plays. Translated by Edwin Bjorkman. Second series. Scribner. $1.50 net. Blakeslee, (i. H. Recent Developments in China. Stechert. Bolte, J. W. The Back Yard Farmer. Chicago: Forbes. $1. Rooses, Max. Art in Flanders. (Ars Una series.) Scribner. Briggs, C. A. Theological Symbolics. Scribner. $2.50 net. Bunou-Varilla, Philippe. Panama. Mc- Bride, Nast. $3.50 net. Call, W. T. Boy's Book on Logic. Brook- lyn, N. Y.: W. T. Call. 50 cents. Cescinsky, H., and Webster, M. R. Eng- lish Domestic Clocks, Dutton $10 net. Chadwick, M. L. Blossom Babies. Eaton & Mains. 75 cents net. Cheyney, E. P. A History of England. Vol. I. Longmans. $2.50 net. Collin, J. H. The Socialized Conscience. Baltimore: Wanriek & York. $1.2.",. Crozier, G. B. Children's Indoor Games; Outdoor Games; Parties. Dutton. 50 cents net, each. Dahlke, Paul. Buddhist Stories. Dutton. $1.25 net. Dell, E. M. The Rocks of Valpre. Put- nam. $1.35 net. Droke, A. E. S. The Diary of a Minister's Wife. Eaton & Mains. $1.25 net. Edwardes, Tlckner. The Honey-Star: A Novel. Dutton. $1.35 net. England* G. A. Darkness and Dawn. Bos- ton: Small, Maynard. $1.35. Fitzgibbon, H. M. The Story of the Flute. Scribner. Forman, S. E. Advanced American His- tory. Century Co. $1.50. Garland, Hamlin. The Forester's Daugh- ter. Harper. $1.25 net. Garofalo, Raffaele. Criminology. Trans- lated by R. W. Millar. Boston: Little, Brown. $4.50 net. Gerry, M. S. The Masks of Love. Har- per. $1.20 net. Graves, T. S. The Court and the London Theatres during the Reign of Eliza- beth. University of Chicago. Havens, Munson. Old Valentines- A Love Story. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. $1 net. Howard, Keble. Lord London. McBride, Nast. $1.25 net. Hutchinson, J. R. The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore. Dutton. $3 net. James, J. A. Readings in American His- tory. Scribner. Kennedy, C. R. The Idol-Breaker. Har- per. $1.25 net. Lee, G. S. Crowds, Jr. Doubleday, Page. 50 cents net. Le Sueur, Gordon. Cecil Rhodes. Mc- Bride, Nast. $3.50 net. Lowry, E. B. The Home Nurse. Chica- go: Forbes & Co. $1. Mackintosh, Robert. Christianity and Sin. Scribner. 75 cents net. Mavor, James. Applied Economics. (Mod- ern Business series, Vol. I.) Alexander Hamilton Institute. Newman, F. H. Out of Bondage. San Francisco: Elder & Co. $2.50. O'Donnell, W. C. Creed and Curriculum. Methodist Book Concern. 75 cents net. Oldham, W. F. India, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Eaton & Mains. $1. PoincarS, Raymond. How France Is Gov- erned. McBride, Nast. $2.25 net. Princeton University Archaeological Ex- peditions to Syria in 1904-1905 and 1909. Division IV, Semitic Inscriptions, By Enno Littmann. Princeton Uni- versity. Reed, H. S. A Manual of Bacteriology. Boston: Ginn. Richards, J. T. Romance on el Camino Real. St. Louis: B. Herder. $1.35 net. Rogge, D. B. Der Grosse Preussenkonig. With notes and vocabulary by W. A. Adams. Boston: Heath. 45 cents. Saint-Mery, Moreau de. Voyage aux Etats-Unis de l'Amerique, 1793-1798. New Haven: Yale University Press. $2.50 net. "Simmie." Anthony and Hero, and Short Stories. New Haven: F. Simon. Stuck, Hudson. The Ascent of Denall (Mount McKinley). Scribner. $1.75 net. Sudermann, Hermann. Die Lobgesange des Claudian. Lemcke & Buechner. $1. Taylor, D. C. Self Help for Singers. H. W. Gray Co. $1. Tennyson's Idylls of the King (Selec- tions). Boston: Ginn. 25 cents. The Quest of the Spirit. By "A Pilgrim of the Way." Edited and arranged by G. Stebbins. E. S. Werner. $1.25 net. The Saviour's Life. Paulist Press. $1. Van de Water, V. T. The Shears of Deli- lah. Putnam. $1.25 net. Vasari Society's Reproductions. Part VIII, 1912-13; Part IX, 1913-14. Ox- ford University Press. Walter, J. E. Nature and Cognition of Space and Time. West Newton, Pa. : Johnston & Penney. $1.35. Walton, G. L. The Flower-Finder. Phil- adelphia: Lippincott. Warren, T. H. Robert Bridges, Poet Laureate: A Public Lecture. Oxford Uni- i versity Press. Whitworth, G. The \rt of Nijinsky. Mc- Bride, Nast. $1.10 net. Wiggin, K. D. Bluebeard: A Musical Fantasy. Harper. 50 cents net. Woodberry, G. E. The Flight and Other Poems. Macmillan. $1.25 net. Woods, M. L. Collected Poems. Lane. $1.50 net. Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats. Selec- tions, edited for schools by W. P. Trent and J. Erskine. Boston: Ginn. 25 cents. Young, W. E. Thirty Organ Pieces for use in Christian Science Churches. Boston: Oliver Ditson. Williamson, R. W. The Ways of the South Sea Savage. Phila. : Lippincott. $.150 net. "Decidedly interesting" was the verdict of The Nation on GEORGE MIDDLETON'S TRADITION and other one-act plays. His first pub- lished three-act play NOWADAYS A Comedy-Drama, showing the effect of a woman's larger aspirations on an American home, is now ready, $1 net; by mail $1.08. HenryHolt&Co., 34W. 33 St. New York "TO LIBRARIANS " It is of interest and importance to know that the book* reviewed and advertised in this mag azine can be purchased from ut at advanta- geous prices by PUBLIC LIBRARIES SCHOOLS, COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES A. C. McCLURG A CO., CHICAGO Read WHAT MEN LIVE BY By Dr. RICHARD C. CABOT $1.50 net. Postage extra. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN CO., 4 Park St., BOSTON A History of England From the Defeat of the Armada to the Death of Elizabeth With an Account of English Insti- tutions during the Later Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries. By EDWARD P. CHEYNEY, A.M., LL.D., Professor of European His- tory in the University of Pennsyl- vania. In 2 volumes. Volume T. 8vo. $3.50 net; by mail, $3.70. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. JAN VERMEER OF DELFT By PHILIP L. HALE. The only book in the Enclixh I1111- smftRe on "the greateM painter who ever lived." In the Koston Transcript of December 17 Mr. XV. H. Dowries calls this a "brilliant and readable book," mxl says Mr. nnle's "conclusions are jog? cal and sound." This work fixes Mr. Male's place as authority on Vermeer. Large 8vo. fully illustrated. Hticltrnm. $10 net. hovel : half levant. $20 net. boxed. Carriage ad- ditional. Descriptive circular on request. Small, Maynard A Co., Publishers. He-ton Published To-day Continuity The Presidential Address to the British Association BySirOLfVER LODGE Author of "Life and Matter," etc. 12mo. $1.00 net A marked feature of the present scientific era is the discovery of, and interest in, various kinds of Atomism: so that Continuity seems in danger of being lost sight of. Another tendency is toward com- prehensive negative generalizations from a limited point of view. Another is to take refuge In rather vague forms of statement and to shrink from closer examina- tion of the puzzling and the ob- scure. Another Is to deny the existence of anything which makes no ap- peal to organs of sense, and no ready response to laboratory ex- periment. The author, in this illuminating little volume, urges against these tendencies. New York G. P. Putnam's Sons London
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172 The Nation (Vol. 98, No. 2537 Wbt ^mtt0 ffogf (NEW YORK) will publish on Wednesday, February 25th A Woman Suffrage Number On that day one whole section of the EVENING POST will be produced in its entirety by THE COMMITTEE FOR EDITING A SUFFRAGE ISSUE OF THE NEW YORK EVENING POST, which Committee has been especially appointed by the International, National, State and allied organizations devoted to the promotion of Woman Suffrage. The Most Complete and Authoritative Exposition of the Woman Suffrage Movement that has ever been published in any newspaper The articles will be contributed by distinguished women connected with the movement, and by eminent men supporting it. Some of the Special Features Include: The First Comprehensive Statement of the Organized Suffrage Movement of To-day. What each Association stands for, and is doing — Internation- al, National, and Local. Who are the real workers. The Political Status of the Woman Suffrage Movement To-day. Where Women Vote — all over the World. The Campaign States. The Federal Amendment. Organizations endorsing Votes for Women. 3,600,000 Women Voters and What They Do With the Ballot. Figures and Testimony from the Ten Suffrage States. The Women Voters of the Democratic Party. Figures showing how the Democratic Party stands on Equal Suffrage, and what power the Women Voters will have in 1916. To insure receiving this Woman Suffrage Number clip the coupon and mail to-day to ®6e §E betting $o$f 20 Vesey Street, New York Send your order to-day for as mr ny copies as you may wish to use of the (February 25) SUFFRAGE NUMBER New York Evening Post Postage Prepaid 3 cents I yy 8 cents eCLCtl y^ each send .... copies of the Woman Suffrage Num- ber of The New York Evening Post Name A ddress . . Copies of The Evening Post will lie mailed n,. 1 in nny nnmeB, for 3 cents end), If you enclose Hat.
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T7TTT- 1 — _-w iJl^i"'*^ 7 Wellesley, Mass, The ■on VOL. XCVMI— NO. 2538 THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19,1914 K: Si.1 PRICE TEN CENTS EARLY SPRING NEW PUBLICATIONS DODD, MEAD & COMPANY Fourth Ave. and 30th St., New York The Making of an Englishman By W. L. GEORGE Author of "A Bed of Roses," "Until the Day Break," etc. More clearly and cleverly than most, books which attempt to do nothing else, Mr. George draws in this novel the contrasted characteristics of English and French. But this is in passing and a frame, as it were, to a story of people who are undeniably and indelibly real. Among the crowd of ephemeral novels of the season it stands out by reason of that quality which is as rare in novels as in people — a strongly marked individuality. $1.35 net. Postage 13 cents extra. A Pillar of Sand By WILLIAM R. CASTLE, Jr. Author of "The GreeD Vase." A novel which lu a very clever way not only concerns Itself with the doings of a group of people who are part of Boston society, but which delineates and holds up for the Inspection of all Boston society. What is Boston society; what kind of people is it composed of; what are its characteristics; what does it amount to in this busy age? $1.30 net. Postage, 12 cents extra. Initiation By ROBERT HUGH BENSON Author of "Lord of the World," &c. Father Benson has given us a remarkably powerful story of the regeneration of a man, born to the good things of this world, but selfishly trying to avoid the common responsibilities of humanity. The author's character work is at its best, his keen analysis of life, his knowledge of man's spiritual as well as physical environment — and his story will live. $1.35 net. Postage, 13 cents extra. The Youngest World By ROBERT DUNN Dr. Frederic Taber Cooper, the well-known reviewer for The Bookman, who read the advance sheets of Mr Dunn's remarkable story of Alaska, "The Youngest World," says: "It is years since I have read a first novel by an American that gave me such a thrill of unalloyed delight: it is so genuine, so sincere, so unmistakably honest so vital. Plenty of authors have given us the physical suffering of the far north: the dropping away of the outer veneer of civilized man and the reappearance of the human animal, the brutishness and degradation brought about by cold and darkness and hunger. Mr. Dunn's book stands in a different class: there is no mistaking its absolute first-hand reflection of life, — the life of strange, motley hordes of drifting outcasts and adventurers. But unlike the Jack London school, he never forgets that man is a little lower than the angels, as well as a little higher than the beasts; he never loses sight of the innate greatness of humanity, the greater spiritual as well as phvsical heights to which man may aspire. . . . The book is good, big, significant, coming as it does in a season when the absolute dearth of vital fiction is painfully apparent." $1.40 net. Postage IS cents extra. The Empress Frederick A Memoir An intimate biography of an Empress whose influence upon modern Europe has been very great, but of whom little has been written and little is known. Her son the present Emperor of Germany, has been called "much more the son of his mother than of his father." $2.50 net. Postage 18 cents extra. The Workingman's Christ By CRAIG S. THOMS A book that most accurately harmonizes the spiritual aspects of Christianity with the social movements of the day and is thoroughly in accord with the most advanced vision of our time. $1.25 net. Postage 12 cents extra. Everyman's Garden Every Week By CHARLES A. SELDEN City Editor of the New York Evening Post. Tells you what to do in the flower garden and the kitchen garden, why to do it and how to do it, during every week in the year. $1.25 net. Postage 11 cents extra. Japan's Inheritance By E. BRUCE MITFORD, F.R.G.S. "Wanted— the truth about Japan," says the author. And in this book he gives the truth about Japan and the Japanese. Illustrated, $3.50 net. Postage, 20 cents extra.
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11 The Nation The Nation A WEEKLY JOURNAL. FOUNDED IN 1865. [Entered at the New York City Post Office as second-class mail matter.] The Nation Is published nnd owned by the New York Evenlug Post Co. Oswald Garrison Villard, President : Johu Palmer Gavit, Secretary and Treasurer: Kmil M. Scholz, Business Manage i : Paul Elmer More, Editor; Harold deWolf Fuller, Assistant Editor. Three dollars per year in advance, postpaid, in any part of the United States or Mexico; to Canada .$3.50. and to foreign countries comprised in the Postal Union, $4.00. AddretS THE NATION, Box 794, New York. Publication Office, 20 Vesey Street. CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER. The Week ' 173 Editorial Articles: What the Progressives Are Doing. 176 Ifs About Lincoln 176 Nobel and His Prizes 177 Taking Railway Managers from America 178 The Man with the Note-Book 179 Special Articles : The Philosophy of Bertrand Rus- sell 180 News for Bibliophiles 182 Correspondence : The Constitution and the Supreme Court 183 "The Social Emergency" 183 Newfoundland Ballads 184 Loss of the Socialist Party 184 Religion Up to Date 184 Nothing But Thunder 184 Literature : The Life and Letters of Harrison Gray Otis, Federalist. 1765-1848. 184 The Flying Inn 185 Children of the Sea 186 Old Mole 186 The Quest of the Holy Grail 187 Splendid Failures 187 Alone in the Wilderness 188 Vom Weltreich des deutschen Geistes 188 Notes 189 Drama : Mr. Faust 191 Music : Ears to Hear 193 Art: The Pennsylvania Academy 194 Finance: Currency Law and Gold Exports. . 196 Books or thb Week 197 THE FEBRUARY ISSUE OF The Quarterly Journal of Economics INCLUDES A COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS OF THE NEW BANKING LAW in an article entitled The Federal Reserve Actof 1913 1IY O. M. W. SPRAGUE Edmund Cogswell Converse Professor of Hank- ing and Finance in Harvard University .Subscription price $.*$. OO Sinf/le copies SO cents HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS tinier Now. CALLAGIIAN & CO. Bays Miniature law Libra- ry. Only complete work on Commercial ij»w. Contains Legal Korms of all kinds. Should be In every Library. Kits the pocket, 8 vols. $12. Sale counsellor. Worth ltfl weight in gold. 2,000 pp. Sent an Approval. Law Publishers CHICAGO. JUST PUBLISHED! Trans-Atlantic Historical Solidarity Four Lectures delivered before the University of Oxford in Easter and Trinity Terms, 1913, by CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. Cloth,8vo, $1.75 "It Is a fascinating story as Mr. Adams treats it. . . . His analysis of the condi- tions which finally determined the sway of State sovereignty in the South and of na- tional sovereignty in the North Is keen, candid and convincing. . . . His ex- amination of Lee's achievements and defects as a commander is acute and of Intense interest." — New York Times. For sale by all booksellers. Oxford University Press American Branch 3o WEST 32ND STREET, NEW YORK g>tanbarb Cngltef) Cla&sics JUST PUBLISHED The Mill on the Floss Edited by J. MILNOR DOREY, Head of English Department, High School, Trenton, N. J. Semiflexible cloth, 554 pages, illustrated 50 cents. A new edition of George Eliot's great au- tobiographical novel. The editor has traveled through the scenes depicted in the book, and has prepared his introduction so as to bring out the back- ground, as well as the art and moral purpose of the author. There is an ample bibliography and col- lection of critical comment. The notes fur- nish clear explanations of all references call- ing for treatment, and the numerous ques- tions on the text will stimulate thought and interest. GINN AND COMPANY, Publishers Boston New York Chicago London Atlanta Dallas Columbus San Francisco THE FRENCH VERB ITS FORMS AND TENSE IMS By WILLIAM ALBERT NITZE and ERNEST HATCH WILKINS of the University of Chicago Price 25 cents ; postpaid 28 cents. This little book Is designed for use In both elementary and advanced French courses. Most American students visualize their French verbs to some extent, that is,- give a local arrangement In memory to the several tenses and forms. The paradigm deed is designed with specific reference to the student's visualization, and Is so plan- ned that the student will Inevitably asso- ciate in memory those tenses which are ac- tually related in form, other Innovations are the grouping together of the regular and irregular verbs of each conjugation, and the order in which the conjugations arc pre- sented. The practical result of the arrange- ment chosen is to advance the most 1m- portant verbs to an early point in the pro- gram of study, and to introduce the Irregu- lar verbs In such :i way that tlie various dif- ficulties are met one at a time, and In logi- cal order. FRENCH VERB BLANKS Designed by Ernest Hatch Wilkins Per pad 25 cents; post pn hi 32 ccn% Discount. Cat- alogue No. 940 Free. State wants, liooks bought. W. & G. FOYLE, 121 CHARING CROSS ROAD LONDON, ENGLAND Bibliography, Drama, itare, and Privately Printed Hems. Manuscripts. Catalogue now In press, upon application. HERBERT K. OOREIN, SSa, Charing Cross Road, London, W.C. BOOKS Catalogues including Americana post free. H. Atkinson, 97 Sunderland ltd., Forest mil, iondon. Foreign Books and Magazines Correspondence Solicited E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 681 Fifth Avenue, near 54th Street NEW YORK
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Feb. 19, 1914I The Nation 111 THE FRAGMENTSOF EMPEDOCLES Translated Into English verse by WILLIAM V. I, L K It Y LEONARD, Ph.D., Author of Sonnets and Poems, and Byronism in America. Printed on feather-weight paper, from large type. Ollt top. pages 100. Price $1 ii' 1. The lover of genuine verse will rejoice In a work of this kind. Mr. Leonard lias ren- dered s Sue translation which is scholarly. magical and poetic. It Is not alone them qualities which commend the book to an ap- preciative reader. It Is rather the strong poise of truth made clear In every thought Of the old Mediterranean Greek who lived a contemporary of the great Athenians about Pericles, He was not only a statesman and philosopher, but a poet, a wonderful person- ality, an egotistic, melancholy, eloquent soul. a Bdentlous attempt on the part of a lover of literature and philosophy to present the fragments of Empedoclea I" English blank that shall bring out thpir poetry DO less than their meaning; accompanied by the Greek text of Dlels. uotes interpreting the Ideas of each fragment, and an essay on the author as man. philosopher and poet. The Open Court Publishing Co., Chicago of Celebrities Bought and Sold. Send for price lists. WalterR. Benjamin. 225 5th Av.,N.Y. ESTABLISHED 1887. Pub. "THE COLLECTOR." $1 a yr. HUMANISTS' LIBRARY ANNOUNCEMENT IN the Spring: of 1914 two new volumes will be pub- lished in The Humanists' Library. These are: PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA: APlatonick Dis- course upon Love. GIOVANNI DELLA CASA: The Galateo— Of Manners & Behaviour. The books are printed in red and black on hand- made paper, and are sold at $3.00 net each. The edition of each volume is limited to subscrip- tions received before publication. Persons inter- ested should send for a descriptive circular to D. B. UPDIKE, The Merrymount Press, 232 Summer St., Boston AUTOGRAPHS BOUGHT AND SOLD Catalogue of 4485 Titles Free GOODSPEED'S BOOK SHOP BOSTON A limit tsrVinnls For Your Bo' or ADOIU OtflOOIS information furnisl Girl- furnished free, from the Educational Library specially organized and conducted by The Nation. A unique and prac- tical library Information service equipped with thousands of school catalogues, directories, reports, etc. Free to Inquirers. Address Educational Li- brary, THI NATION. 20 Tesey St.. N. T. City. Next Wednesday, February 25th Sty? $>ro fnrk iEtmttnij ffoBt will publish a Woman Suffrage Number i*?ci*' Secctio* . Ldited by burrragists Complete and Authoritative Exposition of the Woman Suffrage Movement, containing among other features: ui f0rfe lattttittg Pnat 20 Vesey Street, New York Send your order to-day for as many copies a3 you may wish to use of the (Feb. 25) WOMAN SUFFRAGE NUMBER / the Woman Suffrage Number of The New York Evening Post. The New York Evening Post Postage «T3 ^-> Prepaid OCi each Copies of The Evening Post will be mailed direct to any names, for 3 cents each, if you will enclose list. By the Author of "Round the Corner" OLD MOLE "Gilbert Cannan wrote a good nov- el in 'Round the Corner'; he has re- peated the performance, without re- peating himself, in 'Old Mole.' " — Chicago Record-Herald. OLD MOLE "A delightful and bizarre personal- ity. Meanness and selfishness find 6mall place here." — Springfield Re- publican. OLD MOLE "Difference, the kind that is due to originality, sets Mr. Cannan's new novel quite away from the well- known road traversed by most nov- els as they progress from first page to last." — New York Times. OLD MOLE "High promise gives us pause; It Is so Important. . . . Thus Mr. Gilbert Cannan's promise is so high that I find myself anxiously solemn about him." — Chicago Evening Post. OLD MOLE " 'Old Mole' establishes Gilbert Can- nan as a figure of undoubted import In the modern literature of England." — Pittsburgh Sun-Post. $1.35 net. Postage extra D. Appleton & Company Publishers New York Read WHAT MEN LIVE BY By Dr. RICHARD C. CABOT $1.50 net. Postage extra. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN CO., 4 Park St., BOSTON STORY WRITERS Send 10c. for list of 300 places to sell MSS. ; valuable information and instructions. ALTHOMAR CO..3501N. H.Ave., Washington, D.C LIBRARY RESEARCH Researches made In Boston and Flnrvard Ubra- rics. Ancient and modern languages. Translation, revision of manuscripts, etc. MISS M. H. BUCKINGHAM, 06 Chestnut Street, Boston, Mass. F. M. HOLLY Established IMS. A lit ho r«'a ii el I'ulili ntir r-.- II .|ir <■«.• n tnt I \ «■ 168 KIITH AVBNUB, NBw rOBB Rates and full Information sent upon application.
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• i The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 25 38 IMPORTANT NEW AND FORTHCOMING MACMILLAN PUBLICATIONS TRAVEL. DESCRIPTION The Philippines: Past and Present. By DEAN C. WORCESTER (Secretary of the Interior, Philippines 1901-13). A timely, valuable work accurately describing conditions in the Phil- ippines. Two vols. Richly Illustrated. $6.00 net. South America. Observations and Im- pressions. By VISCOUNT BRYCE. A new, revised edition of this standard work. $2.50 net. FICTION Sandy. S. R. CROCKETT'S New Novel. By the author of "Patsy," "The Stickit Minister," etc. A hero, this time, as captivating as Mr. Crockett's previous attractive heroine, "Patsy." Illustrated. $1.35 net. The Possessed. By FYODOR DOSTOIEVSKY One of the famous Russian's most dramatic nov- els. $1.50 net. The Reconnaissance. By GORDON GAR- DINER. A novel of striking power and origin- ality, a vivacious story of adventure. Colored frontispiece. $1.35 net. The Treasure. KATHLEEN NORRIS'S New Novel. By the author of "Mother," etc. A new novel by this popular author, redolent again of the home atmosphere, illustrated. $l.oo net. POETRY. DRAMA The Foothills of Parnassus. By JOHN KENDRICK BANGS. A delightful selection of this entertaining poet's best verse. $i.ss net. The Tragedy of Pompey. By JOHN MASE- FIELD. The latest work of this powerful poet. $1.25 net. Chitra. By RABINDRANATH TAGORE. An idealistic lyrical drama by the spiritual Ben- gali poet-philosopher. $1.25 net. The Flight and Other Poems. By Dr. GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY. Ma- ture verse of one of America's foremost poets. $1.25 net. ART. MUSIC The Principles of Greek Art. By Dr. PERCY GARDNER (Univ. of Oxford). An interesting analysis of the psychological and ar- tistic attributes of Greek art. Illustrated. $2.25 net. How to Sing. By LILLI LEHMANN. A new, revised, and enlarged edition of this famous sing- er's standard manual. illustrated. $1.75 net. GOVERNMENT. POLITICS American Government and Politics. By CHARLES A. BEARD. A new, revised edi- tion of this important work for students and the general reader. $2.10 net. Whigs and Whiggism. By BENJAMIN DIS- RAELI. A companion volume to the great statesman's biography, of his piquant political writings. $3.00 net. The American Doctrine of Judicial Su- premacy. By Dr. CHARLES GROVE HAINES. The origin and development of ju- dicial legislative control. $2.00 net. On Politics and History. By VISCOUNT MORLEY, O.M. A world-wide review of past, present, and future public policy. $1.00 net. EDUCATION A Cyclopedia of Education. Edited by Dr. PAUL MONROE (Columbia Univ.). The most important of the encyclopedias. Just completed. Five vols. Illustrated. $25.00 the set. SCIENCE The Elementary Principles of General Bi- ology. By JAMES FRANCIS ABBOTT (Washington Univ.). A lucid statement of fun- damentals for student and general reader. $1.50 net. The Fitness of the Environment. By Prof. LAWRENCE J. HENDERSON (Harvard Univ.). A highly important work on the biologi- cal significance of matter. $1.50 net. RELIGION. PHILOSOPHY The Prophets of Israel. By Dr. MOSES BUTTENWIESER. A luminous study of the great literary Hebrew prophets. $2.00 net. The Faith of Japan. By TASUKU HA- RADA (Pres. Doshisha Univ.). An admirable interpretation of Japanese ethical and religious belief. *150 neU The Battles of Peace. By DEAN GEORGE HODGES (Episcopal Theological School, Cam- bridge). Practical views of the new philanthropy. $1.25 net. Also by DEAN HODGES. Christianity Between Sundays 91.95 net. The Heresy of Cain $1.25 net. Books of deep interest for every thoughtful reader. The Reformation in Germany. By Prof. HENRY C. VEDDER A vivid, accurate nar- rative of the great religious struggle of the sixteenth century. $3.00 net. Published at 64-66 Fifth Ave, N. Y. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY On Sale Wherever Books Are Sold
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The Nation W It YORK, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19. 1914. The Week Are we perchance in the middle of a national political campaign without knowing it? Has the date of the Con- gressional elections of 1914 been set back from November to May? These ques- tions are prompted by a little shower of pamphlets just issued by the Democratic National Committee. They have every appearance of the "campaign document." "A Record of Achievement," in black- faced type over the portrait of President Wilson. "Democratic Promise and Dem- ocratic Performance." Description of the banking and currency law as "our most important legislative achievement In half a century" — all this is so re- dolent of the approach of election day that one looks out of the window half expecting to see paraders. But it is merely a case of unwonted Democratic forehandedness. The sight of these doc- uments scattered over the country should spur the Republicans to activity. They might give an emergency order for a new edition of that famous Roosevelt publication, "The Republican Party Fit to Rule." rude for the great mass of our Repre- sentatives to dream of putting it. Every new age finds new vices as well as new virtues. This must be the ex- planation of the good roads bill that went through the House on greased rails last week. River and harbor bills of the old type are felt to belong to the Old Guard era; perhaps even a public build- ings bill of the traditional sort would smack too much of the pork barrel of the prehistoric days of the early nine- teen-hundreds. But good roads — in what better work could the Government en- gage? Especially when the appropria- tion of $25,000,000 is so nicely divided as to give every Congressman's district a fair share. It is true that there are rumors of river and harbor bills, too, but if one passes it will be in spite of its tarnished name. "Good roads," on the contrary, has a fine sound, just the kind of sound that one would want a bill to .have in a new day of things political. As for asking whether the spirit behind the new bill is not a very old spirit, such a question would be entirely too The confusion attending the recent choice of a Senator in Maryland, and the attempted choice of one in Alabama, was largely traceable to uninformed crit- icism of Gov. Goldsborough in the one instance and to the stubbornness of Gov. O'Neal in the other. Possible repetition of it has been forestalled by the bill pro- viding a temporary method of election in States that have not yet legislated to carry out the Seventeenth Amendment. In any State that delays setting up its own direct-election machinery, the sys- tem that has been used for nominating and electing State officers is simply ex- tended to Senators. The captious objec- tion that the Constitution does not per- mit Congress to prescribe method and manner of the nomination, but only of the election, of its members, was rightly adjudged a wrongheaded extreme of States' rights doctrine. It is hard to show that the Constitution-makers, in the word "election," did not include the process of choosing candidates; and it was admitted even by Senators Shields and Bacon that the mere extension of nomination methods adopted by the States in their own affairs to nomina- tions for the upper House "withdrew very little power from the States." There is now no reason for hitches in the di- rect election of Senators, and tardy States dissatisfied with the results of the Congressional action may make haste to arrange their own scheme of popular choice. and forbearance. But all this was only in keeping with Senator Bacon's high- minded and useful stand at the time when the treaty with Spain, after tr.« war of 1898, was before the Senate for ratification. In the discussions of those days, the Senator from Georgia took the lead in seeking in every way possible to disclaim any purpose by this nation to retain possession of the Philippines per- manently; and to safeguard the rights of the Filipinos. He made a record then which it must now be a satisfac- tion to all his friends to recall. Not a statesman of the highest gifts, never a compelling orator, nor yet an aggres- sive and powerful debater, Senator Ba- con's long and honorable service in the Senate makes his death take on the aspect of a national loss. In his brief statement deploring the death of Senator Bacon, President Wil- son rightly placed emphasis upon Mr. Bacon's services in the matter of foreign relations. The specific reference was, no doubt, to the late Senator's activity since he became Chairman of the Sen- ate Committee on Foreign Affairs. Aa such, and particularly in dealing with the Mexican trouble, Senator Bacon showed himself a consistent friend of peace. In statements given to the press, as also in utterances made on the floor of the Senate, he did all In his power to rebuke and repress the hot-heads all whose thoughts were of war, and to rein- force the President's pleas for patience Those who sit at the receipt of customs have felt a sustained effort at reorgan- ization, since the Sundry Civil Appropri- ations Act of August, 1912, through Sec- retary McAdoo's abolition of 113 super- fluous collectorships, and also the ap- proval last week of new economies fol- lowing a conference of collectors at Washington. Yet this last action speaks eloquently of the power of the customs system to adjust itself to important changes at the very time the new tariff and heavier imports laid upon it in- creased burdens. Secretary McAdoo, fol- lowing President Taft's order, reduced the collectorships from 152 to 49, aban- doned, or made sub-ports of, scores of old ports, placed salaries on a fixed ba- sis, put the whole on a stricter merit system, and cut down the annual cost to $10,150,000! The newer changes are to bring the expenses down $150,000 more, and to put still others of the small ports under a central administration. A main merit of all these reforms is that, while saving in administrative complexities, they have readjusted the work of collec- tors to recent shifts in the points of commerce. The cancelling of many in- terior points of entry, in particular, meant the abolition of useless and clog- ging sinecures, long maintained as po- litical posts in cities without apprecia- ble customs receipts. These changes are now to be supplemented with a slashing of much of the red tape of old regimes.
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174= T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2538 Gov. Glynn is now fairly launched upon the great work of reorganizing the Democratic party in New York State. His conference with the President and Chairman McCombs was followed by a careful and earnest statement of his position. In this he commits himself squarely to the task of "putting the party on a proper basis." To this end no single step could be more conducive than the election of William Church Osborn as Chairman of the State Committee. The Governor states that he has prevailed vpon Mr. Osborn to accept the position H elected, and says, "I believe that we lave the votes to make him State Chair- man." It is a long time since the post was filled by a man of anything like the William Church Osborn type; but the Tilden centenary is a reminder of the fact that the time has been when it was filled by a political leader of the first order. The enemy is demoral- ized. The people are awake not only to the need, but to the evident possibility, of destroying the evil system that has prevailed. The city government is com- pletely in the hands of men who are op- posed to machine politics, heart and soul. All the prestige of a President who wields a personal influence almost unparalleled is with the reformers. The suicide of Treasurer Kennedy is just the kind of incident that is sure to mark the progress of such an unearth- ing of evil practices as has been going on in New York State under the aus- pices of District Attorney Whitman. A memorable exhibition of such working of the vengeance of time upon long-tol- erated iniquities was given in this com- munity within the past decade, when the life-insurance scandals were drag- ged to light by the masterly work of the Hughes investigation. Reputations sup- posed to be secure were blasted, lives of apparently assured success and prosper- ity were shattered. With this incidental work of fate, however, the public can- not be satisfied. It is not necessarily the most guilty that are struck down by it; in the case of Kennedy himself it is to-day an open question whether his self-destruction was prompted by dread of disclosures of direct crime on his own part or of such knowledge of the crimes of others as it was Intolerable for him to confess. But in the midst of these general con- siderations, the specific nature of Kenne- dy's career should not be lost sight of. It was typical of that kind of politics which is the disgrace, and has some- times seemed the despair, of our demo- cratic institutions. If we could not get rid of it, we should have to admit that, whatever its merits in other respects, democracy in America, as tried by one of the most vital of tests, was a demon- strated failure. Did Kennedy rise to the office of Treasurer of the wealthiest and most populous State in the Union as the result of a record of service and ability pointing towards his selection for such a trust? Quite the contrary. He had been an Alderman in Buffalo, and that post itself he had attained through the familiar methods of the ward politician and saloonkeeper. As Alderman he had distinguished himself not by civic vir- tue, not by good service to the com- munity, but by his exceptional power among the worse elements of the Board, power used for the effecting of purposes desired by favored contractors and op- posed by honest and public-spirited citi- zens in and out of office. It is safe to say that in no modern country with which Americans would care to have their own compared could such a career have been the stepping-stone to an of- fice like that of State Treasurer of New York. One would have to look far to find a better example of patchwork legislation than the so-called compulsory education law of Maryland. In the first place, the law is not compulsory, but permissive. Then it specifically excludes six of the twenty-three counties of the State from its provisions, so that these six counties may not compel the education of the children within their limits even if they wish to do so. One of the counties ex- empted contains the capital of the State. It is not surprising, under the circum- stances, to learn that the law is regard- ed seriously in only a few places. Some counties take nominal advantage of the statute, making half-hearted efforts to enforce it. It is not necessary to take a stand against all local legislation on the part of a State law-making body to feel that a compulsory education law is peculiarly unsuited to such treatment. What can be the local conditions that make it advisable for Baltimore to edu- cate all of her children, but for Annap- olis to let hers do as they please? The decisive defeat last week of De- troit's proposed new charter, by a vote of 25,245 to 15,962, is admitted even by the reformers who advocated it to be a les- son to revision that proceeds not wisely but too well. The pot-pourri of chang- es included not merely such meritorious proposals as the non-partisan ballot, the extension of elective terms from two to four years, the establishment of a De- partment of Labor Welfare and a Recre- « ation Commission, with the separation of municipal from State and national elections, but a number that Mayor Marx qualified as jokers or worse. For all that, the new charter might have passed had not the newspapers insisted on the very clear alternative of piece- meal amendment of the old. Even the labor unions, counted on by the Char- ter Commission, went against it, as did wards that would have profited locally by a new political division of the city. Before the first returns had come in a supporting Alderman confessed that am- bition had o'erleaped itself, by introduc- ing a resolution singling out the more important and unquestioned proposals for gradual action. The bill to set up a leasing and roy- alty system for Alaska coal lands is the natural and expected sequel to the bill for the construction of an Alaska rail- way by the national Government. This method of dealing with the Alaska land has been strongly urged, from time to time, during the past eight years or more, both President Roosevelt and Pres- ident Taft having brought it prominent- ly to the attention of Congress. The wretched mess of the Ballinger-Cunning- ham-Guggenheim affair was due primar- ily to the utter unsuitableness of the laws providing for entry of these lands to the conditions obtaining in the de- velopment of a mining region of this character. Those laws were based essen- tially on the homestead idea, which has been sadly out of place in regard to some of our older territories and which was grotesquely unadapted to the Alaska situation. The result was a choice between leaving the lands un- used and resorting to fraudulent devices to beat the law. Under a proper leasing system, enterprise will have a chance, and at the same time the interest of the people In the mineral wealth of the re- gion will be protected. Now that the development of Alaska seems In a fair
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Feb. 19, 1 914] The Nation 175 way of being put upon a good working , basis, it is not out of place to recall that the policy embodied in the two bills is j precisely that urged with the hearty ap- proval of President Taft, by Secretary Fisher, who, on succeeding Mr. Ballinger, made it his first business to visit Alaska and thoroughly to study the problem on the spot. pose of creating tribunals to adjudge all claims against Mexico, and of providing means of payment. The situation in Alaska in respect to the illegal trafficking in liquor among the Indians in the Yukon Valley is a sorry story of the neglect of the nation's wards in that far country. The ex- ploitation of the native, it is a notori- ous fact, is an almost wholly uncheck- ed evil, save for the efforts of the mis- sionaries and their helpers; and these private agencies for betterment are sad- ly in need of a helping arm to strength- en them. The depopulation of Indian villages, due to the ravages of drink and disease brought upon them by the white men's vice and avarice, is an undisput- ed fact, and the Government's officers in the distant districts, such as that of Fort Yukon, make almost no pretence of controlling the law-breakers. Against such odds Dr. Stuck, Dr. Grafton Burke, and their faithful women helpers have worked nobly; and they do not despair, even though they have lost the present cases against the men indicted by their efforts. It is significant that it is the universal belief of the missionaries in Alaska that the best solution of the pro- blem is the creation of an efficient con- stabulary force, similar to the Canadian force which has accomplished so much in the Northwest Territory under sim- ilar conditions. Whatever the final outcome in Mexico, it is evident that very large claims for damages in consequence of the insurrec- tion will be made by American and oth- er foreign residents and property-own- em. Some of these will doubtless be grossly inflated, after the good old rule, exemplified in the Cuban claims, of mul- tiplying the actual losses by a hundred. But the perfectly legitimate demands will obviously involve great sums. The claims which the railways will file, on the basis of proved damage, will alone amount to several millions, it is safe to Bay. When the time comes, it is proba- ble that special conventions will be ne- gotiated with whatever government Is finally set up in the country, for the pur- In addition to the usual liability un- der international law, Mexico has a pe- culiar obligation, inasmuch as many of the aliens now suffering damage were specially invited to that country by the Mexican Government. This point was clearly made by Secretary Bayard in 1888, when protesting against certain cases of ill treatment of Americans. He said: Mexico, in pursuance of a policy of wise development of her material inter- ests, has, by numerous legislative acts and executive decrees, invited foreign capitalists, engineers, miners, and busi- ness men of skill and enterprise to unite in bringing into the market the great wealth, mineral as well as agricultural, which remains as yet unutilized in her territory. . . . It is evidently a matter of the utmost importance to Mexico that the immi- grants to be attracted within her borders shall be industrious, thrifty, and law-abid- ing citizens, and it is no less evident that such persons will not risk their persons or their property where they cannot feel assured that at least some reasonable ef- fort will be made by the author ites to extend to them the protection of the law. Announcement last week of the Ca- nadian Government's programme for the decennial redistribution of Parliamen- tary seats is of particular interest for the plan initiated of equalizing the pop- ulation of the various constituencies. The increase in the House of Commons from 218 to 235 members was long ago estimated, as were the specific reduc- tions in the representation of Ontario, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, and the specific gains of the Western Prov- inces. But whereas the last Liberal ap- portionment in the several Provinces largely followed municipal boundaries, Premier Borden has recommended that balance of population be now the guid- ing principle. Some of the discrepancies shown by the 1911 census are glaring. A member from Maisonneuve, Quebec, for example, represented 179,778 people, and one from Stanstead but 9,400; one from West Toronto, Ontario, 105,191, and a fellow-member from North Middlesex but 13,737. The old rule that a greater unit of population should be required for urban than for rural districts, how- ever, will not be utterly disregarded. Since the increase in urban population is so marked it will help keep represen- tation geographical; and it alone is likely to save Prince Edward Island its members. The parcel-post system just instituted :n Canada is based on American experi- ence, yet has elements of proper caution. Rates show an increase above ours. For the first three months packages above six pounds in weight will not be accept- ed, and special charge is made for deliv- ery by city carrier. The principle is laid down that the system must pay its own way, and the Toronto Mail and Empire remarks that, "until the service has been in operation six months, it will be im- possible to gauge" its financial status. Only 20,000,000 to 25,000,000 parcels are expected, as against our 700,000,000 the first year. But the significant fact is that Canada, after fifteen years of indiffer- ence to a subject often urged upon tne Laurier Government, virtually dupli- cates our system. It may be expected that, after adjustments which only time can bring, postal cooperation between the two countries will cover the parcel post, too, and its rates. The election of Henri Bergson to the French Academy was inevitable after the extraordinary impression his phi- losophy and his personality have produc- ed on academic and public opinion out- side of France these past three or four years. Every one of the forty chairs in the Academy has its own distinguish- ed lineage; but it is an odd circumstance that a newly elected member is not sup- posed to have anything necessarily in common with his predecessor. Thus M. Bergson is elected to the chair vacated by the death of Emile Ollivier, Napo- leon Ill's Prime Minister and the histor- ian of the "Liberal Empire." Inasmuch as a new member invariably makes his salutatory by pronouncing a eulogy on his predecessor's life and works, it fre- quently means a good deal of "boning up" on the part of the orator. For M. Bergson it will not be presumably very difficult to frame an estimate of M. Ol- livier. But how about M. Alfred Capus, the author of light and genial comedies of contemporary Parisian life, who has been just elected to the chair of Henri PoincarG, one of the most profound and subtle of mathematicians? One can sympathize with M. Capus in his at- tempt to do justice to M. Poincare's la- bors in celestial mechanics; but being a Frenchman, M. Capus will do it well.
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176 T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2538 WHAT THE PROGRESSIVES ARE DOING. Despite serious losses in nearly every election since 1912 in which they have put their fortunes to the test, the Pro- gressives are displaying a bold front. They are officially scorning reunion with the Republicans. The rank and file may be deserting in squads, as in Indiana and Iowa last week, but the leaders still insist that they will go on ploughing their lonely furrow. In Nebraska and Kansas they reject all overtures from the Republican enemy, and propose to tight it out on this line if it takes sev- eral summers. In Ohio they are plan- ning to nominate a full State and Con- gressional ticket. At their recent meet- ing in this city, the sentiment was unan- imous for nominating candidates for every office in the State, from top to bottom, as also in each Congressional district, besides having a Progressive put up for the United States Senate. All round the horizon, in fact, Progressive thunderings and lightnings of this kind are to be noted. As a matter of abstract political right, 11O one will question the privilege of the Progressives to continue to flock by themselves. Any two Americans, any three tailors of Tooley Street, can form a party of their own if they choose. This is not named among Jefferson's inalien- able rights, but it cannot be denied. As it used to be said that each citizen of Boston had his separate system of the- ology, so every citizen of the United States may have his private political party, if he finds none of those exist- ing to his taste. But, after all, when pre- sumably reasonable men stand together In a given course of action, they must have some motive, some purpose, some goal, which they can state, on demand, whether in their own defence or as an incentive to their followers. It is only fair, then, to ask the Progressive lead- ers what they hope to accomplish by persisting in separate party nomina- tions everywhere. Those of them who, like Boss Flinn, say that they are sim- ply modern Luthers, doing a sacred re- ligious duty, and can nicht anders no matter what the consequences may be, need not be questioned further. An im- perative moral obligation is reason enough, when it really exists. But the Progressives are not without their thor- oughly practical men, who are not in politics merely for the health of their souls, and who have some definite plan of campaign looking to ultimate success and offices. What is it? Plainly, their first objective is fur- ther to defeat and thwart the Republi- can party. If its prospects can be made to appear hopeless, the Progressives will toon annex the great bulk of the Repub- lican vote and sweep the field. But sen- sible Progressives should look at the facts open-eyed. If they do, they will see that the actual annexing is by the Republican party at the expense of the Progressive. As Senator Borah took pains to point out with much detail in his Lincoln day speech, the voting strength of the Progressives has been everywhere waning during the past year, while that of the Republicans has been waxing. Wherever you make the test, Michigan or New Jersey, Chicago or St. Louis, the tale is the same. Consequent- ly, the cool reckoners among the Pro- gressives must be asking themselves what chance there is of forcing the Re- publican party to surrender to oppo- nents growing demonstrably weaker. Will not the shoe of surrender be put upon the other foot? Does not the plan of the Progressives to go it alone in every State and Congressional district involve putting everything to the touch with the probability strongly in favor of everything being lost? These questions it is not for us to an- swer. But there is one consideration which the Progressives never seem to think of, though it is more and more pressed upon the attention of thoughtful students of our affairs, and this we would urge upon the more serious-mind- ed of them. It is that by their course in seeking to establish a separate party, they are doing much to destroy a part of the usefulness of all parties, and are distinctly breaking in our hands one of the historic weapons of government. They are doing this by making the Dem- ocratic party virtually immune to pun- ishment for misbehavior. So long as the Republican-Progressive split contin- ues, the Democrats are assured of pow- er. No matter what they do, the divi- sion of their opponents will surely ena- ble them to score enough easy plurali- ties to guarantee their retaining control of Congress and of the State govern- ments which are now in their hands. In a word, the country is deprived, for the time being, of the check on the party in power by the party in opposition. This is bad for the Democratic party. It is also bad for the nation. At Wash- ington the tendency in Congress just now is to be recklessly extravagant. Special appropriations are piling up in a way which threatens not only to pro- duce a deficit but to make this Congress the most spendthrift on record. Now, under ordinary party circumstances, the Democratic leaders who are alarmed at this log-rolling of money out of the Treasury would have a convincing ar- gument to use with the lavish spenders of the public funds. They could say: "See here, you must go slow. You are surely making the next Congress Re- publican. The people will be so disgust- ed with our extravagance that they will turn us out." But to-day this appeal is futile. Democrats in Congress snap their fingers at it. They are confident that the determination of the Progressives to put up separate candidates everywhere will assure them of their seats, even if they act like wastrels. It will be said that the Progressives do not intend this — do not, in the name of party, seek to hamstring government by party. But a man, or a party, is responsible for the indirect as well as the direct results of a policy deliberately chosen. The Progres- sive rifleman may say that he meant to shoot a bear, but if his bullet actually kills a horse, it is cold comfort for the owner to be assured that it was not aimed at. IFS ABOUT LINCOLN. Two years ago the country had more than a surfeit of assertions that Abra- ham Lincoln would have been or have done this, that, or the other, if he had then been alive. He would have been a Progressive, surely, but also just as cer- tainly would have remained a Republi- can, though inclined to join the Demo- cratic party under Wilson; he would have been a Single-Taxer and a Suffra- gist; he would have been an eager sup- porter of Assemblyman Jones's bill to abolish poverty and of Congressman Smith's little plan to bring in the mil- lennium to-morrow. All this was so overdone, with so obvious a vote-catch- ing intent, that people soon began to laugh at it, and it was largely given up. If Lincoln had come back In 1912, it is pretty certain that he would have dis- posed of these various hypotheses with some kindly-shrewd epigram or story.
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Feb. 19, 1914] The Nation 177 He might have adopted the remark of Samuel J. Tilden, reported by Mr. Stet- son: "You cannot state the consequences of what never happened." In all these imaginary resurrections of the great men of the past, there ia always one singular assumption. It is not only that they would be in fullest sympathy with the best movements of the present, but that they would have discarded all the errors and defects which clung to them during their ac- tual lives. Washington was a slave-own- er, but those who passionately wish him back again in the war against human oppression always conveniently forget his slaves. Lincoln followed the spoils system. Civil-service reform had not dawned upon the political life of his day. For this he is not to be blamed. No public man can be held guilty of sins that were not accounted sins in his life- time. But It is plain that if the actual Lincoln were to come back after fifty years, he would have many things to learn, and some things to abandon, be- fore he could become the ideal and in- fallible leader whose endorsement every- body was so anxious to get a little time since. "We allude to this aspect of the matter only to show that it is not so simple and at the same time so power- ful an argument as some suppose, mere- ly to exclaim: "If only Lincoln were here, he would agree with me in every particular!" It is plainly not a subject on which to be dogmatic; yet there is a sense in which we may profitably ask what would be the spirit of Abraham Lincoln in fac- ing present-day questions. The partic- ular decisions he would come to, no man can say; but how he would attack our problems we may be pretty con- fident, for we know what his methods were. He was patient and he was thor- ough. His first business he made it to ascertain all the facts in all their bear- ings. Improvised remedies and patent cure-alls were never to his mind. In the presence of men who professed to have skeleton-keys wherewith to unlock every political difficulty, his attitude was one of amused distrust. When asked to pass upon the dreams of en- thusiasts and the nostrums of half-baked theorists, he always acted upon that wise injunction of the Greek philosopher, "Remember to disbelieve." We may, therefore, be very sure that if Abraham Lincoln were with us to-day he would not be found In the ranks of the hurricane reformers. He would not expect to make this tough old world all over in a, day. His advice would be, rather, to look every matter carefully over; to consider the remote conse- quences of any proposed action before jumping at its supposed immediate ben- efits; to try out thoroughly the laws we have before rushing to the enactment of new ones; and to remind us that sub- stantial progress is more apt to be achieved by painful inches than by great leaps. But on one point all may agree. If Lincoln were here again, he would ex- hibit that wonderful sympathy with all sorts and conditions of men, and that marvellous understanding of their sev- eral interests and points of view, which steadily marked his public career. This was among his highest gifts as a states- man, and it is one which every striver In our public life might well covet. The clash of classes in the United States has become more intense and formidable than it was fifty years ago. How to ar- rive at a just reconciliation of conflict- ing interests, how to attain a broad na- tional policy out of all the demands of localities and separate interests — that is cur great task. And to it we should be thrice fortunate if our political leaders could bring even a small portion of Lin- coln's spirit. There is nothing hypo- thetical about that. His entire sanity, his instinctive and never-failing humane- ness, his ability to look before and after with large reason, and his willingness to wait for the full ripening of oppor- tunity— these qualities of the statesman are not abundant at the present day. He was sympathetic, but he did not take it out in mere sentiment. Feeling in him Elways led to action; and in any large measure of progress he knew that some of the people, some sections, would have to make sacrifice of their special inter- ests. He would have been ready to take as his motto, and so should those who are in the thick of work for progress to- day, the saying of George Bancroft: "The fears of one class are not a just measure of the rights of another." NOBEL AND HIS PRIZES. Mr. Leonard Hwass, one of the two witnesses of Nobel's will, has contrib- uted an article to Die Woche of Berlin, in which he raises a question of great interest. Mr. Hwass's story chiefly con- cerns the wishes of Nobel himself, with whom he had been in frequent inter- course preceding the signing of the tes- tament; and its main purport is that the actual administration of the fund has not been in conformity with those wish- es. The Nobel award, he declares, "should never be bestowed as an honor- ary prize, but as a promotive prize for the encouragement of new and benefi- cent work." It was not — such is the substance of Mr. Hwass's contention — as a decoration for those who had suc- ceeded in attaining the pinnacle either of fame or of fortune, not as a super- fluous distinction for men whose work- ing days were over, but as a help and encouragement to persons whose life- work was still in the main before them, that Nobel made his remarkable dedica- tion of his fortune; his eye was on genius, indeed, but his purpose was not to bestow upon it the lustre of an honor- ary award, but to free it from the tram- mels of economic need. In support of this contention, Mr. Hwass adduces various circumstances related to Nobel's life, and some utter, ances of a general nature tending to show that his inclinations lay altogether in the direction of such use of the prizes. One bit of internal evidence taken from the will itself is added to these outside considerations. Mr. Hwass draws atten- tion to the direction in the will that the prizes shall be awarded annually to those persons who, in the various fields, have contributed most materially to the benefit of mankind during the pre- ceding year. This would seem quite clearly to imply that the award was expected to go, as a general rule, to per- sons still in the full exercise of their highest powers, and thus lends support to the idea that it was to be a help to future work rather than a testimonial of past excellence. We will concede that literal adherence to this rule is not prac- ticable, upon any theory of the purpose of the award; but that an effort is made to conform to it as nearly as is reasonably possible may be inferred from the fact that for the year 1912 the peace prize was not awarded, because the committee was unable to discover a per- son who "within the year has worked most or best for the fraternization of nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, or the calling or propa- gating of peace congresses." Apart altogether from any question of
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178 The N ation (Vol. 98, No. 2538 the desires or expectations of the foun- der, the problem of what it is possible to accomplish for the encouragement of genius, or the promotion of great work for humanity, by means of valuable prizes is a puzzling one. To keep in view both the consideration of pre- eminent merit and that of pecuniary need is in the highest degree difficult, in any field. In physics, chemistry, and medicine, it must be a comparatively rare thing that a man whose actual achievement has been sufficient to mark him out as deserving of an award so extraordinary as the forty-thousand-dol- lar Nobel prize is not already in a po- sition of assured comfort; though it must be said that in these fields the addition of such a sum to his resources may often make a vital difference in re- gard to the command of leisure, or of appliances, for work along just such lines as the recipient may wish to pur- sue. But as soon as the consideration of a candidate's pecuniary circumstances is taken into account, there must in- evitably be danger of a lowering of the standard of excellence which it is so desirable that the prize should repre- sent. If, on the other hand, the prom- ise of future achievement, rather than accomplished results, is to guide the choice, the risk of erroneous judgment enters, of course, in a degree that has been wholly absent from the actual his- tory of the awards that have been made. And if one glances at the list of the awards thus far recorded in these fields, one finds that, while some have gone to men whose life-work has been all but concluded, a considerable proportion of them have been won by men in the prime of their powers, to whom the pecuniary aid may reasonably be sup- posed to be of real consequence. It is the prize for literature, however, that gives occasion for the most per- plexing questions. Mr. Hwass makes a very good point when he draws the dis- tinction between "a dramatist or nov- elist enjoying a large income" and "a noble-minded lyric poet, who lifts us to ideal heights, and who rarely possesses much of this world's goods." The lyric poet certainly has small chance of mak- ing his gift productive of the where- withal of comfortable living; and on the other hand to give a small fortune, such as the Nobel prize, to a brilliant novel- ist or dramatist is very likely to be a case of carrying coals to Newcastle. And yet he would be a bold man who should assert with confidence that the golden al- lurement of a Nobel prize would oper- ate, on the whole, to increase the output of the most precious poetry. No one would willingly condemn a Burns to the dire poverty with which he struggled; but it is impossible to imagine him as writing "To a Mouse," or "Highiand Mary," or "Of a' the airts," or "Tarn 0' Shanter," with a princely money prize either in his mind's eye or in his pocket. TAKING RAILWAY MANAGERS FROM AMERICA. There are several points of view from which one might consider the commo- tion in the English business world, over the selection of an American railway expert as general manager of the Great Eastern Railway of England. Taken by itself, the appointment would scarce- ly have caused or justified the outburst of indignation in the newspaper and professional comment of London. Our own transportation enterprises have on recent occasions borrowed the services of English engineers, without causing a ripple of professional excitement. The real basis for the indignant re- ception of the news in England was not the fact of the recourse to America, but the explanation of his action by the head of the English railway company, who coupled with his announcement the remark that he had been "compelled to go to America to find a man competent to fill the position," because of the "dearth of young and capable railway men in the English railway world." The retort of the London newspapers, that such a statement was a reflection on the methods of the English railway direc- torates, rather than on the quality of their working staffs, expressed a senti- ment very natural, and not wholly illog- ical. The truth of the matter doubtless lies somewhere between this newspaper statement of the case and the cynical comment of Lord Claud Hamilton him- self. It is no secret that the English rail- way lines have lagged far behind the American industry in applying the new- est principles of economy in operation. But the reason for this slower grappling with the problem lay in the urgent ne- cessity which spurred the American lines to such lowering of the expense ratio, rather than in any necessary in- capacity on the part of English mana- gers. When Mr. James J. Hill, followed by the younger railway operators, first introduced, some fifteen or sixteen years ago, such new expedients as the heav- ier "train-load," the larger freight car, the longer freight train, the heavier rail, and the more powerful locomotives — all with the purpose of reducing the so-call- ed "ton-mile cost" — our greatest railway systems were emerging from bankrupt- cy. With most of them, there was at the moment so little encouragement, in the outlook for largely expanded gross receipts, that reduced working expenses were a paramount necessity to get back into the field of dividends. The English railways have at no time had that particular incentive. None of them has had the problem of serving new territory where traffic was yet to be developed. Dividends came with suffi- cient regularity, year after year; it is not, therefore, as surprising as it might seem, without allowing for this differ- ence in English and American condi- tions, that the English railway manage- ments should have been far slower than our own in introducing such methods and in creating trained staffs who were competent to apply them. The old methods seemed to the English manage- ments to be justified in their results, throughout the period when the younger generation of American railway men were going through a practical school of education in the new problems of oper- ation. More recently, however, the question of rising fixed expenses, especially for labor, has become a serious considera- tion for the English companies. When, therefore, the Great Eastern Railway — which, we believe, has been the first of the great English systems to attempt the general introduction of these partic- ular economies in operation — began thoroughly to canvass the field, it nat- urally discovered, first, that its own operating staff had been trained in the methods which were prevalent in Amer- ican railway management two decade* ago, and, secondly, that to obtain trained experts for the purpose, recourse to the American railway staffs would be judicious. The outcome of such a process, if con- tinued, cannot fail to be beneficial to th« railway administration of both coun- tries. As for the outcry against an
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Feb. 19, 1914] The Nation 179 "American invasion" of the English railway field — on the ground that it in- dicates British national decadence or American intrusiveness — that sort of inference has been made too familiar, through the first hysterical response on other occasions of the sort, to be taken very seriously. People will not yet have forgotten the London clamor over Great Britain's disappearing "empire of the seas," when our Shipping Trust was buying up the White Star and Leyland Lines at fancy prices, during 1891. But the British mercantile navy still dom- inates the ocean, and the Shipping Trust has not much to remember of the operation except a highly expensive and unlucky bargain. There will also be recalled, as a phase of that same period, the sudden dis- covery by our industrial investors and promoters that tnereafter nobody more than forty years of age would do as the manager of a great corporation. Yet we still have our Hills and Garys; we have had opportunity, since 1901, to ob- serve the capacities of men past middle life, in the person of our Morgans and Harrimans, and we have also been com- .pelled, by force of circumstances, to acknowledge that the younger school of managers will on occasion make mis- takes which another decade or so of ex- perience might have spared them. Perhaps the nearest analogy to the present controversy in the English rail- way field occurred when our own East- ern railways very generally made up their minds that their working forces, if not their operating leadership, would have to be helped out by "new blood" from the West. The reason for that conclusion, which was applied with ex- cellent results, was precisely the reason which underlay last week's English inci- dent. It was chiefly on our Western rail- ways, at that time, that the problem of economical operation had been worked out through force of circumstances. THE MAN WITH THE NOTE-BOOK. President Huerta's recent tribute to the power of the press, in the form of an invitation to ten newspaper correspon- dents to come and tell the truth about Mexico at his expense, ought to be tele- graphed over to England. A compli- ment to the power of the press is, by im- plication, a compliment to that humble but necessary cog in the great machine, the reporter. Now, in England the re- porter, even though he is called a press- man, is not in good repute. And, odd- ly enough, it is at the hands of his elder brother, the literary worker, that the pressman suffers most. In spite of the fact that for a consideration the well-known playwright or novelist can be induced to write for the Daily Mail and so take the bread out of the report- er's mouth; in spite of the fact that a great many ultimate consumers of roy- alties began life in the grind of Fleet Street, the reporter, as represented in current British fiction or on the stage, cuts a very poor figure. The general conception of him is of a rather disgust- ing and illiterate little beast with fray- ed cuffs and a note-book. Mr. Shaw, who ought to know better, has thus depicted him in "The Doctor's Dilemma"; Mr. Arnold Bennett, with a kindlier but equally patronizing touch, has drawn him in "The Great Adventure." Mr. Chesterton, in his new play, says, "He's worse than a guttersnipe; he's a Fleet Street journalist." The reporter, though a worm, is a cynical worm, and rarely puts himself to the trouble of turning. He is accus- tomed to see life from the inside and the underside, and it neither surprises him nor hurts him to be pilloried by the playwright who depends upon him for the half-column puff that makes the box- office happy; or the author who entrusts to his imperfectly manicured hands a typewritten outline of his forthcoming novel, with a photograph, taken when the author's hair was not so thin on top; or the society leader who furnishes a list of the guests at her exclusive func- tion; or the clergyman whom he fre- quently misrepresents by making the clergyman say exactly what he did say; or the scientist whom he frequently mis- understands, though more honestly, one dares say, than the scientist is mis- understood by his scientific colleagues. Only now and then will the bitterness of the man conquer the cynicism of the reporter; and he will protest as one of the profession has recently protested in the columns of an English publication. He will say that it is not true that, as a rule, reporters come in through the transom or the coal chute; that they flourish big note-books; that they mis- spell common words. It is true that they do not always wear gloves, as Mr. Shaw accuses them of not doing. Yet why protest? Playwrights and authors will go on portraying the reporter as do- ing all these things, because the type has become fixed in common thought It is said that Thackeray began this bus- iness of traducing the pressman. Dick- ens had his fling at him. Since then the type has become as definite as that of the stage Irishman. If the reporter is inclined to be meek under such criticism, it is not altogeth- er because he is a cynic. He takes it largely as a tribute to his power for good and evil. He recalls that from time immemorial satire has had its ning at every human institution, the church, the army, the doctors, the lawyers, the writers, the <poets. Society has ap- pointed agents to help it in the business of being born and dying, in making war, in fighting its legal battles, in curing it- self of its diseases, in writing fables for its amusement; and, like every master to his hired man, society cannot refrain from now and then turning upon its hirelings and denouncing them for a pack of inefficient, pretentious knaves. How much more should the master's stick rattle about the ears of the partic- ular hireling who has arrogated to him- self the functions of the church, the law, medicine, science, literature, art? The reporter recognizes that a beating is all in the day's work. He is all the more exposed to satire because, by com- parison with the power he wields, he is, indeed, a somewhat insignificant per- son. He is without the borrowed dignity of magnificent ecclesiastical vestments, without soldier's epaulets, the prestige of the lawyer's robe, the doctor's parch- ment and mystic language. He is just a chiel — except that he is more often Irish than Scotch — takin' notes. When he prents 'em there is an awful how-de- do. Society knows it and resents it. Outside of England the reporter is much better treated by his prosperous elder brother, the novelist and play- wright. In French literature the jour- nalist, as they call him, is very fre- quently a malignant figure, but rarely a guttersnipe. To the Parisian imagina- tion the reporter is the man who makes and unmakes Ministries, drives finan- ciers to suicide, cements or disrupts in- ternational alliances, beats open the doors of the Theatre Francals for am- bitious vaudeville artists, and has writ- ers and painters eating out of his hand. Here at home we do not concede him
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ISO The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2538 so magnificent a role. We have kept some of the ridiculous outward trap- pings of the stage type — the note-book, the slangy, incisive speech, the all-wis- dom. But the favorite hero of newspa- per romance and the theatre is the Titan city editor, manipulating half a dozen telephones and half a hundred men, is- suing his orders in crisp, Napoleonic phrases, or shouting down the tube to the pressroom like Richard III at Bos- worth Field — a magnificent apparition who is quite as unreal as the shabby lit- tle pencil-pusher of British imaginings, but infinitely flattering to the profes- sion. THE PHILOSOPHY OF BERTRAND RUSSELL. Some years ago one of the undergrad- uate magazines printed a cartoon repre- senting the corner of a philosophical lec- ture-room during a lecture on philoso- phy. Of the eight or ten students shown in the picture two or three were reading magazines, two or three were yawning dreadfully, while the others were fast asleep. Beneath appeared the words, "Is there an external world?" The student who designed this cartoon is probably entitled to rank as the original "new realist." For two centuries or more philosophers have been turning over the question, how an idea (assumed to be circumscribed) can know an object which lies beyond its circumference; and those who have been brought up upon this discussion should be ready to appreciate, or at least to forgive, the philosophical movement which has been advertising itself in America for sever- al years past as "the new realism" (see the Nation of October 17, 1912), and which is represented in England by Ber- trand Russell and George E. Moore. Of the philosophers of this school, Mr. Rus- sell, who is about to give a half-year of lectures at Harvard, is easily the most commanding figure, and his philosophy has been neatly summarized in his lit- tle book on "The Problems of Philoso- phy" in the Home University Library. Recently I have given this book to two classes in philosophy, with very inter- esting results. First, it was shown that a man who writes with distinction and with personal authority will capture tire undergraduate where the textbook-mak- er fails. Mr. Russell's style is wonder- fully clean-limbed; or, as his mathemat- ical colleagues would say, "elegant." His skill in putting Kant or Plato into a page or two would be hard to surpass. Being quite assured of his position, he writes with an easy and confident frank- ness both charming and a trifle irritat- ing. For between the lines may be read that if you fail to agree Mr. Russell will be pleasantly amused. The more so since he must surely be aware of the pit- falls that await the unwary. On its face the book is a series of astounding dog- matisms which have all the appearance of artlessness, but which for the most part have (elsewhere) been carefully predigested. For example: If we already know that two and two always make four, and we know that Brown and Jones are two, and so are Robinson and Smith, we can deduce that Brown and Jones and Robinson and Smith are four. This is new knowledge, not contained in our premises, because the general proposition, "two and two are four," never told us there were such people as Brown and Jones and Robin- son and Smith, and the particular pre- mises did not tell us that there were four of them, whereas the particular proposition deduced does tell us both of these things. This would be set down as rank non- sense by one who did not know that in an earlier work Mr. Russell had agreed to assume that "Brown and Jones are two" shall mean that Brown and Jones exist. The other result appeared when my pupils endeavored to give Mr. Russell his place among the schools of philoso- phy. Then it turned out that (as one pupil wrote) no one "ism" had been pro- vided for Mr. Russell. For he achieves the remarkable result of standing for a naive empirical realism and, with the same uncompromising firmness, for a high and dry Platonic idealism; or, since, in his philosophy, both are forms of realism, for realism in the modern sense and for realism in the mediaeval sense. His world consists, in other words, of two kinds of reals: the partic- ular reals of common experience, such as the sun, which, as an independent real, is not less real when unperceived, or such as our thoughts and feelings; and the universal reals, such as those expressed in the formulae of mathemat- ics, the most remote and apparently ir- relevant of which stands for an "entity" not less self-subsistent and independent of the mind by which it is known than the sun itself. The only difference be- tween these two kinds of "entities" is that the particular reals "exist," while the universals "subsist" or "have be- ing." But the latter are superior to the former as perfection is superior to life. How being and existence are combined, we are not clearly told. In the new real- ism it seems that doctrines have no need of being combined to be held by the same person. Yet there is a certain unity in Mr. Russell's philosophy, not quite covered by his general admission of "tough-mindedness," and his pecu- liar combination of matter-of-fact with Platonic realism becomes more intelli- gible when we remember that he Is a Cambridge mathematician and the heir- prosumptivo of an carl. The last point seems to me not quite fair as philosoph- ical criticism, yet not insignificant. Mr. Russell's most impressive achieve- ment began as "The Principles of Math- ematics," of which the first and only volume appeared in 1903. The plan of this work was abandoned, and in 1910 Mr. A. N. Whitehead and Mr. Russell published the first of four volumes (of which three have now been is- sued) of a new work, entitled "Prin- cipia Mathematical The first book was written in English, the second is written largely in the sign-language of the symbolic logic. In this language the work is a nearly closed volume and a standing menace to all students of phi- losophy who object to doing two thou- sand or so large octavo pages of sym- bolism without a more certain hope of reward. For enough may be gathered from the more intelligible portions to learn that under these signs Messieurs Whitehead and Russell have hidden the secrets of the universe. The principia mathematica, in a word, are nothing less than the principia of logic and meta- physics. Formerly, indeed, mathematics was supposed to confine its attention to number and space. The newer mathe- matics of groups and series claims to have devised a calculus of relations which will cover all "entities" whatso- ever; not only volumes and numbers, but persons, ideas, sensations, emotions, prices, moral values, commercial trans- actions— anything you please. From this point of view truth of any kind is a question of mathematical relations; and what cannot be expressed in symbols is not true. Nor beautiful; in his essay on "The Study of Mathematics" Mr. Rus- sell betrays an enthusiasm which recalls Plato's identification of mathematical truth with divine love. Mr. Russell's philosophy may thus be described as a symbolic philosophy, and the description may be extended to the new realism gen- erally. In the division of labor Mr. Rus- sell supplies the symbolic logic, Mr. George E. Moore the symbolic ethics (see his "Ethics" in the Home Univer- sity Library), and the American new realists the symbolic psychology. One need not go far to appreciate the fascinations of this symbolic calculus. Professor Royce, himself an idealist, con- ceives it to be the embodiment of ra- tional and divine order. To my own im- perfect view quite as much may be said for the calculus of chess, which seems to me to be a symbolism of the same kind, with equally fascinating problems. In other words, I should say that the sym- bolic reals are about as truly represen tative of life and experience as a bish- op whose activities were confined to diagonal squares would bo representa- tive of the Archbishop of Canterbury. I may even intensify the vulgarity of this judgment by suggesting that the chess symbols are too human and per
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Feb. 19, 1914] The Natio 11 181 sonal. The realistic world may be bel- ter conceived as a mosaic of counters, i. e., poker-chips. Does Desdemona love Cassio? Write "Desdemona" and "lov- ing" and "Cassio" upon so many poker- chips, and then in their possible ar- rangements you may see the possibili- ties of love "between" Desdemona and Cassio. One is reminded of Mr. Kallen's remark, that the new realists are the philosophical cubists. Among the new realists the point of most undoubted unanimity is a con- tempt for modern idealism. And for purposes of unrestrained emphasis they prefer to identify idealism with the blindest expression of the theory in Berkeley's "Principles," and thus to make the whole issue rest upon the question of the existence or non-exist- ence of an external world. This inter- pretation not only leaves idealism unac- counted for, but fails to reveal the true inwardness of realistic antipathy. If, following a fashion condemned by real- ism, we judge idealism by its motives, it should seem fairly clear that one mo- tive underlying all forms and degrees of idealism is what Kant called "criti- cal." The "critical" motive takes ac- count of the fact that any object that is known is known by a person and may be expected to have a character which re- flects the point of view of the person who knows it. Such a point of view will be embodied in any vehicle of descrip- tion, not excepting the signs of symbolic logic. The critical philosophy takes the world as we have it (for example, in natural science), and then asks how far this world is the expression of human nature. According to Kant, human na- ture explains why things are known in an order of space and time; and the pragmatists have discerned in the world an expression of our needs. InBerkeleyan idealism the critical motive fairly swal- lows up the world. But to identify ideal- ism with the philosophy of Berkeley is simply a quiet way of ignoring what nine-tenths of the idealists have stood for, and, in particular, of passing over their contributions toJiloglc. Now, the new realism is not merely opposed to the incredibilities of Berke- leyan idealism, it is hostile to every at- tempt to take our world critically. For the new realists it is not enough to deny that the world is created out of nothing in the process of knowing; go- ing to the opposite extreme, they insist, as a sort of axiom, that the fact that our world is known makes no difference whatever in what it is known to be. The new realism is thus a return to pre- critical dogmatism, a deliberate and conscious, even highly self-conscious, as- sertion, if one may put it so, of naivete. For the school is not wanting in schol- arship, though it appears to have lost the historical sense; and Mr. Russell's scholarship is extraordinarily extensive. In his "Foundations of Geometry," pub- lished at twenty-five (he is now forty- one), he owns an indebtedness to such prominent idealists as Bradley, Bosan- quet, and Sigwart, while the book is dedicated to McTaggart. But they must have cancelled the debt, for there is clearly no evidence of it now. Mr. Rus- sell writes as if the philosophers of this school had never lived. Nay, more. The American new realism would be what it is if nothing had happened since Mill. Mr. Russell's realism is a sort of de- lighted medisevalism. The American new realists forego the function of criticism out of respect for modern science. Their favorite argu- ment is the argumentum baculinum. Mr. Russell uses the walking-stick, but his distinguishing prepossessions are math- ematical. Now, one of the preposses- sions of mathematicians is that they have a special monopoly of reasoning; and, again, that they are peculiarly, if not exclusively, successful in arriving at absolute truth. And it is true that mathematical results have the appear- ance of being uniquely impersonal and absolute. This fact furnished the ground for the mystical number-metaphysics of the Pythagoreans. Since Kant, however, the absolute significance of mathemati- cal truth has been at least open to dis- pute. And it is a question whether the tendency of mathematical theory itself has not been to confirm, while enlarg- ing, Kant's position. The late M. Poin- care, at any rate, was a fairly good Kantian. Mr. Russell's mathematical theory is a return to pre-critical absolut- ism. Not only does he hold, against Kant, that space and time are indepen- dently real — that is, irrelevant to any human point of view — but, against most modern views, he stands for absolute movement and position and for the theory that space is an assemblage of points. The climax is reached when he tells us (in "The Problems of Philoso- phy") that "two and two are four" "must apply to things equally whether we think of them or not." How this real- istic situation is to be described is be- yond my power to conceive; and it seems relevant to ask whether the two's of the real world are yards or metres, and also whether they are "two's" or, say, "zwei's." One is reminded here of a realistic little maid, who, after learning that "Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowls of the air, and to every beast of the field," asked, "But how did Adam know their names?" This is the realistic problem. One of the peculiarities of the mathe- matical mind is the equal delight of math- ematicians in what can be clearly defined and in what cannot be defined at all. The mathematician affirms his theorems because they can be proved from his axioms; he then with equal emphasis affirms the axioms because they are in- capable of proof. Thus the love of the transparent is united with the love of the opaque. The new realism, as I have remarked elsewhere, is a typical philoso- phy of the opaque; and Mr. Russell is no exception. He believes in the reality of the material world because of an "in- stinct," in to-morrow's sun because it is "probable," in the veracity of memory and in the truth of the simple proposi- tions of arithmetic because they are "self-evident" — although he admits, in seeming contradiction to the assump- tions of symbolic logic, that propositions may be more or less self-evident. It would be difficult to find better exam- ples of what Shakespeare calls "a wo- man's reason" or a more masculine cour~ age of affirmation. One of the foundation stones of Mr. Russell's logic is the proposition, p im- plies q. The analysis of implication is dismissed in the "Principles" with the statement that "implies" is indefinable. In the "Principia" p implies q is de- fined to mean that "if p is true, q must also be true" — which leaves the nature of the relation still open to discus- sion. For example, there is a dol- lar in my purse, and my purse is in my pocket. Do these two propo- sitions, merely as such, imply that there is a dollar in my pocket? I, for one, should say not. There is nothing im- plied, for example, if Peter knows only that there is a dollar in my purse, while Paul knows only that my purse is in my pocket. Let the facts be what they may, nothing is implied — there is no logic in the situation — until the two proposi- tions are thought by the same person; just as twelve words thought separate- ly by twelve persons fail to constitute a sentence. The symbolic logic claims to dispense with this necessity for a per- sonal thinker. The symbolic logic is definitely, in fact, a method of arriving at truth through the investigation of the possible "aggregations" of propositions. What an aggregation of propositions may be must be left to the reader to say. The symbolists seem to regard any two propositions as an aggregate when they are asserted simultaneously, irre- spectively of whether they are asserted by the same or by different persons or by different persons in communication. To me the word "aggregation" suggests something more like potatoes, each of which remains within its own skin; and where propositions remain each within its own skin I am unable to see any "logical" connection whatever. I am thus led to suspect that the symbolic logic has confused logical implication with spatial inclusion and displacement. When more potatoes are forced into a full basket, others are forced out. But this is not a process of implication ex- cept as one term signifies the other in the point of view of a knowing mind. This must be my excuse for suggesting
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182 T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2538 the poker-chip interpretation of Mr. Russell's logic. To me it seems that the symbolic logic (along with much of our symbolic psychology) writes our thoughts upon counters and then studies' the various arrangements and displace- ments of the counters. The world of independent reals is sublimely beautiful, but it is not expect- ed to prove either familiar or tractable. The realism of this new school presents, in fact, an interesting parallel to the realism of Flaubert or Zola or Thomas Hardy, in whose presentations of life the characters are borne along on the stream of unconscious forces, foreseeing their destiny apparently (the reader can usually foresee), but mysteriously in- capable of altering it; and nothing has a happy ending. Both in philosophy and in literature realism stands for the doc- trine that consciousness makes no dif- ference. The realism of the American school takes a rather work-a-day atti- tude towards its world and apparently assumes that philosophy, if it cannot re- construct, can at least make the world more comfortable. Mr. Russell holds that philosophy has no "practical" use whatever: Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our con- ception of what is [theoretically] pos- sible, enrich our intellectual imagination, and diminish the dogmatic assurance, which closes the mind against specula- tion; but, above all, because, through the greatness of the universe which philoso- phy contemplates, the mind also is ren- dered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which consti- tutes its highest good. Greatness of mind! Does this mean that life is great only so far as it is lived in the light of a clear self-consciousness? For a generation given over to the prag- matisms of unillumined energism this should be a wholesome doctrine. But in Mr. Russell's view, knowledge and life are mutually irrelevant — as they are bound to be. Following the example of Aristotle, he separates the "speculative" virtues from the "practical." Philosophy, it seems, then, is a noble pursuit for those who are economically free; no- bler than hunting or golf; yet equally unproductive from the standpoint of practical life. Philosophy, in other words, is appropriate only to a leisure class. Mr. Russell's ideas about religion are embodied in a fine essay entitled "A Free Man's Worship," in which he preaches the ancient Stoic doctrine of lofty submission to Fate. I quote the closing paragraph: Brief and powerless is Man's life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipo- tent matter rolls on its relentless way; Cor Man, condemned to-day to lose his dearest, to-morrow himself to pass through the gate of darkness, it remains only to cherish, ere yet the blow falls, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day; disdaining the coward terrors of the slave of Fate, to worship at the shrine that his own hands have built; undismayed by the empire of chance, to preserve a mind free from the wanton tyranny that rules his outward life; proudly defiant of the irresistible forces that tolerate, for a moment, his know- ledge and his condemnation, to sustain alone, a weary but unyielding Atlas, the world that his own ideals have fashioned despite the trampling march of uncon- scious power. Shameful to relate, throughout this really noble passage, I find myself ob- sessed by the vision of a Platonic real- ist shaking his fist at a cigar-shop In- dian. I can grasp what is meant by a rational attitude towards a benevolent or an accommodating universe, or to- wards a malevolent universe. But what would be a rational attitude towards a universe that is simply bloodless and in- scrutable strikes me as a most perplex- ing problem, and a problem which real- ism has yet to solve. Meanwhile we may ask whether a point of view so truly high-minded does not deserve, whether, in fact, its existence does not imply, a more significant universe. Waknee Fite. NEWS FOR BIBLIOPHILES. There is preserved in the John Carter Brown Library at Providence an exces sively rare "Plan of the Town and Har bour of Boston," published in London In 1775 by I. De Costa. Only one other impression of the original is known to me, although diligent inquiry has been made In the hope of discovering further copies of what is probably the first plan of Boston made after the opening of the Revolution, for it most quaintly sets forth the engagements at Lexington and Concord. The copy now in the John Car ter Brown Library was formerly owned by Henry Stevens, Son & Stiles, the well known firm of London booksellers, who thought it of sufficient value to warrant the reproduction (1911), in excellent fac simile, of an edition of fifty copies, care fully colored by hand after the manner of the original. The unusual interest and rarity of this print make desirable the transcription of the title in full: A Plan of the / Town and Harbour of / Boston. / and the Country adjacent with the Road / from Boston to Con- cord/Shewing the Place of the late En- gagement, / between the King's Troops & the Provincials, / together with the sev- eral Encampments of / both Armies in & about Boston. / Taken from an Actual Survey / Humbly Inscribed to Richd. Whitworth / Esqr. Member of Parliament for Stafford. / By bis most Obedient Ser- vant / I : De Costa. The title is followed by nineteen num- bered references to the position of troops, batteries, men-of-war, etc.; and at the bottom of the plan, which measures 19x1 4 y2 inches, the imprint reads: "Lon- don Publish'd as the Act directs July 29th 1775. by I. De Costa Red Cross Street South wark." The engraver's imprint is: "C. Hall sc." To the facsimile published by Messrs. Stevens the following is add- ed: "Reproduced from the original Print preserved in the John Carter Brown Library, Providence, R. I. London: Re- published by Henry Stevens, Son & Stiles, Map & Print Sellers, 39, Great Russell Street, W. C, over against the South West Corner of the British Museum." The plan is drawn in elevation, Lexing- ton and Concord being shown by groups of houses. The British troops and "Min- ute Men" are shown, together with three interesting groups representing the "Bridge where the attack began," "Col. Smith's return from Concord," and "Lord Percy's return from Lexington." The position of troops on Boston Common is given, and numerous men-of-war in Bos- ton harbor are also drawn in elevation. Before publishing the facsimile, Mr. Henry N. Stevens sought in vain to ob- tain information respecting De Costa, the first publisher of this plan; and, unfor^ tunately, nothing as yet concerning him has been forthcoming. The dedication seems to indicate that De Costa was the designer as well as publisher; but within the past few months light has been shed on the authorship of the plan. Strange- ly enough, it appears to have been wholly or in part the work of Capt. Jonathan Carver, the early Western traveller, about whom a lively controversy has been waging for some years past. In a let- ter dated August 8, 1775, one Isaac Fos- ter, In writing to Major Robert Rogers, the famous ranger, says: "Carver and Dacosta have finished a new plan of Bos- ton at the request of Whitworth." Whit- worth, it will be remembered, was the gentleman who became interested in Carver's original project of crossing the continent to the Pacific, and who pro- posed heading an expedition for that purpose. There can, therefore, be no doubt that the Carver here referred to was the traveller. Foster further says in the same letter that Carver expected to be appointed Superintendent of In- dian Affairs, a position for which we know the traveller made application in the form of a memorial (February 25, 1773) to the Earl of Dartmouth, "his Majesty's principal Secretary of State for the American department." Nor was Capt. Carver new at the busi- ness of map-making. The evidence is clear that he was a surveyor and draughtsman before making his Western journey; and he was concerned, during his residence in England, in the making of at least three maps (besides those later included in the "Travels"), and the plan of Boston. There are in the British Museum four copies of the earliest map (1769) extant bearing Carver's name — two in manuscript and two engraved. One of the maps appearing in the first, second, and third (London, 1778, 1779, and 1781) editions of the "Travels" was taken from that of 1769. The scale is slightly reduced, and the latitude and longitude corrected somewhat, but the maps are substantially the same. In the second issue of Thomas Jefferys's "Amer- ican Atlas" (London, 1776) there appear- ed a finely executed map entitled: "A
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Feb. 19, 1914I The Nation 183 New Map of the Province of Quebec, ac- - to the Royal Proclamation of the 7th of October, 1763, from the French Surveys connected with those made af- ter the War, by Captain Carver, and oth- er Officers in His Majesty's Service." It Is suggestive that the name of Carver has prominence, while the "other officers" who assisted are not mentioned by name. In the first edition of the "American At- las" (London, 1775) the eighth plate is "A Map of the British Empire in North America; by Samuel Dunn, Mathemati- cian." In succeeding issues the map reappears with the addition to the title of the words, "improved from the sur- veys of Capt. Carver." And Carver lent more than his name to this map, for careful comparison of the first with later issues of the "American Atlas" will show that his contribution was material. The shore line of the Great Lakes is con- siderably altered, and the region between the Mississippi and the lakes is changed In the water courses and names set down. All this, coupled with much other in- formation which careful investigation has brought to light since the appearance of the late Prof. Edward Gaylord Bourne's famous article in the American Historical Review (XI, pp. 287-302) ought to go a long way towards dissipating the charge frequently made that Carver was an ig- norant shoemaker and soldier, utterly in- capable of writing the book which bears his name — a book the marvellous popu- larity of which is attested by the fact that it appeared in nearly forty known editions in English, French, German, and Dutch, during the century following its publication in 1778. John Thomas Lee. Correspondence THE CONSTITUTION AND THE SU- PREME COURT. To thb Editor of The Nation: Sir: Chief Justice Clark, of the Su- preme Court of North Carolina, is quoted by the daily press as having said in a recent address in New York city: "The overwhelming preponderance of the ju- diciary was unexpectedly created in 1803 by a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, without a line in the Constitution to authorize it, when that body assumed the right to veto any act of Congress it chose to hold unconsti- tutional." This statement coming from an emi- nent jurist has been accepted as defini- tive by a great many people and has been used as the basis for a very "pro- gressive" editorial in at least one im- portant daily paper (the North Ameri- can, Philadelphia, January 30). Referring to the belief so widely cher- ished that the Constitution of the United States gave to the Supreme Court the power to declare acts of Congress uncon- stitutional, the editorial in question ven- tures: "Never was there an emptier myth; never was an easy-going people summoned to worship a fetich so pal- pably fashioned of wood." The undersigned begs leave to recall in this connection "a line of the Con- stitution" and a few historical facts well known to many people, but apparently forgotten by some: The Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made . . . shall be the supreme Law of the Land. [Article VI.] The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made. [Art. Ill, sec. 2.] These are lines of the Constitution that surely have some bearing upon the point at issue, and they become the more sig- nificant in the light of certain historical facts. When the Constitution was drawn up In 1787 the framers were already familiar with State Constitutions that were "su- preme law." In pursuance of such Con- stitutions, the State courts had already set aside the acts of Legislatures in sev- eral States, South as well as North. That a similar power was conferred upon Federal courts by the above-quoted sections of the Constitution was more- over taken for granted at an early period. While the Constitution was still before the States for ratification, this function of the Federal judiciary was clearly pointed out in the Federalist. In one of Alexander Hamilton's contributions appeared the following statement: A Constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as fundamental law. . . . Nor does this conclusion by any means suppose a superiority of the judicial to the legislative power. It only supposes that the power of the people is superior to both; and that where the will of the Legislature, de- clared in its statutes, stands in opposi- tion to that of the people, declared in the Constitution, the judges ought to be governed by the latter rather than the former. They ought to regulate their decisions by the fundamental laws rather than by those which are not fundamental. A few years later, during the contro- versy over the Alien and Sedition laws, the Legislature of Rhode Island resolved (February, 1799) that the Constitution of the United States "vests in the Fed- eral courts exclusively, and in the Su- preme Court of the United States ulti- mately, the authority of deciding on the constitutionality of any act or law of the Congress of the United States." Similar declarations were made by other States at the same time. There followed, in 1803, the opinion of the Supreme Court in the case of Mar- bury vs. Madison, delivered by Chief Justice John Marshall and lately dissent- ed from by Chief Justice Clark, of North Carolina, as being "without a line in the Constitution to authorize it." The opinion of 1803 has been upheld, however, in con- stitutional practice for something more than a century. Webster asserted the same principle explicitly in his famous reply to Hayne In 1830, and the question lay very close to the heart of the difficulty between North and South that brought on the war between the States. The supremacy of the Union meant the continued su- premacy of the "supreme Law of the Land," with the national Supreme Court (not the individual State) as the final Interpreter. Most of us still venture to believe that the above-quoted lines of the Constitu- tion confer upon the Supreme Court the power to declare acts of Congress uncon- stitutional. We have some rather emi- nent opinion and some century-old prece- dent as foundation for our belief. We may be wrong, but we feel that our opin- ion may perhaps be dignified by more respectful terms than "empty myth" or "wood-fashioned fetich." Rayner W. Kelset. Haverford College, Pa., February 12. "THE SOCIAL EMERGENCY." To the Editor op The Nation: Sir: Are we in the United States con- fronted by a "social emergency" of grave character which must be firmly met, as alleged by Mr. Foster in the Nation of January 22, and would teaching sex hy- giene in the public schools, as often as- serted, conduce to purity of morals and better physical health? The vast majority of teachers in the public schools are women, unmarried women ranging from young misses just out of their teens to seasoned veterans of uncertain age who have long since left the frivolities of youth behind them. Their teachings, obviously theoretical, would lack convincing force with inquisi- tive Young America. On the other hand, physicians capable of setting forth the scientific facts of sex matters would probably fail in pedagogic ability, know- ledge ©f a subject and ability to teach be- ing quite distinct things. But, to tell the truth, more than a mere mastery of the subject is required; more than peda- gogic ability is required. The one thing above all that is needed is a fatherly or motherly instinct in dealing with young people when discussing so delicate a sub- ject. Outside of the actual father or mother, not one person in ten thousand has that faculty. The underlying idea of such sex hy- giene societies as Mr. Foster speaks of is that young people will be sexually more moral if taught systematically mat- ters connected with human sex. This theory seems to run counter to the teachings of experience of those who have most to do with young people. Take, for instance, a school-room full of children and explain with diagrams and illustra- tion what would be the horrible results of swallowing a match, and the result is bound to be that a number of them — pupils who never thought of swallowing a match — will yield to the counter sug- gestion and do the very thing sought to be avoided. The child eternally warned not to play cards experiences a horrible fascination to do the forbidden thing. The sale of cigarettes in a given locality Is increased by the active propaganda of boys' clubs pledged not to smoke ciga- rettes. Take a mixed school of say 1,008 pupils, boys and girls, instruct them in sex matters, with all the care and all the scientific apparatus possible, and the results — well, no man intimately ac- quainted with child nature can have the least doubt what the results would be. Whether we Americans are growing erotic and sex-mad, as Is frequently sug- gested, may be doubted, but It Is un-
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134= The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2538 doubtcdly true that certain newspapers are following: orders said to have been given them by their owners: "Play up sex matters strong-." It should seem as If we had about reached a stage of civ- ilization where public opinion might In- sist by legal enactments that such pub- lic debauchery must stop. But perhaps the greatest source of sex Immorality comes from the unsupervised dance hall and unregulated amusements for young people of both sexes. Behind that stands that preeminently American practice of lax parental control which permits young girls to go without cha- peron and alone or in company of a young man whose antecedents are but slightly known. The results are often dis- astrous to the girl. Obviously the remedy Is not in teaching the child, but in an awakened conscience and sense of responsibility on the part of the child's parents — less instruction In school as to how venereal diseases are contracted and more instruction at home as to suitable hours and companions for young girls at night. An experience of twenty-five years in school, social, and charitable work has convinced the writer that the reason why many girls go wrong lies in laxity of parental control and of public supervision of amusements open to the youth of both sexes. Another prolific source of corruption of youth reaching the age of adolescence is the lascivious style of dress affected by women of good social standing. It is silly to argue that these women are uncon- scious of the effect they are producing on the opposite sex; they know to the frac- tion of a millimetre exactly how much display they are making. Working girls copy the "style." The results are not far to seek; the sexual appeal to the male is understood and answered. It is firmly, humbly, and respectfully suggested that our social purists and sex hygienists who are concerned about the welfare of the youth of this country might well begin at home by creating a public sentiment that would drive off the street and out of public places all in- decently dressed women of whatever sta- tion of life, and thus remove temptation from the feet of our young men and wo- men. The ostensibly decent woman inde- cently dressed has ruined thousands of susceptible young men and women. Voila I'ennemiel E. L. C. Morse, Formerly President of the Calumet Branch of the Juvenile Protective As- sociation of Chicago. Chicago, February 12. native American balladry can show. Men like Nicholas Peddle, of Mosquito, Levi Chlpman, of Spaniard's Bay, and Ed- mund Wornell, of Greenspond, are as interesting as Raftery and Carolan, and though as poetry much of their work Is curiously like that of the Sweet Singer, nevertheless they know the traditions and embody them in verse. And the Devon- shire fishermen from whom the New- foundland captains are descended would find their speech on these men's lips if they were to return to-day. The people of Pictou and Antigonish Counties in Nova Scotia have not yet forgotten their ballads, and if we ever produce a Synge to re-create in an alien speech the poetry of the more remote Scotch districts in Nova Scotia there will be as potent a literary exodus to this land as there is now to be witnessed from London and Dublin to the Aran Islands. Even now in Antigonish there are schol- arly students of the Gaelic poetic re- mains which exist in verbal tradition on the lips of the farmers and fishermen, and it is a matter of pride with many who have little English that their Gaelic is a language in which they may shape their images in poetic form. I know of no country where you will, find so many professed "poets" in a small district. Edward J. O'Brien. South Yarmouth, Mass., February 13. LOSS OF THE SOCIALIST PARTY. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: I am sorry that "A Former Mem- ber of the Socialist Party," writing in the Nation of February 12, did not give the causes for that party's loss of 45,000 members between March, 1912, and June, 1913. To most of us "former members" these causes are patent enough, but not to the general public. The Socialist party in the United States is composed of two factions: reformers and revolutionists. The majority of the former left because the platform of the Progressive party promised them every- thing they desired. The majority of the latter could not conscientiously remain in the Socialist party after that party in- serted in its constitution the clause known as "section 6," which denounced as non- Socialists all persons for any reason ad- vocating "crime, sabotage, and violence." Reginald Wright Kauffman. Columbia, Pa., February 14. try to keep vaudeville and religion apart? Why not have tango-sermons, followed by "The Church's One Foundation," ap- propriately reduced to a one-step rag? And this is called a religious revival. Verily, "il en a toute la fureur triste." R. A. Cambridge, Mass., February 15. NEWFOUNDLAND BALLADS. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: Your editorial on the subject of "Ballads in America" suggests to me the probability that Newfoundland is still an unfilled field of ballad material. It is certainly true that among the fish- ermen of Fortune Bay, and also in the districts from Brigus to Fogo, the old bal- lads still survive on the lips of fishermen, who sing or recite them on winter nights by the fireside of a neighbor. Moreover, the sealing songs of the North are begging to be collected, and in them perhaps lies the most real seed of romance that a RELIGION UP TO DATE. To the Editor of The Nation : Sir: At the door of a church near Bos- ton there is a huge sign, with such words as these: "All aboard for next Sunday — Everybody come — Grand music — Illus- trated sermon— Come and GET THE HA- BIT." Recently in a Young Men's Chris- tian Association house the announcement was made that every evening there would be prayers, followed by sandwiches. In another church the preacher acts out In the form of melodrama the Biblical text of the day; in still another one the priest advertises services, followed by refresh- ments and a dance. Indeed, one la led to ask: Why should any one oppose the all-pervading tendencies of the day, and NOTHING BUT THUNDER. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: There was once a man — I mean Alexander von Humboldt — who spoke kindly of the Spanish -Americans, and they cherish his memory ever since, styling him "the sage who approached most nearly to divinity by the power and extent of his intelligence." France acts to a certain degree as a publishing centre for them, issuing from her presses Spanish-American works of a consum- mate scholarship, such as Rufino JosS Cuervo's "Diccionario," as well as the exquisite poetical effusions of an Acufia or a Chocano, and the ever-grateful Spanish-Americans call her el cereoro del mundo. What do they get from you? Nothing but thunder! O, It Is excellent To have a giant's strength ; but it Is tyrannoui To use It like a giant. Interrupt an American in the midst of his vociferations against the Mexicans, and ask him to name a Mexican poet, and will he feel any shame at not being able to name a single one? The American method of spreading information which keeps an inmate of a log cabin well post- ed as to some recent sensational event in a foreign country and leaves him in a total ignorance as to the intellectual achievements of the self-same country must be done away with, and the sooner the better. A few days ago I was asked to translate a business letter from Mex- ico, and was greatly delighted on seeing the words fluctuat nee mergitur on the trade-mark of the firm. Thus I can close this letter with a prayer and a hope. Joseph de Perott. Worcester, Mass., February 14. Literature A LEADING FEDERALIST. The Life and Letters of Harrison Oray Otis, Federalist. nOo-lSJ/S. By Samuel Eliot Morison. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 2 volumes. $6 net The career of Harrison Gray Otis cov- ers the period during which Massachu- setts Federalism played its part in our history and passed to its decay. It is described by Mr. Morison, a descendant of Otis, with fairness and ability. It may be said that the biographer does not overestimate the importance of his subject, who was not a leader of the first importance. It is as a man who reflected the will of his party rather than as one who controlled It that we must make up our verdict in regard to Otis. He was at the head of the Boston aristocracy, and was honored for his so-
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Feb. 19, 1914I The Nation 185 cial position, his capacity as an orator, and his tact as a party manager. He en tered Congress in 1797, when the Feder alists had control of the Government, be cause the Republicans were committed to the defence of France. He supported the alien and sedition laws, the Judici- ary act of 1801, and the attempt of the Federalists to make Aaron Burr Presi- dent. He was, says his biographer, "a typical Federalist, representing his par- ty at its best and at its worst." He re- tired to private life in 1801, built up a lucrative law practice, and made money in various non-professional ventures. During this period he became the visible head of the Federalist party machine in Massachusetts and gave most of his po- litical activity to State politics. From 1817 to 1823 he was a Senator in the na- tional Congress, where he devoted him- self to a fruitless effort for bringing about a restoration of New England to a position of equal influence among the States. The superior class still ruled in the good old Bay State. In Virginia and elsewhere in the South any politician who valued his prospects swore by the gods of equality. Aristocracy there must wear the mask of democracy, if it had any political success at all. In Massa- chusetts a public man might declare that the democratic control of govern- ment was a peril to society, and escape with his life. To those who viewed the Federalist party from afar, Otis, bril- liant orator, most politic and courteous of hosts, dispenser of princely hospital- ity, and chairman of its central caucus, was its head and chief ornament. Those who knew the inside of things realized that he was only a figurehead. There was a powerful machine, with a central committee and many subordinate com- mittees, and none of them selected by the rank and file of the party, and Otis was at the head of the Central Commit- tee. But behind him was the Essex Junto, a small group of able men, who were too wise to show their hands, but who controlled nominations as rigidly as party bosses of the present time. None knew it better than Otis himself. He was, says Henry Adams, "no favorite with any class of men who held fixed opinions." John Lowell, probably the most influential of the Junto, said: "Mr. Otis is naturally timid and frequently wavering — to-day bold, and to-morrow like a hare trembling at every breeze." He was not popular with the leaders, and for many years he was denied his dearest wish, a nomination for Gover- nor. When it came to him in 1823 he was defeated. The most noted event with which Otis's name is associated is the Hart- ford Convention. He was second on the list of Massachusetts delegates, wrote its most important report, and took on himself the main share of the labors of the meeting. In later life his enemies attacked him fiercely for his part in what they called a treasonable move- ment. He wrote extensively in its de- fence, but was never able to satisfy the public that he had uncovered all that was done in that secret assembly. To many persons it will be a disappoint- ment to learn that no important new evidence has been brought to light through the industry of the biographer. This is in spite of the fact that many letters by and to Otis have been used. The absence of evidence of the real in- tentions of the participants in the con- vention is a striking result of the exam- ination of more than one collection of New England letters. Mr. Morison, like Henry Adams, concludes that the ob- jects were to gain control of the Feder- al revenue and to force Congress to per- mit New England to provide her own defence. He concludes that the constitu- tional amendments suggested were only to satisfy the people who resented the domination of the non-commercial States and who were tired of submitting to the power of the South through the rep- resentation of three-fifths of the slaves. This may be true, and we are not justi- fied in saying that there was more be- hind the movement than came to light; but to take such a position is hard in view of the attitude of New England earlier in the war. It is certain, how- ever, that Otis's part in the movement, as far as the movement went, was not that of a radical. He rode on the wave somewhat behind its crest. Mr. Morison has described the performance with ex- cellent spirit. Although he pleads the cause of New England, he does it in a broad and intelligent way. He success- fully shows why she felt herself ag- grieved. It is, however, as a means of know- ing the political and social conditions in Massachusetts that this Life of Otis is most significant. Herein is its con- tribution to knowledge. A chapter on The Federalist Machine, 1800-1823, con- tains new and valuable information on party history. It shows what party con- trol was like before the popular conven- tion gave the party a popular basis. The position Otis took in regard to abolition brings out a side of the controversy too much neglected by the historian, who has usually fallen under the Garrison- ian spell. To Otis the movement was rash and unnecessarily provocative of sectional bitterness. His attitude on the tariff is also interesting. His vote in the Senate defeated the bill of 1820. He said at that time that the tariff would ruin the interests of navigation, and his vote had the approval of his State gen- erally. Shortly afterwards he appears as a large owner of cotton-mill stock, and noted that manufacturing was the industrial hope of the community. "Two years ago," he said in 1823, "our sun had sunk never to rise again, as many said and more feared. Manufacturing stock with its liabilities made a man to be considered as so much minus. . . . All is now reversed, and the stocks as well as spirits have risen inordinately." Ten per cent, he added, was the usual dividend. Like most other wealthy New Englanders, he now became a protec- tionist. The author enlivens his biography by making it keep close step with the per- sonal life of the subject. He realizes what is so easy to forget, that a biog- rapher is not entirely an historian. It is Otis in his relation to the times, and not the times in their relation to Otis, that Dr. Morison presents to us. He has even felt justified in showing in rather large proportion the attractive social qualities of his subject. If this should displease the reader who happens to be a student of history, it will please a much larger number who read for in- formation and pleasure and who appre- ciate the minor side of human nature as well as the march of public events. In fact, Mr. Morison has done the difficult task of writing a good book about a small man in such a way that it will please the general reader and be useful to specialists. The Flying Inn. By Gilbert K. Chester- ton. New York: John Lane Co. Mr. Chesterton is now possessed by the Destiny of the English which seiz- ed upon Rudyard Kipling when he gave up being merely a teller of plain tales from the hills and a singer of barrack- room ballads, and began to write stories like "An Habitation Enforced," and those in "Puck of Pook's Hill." But Mr. Chesterton's Imperial idea is not Kipling's. Chesterton has always been anti-Imperialist — even boasting openly of being a Little Englander. He has long made it his business to rope, tie, and brand with their right names the wild horde of runaway words that have (as he asserts) got most men's, vision of truth so sadly mixed and top- sy-turvy. Now your British Imperial- ists have for the sake of their Imperial Idea, under cover and sanction of these spacious words, made unholy alliances. They are joined with the Japanese for the sake of the Empire of the East; they are champions of the Turk against Christendom for the sake of the Empire of the West and the overlordship of the sea. They let the military virtues of the native-born English decay, and they re- cruit the Imperial British army among the heathen yellow, brown, and black men of His Majesty's other dominions. They do, positively, in some of those dominions (so good churchmen com- plain) actively support the Mussulman against the Christian missionary. Having gone so far under the mere spell of a phrase, why should they not go further? It pleases Mr. Chesterton's
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186 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2538 sense of logic and his lively fancy to assume that they have gone the limit — to identify the temperance movement, which is spoiling the taverns of Old Eng- land, destroying the indigenous race of Sam Wellers, wiping out the line Dick- ensian atmosphere of the Island, with the Mohammedan interdict against alco- hol. The great ones who are making England over again in the Imperial image are victims of the subtle fascina- tions of the East — they play sedulous ape to the Turk, borrow his trappings, from his fez to his harem. For the purposes of the allegory, this baleful in- fluence is embodied and concentrated in one fanatic statesman, Lord Ivywood, and it is Ivywood who levies war on the inns of England. The native powers, in like fashion, are gathered into the per- son of Patrick Lalroy, as good an Eng- lishman as the Iron Duke or Bobs of Kandahar, a huge Richard of the Lion Heart figure, red-headed and hot-blood- ed, who goes singing about the kingdom with an inn sign and a barrel of rum and a round Cheddar cheese — the Fly- ing Inn, in short. The minions of the law are behind him, and adventure, audacity, romance, keep him company, whether he travels with a donkey, a stolen motor car, or an armed uprising like that of Wat Tyler or Jack Cade. There is a dog, too, to bark joyously at his heels, and a pub- lican, the last of the sturdy British stock. It is this publican who makes the "Song Against Grocers, by Humphrey Pump, sole proprietor of The Old Ship Pebble- wick, celebrated as the house at which both Queen Charlotte and Jonathan Wilde put up on different occasions, and where the ice-cream man was mistaken for Bonaparte." Here is part of the song: God made the wicked Grocer For a mystery and a sign, That man might shun the awful shops And go to inns, to dine, Where the bacon's on the rafter And the wine in the wood, And God that made good laughter Has seen that it is good. His props are not his children, But pert lads underpaid, Who call out "Cash" and bang about To work his wicked trade. He keeps a lady in a cage Most cruelly all day, And makes her count and calls her "Miss" Until she fades away. The righteous minds of innkeepers, Induce them now and then To crack a bottle with a friend, Or treat unmoneyed men. But who hath seen the Grocer Treat housemaids to his teas, Or crack a bottle of fish sauce, Or stand a man to a cheese? There is also a lady in the book, an alluring, elusive sort of lady. It is for her that the incarnate powers of dark- ness and light contend, and she is lost and won after watching from a turret tower window (all lattices and ara- besques) such a fight as Helen saw from the walls of Troy or Rebecca from the castle keep beside the wounded Ivanhoe. There is an astonishing deal of rol- licking good stuff in the book, wit, sa- tire, drollery, philosophy, and an amaz- ing trick of character-drawing in a style that mingles realism, the fantastic, even the passionate and fanatic. For the ben- efit of those who may wonder what he is driving at, Mr. Chesterton has pro- vided a compact exposition or moral of the fable in these words of Patrick Dal- roy: Did you ever hear of the great destiny of Empire ? . . . It is in four acts : Victory over barbarians. Employment of barbarians. Alliance with barbarians. Conquest by barbarians. Children of the Sea. By H. de Vere Stac- poole. New York: Duffield & Co. The old fable of the leper's bride is still capable of its blood-chilling office. Too often it has served the turn of pathos, or at best of melodrama; too seldom succeeded, as in this tale, in ap- proaching the effects of pity and terror which belong to the tragic mood. The action is set with extraordinary effec- tiveness, the first scene in Japan, the second in Iceland; but adroitness of staging goes but a little way towards accounting for the power of the perform- ance. These are human characters, em- bodied with skill and sympathy, and the chief factor in the catastrophe is moral, not physical. If Ericsson, chief buoyman of a Fran- co-Danish cable-ship, had not been an habitual light-o'-love, he would not have gone philandering after a strange girl on the Japanese coast and been so dread- fully befooled. Fate punishes him, and in the punishment is involved the Ice- landic maiden Schwalla, with all her youth and love and innocence. But, in truth, pity broods over them both, they are almost equally childlike and hap- less. For Ericsson, though "a brigand towards women, yet, strangely enough, . . . was not a libertine." His sin was not the grosser sin of sex; though he followed wandering fires, his quest was pure love. In Schwalla he found it — too late. Apart from its tragic theme, the story has interest for its picture of an Ice- landic village community, and for its portraiture of the few persons directly concerned with the tale. Each of them stands out warm and vivid — Ericsson, the stalwart and conquering and doom- ed; Schwalla the strong and pure, fit to be his mate; Magnuss the egoist and dog-in-the-manger, great-hearted poet and friend. These and others among the figures which people this little world have value of their own. They are not the conventionalized puppets of fable, but human beings, in whose midst a dreadful thing befalls. We have come to like and understand them when the swift inevitable blow falls — on us as well as on them. It is the end of our little company, the end of Ericsson and Schwalla as creatures of this human world. What becomes of the bodies which fate has not been able to part, is a secondary, almost irrelevant, matter, and may well be left unsaid, as the chronicler here leaves it. Old Mole. By Gilbert Cannan. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Mr. Cannan's novel, "Round the Cor- ner," was reviewed but recently in these columns. With the fine martial regu- larity of the better-class English novel- ist the author puts forth his new con- tribution— a well-constructed, skilfully handled book, depicting life in the Eng- land of to-day. The book is an advance on its predecessor. It is clever, even eloquent, certain to hold the attention of the reader; but still it leaves in the mind a vague incompleteness. Few more picturesque characters than Old Mole have set forth on their travels in a lat- ter-day English novel. There is a flavor of Fielding in the tale. Herbert Joce- lyn Beenham, M.A., "sometime sixth- form master at Thrigsby Grammar School in the county of Lancaster," is no ordinary schoolmaster. And even though an absurd combination of cir- cumstances sends him, after twenty-five years of teaching, spattered with scan- dal, into a caravan of strolling, some- what shady, and drunken players, there is nothing more silly about him than about Parson Adams or a hero of Le Sage. A picaresque aroma greets us at the very outset of the book and contin- ues well into the heart of it. The growth and development of Old Mole continue amain, but once he quits the strolling life and turns, by those vicissitudes that make life, into a Lon- don celebrity, he is no longer so inter- esting. The tale runs to its logical con- clusion and Old Mole continues a lov- able old fellow enough. But undeniably there is the lack we spoke of, and it lies more, perhaps, in the heart of the author than in any of his characters. For though he would scarcely believe it, Mr. Cannan is still an intellectual in an age whose great men have left and are leaving mere intellectualism behind them. One is reminded of a passage in a book of Fielding Hall's that bears upon the point. "We want," he says, "that inward light that never dies. We want a greater unity than nature or humanity; to feel at one with that which never dies or changes." When Mr. Cannan attains to the vision of that inward light, his novels will attain to something much more than mere skill or cleverness or eloquence.
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Feb. 19, 1914] T h. e Nation 187 THE HOLY GRAIL. The Quest of the Holy Grail. By Jessie L. Weston. (The Quest Series, edited by G. R. S. Mead.) New York: The Macmillan Co. $1 net. This is a clear and readable summary of modern speculations in regard to the origin and evolution of the legend of the Holy Grail. As in her larger works on the same subject, Miss Weston re- jects the theories that this famous leg- end may have had its origin in Chris- tian ceremony or traditions, or in folk- lore (more specifically Celtic) concep- tions concerning a food-providing talis- man; on the other hand, she again urges her own theory that it sprang from some occult ritual in honor of the Vegetation Spirit and that its closest parallel is to be found in the ancient Adonis cult of Egypt and the East. The Vase and Lance of the Grail procession she interprets accordingly as "well- known phallic symbols, the Vase or Cup [i. e., the Holy Grail] representing the female, the Lance, or Spear, the male element, while the blood is the Life." This theory has, of course, excit- ed widespread discussion, but from the nature of the case it withdraws itself from proof, and we do not believe that it will ever get beyond the status of an ingenious speculation. The gap of at least a thousand years between the Adonis cult of antiquity and our earliest records of the mediaeval legend is in it- self a serious matter. This, however, is not all, for, to employ Miss Weston's own words, "we do not know precisely — in fact, we know very slightly — what really took place at these feasts [i. e., of Adonis]." To be sure, Miss Weston cites some supposed modern survivals of these rituals which are intended to honor and propitiate the animating Spirit of Nature, but the resemblances with the Grail legend are of the vaguest kind. Apart from this general theory of ori- gins, there is much in Miss Weston's in- terpretation of the texts that seems to us objectionable. To begin with, we have as little faith in Wauchier's appeal to a Welshman, Bleheris, as a source for his continuation of Chretien's "Perceval" as we have in Layamon's similar appeal to Bede and Saint Albin at the beginning of his "Brut," not to mention other man- ufactured authorities of mediaeval poets. No one, however, would judge from Miss Weston's book that there were still doubters on the subject, for she states without qualification: "but in any case we now know that the earliest extant form of the Grail story came from Wales." In a similar spirit throughout the present work she speaks of the so- called "Didot-Perceval," as if it were beyond all question the prose version of Robert de Borron's "Perceval." As a matter of fact, no one knows whether Robert de Borron ever wrote a "Perce- val." Miss Weston is here taking for granted, of course, that the results of her studies on the subject in the second volume of her "Legend of Sir Perceval" are assured. This seems rather strange, however, in view of the fact that not a single Arthurian scholar (except Dr. Sommer, who, more suo, claims to have anticipated her) has accepted this sup- posed demonstration. For our own part, we differ with Miss Weston on certain fundamental principles of method. When a new conception concerning the Holy Grail appears in one of the later texts, we do not believe that this is likely to be an original trait of the legend neg- lected by earlier writers — rather, we should say that all the chances are in favor of its being an independent modi- fication or addition of the author of the later text. We cannot accordingly ascribe to Wauchier's continuation of Chretien's "Perceval" the same author- ity as Miss Weston does, and as far as the Vulgate Cycle of the prose romances is concerned, the case is even plainer; yet Miss Weston seriously connects a de- tail of one of the most fantastic episodes of the prose "Lancelot" (Gawain's visit to the Grail-Castle) with the Weeping Women feature of the Adonis rites. Al- together, she makes hardly any allow- ance for invention on the part of a group of writers who, as it appears to us, gave as free a rein to fancy as any that ever lived. Miss Weston speaks of Dr. Furnivall's edition (1864) of the Old French "Queste del Saint Graal" as the only edition of this work, but we have now that of Dr. Sommer (which records the readings of various manuscripts and, besides, is much more accessible) in his "Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances," Vol. VI, published by the Carnegie In- stitution of Washington, D. C. The "Merlin" — continuation (or "Livre d'Artus") of MS. 337 of the Bibliotheque Nationale, which is here referred to as unpublished — has also recently appeared as Vol. VII of the same series. Further- more, Miss Weston seems unaware of the existence of Miss R. J. Peebles's Bryn Mawr thesis, "The Legend of Lon- ginus in Ecclesiastical Tradition and in English Literature, and its connection with the Grail" (1911), which strength- ens, however, materially the argument for the Christian origin of the Grail legend. Splendid Failures. By Harry Graham. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. $3 net. Five of the papers here collected have appeared in English reviews; the three now printed for the first time are quite as good. The title "A Splendid Failure" originally belonged to the paper on George Smythe, but very well suggests the character of the group, or rather the characteristic which they have in com- mon. Smythe, Wolfe Tone, Toussaint L'Ouverture.Haydon the painter, Charles Townshend, "the Infant Roscius," Hart- ley Coleridge, and Maximilian of Mexico —a company of strange bedfellows, yet here they lie. In the thirty pages or so allotted to each Mr. Graham has con- trived to give a clear impression of their personalities and their careers. Wolfe Tone, "the first of the Fenians," and George Smythe, "the Paladin of Young England," have been so thoroughly sub- merged by the wave of time as to call for somewhat violent means of resusci- tation. Yet Tone was one of the most spirited and picturesque figures of his day, an Irish patriot who paid the full price for his Irishry. It was in the pe- riod of our own successful Revolution that he conceived the plan, which to-day sounds so modern and so unhopeful, "to break the connection with England . . . to unite the people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of all past divi- sions, and to substitute the common cause of Irishmen in place of the de- nominations of Protestant, Catholic, and Dissenter." George Smythe's splendor, like that of Wolfe Tone, Haydon, Charles Town- shend, and Hartley Coleridge, was a splendor of promise rather than of achievement or desert. In all of these instances failure resulted from lack of self-control. Smythe was loved by Rog- ers, eulogized by Macaulay, marvelled at by all his contemporaries. He was the wit without peer, the orator who was to send his age down to history, the brilliant young statesman from whom anything might be expected. Nothing remains of it all; he is remembered vaguely as the original of Disraeli's "Coningsby." He was not a victim of fate, but simply failed, as the current phrase is, to "make good." With Hartley Coleridge we incline to lay something more to the score of inheritance: his weakness and his failure were hardly less. Haydon's lack of self-command took a different form. He knew what he wished to do and bent himself to his task with untiring energy. But he lack- ed poise, judgment, common-sense, and his genius o'erleaped itself. The failures of William Henry Betty and the Emperor Maximilian are of a very different sort. In his character of the "Infant Roscius" Betty was anything but a failure. The boy, under his 'teens, who could so cry out on the top of question, so berattle the English stage, that players like Charles Kemble and Mrs. Siddons herself were forced to share his triumphs in order to triumph at all — such a boy, even if his suprem- acy ended after two seasons, must b»» held to have succeeded. Betty command ed ten times the salary of the best ac tors of the day. The House of Commons once adjourned, on Pitt's motion, to see the Infant Roscius in "Hamlet" — it was one of the most amazing flukes in his-
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188 The JN ix t i o ii [Vol. 98, No. 2538 tory. But it was a fluke. When Betty, hia education completed, his manly sta- ture attained, again ascended the stage, it was to appear with small applause be- fore provincial audiences. He seems to have accepted the situation with a good grace, and his early success had made him independent. The fluke by which Maximilian ascended his perilous throne was to have no such comfortable corol- lary. Yet that also was a fluke. His momentary glory was a glory of circum- stance, and not of character. The re- verse is true of Toussaint L'Ouverture. Here is the one heroic figure of the group. His success was on the great scale; in no generous sense, no sense that he himself would have accepted, did the pathos of his end affect it. Alone in the Wilderness. By Joseph Knowles. Boston: Small, Maynard & Co. $1.20 net. As the complexity of civilization in- creases, experimental returns to aborig- inal simplicity will doubtless multiply; though one can scarcely see why any one should care to repeat the triumphant experiment of Mr. Knowles. At last the dream of a thoroughgoing return to na- ture has been realized. A self-tutored artist (formerly a wilderness guide), Mr. Knowles went into the woods of northern Maine in August, 1913, naked, without so much as a match or a knife, and, after living for the stipulated two months in total independence of the ad- vantages of civilization, emerged tan- ned and bearded, clad in bearskin and deerskin, carrying bow and arrows and a deer-horn knife. Before the experi- ment, Mr. Knowles's physical condition, as recorded by Dr. Sargent, of Harvard University, indicated that he was an exceptional man; after the experiment, a second examination showed an appre- ciable gain. His life in the woods the author habitually views in two aspects, the physical and the mental. He entered the woods on a rainy day, and, being unable to make a fire, he spent two nights rest- ing and running alternately at short in- tervals in order to keep warm. After- wards he enjoyed the warmth of a fire and the shelter of a lean-to, save for one miserable night which resulted in a fever. His food consisted of berries, bark, fish, partridges, squirrels, and some venison and bear meat. The bear he trapped, and killed by clubbing him on the nose; the deer he killed by break- ing his neck by main force. Mr. Knowles apparently did not suffer through the absence of salt from his diet, nor from the extreme irregularity of his eating, as regards both quantity and time. Nor was he rendered uncomfortable through giving up suddenly the habit of smok- ing cigarettes. His physical life, in brief, though not without tribulations, seemed to him of almost trifling impor- tance in comparison with his mental life. "My suffering," he writes, "was pure- ly mental and a hundredfold worse than any physical suffering I experienced." It had never occurred to him that he might be lonely, but the thought of his isolation and of his friends and his past life tortured him so relentlessly, espe- cially at twilight, that he vowed again and again that he would return next day to the camp whence he had entered upon his wanderings. Seeking diversion from his thoughts of civilized life, he drew, on birch bark, with burnt sticks from his fires, a number of sketches, first-rate examples of which illustrate his book; and he found further diver- sion in cultivating the friendship of a chipmunk, a flock of partridges, and a deer and fawn, to all of whom he spoke as to human beings. Mr. Knowles's account of his experi- ment, though badly written with respect to grammar and diction, is sufficiently vivid and detailed. The chief defect in the book consists in the conclusions that be endeavors to draw. Though these conclusions are, in spirit and substance, in accord with some of the leading thoughts of our day, they are set forth in a disorganized, slapdash manner, and, when related with the author's inten- tions regarding his future, are fatuous. His experiment is to "lead up to some- thing of international importance and magnitude" — at least, if his plans are carried out they "will create a new foundation on which the nation may fatand." More specifically, what he hopes to establish, "with the coopera- tion of the United States Government," is a "College of Nature," "where young men may go for a short time, just as they go to college to learn things scien- tific." It is to be hoped that Mr. Knowles will use his influence, such as it is, wisely. Whatever the extent of his influence, he has certainly attracted in New England a considerable public attention of a cap-flinging kind, which is well illustrated by a photograph showing "a portion of the crowd that greeted Joseph Knowles on his arrival in Boston." Since, however, a small part of the public remains skeptical, Mr. Knowles is planning a second excursion, on which he will allow "a dozen repre- sentative men" to accompany him and watch him. Vom Weltreich des deutschen Geistes. Von Eugen Kuhnemann. Miinchen: C. H. Beck. There is a tendency among the writ- ers of books to make a volume of mis- cellaneous prose something like a scrap- bag into which is thrown everything that cannot be placed elsewhere: es- says, addresses, after-dinner speeches, book reviews, etc. The reader who ex- pects from a boon something different from what he is accustomed to read in the papers, would prefer, however, not to find in it references to yesterday's performance of a play, to last year's lit- erary sensation, to banquets and other events of hardly more than temporary and local interest. To open a book with so momentous a title as the one quoted above and find the very first selection beginning: Hochansehnliehe Festversammlung ! Nach. den Worten des Herrn Ministers ist die Konigliche Akademie zu Posen nun erbff- net! and a number of others introduced by allusions to the festive board at which they were delivered, is not likely to at- tune the reader's mind to the import of its message. The author will be known here as the first German to hold the Carl Schurz professorship at the University of Wis- consin, from his exchange professorship at Harvard and his lectures and address- es at Columbia University, Carnegie Hall, etc. He enjoys a prestige and popularity that impose certain obliga- tions, and to publish a book without re- moving the all too obvious traces of its origin seems a hazardous undertaking. The note of nationalism which runs through the volume, and the virtuosity with which the author plays upon the emotions of his readers, continually re- mind of the platform and of a more or less solemn or festive gathering. With- out the passages that frankly refer to these occasions, the reader might take the book more seriously. For there are in it some commendable papers on Socrates, Plato, Rousseau, Frederick the Great, Kant, Fichte, Herder, Schiller, on the last of whom Professor Kiihne- mann is especially authorized to speak. Even the papers on Bismarck and Schurz and the Schurz memorial ad- dress are thoughtful and suggestive. But the festive mood lends itself to the ut- terance of so-called beautiful sentiments which on the printed page impress as sonorous platitudes, and Professor Kuhnemann has not escaped the pitfalls of his oratorical vocabulary. Moreover, the things said and done during his vis- its to this country, while undoubtedly meritorious in themselves and signifi- cant to the academic world immediate- ly concerned, are hardly of such momen- tous interest as to be faithfully recorded in a book intended for the general read- er. They, too, were undoubtedly includ- ed to emphasize the note of Germany's Intellectual hegemony, which point of view explains the author's criticism that Gerhart Hauptmann unduly accented the note of pacific internationalism in his "Festspiel in deutschen Reimen." Some readers will also take exception to Professor Kiihnemann's attitude to- wards modern science and the manner in which he disposes of Haeckel. H<'
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Feb. 19, 1 91 4] T h. e !N~ a t i o n 189 says in the address entitled "Leben und Wissenschaft": Es 1st in frischem Gedachtnis, wie ein verdlenter Forscher vor unser Volk getreten 1st tnit dem Anspruch, die Weltratsel zu losen ; wir kennen seinen beispiellosen Er- folg. Denn dieselben Leute, die sich un- gebildet vorkommen wiirden, wenn sie nicht den Theologen und Philosophen bei ihren Gedankengangen das unglaubigste Miss- trauen entgegenbriichten, ergeben sich so leicht wehrlos den Behauptungen, die von der Seite der Naturwissenschaft kommen Die moderne Naturwissenschaft ist ohne Zwelfel ein Stolz des menschlichen Wis- sens. Aber diese Erscheinungen zeigen, dass der Glaube an sie in der gegenwar- tigen popularen Bildung zum Aberglauben geworden ist. His attitude towards American educa- tion may be gathered from the following sentences on President Eliot: Kliot gehort nicht zu den grossen Den- kern, nicht zu denen, die wie Plato, wie Kant, wie Goethe den Jahrtausenden ge- bieten. Er hat nicht aus unerhbrten Tiefen neue Quellen aufsprudein lassen fur die Menschheit. Er ist rein amerikanisch. Er hat mit dem gesundesten Verstande und mit unerschiitterlicher Energie die Um- bildung von Harvard zur Gelehrtenuniver- sitiit im europiiischen Sinne vollzogen, im- mer aber den Gedanken der Erziehung zum bffentlichen Dienst des ganzen Volkes festgehalten. Er hat die Atmosphare ge- schaffen, in der der Typus des Gelehrten auf amerikanischem Boden gedeihen kann. Notes Mr. W. E. Carson is bringing out, through Macmillan, a new edition of his "Mexico, the Wonderland of the South." We may expect in a few days from the University of Chicago Press "Unpopular Government in the United States," by Albert M. Kales. The following are titles in Little, Brown's list of forthcoming books: "From an Island Outpost," impressions and ob- servations by Mary E. Waller; "Felici- dad," a romance by Rowland Thomas; "The Adventures of Peter Cottontail" and "The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum," both by Thornton W. Burgess, and "Great Jurists of the World from Papin- ian to Von Ihering," in the Continental Legal History series. "The Business of a Gentleman" is a story by H. M. Dickinson which Putnams are issuing this week. This week John Lane Co. is publishing 'The Garden Patch," by Edward DuBois Flint, and a popular edition of "The Red Lily," Anatole France's manual of garden plants garnished with poetry and observa- tions. Books soon to be brought out by Small, Maynard & Co. include: "Mrs. Brand," by H. A. Mitchell Keays; "The Dog and the Child and the Ancient Sailor Man," by Robert A. Wason; "Sunrise Valley," by Marion Hill; "Sweetapple Cove," by George Van Schaick, and "More About King Edward," by Edward Legge. A. C. MClurg's spring announcements include in fiction: "The Hoosier Volun- teer," by Kate and Virgil D. Boyles; "The House of the Dawn," by Marah El- lis Ryan; "Fine Feathers," by Webster Denison; "Shea of the Irish Brigade," by Randall Parrish; "The Green Seal," by Charles Edmonds Walk. — History and bi- ography: "The Coming Hawaii," by Jo- seph King Goodrich; "Kit Carson Days," by Edwin L. Sabin, and Junipero Serra, his Life and his Work." by A. H. Fitch. — Economics and sociology: "A Primer of Political Economy," by Alfred B. Mason, and in the National Social Science se- ries, edited by Frank L. McVey, the fol- lowing: "The State and Government," by John S. Young; "The City," by Henry C. Wright; "Political Economy," by Frank L. McVey; "Competition, Fair and Un- fair," by John Franklin Crowell; "The Cost of Living," by Walter E. Clark; "Rural Welfare," by John L. Coulter, and "Statistics," by W. B. Bailey. — Miscella- neous: "The Art of Story-Telling," by Ju- lia Darrow Cowles; "Daly's Billiard Book," by Maurice Daly and W. W. Harris; "Earmarks of Literature," by Ar- thur E. Bostwick; "Right Living, Mes- sages to Youth from Men Who Have Achieved," edited by Homer H. Cooper, and "Will o' the Wasps," nature studies by Margaret Warner Morley. The following miscellaneous books are in Houghton Mifflin's spring announce- ments: "The Women We Marry," by Ar- thur Stanwood Pier; "Stories and Poems and Other Uncollected Writings," by Bret Harte; "Overland Red, a Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail," anonymous; "When Thoughts Will Soar," by Baroness Bertha von Suttner, authorized trans- lation by Nathan Haskell Dole; "The Heart's Country," by Mary Heaton Vorse; "Memoirs of Youth," by Giovan- ni. Visconti Venosta, translated by Wil- liam R. Thayer; "A Child of the Orient," by Demetra Vaka (Mrs. Kenneth- Brown) ; "The First Step," a short novel by Eliza Orne White; "In theHigh Hills," poems by Maxwell Struthers Burt; "Hen- ri Bergson," by Emil Carl Wilm; "Com- modore George Hamilton Perkins, U. S. N., his Life and Letters," by Carroll Storrs Alden; "yEgean Days and Other Sojourns and Studies in the Isles of Greece," by J. Irving Manatt; "The Mis- adventures of Three Good Boys," by Henry A. Shute; "Confederate Por- traits," by Gamaliel Bradford; "The Owl and the Bobolink," by Emma C. Dowd; "Where Rolls the Oregon," by Dallas Lore Sharp; "What Is it to Be Edu- cated?" by C. Hanford Henderson; "A Life of Tolstoy," by Edward Garnett; "The New Politics and Other Essays," by William Garrott Brown; "Before Vas- sar Opened, the Beginnings of the Edu- cation of Women in America," by James Monroe Taylor; "Religious Confessions and Confessants," by Anna Robeson Burr; "The Americans in the Philip- pines," by James E. Le Roy, with an introduction by William H. Taft; "Let- ters of a Woman Homesteader," by Eli- nore Pruitt Stewart; "Elizabeth and Mary Stuart, the Beginning of the Feud, a Narrative in Contemporary Letters," by Frank A. Mumby; "The Sister of the Wind and Other Poems," by Grace Fal- low Norton; "On the Cosmic Relations," by Henry Holt, and "The Place of the Church in Evolution," by John Mason Tj ler. Among the books announced by Rand, McNally & Co. are "Figures Famed in Fiction," by H. G. Pillsbury, and "Where He Dwelt," a life of Christ by Alfred T Schofield, M.D. From time to time we have comment- ed on the successive issues of the "Col- lected Works of William Morris," which the Longmans have been publishing, and as the long row of the volumes increases — there are twenty of them now — their monumental . effect becomes more ap- parent. Though they show nothing of the artificial typography of the products of the Kelmscott Press — being indeed more readable than those books, if not so lovely- — their handsome page and ex- cellent photogravures would have de- lighted the eye of the master printer. The four volumes now issued. XVII to XX, contain "The Wood Beyond the World," "The Well at the World's End," "The Water of the Wondrous Isles," and several of the shorter prose romances. They are part of the marvellous im- provisation that went on in Morris's busy brain in the intervals between his Socialist propaganda and his occupation with the Kelmscott Press. His daughter, Miss May Morris, who continues her de- lightful introductions, tells how in that period of nine crowded years he wrote ten of these tales, some of them works of considerable length. He seldom cor- rected; if his first draft did not suit him he would ordinarily throw it away, and make a fresh start; and not the least interesting part of the introductions is the number of these fragmentary sketches and beginnings which Miss Mor- ris has rescued. Especially by compar- ing these later fragments with some from his Oxford days, which she also prints, one sees how little Morris really changed or grew in the thirty bustling years between his youthful and his ma- ture prose. There was increase of knowledge and, possibly, a more por- tentous fluency, but he was the same light-armed improviser always; of true gravity or the power of arresting the reader he had as much in the callow Ox- ford era as in his age of social zeal. Miss Morris gives a picture of him pre- siding at the Hammersmith lectures which is like a flash of critical intuition into his soul, although she did not mean it to be taken in just this way: Whenever possible, my father would take the chair for the Sunday I and after this lapse of years I can hard- ly picture the meeting-room without him as the central figure — though indeed something of him was always with us when not present. I can see him seated at the plain wooden table taking notes, or absently decorating the paper with flower-work and lettering; or, with his I ground of indefinite mixed shadow, speaking down the narrow room on "Early England" to listeners happy to be taken for an hour out of the of disputed problems. When the meet- ing was over, Mr. Walker, or 0 us, would often go to the chairman's 1st to see what the little drawings were, left on paper or blotting-pad pretty wanderings of the pencil! of planchette-drawlng dream-rosi
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190 T lie Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2538 twining garlands that formed themselves unbidden. Somehow that involuntary wandering of the artist's hand in pretty, decorative ways, that uncontrolled revelling1 of the Imagination in an ancient world idealized out of all semblance of the reality, seem to let us very intimately into the secret of his social revolt and of his revolu- tlonary tales. In any proper sense of the word he was no Socialist at all, but, like a good many other of the more re- fined of the brotherhood, an anarchist of dreams; his picture of the converted world is like that which must come to a naughty child who has run away and fallen asleep in a meadow of miraculous flowers. The president of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, Dr. John Venn, has gone into some pleasant by-ways of re- search for the material of a volume of short essays which he has brought to- gether under the title, "Early Collegiate Life" (Cambridge, Eng. : Heffer). Draw- ing on the records of his own college for illustration, Dr. Venn gives in these pa- pers an intimate and no less entertain- ing picture of life in one of the great universities of England when the insti- tution was in its youth and early man- hood. Some of the papers were read on the occasion of particular college cele- brations, and there is a filial piety in those dealing with the memories of found- ers and benefactors that is very charming and that emphasizes pleasingly the con- tinuity of collegiate traditions and ideals. The essay on The Early Undergraduate reveals the fact that, in the course of some four hundred years, that species has suffered variation principally in its external plumage. In 1579 the Vice- Chancellor complains of a young gentle- man of the name of Punter that "he was detectid of much disorder; as, namely, that he had uncased, as they call it, one of the stagekeepers of Caius College plucking off his visor," and that there- after Punter had been guilty of other flagrant indiscretions. Mutatis mutandis we seem to recognize the picture. There is some uncommonly good reading in the chapter entitled Academic "Sports," the "sports" referred to having no relation to athletics, but being various eccentric characters who at one time and another have been members of Caius College. Un- dergraduate letters of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries throw an inter- esting light on university life of the time, especially on the expenses incidental to a university career, and here again the diplomatically worded appeals to his fa- ther for money of a certain William Gaudy can be paralleled by modern in- stances. In "The Forest of Dean" (Dutton) Arthur O. Cooke has made a welcome contribution to the literature of touristry. Mis book pretends to no more ambitious aim than that, and it fulfils Its purpose admirably. The Forest of Dean is less familiar to the tourist than the larger crown preserves of the New Forest, but it is hardly less interesting, and certain- ly not less picturesque. It is curious, therefore, that it has not heretofore found a writer to celebrata its beauties in a volume more pretentious than the guidebook. Lying on the peninsula of Gloucestershire, between the Severn and the Wye, the Forest Is in the heart of some of the most beautiful scenery in England. As a crown preserve it dates probably from pre-Norman times, and It has shared in the checkered history common to all the crown lands, its early records telling the familiar tale of op- pression by the royal huntsmen in pro- tecting their "tall deer" from the on- slaught of the vulgar, and of contu- maciousness on the part of the sturdy, half-tamed inhabitants of the Forest. Mr. Cooke's purpose is descriptive rather than historical, and his account of the history of the Forest is perhaps more condensed than it need have been. The descriptive chapters, however, are ex- cellently written, dealing not only with the scenery and points of interest, but with the life of the people and the in- dustries of the Forest. The book is freely illustrated with drawings of con- siderable merit, in color and in black and white, by J. W. King. The relations of the judiciary and the people, under our system of government, have never received a better exposition than in Mr. Frederick N. Judson's Yale lectures which make up the little volume, "The Judiciary and the People." Mr. Judson is impressed with the grave im- portance of his theme, and discusses It seriously, candidly, and courageously. There is no flippancy, no appeal to emo- tion, no demagogTiery. The first lecture is devoted to the independence of the judiciary and the separation of the pow- ers of government, under our Federal and State Constitutions. In the second and third lectures, the supremacy of the judiciary over illegal executive acts and unconstitutional legislation is explained and justified. While the author has no hesitation in rejecting the view that the courts were guilty of usurpation of pow- er, when they began the practice of nullifying statutes, because unconstitu- tional, he is not disposed to commend all of the decisions which have annulled leg- islation. He notes with commendation the more liberal construction by the Unit- ed States Supreme Court of the police power, and ascribes the narrower view often taken by State courts to the "ex- cessive restraints upon legislative power" in many State Constitutions, and to the "progressive deterioration in the character of State legislation." The fourth lecture is the one which will be read with most interest and profit, for it deals with the recall of judicial decisions and judges. While it contains nothing which is very novel or brilliant, it presents the leading arguments for and against these schemes with the utmost fairness. Mr. Judson's conclusion as to the recall of judicial de- cisions is, that "it misconceives the fun- damental theory of our political system with its distribution of the powers of gov- ernment." He is equally outspoken In his condemnation of the scheme for the recall of judges. Its tendency, he be- lieves, "would be to substitute for the fearless and independent judge, a spine- less, flabby, cowardly judge, shaken by every wind. . . . The fatal objection to it is not that the people would neces- sarily be unwise in its exercise, but be- cause its existence, whether exercised or not, would be fatal to the Independence of our judges." In the concluding lecture, Mr. Judson deals with the defects in our judicial procedure. Most of these he traces to legislation based upon distrust of the judiciary, and the consequent In- ability of judges properly to control the conduct of trials. "The only effective remedy for this deplorable situation," he declares, "is the vesting of a larger dis- cretion in the judges, so that they may have the power and the independence to disregard technicalities, to regulate the rules of procedure, and inaugurate a re- form of the anomalies of our archaic rules of evidence." A quaint and extraordinary anthology has been brought together by Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Brown and published by Put- mans, under the title of "Dedications." These, taken mainly from English and American books, but with a few foreign titles included, are divided into groups in accordance with the person or object ad- dressed, and there is a certain interest in the resulting categories, such as, for example, "To Deity," "To Lovers of Man- Kind," "To Oneself," "To Animals," "To Things Spiritual." "To Any and Every One." Within each group the dedications are arranged chronologically, and a phi- losopher could find much to muse on in the change of tone from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. Perhaps what will astonish most of those who open the book is the amount of graceful literature, in prose and verse, to be found within its covers; it is a kind of history of men and manners in allusion and epigram and direct eulogy. Quiet as a falling leaf is the manner of Lady Ritchie in her last volume, "From the Porch" (Scribner). Whether entitled "Divagations," "Monographs," or "Rem- iniscences," her substance is largely the memories of other days. What a vari- ous experience has been hers. In "A Discourse of Modern Sibyls" she gives personal recollections of George Eliot, Mrs. Gaskell, Charlotte Bronte, and Mrs. Oliphant, with the placidity of a knitter in the sun. A whole chapter is devoted to Charles Dickens, and Browning, Car- lyle, and Tennyson walk for us again in Kensington Gardens. In her "Mono- graphs," she frequently uses letters to call back the faded faces of little-known people of a bygone age. "The Swan of Lichfield" appears in a garb much less Johnsonian than one would expect. Mrs. John Taylor, of Norwich, sits quietly among her group of friends. Major James Rennell, the geographer, writes old-world letters to his grandson. Morland and Stevens rise briefly from the past. Other more personal papers there are, but all are fitly included in "From the Porch," for all are like glimpses down a vista flecked by the soft sunlight of an English afternoon. The reprint of Lord Cromer's "Political and Literary Essays" (Macinillan) con- veys the same impression of his mental quality that was made by his "Modern Egypt." The reader renews acquaintance with an intellect of singular poise and sagacity. One finds here fuller proof i>i the author's range of reading and de- light in literature for its own sake; and I In- pages on Disraeli, which we bad
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Feb. 19, 1 914] The Nation 191 noted on their first appearance in the Spectator, are touched with more moral fervor than Lord Cromer customarily cares to display. His seizure upon the Oriental nature of Disraeli, together with his exposing of the man's character in all its ethical poverty, was not only a piece of honest criticism, but a bold thing to do. It provoked many in England to resentment. They did not like to see the adventurer stripped by the statesman. The bulk of Lord Cromer's volume, however, is devoted to variants of his old themes. British Imperialism, the policies of colonial government, the treat- ment of subject races — with all these he deals. Out of his own long experience and reflection he has evolved certain rules of administration, and these he would ap- ply, with the necessary local adjustments, whether in Egypt or India, China or South Africa. Lord Cromer is fully aware of the nemesis which a Christian and democratic government over weaker peo- ples creates for itself. It is committed to their education; yet their education invariably results in discontent and agi- tation. But there is no turning back. We must allow enlightenment to do its work. Only, the wise governor, the fore- sighted Imperialist, will be all the time conceding enough to native demands to knock the props from under the native demagogue or insurrectionary. It is ob- viously a dangerous game, requiring the closest observation and the nicest play, but of such is Imperialism, according to one of its greatest modern practicers and expounders. Mr. Francis Watt is not a particular- ly clever writer, nor is he even very skilful as a compiler, but a "Book of Edinburgh Anecdotes" is the sort of thing that would make itself, and his volume of that title, published by Scrib- ners, has abundance of entertainment, not to mention some good pictures. The scattering fire of witticisms and stories is divided into chapters in accordance with the men concerned — lawyers, churchmen, scholars, doctors, royalty, authors, artists, and the like. A com- parison of the wit of these various class- es might make a pretty little essay, and the palm, we think, would certainly go to the bar and bench, with literature a good second. It is noticeable also that the faces of the lawyers, as shown in these portraits, are the strongest and most full of character, as if that profes- sion was best suited to ripen the canny and disputatious traits of the Scots na- ture. Those who know their "Weir of Hermiston" will not be surprised to find a vein of sardonic grimness running through the legal humor of Edinburgh, and there is no better specimen of this than the Lord Justice-Clerk Braxfield, on whom Stevenson is said to have mod- elled his Judge. One of Braxfield's max- ims was: "Hang a thief when he is young, and he'll no' steal when he is auld." His opinion of reformers was equally thoroughgoing: "They would a' be muckle the better o' being hangit." And it was at the trial of the reformer, Gerrald, that he made his famous, and most blasphemous, remark. The pris- oner had urged that the Author of Chris- tianity himself was a reformer. "Muckle He made o' that," growled Braxfield, "He was hangit." Of the literary anecdotes collected by Mr. Watt we can quote only one. It is characteristic at once of De Quincey's magniloquent way of talking, even when ordering a dinner, and of the Scottish servant of the old days. "Weel," said the cook, "I never heard the like o' that in a' my days; the bodie has an awfu' sicht of words. If it had been my ain maister that was wanting his denner he would ha' ordered a hale tablefu' in lit- tle mair than a waff o' his han', and here's a' this claver aboot a bit mutton no bigger than a preen. Mr. De Quin- shay would mak' a gran' preacher, though I'm thinking a hantle o' the folk wouldna ken what he was driving at." The omniscient Baedeker has not yet felt the need of covering South America. It is to be hoped that with the opening of the Panama Canal and the consequent inevitable increase of tourist traffic to the Southern Continent, he will rise to meet the occasion. A professional maker of guide-books is always at a tremen- dous advantage over the amateur. Long years of experience have taught him what information is safe to be included, and what may properly be omitted. In the meantime, by far the most useful vade mecuvi for the intending tourist is Miss Annie Peck's "South American Tour" (Doran), which has just appeared. Although it has many of the faults which one finds in amateur guide-books, includ- ing the presence of time-tables, always subject to change, irregular and unsys- tematic arrangement of details, and an inadequate index, it is really a credit- able performance. Numerous photo- graphs add to its value and many of them, now appearing for the first time, are unusually interesting. The person- ality of the author does not obtrude it- self unpleasantly. The book contains in- teresting, brief historical paragraphs and a vast amount of detail, which testi- fies to care and diligence in the work of compilation, although there are a num- ber of amusing mistakes, chiefly due to the author's unfamiliarity with the Span- ish language. "Matriz," for instance, which, as everyone one knows, is the term applied to a cathedral or metropolitan church, is supposed by the author to be the name of a large plaza! Even Baede- ker is at times unconsciously humor- ous in some of his detailed explanations, so it is not surprising that Miss Peck should have thought it necessary to state that in the Maury Hotel "generally a but- ton will be found near the head of the bed, by which the light may be extin- guished after retiring." Although there are no references to the chief cities of Venezuela and Colombia or the Guianas, on the excuse that the ordinary visitor to South America does not visit these places, the rest of the Continent is well covered from the tourist point of view. Most of the places described appear to have been visited by the author. Con- sidering the amount of pains which Miss Peck has taken in producing the text, it is greatly to be regretted that her pub- lishers did not supply the book with an adequate map of South America and plans of the principal cities. Theodore Low DeVinne, president of the well-known DeVinne Press, died Monday at his home in this city. He was born at Stamford, Conn., December 25, 1828. He learned the printer's trade in the office of the Newburg Gazette, and later was an employee and then partner of Francis Hart. After Mr. Hart's death he succeeded to the business, in 1877. With a great love for artistic printing he stoutly maintained that the best work could not be done with type- setting machines. As an author, he is remembered for "Invention of Printing," "Historic Types," "Christopher Plantin," "Plain Printing Types," "Notable Print- ers of Italy During the Fifteenth Cen- tury," etc. At one time he was a valued contributor to the Nation on matters of typography and the like. Edward le Moyne Heydecker, Assistant Tax Commissioner in this city, who died early last week, aged fifty, was the edi- tor of the "General Laws" and of va- rious textbooks, and was author of "Commentary on Mechanics' Liens" and "War Revenue Law, Annotated." Dr. Roswell Park, one of the most eminent of American surgeons, died sud- denly at his home in Buffalo on Sun- day. He was born at Pomfret, Conn., in 1852, and in 1872 graduated from Racine College, Wisconsin. Since 1883 he had been professor of surgery at the University of Buffalo. Dr Park was one of the physicians who attended Presi- dent McKinley after the assassination. He was the author of "Lectures on Sur- gical Pathology," "History of Medicine," "Textbook of Surgery," two volumes; and "The Principles and Practice of Mod- ern Surgery." Alphonse Bertillon, whose system of identifying criminals by thumb-prints has been widely employed, died in Paris on Friday. He was born in Paris in 1853, and early became interested in anthro- pometry. In the early eighties he dem- onstrated the value of his discoveries, and since that time had been head of the department of identification of the Paris police. He was also a handwriting ex- pert, and it will be remembered that in this capacity he was called in to testify In the Dreyfus trial. Among his numerous treatises are works on anthropology, eth- nology, and criminal photography, be- sides those in his special field. For his services to science he was made a che- valier of the Legion of Honor. Drama Mr. Faust. By Arthur Davison Ficke. New York: Mitchell Kennerley. $1 net. This modern paraphrase of the Faust legend is clever enough to justify the boldness of its inception. Its motive is the glorification of the spirit of individ- ualism and the theme is worked out with no little dramatic ingenuity and uncommon literary imagination and fa- cility. Faust is a man of the world, young, rich, cultivated, and cynical be-
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192 T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2538 cause of the variety of human pleasures and ambitions. In the first act he is discussing life with his two friends, Brander, who, being in love, is an op- timist, and Oldham, a pessimist, whom disgust with existing conditions has brought to the verge of suicide. When they leave him, he moralizes, in a pas- sage of notable eloquence, on the vexa- tious problems of life and liberty, and consigns to the Devil a statue of Wash- ington for the calm indifference which it expresses to the doubts with which he is afflicted. Then Satan appears in the guise of a well-dressed commonplace cit- izen, introduces himself courteously, and, after accepting a glass of Scotch whiskey, offers his services. The con- versation that follows is written in an admirable vein of serio-comic satirical humor worthy of Shaw or Gilbert. Faust, finally convinced of his visitor's identity, maintains that he is powerless to minister to the discontent that comes of exhausted experience and laughs con- temptuously at the old temptations of sensual pleasures, poetically portrayed, and the power of incalculable wealth. Changing his tone, Satan next depicts the joys of an earthly Paradise, remote from all the distractions of civilization, the abode of perfect peace, and pledges himself to become the slave of his host unconditionally, if he cannot find happi- ness therein. Faust accepts and present- ly departs with the subservient fiend and Oldham, who has returned to say farewell before killing himself, and joy- fully seizes the chance of a respite from his troubles. The scene then shifts to a tropical elysium, wherein resides a venerable Buddhist, who expounds "the way" and dilates upon the blessedness of Nirvana. Oldham is converted; but the imperi- ous will of Faust revolts at the idea of absorption into nothingness. He refuses the proffered Paradise and challenges the Devil to acknowledge defeat and sub- mit to servitude. But Satan, temporiz- ing, says that he knows of a yet more certain sanctuary, and straightway transports Faust and himself to the nave of a great cathedral, wherein he appears as a priest, explaining that, con- trary to all received notions concerning him, he is really one of the humblest agents of the Almighty, his mission be- ing to suggest evil to men solely with a view to their ultimate salvation. Faust, bewildered, gradually succumbing to the emotional influences of solemn ceremony, celestial music, and the atmosphere of the place, is on the verge of a rapturous profession of faith, when he realizes that this must entail the submission of his own individual to the Eternal will, and, in an outburst of passionate protest, asserts his own inviolable independence, though with little comprehension of the subtle ecclesiastical distinctions be- tween predestination and free will. In the fourth act Faust, who now recog- nizes Satan as his inveterate foe, bent only upon his enslavement, creates a riot in a public meeting, by denouncing the theistic idea and declaring that Satan is the father of all the creeds, which are only his lures for the general destruction of mankind. In the result- ant uproar he is stricken down, and in the last act he is dying, using his ebbing energies to complete the story of his trials for the benefit of the world. Sa- tan, still his familiar, assails him for the last time, warning him that the death of the body is followed by the slow, agonizing, and final dissolution of the soul, but that this bitter exper- ience may, in his case, be averted. Let him surrender his book and he, Satan, having the power, will insure for him dead, painless oblivion. This temptation, too, Faust spurns, triumphantly pro- claiming that he has found his peace in the assurance that he, whether immor- tal or not himself, is at any rate a part of the life-principle that is immortal, and that, in the end, he will have his share in the immortality to be reached by later generations of aspiring souls kindred to his own. His book he be- queaths to his one disciple, Midge, the intelligent hut ignorant little servant girl whom his friend Brander, repenting her seduction, has married. The cynical reader will ask: Does Mr. Ficke have in mind that Satan is so nervous about the influence of "Mr. Faust"? Mr. Bjorkman has done well to In- clude this play in the Modern Drama series which he is editing. That it could ever be a success upon the stage is most unlikely. To the religious public it would, of course, be anathema. But It is essentially dramatic, and deals with great issues in a serious, if somewhat fantastic, way. The employment of p- active personal Devil in a rationalistic scheme is ohviously illogical, but as a dramatic figure he is strong and subtle. In intellect and guile he is a worthy rep- resentation of the Prince of Darkness. And the study of Faust, self-centred, aspiring, and indomitable, is drawn with consistency and power. But in the final estimate it is not easy to discern much difference between annihilation and com- plete fusion in a flood of immortal ether. "Sanctuary," Percy MacKaye's bird- masque, which was given last summer in New Hampshire, will be published at once by Stokes. Included in the spring- announcements of A. C. McClurg & Co. are "Gerhart Hauptmann, His Life and Work," by Karl Holl, and "The Green Cockatoo and i her Plays," by Arthur Schnitzler. Mr. Edwin Bjorkman, whose author- ized translations, for the Scribners, of Strindberg's plays have now reached a third series, calls the present Instalment unusually representative. It is said to give "a cross-section of Strindberg's de- velopment as a dramatist from his nat- uralistic revolt in the middle eighties to his final arrival at resigned mysticism and Swedenborgian symbolism." To dis- cover quite thi3 would require a closer reading of the text than the reviewer has been able to compass. On the surface most of these plays present the old fa- miliar picture of an author grieved and peevish because life falls short of his ideal. It is, of course, the writer himself speaking when one of the characters says: "I tell you . . . that when you happen to be born without a film over your eyes, then you see life and your fellow creatures as they are — and you have to be a pig to feel at home in such a mess." The play, in the present batch, which most completely embodies this spirit is "After the Fire." The house of a dyer of supposedly respectable family has burned down. The action of the drama takes place among the ruins, which furnish a diabolically clever de- vice for disillusion. First, all the keys are found together, which fact would seem to prove that the fire was incen- diary; next the position of a certain lamp implies illicit relations between the own- er's wife and a boarder; the owner also is convicted of diverting to himself a portion of the inheritance designed for his brother; and by hidden closets it is seen that the late sire of the family had made his fortune by smuggling. "Debit and Credit" and "The Thunder- storm," which are included in this vol- ume, are mere sketches in a similar vein. In the former a doctor of philoso- phy, through a loan contracted by his brother, has achieved some fame as an African explorer. When he returns to Sweden the net of evil circumstances which this and another loan have set going tightens about him to the point of suffocation. To cap the climax, his fiancee proves to be a harlot. "The Thun- der-storm" seems less unfinished because it contains at least one complete picture, that of a selfish old gentleman who, hav- ing left his wife and child according to a pre-marital agreement, has settled down to finish out his life in self-centred peace. Of course, the wife comes back to mock him, in Strindberg's approved fashion; has, in fact, been living over him in the same apartment house long before he discovered it, and with her new husband has been conducting gam- bling rooms. Even after the readjust- ment at the close of the play, the old gentleman feels no assurance that he has seen the last of her. "Advent," described by the author as "A Miracle Play," is in the manner of "The Dream Play," which has been fully characterized in these col- umns. It is only another long-drawn- out riddling of what passes on earth as respectability. "Simoom" is a study in at- mosphere, and as such is well done. The action is supposed to take place in Al- geria at the present time, and an Arabian Kill at the dictation of her lover kills a lieutenant of the Zouaves by invoking the spirit of Simoom, the storm. The killing is artistically contrived by devices of soriK, <lanclng, and charms, all being designed to furnish hypnotic suggestion. The one bright spot in the volume is the
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Feb, 19, 1914] T h. e IN" a t i o n 193 fairy play of "Swanwhite." Some have thought Strindberg in this instance un- der the influence of Maeterlinck, and he may have been so far as concerns petty details. But the play lacks the Belgian's organized symbolism, and may Indeed be enjoyed without any reading between the lines. We commend it to those who are anxious to see Strindberg applauded on the American stage. It would furnish a happy surprise after the Impression left by "The Father" and "Miss Julia." Although Mr. Bjorkman's translations are, for the most part, in smooth, idio- matic English, they are not entirely free from slips which are easily traceable to Scandinavian usage. On p. 94 we read, "What does that concern me?" On p. 83, "Well, what does that help us?" On p. 68, "If I know how to hate?" for "Do I," etc. On p. 210, "How I have had it during the summer?" for "How I have got on?" On p. 211, "I hope you pardon." On the same page, "now when I" for "now that I." Ellen Terry will leave England next month for Australia and New Zealand, where she will talk about the heroines of Shakespeare. She will begin her ven- ture in the Town Hall, Melbourne, on the 5th of May. The Paris correspondent of the London Times, writing on January 27, says: As was expected, M. Albert Carre\ the new administrator-general of the Theatre Francais, has made it one of his first duties to secure for the theatre a closer monopoly of the services of its Socie- taires, or actors and actresses who have a financial interest in the institution. The Minister of Public Instruction, M. Vivi- ani, to-day issued a decree modifying the famous Decree of Moscow, which con- tains the original constitution of the Com£die Franchise, and was signed by Napoleon in the Kremlin in 1812. For the future Societaires will not be allowed to use their leave of absence for their personal profit, unless authorized to do so by Ministerial decree, and the plays in which they perform outside the Thea- tre Francais must be on its repertoire. The regulations with regard to length of leave are to be strictly enforced, and Societaires will be fined £4 for every day taken beyond their allotted time. After three days the fine will be increased to £20 a day. The question of performances by the whole company outside Paris, such as those given in Brussels in the autumn, is still under consideration. Music EARS TO HEAR. London, February 7. St. Paul is not usually considered an authority on the arts, but there is an obiter dictum of his about music that is not out of date even to-day. Any con- cert-goer will immediately recognize its truth and value. "I will sing," said the apostle, "with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also." Would that every modern "artiste" would fol- low his example! The Pauline principle requires to be applied to playing and hearing as well as to singing. The second part of It needs especially to be emphasized. For every ten persons whose emotions re- spond to the music they perform or hear, there is not more than one who plays or listens intelligently. The conviction is growing that it is on this side that musi- cal education in England most needs de- velopment. The standard of technical performance — of manual dexterity, that 1b to say — has notably risen during the last few decades. For example, there Is a much higher finish in orchestral play- ing nowadays than a generation ago. But do not the finest performances lack something of their due effect if audi- ences are not able to "appreciate," in the strict sense of the word, the compo- sitions to which they listen? The lack Is now evidently felt, and attempts are made on all sides to repair It. Musical "appreciation" is becoming the subject of books and lectures, and adver- tisements of classes in it are occupying more and more space in the musical press. One of the January educational meet- ings was a week's conference of music teachers and others held at Hammer- smith. The programme devoted a whole afternoon to a discussion on the teach- ing of "musical appreciation" — or of "the appreciation of music," as one of the more precise speakers suggested It should be called. The conference was unanimous in the belief that apprecia- tion ought to be taught, and could be taught. The chairman, Percy A. Scholes, one of the most active propagandists of the Home Music Study Union, did his utmost to elicit some expression of ad- verse opinion, but no advocatus diaboli could be induced to appear. That in it- self was surely a sign of the times. The keynote of the discussion was the recognition that music has to do with three things — the physical, the intellec- tual, and the emotional. Appreciation Implies the joint operation of the three. In teaching, it has been the custom to pass directly from the physical part to the emotional, especially in the case of children of exceptional musical talent. Only in a minor degree has any intellec- tual element found place in the course. If it has become at all prominent it has been taught quite apart from the other elements. Harmony, for instance, has ordinarily been taught away from the keyboard, and the student has mastered Its rules much as though he were tak- ing lessons in mathematics. In advo- cating that the emotional and intellec- tual sides should not be kept apart, Mrs. Curwen happily referred to the delight children take in pulling things to pieces. Let the teacher show the child how to pull a tune to pieces. The child will fol- low the process with lively interest. "Oh, that's how tunes are made, is it?" he will exclaim, and straightway he will wish to try to make up tunes for him- self. Stress was laid by several speakers upon the importance of carrying the in- tellectual analysis of music as far as the point at which it works sub-consciously. The chairman aptly quoted the old rhyme about the centipede which lost her power to run owing to the toad's malicious query, "Pray, which leg goes after which?" The objection to the ana- lytical programme, said Prof. Stewart Macpherson, is that it takes your mind off the music when it should he on it. All that is in the programme should have been done beforehand. Another speaker gave the practical advice that, before children were taken to a concert, the programme should be gone through at home or at school. It was difficult to "get the hang" of chamber music, in particular, until one heard it a second time. Perhaps this will help to explain the difficulty of obtaining an audience for new works. The musical critics usually attribute it to a lamentable pop- ular indifference to the arts. But, if the public is so insensitive to the appeal of music, how is it that a Beethoven pro- gramme will always draw a full house? One reason, at any rate, for the differ- ence is that the Beethoven music is so accessible for previous study. For a small sum people can buy the overtures, symphonies, trios, or anything else, ar- ranged for piano solos or duets. They play these over at home, and are there- fore prepared to listen with intense in- terest when they hear the same things produced in all their glory in the con- cert-hall. If present-day composers were shrewd men of business, they would take care that every advertisement of a "first performance" was accompanied by the notice: "An arrangement of this work for the pianoforte can be obtained for one shilling." However that may be, a certain degree of familiarity seems to be essential to the fullest enjoyment of the best music, and the counsel that chil- dren should be shown beforehand the de- velopment of the themes they are going to hear at concerts is well worth follow- ing. Something was said at the conference about the connection between the physi- cal sensations of tone and the apprecia- tion of music. If these sensations were properly cultivated, we should not tol- erate the awful voices, the street noises, the domestic noises — or the school pianos, added an interrupter — that wo put up with now. Parents, it was urged, should pay more attention to this part of musical training. The discussion was brought to an ex- cellent close by Professor Macpherson's outline — in response to an appeal from the chairman — of the proper equipment of a teacher of musical appreciation. First, he must have a real love of music and a strong desire to pass it on. He must be able to play well enough to il- lustrate what he is teaching, and not
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±94= T J i e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2538 to destroy the hearing sense of his pu- pils. There should be no false shame about him, and he should not hesitate to use the pianola in the case of pieces beyond his own powers. He should not merely be a pianist, or a singer, or a harmony teacher, but a musician — a mu- sician all round, with an ever-growing knowledge of music. And he must have plenty of sympathy. He must not tell a child that he has got to feel this or to appreciate that, but must draw out the child by means of a wise direction of his thoughts. H. W. H. Massenet's "Don Quichotte" had four performances in Chicago during the first season of Campanini's management. The other novelties were Franchetti's "Cris- toforo Colombo," Kienzl's "Le Ranz des Vaches," Leoncavallo's "Zingari," and Fe- vrier's "Monna Vanna." Of the thirty- six operas sung", seventeen were Italian, eleven French, and five German. Amer- ican opera was represented by Victor Herbert's "Natoma." No fewer than ten of the operas in the list were each sung only once. "Die Walkure" had the same number of performances as "Don Qui- chotte." This was exceeded only by "Ma- d£>ma Butterfly," which had five. The critics agreed that "Don Quichotte" im- proves on acquaintance. Caruso at one time sang in Paris for about $100 a night. Now he gets $2,500 or more — in New York. Patti got $5,000 a performance in New York, but in Paris, as a writer in the Musical Leader points out, she got only $200 or $300 a night. It must be remembered, however, that the maximum receipts in the largest opera house in Paris are only $4,000; whereas the Metropolitan often has an audience that paid $12,000 or more. The world's greatest singers make New York their headquarters simply because they earn more here than elsewhere. There is no sentiment about it. If their "cachets" were screwed down too much, they would remain in Europe. Every summer, as Robin H. Legge in- forms readers of the London Daily Tele- graph, England is invaded by foreign singing teachers and their pupils. The teacher takes an English country house and fills the neighboring village with his pupils. Marion Bauer's suite of four piano pieces, entitled "In the Country," has in a few months reached its second edition. It is published by Arthur Schmidt. The London Philharmonic now includes a British composition in each of its pro- grammes. Alfred Bruneau and Theodore Dubois were among the pall-bearers and speak- ers at the funeral of the great French pianist, Raoul Pugno. In his address, Bruneau said: It was by delicacy and tenderness that he first captivated his hearers. His mi- raculous hands never seemed impatient to let loose the thunderous chords which were in reserve. Those hands were sup- ple and coaxing, they called into being tones which, under the subtle caresses, reached into our very souls. To join and to vary colors they were true rivals o* the innumerable and magic instru- ments of an orchestra. Those hands have rivaled marvels bewildering and sublime tonal fairy tales. A new chamber music organization is about to bo launched in New York, which, by reason of its personnel, as well as the unusual combination of fiute, harp, and 'cello, gives promise of an interesting future. This organization is to be known as the Trio de Lutece, and enlists the co- operation of three artists of recognized worth, George Barrere, flute; Carlos Sal- zedo, harp, and Paul Kefer, 'cello. Art THE PENNSYLVANIA ACADEMY. The jury of the Pennsylvania Acad- emy, this year, has evidently favored the idea of an exhibition that may be small, but must be good. The discrim- inating character of the selections made and, likewise, the astuteness of the hanging committee are demonstrated by the genuine and sustained interest felt in passing through the different galler- ies of the exhibition. There is no room or corridor that does not offer more or less potent inducements for lingering, either to see the work of a well-known artist or to make the acquaintance of one still unfamiliar. Jonas Lie's Panama pictures in a room to themselves, Do- nato's sculpture in one hall and Man- ship's in another, so arranged that the value of the contributions can be read- ily appreciated, are some of the attrac- tions. In truth, a sort of holiday at- mosphere pervades the place, and the impression is subtly conveyed that lei- sure and enjoyment are not foreign to a general art exhibition. Doubtless, one of the factors in bring- ing about this agreeable state of affairs is the intimate relationship existing be- tween the Academy and the Schools of Painting and Sculpture, which it fos- ters and directs, in the very building in which the exhibition is held. Art stu- dents are frequently met in the galler- ies, evidently very much at home there, and keenly alive to the merits and de- fects of what is exhibited. Their in- terest has the personal element of desire to see the work of the artists who are their teachers, and also of the artists who were once students in the school; and their discerning comments set one to reflecting upon the importance of this sort of easy familiarity with good art. It is unquestionably a valuable by- product of an artistic education, estab- lishing, as it does, standards of crit- icism, and creating, ultimately, an intel- ligent public for the appreciation of what artists produce, while the fact that the greater number of these young peo- ple do not themselves become artists, but stray off into widely diverging paths, does but extend the sphere of in- fluence. Nevertheless, in spite of the many who fall by the way, these students may, and do, make artists, as is just now fore- shadowed, for example, by one of their number — Gertrude Lambert by name — who has been exciting comment by achieving the distinction of having her work admitted into the Academy ex- hibition. Evidently painting from the class model, she has made with a few rich colors a telling composition of a portrait of a tragically intense, foreign- looking girl standing against a lumin- ous gray background. Her picture sug- gests the temperament and painting of the youthful Gericault, and, barring the uncertainty of all such predictions, it seems probable that we shall hear of her in the future. At any rate, more tentative than this student production are the works of the modernists — as the Post-Impressionists and their confreres are now calling themselves — whose appearance in this exhibition is limited to a few casual and sporadic manifestations that usually carry with them more or less cause for regret. If the last part of this last statement is correct, it may be a happy thought to ascribe the shortcomings of Glackens's Family Group to this move- ment, on the ground that the picture was shown last winter at the Interna- tional Exhibition. However that may be, the picture rather needs sympathetic consideration, for certainly the color, always this artist's chief interest, has quite escaped his control, and riots vio- lently and inharmoniously over the can- vas. Yet it is not so incoherent but that one may feel respect for its unful- filled possibilities and recognize the ambition to accomplish something in flesh and color akin to Renoir. The at- tempt seems an instance of more cour- age than judgment on the part of the artist, which can be condoned the more readily in view of the refreshing charm of his use of light and color in his two other pictures of this exhibition — The Green Car and The Bathing Hour, which have no apparent connection with the modernists, and reveal him quite mas- ter of his means of expression. Arthur B. Davies adds another touch of mys- tery to one of his pictures by introduc- ing the cubist idea of form in a clever kind of supplementary way, as if he would be in the fashion at any hazard (most unlike Davies, by the way), or perchance was displaying the badge of some secret order. His other painting, Avator, has no hint of any influence later than Blake, with whom he has always been sympathetic. Whatever may be the effect of the views of the modernists upon their own work, I believe they have an influence upon the artistic contingent that is not malign, because it sets those others to thinking and tends to make them react from the object-lesson before them, with
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Feb. 19, 1914] The Natio 11 195 a more vivid appreciation of sanity of line, form, and color. Robert Henri*s Irish character por- traits, in which he has made subject, brush-work, and coior reinforce one an- other with delightful freedom and un- derstanding, really show nothing newer in method than was practiced in the days when Hals and Rubens walked the earth. To the portrait called Herself was awarded the Carol H. Beck medal, as the best portrait in oil in the exhibi- tion, and she has the air as to say that such distinction could be no sur- prise to her; she is altogether buxom and happy, of kindly mien, ruddy com- plexion, and bounteous amplitude of quivering yet solid flesh beneath her simple peasant dress. There are many portraits shown, giv- ing on the part of a number of people renewed evidence of confidence in the artist and in posterity, which the event does not always justify. The portrait of Booth Tarkington, by Wayman Adams, is in the nature of a charac- ter study, and is interesting for the ex- pression of unwieldy weight in the seat- ed figure and the sinister, brooding in- tentness of the face. Leopold Seyffert's portraits of women, of which there are several, are marked by a studied sim- plicity and a quite obvious attention to working out the color scheme, which, however, does not prevent them from pleasing by the refinement with which it is accomplished. His portrait of Mr. Yarnall also gives evidence of thought; the composition verges too near that of Whistler's Mother to be called new, but the adaptation and the figure are so in accord that the result is a portrait of definite interest. Howard Gardiner Cushing gives the typical modern girl and the picturesque possibilities of her costume with dis- tinction. There is excellent tone in the picture, and the color is delightful, but the girl, the vase, and the table seem too manifestly posed against the blank- ness of the background. Jean McLane's portrait of two children, which won the Lippincott prize, is undeniably clever also, but there is an obvious striving for effect in the keying up of the light; lacking such effort, the less-studied aspect of her other picture of a child and her nurse is the more agreeable of the two. In general, it may be observed that simplicity of setting is a charac- teristic of many of the portraits, and that they gain in dignity and force when the attention is thus allowed to concentrate on one part of the picture. Of figure painting other than por- traits, Gari Melchers's Maternity is a brilliant piece of painting, fresh in col- oring and fine in the rendering of the heads of mother and child. He is an artist who has always been gifted with feeling for color, and the hardness that was often a quality of his early paint- ing has been modified in this picture to a more delicate firmness. The Tene- ment Mother, by Marie Danforth Page, is a strong, expressive group, without any especial charm, but with good qual- ities of drawing and handling, and less artificial in treatment than Miss Genth's Mother and Child, which hangs near it. In landscape a plea might be made for more sky and less spottiness and over- emphasis of pattern, though when one comes to the study of individual pic- tures there is enough variety to gratify any taste for landscape of the restless and intricate sort. Schofield's Hill Coun- try, which took the Temple medal, is an admirable portrayal of a wide stretch of snowy landscape, so painted that it holds a well-balanced mean between the temptations of over-fretted surface on the one hand and uninteresting empti- ness on the other. Rosen's snow scene is less extensive and more poetic, with soft snow, beautiful reflections, and a pleasant feeling of space. Parke Custis Dougherty has something of Rosen's way of seeing nature, with a stronger feeling for the value of an occasional accent of decided color. Childe Has- sam's The Yachts is a charming compo- sition of summer sea, white sails, and blue sky, nice in tone and Japanese in suggestion. Richard Farley manages to embody a good deal of the poetry of sea and shore in his marines, and in the one called An Angry Sea movement and speed are well felt. Jonas Lie's Panama paintings give scope for the display of his characteris- tic force and energy. More attention to selection and elimination would have given some of these canvases greater pictorial value, as Pennell's lithographs from the same vicinity bear witness, but they all have, along with the artistic value which is by no means slight, the enhanced interest that belongs to them as representations of transient phases of an enterprise of moment to both sides of the world. Energetic paint- ing naturally suggests George Bellows, whose Polo Crowd and Snow Dumpers have all his accustomed vigor or action and ability to compel attention. The horses of the snow dumpers are quite extraordinary, can only be explained, in fact, as instances of sympathetic draw- ing— they are so entirely incorrect and at the same time so highly expressive of life and movement. Berenson would certainly style Bellows's art archaic, a term that he defines as meaning an art that "is going through the process of learning to construct the figures and discover the attitudes required for the presentation of form and movement." Whatever we call him, or however we regard his achievement, his work al- ways makes a centre of discussion and interest that we should be sorry to be without. The excellence of the sculpture dis- played is remarkable, and, among all the different forms it takes, the assem- blage of fountain figures is unusual; their appearance brings pleasant sugges- tion of the existence of many formal gardens and inner courts that may need adornment. Janet Scudder's Boy With Fish is a graceful example of such fig- ures; Edward Berge's Frog Boy is an- other, and others still could be men- tioned; of them all the most impressive is Paul Manship's Duck Girl, to which the Widener memorial medal has been awarded. The exhibition of this figure and several others by Manship, shown here for the first time, gives very con- vincing proof of the range of his art. His industry, readiness, and fertility of expression recall Gainsborough's impa- tient tribute to Reynolds's art, when he said: "Damn him! he's so various." The Duck Girl is classic in treatment, with a modern understanding of that term; contrast of line and surface and subtle play of light and shadow with a ma- terial that looks like the bronze it is, and not like clay transformed — all com- bine to make a beautiful figure stamped with the individuality of the sculptor. Very different from this is his portrait of a week-old baby, which is convinc- ingly realistic as a portrait of very early infancy, but gets its charm from the lines and folds of hooded cloak and encircling bands that envelop the lit- tle form placed upright in a shallow niche that stands on a base adorned with graceful festoons. Renaissance suggestion, of course, but no copy — just a case of the artist's taking his own where he finds it. This exhibition of Manship's work serves to show that it is not superiority of modelling, but his feeling for line and his genius for design, enriched by his knowledge and understanding of the traditions of great art, that make him so unusual. Giuseppe Donato is another sculptor well represented in the exhibi- tion and spoken of frequently with ad- miration. He has unquestionably many gifts, not the least of which is a fertile imagination, but hp can scarcely be re- garded with the interest that would be accorded to an independent sculptor so long as he is dominated by other sculp- tors, and as yet Rodin and MacMonnies obscure his personal vision. L. E. S. Spring announcements of A. C. Mc- Clurg & Co. include: "The Two Great Art Epochs," by Emma Louise Parry; "Cubists and Post-Impressionism," by Arthur Jerome Eddy, and "Indian Blank- ets and Their Makers," by George Whar- ton James. Don C. Seitz has gathered into a book- let, with a portrait, "Whistler's Stories" (Harper). It is a good idea thus to fix the present state of the Whistler legend before too much has been forgotten or too many apocryphal additions have been made. Mr. Seitz makes a pretty
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1913 rT he Nnlion [Vol. 98, No. 2538 clean sweep both of written ana and i oral anecdote. Very littlq of a genuine sort is likely to be added. The collection contains, of course, many brilliant say- ings, but the whole effect is hardly pleas- ing. It is, after all, a very limited kind of wit. In the retort malicious yet semi- courteous nobody has surpassed Whis- tler. But his repertory is pretty well exhausted by such brittle flashes. His wit is invariably at somebody's expense, It lacks humor and humanity. At times, however, it has extraordinary finality. "Do you think genius is hereditary?" asked an admiring lady one day. "I can't tell you, madame," Whistler replied. "Heaven has granted me no offspring." The level of this collection is well below that of "The Gentle Art." Still lovers of Whistler will want to own it, even if it confirms on the whole Degas's quiet re- proof, "Whistler, you talk like a man of mere talent." The appearance of the third volume of M. Salomon Reinach's "Repertoire de re- liefs grecs et romains" brings to a close the publication of extant classical reliefs on which the author has been at work a number of years. Every reader will sympathize with M. Reinach's confession In his preface that this has been a work "magni laborls et sudoris"; for the collec- tion of such vast material must have Involved endless patience. But his satis- faction at the completion of a work which will be of such invaluable help to every student must be proportionately great. The first volume, which appeared in 1909, was entitled "Les Ensembles." and contained reliefs with groups of figures which either formed part of the decora- tions of ancient buildings or ornamented smaller objects. The second volume, which was published three years later, and the present one deal with the other classes of reliefs, arranged alphabetically accord- ing to their present localities. The ob- vious disadvantages of an arrangement according to countries and museums are corrected by a full index of subjects with references to all three volumes. The au- thor makes no pretence of having attain- ed, or even aimed at, absolute complete- ness; but the majority of known reliefs are here presented in an easily accessible form, which will save every archaeologist many hours of research work and many purchases of other books. The text Is limited to the legends on the plates giv- ing the titles of the objects represented, their present locality, and references to their chief publications. One might al- most wish that this work could have gone one step further; and instead of giving merely black-and-white illustra- tions which serve only as records of the compositions of the objects, could have conveyed also something of their artistic merit. But then the price would have had to be so much higher that it would have placed the book outside the reach of the ordinary student. (Paris: Ernest Leroux). Henry L. A. Culmer, painter of West- ern landscapes, died early last week in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was born at Davington, Kent, Eng., and came to this country in 1867. His best-known paintings are The Mystery of the Desert, Shoshone Falls, The Great Augusta Bridge, and Temple of Om. He also wrote "Resources of Utah." Finance CURRENCY LAW AND GOLD EX- PORTS. During the past week, $4,000,000 gold was shipped from New York to Paris, making $12,000,000 sent since the year began. News of the withdrawal was re- ceived complacently on the markets, whose attitude seemed to be that we can spare the gold, that France needs it, and that relief of the situation at Paris — the one troublesome spot in the present financial horizon — is the para- mount consideration. In point of fact, the Bank of France has managed to add $14,000,000 to its gold reserve since the opening of the year, nearly all of it de- rived from the American shipments; and it is primarily to those receipts that one must ascribe the reduction in the French bank rate, the fall in money rates on the Paris open market from 4 per cent, to 2%, and the resultant manifest sentiment of relief on the Con- tinental markets. These shipments of gold, as it hap- pens, have thus far footed up almost exactly the same amount as did our gold exports to Paris in the same weeks of 1913. The recent shipments have, how- ever, aroused some European observ- ers to conjecture as to a possible con- tinuous flow of gold from the United States to Europe when the new bank- ing and currency bill goes into force. Mr. Moreton Frewen, a somewhat errat- ic economic thinker, of the old bimetal- list school, has lately warned us to "make up our minds to lose perhaps $300,000,000 or $400,000,000 of gold in the next two years." Nobody else has made such foolishly extravagant predic- tions. Sir Felix Schuster, for example, simply said of our new law, in his re- cent speech to his bank's shareholders, that "it is too early yet to say how the general situation as regards gold will be affected." The question is interesting, though not because of fear of that export of gold through currency inflation which Senator Root predicted. That is abun- dantly guarded against by the 40 per cent, gold reserve required against out- standing notes. But the law allows a city bank, instead of the 25 per cent, reserve now required in cash against its deposits, to keep only a 6 per cent, cash reserve on hand, with the rest of its re- serve (which in future would aggregate 18 per cent, of its deposits) represented by credits at a Federal reserve bank. This provision will dispense with a considerable part of the cash require- ments; for the credits last-mentioned would be obtained by rediscount of an individual bank's commercial paper. Against the deposit thus created, the Federal reserve bank mus,t keep a cash reserve of at least 35 per cent. Instead of 25 per cent., as at present, the total minimum amount of cash which must be provided against an individual bank's deposit liabilities would therefore be something like 10 per cent. What would become of the rest of the cash — whether gold or other "lawful money" — which is at present held in bank reserves? There are several an- swers to the question. One is, that every member bank must begin by tak- ing stock in its regional district bank, in the ratio of 10 per cent, of the mem- ber bank's capital and surplus. That would drajn off into the regional bank reserves a good part of the present cash reserves of national banks. When the issue of notes under the new law is in progress, each regional bank must keep 40 per cent, in gold against its out- standing notes. It would undoubtedly have to draw on the country's general supply of gold, to provide for such re- quirements. How much gold would be left unem- ployed after this was done, is a matter more or less of conjecture. Supposing a very large amount to be thus left in the hands of individual banks, in excess of minimum reserve requirements against deposits, would it flow at once to Europe? Such an inference would be just a little bold. It would create a good deal of difficulty about explain- ing why the New York banks last June, with a surplus of $41,000,000 above re- quired reserves, and with $300,000,000 specie in their vaults, not only did not send all the unnecessary excess to Eu- rope, but actually, at just that time, ceased exporting gold entirely — this not- withstanding the well-known fact that Paris was still endeavoring to draw gold to its bank reserves. In fact, the past experience of our mar- ket gives no color whatever to the as- sumption that, whenever our banks have more gold than the law requires as re- serve against deposits, they will send the excess to Europe. To precisely the extent that our banks have ever accum- ulated and kept a handsome "surplus re- serve"— and they have done so most of the time in the past half-century — they have shown that the mere fact of more gold being in the country, and in the vaults of the country's banks, than was needed for lawful bank reserves does not infer that foreign countries will get the excess. That depends on other con- siderations. There have been years in the past when our gold export for a twelve- month has exceeded $100,000,000. But there have also been years when our gold import was even larger than that figure. There will be similar vicissi- tudes In the movement — due to business
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Feb. 19, 1914] The 1ST at ion 197 activity, international investment activ- ities, or the course of international trade — even after the new currency sys- tem is inaugurated. The one sure out- come of that system is that our mar- kets will not, as in 1906 or 1907, be driven to the recourse of prodigious im- port of gold from Europe's markets, whether to support a highly extended volume of trade activity, or to protect our business community against panic. If, for similar reasons, there were to be a somewhat larger average shipment to Europe, in our seasons of dull trade, from the ninety millions worth of gold produced every year from the mines of the United States, that would be no misfortune to any one. BOOKS OP THE WEEK. American Year Book. 1913. Appleton. Amos, Hosea and Micah. The Bible for Home and School. Edited by J. M. P. Smith. Macmillan. Backhouse, E., and Bland, J. O. P. An- nals and Memoirs of the Court of Peking. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. $4 not. Ball, C. J. Chinese and Sumerian. Ox- ford University Press. Bangs, John Kendrick. The Foothills of Parnassus. Macmillan. $1.25 net. Beaumont, Joseph, D.D. Minor Poems. Edited by Eloise Robinson. Houghton Mifflin. Finot, Jean. The Science of Happiness. Putnam. $1.75 net. Franklin, W. S. Bill's School and Mine. So. Bethlehem, Pa.: Franklin, MacNutt & Charles. Fynes-Clinton, O. H. The Welsh Vocabu- lary of the Bangor District. Oxford University Press. Glenn, Couville and Wells. Cours Fran- cais du Lycee Perse. Cambridge: Hef- fer. $2 net. Grant, Arthur. In the Old Paths. Houghton Mifflin. $1.50 net. Gratacap, L. P. Benjamin the Jew. Ben- ton. Hamilton, Clayton. Studies in Stage- craft. Holt. $1.50 net. Hicks, A. M. The Craft of Hand-Made Bugs. McBride, Nast. $2 net. Hodges, George. Christianity Between Sundays. Macmillan. $1.25 net. Hopkins, William John. Burbury Stoke. Houghton, Mifflin. $1.25 net. Houston, A. C. Studies in Water Supply. Macmillan Science Monographs. $1.60 net. Johnston. Maps of Kennebeck, 1754. Massachusetts Historical Society. Library of Congress. A List of American Doctoral Dissertations Printed in 1912. Government Printing Office. Lucas, S. P. A Historical Geography of the British Colonies. Vol. II, West Africa; Vols. IV, Part I, and III, South Africa. Oxford University Press. Myers, Gustavus. History of Canadian Wealth. Vol. I. Chicago: Kerr & Co. Orsi, Pietro. Cavour and the Making of Modern Italy, 1810-1861. Putnam. Ouimet, Francis. Success at Golf. Bos- ton: Little, Brown. $1 net. Oxford English Dictionary. Vol. IX, Sor- row-Speech. Oxford Univ. Press. $1.25. Parker, P. A. M. The Control of Water. Van Nostrand. $5 net. Peck, A. S. The South American Tour. Doran. $2.50 net. Pollard, A. F. The Reign of Henry VII from Contemporary Sources. Volume II. University of London Historical Series. Longmans, Green. $3 net. Pratt, Lucy. Ezekiel Expands. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. $1.25 net. Prevost, Marcel. Guardian Angels. Trans- lated from the French. 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198 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2538 CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY'S COLLECTION THE DIARY OF JAMES K. POLK DURING HIS PRESIDENCY- 1845 to 1849 Edited and annotated by Milo Milton Quaifb, Associate Professor in Lewis In- stitute of Technology; with Introduction by Andhmw C. McLaughlin, Head of the Department of History, University of Chi- cagp. Four volumes in box. Price $20.00 net. A. C. McCLURG & CO., Publishers All serious students of American History owe a debt of gratitude to the Chicago His- torical Society for the publication of the Diary. . . . The reader who undertakes the perusal of the four volumes will find them more interesting than most novels. — New York Sun. A work of great importance to our gen- eration and especially to the historian. — William E. Dodd, in Louisville Herald. Of the historical value of this diary there can be no doubt. . . . Above all, this book is vivid, bitter, living, past politics. — New York Tribune. The publication ... is a literary event of first-class Importance. — Boston Transcript. A notable addition to the source mate- rials for the study of the middle period of United States history . . . perhaps the most important publication In the field of American history. — Francis W. Shepardson in Chicago Tribune. I found it Indispensable to an accurate knowledge of the period of which it treats. . . . In my judgment the Chicago His- torical Society has made good its raison d'etre by that work alone, and has earned the gratitude of all future generations of historical students and workers by rescu- ing from oblivion so important a record of our country's history. — Horace White (18 West Sixty-ninth St., New York City). I should be very greatly pleased to have this Important, valuable, and very well edit- ed book, on the publication of which the So- ciety is to be congratulated. — Dr. J. Frank- lin Jameson, Carnegie Institution, Washing- ton, D. C. THE NATION PRESS Ntto 'gin* Jttning fofil Suiting. ON For Quality 1 U" Work For f^ BOTTO ON NOW READY GREATJURISTSOF THE WORLD From PAPINIAN to VON IHERING BY VARIOUS AUTHORS With 20 portraits. Edited by Edward Manson, Co-editor of the Journal of the Society of Comparative Leg- islation, and with Introductions by Sir John Macdonnell, Professor of Comparative Law in University College, London, and by Van Vechten Veeder, Judge of the United States District Court, New York. 8vo. Cloth, $5.00 net. The aim of this volume in the Con- tinental Legal History Series is to set forth the life, work, methods, and influence of the great jurists who have had more than a merely national im- portance in the development of Eu- ropean Law. This work is a sort of Plutarch's Lives for the History of Continental Law. Papinian, Alciat, Bartolus, Vico, Bacon, Leibnitz, Sel- den, Montesquieu, Cujas, Vattel, Sav- igny Bentham, Beccaria, Von Ihering, Mittermaier, — these and a few other names stand out as landmarks for all European Law. E?" Send for descriptive pamphlet of the Continental Legal History Series. LITTLE, BROWN & CO., Publisher!, Boston NEW MAGAZINE ON EGYPT An illustrated quarterly magazine, beautifully illustrated, with news of late discoveries, edited by PROP. PETRIB, began with the January num- ber embellished with frontispiece of jewelry In colors. Price $2 a year. The discoveries by Petrie and others for the EGYPTIAN RESEARCH ACCOUNT (Society) relate to the arts of Ancient Egypt and to its predynastic age. An annual quarto volume, profusely illustrated, and the magazine should be in all public and many private libraries. Circulars of these publications freely furnished. Address REV. DR. W. C. WINSLOW. 525 Beacon Street, Bostou. GRADUATE, AMERICAN, FOREIGN UNIVERSITIES (Ph.D.), specialty Germanics, but having also taught French, Spanish, English, History, seeks re-engagement, College, Normal, High or Private School, having) recently spent three ad- ditional years abroad. Total European resi- dence, nine years; ten years' experience teach- ing In College and High School ; some estab- lished reputation as Author, Lecturer. High- est possible credentials, references. Salary first year (If engaged early) secondary con- sideration. Might consider year of substitute work. Address PROFESSOR J., care The Nation. FOR SALE AT A MODERATE PRICE A COMPLETE FILE OP THE JOURNALS OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF AMERICA FROM 1885 THROUGH 1913 APPLY TO T. HOAGUE, 84 State St., BOSTON, MASS. JAN VERMEER OF DELFT By PHILIP L. HALB. Tlie only book In the EiikHhIi lan- K!i»K<- on "the tmilcsl painter who ever lived." In the Boston Transcript of December 17 Mr. W. H. 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The Nation 'y VOL. XCVIII— NO. 2539 THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1914 ?!!: oke. PRICE TEN CENTS NEW BOOKS ISSUED BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY PUBLISHERS NEW YORK THE MOST FAR-REACHING PIECE OF MODERN FICTION IS THE NEW NOVEL BY H. G. WELLS Ready March 10. THE WORLD SET FREE Cloth, net, $1.35. Dr. Edwin B. Slos^on, who classes Mr. Wells among "the twelve major prophets of to- day," touches the true reason of the strength of his hold on the public imagination in saying, "There is a desperate Sincerity about the man that I like." He tells a thrilling wonder story, not for the sen- sation's sake, but with intense conviction of its essential truth. "Mr. Wells is distinguished- ly a maker of books, inform- ing, vitalizing, indispensable books. . . . There is no writer to-day who gives his readers such a satisfying sense, by the mere delight of attending to him, of having participated in a social solu- tion."— Mary Austin in The American Magazine. "Everything that H.G.Wells writes is worth considering. He has one of the most active, inquiring, honest minds of our generation." — N. P. Dawson in Everybody's Magazine. "Mr. Wells compels one's at- tention. He makes an effective tale. Admiration cannot be withheld. One simply must read him." — The New York Times. EAT AND GROW THIN With an Introduction on the Mahdah Diet, by VANCE THOMPSON Cloth, net, $1.00. A collection of the famous Mahdah menus and recipes — hitherto unpublished — for those who are trying to reduce their weight and fat. There is no lack of good liv- ing in the Mahdah method, but an assured reduction, and a positive increase in health and strength. NEW BOOKS THE PRESS GANG AFLOAT AND ASHORE By J. R. Hutchinson Illustrated. Cloth, net, $3.00. A vivid, I nit of an institution which played an interesting part in our early history as an independent nation. It was a factor, too, in industrial history, because f the running fight between Trade, claiming exemptions for its workmen, and the Admiralty, claiming men for the navy. THE ROMANCE OF NAMES By Ernest Weekley cloth, i2mo, net, $1.25. By the author of "The Romance of Words." An excursion, both scholarly and diverting into the curious and romantic history linked with place names, sur- names, etc. A HISTORY OF RUSSIA By V. O. Kluchevsky Professor in the University of Moscow. Vol. III. Just ready, net, $2.50. The Set of Three Volumes. Now complete, net, $7.50. The final volume of the only History of Russia which gives any complete and rounded view of each period surveyed. Fearless in his criticisms, as well as independent in his methods, the author discusses the economic, legal, and re- ligious institutions of ancient and modern Russia as well as its political history THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE NEW COLONIES UNDER LORD MILNER, 1902-1905 By W. Basil Worsfold Two volumes. Demy 8vo, net, $7.50. Not since the issue of Lord Cromer's "Egypt" has anything been published on political administration which approaches this in importance. It is indis- pensable to any one who has occasion to refer to conditions in South Africa following the Boer War. GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN two volumes By George Edmund Street. Edited with added material and illustrations by Georgina Goddard King. Cloth, cr. 8vo, net, $2.00. An indispensable work, the source of nine-tenths of the best that has been written on this subject, is here brought to date. MECHANISM, LIFE AND PERSONALITY By J. S. Haldane cioth, i2mo, $1.00. An examination of the Mechanistic Theory of Life and Mind which aims to bring the great biological movements of the Nineteenth Century into definite relation with the main stream of human thought. The author is nearly as well-known in England as his brother, the Lord Chancellor, for his ability to pack an immense amount of knowledge and thought clearly into a small volume. A PILGRIMAGE OF BRITISH FARMING, 1910-1912 By A. D. Hall, Director of the Rothampsted Experiment Station, author of "Feeding of Crops and Stock," "The Soil," etc. Cloth, 8vo, net, $1.50. A review of modern farming as a money-making business; a description of rural England which is unique in its point of view and authority RELIGIOUS ART IN FRANCE, Xlllth CENTURY By Emile Male Royai 4to, net, $6.00. Translated by Dora Nussey. It is full of interest and significance, an Inter- pretation of mediaeval art through mediaeval literature A PEPYS OF MOGUL INDIA, 1653-1708 Abridged from the diaries of Niccolao Manucci. Cloth, 8vo, net, $3.50. Naive and entertaining intimate observations of the manner of life in the time, of the great Moguls. The most valuable of sources for a detailed picture of this famous Indian empire. THE NEW BOOKS OF ALL PUBLISHERS, WHEREVER ISSUED, ARE FOR SALE BY E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY publishers 681 FIFTH AVENUE new york
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11 r 1 1 1 1 e !N a t i o n (Vol. 98, No. 2539 rn The Nation ./ WEEKLY JOURNAL. WOUNDED IN 1865. I Entered at the New York City Poet office an m vumi-riiins mail natter. I Vht nation is published and owned by tbfi New York Evening t'usl Co. Oswald Garrison VUlard, President : John Palmer linvit. Secretory and Treasurer; Km II If, Scuolz. Business Manager; 1 "n ul Elmer More, Editor; Harold deWolf Culler, Assistant Editor. ihm Hollars per year in advance, postpaid, in mtu pari 0] the United States or Mexico; to Canada $8.50, anS la foreign countries comprised in the Postal Union, $4.00. Address TUB NATION, Box 794, New York. Publication Office, 20 vesey Street. CONTENTS OF THIS NUMB Ell. Tin-; Week 199 Editorial. Articles: Bristow vs. Common-Sense Government Efficiency: Q. E. D. . . . Business and the Trust Bills .... 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The author points out that the establishment in the United States of state anil municipal governments, according to the plan of splitting up the power of gov- ernment among many separate offices and requiring the widest and most frequent use of the elective principle, has cast so great a burden upon the electorate that an Intelli- gent citizen is reduced to a state of political ignorance inconsistent with self-government. This situation has made it possible for a well-organized hierarchy to acquire the real power of government and to retain it, in the face of popular disapproval, for selfish cuds. The author discusses various expedi- ents for restoring the American ideal of democracy and considers constructive pro- posals like the commission form of govern- ment tor smaller cities, and the application of the principles underlying this form to larger cities and the state, and to the se- lection of judges. 270 pages, 12mo, cloth; postpaid, $1.62 The University of Chicago Press CHICAGO. ILLINOIS. AGENTS The Baker and Taylor Company New York TheCambridge Univ. Press, London and Edinburgh Karl W. H iersemann Leipzig The Mnruzen-Kabushiki-Kaisha, Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto JUST PUBLISHED A Book ot Prose Narratives Edited by CHAUNCEY W. WELLS, Associate Professor of English in the University of California. 301 pages, $1.25 A volume supplying more than 20 models for the writing of simple nar- ration. It is a departure from the ordinary manual, in that it excludes stories, yet covers a wide range of history, legend, and autobiography, from the Bible and the Sagas, Herod- otus and Pliny, Benvenuto Cellini, Defoe and Franklin, Macaulay, Car- lyle, Froude, and Steveifson. In ad- dition, the book serves as a delight- ful introduction to the literature of legend and history, and especially to a later study of fiction and drama. 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Feb. 26, 1914I The N" ation 111 MovingPicturePlays If you want to know all about the way they are put on the films, read "Breaking into the Movies," by RICHARD HARDING DAVIS, in the March SCRIBNER the story of the way "Soldiers of Fortune" was played before the camera at Santiago In the same Number: By Howard Crosby Butler tj Sardis and the American Excavations The wonderful discoveries In this ancient Lydian city. Illustrated. By Madame Waddington tj My First Years as a Frenchwoman III. M. Waddington as Prime Minister, 1879. •I Tougourt — North Africa and the Desert By GEORGE E. WOODBERRY. Pen Pic- tures of the Desert. ^ The Appeal of the Winter Landscape By BIRGE HARRISON. In "The Field of Art." Illustrated from paintings. «I With the Navy Three spirited paintings by HENRY REU- TERDAHL, reproduced in colors. SHORT STORIES <J The Fete of M'sieur Bob By MARY R. S. ANDREWS, author of "The Perfect Tribute." A story of the woods. €J The Bravest Son By MARY SYNON. The story of a hero of the North country. ^ Experience By GORDON HALL GEROULD. A ro- mantic episode in the career of Peter Sanders, retired gambler. ^ The Ghost on the Stairs By MRS. W. K. CLIFFORD <J The Stuff That Dreams are Made On By GERALD CHITTENDEN <J Cormac O'Brien, Piper By AMANDA MATHEWS. An Irish story. $3.00 a year 1 23 cent* a number CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. NEW YORK BUSINESS LAW Bays Miniature Law Libra- ry. Only complete work on Commercial T.aw. Contains Legal Forms of all kinds. Should be in every Library. Fits the pocket. 9 vols. $12. Safe counsellor. Worth its weight in sold. 2.000 pp Order Noiv. Sent on Approval. CALLAGHAN & CO. Law Publishers CHICAGO. SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS First Folio Edition. Edited by Char- lotte Porter. 40 vols. Cloth, 75c per vol.; leather, $1.00 per vol. "By all odds the best edition now accessible." — [The Living Age. THOMAS Y. CROWELL CO., New York $3,000 YEARLY BUSINESS OF YOUR OWN; mall order; success sure; honest, legitimate: small capital : original methods. Write M. CLEMENT MOORE, Specialist, New Egypt N. J. GRADUATE, AMERICAN, FOREIGN UNIVERSITIES (Ph.D.), specialty Germanics, but having also taught French, Spanish, English. History, seeks re-engagement, College. Normal. High "r Private School, having! recently spent three ad dltlonal years abroad. Total European resi- dence, nine years; ten years' experience teach- ing In College and High School; some estab- lished reputation as Author. Lecturer. High est possible credentials, references. Salary Brst year (If engaged early) secondary con- sideration. Might consider year of substitute work. Address PROFESSOR .1.. care The Nation. A new book bv EDWARD HOWARD GIUGGS. THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART The meaning and relation of sculpture, painting, poetry and music. The author's most Important work so far published. 12mo. cloth, $1.50 net; by mail, $1.60 B.W.Huebscb.Publisher, 225 Fifth avenue, NewYork HUMANISTS' LIBRARY ANNOUNCEMENT JN the Spring of 1914 two new volumes will be pub- lished in The Humanists' Library. These are: PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA: APlatonick Dis- course upon Love. GIOVANNI DELLA CASA: The Galateo— Of Manners & Behaviour. Tl-.e books are printed in red and black on hand- made paper, and are sold at $3.00 net each. The edition of each volume is limited to subscrip- tions received before publication. Persons inter- ested should send for a descriptive circular to D. B. UPDIKE, The Merrymount Press, lyt Summer St., Boston HIGH CLASS RESEARCH For Lecturers,Speakers,\Vri tors, Club-women, Debat ers. Outlines, briefs and other, literary assistance. II 11 mm of Itcxeii r<li. \<-w \lluiiiy, Indk.
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IV The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2539 NOW READY GREAT JURISTS OF THE WORLD From PAPINIAN to VON IHERING BY VARIOUS AUTHORS With 20 portraits. Edited by Edward Manson, Co-editor of the Journal of the Society of Comparative Leg- islation, and with Introductions by Sir John Macdonnell, Professor of Comparative Law In University College, London, and by Van Vechtbn Veeder, Judge of the United States District Court, New York. 8vo. Cloth. ?5.00 net. The aim of this volume In the Con- tinental Legal History Series is to set forth the life, work, methods, and influence of the great Jurists who have had more than a merely national im- portance in the development of Eu- ropean Law. This work is a sort of Plutarch's Lives for the History of Continental Law. Papinlan, Alclat, Bartolus, Vico, Bacon, Leibnitz, Sei- dell, Montesquieu, Cujas, Vattel, Sav- igny Bentham, Beccaria, Von Ihering, Mittermaier, — these and a few other names stand out as landmarks for all European Law. •E^ Send for descriptive pamphlet of the Continental Legal History Series. LITTLE, BROWN & CO., Publishers, Boston BEAUMONT, THE DRAMATIST By Charles Mills Gayley Professor of the English Language and Liter- ature, University of California. A literary portrait of the most poetic of Shakspere's contem- poraries in the drama, which dis- tinguishes Beaumont clearly from Fletcher, defines with au- thority his position as a drama- tist, and portrays vividly his charming personality. Fifteen illustrations from valuable historical portraits and scenes. Price |2.00 net, postage 12 cents. At all booksellers. Published by THE CENTURY CO. DANTE'S DIVINA COMMEDIA First American Edition. Edited with introduction, arguments to each canto, and footnotes by Professor C. H. 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Ills analysis of the condi- tions which finally determined the sway of State sovereignty in the South and of na- tional sovereignty In the North Is keen, candid and convincing. . . . His ex- amination of Lee's achievements and defeita as a commander Is acute and of lniense Interest." — New York Times. For sale by all booksellers. Oxford University Press American Branch 85 WEST 32ND STREET. NEW YORK NEW MAGAZINE ON EGYPT As Illustrated quarterly magazine, beautifully Illustrated, with news of late discoveries, edited by PROF. PETRIE, began with the January num- ber embellished with frontispiece of Jewelry In colors. Price $2 a year. The discoveries by Petrie and others for tne EGYPTIAN RESEARCH ACCOUNT (Society) relate to the arts of Ancient Hgypt and to Its predynastlc age. An annual quarto volume, profusely illustrated, and the magazine should be In all public and many private libraries. Circulars of these publications freely furnished. Address REV. DR. W. C. WINSLOW. 525 Beacon Street, BoBtou. JAN VERMEER OF DELFT By PHILIP L. HALE. The only book in the English lan- gnagc on "the greatest painter who ever lived." In the Boston Transcript of December 17 Mr. W. H. Downes calls this a "brilliant and readable book," and says Mr. Hale's "conclusions are logi- cal and sound." This work fixes Mr. Hale's place as authority on Vermeer. Large 8vo, fully illustrated. Buckram, $10 net, boxed ; half levant, $20 net, boxed. Carriage ad- ditional. Descriptive circular on request. Small, Maynard & Co., Publishers, Boston AUTOGRAPHS BOUGHT AND SOLD Catalogue of 4485 Titles Free GOODSPEED'S BOOK SHOP BOSTON WHAT MEN LIVE BY By Dr. RICHARD C. CABOT $1.50 net. Postage extra. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN CO., 4 Park St., BOSTON All That's Good In Printing MME v:c« LETTERS AND MEMORIALS or Wendell Phillips Garrison Editor of The Nation, 1865-1906 In one volume, croum 8vo, 300 pages, with photogravure portrait. During the forty-one years in which he edited the Nation, with a thoroughness, ability, and conscientious devotion unsurpassed in the records of American journalism, Mr. Garrison was an indefatiga- ble correspondent, never em- ploying an amanuensis, but writing tens of thousands of letters with his own hand to his contributors, who em- braced practically all the leading American scholars and critics of the period. From a dozen groups of these, which have been kindly loaned by the recipients, a sufficient number of selections has been made to illustrate the relations between Mr. Garrison and his great corps of contributors, the frankness and tact which he exercised towards them, and the wide range of his interests, tastes, and sympathies. The volume also contains a brief sketch of his life, a dozen of his best poems, and several of his characteristic editorials, re- views, and essays, besides a fine photogravure portrait. Price, $1.50 net postpaid. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN CO. BOSTON NEW YORK
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Feb. 26, 19 14] T li e Natio 11 v Subscription Lists Will Soon Be Closed End of the Sale, Direct to the Public, of the New Encyclopaedia Britannica Prices to be fromg$29 to $50 more DISCONTINUANCE OF MONTHLY PAYMENTS THERE IS STILL' TIME FOR YOU TO DECIDE You must have a general idea of the characteristics of the new Encyclopaedia Britannica, for it has been so much used and quoted and talked about that it is definitely classed as one of the greatest achievements of our day. But what you probably do not know is that it is a "different" kind of utility book from any that has ever been published; different in get-up, different in contents, different in style, different in method of construction, different and better suited to your needs in the fact that it was built for service — for your service. Send for the prospectus to-day. You will then he in a position to settle the matter once for all. Any argument in favor of waiting until to-morrow is also an argument in favor of waiting until the price has been increased in America, as it was in England in December last, and that is surely the wrong course to take. For an inquiry form see the bottom of this page. The Price OF THE NEW ENCYCLO- PAEDIA BRITANNICA a Few Weeks Hence $29 to $50 more than at present — will not be an extravagant price for the book ; but it would be an ex- travagance for you to pay it needlessly, by neglecting this opportunity to pay less. ON BEING " ALERT " To be "alert" of mind does not mean that one must jump to a conclusion, but that when a con- clusion has been formed, one must be in readiness to give instant effect to it. The word, indeed, comes from the old Italian "all' ertal" — "Go to the watch-tozver !" the warning which, in the eventful Middle Ages, sent lookouts to their posts to see when rapid action would be necessary. The public have shown alertness in recognizing the merits of the new Encyclopaedia Britannica. Those who are alert enough to obtain it now will be just in time to avoid the higher price which is about to be charged for it. That alertness has already been displayed by more than fifty-eight thousand purchasers. A Book for Everybody, on Terms for Everybody Whether you are a banker or a bank clerk, a business man or the mother of a family, a uni- versity professor or a young man starting a career, whether you use the Britannica as a question- answerer or for continuous reading, you cannot, in this day of specialization, escape the need for the specialist's knowledge which this one book yields. It deals with the common, everyday knowledge you require in your work and your home, as fully and as faithfully as with modern science, art, literature, religion, philosophy and history. The reasonable price of the book and the convenient plan of paying for it in payments as low as $5.00 per month, have placed this great efficiency library in the hands of thousands of sub- scribers with incomes of the most modest size. NOW is the Time to Decide The Cambridge University Press has announced the termination of the direct sale to the public, at a special low price and with the privilege of partial payments. Save money by acting now. Find Out What This Book Can Do For You Send for the Large Illustrated Prospectus Manager, ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, 120 West 32d Street, New York Phase send me by mail your large prospectus. Name _ _ „ _ Occupation _
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VI r 1 ' 1 1 ( > N;i! ion [Vol. 98, No. 2539 YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS bzgs to announce that it has begun th> issue, under the direc ion of the Department oj History, of worlds of scientific historic value under the general title of YALE HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS This title covers three distinct series: Studies, Manuscripts and Edited Texts, and Miscellany. Series I.— STUDIES 11 is intended that Studies shall be confined to strictly scholarly works by members (present or past) of the Historical Department of Yale University, who have produced their work either in part or whole while con- nected with the University. Series II.— MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITED TEXTS It is planned that this avenue of publication shall be made available to scholars in any part of the world and the series as projected will include printed manuscripts or edited texts in any language and relating to any country. Two volumes have already been published. Series III.— MISCELLANY It is expected that the Contents of this series will include all scholarly and general historical works not spe- cifically intended to be included in the two foregoing divisions. Inclusion is not confined in any particular except that of qualification, which is determinable by the Department of History of Yale University. It is intended that the Publications shall represent a high stand- ard of typographical excellence. In the case of Series I, a legible font of Scotch Roman type has been selected and the typographical treat- ment will be as far as practicable uniform. The binding shall in each case be cloth. In the case of Series II, while an attempt will be made to secure uniformity, the demands of the text will control the type to be used. All issues in this series will be bound in boards. In Series III, a standard old-style Caslon type has been selected, while the binding is cloth. THE SERIES IN DETAIL SERIES I. SERIES II. VOLUMES ALREADY ISSUED ■ 1. COLBERT'S WEST INDIA POLICY, by Stewart L. Mi.us, Assistant Professor of History in Yale College. "Mechanically, the book, with its ample page, strong but open type, is most agreeable to use; and in this regard, as well as in its scholarly conscientiousness, it is an auspicious inauguration of the Yale Historical Studies.'' — Prof. ('. H. Hull in The American Historical Review. "This is one of the most important works upon the history of the West Indies that has appi in recent years. ... It is a scholarly, clearly written, and valuable work." — United Empire, Royal Colonial Institute Journal. 8vo. Cloth binding. 385 pages. Index. Price $2.00 net, carriage extra. II. STUDIES IX TAXATION UNDER JOHN AND HENRY III, by Sydney K. Mitchell, As- sistant Professor of History in Yale College. This work deals with the aids. SCUtages, tallages, and dona, constituting the extraordinary income of the English kings, during the period of transition from feudal to modern taxation. Dr. Mitchell writes that his plan has been "to give as complete an account as possible of each tax levied iluring the reigns of John and Henry 111, presenting all the material which is in print and as much from the unprinted rolls as could be- gathered in a limited time." He describes the circumstances under which each tax was levied, the incidence, the assessment and collection, and the amount yielded. 8vo. Cloth binding. 405 pages. Index. Price $2.00 net, carriage extra. ■ I. A JOURNEY TO OHIO IN 1810, as recorded in the Journal of MGabgabet Van Hobm Dwight. Edited with an Introduction by Max Farband, Professor of History in Yale I'liivevsii y. "Enjoyment and a vivid picture of the manners and living conditions of the time are to bi by its perusal."- -The Journal of Political 1 .:; 1 7!io net, carriage extra. 1 /// preparation.) III. BRACTOX: DE LEGIBUS EST CONSUETUDINIBUS ANGLLE, edited by Geobgk 10. W bine, Assistant Professor of History in Yale College. To he complete in six volumes — Volume one of which it is expected will he issued during the year. Contents of Volume I: The manuscripts, their pedigree and value; the Addieiones, their origin. character, and relation to the text. Volumes II and III: Latin text with notes and commentary. Volumes IV and V: English translation of Latin text. Volume VI: Introduction and Index. G Vols. Imperial octavo. Board binding. Vol. I, 464 pages. Price $."> net, carriage extra. SERIES III. > THE COLONISING ACTIVITIES OF THE ENGLISH PURITANS: THE LAST PHASE OF THE ELIZABETHAN STRUGGLE WITH SPAIN, by Abthub Pebcival Newtok of the University of London. With an Introduction by Charles M. Andrews, Karnnm Professor of American History in Yale University. This book deals with the English Puritan Colony, founded on Providence island in the Carib- bean Sea, under the direction of the Earl of Warwick and John Pym, So closely allied were the interests and ideals of the Puritans in England and America between 1680 and 11.11 that the descrip- tion of the life of this colony contains lopies of unusual importance, as well as historical lads (he significance of win h has not heretofore been realized. NEW HAVEN CONN. YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 225 FIFTH AVE. NEW YORK
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The Nation :in YORK, THURSDAY, FEBtti I /.' i 2C, 1014. The Week As silently and as inevitably as on the question of the tariff and the cur- rent y, Mr. Wilson's ideas are now com- ing to realization in the field of interna- tional relations. The ratification of the long delayed arbitration treaties simply emphasizes what the events of a year have shown, that the best judgment and conscience of the country are speaking through the President. "A majestic peda- gogue, a doctrinaire Puritan idealist,'' the Paris Temps of Mr. Wilson to his dispraise in the matter of Mexico. But it is the pedagogue and the Puritan doctrinaire who has suceeeded in com- bining clear reasoning and a strain of idealism in a winning formula. It is the pedagogue and idealist who, on this qui stlon of arbitration, for example, has swept away all the petty prejudices, all the tawdry slogans of national dignity compromised, and pusillanimous surren- der to Great Britain and betrayal of our Irish citizens and our German citi- zens— all this tinsel argumentation that has stood in the way of this nation's definitely giving its adhesion to the principle of international good-will. It is the doctrinaire and pedagogue who has manifestly won over the better judg- ment of the country to admit that in our action on the Panama Canal tolls we were guilty of a breach of faith, and that we are ready to-day to make amends. policy, while "bad enough," is merely a legacy from the Taft Administration. Nor is the North American particularly disturbed when it turns Us eyes to Penn- sylvania. "Think,'' say its agitated friends, "of Pennsylvania being repre- sented by a Democratic United States Senator!" "We think of it," is the re- ply, "and find ourselves disappointed, but calm." The reason for this strange attitude is that the candidate will be A. Mitchell Palmer, as between whom and Penrose there is but one choice. Of course, Pinchot would be the ideal Sen- ator, but Palmer will do very well. This kind of reasoning is becoming so com- mon in Progressive journals all over the country, that, if their hatred of Re- publican policies and leaders were not so evident, one might suspect a deep- laid plot to flatter the Democratic party into dropping the cheese it now holds. The Republicans' strongest practical argument for a Republican-Progressive amalgamation does not strike a respon- sive chord in the Philadelphia North American. "We do not find," confesses this ardent Progressive organ, "that our patriotism is greatly inflamed by ap- peals from Taft Republicans to unite against the 'common enemy.' " Not that the Wilson Administration presents the shining record that would have been inevitable under Roosevelt and Johnson, but still the Underwood tariff bill is preferable to "the iniquitous Payne-Ald- rich bill," the Glass-Owen currency mea- sure is better than the Vreeland-Aldrich scheme, and even the Wilson Mexican The appointment of the commission, announced by Seth Low as head of the National Civic Federation, for the study of the workings of all pure food and drug laws, State and Federal, will bring to the attention of the public the limita- tions of the most conspicuous Pure Food law we have. The bitterness of the con- test in connection with this measure, first over its passage and then over its enforcement, has led multitudes to think that it amounts to a guarantee against improper foods and medicines. All that it does, however, is to prohibit fraud. Yet, as Dr. Alsberg explains, fraud is not so hard to fight as insanitary condi- tions which affect foods that may be offered for sale. The only safeguard against such sources of danger is in- spection of the place of production and medical supervision of the workmen. This, in turn, must rest upon an ade- quate health service. The larger cities have been forced to pay attention to this service, with the result that in the matter of health protection they are far in advance of communities which would naturally have been expected to be the envy of the centres of population. To spread the gospel of really pure food is the object of the new commission, and it wisely begins by undertaking to find out the facts of the existing situa- tion. The reasons given by candidates why they should be elected to the offices they seek would form the material for a val- uable thesis on political psychology. The "Official State Publicity Pamphlet" of South Dakota contains a good assort- ment of such reasons. One candidate for Congress "has studied the money ques- tion extensively and believes it possible to eliminate the multi-millionaire in the distribution of money." Another has the distinction of having drafted a bill for the protection of State funds, "which passed and became a law without one word being changed from the original." A third defines himself as a strange kind of party man: "Republican. Same kind in Washington as in South Da- kota." And who could vote against a man who is "liberal on public questions and of charitable temperament"? The autobiographical details are even more interesting, as when we learn concern- ing one candidate that "his regiment armed with a repeating rifle was very successful in a hundred battles and skirmishes"; of another that "he and his helpmate struggled through the pio- neer days with a determination to win, and they did win"; and that another was born in Norway, "of Danish-Norse arid Phoenician-Norse descendants." Ir- relevant, these particulars? On the con- trary, they show how thoroughly human is the game of office-seeking. In the reappointment of a Municipal Court judge in the District of Colum- bia, only an eagle-eyed statesman could see a blow at the entire fabric of our Government and, indeed, at the whole Anglo-Saxon race, but Senator Varda- man has no hesitation about it. Presi- dent Wilson has nominated Judge Ter- rell to succeed himself. The Mississippi Senator will fight confirmation, just as he would fight any other form of trea- son to our beloved country. No one de- nies that Mr. Terrell has given satisfac- tion during the term for which Presi- dent Roosevelt originally appointed him. lie is an educated man, a university graduate, had been a teacher in Wash ington, and a member of the Board of Kducation. But he is a negro, and the idea of a negro on a bench subverts all of Senator Vardaman's ideas of jua-
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200 T he ."N"«'iti 11 [Vol. 98, No. 2539 tice. Can a black judge know the law? Are proud white men who violate the city ordinances or who cheat and steal to be compelled to hear a negro judge define their misdemeanors and pass sentence upon them? Not if Vardaman and Hoke Smith can prevent it. As for President Wilson, he could not have done other than name Judge Terrell again without stultifying himself. Who shall decide, when two doctors, both expert in diagnosing the morbific conditions due to the presence of the Money Devil, disagree? The case is one between Dr. La Follette and good old Dr. Bryan. The former, after making a careful examination of the currency bill, declared that the symptoms were unmistakable: the Money Trust disease was written all over it. But the alarm- ed members of the family called Dr. Bryan in consultation, and he proceeded to rap the less skilled practitioner over the knuckles. In that well-known medi- cal journal, the Commoner, he publishes his opinion, which is as follows: Then came the titanic struggle for cur- rency reform. The money power, which has for a generation held the nation in its grip, fought desperately to retain its control. It required the high courage ana the persistent perseverance of the Presi- dent to win the victory. Victory was won, and the country is free. The fin- ger-prints are still visible upon the na- tion's throat, but the hand is gone and the nation breathes a sigh of relief. For us this is conclusive. If Dr. Bryan can find no traces of the Money Devil, then he must have flown up the chimney howling. The question of the Johns Hopkins presidency has at last been solved by the offer of the post to Prof. Frank J. Good- now, and its acceptance by him. Pro- fessor Goodnow's ability in his own field, his administrative capacity and experience, and his exceptional working power give promise of success in his new undertaking. In personal traits, he differs from what is generally thought of as the typical university president; he is eminently plain and straightfor- ward in his ways, and it will be through these qualities rather than by means of diplomatic management that his influ- ence will be built up. He has a diffi- cult and complex task before him, with the Baltimore university not only about to change its home, but branching out into the field of technology. From the very start, he will be confronted with the conflicting claims of extent on the one hand and quality on the other; and we trust that he will recognize the vital importance of firmly adhering, in spite of all temptation, to the idea of high quality as the paramount aim of the University. It is upon that basis that it has rendered its great service to American scholarship and science, and it is upon that basis only that its distinc- tive merit as an institution of national importance can be maintained. The complicated but exaggerated dis- cord in the administration of the Uni- versity of Illinois, involving the board of trustees, President James, and Gov. Dunne, has been ended for at least the time with two pleasant assurances up- permost. One is that the difficulty was in no wise political, but rooted in an apparent personal animosity of one or more of the trustees towards Dr. James; and that the State University has no fight on its hands against an injection of politics or religious controversy into its affairs. The other is that President James has commanded the support, in an assault upon his authority, not only of the faculty, alumni, and a majority of the trustees, but of Gov. Dunne and of the State generally. The relations of the head of the University to the Legisla- ture have necessarily been close; in pro- curing funds and sympathetic interest his labors have properly been of a lob- bying nature; and the energy and suc- cess with which he has pleaded the cause of a swiftly growing institution, obtaining two years ago a permanent mill-tax levy, which yields it nearly $3,000,000 annually, have gained him heated opponents. Yet the great con- cern of the press in the present difficulty was to show, in the words of the Chi- cago Tribune, that "the public will not tolerate for an instant the utilization of the resources of the University for community politics or any other" ul- terior purpose. But this was apart from the practical question raised by the dis- affected trustees, which was of divest- ing the president of important admin- istrative duties, and vesting them in the board, in somewhat the fashion fol- lowed at the University of Kansas. The anomaly of lodging the executive pow- ers of a great University in a board elected on party tickets, moved by fre- quent dissensions, and incapable of in- dependence and enlightened knowledge, is everywhere recognized. It is announced that President Wil- son has decided to ask Congress to au- thorize the raising ot our diplomatic mis- sion in Argentina to the grade of an em- bassy. Mexico and Brazil are the only Governments in this hemisphere to which we accord that high recognition, and yet nothing could be more in ac- cordance with our professed interest in our southern neighbors than the prompt bestowal of the compliment as soon as it is warranted. In the case of Argen- tina, there cannot be much doubt that this time has arrived. The amount of commerce between that country and this, and the bright future that appar- ently lies before Argentina as an in- fluential factor in this part of the world, are given as sufficient grounds for the step determined upon by the President. It may be noted in addition, however, that Argentina's status as a "Power" would add weight to her part in any joint representations or intervention in Mexico. The effect of the recognition in Central and South America must be an. encouragement of the not too prevalent feeling that the United States is ready to make good the friendly speeches which a series of our prominent men has addressed to the peoples of those countries. The dispatches from Buenos Ayres show that the President's step has been most favorably received in the Argentine. Sir Edward Grey's declaration in the House of Commons that the British Gov- ernment has no intention to impose re- sponsibility on the United States in the matter of Pancho Villa and William Benton, is quite in line with the friend- ly course pursued by Great Britain with regard to the entire Mexican situation. But even more to the point than Sir Edward Grey's assurances is the explicit statement made by the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, that any attempt on the part of Great Britain to intervene in Mexico would be futile and impolitic. These straightforward words put the situation in the clearest light. Even when the full truth of the Benton epi- sode is ascertained and guilt Is affixed upon Villa, it is idle to suppose thai
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Feb. 26, 1 914] The 1ST a t i o n 201 English arms can be brought into play in Mexico to vindicate the "principle of civis Britannicus sum. If foreign in- tervention in Mexico is to come it must be upon this country's initiative. Once that is acknowledged, it may also be acknowledged that the death of Benton has intensified President Wilson's diffi- culties; that, judged by precise inter- national etiquette, our position in Mex- ico is irregular as well as difficult; but that transcending all violations of In- ternational etiquette is the simple con- sideration that this Government has sin- cerely been trying to make the best out of a fearfully complicated situation, and that we have the right to ask other na- tions to be patient under provocation, seeing that we have ourselves been the principal sufferers. The Canadian press has split on the report of a Parliamentary Commission that $40,000,000 was wasted in building the Western Transcontinental Railway, while all of it east of the St. Lawrence is superfluous; and there is an equally deplorable division In the House of Commons. There is room for a thou- sand party squabbles in defining "ex- travagance," but a question so practical and grave ought to evoke common-sense and patriotism for its resolution. The defence of the Liberal planners is that Canada, from reasons of safety and per- manence, should always have as costly a railway as her purse can buy. The Conservatives hold that, at $161,300,000 for the 1,344 miles from Quebec to Win- nipeg, the Transcontinental has cost half as much again per mile as the Ca- nadian Pacific; and they grow eloquent over huge specific sums that might have been saved, as $6,200,000 by momentum grades, $2,400,000 by sharper curves, and $7,000,000 by cheaper stations and bridg- es. From the beginning the Investiga- tion had a partisan color, no Liberals occupying seats on the Commission; and the Government has itself to thank that the charges are treated as a campaign document. They are made, however, in all official seriousness; and with the sum involved so large, it is to be hoped that the public will insist on a deter- mination whether milk has actually been spilt, and on an investigation of responsibility for it. It is now a year since Lloyd George announced that 15,000 doctors had join- ed the panels under the medical benefit provision of the National Insurance Act; he gave an account the other day of the effect on the profession. Out of 22,500 general practitioners in Great Britain, 20,000 are now enrolled, and divided last year nearly $23,000,000 from the Government. The average for each doc- tor was stated to be $1,150, while in London it reached $1,650 and in Liver- pool $1,850, with further receipts due to drugs and prescriptions. As but one- third of the population is insured under the act, and the remaining two-thirds pay at least as high for medical atten- tion, he estimated the average physi- cian's income in London at $5,000, in Liverpool at $5,500, and in Manchester at $4,500. "Some make considerably more, some considerably less, but un- doubtedly it has raised the level of the remuneration of the profession." These figures were unchallenged at the medi- cal dinner at which he was speaking. It is, of course, true that empanelled doc- tors now work harder; but the harder work represents benefit to thousands who formerly went without needed med- ical aid. The landing of the labor agitators from South Africa in England, will raise the whole question of the legality of the action. Meanwhile, some peo- ple are wondering why, if the South African Government is so confident that its course was warranted by law, it should be going to the Union Parlia- ment to ask the passage of an act of indemnity for all it has done. But this merely brings out the nature of mar- tial law, under English jurisprudence, and its difference from the "state of siege" familiar in Continental proced- ure. The English theory is that martial law is not a positive thing, but rather the negation or suspension of law. Then when the regular reign of law is re- stored, those who resorted to the pro- clamation of martial law, or took orders under it, need to have all their acts vali- dated. In the Bill of Indemnity laid be- fore the South African Parliament, it is provided that no official, high or low, shall be proceeded against for "any acts, matters, or things whatsoever in good faith advised, commanded, ordered, di- rected, or done" under the proclamation of martial law. The enactment of such a bill would undoubtedly place the South African officials beyond the reach of any legal process, and would effectually pre- vent any interference with them by the British Government. Self-government cannot be granted without taking the consequences; nor can it be recalled at pleasure. This is almost certainly the view which the Prime Minister will take in replying to the protests of the Labor members of Parliament. The Hobhouse bill pending in the British Parliament to prohibit importa- tion of "plumage and bits of birds," which dispatches report as already ef- fecting a revolution in taste and public sentiment, represents a sequel to the American law in which scientists can take much pride. How salutary is the impulse our legislation has sent round the world is shown by an international symposium of naturalists in the Nine- teenth Century. The report that last week, of 6,974 birds of paradise offered in London, 5,230 remained unsold, while of 8,618 crowned pigeon crests only 970 found buyers, was paralleled as early as October by sales which left on the market egret plumes representing 15,000 birds. Legislation is already passed in one Con- tinental country, and there seems no doubt that, in spite of dealers who aver that their work tends to the preserva- tion of birds, a trade whose history is marked by frequent annihilations and consistent cruelty will in time be stop- ped everywhere. The Russian Government, so back- ward in many of the primary duties, has been the proud pioneer in at least one field. In its efforts to encourage the consumption of liquor, the Russian bu- reaucracy is without a rival among the nations. Alcoholism, always a beset- ting sin of the Russian people, has de- veloped in the last ten years to the di- mensions of a plague. These ten years coincide with the establishment of a complete Government monopoly in al- cohol. The country's drink bill has doubled since 1904, and now amounts to nearly a billion rubles, or five hun- dred million dollars. For a people on so low an economic level as that occu- pied by the Russian peasantry, the waste is enormous, and the seriousness of the problem has led to the enact- ment of a bill by the Duma for combat- ing drunkenness. But in the Council of State it has met with the sharp opposi- tion of the Ministry.
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202 <« T li e N a lion [Vol. 98, No. 2539 HI,' I STOW VS. COMMON-SENSE. It is not worth while to waste words 011 Senator Bristow, of Kansas. His rail- ing attack on the President last week met with such prompt rebuke in the Senate that he himself felt compelled to retreat from the plain meaning of his own language. He had intimated in the most unmistakable way his belief that Mr. Wilson's attitude towards free passage of American ships through the Panama Canal had been dictated by the transcontinental railways. Of course, he presently ran away and said he did not mean it, when he was called to task by Senators of all parties. That is the Bristow of it. The unhappy man is at his wits' end to And a way of getting elected to the Senate again, and simply followed the good old Kansas rule: when you have nothing else to say, or no real issue to raise, just damn the railways and accuse the Democrats of all the crimes in the calendar. This is proba- bly the true explanation of Senator Bris- tow's indecent performance, and so far as he personally is concerned, we are content to let it go at that. To his outbreak of folly, however, we owe it that several Senators spoke words of truth and soberness. A re- freshing common-sense, for example, pervaded the remarks of Senator Owen with reference to the bearing of the Baltimore platform upon the question of exemption of our coastwise ships from the payment of tolls at Panama. Some people have talked on this sub- ject as if they suffered from a strange mental disease, which we might call platformitis. They conjure up an un- real state of affairs, and then solemn- ly argue from it to impossible conse- quences. Apparently, they would like to substitute for the Constitutional pro- vision forbidding Congress to pass any act in violation of a contract, a clause exalting the obligation of a platform still higher. Indeed, there has been a lot of wild talk to the effect that a Dem- ocrat who is ready to depart by so much as the tenth part of a hair from any of the planks of the party platform is no better than a swindler or a forger. Senator Owen put the right stamp upon this kind of ranting. He quietly pointed out, what everybody in his senses knows to be true, that there are a great many things in the promiscuous and hastily concocted deliverances of platforms which cannot be thought of as binding the party to a given course of action in the future, no matter wnat may happen. The canal-tolls plank at Baltimore was one of these. It was con- sidered by only half a dozen men, and that in secret; while it is safe to say that when the tired Convention adopted the platform in a block, not one dele- gate in fifty so much as knew that there was such a plank. The idea of fetter- ing a party for all time by a process of that kind is the height of absurdity. Even if it were possible to create a semblance of moral obligation in this way, are statesmen to bind themselves not to let events teach them anything? Granting that, in July, 1912, they thought the policy of toll-exemption wise, are they to be precluded, in Febru- ary, 1914, from changing their minds, if the weight of argument and a sense of national duty compel them, and from giving their countrymen the benefit of their mature judgment? The thing is preposterous. It was also owing to Senator Bristow that the Senate had the opportunity to hear a rather notable defence of a Dem- ocratic President from the leading Re- publican on the Foreign Relations Com- mittee, Senator Lodge. The Kansas Sen- ator had emitted a fine barbaric yawp about his unwillingness to see the pol- icy of this country determined by Great Britain, Japan, or any other impudent foreign Government. This was, of course, primarily intended to go careering over the windy plains of Kansas, but the Massachusetts Senator recalled his col- leagues to the gravity of the situation which now confronts the United States. The Mexican affair is imposing upon our shoulders a heavy international bur- den. While we are attempting to stag- ger along under it, we plainly need the forbearance and good will of all other countries with large interests in Mex- ico. This nation is, in a sense, asking the other Powers to make it a manda- tory of civilization in the effort to re- store peace in Mexico. But, as Senator Lodge forcibly said, the United States cannot act as an outlaw among the na- tions, at the same time that we are in- viting them to repose a trust in us. It is this aspect of the matter which so closely relates our scrupulous observ- ance of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty to the whole question of our foreign policy, particularly just now as it affects Mex- ico. We can't eat our cake and have it too. In that homely saying lies the pith of the argument which President Wil- son is urging upon Congress and the country. The task which he has under- taken is one of undoubted difficulty. Selfish interests are against him. Bla- tant jingoism is an obstacle in his way. The false pride of Congress is a hindrance. But when we reflect that the course which he advocates is one in which the national safety as well as the national honor is involved, we are bound to believe that the sober second thought of the people will so array it- self on his side that his final success is certain. GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY: Q. E. D. In a remote age, and before the bene- fits of large-scale production and cen- tralized management had been clearly recognized, there was passed, in a cer- tain country, a law establishing a tax upon incomes. There was a great to-do about the drafting of the bill; its lan- guage was so complicated and awkward that many persons versed in public af- fairs, and entirely friendly to its gener- al purpose, felt bound to criticise it with considerable asperity. But such was the confidence of the Government in its ability to find a way out of these difficulties, that, in spite of the mutter- ings of the grumblers, the bill was duly and promptly enacted into law. This confidence was based on the cir- cumstance that there prevailed in those days what to us must seem an amaz- ing trust in the efficacy of individual en- terprise. Instead of employing a force of salaried experts in the service of the Government, it was the custom to turn over questions like these to private law firms engaged for the purpose; and as for the mechanism of collection, the whole thing was to be entrusted to some one or other of the agencies that made it a business to do similar service for private corporations. How singularly the expectations of this method were disappointed is well known to all read- ers of history; and indeed many author- ities on the history of institutions date from this incident the definitive estab- lishment in the public mind of the su- periority of centralized and governmen- tal management over the operation of private agencies. The thing itself was not of paramount importance; but it
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Feb. 26, 1914I T h e N a t i o 11 20S bristled with points that nobody could fail to see, and the lesson sank deep into thfi public mind. Of the bungling of the law firm with the questions which it fell to them to decide, it would be tedious to speak. It was felt that there was some excuse for their floundering3 in the curious inepti- tude which ran through the language of the law. Still it did seem exasperat- ing that the lawyers entrusted with this task — which, after all, was not of great dimensions and presented no profound problems to solve — should not at least have come to their own conclusions in a short time, and stuck to them. What actually happened was that, although a number of months intervened between the passing of the law and the begin- ning of the process of collection, scores of doubtful questions still remained suspended in the air when that process was first set in motion; nor was this the worst. Throughout the period dur- ing which the collection firm was get- ting its blanks filled out by the taxpay- ers, ruling after ruling kept appearing from the offices of the law firm, each making a modification or reversal of some previous ruling. Seldom had there been so flagrant an exhibition of the hol- lowness of the claims made for that rivalry in excellence which used to be the boast of believers in the competitive system. But it was the operations of the col- lection agency that furnished the crown- ing example of the unsatisfactory char- acter of private enterprise. From the moment it took hold to the end of the period within which returns had to be filed" by individuals under penalty of the law, the air was thick with reports, con- jectures, statements, and counter-state- ments, as to what had to be done, and when, and how. The famous "Form 1040," which was the final fruit of the labors of the agency in its effort to smooth the path of the wayfaring man, is a curiosity in ways too numerous to mention. Two little points must suf- fice: Although for the year 1613, when the act went into force, the tax was payable only upon incomes accruing during the last ten months of the year, the heading of the form was: Return of Net Income Received or Accrued Daring; the Year Ended December 31, 161 . Underneath this appeared, indeed, In smaller type, the parenthesis: (P©r the year 1613, from March 1 to De- cember 31) But this is the only word of warning or guidance the taxpayer had. Thoughout the paper, the year is spoken of just as though a whole year were in question; and exemptions, supertax, deductions — everything is on that basis. Even on the full page of "Instructions," printed on the back of the form, not a word about the ten months appears, and all figures are whole-year figures. The sec- ond point we have reference to is that, although it is stated in the "Instruc- tions" that husband and wife may make a joint return, there is no indication anywhere in Form 1040 that that form is intended to serve this purpose. Every- thing in it is worded so as to refer to a single individual; and it was only by special inquiry that the hundreds of thousands of husbands and wives af- fected were enabled to learn that there was no other form, and that they had themselves to make in writing what- ever modifications were necessary. Now this may seem a small matter to rake up from the ashes of ancient his- tory; but small matters may be signifi- cant. Under government management it is inconceivable that there should not have been a form printed expressly for the peculiar ten-month year 1613; it is inconceivable that there should not have been a form expressly for joint returns by husband and wife. In the failure to do these obviously necessary things, we see plainly the ingrained vice of the senseless parsimony which char- acterizes private business; even where, as here, no expense whatever is saved, the habit asserts itself. How many thou- sands of persons made erroneous re- turns owing to the innumerable imper- fections of the collection agency's work, how many millions of hours were, in the aggregate, wasted in making in- quiries which reasonable foresight and competent management would have made unnecessary, has never been com- puted. But the experience was worth far more than it cost. For the showing of the competitive system in this mat- ter was at once so discreditable and so conspicuous that the nation resolved to put every form of business into the hands of the Government as rapidly as it was possible to effect the transfer, and the cry of the reactionaries that there were some things that could be better done by private enterprise was silenced forever. How just was the conclusion drawn by our ancestors of three hundred years ago has been singularly illustrated in the experience of the past few months. With its operation entrusted wholly to the efficient hands and potent machin- ery of the national Government, the in- come tax of 1914 has given rise to none of that annoyance, perplexity, and blun- dering which made the experience of 1614 so trying, and its smooth and per feet working has been greeted by a i.nanimous chorus of admiration. BUSINESS AND THE TRUST BILLS. Between the attitude of business to- wards the industrial and commercial situation and the attitude of the Ad- ministration towards the programme of corporation legislation, there is more than one point of relationship. There is, to begin with, a striking resemblance between the two. For the temperament of business is neither buoyant nor de- pressed, but rather that of favorable and yet cautious expectation; and the temperament of the Administration, so far as can be judged by the reports that have been coming in from day to day, is neither aggressive nor timid, but in- dicates an intention to accomplish some- thing substantial, yet to run no unnec- essary risks and to invite no new com- plications. And it is safe to say that this feeling-the-way attitude on the part of the Administration is in a considera- ble measure the effect of the like atti- tude on the part of business. If indus- try and trade were as depressed as some opponents of the Administration repre- sent it, or if they were as flourishing as we all should like them actually to be, the chances are that the programme of the President and Congress would by this time be far more distinctly outlin- ed than it is. To steer a wise course in such a situa- tion as now surrounds the Administra tion is a delicate problem of public pol- icy. Committed to do something, but something very imperfectly defined, it has to take into account not only the in- herent merits of any given proposal, but also the political forces that come into play and the immediate effect upon busi- ness prosperity. In particular. It has to bear in mind that two great economic measures have just been enacted, and
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204 T he .Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2539 that a false step in this new matter ' might redound to the discredit not only of the Trust legislation, but also of the tariff and currency measures. On the other hand, it must set down at their true worth idle rumors and extrava- gant pictures of distress. From sources least entitled to make such attacks — newspapers usually given to hounding the corporations — there come, for exam- ple, flamboyant criticisms of the Ad- ministration, upbraiding it for turning its attention to corporation laws in- stead of devoting its energies to the stimulation of business. The figures of unemployment are paraded as proof of the sad plight in which the country finds itself. That there is more unemploy- ment than usual seems undeniable. But in the first place, there is a great deal of evidence that the situation is grow- ing better, not worse; and, secondly, the figures themselves have no such mean- ing as is usually assigned to them. Some time ago the statement was made — and probably it is fairly near the truth — that there were in New York city about 325,000 men unemployed on any given day, this winter. But this is by no means so alarming or so significant as it may seem at first sight. For, if all the men who work for a living in this city were occupied, on an average, nine- tenths of the time, there would be a daily average throughout the year of about 150,000 men without employment; and when we remember that the winter necessarily furnishes much more than the average, and that there is further- more a big drift of unemployed outsid- ers to the city every winter, only a com- paratively modest number is left to be accounted for. Up to the present, what seems to have emerged most clearly as regards the "Five Brothers" is that the bill designed to give a new definiteness to the pro- hibitions of the Sherman act is in a fair way of being abandoned. If the spirit of soberness engendered by a business situation hopeful and yet not buoyant has in any measure contributed to bring about this result, it is a good thing. The reasons in favor of the policy of let- ting the law alone in this respect were strong enough before the present Ad- ministration entered upon its career; and they have been greatly strengthened by the course of events since that time. What Attorney-General Wickersham and President Taft thought of the rapidly growing efficacy of the law as it stands, Attorney-General McReynolds and Presi- dent Wilson have abundant additional reason to think. That their opinion is to this effect has been indicated in a number of ways. A matter of some interest in con- nection with this point is the reference to it in the Baltimore platform. "We regret," says that document, "that the Sherman Anti-Trust law has received a judicial construction depriving it of much of its efficacy, and we favor the enactment of legislation which will re- store to the statute the strength of which it has been deprived by such in- terpretation." Now, whatever may be thought of the desirability of "the enact- ment of legislation" here contemplated, there is no room for difference of opin- ion as to the statement of fact upon which the recommendation is expressly predicated. Not only is that statement false, but there is to-day virtually no- body who contends that it is true. Everybody knows that the Sherman act, so far from having been "deprived of much of its efficacy" by the Supreme Court decisions in the Standard Oil and Tobacco cases, has been clothed by them with an efficacy it had never before at- tained. To those who make, or talk as if they made, a fetich of platform declar- ations, this interesting dilemma is there- fore presented. Either they must deny a patent fact, or they must stick to the conclusion even though they admit that the basis on which it rests was an er- ror. Either position would be an absurd- ity; and sane Democrats will not allow themselves to be impaled on either horn of this dilemma. When a platform rec- ommendation is manifestly unworkable, all that has to be done is to ignore it. SANITY IN EDUCATION. If there is one field of activity more than another in which calm and well- balanced considerations might naturally be expected to prevail, it is the field of education. Teaching is one of the oldest pursuits in which men engage. It is a pursuit, moreover, to which a long line of philosophers have devoted close atten- tion, and concerning which they have left the results of their observation and thinking for the benefit of later genera- tions. Yet is any other profession so prolific of fads? This aspect of education is the sub- ject of an address "On a Certain Ar- rogance in Educational Theorists" by Superintendent Maxwell, of this city, which is published in the last number of the Educational Review. Dr. Maxwell does not imitate these theorists by ex- hibiting towards them the spirit which he denounces. On the contrary, he strives to find in their foolish schemes the kernel of good which may be there. He recalls the days when vertical pen- manship was all the rage. With what dramatic action would a prominent ad- vocate of the system seat himself at a small table on the platform, and illus- trate by clever contortions of his body the unwholesome postures too general- ly assumed by school children in produc- ing the slant penmanship then in vogue! How merry he made his audience over the picture presented by Mr. Samuel Weller as, with the aid of a protruding and gyrating tongue, he laboriously in- dited his first love-letter! "I well re- member, too," remarks Dr. Maxwell, "the tone of authority, almost of infalli- bility, with which he spoke; how he made us all feel that we were absolute tyros in the matter of teaching penman- ship; and that, for the first time, in the light of his dramatic and luminous ex- position, our ignorance and our errors were revealed, . . . and how the straight path of vertical penmanship, in which there was to be no variableness neither shadow of turning, was to lead to health and efficiency in our pupils." We know the outcome of that cam- paign. The order went forth to teacn vertical penmanship; the attempt was made to obey it. But "instead of writ- ing vertical penmanship, our pupils, for the most part, acquired a slow, stiff, backhand penmanship, unlovely to the eye, and therefore illegible, and they as- sumed just as unhygienic postures as before." The coup de grace was given to the system when the business world raised an outcry over the inefficiency of the public schools, and graduates had to go to commercial schools to learn how to write rapidly and legibly. Yet the idea was not all bad. Children did sit in unhcalthful attitudes during their work. Only, the right solution had not been found. Equally untenable were the notion that memorizing had nothing to recommend it, and tho theory that the recess was a relic of barbarism, but each had its suggestion of improvement over existing conditions. What pre-
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Feb. 26, 19 14] T li e 1ST a t i o n 205 vented that improvement from being made much earlier, however, was the in- sistence of the root-and-branch reform- ers that there was nothing valuable in the old practice and nothing experimen- tal in the new. Of particular timeliness is Dr. Max- well's analysis of the present stirring about vocational education. Never, as he well says, "did the trumpet of arro- gance give forth a less uncertain sound than in the agitation with which the educational world is now seething for the introduction of industrial or trade teaching in the public schools." He puts his finger upon a vital spot when he dares to explain that this agitation originated with the manufacturers, who, having been cut off from the appren- ticeship system of training workmen, found it difficult to obtain a sufficient supply of skilled artisans, and accord- ingly proceeded to try to persuade the State to assume the burden. Dr. Max- well's discussion of this problem, his distinctions between what the schools can do in the way of industrial training and what they ought not, for the sake of the child, to undertake, should be read by every teacher and parent in the land. Here is his declaration of prin- ciples: I am in favor of whatever reasonable education will fit young people for their life work. But I am not in favor of giv- ing any narrow trade schooling at the expense of that general training which is the right of every child, native or adopt- ed, of the Empire State — that education which is founded on the right of the child to his spiritual inheritance — his in- heritance of literature, of the arts, of in- stitutions, and of religion — that educa- tion which proclaims that every power of the child, intellectual, physical, and mor- al, should be trained, or put in the way of being trained, to its fullest efficiency. Specifically, he holds that "the school is not the best place to train the skilled workman," and that manual training should be expanded so as to "develop skill in all the rudimentary processes that are common to all the trades." It is not only because of the wisdom of these particular recommendations re- garding vocational training that they should be widely read, but because also of the spirit of reasonableness, of mod- eration, of love for the old in combina- tion with welcome for the new — in a word, of sanity-H;hat they so unmistak- ably exhibit. THE PHILOSOPHER REDIVIVUS. January was the month of Fichte in Germany; of magazine articles, memor- ial lectures, public meetings in honor of the philosopher of the War of Libera- tion, who died a hundred years ago. Ger- many has been celebrating the Burger krieg, with whose events his last years were inwrought. His "Reden an die deutsche Nation," delivered before crowded halls of the Academy of Sci- ences in 1807-8, when the French still occupied Berlin, were exhortations to patriotism and national union with a very actual core of revolt. Quite apart from this, Fichte would be honored as a moulding spirit. From his teachings have come impulses to which modern Germany traces much of her economic and cultural development. He is one of the few who have brought philosophy into contact with practical life. His metaphysical ideas, that the essence of the Ego is action, that it is uncondition ed because it is acting out its own na- ture, have appealed at once to the mys- ticism in German blood, and to the prac- tical spirit of men eager to bring their environment under control. That this conception of philosophy as something that comes home to the bosoms and business of men is growing, there seems just now a good deal to show. "A revival of philosophy" is the way English reviews speak of the re- markable interest in Mr. Balfour's Gif- 9 ford lectures at Glasgow. Hundreds of plain citizens have waited in queues before the hall, and hundreds of thou- sands have read the press reports. An- nouncement that M. Bergson would de- liver the spring Gifford lectures is met with an enthusiasm presaging even wid- er attention. The confe'rences of M. Bergson in Paris, meanwhile, are attend- ed by people of all nations. Germans, Russians, Americans, and Italians are reported as taking notes minutely on "The Idea of the Soul in Spinoza" and "The Method of Philosophy." And it was Bergson who testified to finding "a real and hungry interest in philosophy" in New York. All this may be partly discounted by the public reputation of Balfour, and the immense vogue of Bergson. In some, the popularity of a thinker inspires distrust. Yet there is a growing public interest in pure philoso- phy. The atmosphere is different from the time when Kant or Hegel labored in academic chilliness, little known outside a specialized circle. The change seems due in large part to the labors of James and others, who believed that philoso- phy is the concern of humanity. At any rate, it is interesting whole new groups, as an instrument in the direct attack on life's problems. The nature of such interest is an elu- sive social phenomenon. It may spring from a sudden and inexplicable wave of curiosity. As in the individual, it may become almost an obsession. It affects certain states of mind much more than others. Merely to speak of the present movement as a "revival" is significant. At times, men and women take to think- ing metaphysically. Wireless, dread- noughts, radium, aeroplanes, cannot stand before a rebirth of interest in ul- timate things. Such a sincere concern, even if but temporary, might explain the interest of thousands in Haeckel, Bal- four, and the rest. Moreover, the trend of philosophy in the nineteenth century built up many anterooms to metaphysics. Psychology and sociology had their first anchorage in philosophy. Mill and Comte are still philosophical names. The in- terest of natural scientists in philosophy has been intensified by the evolutionary theory. No biologist can have failed to read "Creative Evolution." The man of ideas and information has a thousand new reasons to be interested in philo- sophical discussions. While remaining wary of exaggerated claims, we may be glad that philosophy seems stirring in her mystical and re- mote seat. It was the belief of James, as it is of some later leaders, that she should display qualities of wide and im- mediate human concern. Why cleave too closely to the old view of philosophy as a great system perfectible only in the future? Why not claim for it definite, living ends — at least of inspiration? Bergson, whether he live long or not, has stripped it of technical jargon and given it a style of literary appeal; sub- tle, yet with free play of illustration to make the abstract concrete. If many are to find in philosophy results com- mensurate with the ancient impulse that sends them there, it must be because it takes on a more human mission. It was its social quality that made it memor- able in the case of Fichte, and justified the inscription from Daniel on his grave: "And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firma-
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£Q6 ment; and tliey that turn many to righteousness as the stars tor aver and ever.'' SCANDINAVIAN BOOKS. Bergen, Norway, February L3. Norway's famous novelist, Knut Ham- sun, shortly before Christmas issued a new story, "B0rn av tiden" ("Children of the Hour"), which ranks as one of the best of his latter-day works. It is a quiet description of life and conditions in the north of his country, where the people have a stamp of their own. He knows their way of thinking and feeling, and in a few words can draw a vivid pic- ture. The book is full of keen observa- tions and witty remarks, at times bitter- ly ironical, and gives evident proof of the author's profound knowledge of hu- man nature and sympathy with the struggling and suffering of men. A book of memoirs which was looked forward to with great interest is the Norwegian professor Yngvar Nielsen's "Fra Johan Sverdrups dage" ("From Johan Sverdrup's Days"). It has proved to be in some respects a disappointment. The author took an active part in Nor- wegian politics in the latter part of the last century, more particularly in the eighties, and being a warm personal friend of the last union-king, the late Oscar II, he was known to have exercis- ed considerable influence on that ruler's opinions of political figures and align- ments in those stormy days. However, the book is less illuminating than was to be expected, and the author has not always avoided personal animus in char- acterizing political opponents. In spite of this drawback, the work will prove in- teresting reading to any one studying the modern political history of Norway. The most sensational book of the past season in Norway is a three-act play, "Paradesengen" ("The Bed of State"), by the well-known dramatist, Gunnar Heiberg. It has met with almost unani- mous denunciation from the press and public in its home country, and it is doubtful whether any Norwegian theatre dare give it a performance. The author has used living models in the boldest way imaginable, and builds the plot around the sick-bed and death of Bj0rnstjerne Bj0rnson, imputing to the latter's relatives the utmost eagerness to traffic in the great man's fame. The play is a malicious and venomous pam- phlet, and artistically ranks below the run of Heiberg's work. A very different book, though centring on the same sub- ject, is "Fra Bj0rnsons sidste dage" ("From Bj0rnson's Last Days"), the diary kept by Bj0rnson's nurse, Miss Nulle Finsen. It is a detailed account of Bj0rnson's remarkable struggle for life, of his varying moods from day to day, and a record of his many notewor- thy sayings uttered at the time. Never- T Ji N ;i t i on Uicless, it is a question whether such in- timate family interviews should be giv- en to the public. Other noteworthy Norwegian books are Niels KJajr'a extremely witty and sa- tirical comedy, "Det lykkelige valg" ("The Fortunate Election"), ridiculing present-day tendencies in Norwegian pol- itics; Erik Vullum's popular historical v. ork, "Hvorledes Norge blev frit" ("How Norway Became Free"); Olaf Hull's exquisite little volume of verse, "Nye digte" ("New Poems"), and the iiovels, "De unge dage" ("The Young Days"), by Peter Egge; "Den gamle [Vol. 98, No. 2539 ish books is the novel, "Oast den entfiadV ("Ga>st the One-eyed"), by the young Icelandic author, Gunnar Gun- narson. The scene is laid in Iceland, that island of mysticism and faery, and the leading motive of the story is sum- med up in the last wish uttered by the hero: "Oh, that all might know that the greatest thing in the world is to deny one's self and bring peace on earth." It is a beautiful glorification of self-abne- gation and charity. The story appeals to the best human instincts and deserves to find a large circle of readers. Perhaps the most popular present-day bygd" ("The Old Parish"), by Hjalmar writer in Denmark is Jeppe Aakjaer, of Christensen, and "Eiler Hundevart," by Regine Normann. The Swedish author, K. G. Ossian- Nilsson, is an industrious and volum- inous writer. Lately he has issued two new stories, "Odets man" ("The Man of Fortune") and "Lille Benjamin" ("Little Benjamin"). The former is a substantial autobiographical novel, pic- turing the author's own life from child- hood through stormy years of struggle and development up to the mature days of manhood, when he casts a retrospec- tive and contemplative glance at his own career. The story is full of life, and the psychological analysis of the young hero is of great interest, although not always quite convincing. "Little Benjamin" is a delightful story of a clergyman, who precipitates a quarrel with his brother clergymen by his liberal religious views. Other Swedish novels are Hjal- mar S0derberg's "Den alvarsamma leken" ("The Serious Game"); Marika Stjernstedt's "Daniela Hertz" and "Alma Wittfogels rykte" ("Alma Wittfogel's Reputation"); Elin Wagner's "Helga Wisbeck," and Sven Lidman's "Tvedrak- tensbarn" ("The Children of Discord"). The first ten years of the last century of Swedish history have lately been made the subject of many publications. The historian Sam Clason's new contri- bution to the elucidation of this period, "Gustaf IV Adolf och den europeiska krisen under Napoleon" ("Gustaf IV Adolf and the European Crisis under Napoleon"), deserves serious attention. The four essays, of which the book is made up, are scientifically supported and at the same time are sufficiently popular in treatment and style to make them capable of general interest. The author has made thorough investigations of for- eign archives and examined Swedish sources with critical accuracy and im- partiality, as was the case with his pre- vious investigations on the same sub- ject. The titles of the essays are "Swe- den's Commercial Interests and the Struggle between France and England," "Stedingk's Memoirs, a Biased Publi- cation," "Russian Dispatches from Sweden at the Outburst of the War," and "The Peace to Fredrikshamn." The most important of the new Dan- Jutland, whose last book was reviewed in a former letter to the Nation. His nov- els are written with great force and have contributed largely to the improve- ment of the condition of the Danish peasantry, and his melodious and beau- tiful lyrics, easily accessible to the pop- ular mind, rapidly became folk-songs which are sung all over the country. A small biographical sketch of Aakjaer has been written by K. K. Nieolaisen. It is the first attempt at a biography of Aakjaar in book-form, and though only fragmentary in scope and treat- ment, it. may prove of interest to those wishing to get a survey of the poet's chief works and characteristics. Otto Gelsted's biography of the famous Dan- ish writer, Johannes V. Jensen, is far more extensive and detailed. It is a well-written description of Jensen's life on the background of literary tendencies and currents among the younger genera- tion in the nineties. Among other biographies is the volume in the series "Mennesker" ("Men") writ- ten by Vilh. La Cour, and dealing with the life and work of the late editor and politician, J. Jessen. For its brief scope it gives much information. A larger and far more important work is Erik Henrichsen's biographical sketches of the statesmen and politicians who took a leading part in the Danish Constitu- tional campaign of the years 1870 to 1901,"Maendene fram forfatningskampen" ("The Men of the Constitutional Strug- gle"). This substantial volume is made up of eight essays dealing with the lives and times of as many political leaders, from Estrup to Klaus Berntsen, and gives a comprehensive, accurate, and in- tensely interesting survey. Other recent Danish books are stor- ies of the Congog by Jiirgen Jiirgen- sen, "Den store og den lille nod" ("The Big and the Small Flood"); a beautiful story by M. Andersen Nex0, "Lykken" ("Happiness"); a novel by Jakob Knud- sen, "En ungdom" ("A Young Man"), though It does not rank with his pre- vious works; a third collection of let- ters from Danish emigrants edited by Karl Larsen, "De der tog hjemmefra. HI" ("Those Who Left Home," Vol. Ill), and a valuable critical examination by
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Feb. 26, 1914I The N at ion 207 Hans Hri\ of the poet Johannes Ewald's life and works. AUNE KlLDAL. NEWS FOR BIBLIOPHILES. Not Long since n. London dealer adver- tised under Defoe's name a liook bear- ing the following title: V Free Discourse Wherein the Doc- trines Which make for Tyranny Are Dtsplay'd. The Title of our Rightful and Lawful King William Vindicated. \n.i the unreasonableness and mis- chievous Tendencj of the odious distinc- tion of a King de Facto, and de Jure, dis- rover'd. By a Person of Honour. [A quotation of 1 lines from "Somn. Scip. ,-. 1. 6. Ciceronis de Republica."] Lon- don: Pi Inted for John Lawrence at the Anpel in tin Poultrey, and Richard Baldwin near the Oxford-Arms in War- wick-Lane. 1697. 8vo 1 1. + 122 pp. + 2 II of advertisements ()n being questioned why he attributed to Defoe a hook not previously known to students, the dealer very frankly replied that he could find no sup- port for the ascription. Meanwhile, an examination of the copy owned by Harvard University the gift of the "re- publican" Thomas Hollis — led not only to the conclusion that the style pointed but Slightly, if at all. to Defoe, but to the discovery that an old hand had stated at the bottom of the title-page. "This was writt by Sr. Robert Howard." Whether or not this hand be that of Hollis. the fa.t that that worthy was an enthusiast for seventeenth-century republican literature would lend some support to any attribution found in a Whiggish book coming: from his library. Thus far no support for the ascription to Sir Robert Howard has been obtained from the usual sources of bibliographical information. There seems to be, how- ever, a fairly strong' chain of reason- ing which tends to warrant our adding to the bibliography of Dryden's brother- in-law an item not given to him by the British Museum Catalogue or by the Dic- tionary of National Biography. In the hist place, the author writes (p. 105) as if he were an old man, familiar with Parliament at the time of the Revolu- tion. Moreover, it was a "Person of Honour" that wrote "A Free Discourse," and eight years before Howard had adopted this disguise when writing his "Historical Observations Upon the Reigns of Edward I, II, III, and Richard 11." His "History of Religion" (1694) was from the pen of a "Person of Qual- ity," and the book just named heads the list of publications advertised by Bald- win in the little book we are discussing. Furthermore, our author was plainly an admirer of "Julian" Johnson — the Ben- Jochanan of "Absalom and Achitophel" — to whom Sir Robert Howard addressed a "Letter" in 1692, and whom he praised in "The History of the Reigns of Edward and Richard II" (1690). Finally, the substance and style of the book last named, the authorship of which Howard acknowledged on the title-page, seem strongly to support the ascription to him of the work under discussion, "A Free Discourse." The matter is to be decided only by an expert on Howard's writings, and — in the absence of a clearing-house of biblio- graphical information — one may be par- doned for tearing that it has been set- tled already without ones knowledge. One should be prepared to admit, also, that attributions found in old books have an uncomfortable way of turning- out to be wrong. For example, in Notes and Queries (1st ser. 11, 248) a contribu- tor, "B. R.," stated that his copy of "A Discourse of the National! Excellencies Of England. By R. H." (1658) had been conjecturally ascribed to Sir Robert Howard. The British Museum Cata- logue, under "England," gives this book to R. Hawkins. Has any student of bibliography information tending to show that Howard was not the "Person of Honour" who in 1697 came forward to defend King William's title in "A Free Discourse"? W. P. Tkent. Correspondence THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSO- CIATION. To the Editor of The Nation: Si p.: I have read with interest the letter of Dr. Dunbar Rowland in your issue of January 22 in regard to the management of the American Histori- cal Association, and the replies of Messrs. MacDonald and Jameson, appearing in the issue of February 5. Neither of these replies appears to me to face squarely the real charge, which is, to put it blunt- ly, that the American Historical Asso- ciation is run by a small clique or ring which controls the elections and divides the honors among the members and ad- herents of the group. This charge has been made with increasing frequency during the last few years. It has been made usually in a jesting way, nobody caring to appear to treat the matter too seriously, both at the meetings of the Association and wherever groups of his- torians have been casually thrown to- gether. Furthermore, there appears to be very little difference of opinion as to who constitute the ring. 1 did not support Mr. Rowland's move- ment at Charleston because I did not approve of the remedy he suggested, but I do believe that the facts which I am about to submit afford ground for a radical change of policy on the part of the Association. As I have served on the nominating committees of both the American Historical Association and the American Political Science Association, I hope I may be allowed to contrast the policies of the two organizations in the matter of elections to office. The tenure of such offices as secretary, treasurer, and the majiaging editors of the re- views published by the two asso- ciations should in the nature of things be more or less permanent, and in the following discussion we shall leave these offices out of consideration. The constitution of the American Historical Association provides for the annual elec- tion by ballot of seven officers and six members of the Council; and the Coun- cil, composed of the officers and coun- cillors so elected, together with the ex- presidents of the Association, chooSes the board of six editors of the American Historical Review. Now, leaving out of account the two secretaries, the trea- surer, t lie curator, and the managing edi- tor of the Review, we have fourteen po- sitions of honor, with little work at- tached, to be filled each year. Of the fourteen men at present holding these positions thirteen were in the office-hold- ing group last year, and only one was taken from outside. At the recent meet- ing of the American Political Science Association I was chairman of the com- mittee on nominations. Omitting, as was done in the case of the American Histori- cal Association, the secretary and trea- surer and the managing editor of the American Political Science Review, there ere in the Political Science Association seventeen positions to be filled each year. Of the seventeen men recently chosen only six held office the preceding year, and eleven were taken from the general membership of the Association. Why this difference in associations whose constitutions and general purposes are similar? It is the fixed policy of the Political Science Association to en- courage the younger men who have de- monstrated their ability to do good work by sharing the honors of the Associa- tion with them, and enlisting their aid and counsel. What, on the other hand, appears to be the policy of the Ameri- can Historical Association? Is it a pure- ly selfish one of reserving the honors for a select group of older men, or is it to guard zealously the interests of the As- sociation against the radical views of the rising generation of historians, or yet, is it possible that the present group of office-holders believe that they enjoy a monopoly of the brains and tal- ent of the Association? As long as the ex-presidents are members of the Coun- cil for life, not even the presence of two such doughty Progressives as Col. Roose- velt and Professor Hart can rescue that body from hopeless conservatism. Surely, then, a little new blood should afford no ground for alarm. John H. LatanIS. Johns Hopkins University, February 20. WESLEY OR SATAN? To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: I have just read in the Nation of this week the interesting contribution of Stuart P. Sherman. His reference in this to Wesley is to me surprising, and I question its accuracy. Wesley was a voluminous writer, and I do not profess to have read him exhaustively, but I was surprised at the implication that Wesley had somewhere said "Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven." Has not Mr. Sher- man confused Wesley with one of Mil- ton's conspicuous characters? I hope he- will enlighten myself and other readers, of the Nation on this point. Everett O. Fisk. Rostotl. FVlirtiiiry 7. To the Editor ok The Nation : Sir; In attributing to the founder or Methodism the wicked sentiment to which Mr. Fisk refers I leaned, perhaps a little too heavily, upon the Rev. Alex- ander Gordon, author of the article on Wesley in the Dictionary of National
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208 r I i T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2539 Biography. The passage is OS follows: "The story is told in a pamphlet of 1792 1 hi 1 the usher Andrew Tooke, of the 'Pantheon,' remonstrated with him [Wes- ley] for associating with his juniors whom he harangued, and got the answer, "Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven.' " Gordon reported the story, I suppose, as characteristic, even if not strictly au- thentic. I have not myself been able to find it in Wesley's works or his journals or his letters or in the biographies. But neither have I been able to find in the literary remains the man of whose conversation Johnson said that he could never get enough, and of whom he declared, "He can talk well on any subject." The Wes- ley that has come down to us — thanks to his own foresight and the pious solici- tude of his literary executors and biog- raphers— is an almost unmitigated saint, pretty thoroughly purged of worldly pas- sion. To the student of biography, however, the authorized version of Wesley seems just a bit incoherent; seems to lack a link which the "pamphlet of 1792" sup- plies. In the first chapter, so to speak, we behold the rigorous high churchman, the curator of the "Holy Club," the as- cetic Oxford recluse, too apprehensive about his own soul's salvation to risk contact with Epworth rectory. In the second chapter we discover "the sole pro- prietor of scores of Methodist chapels all over the island." Having once tasted the delight of swaying thousands, he set up, in defiance of bishops, a more than archiepiscopal throne in the "suburbs of hell." Lest I exaggerate the autocratic nature of Wesley's rule, I quote the words of an unquestionably sympathetic biog- rapher, Prof. C. T. Winchester: "He was absolute commander of the army of itiner- ant preachers; he was the judge who finally decided all cases of conduct or discipline; he had the power to admit or to exclude every member of every Meth- odist society in the United Kingdom." It hardly seems possible that Wesley's fa- vorite text could have been that which bids us subject ourselves to the "higher powers." Almost at the end of his life he declared that he never willingly broke from the Established Church, just as Cobbett near the end of his life protested that he never desired to alter a single established institution of his country. As a matter of fact, both men did alter the institutions of their country; for in both was coupled with a general passion, more or less splendid, for saving the world an individual passion for having the salva- tion of the world in their own hands. Now, as for associating Wesley with Satan, I must yield all the credit for that suggestion to Mr. Fisk. My own adventurous flight ends with Wesley and Cobbett. Yet I must say that, so far as my reading and observation go, all men of eminent organizing and administrative talents seem to approve the position of Wesley, or— if Mr. Fisk still insists that the passage is spurious — of "one of Mil- ton's conspicuous characters." Stuart P. Sherman, Urbuna, HI., February 20. TIIIBUTE TO DE VINNE. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: The death of Theodore L. De Vinne removes a man of gentle disposi- tion and sturdy and noble character. It is not eulogy but the plainest statement of fact to say that he occupied in his pro- fession a position that few men reach in any profession — an acknowledged pri- macy. This came about, first, through his absolute mastery of the details of a craft which he elevated into a fine art, reviving the traditions of the old hand- printer; and, secondly, through his un- failing ideality, and another quality that goes with ideality — humility, the Cinder- ella of the virtues. He had pride in his profession and pride in his contributions to it, but never any false pride that kept him from learning a more excellent way. His associates of the Century Magazine were always sure not only that he would take the most honorable and generous position on questions of business policy — his passion for the best being a moral tonic — but that they could count on his devotion and ingenuity in providing re- sources to meet new emergencies in problems of printing. In the days of the development of American wood-engraving these emer- gencies were continually arising. Mr. Drake's fertile experiments in extending the frontiers of that art made large drafts upon Mr. De Vinne's skill as a pictorial printer. The subtleties of one process called for subtleties in the other, and in the frequent and enthusiasvlc conferences between these two masters each learned from the other the possibilities and the limitations of the multiple reproduction of fine art. All sorts of adverse condi- tions had to be encountered: the painter or illustrator was unfamiliar with print- ing methods; the weather would affect the rollers; the ink would suddenly be found to be below standard, or the paper would run poor; but, come what might, Mr. De Vinne never lost patience. Ar- tists, engravers, and pressmen were brought together, to the manifest im- provement of the total result. Every- thing was sacrificed to good work, and the spirit of the old Florentine guilds took hold of the De Vinne Press. That the traditions of that intense period still survive, may be seen from the admirable printing of Cole's engraving of the Rem- brandt portrait in the February Century. Emphasis has justly been laid on the value of Mr. De Vinne's work to Mr. Cole's wonderful art. The time is likely to come when back numbers of the mag- azine will be sought for in garrets and bookstalls for the impressions of Cole's work alone, for there exist only a few sets of "engraver's proofs" of his blocks —these chiefly of the six sets of Old Mas- ters and of the seventh group of Mas- terpieces in American Galleries, now in course of publication. Cole's burin, how- ever, was not Mr. De Vinne's severest taskmaster; other engravers of our Gold- en Age of the wood-cut were more diffi- cult to follow. But, though he some- times approached the difficult problem with misgivings, the master printer never admitted an impossibility. He revelled in hard work as well as good work, and in passing beyond the frontiers that had been known to his craft. Now that he has passed beyond the Great Frontier of Life, let us hope that there will be some- thing beautiful and congenial for him to achieve. R. U. Johnson. New York, February 17. AN ITALIAN PHILOLOGIST. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: On February 4 there died in Florence, at the age of eighty-one, Gio- vanni Tortoli, a man not widely known even in Italy for creative or scholarly production, but one who, having dedi- cated his whole life to lexicography and the study of the Tuscan idiom in its classical purity, certainly exerted a steady and beneficial influence for beauty on the literature of his contemporaries. He was chiefly known in connection with the ancient and famous Academy of the Crusca, of which he had been a member ever since 1858, and president since 1905. He was one of the principal compilers of the famous, though still uncompleted, dictionary of that Society, and had besides published several erudite studies, chiefly on Ariosto and other six- teenth-century writers. Tortoli was not the kind of philologist who has a passion for the mere science of minute linguistics apart from artistic expression, but rather one of those se- vere students of the classics in their own literature who yearn to bring to the rather loose literary expression of their time the austere simplicity of a former and undeniably greater age. He was a humanist in the art of words, strong in erudition and taste, whose dignified vocation it was to stand retiringly out of the mad rush of literary output, a warn- ing and a restraint to his contempo- raries, a teacher and a salutary example to writers of the future. Rudolph Altrocchi. Harvard University, February 22. MR. BRYAN AND THE CURRENCY ACT. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: The Democratic National Com- mittee has issued, as a campaign docu- ment, a pamphlet on the new Banking law. Mr. Bryan is one of the contrib- utors, and in an orderly enumeration of the meritorious features of the bill he places first: "The law (1) recognizes the right of the Government to issue money." This will be a revelation to those who have not a first-hand acquaintance with the contents of the bill, but have relied on press comments, especially the ap- proval of such sound-money journals as the Nation and New York Evening Post. Those who have made even a cursory examination of the bill itself will know that there is no ground for such a state- ment. The provisions for note issue will be found in section 16 of the act. The chairman of the board of the nine direc- tors of each regional bank is designated as the "Federal reserve agent," and "he shall be a person of tested banking ex- perience." When his bank is in need
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Feb. 26, 1914] The Nation 209 of additional currency, it makes appli- cation through him to the Federal Re- serve Board for the issue of notes. "Such application shall be accompanied with a tender to the local Federal reserve agent of collateral in amount equal to the sum of the Federal reserve notes thus ap- plied for and issued pursuant to such ap- plication." It is true the Government is- sues the notes, but only to the banks, who must apply for them of their own free will and at the same time offer approved security for every dollar issued. There Is no difference in principle between this and the old system; the difference is merely one of method of issue and form of security. United States bonds are no longer the sole basis of issue, but any form of approved commercial paper — "asset-banking," as in Canada. The Gov- ernment on its own initiative cannot is- sue a dollar; it rests with the banks — where it ought to rest — to expand and contract the currency according to the requirements of business. The Federal Reserve Board in its discretion may re- fuse the application of the Federal re- serve agent for notes, but has no power to compel him to issue any. If this is Government issue of money, as the greenbacks and Treasury notes issued di- rectly by the Government and resting on no security but the credit of the Gov- ernment, we shall have to extend our definition of the term and consider all money, however regulated, as Govern- ment issue. The fact that the notes are made obligations of the Government is the only consolation I can find in the bill for Mr. Bryan and those who sym- pathize with his views on money. Glanville Terrell. Lexington, Ky., February 14. [This phase of the Act was fully dis- cussed in the Nation in an editorial of December 25, 1913. — Ed. Nation.] A CALL FOR AMERICAN BOOKS. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: May I call your attention to a way by which American publishers and authors could do something to advance the cause of American letters abroad? Of the Paris periodicals which have a wide circulation among the more ad- vanced and younger literary circles of Europe, none is more notable than the semi-monthly Mercure de France, which should not be confounded with a famous periodical of the same name which ap- peared in Paris during the ancient re- gime. More than a third of each number is given up to what is called the "Revue de la Quinzaine," one feature of which department is a collection of short ar- ticles devoted to the literary affairs of various countries, signed as a rule by natives or by Frenchmen who make a specialty of the literature about which they write. Thus we find in the Quinzaine from issue to issue "Lettres anglaises," "Lettres allemandes," "Lettres itali- ennes," and even "Lettres neo-grecques," "Lettres hispano-americaines," "Lettres bresiliennes," "Lettres roumaines," "Let- tres tcheques," etc. Until three or four years ago, the "Lettres anglaises" embraced things American as well as things British, with results which sometimes humbled our literary pride. Thus, books whose sub- ject, author, and publisher were all three American, would appear in the chronique of the Mercure as if all three hailed from the United Kingdom, the name of the London publisher, who in many cases had simply imported a few copies of the book in sheets, being particularly in evi- dence, thus causing a glaring injustice to our authorship and our publishing ac- tivities. As I had friends among the ruling spirits of the Mercure, I used now and then to protest against this British seizure of our literary wares, not unlike what occurred on the high seas at the be- ginning of the last century in the mat- ter of the impressment of our sailors. So one day the editor of the Mercure — M. Alfred Vallette — to whom more than to any one person is due its solid es- tablishment in a city where so many periodicals are but ephemeral, turned on me and asked, "Well, will you take charge of the American side of the Eng- lish language?" And this is how it hap- pens that I am the author of the "Let- tres amerieaines" of the Mercure de France. And now may I ask, through your col- umns, the support of American authors and publishers in my efforts to show continental Europe that we do other things in the United States besides coin dollars and pack pork? When I ask for a book, I do so because there is some- thing in it or about it that will help the cause on this side of the Atlantic. The honorarium attached to these let- ters is very small, and the writing them in French greatly increases my labor. So for me "there is no money in it." Nor can these necessarily short notices, which are purposely more bibliographical than critical, be of much direct and im- mediate commercial value to publisher or author. But they do something to open the eyes of the literary world over here to the intellectual movement in America, about which so many even intelligent Europeans are quite ignorant. For in- stance, I was once asked by the wife of a member of the Institute, and she her- self something of a blue-stocking, if we ever gave Shakespeare's plays in Ameri- ca. Theodore Stanton. Paris, February 13. In. accepting the endowment the Uni- versity authorities were bound to keep faith with the expressed wishes of the testator, but by virtually giving over to Technology the control of three-fifths of the income of that fund (also additional funds), they have acted in a way that seems widely removed from what was in- tended. Indeed, it is stated (Harvard Grad. Mag., June, 1905) that Mr. McKay distinctly objected to leaving his money to the Institute of Technology. That the agreement was effected without due deliberation by the Board of Overseers, without the knowledge of the McKay trustees, and without consideration by the faculties concerned, gives evidence of haste, or indiscretion. After the action ill regard to the McKay fund what assur- ance is there that funds now in hand, or that may come to the University, will be handled with regard to the expressed wishes of the donors. Harvard University has never given de- grees to women, but Technology is co- educational. It seems that conditions may well arise by which Harvard will be forced to give degrees to women un- der the combination agreement. The lover ot Harvard and her fair name has cause to fear the results of this recent action, and the autocratic methods by which it was brought about. Graduate. Boston, Mass., February 23. Literature THE HARVARD-TECHNOLOGY AGREEMENT. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: The editorial in your issue of Jan- uary 15, and the letter in your issue of January 29, consider critically and in part adversely the Harvard-Technology "agreement." By the will of the late Gordon McKay, as published in the Har- vard Graduates' Magazine (June, 1905 p. 757), he bequeathed to Harvard a great sum of money to found a school of applied science, on most liberal terms. Should the Corporation of Harvard fail to accept the gift, "strictly on the trusts," within two years, the testator then di- rected his trustees to form a separate and independent school to carry out his purposes. THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION. Introduction to the History of Religions. By Prof. C. H. Toy. (Hand-Books on the History of Religions, Vol. IV.) Boston: Ginn & Co. $3. At last we have in English, and in a book written for the English-speaking world, an adequate outline of that wide series of investigations that, for the past half-century, have been applied to the origin and development of religious be- lief. By the grandiloquent eloquence of Max Miiller we were led to believe that a comparative study of the religions of the world would throw light upon the nature of religion in general and coun- teract the disruptive effects of Kant's "Kritik." Under his guidance we turn- ed over the weary, dreary pages of the Sacred Books of the East and emerged after that infliction in the same condi- tion as Faust after his profound re- searches in all branches of study. But, if the comparative study of religions has not altogether satisfied the expecta- tions with which they have been stud- ied with such assiduity, much Instruc- tion has been elicited during the search as to the early beliefs of mankind, and it was time that these researches should be summarized in accessible and trust- worthy form, as has at last been done by Professor Toy. His work is both wid- er and more detailed than that of Pro- fessor Jevons, his chief predecessor in English, while it Is also more sympa-
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2lO Tli e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2539 thetic and leBS doctrinaire than the "Orpheus" of M. Salomon Reinach, its chief Continental analogue. Excellent, as is Professor Toy's sum- mary ol" tlie problems of the science of religion, it is difficult to see how it can be considered by him, according to his title, an introduction to the history of religions. It is rather a series of essays on different aspects of the religious pro- blem, brought together without much inner connection, as can be seen from an enumeration of its Topica. These run as follows: Nature of Religion, The Soul, Early Religious Ceremonies, Early Cults, Totemism and Taboo, Gods, Myths, Magic and Divination, The Higher The- istic Development, Social Development of Religion, Scientific and Ethical De- velopments in Religious Systems. This enumeration will be, of itself, sufficient to show that there is no attempt to deal with the subject in any historic order, otherwise Totemism and Taboo would obviously have come earlier in the analy- sis. But "Introduction" is a term that can cover a multitude of inconsistencies. Professor Toy's treatment, however, does not, by any means, suffer from this lack of historico-logical arrangement. He has seemingly no theory of his own as to the historical development of religious cult, thought, and feeling, and thereby es- capes the narrowing influence of a self- imposed scheme, such as is discernible in Jevons and robs Reinach of any claim to adequacy. Professor Toy is a report- er, rather than an advocate. It is, indeed, extraordinary how, in turning over these pages, we find them strewn with the remains of theories of the origin of religion that were succes- sively the fashion of the scientific day. Phallicism and totemism, sun myths and lorest cults, animism and fetichism, wor- ship of the dead and of the living, wind and water, stocks and stones, stars and dragons, all flit across the scene, each offering the key to all the mythologies. Having no parti pris, Professor Toy deals, in turn, with all these aspects of early religion and is enabled to give to each its proper but restricted place. His criticisms of these one-sided theories are of admirable sanity, notably in the chap- ter on totemism and taboo, which, in the hands of W. R. Smith and Prazer, were at one time thought to solve the problem of religious origins. Professor Toy is equally satisfactory in his treat- ment of these scholars' view of sacrifice, which must also be regarded as one of the milestones of mythological theory that have now been left behind. The value of Professor Toy's book con- sists in its comprehensiveness. In it the student of comparative religion will find, in one or other of its twelve hundred numbered paragraphs, concise informa- tion of the present state of scholarship with regard to almost any problem in which he can well be interested, and, In most cases, with reference to the best and latest literature on the subject. It gives not alone the savage or primitive views on the various topics, but includes references to the greater creeds of the historic nations. This feature of the work, which forms its main strength, has naturally its weaker side. No one man can entirely control the vast litera- ture which has sprung up with regard to these problems during Professor Toy's long career as scholar, while, on many topics, it was impossible for him to go into sufficient detail to be really illuminating. In particular, his use of secondary sources on the complex and difficult problems relating to the relig- ions of India leads, at times, to unsat- isfactory vagueness. On the other hand, his expert acquaintance with Hebrew and Semitic religious phenomena gives his treatment often an air of confidence and thoroughness, which is the more satisfactory since none of his predeces- sors, except Tiele, has approached the subject from the Semitic field. The wide extent over which Professor Toy's book ranges estops any detailed criticism in this place of his utterances on the many disputed points of his sub- ject. A few sporadic notes may suffice to indicate the broad bearings of the book. In dealing, as he does occasion- ally, with the social relations of relig- ion, he leaves out of account, for the most part, the economic background of its various phases, the connection, for example, of totemism with hunting, of the gods of field and forest with agri- culture, and the like. In his discussion of the connection of totemism with the domestication of animals, in which he adopts his rather favorite agnostic atti- tude, further support might have been found from Galton's essay in his "In- quiries into Human Faculty." On burial ceremonies (189 et seq.) and on dead kin (360 et seq.) he might have made reference to Dr. Frazer's important study in the Journal of the Royal An- thropological Institute for 1886. One misses any adequate treatment of the Lares and Penates; Fustel de Coulanges may have laid too much stress upon the gods of the hearth and their connection with the political organization of Greeks and Romans, but to omit all reference to his views makes a serious gap in Professor Toy's wide treatment of his subject. His view of the origin of cir- cumcision was, to a large extent, antici- pated by Sir Richard Burton, of which he seems to be unaware. The suggested relations of bacteriology to demonology and taboo are not considered by Dr. Toy, though it is curious how many of the precautions taken against the presence of demons, or the transgression of ta- boo, resemble the most recent methods of sepsis. Modern hygiene has only re- cently discovered what a powerful demon Beelzebub (the god of files) is. The myth of the lunar eclipse current In Bast Asia deserved fuller notice than 18 given in section 849. It is by no means certain that iairy-tales are survivals of myths, as is asserted on p. 881. Profes- sor Toy's treatment of magic is perhaps the least satisfactory part of his work. Here his general agnostic attitude leads to a necessary vagueness. Following, for the most part, Frazer, he regards magic as a false science of sequences, which reminds one rather of the old ex- planation why treason did never pros- per. Magic that reaches a true science of sequences is, according to this, either science or religion. The book is concluded by an elaborate bibliography of the subject, running close to a thousand numbers. Some of the references are rather casual and vague, as, for example, "The Hibbert Lectures," "The Gifford Lectures"; but, as a rule, the selection is adequate. Hartland's book on the "Legend of Per- seus," Tuchman's papers on Fascina- tion, in Melusine, Goldziher's master- ly sketch of Islam, and Fustel de Cou- lange's "La Cite antique" are the most notable omissions; Dr. Charles's edition of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigraphica was probably too recent for insertion in the list. CURRENT FICTION. The Forester's Daughter. By Hamlin Garland. New York: Harper & Bros. Mr. Garland says in his "foreword" that he had intended to writer a longer and more important book about his Supervisor McFarlane and the problems of forestry, but that his heroine, Berrie, "took the story into her own strong hands and made of it something so in- timate and so idyllic" that the "more prosaic element" had no chance. This is perhaps as well, since the forester and his difficult task have already been pretty thoroughly "novelized," and there are no signs here of fresh treatment at the hands of the present writer. We have hardly more than a rough sketch in the background of McFarlane, the old-time forester, and his college-bred staff, pitted against cattlemen on the one hand and lumbermen on the other. Nothing happens, not even the expected forest fire. As for Berrie McFarlane, she is the familiar maiden of Far West- ern romance, the rose of the ranch 0, with a hand for any cinch, and a heart for the single tenderfoot destined from all time to leave New Haven for her. The original thing about the story Is that this young gentleman, who rejoices in the distinctively Eastern name of Wayland Norcross, is not the latest conquering halfback to leave the Yale campus, but a "lunger" relegated to Bear Tooth Forest as to a last resort. But even this is not the moat extraordi- nary thing about him. Instead of grow- ing a new pair of lungs and winning
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Feb. 26, 191 4I T li e Natio n 211 his way, over the prostrate bodies of herdsman and wood-butcher, to the post of Head Forester, he remains, what he seems to be at the outset, a weakling and a puppy. He thinks like a school- girl and talks like a book. Anybody can pick on him with perfect comfort; his hour of triumph is that in which the villain, his rival, topples him over like a man of straw and breaks his head as It deserves to be broken. This nega- tive feat, heaped upon his previous rec- ord of p'isillanimity, is too much for the heroine. All barriers are down be- tween them; he is the perfect foil and fondling of a strong woman, and has to marry her whether he will or no. Again we must express doubt as to Mr. (J.-irland's capacity for extended nar- rative; and wish him a return of the sincere mood and restrained hand which produced those little classics of Middle Western literature, "Main-Travelled Roads." William and Hill. By Grace MacGowan Cooke and Carolina Wood Morrison. New York: The Century Co. It was wortli the effort of collabora- tion to create a new hero for the boy- world. William and Bill are cousins bur- dened with the same name but designat- ed differently in familiar discourse. Moreover, the respective appellations be- stowed upon them are also a clue to their characters. William is mothers boy, stiff, petted, polite, with a distinct weakness for romance and gallantry. Bill is rather the unspoiled product of nature, blunt, outspoken, rough and ready, but tender at heart. However, "William and Bill" is not given over merely to a study of the two individuals. It points out that every true boy should have the characteristics of both these personages that the nature of Bill should be softened by a certain degree of Wil- liamness, while William needs certain traits of Billiness to be quite complete. Oreen Chalk. By Doris Somerville. New York: John Lane Co. The man "who loves to be loved" and is distinguishable from all others of his kind by "an uncommonly black mole on his left cheek, somewhere near the eye, " shatters the hearts of three — Lady Grace, the blonde adventuress who plays the game of love and disdain only less expertly than he; pretty Suzanne, the model from Montparnasse, who asks nothing better than to grovel at his feet, and, lastly, his young American wife. The latter he is obliged to marry to procure a certain fortune to which he has long considered himself entitled. She, poor thing, supposes she is marry- ing the painter whose admired pictures forever repeat one face, and that her own. But the man with the uncommon- ly black mole on his left cheek has noth- ing to do with the pictures beyond sign- ing them and reaping the rewards of their fame. They are really the crea- tions of his illegitimate half-brother, whom he keeps hard at work on a sti- pend. Happiness, for this humble child of genius, consists solely in the privilege of painting this one face ad infinitum. (In early youth he had been the victim of a motor-'bus accident. This face had bent above him then — and what more natural sequence than that he should paint it till he died?) Is this, perhaps, the nightmare of an art student? The book is as full of studio and boudoir banalities as any Paris Salon — and infinitely more weari- some. The Jam Oirl. By Frances R. Sterrett. New York: D. Appleton & Co. With reprehensible conservatism, we have limited the sphere of jam to the pantry-shelf and unregenerate urchins. Miss Sterrett, however, appears as its liberator, and reveals the true signifi- cance of this delicacy as a vital factor in industrial competition, as an incen- tive towards family feuds, and as a means of courtship. At least such is the mission in the "Jam Girl" from the town of Waloo, on the Mississippi. These considerations account for the fact that when Judith Henderson and Hiram Bingham met in the night train from Lausanne to Paris, they were strangely drawn to each other. The sudden friendship was strengthened by a mutual appreciation of the "Raisinee de France" or "King's Jam" upon which they breakfasted in a tiny inn at Mon- tarlier. Unknown to each other, both were the offspring of the jam of the town of Waloo. Their fathers had in- augurated the jam industry there and had devoted their lives to the manufac- ture of an ideal condiment. But dissen- sion had set in, and business rivalry grew into a family feud. Only it did not pass on to the second generation. Accordingly, it happened that when Hiram Bingham was returning from a trip abroad in search of famous jam recipes, outdoing those of the Hender- sons, and found Judith Henderson in the train for Paris accused by the cus- toms officers of smuggling a cake of milk chocolate into France, the heir of the Bingham Jam Factories gallantly came to her rescue. Both were free from the feelings of natural repulsion which they should have experienced. Nay, the un- suspecting "Bingham Jam" heir entrust- ed to his rival's daughter a rare collec- tion of jam recipes employed by the house of Medici, when jam was at its dainty height in Italy. Later, the vol- ume fell into the hands of Judith's fath- er, and there were complications. A jolly little farce, with diverting in- cidents; it will amuse the reader. THE SPIRIT OF DIAMOND PITT. Lady Hester Lucy Stanhope. By Frank Hamel. With 20 full-page photogra- vures. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Co. $5 net. It is surprising that the author of this careful and interesting study has no- where suggested a parallel between Lady Hester Stanhope and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Nearly a century sep- arated them, and there are strong points of difference. Lady Hester was never what Lady Mary boasted herself, "a rake at reading." Politics concerned her more than books in youth, as occultism did in age — both as means of power. An amazing talker, she had no ambition to shine in literature. She was not at all the more interested in meeting Byron because he was a poet. "I saw nothing in him but a well-bred man, like many others," she remarks care- lessly, "for, as for poetry, it is easy enough to write verses." When Lamar- tine, long famous throughout Europe, visited her in her hermitage on Mt. Leb- anon, she assured him that she loved him, but had never heard of him. Much earlier, upon her first taste of what power means in the Orient, she had frankly expressed her creed: To command is to be really great; to have talents is to talk sense without a book in one's hand; and to have manners is to accommodate one's self to the cus- toms and tastes of others, and to make them either fear or love you. This is in refreshing contrast with the literary servility of Lady Mary Wortley. English society under Queen Anne was dominated by the wits and the poets. Matters were very different a century later. Lady Mary and Lady Hester each represented the "new wo- manhood" of an age. Both were spir- ited, fond of power, impatient of con- vention. Both tasted deep of the Orient, and experienced many years of self-im- posed exile from England. Here, after all, the resemblance ends. Lady Hester came of an imperious race. Independence and authority were her daily bread, and vast empire was the dream of her life. "Diamond Pitt" was her great-great-grandfather on both sides. Chatham was her grandfather, and the younger Pitt her adored uncle. From Diamond Pitt, that unconquerable buccaneer of the East India trade, her inheritance seems plainest. Like him, she loved to rule those about her with Oriental absolutism. Lord Rosebery has asserted that "his blood ... all aflame from the East, . . . blazed up again in Hester Stanhope": and Mr. Hamel agrees that "she was atavistic, a reversion to type, and undoubtedly In- herited from her great-great-grandfather his spirit of adventure, his love of the pomp and splendor of the East, and his forcible and aggressive attitude." Such B nature is not framed for domestic
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212 rn Xlie Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2539 joys. Lady Mary Wortley had far more feminine softness and amenability. If Wortley Montagu had been a marriage- able man, he might have made a happy woman of Lady Mary. Lady Hester had no such possibility. One man she would have married if he had wanted her; it was well for him that he did not. She was a born potentate, and her consort would have had to acknowledge it, or suffer for his folly. Her happiest years were those in which she ruled as a sort of princess in the court of her uncle Pitt. His death left her at loose ends, homeless in England, and instinct drew her towards the East as the home of her domineering spirit. Her first dis- appointment of the heart, or of the sex instinct, had been followed by a deep mutual attachment with Sir John Moore. She spoke of him in later life as the man she was to have married; what- ever the chances may have been, his death at Corunna put an end to them. The same year, she left England for Sicily, intending an ordinary journey; but she was never to see England again. In her suite (she was supposed to be poor, but she had a suite) went as pri- vate physician a young Dr. Meryon, just out of Oxford, who was to be her Bos- well. Upon his letters and "Memoirs" our knowledge of Lady Hester's life out of England largely depends. Biographers are complaisant beyond a single generation; your Johnsonian is likely to overlook Boswell's frailty as well as Johnson's own. Mr. Hamel nowhere seems to taste the peculiar savor of young Dr. Meryon's character: his habitual mental teeter between ser- vility and bumptiousness, the daily en- durance of insult, and semi-occasional flashes of resentment which his fancy magnifies into expressions of dignified independence. He has no humor and a vain pomp of words. But he has a sin- gle faculty which clears him, like Bos- well, from the name of lickspittle, the faculty of honest worship. Suffering continually from the major tyranny and petty exactions of his mistress, he looks up to her as the greatest of women, com- pares her to Portia, Semiramis, Aspasia; declares that no one equals her in talent but Napoleon. His journey to Sicily lengthened itself to a seven years' exile, and he left her to drag a lengthening chain. Again and again, during the years that followed, he returned to the East at her summons, if necessary tak- ing his wife and family (with whom Lady Hester would have nothing to do). They parted at last only when, a few months before her death, she began to wall up the approach to her little strong- hold at Djoun, as a final act of defiance to the world. A strange and picturesque career led up to that act. She had hardly left England when she met and attached to her party an English youth named Bruce, rich, handsome, and twenty. She was fourteen years older, but a liaison resulted which she herself refused eith- er to deny or to mask as a marriage. After a few years they parted, as she had foreseen they must, and Lady Hes- ter was left discredited at home, and, but for the faithful Meryon, alone abroad. But she had already shown extraordinary power over the Oriental mind, especially (in part by virtue of her fearlessness and her remarkable horsemanship) over the Arab tribes- men. Here, if social and domestic hap- piness were lost to her, she could still assert herself. Here she was hailed as a queen. There had been prophecies; and gradually the belief grew upon her that she was to be Queen of Jerusalem: all the East was to be in her hands, and all the West at her mercy. Studies in magic, isolation, unbridled authority in her small household domain, intensified her egotism. In later years she was in- sane as tyrants are, a pitiful, and it seems now, rather absurd, figure. Eng- land gossiped about her for a genera- tion: it was said that she had secretly married an Arab chief, that she owned slaves, used Eastern methods of torture, and so on. She lived on credit for years and, when her creditors finally grew insistent, wrote the most insulting letters to Palmerston, and to Victoria herself. She became a laughing-stock. Yet even at this time one friend, Sir William Napier, rose in her defence: Her influence is vast with the Arab tribes, and with all those who have suf- fered from Ibrahim's army, or who sigh over the tottering condition of the Turk- ish Empire. She, more than any per- son, can secure to England the friend- ship of nations whose good-will must be vitally essential to our Interests, when — and the time must soon come — we have to contend with Russia for the indepen- dence of the Porte. And if her disposi- tion was not too noble, too magnanimous, to seek such revenge, English travellers in the East might bitterly rue the insults offered to Lady Hester Stanhope. But Lady Hester was to be of little further account to herself or to Eng- land. A few months later she died be- hind her walls on Lebanon, alone but for a black servant, alone, embittered, and hopeless. So was snuffed out the last pale flicker of the ruthless, com- manding spirit of old Diamond Pitt. Transatlantic Historical Solidarity. By Charles Francis Adams. New York: Oxford University Press. $1.75. The second course of American lec- tures at Oxford University was given by Mr. Adams. His predecessor, Mr. Rhodes, undertook to present in three lectures a general review of the War of Secession, necessarily in a very con- densed form. Mr. Adams selected certain Incidents of the time indicating how far certain of the main questions at issue touched the concerns of Europe. Rhodes considered the war as a civil or domes- tic quarrel; Adams views it first as the birth of a nationality, and secondly as involving matters in which Great Brit- ain and France felt a vital interest. In either case the manner of treatment was influenced by a consciousness that the auditors knew little of the issues involv- ed. Mr. Bryce had given friendly coun- sel on that point, and, thus warned, Mr. Adams sought to present essentials with- out an excess of detail. A difficulty in understanding the apparent conflict in authority between national and State governments may well be excused in Europe, because this conflict has in in- ternational matters been brought be- fore them in an almost irreconcilable contradiction. The nation cannot be held responsible for outrages commit- ted against foreigners by the citizens of a State, and the nation is powerless to coerce the States into rendering com- pensation. Explaining this matter of States' rights, the growth of nationality, the question of citizenship, their influ- ence in bringing on the War of Seces- sion, and how they have been in part determined by that conflict, Mr. Adams prepared the way for dealing with his selected incidents. The more this diplomatic phase is studied, the greater the difficulty in ac- cepting Seward's position. He under- took to prove that the war was a pri- vate concern, with which Europe had little to do; and that it was a great struggle for freedom, in which the sym- pathies and interests of Europe could be involved only in favor of the North. Such a position created confusion in the minds of European statesmen. The South could not be denied the rights of bellig- erents without treating them as pirates; the suppression of rebellion and main- tenance of the Union need not be follow- ed by the abolition of slavery. Europe viewed the conflict as a war of conquest rather than as one of emancipation. The attitude of the ruling class in Eng- land was well defined; in contrast Mr. Adams takes the Lancashire cotton crisis to illustrate the strength of the feeling among the workers for the North. A great cause of this feeling he finds in Mrs. Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The wide influence of the book and the nat- ural stolidity of the English laborer carried him through the crisis in a man- ner worthy of all recognition. By cotton the South confidently expected to bring Europe to terms entirely favorable to Its ambitions; the moral principle al stake held Lancashire firm, and at no time did a demand for recognizing the South or intervening in the struggle come from the workingman. On the is- sue of cotton the South staked its all — and lost. This leads Mr. Adams to show how
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Feb. 26, 1914I T h e Nation 213 narrowly the United States escaped in- tervention by Great Britain and France. Here the personal element becomes strong — the intentions of Palmerston, Russell, and Gladstone, the aims of the Emperor of the French, and the diplo- matic passages which led to an actual agreement to intervene, when something interfered to postpone it. Such a dra- matic situation Mr. Adams presents in language which will not bear condensa- tion, and must be read to be appreciated. If a question arises on the importance given to a jealousy between Palmerston and Gladstone, the story is too well de- veloped in detail to admit of any doubt. Another element of great importance must be considered. The influence of one man in the Cabinet against inter- vention at that particular time is indi- cated in Clarendon's "Memoirs," and will be found to balance in a large degree the feeling shown by Palmerston towards his younger and indiscreet colleague. The last lecture, devoted to Gen. Lee, a subject Mr. Adams has made his own, illustrates States' rights of old, alle- giance to State and nation, and interna- tional fame. The striking features of these lectures are: an original interpretation of the historical events of the war, its novel application to the neglected study of in- ternational policy, and the vigor of pre- sentation. The breadth of view is no- ticeable. Gladstone is criticised for his Newcastle speech, but is highly praised for his later acknowledgment of error. The South committed rebellion, but the reconstruction period imposed adequate punishment. Such balanced judgments, heightened by the personal element and the methods of a trained investigator, offer good reading, a wholesome stim- ulus to the study of an important phase of the war, and a true contribution to its history. Brest, Port Transatlantique Europcen. By Claude Casimir-Perier. Pp. 383; 360. Paris: Hachette. In August, 1911, the Revue Politique et Parlementaire contained an article on Brest by Mr. Casimir-Perier, and in the past year the Brest Chamber of Commerce published his brochure en- titled "Comment on peut assurer a la France la Suprematie sur l'Atlantique." The results of his industrious study are now presented in definitive form. Having in mind a notable speech at the Guildhall, we might appropriately entitle these volumes "Wake Up, France." Their principal purpose is the estab- lishment of Brest as the chief port for the French transatlantic service, and their incidental service is to point out the weaknesses of the internal trans- portation systems or France and to show in detail how these may be materially improved. The indictment of the French mercan- tile marine of to-day is dispassionate and thorough. Thus of the forty-eight navigation companies maintaining lines between Europe and the American hem- isphere, only four are French. Of more than one thousand entries of steam- ships from Europe at New York in 1911 fewer than 150 were French. Between 1908 and 1911, of the cabin passengers carried westbound from Europe the per- centage on French ships steadily de- creased to less than 6 per cent. Fur- thermore, of the cabin passengers be- tween New York and French ports, few- er than one-third travel by the French line. As regards total tonnage employed by the principal companies in the trans- atlantic trade at the beginning of 1912, that of Germany was much more than twice that of France, while the English tonnage was nearly six times as great as the French. Of 221 steamers in the Atlantic trade, of 7,000 tons or more, only 13 carry the French flag. The larg- est French ship, the France, ranks only ninth in size among the ships in the transatlantic trade, and, further, was, when launched in 1911, a ship whose tonnage had been equalled ten years previously and exactly doubled by for- eign companies at the time of its com- pletion. The Imperator has since been launched, and five other ships, all more than twice the size of the France, are announced or are building. Nor is there any sign of progress in the con- struction of new ships, for the largest French liner under way, for the south Atlantic service, is of only 14,400 tons, and while the French line some time ago announced its decision to build a ship as large as any afloat, nothing has been done and nothing can be done ef- fectively, as no French port on the At- lantic can accommodate a ship of such dimensions. Instead of progress there seems to have been retrogression. Nor does the French company in the south Atlantic give any more enviable ser- vice in its Bordeaux-Rio Janeiro line, on which it employs four "veritable vet- erans of the ocean." The author discusses the availability of Brest from about every known or conceivable point of view, and follows up his arguments in favor of its unique superiority with a mass of statistics, maps, and diagrams. There are detailed maps of the proposed works at Brest, maps showing how all the changes in the railway systems are to be made, plans of the proposed Gare Maritime showing even the location of the esca- lators and moving sidewalks, and, in- deed, a set of time-tables for eight through trains to be run, when the plan is consummated, from Brest to Berlin, Madrid, Vienna, Rome, etc. Roughly, the plan is based on a sav- ing of time by shortening the slower sea voyage while lengthening the dis- tance of the land journey. The advan- tageous position of Brest, in relation to New York, Colon, and Rio Janeiro to the west, and the principal cities of Europe to the east, is elaborately devel- oped by a series of graphic charts, by the details of distance, fare, etc. Other schedules show the relative advantage of Brest among twenty-two European ports as the proper routing point be- tween Rio Janeiro, Para, La Guayra, Colon, Vera Cruz, New Orleans, and New York on the one hand, and seven prin- cipal Continental distributing points on the other hand. The estimated cost of the "Brest- Transatlantic System" (including the Brest-Paris and Brest-Nantes lines, and the improvement of the Brittany ca- nals) is stated as about 970,000,000 francs; of the two lines towards Switz- erland, and Italy, about 195,000,000 francs; of the development in Paris, 56,000,000 francs; and of the other work on railways and canals, about 1,400,000,- 000 francs; making thus a total of some $525,000,000. It is exceptional for an individual, apparently with no official or corporate position or backing, to produce the re- sults of a study involving obviously such extensive and painstaking investi- gation, with such a mass of material, both in the text and in the accompany- ing charts and schedules. Mr. Casimir- Perier recognizes that on the technical side of his subject he is not an expert, but this production will itself compel the public to recognize him as a mas- ter of his subject. The volumes should prove instructive to professors of economics, useful to shipping owners whose business is ex- panding, and suggestive to those engag- ed either in the study or in the busi- ness of transportation. Notes On December 18, 1913, the Nation printed a review of Theodore Winthrop's "The Canoe and the Saddle," edited and issued by John H. Williams, of Taooma, Wash. It was there stated that the editor "has connected Winthrop's narra- tive with authentic history of the regions traversed, and has scattered through the book, in footnotes and in illustrations not formerly used in this connection, many interesting- cross-references." It was further stated that "Mr. Williams's edi- tion is often careless in matters of detail," and some of these errors were pointed out. In reply to this review Mr. Wil- liams sent a letter for publication, in which he charged the reviewer with knowing "nothing of Winthrop's book," and argued the reputed errors at great length. This letter was sent to the reviewer with the request that he would give us such information as would enable us to determine in what
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214 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2539 points. If any, our review was at fault. The reviewer's reply went Into the discussion very minutely, and, to the beat of the editor's judgment, Si 1 mid to show that the review was cor- rect, or, at least, had not erred in any essential point. In order that the edi- tor might arrive at the truth this letter of the reviewer was sent to Mr. Williams with the request that he would return it at his convenience. Mr. Williams has now seen lit to publish a pamphlet con- taining- the original review, his reply, the reviewer's letter, and part of the corre- spondence ensuing, with vituperation of the editor and the publisher of the Nation. He closes his pamphlet with this quotation from a telegram of the publisher of the Nation, dated February i: "Would he. unprecedented in our history. * * * You have no authority or right to print our reviewer's letter, forwarded out of courte- sy." The words of the telegram which are indicated by the three asterisks, and which Mr. Williams has omitted, are these: "Are quite ready to print state- ment one column in length summarizing errors of fact, but not discussing dif- ferences of opinion and judgment." Mr. Williams has not taken advantage of this offer, but opens his pamphlet with the assertion that he makes the docu- ments public because the Nation refuses "to correct misstatements." Doubleday, Page & Company are is- suing: "The Panama Canal," by Fred- eric J. Haskin, and "The Carpenter and the Rich Man," by Bouck White. John Lane Co. publishes this week: "Be- hind the Veil at the Russian Court," by Count Paul Vassili; "Auguries," by Lau- rence Rinyon; "The Strong Heart," by A. R. Goring-Thomas; "The Iron Year," by Walter Bloem; "Simple Simon," by A. Neil Lyons; "When William Came," a story of London under the Hohenzol- lerns, by H. H. Munro, and "Somebody's Luggage," by J. F. Randall. Charles Scribner's Sons announce the forthcoming publication of "Shallow Soil," by Knut Hamsun. Mr. Edwin Bjorkman is writing for Henry Holt & Co. "A History of Nine- teenth-Century Scandinavian Literature" from and including Ibsen, with a sketch of the earlier literature of the three coun- tries. It was announced a few weeks ago that "An Anglo-Manx Vocabulary," by the late A. W. Moore, Speaker of the House of Keys, with the assistance of Sophia Morrison and Edmund Good- win, would be published if sufficient sub- scribers were willing to pay 15 shillings net for the book. Although the work is of undoubted interest to students of dia- lects generally and of the Manx lan- guage in particular, the promises hither- to received do not justify publication, which will have to be abandoned unless more support is assured. Prospectuses may be obtained from Mr. Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, through any bookseller. The Century Co. will publish February 21 "Silent Sam and Other Stories," by Harvey .1. O'Higglns, and Samuel Mer- win's "Anthony the Absolute"; later a new story of Pennsylvania Dutch hie, bj Helen K. Martin, and "European Police Systems." by Raymond I',. Kosdick, for- merly Commissioner of Accounts of New York city. The last-named volume will be the third in the series of books pub- lished for the Bureau of Social Hygiene. Miss Edith Williams, the founder ot the Guilde Internationale, who, in the course of many years of residence in Palis, has done much to promote the study of English in France, has been appointed a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. A new edition of Prof. A. V. Dicey 's "Lectures on the Relation between Law and Public Opinion in England during the Nineteenth Century" will be publish- ed shortly by Macmillan. Professor Dicey has added to the volume a com- prehensive introduction dealing with the developments of his theme in the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. Macmillan's list of spring announce- ments includes, in fiction: "The Trea- sure," by Kathleen Norris; "Sandy," by S. It. Crockett; "The Reconnaissance," by Gordon Gardiner; "A Stepdaughter of the Prairies," by Margaret Lynn; "The Possessed," by Fyodor Dostoevsky ; "Sto- ries of Red Hanrahan," by Willian But- ler Yeats; "The Valley of the Moon," by Jack London. — In public affairs: "The Philippines, Past and Present," by D. C. Worcester; "On Politics and History: A University Address," by Viscount Mor- ley; "Property and Contract in Tljeir Relations to the Distribution of Wealth," by Richard T. Ely; "Progressive Democ- racy," by Herbert Croly; "Violence and the Labor Movement," by Robert Hunt- er; "Progressivism and After," by Wil- liam English Walling; "The Soul of America," by Stanton Coit; "Democracy and Race Friction," by John Moffatt Mecklin; "Why Is the Dollar Shrink- ing?" by Irving Fisher; "Work and Wealth: A Human Valuation," by J. A. Hobson ; "Where and Why Public Own- ership Has Failed," by Yves Guyot; "The American Doctrine of Judicial Suprem- acy," by Charles Grove Haines; "The In- come Tax," by Edwin R. A. Seligman ; "A Theory of Interest." by C. C. Hoag ; "Training the Girl," by William A. Mc- Keever; "The Industrial Training of the Roy," by W. A. McKeever; "The Pro- gressive Movement: Its Origin and Its Principles," by Benjamin P. De Witt. In religion, history, biography, and travel the Macmillans have a long list, including: "The Writings of John Quincy Adams," edited by Worth- ington C. Ford; "The Letters of Richard Henry Lee," Vol. II, col- lected and edited by James Curtis Bal- lagh; "The Kstablishment of state Gov- ernment in California, 1846-1850," by Cardinal Goodwin; "Roman Imperialism," by Tenney Frank; "The Cambridge His- tory of India," edited by Prof. E. .1. Rap- son, Vol. I, "Ancient India from the Earli- est Historical Times to About the Begin - ning of the Christian Era"; "A History of the National Capital, from Its Foun- dation to the Adoption of the Organic A.t," by W. i: Mryan.— Travel: "Egypt in Transition," by Sidney Low; "South America: Observations and Impressions," revised edition, by James Bryce; "Mex- ico: The Wonderland of the South," by W. 10. Carson. — Religion: A new edition of "The Mediaeval Mind," by Henry Os- born Taylor; "Can We Still Be Christians?" by Rudolf Eucken; 'The Reformation in Germany," by Hen- ry C. Vedder; "The Faith of Japan," by Tasuku Harada; "Modern Religious Movements in India," by J. N. Farquhar; "The Battles of Peace," "The Heresy of Cain," "Christianity Between Sundays," all by Dean George Hodges; "The Proph- ets of Israel," by Moses Buttenwieser. The imported volumes on Macmillan's list include: "The Influence of the Cold Supply on Prices and Profits," by Sir David Barbour; "India Rubber Lab- oratory Practice," by W. A. Caspari; "The Theory of Relativity," by L. Sil- berstein; "Dictionary of Madame de Sevigne," by Edward FitzGerald, edited by May Eleanor Fitzgerald Kerrick; "History and Theory of Vitalism," by Hans Driesch; "From Far Lands: Poems of North and South," by "Gervais Gage" (J. Lawrence Rentoul) ; "Ownership and Taxation of Land,"by Sir Thomas Whitta- ker; "Sophocles in English Verse," Part II, translated by Arthur S. Way; "The Gospels in the Light of Historical Criti- cism," by Dr. F. S. Chase, Bishop of Ely; "Orchestration," by Cecil Forsyth; "The History of Greek Philosophy," by Prof. John Burnet; "Spiritual Reformers in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centu- ries," by Prof. Rufus M. Jones; "High- ways and Byways in Shakespeare's Coun- try," by W. H. Hutton; "Roman Ideas of Deity," by W. Warde Fowler; "Nietzsche," by George Brandes. Macmillan's college text-books, in va- rious departments, embrace: "History of England," by Arthur Lyon Cross; "Con- temporary American History, 1877-1913," by Charles A. Beard; "American Govern- ment and Politics," revised edition, by the same; "Readings in American Gov- ernment and Politics," revised edition, by the same; "The Facts About Shake- speare," by William Allan Neilson; "Rep- resentative English Comedies," Vol. III. "The Later Contemporaries of Shake- speare, Fletcher, and Others," edited by Charles Mills Gayley; "English Drama of the Restoration and Eighteenth Cen- tury," by George Henry Nettleton; "Mod- ern Short Stories," by Margaret Ash- mun; "The Theory and Practice of Ar- gumentation and Debate," by V. A. Ketcham; "Handbook of Exposition," by R. A. Jelliffe; "Introduction to the Criti- cal Philosophy of Kant," by G. T. Whit- ney and P. H. Fogel; "Problems of Child Welfare," by George B. Mangold; "The Instinct of Workmanship," by Thorslein Veblen. Macaulay's contributions to the Edin- burgh Review began with the essay on Milton in 1825 and ended with the second essay on Chatham in 184L In all, there were twenty-seven of them. They are now put forth in a new edition by the Oxford University Press in two volumes, the llrst volume containing the "literary" essays, of which there arc thirteen, ami the second being given over to the four
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Feb. 26, 1914I T li e Natio 11 £15 ten 'histi.ric.il" essays. The basis of this distinction may be indicated by not- ing that among the former are included the essays on Milton. Machiavelli. BaCOIl, anil Temple, and amone, the latter those on Hallam's "Constitutional History." Burleigh, and Warren Hastings, in each volume the essays are arranged in the order in which thej were written, and a table of contents gives the year and month when each appeared. Although the volumes run to Too and 800 pages re- spectively, thej are Invitingly light Each of them is provided with an extensive Index. Any lover of the Johnson circle will r ii> acquire a new volume of let- ters from the mistress of Streatham. and to learn for himself whether they throw any lighl on that rather enigmatic ladj I tut it cannot be said that we get any real- ly new \ lew of her character in "The In- timate Letters of Hester Piozzi and Penelope Pennington, 1788-1821," which have been edited by Mr. Oswald G. Knapp and published by John Lane. Nor are they intrinsically Interesting. Early in their friendship Mrs. Plozzi writes to he] correspondent, then still Miss Wes- ton: "Your letters, my lovely friend, are like the places they describe. Cultivated, rich, and various: the prominent feature elegance, but always some sublimity in hope and prospect." Such was equally the sentiment of Miss Weston in regard to Mrs. Piozzi's epistolary graces, and no inconsiderable part of these pages is marked by this utterly false and preten- tious obliquity of taste. A few of the ladies of that age — notably Fanny Bur- ney in her earlier years — escaped this in- fatuation of emptiness, but on the whole their correspondence and lucubrations offer about as dreary reading as any- thing in the whole range of English lit- erature. Mrs. Piozzi could be racy and idiomatic at times in her public writing; she saved her elegance mainly for her letters. The letters in the volume now print- ed begin in 1788, not long after Mrs. Piozzi's second marriage, and continue almost to the day of her death. The re- cipient, Penelope Sophia Weston, was a friend of Mrs. Siddons and Anna Sew- ard. In 1792 she married a William Pennington. There is a break in the cor- respondence of some fifteen years, when the writers quarrelled— Mrs. Piozzi, de- spite her generosity, was continually a victim of quarrels — over some unknown cause. We, are out of Dr. Johnson's circle for the most part, but many read- ers will come to the book wishing to discover some reason for justifying the dictator in his rage over Mrs. Thrale's marriage, or perhaps, if he is Irish and a partisan of Goldsmith, seeking the re- verse. He will find here direct support for neither side of the question. We really know Mrs. Piozzi no better after reading this book than we did before; but it cannot be said that we like her bet- ter. With all her good traits, she does not attract, and she leaves us distrust- ful. If ever the extraordinary diary now in the possession of Mr. A. M. Broadley is printed in full we may be able to speak of her character with more assurance. Seme Persky's "Contemporary Rus- sian Novelists" (Boston: Luce & Co.), translated from the French by Frederick Eisemann, may be commended with few reservations as a thoroughly workman- like and useful guide to the more in- tensive study of Russian fiction during the last thirty years. Within the space of three hundred small pages the writer has produced almost an encyclopredia of his subject. It is, in fact, against certain excess of detail that one feels impelled to protest. In his desire to summarize virtually every short story produced by the prolific Russian band during more than a quarter of a cen- tury, it is inevitable that the author's narrative should at times become a bald statement of plot and incident, with lit- tle of the inner meaning of the original. Neither can one always subscribe to Mr. Persky's appraisement of his individual authors. He has his rather peculiar likes and dislikes. Nevertheless, to the reader interested in the facts of the latest Russian literature, the facts are there in abundance. The men to whom Mr. Persky devotes separate chapters are Tchekoff, Korolenko, Verressayeff, Gorky, Andreieff, Merezhkovsky, and Kuprin. The minor figures are suffi- ciently provided for in a supplementary chapter. Is it the author or the trans- lator who persists in speaking of Gor- ky's "Thomas Gordeyeff," instead of using the true and better known form, "Foma Gordeyeff"? Mr. C. Reginald Enock's annual volume is this time devoted to "The Republics of Central and South America, Their Resources, Industries, Sociology, and Fu- ture" (Scribner); it has sixteen illustra- tions as well as nine maps. There are many loose statements, but this is not surprising under the circumstances. In order to write a standard manual, it would have been necessary for the au- thor to spend far more time on it than ! was at his disposal, even though he is a rapid writer, rarely uses the blue pencil, and has been lecturing and writ- ing books about the west coast of both North and South America for six years. There is a vast amount of detail in this 520-page volume, but much of it makes very dry reading. Nor is the proportion just. Mr. Enock writes at great length of the two countries with which he is personally familiar, Mexico and Peru, and slights Brazil and Argentina, which should have had as much space certainly as Peru. Bolivia has twenty-four pages, while Uruguay has but ten, and Costa Rica not quite three! The maps are not bad, but the large map at the end of the book, which pretends to give the actual railways and those in course of construction, has been quite carelessly drawn. No mention is made of the new railways in the centre of Bolivia; it would appear that Colombia has only one short railway instead of half a dozen, and the connection between Montevideo and Kio de Janeiro is not marked, even as being "in construction," although it has been in use for more than a year. There is still a crying need for a good book on this subject, which shall combine a high standard of accuracy and a good sense of proportion with a readable style. Costa Rica stands out so prominently among the countries on the Caribbean for being prosperous, well-governed, and stable, that it is a pleasure to welcome Dr. Ricardo Fernandez Guardia's "His- tory of the Discovery and Conquest of Costa Rica," which has been translated by Harry Weston Van Dyke (Crowell). Although of necessity largely a compila- tion, its sources are not available to the ordinary reader, and the public libraries will welcome this volume as filling a long-felt want. Sr. Fernandez Guardia has done enough browsing in the archives of the Indies at Seville to be able to offer some unusually interesting details in this little-known story. An understanding of pre-Columbian civili- zation in Costa Rica is made easier by many excellent plates taken from pho- tographs of gold ornaments, pottery, and stoneware, now in the National Museum of Costa Rica. Archaeologically, Costa Rica leans toward Chiriqui and the south, rather than towards the Mayas and the north. The plates, particularly those of the stone altars and the Nicoya ware, will be a revelation to any who have not made a special point of study- ing the antiquities of this remarkable little republic. There is also a useful map. The Philippines have witnessed in the last fifteen years the apotheosis of Jose Rizal. This is just. His life is a great episode in Filipino history, and a bright spot in the history of the struggle for human liberty. Rizal, as he exemplifies the possibilities of his race, stands out, not as a violent revolutionist — such types are common enough — but as a rich hu- man figure, representing intellectual cul- ture, moral uprightness, sane enthusiasm, and unflinching courage. This rich char- acter is completely presented in the vivid pages of Austin Craig's "Lineage, Life and Labors of Jos<§ Rizal, the Philippine Patriot" (World Book Co.). The narra- tive is in every sense commendable for its dignity and sobriety. There was a danger of exaggerating his literary val- ue. Kizal is a competent writer. Is he a great novelist? If we view him on the background of world literature, there can be but one answer, and that in the negative. Professor Craig also has a charming study of Rizal. Note- worthy are the illustrations of Ri- zal's work as painter and sculptor. The author is not wholly free from the attempt to Americanize his hero. If there i.3 identity between some American poli- cies and Rizal's ideals, that proves sim- ply that colonial governments sometimes have good sense. But the reason for stressing "Jagor's prophecy" with a chap- ter heading, a three-page translation of the "prophecy," and the conclusion, en- tirely undocumented, that Rizal "believed that America would some time come to the Philippines and wished to prepare his countrymen for the changed condition that would then have to be met," Is not apparent. Rizal cited, to be sure, the prophecy in a study of Philippine condi tions; he boughl another book on the Presidents of the I'nited States; he "studied" the I'nited States from the car windows on crossing the American conti- nent, and he learned, according to Mr
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216 r T 1 l e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2539 Craig (]>. 142), that the Rocky Mountains are picturesque, that the [ndlans in front of our cigar shops are "no two alike," that Niagara Falls are not superior in delicacy t the cascades of La Laguna, that the Hudson Is not so very different from the Pasig. Out of this material it may be possible to construct a legend of Kizal's Americanism. But until Profes- sor Craig gives us more data we are inclined to suspect that Rizal, in common with some other men of equal erudition, knew that the United States existed, that it had a republican form of government, that it had a growing Oriental trade. Not the least fascinating portion of this book is the republication of Rizal's "The Mon- key and the Tortoise," with the original pen sketches. It is the Filipino version of the American "tar-baby" of Uncle Remus. "The Credit System" (Macmillan), by W. G. Langworthy Taylor, is more inclu- sive than its title would indicate, for the subject has led the author into a critical survey of a large part of the field of theoretical economics. A discursive treat- ment of interest, profit, and rent supple- ments the theory of commercial and bank credit. The explanation of general crises, not a novel one, is based upon over-capi- talization of the future. Anticipated prof- its are not realized and security values shrink. Then follows a diminution in bank loans, which in turn decreases pur- chasing power and pulls down prices. A chapter entitled Justice for Debtors dis- approves of legislative proposals to pre- vent fluctuations in the general level of prices. It is maintained that changes in the price level, if not violent, are desira- ble. Moderate fluctuation is a stimulus to enterprise. Much importance is attached throughout to psychology in its relation to business. For example, it is insisted that the volume of bank loans and depos- its is largely a function of business con- fidence. In his contention that the vol- ume of deposits may over a period of years regulate the reserves instead of the reverse, the author parts company with accepted authority. Containing discus- sions and arguments that at times reach the realm of the imaginative and written In a stilted style that often lacks lucidity, the book will be read only by those inter- ested in the theoretical phases of the problem here developed. If, as has been said, the acquisition of a new language is the acquisition of a new sense, a key to all languages ought to be a boon of priceless value. Such a key is offered substantially by Mr. Har- old Bayley in "The Lost Language of Symbolism: An Inquiry into the Origin of Certain Letters, Words, Names, Fairy- tales, Folklore, and Mythologies" (Llp- pincott). Mr. Bayley's method is sim- ple: discarding philological investigation, he penetrates into the heart of his ma- terial by intuition. Thus, having dis- cerned (Vol. I, p. 13 ff) that the syllable ak means "great," he finds it as a forma- tive element in a host of words, among which are Hackpen (at Avebury), Carnac (Brittany), Karnak (Egypt), Anak (Deut. ix 2), Anakes (Castor and Pollux), Akbar (Mohammedan India), Balak (Moab), Shlshak (Egypt), Hakon (the present King of Norway), archon, magnus, Ana- huac (Mexico), anaconda, Pachachamac (Peru), Acrea (Juno), Merodach (As- syrian), Herakles, Achilles, oak, Zodiac. I This sort of procedure, continued through two stout volumes, enables the author to 1 traverse almost the whole field of sym- bolism and mythology, along with other material, producing results hitherto un- known to scholars. He has looked over many books, gathering from them names and stories that he easily weaves into his scheme, and any reader, working in a similar manner, may produce a similar encyclopaedia, with an attractive and dif- ferent system of interpretation. It would be pleasant to be able to say a word in commendation of so well-meaning and industrious a writer. But he adds noth- ing to our knowledge of the subjects he treats; and, what is more important, he encourages (in those who may be in- fluenced by him) reliance on superficial and fanciful resemblances instead of care- ful geographical, historical, and philologi- cal research. At a recent session of the Institut de France (Acad£mie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres) Prof. Paul Violet, a mem- ber of the Institut, read before his col- leagues a communication from Mr. Louis Cons, of Bryn Mawr College, concerning one of the most mysterious problems of literary history: The authorship of the fifth book of Rabelais's "Pantagruel." Critics and historians have always sus- pected that this work, published ten years after the death of Rabelais in 1554, was but partly from the master's pen, but during four centuries no one has known who wrote the continuation. Mr. Cons has demonstrated conclusively that the continuator is Jean Quentin or Quintin (1500-1561), one of the intimate friends of Rabelais and at the same time one of the most interesting — though one of the least known — figures of the sixteenth cen- tury. Jean Quentin, it appears from studies that Mr. Cons has made of his life and of his writings, was a man who, although a high official of the Church and outwardly a loyal Roman Catholic, had been secretly converted to the Refor- j mation. In the continuation of the fifth book of Rabelais he took delight in ex- pressing anonymously the most bold and revolutionary ideas concerning the Pope and the priesthood. At the beginning of 1757, when Count d'Argenson, War Minister of Louis XV, was relegated by the King's orders to his country seat, the Chateau des Ormes, he took with him all his private papers. Hence it happens that most of the let- ters addressed to the count have been preserved by his descendants and are still intact in the archives of the family. His son, the Marquis de Voyer, was too near the events in which the father had par- ticipated to publish any of these letters, and his grandson, the Marquis d'Argen- son, Deputy for the Department of the Lower Rhine, never seemed to care to make the correspondence public. But the Marquis Ren6 d'Argenson, his great grandson, did edit the "McSmoires du Mar- quis d'Argenson," this Marquis d'Argen- son being the brother of the War Min- ister mentioned above. This was the Jan- net edition, printed in 1858, which is less complete than the Rather? edition, which 1:, often consulted and which, at the close of the memoirs proper, gives, at the end of Volumes IV and V, some letters ad- dressed to Count d'Argenson, among them being a few rather interesting ones from Voltaire, St. Simon, and the Queen. M. de Nolhac, in his "Louis XV et Marie Eeczinska," is one of the rare writers who appear to have discovered these, the only public signs of the archives of Les Ormes. The late Duke de Broglie is an- other author who was able to use, and this but sparingly, a few bundles of these letters, placed at his disposal by his cousin german, the Marquis Rem§ d'Ar- genson. This is particularly seen in the Duke's "Voltaire avant et apres la Guerre de Sept Ans." The father of the present Count d'Argenson was interested in these documents and classified them, but pub- lished none, even refusing to permit them to be examined by others than the imme- diate members of his family. Among these letters preserved at Les Armes there are seventeen from Prince Charles Edward, the Pretender, written at or in the neighborhood of Paris during the years 1747 and 1748, after the unsuccess- ful uprising of 1745-6. Most of these, though addressed to the Minister, were really intended for the King, and, in some instances, were indeed addressed to him and sent simply in care of the Minister. A sentence of one of these covering let- ters reads: "I beg you to hand the en- closed to his Majesty, and I may add that not a single person knows that I have written it or how I have sent it." Some of these communications are four pages in length, and are on large-size let- ter paper, in the clear bold hand of the Pretender, the ink being still almost as black as the day it was used. There are also two letters from the son of the de- posed James II, father of Prince Charles Edward, written from Rome and address- ed to the count. The first, two pages in length, dated April 15, 174 3, three years before the disaster at Culloden, begs France to come to the support of his cause, aad the second, shorter, dated Au- gust 11, 1745, the month following the Prince's landing in Scotland, implores his Majesty to aid the efforts of his son. In another batch of papers concerning the partisans of the Prince, is a list of Irish- men who can be counted upon, among whom appears the name of MacMahon, the progenitor of the future Marshal of France, and second President of the Third Republic. Prince Carini, the great grand- son of the Marquis Ren6 d'Argenson, is now engaged in preparing these papers for the press. The Stuart letters will be given in extenso. Dr. Samuel Mitchell Jefferson, profes- sor of philosophy of Transylvania Uni- versity, Lexington, Ky., since 1900, and one of the best-known educators in the South, died suddenly on Friday, at Lex- ington. Professor Jefferson was born in Kent County, Del., July 28, 1849, son of John Warren and Elizabeth Lynch Jof- lerscm. He graduated from Indiana Uni- versity with the class of 1874, and re- ceived the degree of A.M. from Bethany College, \v. Va», in is'.n, and thai r LLI). in 1896. He was a graduate stu-
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Feb. 26, 19 14] T li e N" a t i o n 21? dent of philosophy at Columbia in 1903. He was ordained to the ministry of Disciples of Christ in 1869. From 1893-96 he was professor of New Testament Greek and Biblical literature at Bethany College, and from 1896-1900 was dean of the Berkeley Bible Seminary, Cal. Dr. Alcee Fortier. since 1880 professor of Romance languages at Tulane Uni- versity, Da., died at New Orleans on Sat- urday. Dr. Fortier was born in 1856 and educated at the University of Virginia and in I'aiis, where he studied phonetics under Professor Passy. He received the degree of Litt.D. at Washington and Bee in 1894 and at Baval University in 1898. He was a Chevalier of the Begion of Hon- or, and wrote both in French and in Eng- lish. Mis works include: "Be Chateau de Ohambord," "Gabriel d'Ennerlch," "Bits of Bouisiana Folklore," "Sept Grands Au- teurs du XlXme siecle," "Histoire de la Bitterature franchise," "Bouisiana Stud- ies," "Louisiana Folk Tales," "Voyage en Europe en 1895," "Precis de l'Histoire de France," "History of Bouisiana," "History of Mexico." Science "Worry and Nervousness, or the Sci- ence of Self-Mastery," by William S. Sad- ler, M.D., is announced by McClurg. "The Bodley Head Natural History," Vol. II, is promised this week by John Bane Company. Macmillan's spring announcement of new books includes: "The Unconscious: The Fundamentals of Human Personal- ity," by Morton Prince; "The Great So- ciety: A Psychological Analysis," by Graham Wallas; "The Childhood of the Word," by Edward Clodd; "The Two New Sciences of Galileo," translated by Henry Crew and Alphonse de Salvio; "The Cambridge British Flora," by C. E. Moss; "The Standard Cyclopedia of Hor- ticulture," new edition, edited by B. H. Bailey and collaborators; "Fruit Insects," by M. V. Slingerland and C. R. Crosby; "Farm Structures," by K. J. T. Ekblaw; "Farm Forestry," by E. G. Cheyney; "Textbook on Forage Crops," by Prof. C. V. Piper; "Small Grains," by M. A. Carleton; "Irrigation," by John A. Widt- soe; "Weeds," by Ada E. Georgia; "Field Crops," by George Bivingston. — Medical: "Operations of Surgery," by W. H. A. Jacobson, new edition, revised by R. P. Rowlands and Philip Turner; "Dis- eases of the Arteries and Angina Pec- toris," by Thomas Clifford Allbut; "Ma- teria Medica for Nurses," by A. S. Blum- garten; "On Diseases of the Rectum and Anus," new edition, by Harrison Cripps; "Post-Mortem Technique and Practical Pathology," by James Miller; "Tubercu- losis of Bones and Joints in Children," by John Fraser; "A Short Manual of Diseases of the Nervous System," by Edwin Bramwell; "Manual of Medical Jurisprudence, Toxicology, and Public Health," by W. G. Aitchison Robertson; "Black's Medical Dictionary," edited by John D. Comrie. The fourth supplement of the Kew Index of Phanerogamous Plants em- braces the period from the end of 1905 to the close of 1910. It comprises more than two hundred and fifty large quarto pages, each containing three columns in small type. This will give some idea both of the amount of activity in the systematic botany of flowering plants and the care with which the harvest has been gath- ered at Kew. Every botanist will be glad to see that the question of date of pub- lication of species has received close at- J tention, and that the perplexing matter of synonymy has been sedulously exam- ined and the results recorded. Director Prain should receive hearty thanks for these modifications, which render the present supplement more valuable than its predecessors. The casual reader who takes up this Batin treatise for exami- nation will ask himself why certain gen- era in the natural family of Rosacese, have been split up into a vast number of species, while others have been left un- dissected. The death was recently announced in his eighty-fourth year of Dr. Albert Charles Giinther, the head of the Zo- ological Department of the British Mu- seum. Dr. Giinther was born in Wtir- temberg, and studied at various univer- sities in Germany, becoming connected with the British Museum in 1856. He founded and was the first editor of "The Record of Zoological Biterature," and his publications, in addition to ten volumes of the Museum catalogues, include "Rep- tiles of British India," "Gigantic Band Tortoises,"- and several monographs on fishes. William Whitman Bailey, the botanist and professor emeritus of the botanical department at Brown University since 1906, died on Friday. Professor Bailey was born at West Point, N. Y., in 1843, the son of Prof. Jacob Whitman and Ma- ria Slaughter Bailey. He entered Brown University in 1860, and graduated in 1864. He received the degree of Ph.B. in 1873 and that of A.M. in 1893. In 1866 he was an assistant in chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and from 1867-68 he was the botanist of the United States Geological Survey of the fortieth parallel. During the latter year he became Deputy Secretary of the State of Rhode Island, and from 1869-71 he served as assistant librarian of the Providence Athenaeum. In 1877 he be- came an instructor at Brown, and from 1881-1906 he served as professor of bot- any at the same university. Professor Bailey was a member of numerous learned societies, and was the author of a num- ber of botanical works and of a volume of poems. Dr. Robert Kennedy Duncan, director of the Mellon Institute of Industrial Re- search of the University of Pittsburgh, died in Pittsburgh on February 18, after an illness of several weeks, aged forty- five. He was born at Brantford, Ontario, Canada, November 1, 1868, and graduated from the University of Toronto In 1892. For some years after 1900 he studied abroad, he was professor of chemistry at Washington and Jefferson, and professor of industrial chemistry, 1906. In 1910 he was made director of industrial 1 < University of Kansas, and director of in- dustrial research and professor of indus- trial chemistry at the University of Pitts- burgh. Dr. Dtincan was the author of "The New Knowledge," "The Chemistry of Commerce," "Some Chemical Problems of To-day," and was editor of the New Science series. Drama KarenBomeman; Lynggaard & Co. Two plays by Hjalmar Bergstrom. Trans- lated from the Danish with an In- troduction by Edwin Bjorkinan. New York; Mitchell Kennerley. These plays form a volume in the Modern Drama series of translations, edited by Mr. Bjorkman. This particu- lar book presents to English readers for the first time some of the work of one of a considerable group of contem- porary Danish dramatists whose produc- tions are attracting favorable notice at home. To those already familiar with mod- ern Danish literature the volume offers significant evidence of the persistence of traditional literary tendencies. Since the time of Holberg Danish authors have, in general, been interested to in- terpret ideas current in contemporary European thought in terms of national life. Bergstrom's work is closely relat- ed to recent German and English drama and is distinctive only in those places where one can recognize Danish reac- tions upon familiar ideas. In the gener- al reader, therefore, these plays will hardly arouse much interest. They will be to him but one word more upon hack- neyed themes. "Karen Borneman" (1907), a discus- sion of what Mr. Bjorkman calls "that ever-vexatious question of sexual moral- ity," is clearly reminiscent of Suder- mann's "Magda" ("Heimat"). It be- comes, however, particularly as inter- preted by Mr. Bjorkman in his Intro- duction, representative of certain "mod- ern" pleas for sexual freedom for wo- man. The implications of the piece seemed so vicious, indeed, to the Danish censor that its production was for a time forbidden at home. Karen Borneman, a young woman known to the public as the translator of Zola and Maupassant, Is the daughter of a professor of theology in Copen- hagen. Her literary duties take her to Paris, where she acquires and eagerly applies advanced Ideas of temporary mating. She then returns to Copen- hagen and showers noble scorn upon all who object to her conduct. A "liberal" doctor receives her lofty contempt by refusing to marry her after ho has dis- , covered what her past has been. When the father learns, with a horror that Is supposed to he fussy and old-fashioned, that she has been the mistress of a brutal young artist, he gons to the sculp- tor to Insist that he marry his daugh-
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J31H rT lie N atiojtt [Vol. 98, No. 2539 ter. lie is made to understand, as is Col. Schwartz in "Magda," that his daughter lias been the (distress of more than one. Unlike the German officer, however, lie does not then become the centre of a moving tragedy in which natural impulses of main' sorts clash impressively. He merely goes home and calls his daughter a strumpet. This name she is old-fashioned enough to re- sent, so that she answers her father with passionate words of justification. She prophesies the coming of a day when women will demand their liberty as a right, meaning their freedom to enjoy fully in their own way "the most beautiful among the passions bestowed upon man." Then feeling a movement of filial sor- row for her father, who is a pathetic figure, Mr. Bjorkman explains, "like all who strive to dam the onward sweep of human progress," she remarks sad- ly: "I suppose it is the law of life that nothing new can come into the world without pain." Whereupon she walks quietly out and the play ends — or, rath- er, stops, for both the author and his in- terpreter are a bit scornful about dra- matic conclusions in the old sense. A modern author must show disinterested curiosity. To betray moral convictions is for him to be guilty of artistic im- pudence. Tf is judgment must in no way encroach upon the judicial freedom of his observation, which, it is hinted, is a much higher artistic faculty. This play ends, then, merely with "the opening of new vistas." The vista in this case is meant to be a realization that Karen's demands for the indulgence of sexual caprice are a part "of the onward sweep of human progress." Though "Lynggaard & Co." (1905) is a product of the same artistic notions, it is a more interesting play. Like Hauptmann's "Weavers" and Galswor- thy's "Strife," it is concerned with in- dustrial conflicts. The scene is laid in the home of the capitalist, about whom persons representing different attitudes towards labor are grouped — the idle dilettante, the scheming efficient mana- ger, the improvident philanthropist, and the impractical Socialist. The author shows skilfully the various points of view without indicating his preference for any one. The play also merely closes, not, however, until the socialis- tic son of the capitalist has had time to speak of a procession of singing strik- ers as "the future going by." Mr. Bjorkman is not always happy in rendering the idiom of familiar conver- sation into English. In these plays he tends to reduce all his dialogue to too low a colloquial level, and he still per- sists in using repeatedly one or two ut- terly un-English Teutonisms. Mai 'inillan's spring announcements in- ■ I'i'li : "The Post Office," and "Chltra," by Rabindranath Tagore; "Tin- Tragedy >>i Ponvpey," by John Masefteld; "Ro- niance," by Edward Sheldon. We may expect this week Prof. Gterles Mills Gayley's "Beaumont the Drama- tist" "Peer Gynt," translated in the original metre with an introduction by ft Bills Roberts (Mitchell Kennerley), is only the second attempt to render Ibsen's great poem into English. The excellent version by William and Charles Archer, which means "Peer Gynt" to English readers, preserves the metres of the original with- out rhymes. Mr. Roberts has attempted a much more difficult task. He has tried, in addition to retaining Ibsen's metres, to adhere to the rhyme schemes of the origi- nal, even to representing "treble and dou- ble rhymes by treble and double rhymes in the translation." The great literary tact and skill demanded of one making this attempt only those fully acquainted with the original can appreciate. Despite the complications in which the translator has involved himself, he has done much of his work well. He has often shown himself ingenious and resourceful. The reader undoubtedly obtains a much bet- ter sense of the lyrical diversity and vir- tuosity of the Norwegian poem from this version than from the merely metrical translation of the Archers; and the metri- cal form of the original is often the very incarnation of the spirit of the work. In particular, the audacity of Peer's imagi- native escapes from the realities that hurt him, such as he shows at the time of Ase's death, is better suggested than ever before. The rigor of the metrical re- straints inevitably results in many in- felicities. At times these intrude so close- ly as to vitiate the spirit of a passage; more often they are small blemishes. Certain lines of sheer doggerel it is hard to excuse, such as Forth from here 1 mnsl try and get. Although this translation will never su- persede that of the Archers, scarcely in- deed rival it in popular favor, it will be to the serious student of Ibsen an almost indispensable source of information. "The Wolf of Gubbio" (Houghton Mif- flin), by Josephine Preston Peabody, reads very much as though it might have been adapted from some ancient mystery play. The author calls it a comedy in three acts; and perhaps that is its nearest conventional designation — it is certainly not tragedy. But there is little that resembles comedy proper about its guileless plot ; little in the nature of acts in its successive tableaux. One won- ders that the author did not frankly call it a miracle play, a term that describes it admirably. Perhaps its likeness to this sort of drama is due, in part, to its legendary and popular origin; for it Is drawn, as its title indicates, from the well-known story of St. Francis of As- sisi and the wolf. But at all events it seems as though It belonged to some cycle like the Towneley plays, along with tin- pageant of Mak, the sheep-stealer, and the Bhepherds. To be sure, it differs from the latter In tone and atmosphere; it lacks the rude farcical mirth of the older play; it is more sophisticated and subtle; it is naive rather than childlike. The symbolism of the wolf which longs to be a man — I . . . that was master of all tin- Park In .Hi. ami sulk here anil lo.ik back I 1. that could rend, and claw, and grip Stacking m.v paws, f«r fellowship I fuelling line in my ambuscade, What linn .in-, when they're not af rahi 1 Worrying wondering, how 'twould fee] To sit with men. and In share their meal; Talking words, with my lilte anil Blip Out of a man-made, eartuorn cup. . . . — this wolf which speaks with a human voice, which steals a child, and suffers from conscience until he restores it, Is a notch beyond the artistic abilities of the rudimentary drama, as are the rapid transitions from the human to the brute and back again in the poor beast's breast during his conflict. But at the same time the setting — the Christinas spectacle, with the simple peasant woman whose child has been stolen playing the Madonna by the empty manger with the ox and the ass, and the gaping townsfolk offering their poor gifts — has a kind of primitive charm about it, which is enhanced, if anything, by the artlessness of the versi- fication. On the whole, this is the day of the primitive; and if we are to return upon our tracks, it is better to seek our motives in the elemental cravings of the creature for the human, as Mrs. Marks does, than for the bestial, as so many poets are doing at present. Henry Arthur Jones has completed a new play, of which the character is not yet divulged. Marie Tempest is to assume the char- acter of a spinster in Norreys Connell's new play, "Thank Your Ladyship." She will be supported by Graham Brown, Ben Webster, O. B. Clarence, and others. The production will be in the London Play- house. Richard Pryce's adaptation of Arnold Bennett's novel, "Helen of the High Hand," will be produced in the London Vaudeville by Norman McKinnel and Creilerick Whelen. Harold Hrighouse is the author of a new comedy, "Garside's Career," with which Miss Horniman has opened her new season at the Gaiety, Manchester. "Garside's Career" deals largely with pol- itics, in humorous fashion. The princi- pal character is a Labor M.P., a political demagogue, played by Milton Rosmer. The piece has been warmly praised. There are some refreshingly frank re- marks about Mr. William Poel's "Hamlet" in the London papers A writer in Truth. says: I had thought it was Impossible to find "Hamlet" tiresome, and I have a great appreciation of the untiring energy and devotion of Mr. l'oel, but I am sorry that he should have given us 'Hamlet'' as he gave it at the Little Theatre. Perhaps he has been annoyed by people who de- clare that Shakespeare is rather a poet than a dramatist, but that is no reason for trying to nullify the poetry by gel ting it spoken in a trick fashion at a great pace with one word, not always the right one, heavily accented at tin expense of others and the intelligibility and beauty of the wording. It is no e\ cuse for presenting the Danish Prince as an ill-conditioned, ill-mannered boy dressing and undressing before the an dience and behaving like a wild animal during the play Scene Hamlet, who is never a prince, or a philosopher, 01 1 dreamer, but always a petulant wcaU ling, with nothing to recommend him but
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Feb. 26, 1914I T li e IN a t i o 11 219 an astounding ability to reel off the lines at tremendous speed. Music Beethoven. By Vincent D'Indy. Boston: Boston Music Co. .1 Critical Study of Beethoven's Nine Symphonies. By Hector Berlioz. New Yoik: Charles Scribner's Sons. Symphonies and Their Meaning. Third Series. By Philip H. Goepp. Philadel- phia: J. B. Lippincott Co. Sixty years ago a Russian Government Official, W. von Lenz, aroused a great discussion in the musical world by a work in two volumes entitled "Beet- hoven et ses trois styles." Vincent D'Indy. who is the second Frenchman to write a valuable book on that com- poser (the other being Romain Hol- land), might have chosen the same title for his book, for it is concerned mainly with the discussion of Beet- hoven's three styles. It is, however, much shorter (only 127 pages) and less marred by blind enthusiasm, thus mer- iting its subtitle, "A Critical Biography." M. D'Indy believes that the career not only of Beethoven, but of every creative artist whose life attains normal dura- tion, "divides into three periods, differ- ing one from the other in the character compositions: imitation, transi- tion, reflection." in the case of Beet Iioven there is also a period of ten years' preliminary study. Beginning at the age of twelve, he wrote forty nine pieces before, at the age of twenty-three, he was sufficiently satisfied to issue a composition as his opus one. Our French author contrasts this with the antics of many young artists of our time who are "lost in admiration of their first picture, their first novel, or their first symphony, and cannot rest until these attempts are exhibited or printed or en- graved." Eighty works were compos- ed in the years 1793 to 1801, the "period of imitation" — among them the first symphony, which Haydn might have written. In 1881 Beethoven "shook off all indo- lence of imitation," and began to write a series of masterworks interspersed with potboilers. This period, M. D'Indy declares, has even now been insufficient- ly studied. The change from his first style is due, he thinks, to the influence of the strong emotions aroused by his three loves — his love of women, of na- ture, of his country. These three loves "were what they had to be in so mighty a genius — of a vehemence mounting into passion, delirium." To these were added the heart-surges caused by the first symptoms of his deafness. The compositions written under the influ- ence of these feelings are those which always have and alwavs will make the deepest impression on the public. They are autobiographic; "commencing with 1801, one might reconstruct Beethoven's life almost step by step out of his works." The last twelve years of his life are the period of his third style. Deaf, un- married, harrowed by family and pe- cuniary troubles, he had come to lead "a purely introspective life, an almost monastic life, contemplative, intense, fruitful." Having fully mastered the art of composition, he turned to the traditional forms of the fugue, the suite, the choral with variations. As to the comparative value of the productions of this third period opinions still vary as much as they did nearly a century ago. Many professionals find in it their deep- est satisfaction; but to music lovers in general they will always remain sealed books. M. D'Indy classes the ninth symphony (which belongs to this pe- riod but is not of it in contents) with the uninspired mass, as "two colossi." In other places he shows more critical dis- cernment. "He was never a great writ- er of lieder," he admits; and in regard to the opera "Fidelio" he points out that it is "very far, very far, indeed, from having a value in the dramatic class equal to that, in the purely instru- mental style, of the sonatas, the sym- phonies, and the quartets." On this last point Hector Berlioz would not have agreed with V. D'Indy. The little volume of transla- tions of his chapters on Beethoven's symphonies includes a glowing tribute to "Fidelio." There are also a few pages on his trios and other sonatas, be- sides an essay on music. The analyses of the symphonies are brief, readable, and helpful; one must agree with the translator, Edwin Evans, that they de- pict their leading features more vivid- ly than any other treatise on the same subject. What makes this the more remarkable is that Beethoven's fame in France was in its infancy when these chapters were written. On one occa- sion the allegretto of the seventh sym- phony was inserted in the second to pass off the remainder! Of particular inter- est is the analysis of the "Pastoral" symphony, with which Berlioz, the pro- tagonist of programme music, naturally sympathized with all his heart. His re- marks on the storm culminate in these words: Then the trombones burst forth, the thunder of the kettledrums becomes re- doubled in violence, it is no longer mere- ly rain and wind, but an awful cataclysm, the universal deluge — the end of the world. This literally produces giddiness; and many people, when they bear this storm, can scarcely tell whether their emotion is one of pleasure or of pain. Philip H. Goepp, the distinguished Philadelphia critic, one of several prom- inent musical authors who studied un- der Professor Paine at Harvard, has also made a keen and helpful analysis of Beethoven's nine symphonies. It takes up 160 pages of the second series of his "Symphonies and their Meaning." The third series includes the symphonic poems of Liszt, Saint-Saens, Wolf, Loef- fler, and Richard Strauss; but most of its pages are devoted to the symphonies of Berlioz, Liszt, Franck, Tchaikovsky, the neo-Russians, Sibelius, Bruckner, Mahler, Sgambati, Martucci, Elgar, Had- ley, Strube, and Chadwick. It is worthy of note that the first of Mr. Goepp's volumes is already in its eighth edition; which attests the present interest in symphonic music as well as this author's success in providing information regard- ing them in a palatable form. As an- notator of the programme book of the Philadelphia Orchestra he has had abundant opportunity to get his notes1 at first hand. Mr. Goepp regards Wag- ner with undisguised aversion, which is a curiosity in these days; but as Wag- ner wrote no symphony worth consider- ing, he has his say about him only by the way. One wickedly suspects that his high praise of Liszt as the master- spirit among the composers of his time is based less on love of Liszt than on hatred of Wagner. It is needless to say that he is a Brahmsite, heart and soul. Yet he has many pleasant things to say about composers whom Brahms regard- ed, or would have regarded had he liv- ed longer, with feelings of dismay. Mr. Goepp believes in the future of the symphony, while acknowledging that it now has one of its fallow periods. His reasoning on page 40, where he tries to persuade the reader that the symphonic poem is less coherent than the sym- phony (which in truth is a mere mo- saic) is quaintly illogical. Maximilians announce the publication of "How to Sing," by Lilli Lehmann. The next book to appear in the Walter- Krause German series •'Scribner) will i>e a book of German songs. This will contain sixty-one of the best-known and most popular German souls with simple four-parl arrangement. Maeterlinck's most popular play, "Mon- na Vanna." was tinned by him into a libretto and. by his own desire, set to music by Henri Fevrier. The opera was produced in Paris on January 1 :■!. 1909, and met with Sufficient success to tempt three German managers (in Berlin, Schwerin, and Minister) to Stage it. In this country it was first produced by the Boston Opera Company and subsequently by the Chicago Company, first at home and then in Philadelphia and New fork, i' was beard for the first (and probably last) time last week, at the Met ropolitan. The play was made familiar throughout the country by the perform- ances of Bertha ECalisch, who imperson- al'd the pari of Monna Vanna, the com- a wife who. to save the Pisana from starvation, goes t the tent of the general of the army besieging them, clad,
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220 Tlie Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2539 as desired, only in a cloak, and returns unscathed. Subsequently she dopes with the general, who had respected her be- cause she could no longer love the husband who doubted her story of what bad hap- pened. Thus condensed the stoi \ seems equally fantastic and foolish, but the play has many lines of genuine poetic worth. The same cannot be said of the music, which for the most part is so common- place that it is not worth a moment's discussion. The composer has shown some skill in adapting the spirit of the music to the dramatic development, but he has nothing to say that is worth while. Scenically the staging of the opera was splendid, Mr. Urban's stage pictures, painted for Boston, being as poetic in their way as Maeterlinck's best lines. The average term of life of musicians is above sixty years, according to Herr Challier, of Giessen, Germany. He has collected facts about the ages of no fewer than 4,113 musicians whose deaths have been recorded since 1870. Of these, how- ever, he was able to discover the exact age of only 3,737. For these the average age at death was 61.11 years. The list includes artists of as widely varying ages as the prodigy Henry Kartern, who died when he was only nine years old, and the patriarch Manuel Garcia, who lived to be almost one hundred and two. Kartern was a violinist; Garcia, the brother of Malibran, was a singer. Some of the other prodigies died scarcely older than Kartern, such as the young Scot- tish girl Lizzie Kennedy, who died with her sister in the theatre fire at Nice many years ago. Elise Farnese, a well- known prima donna in her day, reached the record of one hundred and five years, while Herr Hilf, a popular German con- ductor, also surpassed the age of Gar- cia, dying at one hundred and three. The causes of death have not been so thor- oughly established as these ages, but Herr Challier gives only seven cases as due to theatre fires and other catas- trophes. Far more died from natural causes while singing, eleven on the con- cert platform and the same number on the operatic stage. Suicide accounted for 67 deaths and murder for 5, while 19 died virtually of starvation, and 30 died insane. According to Charles Wakefield Cad- man, "rhythm rather than melody is the basis of Indian music." In a recent West- ern lecture Mr. Cadman illustrated the Indian's cleverness in producing several rhythms simultaneously, as shown by the use of drums, rattles, and many curious devices. Art THE MORGAN LOAN EXHIBITION. After months of preliminary labor the collections of the late J. P. Morgan have been put on exhibition in the new north wing of the Metropolitan Museum. The collection being perplexingly various and large, ranging from the seventh cen- tury n. c. to the early nineteenth, the greatest pains have been taken to make the arrangement attractive and clear. The new, top-lighted galleries on three sides of an inner corridor have been In- dividually hung with rather pale ve- lours. This unobtrusive background is sufficiently rich and brings into har- mony the tapestries, paintings, bronzes, enamels, and potteries which adorn nearly every hall. A separate small room reproduces the famous Graesse in- terior, with Fragouard's paintings in their original setting. The ordonnance is strictly chronological, but in every hall there is free admission of all ob- jects of the period. The effect is of a glorified Hoentschel collection. The pictures, which had already been separately shown, are distributed by pe- riods as incidental decorations. One misses certain great rarities which Mr. Morgan is known to have possessed. His Duccio Crucifixion would have been an invaluable note in the Romanesque rooms. Ghirlandaio's lovely Giovanna degli Albizzi would have glorified the room of Renaissance bronzes. The three ranges of the central corridor contain suites of tapestry, porcelains, figurines of the eighteenth century, watches, and complete garnitures of porcelain from the rarest European and Chinese kilns. The orderly arrangement of all this ma- terial makes a visit as instructive as de- lightful. The staff of the Museum has acquitted itself with high credit in a most difficult task. Any survey of these vast collections must confine itself to very general con- siderations. At the outset, the effect is wholly impersonal. The quality of every- thing is amazingly high, but there is nothing adventurous in the selection. We have to do with those objects which, by common consent of international dealers and their clients, are brevetted as of highest rarity. ^Esthetic, historic, and individual standards have been largely in abeyance. We have to do, not with a collection, but with an im- pressive assemblage of fine objects, of which large collections are merely in- gredients. It is by a triumph of tactful arrangement that the exhibition escapes what, to a sensitive amateur, would be a somewhat tedious effect of standard- ization— on a very high level, to be sure, but all the same a standardization alien to the finest processes of artistic appre- ciation. I. The dealers and patrons who have ef- fected this useful and imposing, if not wholly satisfying, work of standardiza- tion make a distinction which may be very useful to the visitor. They speak of objects of art and of curiosity. The distinction is- fundamental, if a little blurred at the edges. The Morgan col- lections contain objects of curiosity in a ratio of about five to one to objects of art. The case may be put more strik- ingly in simple terms of chronology. Draw a line about the year 1550. Topo- graphically, it would fall at the parti- tion between galleries 13 and 14. The three earlier galleries contain mostly ob- jects of art, objects of curiosity being merely sporadic; the later galleries contain mostly objects of curiosity, ob- jects of art becoming exceptional. In another aspect our prime division corre- sponds to the Classic, Byzantine, Ro- manesque, Gothic, and Renaissance pe- riods on one hand, and to the Ba- roque, Rococo, and Empire periods on the other. Why was the characteristic product of the earlier periods objects of art, of the later objects of curiosity? To answer such a question would require the writ- ing of an amount of history that would bore a casual reader, while superfluous to an instructed one. In a word, the objects of art correspond to and express the deeper emotions of entire peoples; the objects of curiosity correspond to and express the tastes, caprices, and va- rieties of small fashionable classes. In a Greek bronze is the accent of convinc- ed and joyous humanism; in a Gothic enamel or ivory carving is the humility and fervor of Christian faith, the vision of a visible word built on invisible but firm foundations. In the Renaissance a prouder and more self-conscious human- ism has come back to earth. The emo- tion of reverence for antiquity is pro- found and widespread. Then a change. Art appeals only to a class. The ama- teur and savant appear, and not far be- hind the dealer and auctioneer. The artist is no longer the spokesman of the deeper instruction of a people, but the chartered amuser of petits maUres. His response to the demand is to be spright- ly, delicate, ingenious. The enameller no longer makes the pyxis for the body of our Lord or the reliquary for a saint in terms of bold symbolism, but he fuses his enamel exquisitely in pastoral de- signs on a carnet de danse, a snuff-box, a watch. Oddly enough, the inert enam- el itself has lost all seriousness in the process. In Gothic and earlier times it had strength and splendor and carrying power; in Rococo times it has the bloom and soft sparkle of an aquarelle, and may best be enjoyed through a monocle. It may be profitable to trace this pro- cess somewhat in detail through the enamels, which are incomparably the rarest and completest collection of the several that make up this memorable exhibition. II. That the art of fusing colored enam- els on metal first came into Europe from barbaric Scythia is rather a rea- sonable conjecture than an historic cer- tainty. The discovery that mineral col- ors could be run on metal with fusible Silicates was likely to occur wh< the art of glass-making was carried far. Touches of enamel are not uncommon
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Feb. 26, 1914] The JSTation 221 in Greek jewelry, but the first general and effective use of it seems to have been made under Scythian teaching by the Gothic tribes in their bosses and brooches. The Morgan collection begins with the Byzantine medallions — from the famous Svenogorodskoi collection. These are impressive busts of saints. The method is cloisonne, of a fineness rivalling that of the Far East. The fig- ures are painted in enamel on a gold background. Much bolder are the medi- aeval enamels, made with a counter-sunk bed for the enamels. The background here is worked away, leaving thin lines as guiding contours. The shallow de- pressions are filled with brilliant enam- el, but much gilded metal is left in sight. The figures are usually reserved in the embossed or engraved metal. All the finest enamels are made by this method of working out the metal plate, champlcvc, and at all good periods the enamel assumes a humble, incidental rdle. From Georges Hoentschel Mr. Morgan bought scores of pieces of this splendid Romanesque and Gothic champleve enamel. As compared with the Byzan- tine work, which more nearly approxi- mates painting, it is subsidiary and dec- orative. There are the most splendid medallions with figures or grotesque beasts or heads, also scrolls dug out of the metal and filled with glorious reds and blues and greens. Playing upon the gamut of blue was a favorite device. Now and then in a crucifix an emaciated Christ of chalky whiteness is set amid carbuncle and sapphire radiances at the extremities of the cross. Reliquary shrines, originally containing precious bones and rags fetched from Palestine, or fought for between convent and con- vent, or chaffered for in Rome, are put together from all sorts of costly material and with an impeccable decora- tive sense. Some twenty complete reli- quaries are in the exhibition, and three times as many fragments of dismem- bered shrines. Often the metal-worker set within or on the gilded copper bossy cabochon jewels, classic engraved gems, cut crystals, bits of carved ivory, slabs of porphyry, the enamel serving as the lower harmonizing diapason of the rich- ly composite color scheme. I can only particularize the great tabernacle, with its doors and back adorned by Passion scenes in gallery 12, and in the same room, case N, where may be seen a great variety of forms and materials, all magnificent examples of sensitive crafts- manship and of wide design. Limoges and the lower Rhine district were the centres for Romanesque and Gothic enamels, but the art was widely under- stood and practiced. Italy had vigor- ous schools, Russia always, and even Spain. The objects were rarely merely for display, but for high devotional use. The craft remained ancillary to sculp- ture in metal; the art was humbly dedi- cated to the service of the Church, and made no pretensions on its own account. It is almost as if objects of such ma- terial glow and splendor were made for the eye of God. Study the wealth of color and chasing bestowed on the gro- tesques, apparently from the Bestiary, which are set in a leather-covered box in room 12. With the fifteenth century comes a change. The art becomes detached and self-conscious. The enamel-worker emu- lates the painter, fusing his translucent pigments over a smooth plate of metal, without raised metal lines. The emanci- pation from sculpture is complete, with corresponding loss and gain. Nardon Penicaud's great triptych of the Pas- sion, signed late in the fifteenth cen- tury, best illustrates this completely pic- torial phase of the art. There are two exhibition cases of work by him or in his manner, and one case of Italian enamels, technically quite similar, though very different in design. Peni- caud drew his designs from the mascu- line and realistic models of the new Burgundian painters. His part was to endue these familiar religious patterns with the utmost material splendor. He fully succeeded. Certain deep refulgen- cies of cobalt, ruby, and emerald are pe- culiar to his palette. The enamel is smoother and more translucent than in earlier Gothic enamels, and lined and powdered with gold. Technically it is the consummate expression of an art about to decline. Indeed, to achieve the pictorial completeness of a fine Peni- caud there has been serious sacrifice. Only in the material is the art sui gen- eris. The old decorative variety has been lost. A fifteenth-century enamel painting, despite its intrinsic gorgeous- ness, has a rustic look. It seems some kind of a glittering debasement of a painting by Van der Goes, Rogier de la Pasture, or Hans Memling. Still, it re- mains emphatically an object both of utility and of art. To the position of objects of curiosity the painted enamels of the sixteenth century sunk very rapidly. Limousin, Courtois, Zip — these are sounding names in the modern auction room. Yet the work has little to recommend it except a futile excellence of manufacture. Be- fore the advance of the Italian and Ro- man ideals the color of enamel fades. Its hues become tiresomely discreet, while the designs become vapid tran- scripts from the mythological phase of the Italian Renaissance. The whole thing is the make-believe of a super- ficially cultured class. Toilet-boxes and drinking-cups are now more in order than reliquaries. The art was still to revive on a lower plane by frankly ac- cepting its sunken condition. It shrunk to miniature proportions fitted to dis- play the meticulous character of the workmanship. In the playful and ex- quisite snuff-boxes of Battersea and Paris the enamel as object of curiosity reached its acme. The art that had sufficed to adorn a shrine or monumen- tal altar-back now glorified the lid of a snuff-box or the cover of a watch. The transition from the object of art to the object of curiosity was exemplary and complete. III. In the carved ivories the same pro- cess may be traced even more broadly, if with more gaps in the story. Next to the enamels this is the most important mediaeval collection. The few scraps of classical date are trivial enough, wheth- er as design or workmanship, but ar- chaeologically very interesting. They in- clude a remarkable couch with Cupid supports, in hall 11, which has been somewhat arbitrarily reconstructed as a throne. There may be some fifty Byzantine pieces, complete casket and fragments, devotional and consular diptychs, dating from the sixth to the thirteenth century. Nothing here is quite of the highest quality, but the dis- play is comprehensive and instructive, the design usually stately, though with- out vigor. The six marvellous silver salvers, with the story of David in beat- en and carved silver, Byzantine, sixth century a. d., may be regarded as the prelude to the Christian ivories. In the Romanesque work of the eleventh to the thirteenth century, which is abundantly represented, as in the few earlier pieces of Carolingian type, there are greater power and less reserve. In Gothic times, from the thirteenth through the fifteenth century, we have an ascending scale of skill and vivacity ending in a rather small but still charm- ing dexterity. At the beginning of this period are splendid ivory tusk horns, with scroll and medallion ornaments, such olifants as dying Roland cracked with the last blast at Roncevaux. The very finest ivories are those produced after the year 1300 in France. A num- ber of exquisite examples of this work- manship are in case C, in hall 12. The combination of pathos with monumental impressiveness in a little fragment from the foot of a crucifixion is extraordi- nary. So is the monumental suavity of one or two standing virgins, their forms swayed in a long curve under the dear burden of the Divine Child. The same case contains a piece or two of those crisp skeletonized tablets which mark the approach to the fifteenth cen- tury and the decline of the art. Nothing is more inspiriting than the deeply cut spandrel, from a throne, in which we see an armored knight with lance at rest plunging up hill against Invisible terrified Moors. The work is Spanish, about l?.O0, and we are asked to see in this stalwart conquistador Jaime I, of Arogon, oh. 127n. The piece is in hall 11. <
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2&2 T li e Niition [Vol. 98, No. 2539 A quick survey of the numerous four- teenth and fifteenth-century ivories, mostly triptychs and diptychs of the Paris school, brings the reluctant con- viction that the art was rapidly settling into a perfunctory cleverness and vi- vacity. Hardly as much may be said for two big altar-backs in carved bone, produced about the year 1400, from the Venetian shop of the Embriachi. If still fairly decorative, it is a rather pooi kind of manufacture, in the full sense, neither object of art nor of curiosity. The art ends with a certain blatancy in the insipid Venuses and blowsy Bac- chantes which adorned the German flagons of the sixteenth and seven- teenth centuries. The contemporary boxwood sculpture, which is fairly rep- resented, usually has superior sincerity and idiom. Beyond that there was noth- ing much real except umbrella handles, though for three centuries past the most flagrant objects of curiosity have been freely imitated in ivory for the benefit of the incautious and lavish ama- tt ur. That such secondary pieces are not to be found in the Morgan collection need not be remarked. Everything is genuine, and of a certain importance. As an historical series, the ivories are most instructive, but even in the finest Gothic period first-class pieces are rare. A glance at the small stone and wood sculpture tastefully distributed through hall 12 will, as compared with all but a handful of the most beautiful ivories, demonstrate a generally superior qual- ity in the larger work. Ivory-cutting only rarely escaped the limitations of a derivative and secondary art. IV. With the small bronzes, largely from the Pfungst collection, which are charm- ingly displayed in hall 13, we are on the debatable ground between the object of art and of curiosity. Nothing in the whole mediaeval series is more austerely fine than the Resurrection which Yee- chietta of Siena signed in 1472. Despite the date, it is mediaeval. Three splendid pieces, a Paris, a Hercules, and a Mars- yas, ascribed to Antonio Pollaiuolo, show a powerful archaism struggling for a ful- ler beauty. That is a precious moment in any art. The same show case, A, contains bronzes by or near Bertoldo and Verrocchio, with more florid pieces as late as Giovanni da Bologna. A hur- ried visitor might well concentrate on this case and on the Vecchietta. There are four cases of tensely modelled Pa- duan bronzes — figures, animals, gro- tesques, statuettes, bells, and inkstands. In addition there are two cases of sim- ilar Venetian bronzes, a few late Flor- entine bronzes, and a case of northern examples, including fine pieces by Peter and Hans Vischer. Though displayed to utmost advantage, these little bronzes invariably lose when assembled in num- bers. Pnlike their Greek and Roman prototypes, they do not live well to- gether. The accent is too piquant and individual, too little traditional. The later sixteenth-century pieces lend to a deft copyism, and a slippery sort of ele- gance. Perhaps the vogue of these pieces, with their prices, is exaggerat- ed. In the next century a Bernini seems more fine, and later a Clodion in every- way more real and powerful. I am con- vinced that a rigorous scrutiny of the Renaissance bronzes would relegate a good two-thirds of them to the category of objects of curiosity. With them we have reached the artistic great divide and may cast a glance backward and forward. On the very dividing line is the col- lection of Italian majolica — fine stan- dard examples of the wares of Urbino, Pesaro, Gubbio, Deruta, Faenza, and Caffaggiolo, from the famous Oppenheim collection. Notable here are two cases of lustred Gubbio, including several signed examples of the famous Maestro Giorgio. Of the primitive potteries which, decoratively simple, have a larg- er and finer accent, there is no exam- ple. But these are of recent discov- ery. It is as if the collector had de- clined all ceramic issues until authori- tatively underwritten. Of the excessive- ly rare Henri II ware, Oiron, there are some ten examples. Behind our imaginary watershed lie, among other rare objects, a full dozen naive Burgundian tapestries, naive in design, splendid in color; before, twice as many weavings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, sophisticated in design, less splendid in color. Every- thing that is associated with the icolc galante is represented amply and at its best. The clou is, of course, the painted decorations, with incidental woodwork, which Fragonard made for the villa at Graesse. In these boscages the flirta- tions of shepherdesses and their swains graze the edge of passion. The whole ef- fleet is gay and ardent. An opaline panel of Cupids tumbling in the sky shows that, had he chosen and opportunity served, Fragonard might have met the great Tiepolo on his own ground. The whole decoration is a charming souvenir of an age that had sensualized its spir- it, while in a manner spiritualizing its sensuality. Technically, the scale seems wrong. Indeed, they may have been intended originally for a larger room in Mme. du Barry's country house. Tin panels are a little too big and in- sistent; they belong in a larger room, with restful wall spaces. One is forced into indiscreet and almost embarrassing proximity to these eager wooers. One almost fears eventualities that an' not for the critical eye. There is only a word left for what is, from a museum point of view, the most complete and important of all the col- lections— that of portrait miniatures. There is a case for Holbein and his school, with Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Sir Thomas More. Through Isaac Oliver's eyes we may see the perfumed but sturdy courtiers and ladies in wait- ing for good Queen Bess. Nicholas Ilil- liard will show us the diminishing but still splendid days of James and the first Charles. Then there is a magnifi- cent case of Cooper's, with such juxta- positions as Cromwell and Charles II — ■ sober masculine work. One is tempted to regard him as the only British por- trait painter who can be set beside Ho- garth with impunity. Almost equally interesting is the case devoted to the Clouets and their successors. The in- stallation is admirable — curtained glass cases, so that there is no spottiness, and one may concentrate upon the group that particularly interests him. As the collection reaches the time of Cosway and Nattier and Plimer and Isabey, it only increases in completeness and va- riety. I abridge the enumeration be- cause now we have only in a limited sense to do with objects of art. These rosy powdered charmers, eternally smil- ing, often ogling you from their jewel- led frames, were in their hour the ob- jects of a tender, perhaps ardent, curi- osity, and so are their miniatures to- day. In either case the deeper issues of the heart are not in question. From the miniatures one may pass out through a miniature porcelain popu- lation of shepherdesses and their lads in the corridor. All the famous kilns of France, Germany, Austria, and Eng- land are represented most fully. The brittle and slightly perverse charm of the work is highly indicative. It is the j last word of elegance in a world be- come wholly dilettante. Such things were made to break, though one shud- ders at such a destiny, and an imag- ; inative person may see the taurine form of Martinis Mirabeau, a repentant petit iiutitre himself, ominously approaching j the china shop. I think no one can close the survey of these collections without deep grati- tude to- the memory of Mr. Morgan. Personally, I find something very pa- thetic in the fact that he did not live to see his own treasures decorously liroiight to light. Many of these lovely objects he literally never saw. They lay perdus in storage, or, at best, were clumsily displayed in foreign museums. The pleasure and instruction which is now, through his generosity, offered to the humblest citizen, was largely denied to himself. This is new ground for sympathy, and as well for admiration of that prophetic energy and insight which foresaw in broad outline what the skilled staff of the Metropolitan Mu- seum now exhibits in perspicuous de tail. No one would have rejoiced more heartily than Mr. Morgan himself in this demonstration of the value thai
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T li e Natio n Feb. 26, 19 14] taste and intelligence add to mere I famed Hypogseum of Hal Saflieni, which things, however intrinsically rare and | was discovered at Valetta a few years 223 beautiful. F. J. M., .jr. ago. Mm -millan's list of spring announce- ments Includes: "The Principles of Greek Art," by Percj Gardner, and "Bernini and other Studies in the History of Art," by Richard Norton. After extensive repairs and alterations, the Fogg Ait Museum of Harvard Uni- versity Is again opened to the public. Of the considerable internal changes the most Important Is the raising of the roof of the picture gallery. This has greatly Improved both the architectural effect and the lighting. To celebrate the re- opening two notable loan exhibitions— ot Persian, Indian, and Saracen minia- tures, and of Japanese color prints — have been arranged The recent death of Karon Giovanni co makes the Commune of Pome the owner of the famous Barracco Mu- seum in the Corso Vittorio Emanuele. Baron Barracco was possessed of a con- siderable fortune, and be devoted much of his time and money to the formation Of this collection of Greek and Koman sculpture, which he willed to the Com- mune ot Pome sonic time ago. This season's excavations in Egypt on the site of Meroe, carried on by Profes- sor Carstang. of Liverpool University, are yielding interesting results. Recent discoveries include a sacred well and ad- jacent observatory, in which there is evidence of Instruments for observing transits and for determining latitude and other astronomical data. Two monu- mental inscriptions, the longest Meroitic texts extant, have jusl been brought to light, recording victories arid containing references to the city of Pome. Explora- tions are proceeding also outside the city walls, where hundreds of laborers are now clearing buildings and ruins. The work is receiving every assistance from the Sudan Government. Professor Dall' Osso, of Anemia, has made an important archaeological discov- ery, in the shape of a Stone Age burial place In the Valle Vibrata, in the province of Abruzzi. The bodies are not buried, but are all laid in small cabins contain- ing from two to eight each, and are ranged on either side of the huts on low platforms sloping towards the centre. With a single exception, the bodies all rest on one side, with the knees drawn up. In one of the cabins, almost in the centre of the group, there was found, in- stead of a corpse, a large circular hearth, around which it is assumed — from the quantities of bones of animals and frag- ments of broken earthenware pots about it — the funeral banquets were held. The objects found with the bodies show a re- markable degree of civilization for so early a period While Government employees were carrying on excavation work at Pergla, in the island of Gozo, an interesting dis- covery of a tomb containing human re- mains belonging to the neolithic age was made. The neighborhood was explored some time ago by Dr. Ashby, of the Pub- lish Archaeological School of Rome. The tomb is contemporary with the world- Finance STOCK EXCHANGE AND GENERAL BUSINESS. Having seen the stock market go up with a sudden leap, and the money mar- ket go down with a similar abrupt deci- siveness, Wall Street watched confident- ly for a similarly complete and instan- taneous reversal of its position by busi- ness at large. When that event failed to come about — the trend of business affairs remaining quiet — the conclusion was suggested that the movement in the stock and money markets must have been a mere flash in the pan. This is a familiar incident in the markets; and the odd part of it is that precisely this sequel of events — including the community's adoption of a resolution, so to speak, de- nouncing the stock market for its misleading forecast — occurs with suffi- cient frequency to fix a general prece- dent, yet that it always astonishes Wall Street when it occurs again. Even such notable instances as that which preced- ed the business revival of 1905 are for- gotten— an occasion when the Stock Ex- change progressively "discounted" bet- ter times for four successive months, without evoking, during that period, the slightest convincing response from gen- eral trade. Precedent of our Industrial history would certainly give no ground for un- easiness, merely because of the fact that a month has elapsed since the im- portant change for the better in our financial markets, and that no equally important change for the better has oc- curred in business. The main considera- tion, now as on all previous occasions of the sort, is the question how far the underlying influences, to which the financial markets made their response in January, may be relied on, in due course, to affect the general movement of prosperity. The answer to this ques- tion ought to be reasonably simple. Mon- ey markets fell throughout the world last month, and stock markets rose, for the obvious reason that the embargo on free supplies of capital had suddenly been lifted. Why it had been lifted may be debatable; but the fact was incon- testable, and so was the further fact that, to the extent that the world's loan market had again begun to work satis- factorily, the particular difficulties which confronted both finance and industry in 1913 were removed. As is always the case, the markets for speculation and investment were the first to give concrete evidence of their relief. But if the movement of trade and industry last year was cramp- ed and handicapped by this same situa- tion on the money market, it should be reasonably evident that the new situa- tion must, sooner or later, have its ef- fect in those quarters also. Last year, when the tying-up of capital supplies was first in sight, our stock markets and money markets made very prompt re- sponse. Business affairs continued to pursue their prosperous course until a considerably later period; but they had their turn at reflecting the unfavorable influences, after an interval which had led the hopefully disposed to declare that business would not be affected at all. Now the reverse process seems to be under way, and general trade is quite as deliberate in adapting its course to the shifted economic wind as it was when the opposite influences prevailed, a year ago. This simply means that on the pres- ent occasion, as on others of the sort, the keynote for the general movement of the period has been sounded, but that business revival pursues a slower and more deliberate path of recuperation than does the Stock Exchange, and that, therefore, people who are watching the business outlook must now return to studying the other influences of the moment. This is itself in the nature of reaction from the mood of six or eight weeks ago, when Wall Street rushed to the conclusion that the more favorable skies, at Washington and on the money markets, signified that no further clouds were to be looked for. Such expectations always and necessarily invite disap- pointment. Even if the stock market had continued without interruption its remarkable advance of January, we should still have been compelled to take into account, if we were wise, the pos- sibility of unpleasant incidents in se- quel to last year's financial strain, or of an awkward turn in the Mexican sit- uation, or of resumption by individual Congressmen of their menacing attitude towards capital. Paris may possibly provide some ma- terial for the first of these develop- ments; Mexican affairs are more or less in the hands of chanoe, and Congress- men who cannot get bills and resolu- tions passed can at least introduce them and make speeches on them. Yet one needs only to consider the special inci- dents of the hour in these quarters and their reception by the financial public to be convinced that apprehension, in each of these directions, has been much allayed. "Trouble at Paris" would be a far more negligible matter, with the Eu- ropean money situation what it is to- day, than If it had occurred, say, last November. Mexico In 1914, with the American public entirely disapproving anything that would involve the United States in war, is a very different affair from Cuba in 1898, with our people ap-
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224: rii LL1 li e IN n t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2539 parently spoiling for a iiglit, and Con- gressmen's wives appearing in the gal- lery wrapped in American flags. Congress itself displays surprising calmness and deliberation in its severely critical examination of the pending com- pany legislation. But as yet, the busi- ness community is doubtless waiting to see results rather than tendencies, and tangible results take time. It is there- fore quite in line with proper conserva- tism that even the stock exchanges, hav- ing given their first and emphatic prog- nostication, should relapse into cautious expectancy. In due course, we shall know just what kind of sequel, in the broader field of trade and industry, was foreshadowed by the market of which the London Economist observed that the culminating week on the Stock Ex- change was "the most remarkable, in some respects, in the memory of any of its members." BOOKS OP THE WEEK. Audoux, Marguerite. Marie-Claire a Villevieille, ed. by A. G. Philip. Claren- don Press. 40 cents net. Beard, Charles A. Contemporary Ameri- can Politics. Macmillan. $1.50 net. Belloc, Lowndes, Mrs. The Lodger. Scribner. $1.25 net. Boucicault, R. H. The Substance of His House. Boston: Little, Brown. $1.30 net. Brubacher and Snyder. English, Oral and Written. Charles E. Merrill Co. $1.12 net. Cambridge Manuals: The People of India, by Anderson; The Beautiful, by Vernon Lee; The Evolution of Now Japan, by Longford; A Grammar of English Heraldry, by St. John Hope; Naval Warfare, by Thursfield; Natural Sources of Energy, by Gibson; Life Story of Insects, by Carpenter; The Flea, by Russell; The Fertility of the Sod, by Russell; Pearls, by Dakin. Cambridge University Press. 40 cents net. Crawford, Dan. Not Lawful to Utter, and Other Bible Readings. Doran. $1 net. Daniels, J. In Freedom's Birthplace. Bos- ton: Houghton Mifflin. $1.50 net. Deeping. The White Gate. McBride, Nast. $1.25 net. Denison, Webster. Fine Feathers. 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The principal difference is that the weekly is naturally fuller in treat- ing passing events, including publications and plays, than a quarterly could be without being stale. Thus the two supplement each other — the weekly supplying the fresh treatment of current matter, the quarterly supplying the fuller treatment of interests more abiding. Specimen copies of the current issue of THE UNPOPULAR RE- VIEW will be sent to any address, subject to return or payment at pleasure, j Price 75 cents, subscription $2.50 a year. HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 32 West 32c! Street New York City g>tubie£ in £)iston\ economics ant) Public Hato Edited by the Faculty of Political Sci- ence of Columbia University. The Policy of the United States Towards Industrial Monopoly By Oswald Whitman Knauth, Ph.D. 8vo. Paper covers. $2.00 The Civil Service of Great Britain A Study of the History of Competition and of Intellectual Aristocracy By Robert Moses, Ph.D. 8vo. $2.50. Paper covers, $2.00. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 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WeUeslej- Pre I >rary, WeUesley, Hass. The Nation VOL. XCVIII— NO. 2540 THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 1914 Reg. U. S. Pat. Office. PRICE TEN CENTS Some Scribner The American Japanese Problem By Sidney L. Guuck, D.D., M.A., Professor Id Doshtsha University, Late Lecturer in the Imperial Uni- versity, Kyoto, Japan. Illustrated. $i.7."i mi ; pottage extra. This book forms the first and only clear, slve description of the nese situation In California, and discusses from every viewpoint the nl possible effects of the tese In this country as Immigrants i/.ens. Spring Publications The Ascent of Denali (Mt. McKinley) By HuDSO D.D., Archdeacon of the Yukon. With two photo- gravures, a map, and thirty-two il- lustrations from photographs by the Author. $1.75 net; postage extra. The account of the first ascent of Mt. McKinley, the highest mountain on the North American continent. Second Nights By Arthur Ruhl, author of "The Other Americans," etc. $1.50 net; by mail, $1.64. 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11 The Nation The Nation A WEEKLY JOURNAL. FOUNDED IN 1865. lEntered at the New York City Poet Office as second-class mail matter.] The Nation Is published and owned by the New York Evening Post Co. Oswald Garrison Villard, President: John Palmer Gavlt, Secretary nnd Treasurer; F.mil M. Seholz, Business Manager; Paul Elmer More, Editor; Harold dcWolf Fuller. Assistant Editor. Three dollars per year in advance, postpaid, In any part of the United States or Mexico; to Canada $3.50, and to foreign countries comprised in the Postal Union, $4.00. Address THE NATION, Box 794, New York. Publication Office. 20 Vesey Street. CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER. The Week 225 Editorial Articles: The Wilson Touch 228 War by Any Other Name 228 Unemployment 229 The Ulster Difficulty 230 Our Inertia in Fire Prevention . . 231 The Vogue of the Inedited 231 Special Articles: Lyric Poetry 232 News for Bibliophiles 235 Correspondence : The Roman Liberals to Lincoln . . 236 Pagin's School 236 The People's Wants 236 Hardy's "Tragic Possibilities" .... 237 The Fool's Mate 237 A Book of Sea Stories 237 Eden Phillpotts's Schoolboy Stories 238 Literature : Ravenna e le sue grandi memorie. . 238 Horace Blake 239 The Light of Western Stars 239 The Butterfly 239 Liliecrona's Home 239 Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres. . 239 Nietzsche, sein Leben und seine Werke. — The Philosophy of Nietz- sche.— The Philosophy of Fried- rich Nietzsche 240 What Men Live By 241 GovernmentOwnership of Railways 242 Notes 242 Science : Commercial Gardening 245 Drama : Shakespeare at the Savoy 246 Music : A Fantastic French Opera 248 Art 249 Books of the Week 250 JUST PUBLISHED CORPORATE PROMOTIONS AND REORGANIZATIONS By ARTHUR STONE DEWINQ, sometime In- structor in Economics in Harvard University HARVARD ECONOMIC STUDIES. VOL. X. 8vo. Clotb. 070 pagios. $2.50 net. case boos of the promotion, f;tii nre, and reorganization of more than a ohibinMtions. Though tudy in finance, it treata also of 1 lei al a pects, and the bearing of government regulation HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS [Vol. 98, No. 2540 The Postal Life Insurance Company r pays you the Commissions that other Companies pay their agents THE POSTAL LIFE is the only Company that opens its doors to the public so that those desiring sound insurance- protection at low cost can deal directly for it, either personally or by correspondence. Whether you call or write, you make a guaranteed saving cor- responding to the agent's commission the first year, less a mod- erate advertising charge. This first-year Commission Dividend ranges up to 40% on STRONG POSTAL POINTS First : Standard policy- reserves, now nearly $10,000,000. Insurance in force nearly $50,000,000. Second : Old-line legal reserve insurance — not fraternal or assessment. Third : Standard policy- provisions, approved by the State Insurance De- partment. Fourth : Operates under strict State require- ments and subject to the United States postal authorities. Fifth : High medical standards in the selec- tion of risks. Sixth: Policyholders' Health Bureau provides one free medical exami- nation each year, if de- sired. the Premium Whole-Life Policies In subsequent years you get the Renewal Commission other compa- nies pay their agents, namely 7j^%, and you also receive an Office-Ex- pense Saving of 2%. making up the ;:• •!<-,< ii |:i ( i \ v i 16 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YOltK. I'll'- and full Information sent upon application. LIBRARY RESEARCH Researches made In Boston and Harvard i.ibra- rles. Ancient and i lern languages. Iran la1 revision of manuscripts, etc. Miss M ii BUCKINGHAM, 00 Chestnut Street, Boston, Mass. Educational The WOLCOTT SCHOOL, DENVER.COL. Superior climate. Accredited wll b Casteru Colleges fur girls. Kino nmsir advantages. Gymnasium. THE FISK TEACHERS' AGENCIES, J. Kvkiutt 0. Fisk & Co., Proprietors. Boston, 2i Park St. Denver, 817 .M:i«. Tern. New rork.156Flft.hAv. Portland, 816 Journal Bd. Washington, 1847 D St. Berkeley. 2161Shatt'k Av. i hicago,28E.JacksonBd. Los Angeles, 348DouglasBd. Send lo any address above for Agency Manual. Harlan I'. French, Pres. Vlneen! it. Iftsk, See'y. THE ALBANY TEACHERS' AGENCY knows bow. Twenty two yean ol successful ex- perience in bringing together good scl is and i i teachers. Send tor Bulletin, si Chapel St., ' Ibanj . N. Y. PROVIDENT TEACHERS' AGENCY 120 TRBMONT ST., BOSTON. M \ss TEACHERS AND OFFICERS WANTED FOit COLLEGES \M) schools Director, 2 i UBS I BE I 0\ K fo ly i.r Harvard.
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March 5, 1914] The Nation 111 Foreign Dealers in Rare Books, Prints, Etc. A Special Offer of a Very Remarkable Literary and Artistic Publication THE YELLOW BOOK AN ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY. Mternry Editor HENRY IIARLAND Fln«- Art Ed. AUBREY BEARDSLEY Complete from its heninning in April, 1894, to its termination in April, 1897. 13 vols. sm. 4to. Bound in Yellow Cloth, with Design by AUBREY BEARDSLEY. Published at §19.50 net Now Offered at $10.50 The volumes of "THE, YELLOW BOOK" are interesting from cover to cover, and con- sidered as a set of books, have been justi- fiably called The Yellow] Book Classics. HENRY SOTHERAN AND CO. 43 PICCADILLY, LONDON, W., ENGLAND RARE BOOKS Wc can supply the rare books and prints you want. 158 classified catalogues Issued. When in Europe, Call and sec us in Munich. Over n million books and prints in stock. Always send your wants to The Ludwig Rosenthal Antiquarian Book Store Hildegardstr 14, Munich, Lenbachplatz 6, Germany Founded is.'.ii Cables : Lunnos, Munich BOOKS! For Study, Recreation, on every conceivatde Subject and tor all Examinations. The largest stock of and Books in the world. Second-hand at Half Price. Over 1,000, 000 volumes in strictly classified order. New P.ooks 25% Discount. Cat- alogue .\'o. !l-10 Free. State wants. Books bought. W. & G. FOYLE, 121 CHARING CROSS ROAD LONDON, ENGLAND BOOKS — All out-of-print books supplied, no matter on what subject ; write me, stating books wanted; I can get you any book ever published; when in England, call and inspect mv stock of 60,000 rare books. BAKER'S GREAT BOOK- SHOP, John Bright St., Birmingham. England. ■p/"y/~)l£0 in all branches of Literature, Art, *-»vyWIVO Bibliography, Drama, Rare, and Privately Printed Items. Manuscripts. Catalogue now in press, upon application. HERBERT E. GORFIN, 82a, Charing Cross Road, London, W.C. BOOKS Catalogues Including Americana post free. R. Atkinson, 97 Sunderland Rd., Forest Hill, London. NEW MAGAZINE ONIEGYPT An illustrated quarterly magazine, beautifully illustrated, with news of late discoveries, edited by PROF. PETRIE, began with the January num- ber embellished with frontispiece of jewelry in colors. Price $2 a year. The discoveries by Petrie and others for the EGYPTIAN RESEARCH ACCOUNT (Society) relate to the arts of Ancient Egypt and to its predynastic age. An annual quarto volume, profusely illustrated, and the magazine should be in all public and many private libraries. Circulars of these publications freely furnished. Address REV*. DR. W c WINSLOW, 525 Beacon Street, Boston. For Lenten Reading RELIGION AND LIFE By Dr. EL WOOD WORCESTER Rector of Emmanuel Church, Boston $1.25 net HARPER A BROTHERS. ___ McClurg's New Catalogue of Rare & Fine Imported BOOKS Selections from the finest collection in the country Copy sent free on request A. C. McCLURG & CO. Dept. P. 218-24 S. Wabash Avenue CHICAGO HUMANISTS' LIBRARY ANNOUNCEMENT JN the Spring: of 1914 two new volumes will be pub- lished in The Humanists' Library. These are: PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA: APlatonick Dis- course upon Love. GIOVANNI DELLA CASA: The Galateo— Of Manners & Behaviour. The books are printed in red and black on hand- made paper, and are sold at $3.00 net each. The edition of each volume is limited to subscrip- tions received before publication. Persons inter- ested should send for a descriptive circular to D. B. UPDIKE, The Merrymount Press, 232 Summer St., Boston GRADUATE, AMERICAN, FOREIGN UNIVERSITIES (Ph.D.), specialty Germanics, but having also taught French, Spanish, English. History seeks re-engagement, College, Normal, High 01 Private School, having! recently spent three ad ditional years abroad. Total European real dence, nine years ; ten years' experience teach lng In College and High School ; some estab lished reputation as Author, Lecturer. High est possible credentials, references. Salary first year (If engaged early) secondary con- sideration. Might consider year of substitute work. Address PROFESSOR J., care The Nation. The Freshman and His College By FRANCIS C.LOCKWOOD A MANUAL for use In the course In freshman Eng- lish, containing chapters on college life by David Starr Jordan, William DeWItt Hyde, Charles William Eliot, William James, John But- ler Johnson, Alexander Meiklejohn, John Orier Hibben, Walter W. Thoburn, and John Henry Newman. Cloth. 164 pages. 80 cents. DC.Heath&Co.,Publisher?,Boston,NewYork,Chicago BROWNING'S COMPLETE WORKS Thin paper, large-type Pocket Edition. Edited by Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke. 12 vols. Cloth, $1.00 per vol.; leather, $1.50 per vol. "By far the most desirable edition yet published."— [The Dial. THOMAS Y. CROWELL CO., New York of Celebrities Bought and Sold. Send for price lists. WalterR.Benjamln,226 5th Av.,n.t. ESTABLISHED 1887. Pub. 'THE COLLECTOR," $1 a yr. NOW READY GREAT JURISTS OF THE WORLD Fr»m PAPINIAN to VON IHERING BY VARIOUS AUTHORS With 20 portraits. Edited by Ed- ward Manson, Co-editor of the Journal of the Society of Compar- ative Legislation, and with Intro- ductions by Sir John Macdonnell, Professor of Comparative Law in University College, London and by Van Vechten Veeder, Judge of the United States District Court, New York. 8vo. Cloth, $5.00 net. The aim of this volume in the Con- tinental Legal History Series is to set forth the life, work, methods, and influence of the great jurists who have had more than a merely nation- al importance in the development of European Law. This work is a sort of Plutarch's Lives for the History of Continental Law. Papinian, Alciat, Bartolus, Vico, Bacon, Leibnitz, Sel- den, Montesquieu, Cujas, Vattel, Sav- ig-ny Bentham, Beccaria, Von Iher- ing, Mittermaier — these and a few other names stand out as land- marks for all European Law. fcJ'Send for descriptive pamphlet of the Continental Legal History Series. LITTLE, BROWN & CO., Publishers, Boston JUST PUBLISHED The English Moralities Volume II. of the Harvard Studies in English By W. ROY MACKENZIE, Associ- ate Professor of English in Wash- ington University, St. Louis, Mo. A complete and scholarly classifi- cation of the extant English Morali- ties on the basis of allegorical struc- ture, with a final chapter on ancient and modern moralities in relation to their audiences. Special emphasis is placed on the fact that allegory, in drama, is the most direct means by which a single and connected lesson can be taught for the guidance of life. 8vo, cloth, XV+278 pages, $2.00 GINN AND COMPANY Boston New York Chicago Loudon Atlanta Dallas Columbus San Francisco A Pilgrimage to Beethoven By RICHARD WAGNER With handsome photogravure of M. Roe- dig's noted painting of Beethoven. 47 pages, extra paper. 50 cents net. "A pleasant little idyll, saturated of course with M i ■■ i spit it of youthful adora- tion for art which seems inseparable from is young musicians and their work." — Record-Herald. "Apart from the Interest of its association with the two greatest masters of musical lion of our country, the Intrinsic lit- erary quality of the novelette Bho it a bearty welcome in its English form." — l'rcsbvtcrian and Ite/ormed Review. The Open Court Publishing Co., Chicago A new hook by I'.DYVA Itl) HOWARD QBIOOB THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART The meaning and relation of sculpture. ing. poetry and music. The author's most Important work so far published. 12mo. cloth, $1.50 net; by mall, $1.60 B.W.Huebscb.Pubiisher, 225 Fifth avenue, New York
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IV The Nation (Vol. 98, No. 2540 NEW AND FORTHCOMING MACMILLAN PUBLICATIONS TRAVEL. DESCRIPTION THE PHILIPPINES: Past and Present. By Dean C. Worcester (Secretary of the Interior, Philippines, 1901-13). A timely, accurate work on Philippines conditions by "the one man on earth who knows most about the subject." Two vols. Richly illustrated. $G.OO net. MEXICO: The Wonderland of the South. By W. E. Carson. A new, revised, enlarged edition, with additional chapters on present con- ditions, bringing this standard work up to date. Illustrated. $1.50 net. SOUTH AMERICA: Observations and Im- pressions. By Viscount Bryce. A new, re- vised edition of this important work. Colored maps. $2.50 net. Also in Spanish. LA AMERICA DEL SUD: Observaciones e Impresiones. Por James Bryce. Trans- lated into Spanish by Guillermo Rivera. Colored niaps. $2.50 net. EGYPT IN TRANSITION. By Sidney Low. Introduction by the Earl of Cromer. A faithful account of the great modern progress of Egypt. Illustrated. $2.50 net. FICTION SANDY. S. R. Crockett's New Novel. By the author of "Patsy," "The Stickit Minister," etc. A hero, this time, as captivating as Mr. Crockett's previous attractive heroine, "Patsy." Illustrated. $1.35 net. THE TREASURE. Kathleen Norris's New Novel. By the author of "Mother," etc. A new novel by this popular author, redolent again of the home atmosphere. illustrated. $1.00 net. THE RECONNAISSANCE. By Gordon Gar- diner. A novel of striking power and originality, a vivacious story of adventure. Colored frontispiece. $1.35 net. POETRY. DRAMA THE TRAGEDY OF POMPEY. By John Maseneld. The latest work of this powerful poet. $1.25 net. CHITRA. By Rabindranath Tagore. An idealistic lyrical drama by the spiritual Bengali poet-philosopher. $1.25 net. THE FOOTHILLS OF PARNASSUS. By John Kendrick Bangs. A delightful selec- tion of this entertaining poet's best verse. $1.25 net. ART THE PRINCIPLES OF GREEK ART. By Dr. Percy Gardner (Univ. of Oxford). An in- teresting analysis of the psychological and artistic attributes of Greek art. illustrated. $2.25 net. EDUCATION A CYCLOPAEDIA OF EDUCATION. Edited by Dr. Paul Monroe (Columbia Univ.). The most important of the encyclopaedias. Just com- pleted Five vols. Illustrated. $'2.'>.00 net the Bet. TRAINING THE GIRL. By Prof. William McKeever (Univ. of Kansas). One of the sanest contributions towards the education of girlhood. Illustrated. $ 1 .50 net. GOVERNMENT. POLITICS THE AMERICAN DOCTRINE OF JUDI- CIAL SUPREMACY. By Dr. Charles Grove Haines. The origin and development of judicial control over legislation. $2.00 net. AMERICAN GOVERNMENT AND POLI- TICS. By Charles A. Beard. A new, re- vised edition of this important work for students and the general reader. $1.10 net. ON POLITICS AND HISTORY. By Vis- count Morley, O.M. A world-wide review of past, present, and future public policy. $1.00 net. WHIGS AND WHIGGISM. By Benjamin Disraeli. A companion volume to the great statesman's biography of his piquant political writings. $3.00 net. SOCIOLOGY WHERE AND WHY PUBLIC OWNERSHIP HAS FAILED. By Yves Guyot. An exhaust- ive expert treatise on state ownership and opera- tion in different countries. $1. r,o net. VIOLENCE AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT. By Robert Hunter. A dramatic, historical nar- rative of the labor conflicts of the last half-cen- tury. $1.50 net. FINANCE A THEORY OF INTEREST. By Clarence Gilbert Hoag, A.M. A sincere attempt to solve correctly the problem of interest, introduc- ing some important modifications in the theory Of value. $1.25 net. AGRICULTURE FARM STRUCTURES. By K. J. T. Ekblaw (Univ. of Illinois). A practical work enabling the farmer to solve his building problems. Illustrated. $1.50 net. SCIENCE THE CHILDHOOD OF THE WORLD. By Edward Clodd. A work which describes the source of the human race, its institutions and culture. Illustrated. $1.50 net. THE ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY. By James F. Ab- bott (Washington Univ.). A lucid statement of fundamentals for student and general reader. $1.50 net. THE UNCONSCIOUS: The Fundamentals of Human Personality. By Morton Prince M.D., LU.D. An introduction to the study of abnormal psychology. $2.00 net. RELIGION. PHILOSOPHY THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY. By Prof. Henry C. Vedder. A vivid, accurate narrative of the great religious struggle of the 16th Century from the economic standpoint. $3.00 net. THE FAITH OF JAPAN. By Tasuku Harada (I'res. Doshisha Univ.). An admirable Interpre- tation of Japanese ethical and religious belief. $1.50 net. THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL. By Dr. Moses Buttenwieser. A luminous study of the great literary Hebrew prophets. $g.oOnet. Published at 64-66 Fifth Ave, N. Y. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY On Sale Wherever Books Are Sold
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The Nation NBW YORK, THVltaUAY, MARCH 5, 1014. The Week A question of good taste always arises when men formerly in high office speak of their successors. Both ex-President Taft and ex-Attorney-General Wicker- sham have several times taken occasion to refer to the work of the Wilson Ad- ministration. Mr. Taft has done it in a handsome way. He has spoken of the President's "admirable leadership"; and the other night expressed generously his gratification at the ratification by the Senate of the arbitration treaties — a result which he himself had vainly tried to procure. Mr. Wickersham has no doubt sought to appear equally consid- erate and even gracious in dwelling upon the methods and plans of the new Ad- ministration, but wo suppose It Is the nature of the special topic to which he has addressed himself to make him a little rasping in manner. It seems im- possible for the holder of one theory of controlling monopoly to speak of an- other without saying something nag- ging. We do not say that Mr. Wicker- sham is not right to free his mind about the proposed Trust bills. A part of what he has said has been marked by excellent sense. But for him to keep on saying it, and always in the guise of a former Attorney-General, will expose him, we think, to the charge of display- ing trop de zcle. That far-off battle-cry of "Let the peo- ple rule" will be remembered with a sense of oddity by those who catch the accents of the controversy now agitating Pennsylvania Progressivism. In the holy war against Penrose and the Democrats there has already come a revolt against the method by which a select group met last week at Harrisburg and entrusted the party banners to a slate of three: Gifford Pinchot for United States Sena- tor, W. D. Lewis, of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, for Gover- nor, and Percy Smith, of Pittsburgh, for Lieutenant-Governor. Progressives of the Philadelphia County Committee, who have never before thought of "boss- rule" except in connection with the old parties, apply it unreservedly to the fifty men who "fixed the ticket" at the State capital. Some inkling of the Pro- gressive dilemma may be gathered from the defence of the fifty through Robert C. Blair's statement in the Public Led- ger. Had the slate not been privately arranged, the voters would have disre- garded the strategic requirements of geographical distribution of candidates, and there would have been loud outcry from slighted districts that Flinn had dominated the situation. Most of the seventeen Republican Sen- ators whose terms expire on March 4 of next year were elected before either of two important events had occurred: the adoption of the Seventeenth Amend- ment and the formation 'of the Progres- sive party. Perhaps Mr. Smoot, of Utah, has nothing to fear from the former, but there is bad news affecting him in connection with the new party. A com- bination of Democrats and Progressives, it is reported, has been made against him, and a candidate agreed upon. This candidate, Mr. J. H. Moyle, has twice been the Democratic candidate for Gov- ernor; and, although a Wilson man, is agreeable to the Progressive leaders. Such a rumor a year ago would have been regarded as the work of an enemy of the Progressive party, but recent hap- penings make it sound plausible. De- spite the Colonel's denunciations of "deals," in his absence his followers are learning how to make them, as they clearly showed the other day at Albany in electing a Progressive for State Trea- surer. The spectacle of Progressive lead- ers meeting to designate a candidate, as if there were no such thing as primar- ies, is not new. How serious the alli- ance may be for Senator Smoot may be judged by the fact that, while Taft car- ried the State in 1912, his 42,000 votes fell about 20,000 votes below the com- bined vote for Wilson and Roosevelt. graphs, the volumes of research, for which there is, in the nature of the case, but a small market. When published in England, there is no motive for tak- ing out copyright or printing them here, since it would not pay. But the prac- tice has long been for American pub- lishers to agree with an English house to take over half the cost of production of an edition of, say, 2,000 copies, and import their share, basing their invoices on the actual cost to them. The result has been to make both the publication and sale of such books possible, and to place them within reach of the Ameri- can purchaser at a price lower than he would otherwise be compelled to pay. But now along comes a Treasury in- struction to break up this old practice, ordering, as it does, that these books shall be valued at their market price in England. Not what the importer actual- ly paid for them under his special and useful arrangement, but what he would have paid if he had bought a dozen copies in London, is made by this owlish ruling the basis on which duties' must be reckoned. Attention is called by the American Publishers' Copyright League to a re- cent customs ruling, affecting the impor- tation qf books, which seems to be amaz- ingly stupid even in a realm where the gods have so often lought in vain with Dummheit. The case is one of a spe- cial and limited class of books. They are the scholarly works, the art mono- Of that indispensable artistic process, the "warming-up" to a piece of work, there are no exponents like our State Legislatures. The Virginia Assembly, which, according to the Norfolk Virgin- ian-Pilot, has just "awakened with a start" to the fact that only a fortnight of its sixty days is left for its full pro- gramme of work, is the latest to assert this preliminary necessity of hitting on just the right mood. "Of eleven impor- tant bills of a general nature," we read, "the Legislature has passed only two." Among those on which decision is ear- nestly looked for are a primary bill, a direct-tax reduction bill, a game bill, an initiative and referendum bill, and a workmen's compensation bill. The im- perative appropriation bill was not even on the calendar. In pledge of making an end of this dawdling, it is hopeful to note the announcement of meetings of the committees of rules, to devise swifter procedure. This habit of wait- ing for the pressure of the last moment to force action is so widespread, and Legislatures learn so little from one an- other or from their predecessors in the matter, that it is strange that none of
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2^3 (> T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2540 our experiment-station States has re- duced the length of session below the present minimum of forty days. Some- thing like Dr. Johnson's severe rebuke to those who await inspiration is need- ed, that even legislative work can al- ways be attended to if men will but "set themselves resolutely to it." Another Governor has dared to do something unprecedented, and this time it is the Governor of Massachusetts. In- stead of sending a message to the Leg- islature, Gov. Walsh appeared in person before the Committee on Constitutional Amendments to urge the initiative and referendum. Yet he was careful to ex- plain that he means to employ this method of getting his ideas before the legislators sparingly. Gov. Foss used special messages, but the difference in the attitude of Executives on this point is shown by the refusal of Gov. Draper upon one occasion even to send a mes- sage, upon the ground that it would be interference with the Legislature. The action of Gov. Walsh is mild in compar- ison with that of Gov. Wilson during the first legislative session of his term. Nu- gent had arranged a coalition with the Republicans to beat the Geran bill for popular primaries, and, not content with that, undertook to persuade the Demo- crats in the lower house to repudiate the Governor's programme. The first step was to be a conference on the Geran bill. Wilson, of course, heard of the conference, and politely asked to be in- vited. It would have been so much more awkward to refuse than to comply that the invitation was issued. The rest is history. After four and a half hours, of which the Governor was on his feet for three, the conference, called to re- pudiate the bill, made it a party mea- sure. The Springfield Republican draws at- tention to the fact that one of the late Senator Teller's historical distinctions was his drafting of the resolution em- bodying a self-denying ordinance which was adopted by Congress on the eve of the war with Spain. "While it did not prevent the acquisition of the Philip- pines," says the Republican, "it did force the establishment of the present Cuban Republic, much to the disgust of many patriots who believed Cuban an- nexation to be the logical outcome of the hostilities with Spain." Our contem- porary might have made the claim of the Teller resolution even stronger. For not only the establishment of the Cuban Re- public, but even more distinctly its preservation, is to be put to the credit of that declaration. The supporters of the Teller resolution insisted on its being made an integral part of the resolutions adopted by Congress in response to Pres- ident McKinley's message, which were virtually our declaration of war. By it the United States not only disclaimed "any disposition or intention" to gain possession of Cuba, but expressly prom- ised "to leave the government and con- trol of the island to its people." Even so, there was widespread expectation that, at the first sign of trouble in Cuba under a native government, the island would drop into our lap. All this is worth recalling, not only for its interest in relation to Senator Teller and to Cuba, but as an illustra- tion of the potent influence upon nation- al history which may be wielded by the bare assertion of a principle. It was not merely as a form of words, or a salve to his own conscience, that Teller was so determined to have this pledge inserted in the war resolutions; he and those who supported him felt that it would be a real safeguard against "crim- inal aggression," and the result proved them to be right. It was the absence of so definite a safeguard concerning the Philippines that made possible McKin- ley's drifting into the policy of "benevo- lent assimilation"; and it was the de- feat, only by the casting vote of the Vice-President, of Senator Bacon's reso- lution relating to the treaty of peace with Spain, that prevented this pro- tection from being thrown over the peo- ple of those islands. A most remarkable instance of the efficacy of an assertion of principle, in a wholly different do- main of statesmanship, is the declara- tion in the Sherman silver-purchase act of 1890, that it is "the established policy of the United States to maintain the two metals on a parity with each other upon the present legal ratio, or such ratio as may be provided by law." This protection from the danger — which soon turned out to be so real and so immi- nent— of a sliding away from the gold to the silver standard was brought about, not as in the case of the Teller resolu- tion, by a stout champion of principle, but by a master of the art of compro- mise; yet it proved of invaluable service to the country. Socialists who emphasize the world- wide solidarity of their party should be happy to call attention to a French defi- nition of their cause. What is Socialism? asks the Parti Ouvrier. "Nowadays, it is a profession carried on by keen young men of the bourgeois class, who perceive that the surest way of making a success is to play upon the demagogic spirit of the masses." This sarcastic criticism springs, of course, out of politico-social conditions peculiar to France, but the situation it calls up would not amaze our West, where the copper miners for- bade Victor Berger to testify before the Congressional Committee. The Parti Ouvrier's further protests against the Parliamentary bargainings of elected So- cialists for political power and personal profit all seem to get down to a funda- mental suspicion: are these men true red, or simply disguised exploiters of the workingmen? And there is, as another paper remarks, a triumphant banality about its proposition that "no sooner does the party attain certain possibili- ties than it becomes a vast syndicate of electoral appetites." To the figures by races of New York city's population in 1910, the Census Bureau adds an analysis of the mother tongues of the foreign-born whites and their children. English rather surpris- ingly holds its own against German and Yiddish. Nearly one million of our for- eign stock, 21 per cent, of the whole pop- ulation, were born of English-speaking parents; 861,980 of Yiddish or Hebrew, and 841,889 of German. This virtual equality among the three tongues is maintained with considerable uniform- ity throughout the boroughs; in Brook- lyn and Richmond English led; in the Bronx and Queens, German, and in Man- hattan, Yiddish. But nowhere was Eng- lish worse than second. In Manhattan, where Yiddish claimed 533,444 of the foreign-born, or of the first native gener- ation, English was the mother tongue of 469,626, while German fell to 337,403. In the whole city, 549,444 reported Italian as their mother tongue, and 116,161 Polish, with others bringing up the rear. In comparison with the country at large, It Is, of course, Yiddish which looms up; and when we consider from how many sources English-speaking ami German-
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March 5, 1914] speaking immigrants are drawn, its to- tal of 19 per cent, of the city's entire population is impressive. Leland, Miss., February 24. — Sam Pet- ty, a negro, accused of having killed a Deputy Sheriff, Charles W. Kirkland, was shot by a mob of 300 men to-night, and his body burned. Petty, wanted on a trivial charge, kill- ed Kirkland with a shotgun when the officer entered a cabin late to-day, in which the negro had taken refuge. Petty was captured by a posse, bound, and placed in an oil-soaked dry-goods box, and the match applied. A moment later the man, his clothing aflame, broke from his fastenings and started to run, but before he could gain headway was shot dead. The body was put back in the box, fresh inflammables were piled about It, and within half an hour it was burned to ashes. No comment could add to the revolting horror of such a story. We do not wish to discuss it in any way. But we should like to ask our Southern contemporaries, in all sincerity and candor, two ques- tions. Can they name any other civiliz- ed, or even semi-civilized, country in which such fiendish savagery is practic- ed? And if they cannot, how do they feel about the distinction which, through the supineness of the authorities and of public opinion in their section of the country, is thus conferred upon the United States of America? Resignations in advance, for the pur- pose of giving the appointing officer a power of removal, not expressly con- ferred, have been declared void by an1 Illinois court. The case has a national interest, since it arose out of the fight against Mrs. Young, Chicago Superinten- dent of Schools. The Mayor has the power of appointing the school trustees, but not of removing them. It has been the custom, however, for such appoin- tees to give him power of removal by placing in his hands formal letters of resignation upon taking office. It was this weapon that enabled Mayor Harri- son to get rid of enough of Mrs. Young's opponents among the trustees to prevent her non-election for another term from being final. Mayor Harrison was so thoroughly convinced of the viciousness of the practice that he had already de- clared he would never resort to it again; but it is well to have this attitude made compulsory. Not the least significant aspect of the decision is that, in mak- ing it, the court looked beyond the tech- The ]STation nicalities to the intent of the law. The decision will probably not affect Mrs. Young's position, as the case will hard- ly reach the highest court before the ex- piration of the term of the ousted trus- tees. 227 measure appears to be anything but ex- travagant. An investigation of one public school in Manhattan shows that the pupils study at home, on the average, nearly three hours a day. Yet the subject is not for the pedagogical expert to dis- miss with a dogmatic word. Two months ago, in Chicago, Mrs. Young undertook to eliminate study after hours from the programme of school children. But speedy protest came from the mothers. They were friendly not only to applica- tion, but to a scheme which, as one put it, "lets us know that our children are not on the street at night." It is scarce- ly a part of the school's responsibility that home conditions make it dangerous to free children from task-work after hours; or that home conditions often make such study painful or profitless. But any aspect of the question empha- sizes the necessity of striving towards some form of cooperation between home and school in the matter. In a recent competition to fill two va- cancies in the Department of Languages at the Naval Academy, not one college graduate applied, although the universi- ties were solicited for candidates. Ac- cordingly, neither of the men chosen was a college graduate. This incident is interpreted as having a direct relation to the salaries paid and to the tenure of office. The Superintendent of the Acad- emy is credited with the remark that civilian instructors should not be retain- ed more than three or four years. What this policy would mean for the training of the midshipmen it is unnecessary to state. The attempt to get rid of civilian instructors altogether is still fresh in the minds of those interested in the Academy. As a remedy for one feature of the situation, a bill has been intro- duced in Congress systematizing the promotion of civilian instructors and in- creasing their pay. The total increase provided for the twenty-seven civilian instructors is about $6,000 a year, or the amount that is spent every year by the Pacific fleet in firing salutes. As the salaries named in the bill are $3,000 for professors, $2,500 for associate pro- fessors, and $2,000 for instructors, the If what Nietzsche called our constant revaluation of social values is to go so far as revision of the feminine estimate of fashion, the State is the obvious agency to set it on foot. Yet there is a breath-taking quality about the crusade which the University of Wisconsin is leading against "the delusion of new hats." We are informed that Miss C. Schmit, the State University's expert, is training 500 women in an art which she says will make them rivals of Paris; and the Milwaukee Sentinel reports that the formation of societies to speed the movement is growing apace. Opposition of male taxpayers, outside of importing circles, is scarcely expected. The only reason for distrust of the programme is the very democratic clear-headedness of the enterprise. Fashion, in all its vagar- ies, has its excuse for being in the pre- cise qualities that Wisconsin would take out of it. But if the University succeeds in this newest "extension" it will over- top all its sisters. It is given to very few men to hold a double claim on immortality. Such was the happy fate of Sir John Ten- niel. He will be remembered by one au- dience as the artist who drew Britannia at the bier of Lincoln, and by a larger au- dience as the pictorial creator of Alice, the White Rabbit, and the Mad Hatter. In his work for Punch, humor was not his strongest trait, though it was by no means a quality he lacked. His politi- cal satire was of a broad sweep, and his best-known work was hardly satire at all, but, as in the case of the famous car- toons we have mentioned, a penetrating comment, delivered with dignity and emotion. Nevertheless, on the technical side there is a strong resemblance be- tween the actual kings and ministers whom he drew for Punch and the much more interesting potentates, duchesses, and politicians to whom he gave such startling reality in the pages of Lewis Carroll. In both fields there was the same solid draughtsmanship, the gift of creating figures in the round, endowed with a fine sense of dignity and self- possession. Difficult as it is to imagine what Punch might have been without him, it is still harder to think of the Cheshire Cat as emanating from any other pencil than Tennlel's.
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228 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2540 THE WILSON TOUGH. We know, by long tradition, of "the Nelson touch" — that indefinable stamp of personality and of genius which the great Admiral used to put upon a plan of battle. The thing is as fascinating to study in politics as it is in war. What a lift and refreshing it is to those whose business compels them to follow public affairs, when a statesman arrives who breaks the old conventional moulds, and invents and displays new methods all instinct with his own individuality! This is what President Wilson has been doing for the past twelve months. Tues- day marked the end of his first year in office. During that period, it may safe- ly be said that American politics has been more interesting — we do not say more exciting — than for a generation. It is one of those cases in which the way of doing things is, in a sense, more important than the things done. For once you know the method, you can in- fer future results. And it is President Wilson's method which has impressed all observers, even more than his extra- ordinary record of achievement. Upon the latter, it is not necessary to dwell at length. The facts are known to all. Even the President's opponents agree that the res gestw of his first year out- bulk the record of the ordinary Admin- istration's four years. We need only consider the bills actually passed. What, then, has been his secret? Where are the hidings of his power? It is impossible to put one's finger precise- ly upon the pulse of the machine. But we can note how it operates. We can observe the method, even if we cannot nicely measure the dynamic thrust be- hind it. And it is evident that the first element in the Wilson touch is a per- fectly clear and definite idea of what is wanted. Ex-President Taft remarks this in his recent generous appreciation of Wilson. He declares that the Presi- dent knows perfectly what he desires before he goes to Congress to get it. And, of course, this intellectual grasp of his subject persists in all his personal discussions with Congressmen. He can out-argue them because he has out- thought them. The vague men go down inevitably before the definite man. It was Mirabeau, we believe, who predicted the rise of a French politician at the time of the Revolution, saying of him: 'Look out for that man. He knows just what he wants, and he means precisely what he says." In the process of execution, Mr. Wil- son has shown how to be effective with- out being noisy, how to bring about what amounts to a revolution with the quiet air of a man taking a stroll in the coun- try. He has displayed an audacity fit- ted to take one's breath away, yet he has done it with smiling e&se and uncon- cern. No thunderings in the index have preceded it, no loud echoes of the storm have followed. The impression is that he has simply been doing the most nat- ural thing in the world. Such was the air which he threw about his first going to Congress to read his message in per- son. He almost made it appear like a dropping in to afternoon tea! Why should he remain upon his "isolated isl- and of jealous power," the White House, when by going to the other end of Penn- sylvania Avenue he could have a plea- sant neighborly time with his "col- leagues" in Congress? In the face of such an attitude, talk of "usurpation," or of tyrannical domination by an over- bearing Executive, falls flat. It is im- possible to erect a man chatting by the fire into a man on horseback. All this looks easy, as Wilson has done it, but let anybody else try it! Any work of perfect skill looks easy to those who do not know what tense effort lies behind it. And President Wilson has not spared labor. His method is one thing; the energy he has put into it is another. Such inspiring and drive as have come from the White House sine* March 4, 1913, take it out of a man. But the President has prudently conserved his strength. He has not stretched him- self thin over the whole country. Only two set speeches, if we remember aright, has he made in public during the past year. If other Presidents have made themselves cheap by going everywhere, Wilson has consulted both his work in hand and the dignity of his office by staying in Washington. If others have talked on every conceivable subject, he has held his verbal fire until the time came when he could make it telling. The net impression he has made is that of a strong man following a course which he had carefully marked out for himself in advance; his time not his own, but for public business; relaxation only for health and not for the delectation of busybodies and cronies; with the con- stant application of a will that has a spring like fine steel to the dispatch of great affairs. We are told that we must make allow- ance for Wilson's "luck." Circumstances were so uncommonly favorable to him. Very well; imagine him dying a week after inauguration and Marshall dealing with the same circumstances! It is use- less to try to get away from native pow- er and political genius. They work their will with ease where others would fail miserably. It is doubtless true that President Wilson will have to face a certain reaction. His prestige will not always seem so undimmed as now, his authority so great. But come what may, he has already revealed to his country- men a public character in whoin they will delight, if they agree with Emerson that nothing is more inspiring than to note the facility with which a man of native force will move among ancient conventions. WAR BY ANY OTHER NAME. Nobody desires war with Mexico, but no end of people want to do something or other that would be war, yet that they would call by some other name. Such legal and moral confusion has many times arisen. It is at the bottom of the attempt to make out the possibility of such a thing as a "pacific blockade." This is, in reality, very much the same as saying a loving crack over the head, or a friendly shooting. So, to-day, in our Mexican trouble, certain persons would invent smooth-sounding names for rough things. They would not be- gin hostilities against Mexico, oh, no! They would merely send a polite mili- tary expedition into Mexican territory. They would have 1,000 American ma- rines set out for Mexico City with every protestation of friendship. The Gover- nor of Texas would dispatch a force of rangers across the Rio Grande to bring back the body of an American citizen who had been hanged on Mexican soil, and incidentally, we presume, to teach the Mexicans to know their place. That this would be warlike, docs not seem to occur to Gov. Colquitt. This drawing back from the blunt naming of acts in accordance with their harsh reality Is perhaps creditable to the hi ai ta of those who do it. Thej do not like to think of war outright. The humane sentiment of their age la strong upon them. A battle-field would bo as
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March 5, 1914] The Nation 229 ghastly a sight to them as to any of us; and so they resort to all kinds of phrases and masked descriptions imply- ing that they do not intend to march the country into a bloody war. But however amiable may be this shrinking from so much as speaking of horrid brutalities, it does not argue well for the reasoning powers of those who dis- play it. We may say a good word for their hearts, but we cannot retain much respect for their heads. For there is no use in trying to escape the hard facts, or in seeking to sprinkle rose-water over human shambles. Gen. Sherman's defi- nition cannot be amended so as to read that war is — a place we do not like to mention. And if the nature of war is what we know it, acts of war are acts of war, no matter what we fastidiously call them. It is in this form, unpleasant but un- escapable, that the problem forces it- self upon President Wilson. Others may talk loosely; he cannot. Impulsive gen- tlemen in Congress or out of it may pro- pose fantastic schemes to settle Mex- ico's hash, all of them implying armed coercion, though all 01 them are describ- ed as not at all tantamount to war, but the President has to look at things as they are. For him international law still exists, even if others ignore it. The rights of nations are realities to a man who is acutely aware that he is dealing with them, and that they are sensitive and may become explosive. Now, all this is, we do not question, the reason why Mr. Wilson took occasion last Thursday to let the newspaper cor- respondents know that he is inflexibly opposed to all these warlike measures. He, as President and as Commander-in- Chief, must sharply discriminate be- tween what can be done by diplomatic representations, couched in urgent lan- guage though these may and ought to be, and what may have to be done by arms. The two cannot be mixed up. Bayonets remain bayonets even when festooned with flowers. In this attitude President Wilson is clearly right. His Mexican policy, as a whole, and up to the present, cannot be called a success in the sense that it has achieved the result desired. That any other peaceful policy than the one he has pursued, however, would have work- ed any better, it would be impossible to prove. But Mr. Wilson's course with Mexico has at least been highly suc- cessful thus far in one important re- spect. It has avoided war. It has tended to calm and not to infuriate the American people. It has brought the country into close and good relations with European Powers, and paved the way for a perfect understanding as to the ultimate steps to be taken, when the time comes to take them. And accord- ingly the President is wholly correct in refusing to countenance proposals which would infallibly mean that we should blunder into war. If war must come, as a last dread resort, it is for our Gov- ernment to face it with open eyes. It is not a thing to be tricked into. We should be guilty of incredible folly if we were to make experiment of some of the disguised war-measures put for- ward by happy-thought statesmen and haphazard newspapers, thinking that they might safely be toyed with, and then find that they plunged us into a woful and desolating struggle. UNEMPLOYMENT. A National Conference on Unemploy- ment, holding its session in New York in the depth of winter, would in any year attract the interest of all who are concerned in the problem of bettering the condition of the laboring masses. This winter, the extent of unemploy- ment, though by no means so great as it is sometimes represented, is more than usual, and the usual amount is bad enough. That the situation has been exploited, here in New York, by the I. W. W., for the promotion of turbulent discontent and the stimulation of revolutionary ideas, need not concern us greatly. The artificial character of the demonstra- tions at the churches has been manifest from the start, and, thus far at least, the attempts of the I. W. W. agitators to make a commotion have fallen ex- tremely flat. Commissioner of Charities Kingsbury states that the city has not 1 turned away a single man who has ap- plied at the Municipal Lodging House this winter; and though in the early part of January there was dreadful crowding, arrangements were soon made to give the overflow from the Lodging House comfortable quarters on the recreation pier, which was enclosed and provided with cots and a kitchen. To give them decent lodging and food in this way, and moreover to adopt such measures as the city is pursuing to get a moderate amount of work out of the men, so far as possible, in return for what they re- ceive, is far better than to throw church- es open, where neither the accommoda- tions nor the oversight can be as satis- factory as in the shelters provided by the city and managed by its officials. But refusal to be hysterical over a sit- uation which is not novel, or in any high degree abnormal, does not imply indifference to the large question to which it is related. On the contrary, the closer they are to the normal, the more do the sufferings and losses of the unemployed impress the importance of the general problem with which the Conference on Unemployment was con- cerned. Our country has been backward in relation to this problem, as it has in relation to other problems of industrial betterment; but it may be expected that from now on the subject will receive the attention it deserves. The three main lines of improvement suggested are the establishment of public labor exchanges, the diminution of seasonal unemploy- ment through more provident and con- siderate organization of production, and the introduction of insurance against unemployment. The last of these pre- sents great difficulties and dangers, and cannot be safely undertaken except af- ter the most careful inquiry and with the most maturely thought-out precau- tions. The second, though it may possi- bly be promoted by governmental mea- sures, presents itself primarily as a mat- ter to be looked after by able and large- minded employers of labor. But the first — the establishment of labor ex- changes— presents no inherent difficulty. Moreover, it has behind it a large amount of successful experience in sey- eral European countries, and has been tried and found useful in some of our own States. ' On this subject, a committee appoint- ed some months ago by the trustees of the City Club of New York recently made a report, in which, after a succinct survey of the facts, it recommended the establishment of a State Bureau of Em- ployment, and made a tentatiTe draft of a bill for that purpose, preparing also a tentative budget of expenses for this bureau, based on the experience of Il- linois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. An an- nual expenditure of $75,000 is set down as the minimum required to make the work effective. We believe that any
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23G T li e JST a, t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2540 one who gives attention to the subject will be convinced that the expenditure of a much larger sum than this would be justified provided that the bureau was soundly conducted. Whether we consid- er the general economic interests of the community, or the diminution of the charges on the State from pauperism and invalidism, the undertaking appears to be entirely legitimate. The resolutions adopted by the Confer- ence at its meeting on Saturday recom- mend the establishment in the Federal Department of Labor of "a Bureau of Distribution, with power to establish employment exchanges throughout the country to supplement the work now done by State and municipal bureaus, to act as a clearing house of information and further the distribution of labor throughout the country." They also urge upon the Legislatures of the vari- ous States "the establishment or recon- struction of free State employment agen- cies," and lay down the principles to which these should conform. The lead- ing place, we observe, is given to the principle "that appointments and tenure of office be governed by the merit sys- tem and be placed beyond control of po- litical parties." How much of the back- wardness of our country in the difficult problems of the modern industrial regime may be due to that instinctive fear of "politics" which has been the in- evitable fruit of the spoils system! Among the workers for all good causes involving governmental action, that fear is a constant subject of solicitude and uneasiness; and they are unanimous in the conviction that upon the exclusion of politics and of the spoils idea the suc- cess of any such scheme as that of the proposed labor 'exchanges is vitally de- pendent. THE ULSTER DIFFICULTY. Full reports of the speeches in the House of Commons on Irish Home Rule at the opening of Parliament do not make the crisis appear less threat- ening, but they do help to clear up some of its aspects. The Prime Minister and the Attorney-General, speaking for the Government, held throughout a concilia- tory tone, expressing a willingness and even eagerness to arrive at some honor- able adjustment of the Ulster difficulty, but they also insisted that no proposal had been put before them which could bo entertained, and, indeed, strongly ar- gued that the Unionists had no solution at all to offer. Was it a general election? But if one were held, and the Liberals won again, Ulster would no more sub- mit to an Irish Parliament than she will now. Her attitude is simply that she will not have Irish Home Rule under any conditions, this year or at any time in the future. If a province can thus in- terpose an absolute veto upon Parlia- ment, orderly government by Parlia- ment is obviously at an end. If the Con- servatives came into power, Connaught could with as much right set the Gov- ernment at defiance. Mr. Asquith's speech was very calm but of great power. He showed again his ability to put into half an hour what others would consume two hours in say- ing with less force. On one point, he was completely destructive of the Union- ist position. This is that the Home Rule bill was sprung upon the country with- out notice, that it was never passed upon by the electors, and that no one ever supposed that the Parliament Act would be taken advantage of to make it law without the consent of the Lords. But Mr. Asquith adduced some new evidence on that subject with deadly effect. He recalled the fact that when the Parlia- ment Act itself was pending in 1910, the Unionists protested that it would lead straight to Home Rule for Ireland. With that in mind, they moved an amend- ment to exclude from its scope "all bills for the delegation of administrative or legislative powers to subordinate Parlia- ments." In support of this the entire Unionist strength in the House of Com- mons was rallied, Sir Edward Carson himself declaring that then and there was the only chance to defeat Home Rule. But the amendment was voted down, 351 to 245, and in the general election which followed in December, the Liberal party was returned to power with the distinct understanding that the Parliament Act would be made use of to carry Home Rule within three years. With what face can it now be said that the whole thing was forced without warning upon an unsuspecting Parlia- ment and electorate? What is really aimed at, as Mr. Asquith asserted, is the tearing up of the entire Parliament Act. The leader of the Conservatives, Mr. Bonar Law, has, it is true, stated that the Conservatives would not seek to re- peal that act, if they gained power, but they are plainly endeavoring to nullify it now. Much was said in the debate about the possibility of Home Rule with Ulster excluded. The Prime Minister, having declared that the Government would shut no door upon hope of compromise, professed himself ready to consider even that alternative if it could be presented in a workable form; but no one on the Unionist side was willing to go into de- tails. Sir Edward Carson's position is, frankly, that he favors the exclusion of Ulster simply because it would wreck the entire Home Rule bill. His words are: "The Government says that if Ulster is left out, Home Rule will be im- possible. I agree. Therefore I will vote to leave it out." This is what the Union- ist solution by exclusion comes down to. When it comes to the details of ex- cluding Ulster, difficulties thicken. Mr. Redmond pointed them out. What was meant by Ulster? It was a province of nine counties, sending to Parliament 17 Home Rulers and 16 anti-Home Rulers. Of the nine counties, five contained large Catholic and Nationalist majorities. It was a province in which, taken as a whole, Catholics were not very far short of half the population. If there was ex- cluded the city of Belfast, there was a Catholic and a Nationalist majority for the whole province. Any one who came to argue the question would find it diffi- cult to argue in favor of the exclusion of the whole of Ulster. Presumably what was meant by the right honorable gentle- men were the four counties of northeast Ulster. There was a Home Rule member in the House for each one of those four counties. In the County of Down the percentage of Catholics was 31.6, in An- trim 20.3, in Armagh 45.3, in Derry 41.1, In Derry City 56.2, and in Belfast 24.1. Mr. Redmond affirmed with reason that to talk of settling the great question of Irish Home Rule by excluding the four Protestant counties was ridiculous. He added that he knew of no man or no party in Ireland — no spokesman for Ul- ster—that approved of any such sug- gestion as a basis for the settlement of the Irish question. It is brought up chiefly to darken counsel and make trouble. This fact, however, does not disguise the real and grave problem which Mr. Asquith has to try to solve. He is ap- parently trusting to time and concilia- tory words and further "conversations" between the Government and the leaders of the Opposition. By means of such conferences more than one political crisis In England has been surmounted.
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March 5, 1914] Tli e Nation 231 It was, for example, through a "con- versation" between Mr. Gladstone and Lord Salisbury that the acute contro- versy over the extension of the suffrage in the eighties was appeased. Some- thing of the sort may be compassed within the next few weeks. Meanwhile, Mr. Asquith refuses to be rushed. He will not make his own proposals until he is fully ready. They will unquestion- ably be of a kind to afford the inhabi- tants of Ulster every reasonable guar- antee. If these are rejected, then it is plain that the Government will press forward, confident in the appeal which can be made to the law-abiding sense of the British people and to the consid- erate judgment of mankind. OUR INERTIA IN FIRE PREVENTION. "As far as can be learned, the fire originated in the cellar, and it is said to have been caused by an overheated furnace." This statement was made in reference to the fire which swiftly and completely destroyed Mrs. W. K. Van- derbilt's large and beautiful new coun- try house on Long Island a week or so ago. Since that time, a fire, likewise originating in the basement, and at or near the furnace, has destroyed the Mor- ristown Library, with its valuable and in large part irreplaceable collection of books. Nor is either of these losses of an unusual character. Fires start- ing in the cellar or basement of large country houses, hotels, and public build- ings, and resulting in their complete destruction, are matters of familiar oc- currence. Yet the adoption of measures entirely within the reach of the owners of such buildings — whether private indi viduals, stock companies, or public bod- ies— and entailing only a very moderate expense, would suffice to make such dis- asters virtually impossible. Even fireproof construction of build- ings as a whole has been so reduced in cost in recent times that the difference between the price of such a building and that of the ordinary inflammable kind is far from being so serious as it for- merly was. But without going to that expense, the risk of fire can be very greatly reduced. The thing to aim at is the isolation of fire, the prevention of its spread from the point at which it orig- inates. This can be accomplished, as re- gards the cellar furnace and its neigh- borhood, by fireproof floor construction separating the cellar from the first story. A concrete or steel-and-tile floor can be easily put in at an increase of cost above ordinary wooden joist construction that would hardly be noticeable in the total cost of a large building. In addition to this, and especially in places where the services of a fire department cannot be promptly obtained, the installation of some simple system of automatic sprin- klers in basements, near the heating ap- paratus, and also in kitchens and laun- dries, commends itself as an obvious safeguard, and offers no great difficulty in the way of expense. Another most effective measure of pro- tection is the erection of a fireproof di- vision wall, cutting the whole house into two parts. Such a wall may be built of brick or concrete, and would run right through the house, from cellar to roof; it would be provided with conceal- ed sliding metal doors at all openings, and could be entirely hidden within par- titions, so as not to mar the artistic effect of a residence. Such a wall would not only be a fire-stop, but also be an invaluable life-saving device. It is on this account that the recent factory legislation so strongly discriminates in favor of buildings with fire-walls of this nature. We are informed, on ex- cellent authority, that a wall of this kind, even in large country houses or hotels, would rarely add more than a thousand dollars to the cost of the build- ing; and it would be a sure means of preventing the spread of flames from one part of the building to another. What makes our inertia in these mat- ters the more remarkable is the fact that information about them is accessible in exact and authoritative form. By mere- ly writing to the National Fire Protec- tion Association, which has now been in existence nearly twenty years, with Its executive office at Boston, one may obtain without cost the results of the experience of competent experts on every aspect of the problem of fire pre- vention. The Association has issued a great number of pamphlets, in which are laid down the standards which have been found desirable in regard to al- most every point concerning safe con- struction, and protection against fire. Failure to adopt these standards, or in deed to give anything like adequate thought to the question, can be regard- ed only as an instance of that easy- going disregard of comparatively re- mote danger which characterizes the national temper in so many directions. It may be quite true that this is a "de- fect of our qualities"; but that does not prevent it from being a serious defect, or from working out grave consequences, whether in such a matter as the fire danger or in the broader questions of politics. There is another point which the in- flammable nature of the country man- sions of our millionaires, and of ex- pensive hotels in summer and winter resorts, should serve to impress. If, as is obviously the case, it is indifference or inertia that is the explanation of this state of things, it is foolish to ascribe the absence of proper fire safe- guards in factories wholly to the devil- ish hard-heartedness of a grasping capi- talism. The owner may be terribly to blame for not taking his responsibility more seriously; but he no more expects his mill to burn down than Mrs. Vander- bilt expected her new house to burn down, or than the guests at the Wind- sor Hotel expected to be burned alive. That is no reason for not making strin- gent laws, and enforcing them with the utmost rigor; on the contrary, it makes such laws and such enforcement all the more indispensable. But it is a very good reason for not becoming hysterical, for not ascribing to the fiendishness of capital what is in the main an exhibi- tion of a heedlessness we all display in our own personal concerns, and in our everyday life. THE VOGUE OF THE INEDITED. Unlike Gray, wishing for endless new novels by Marivaux and Crebillon, the modern magazine publisher longs for an inexhaustible supply of old manuscripts — never before published. In the rage for the inedited some editors threaten to become what Bersot predicted of his- torians— ragpickers. Authors who com- plain of the dead hand in literature will have to enlarge their grievance. They may even, for the benefit of literary pos- terity, soon be expected to advocate a union agreement that every scrap of writing shall be got into the definitive edition of each man's works, or destroy- ed. The habits of a De Quincey, moving from room to room with a wake of man- uscript for future discoverers; of a Browning, patronized by spinsters whom he lets copy his fourteen-year-old verse;
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232 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2540 of a Madison, storing away papers of the 1 author's work, by standards more or less Federalist type lor centenary publica- tion, must begin to seem intolerable to authors already cramped for space. Let the unearthed manuscript be intrin- sically Rood, and it is produced with a fanfare of critical trumpets; let it be so poor that the unhappy ghost is pacing the shores of the Styx at the thought of its becoming known, and it throws new light on his youth, or some mooted epi- sode of his later life. Looking at the matter in a general way, we can easily believe that the au- thor foresees, as the happiest chance, the possibility of walking, a century af- ter death, into the office of a leading periodical and shouldering out of line, with classical arrogance, the most emi- nent flesh-and-blood writer there. And it is equally easy to analyze the pub- lisher's pleasure in at once trading on a golden, long-fixed reputation, and yet offering one of its productions as fresh as if from the hand of a novice, writ- universally sanctioned. With much in all this to applaud, we ought to avoid the appearance of mere literary sycophancy. To fawn on an au- thor by rummaging drawers for trivial notes, the rough sketches of his complet- ed designs, shavings from his chisel, does him neither service nor homage. Al- ways in point is Sainte-Beuve's reproach to "messieurs les erudits" for their dig- ging up what is better left buried. Half the merit of any artistic performance is in its reticences, and their violation is the work of a resurrectionist. There is little addition to knowledge or to ad- miration in recent reproductions like Cornhiirs of Browning's infantile poems, or the Mercure de France's of certain suppressed letters of Nietzsche's. Such reproductions are not untypical of sever- al which have appeared in American pe- riodicals. The fault has, of course, been carried outside the world of periodicals, a striking example being the appear- ten expressly for the readers of 1914. ance lately of the first volume of Gus- No doubt it is curiosity, partly intellec- tual, partly vulgar, on which the ap- peal is based. The titillation of a great name, the expectancy of some chef- d'oeuvre inconnu, or chip of one, reaches to crowds who know the name alone. A hitherto unpublished story by Stevenson would be seized upon by thousands who had never read the works by him every- where accessible, or even skimmed their cream. But the publisher has in mind also a love of the literary past. He not merely makes that past current, but carries us back to it. Every one has some time felt a wish to reconstruct the thrill that, we fancy, all England's little Cranfords felt when they were awaiting the next number of "Pickwick"; or Lon- don society at the announcement of a new novel by the Wizard of the North. To be ourselves the first to lay eyes upon some such writing, miraculously hid- den from its own time and carried down to ours, is insensibly gratifying. Its ap- pearance flatters, moreover, the feeling that we have stolen a march upon our ancestors; not alone in gleaning some- thing they overlooked, but in recalling our improved critical perspective, as re- gards their own literature. They moved among its productions blindly, where we have long since culled and chosen; and the fact is never more patent than when some survival of their age emerges to be appraised and docketed among its tave Flaubert's "Premieres CEuvres," the full set to contain his lucubrations from his thirteenth to the end of his seventeenth year! The final arbiter must necessarily be good sense and good taste. It is for pub- lic as well as publisher to exercise both. Only in this way can old manuscripts new-published be both fair to the past generation and profitable to the present, while performing a real function in helping to emphasize the continuity of literature. LYRIC POETRY. Lyric poetry has in large measure been spared from the blight of over- zealous scholarship by the difficulty to define it. There used to be a legend at a certain university that only two be- ings in the world knew what lyric poetry was, God and Professor ; and that God wouldn't tell, and Profes- sor couldn't tell. Other forms of literature have been searched and classi- fied according to the well-known pre- scription for the study of types. But the lyric has presented a smiling defi- ance to such treatment. It has a piquant quality like life itself, springing up where least expected, a flower in a cranny. Formerly it was thought suffi- cient to divide poetry into epic, dra- matic, and lyric. What was not the first two was, generally speaking, the last. This was a good enough working basis. Recently scholars have taken to look- ing at the lyric more narrowly. Prof. E. B. lloud, whose bulky volume on the subject was reviewed in the Nation of September 19, 1912, gives the following definition: "All songs, all poems fol- lowing classic lyric forms; all short poems expressing the writer's moods and feelings in rhythm that suggests music, are to be considered lyrics." Dif- ficulty arose when Professor Reed at- tempted to enforce his tests. He ac- cepted sonnets because some of them, notably in the days of Elizabeth, have been set to music; yet Wordsworth's genius was styled unlyrical because "he has not left us a single song." And the book shows many other curious in- stances of selection and exclusion. Prof. F. E. Schelling's recent volume on "The English Lyric" (reviewed in the Nation May 8, 1913) adds nothing new to the foregoing statements. "The primary con- ception involved in the term 'lyric,' " he says, "has always to do with song; and it is the song-like quality of the lyric that falls most conspicuously into con- trast with the epic or telling quality of narrative verse. . . . So, too, the lyric is concerned with the poet, his thoughts, his emotions, his moods, and his passions. . . . With the lyric subjective poetry begins." The latest to match his skill with this elusive type is Mr. Ernest Rhys,* the editor of Every- man's Library: "Lyrical, it may be said, implies a form of musical utterance in words governed by overmastering emo- tion and set free by a powerfully con- cordant rhythm. So soon as narrator or playwright, carried out of the given medium of personal feeling, begins to dilate individually on the theme," that moment he or she surely tends to grow lyrical." The musical test, it will be noted, is abandoned in the second sen- tence, where Mr. Rhys applies his defi- nition; and, unless one must infer that personal feeling in verse inevita- bly draws upon music, it is of little practical use. The looseness of Mr. Rhys's conception is quite typical of his practice. Beginning with early forms which were certainly sung, he later ac- cepts sonnets and certain dramatic soliloquies; but as if feeling guilty over his small use of the musical require- ment, he periodically refers to an under- lying "singing mode," "singing idiom," or "hidden note." The early portion of the volume has to do with metrical de- velopments, especially the transition from alliterative verse to rhyming schemes, and with the flexibility bestow- ed on English poetry by borrowings from the French. As the book pro- gresses, its treatment may be described as scarcely more than literary history. I. I have no desire to hazard a new defi- nition, but merely wish to consider »hyric Poetry. Ily Kniont IIIi.tm. Now York : B. P, I)nlt"ii & Co. *1.B0 net.
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March 5, 1914] r.T li e N atio n 233 whether the scope 01: lyric poetry is not' epic organ tone. One might go further I there is music in his language, and some nt from that usually Led to it. All may admit that tne ind song originated in much the game Impulse — the desire to express per- sonal, often inarticulate, feeling; and and say that they are less lyrical as regards pure sound than Macbeth's 1111 morable lament after hearing that his wife is dead. If by "musical basis" critics would mean melodious song, tbey that the two may at times still be close- would have little difficulty in classiiica- ly allied. It would require no magic rod to strike a gush of song from the lyrics of Burns, or from the light stan- zas scattered through Shakespeare's dra; if the particular airs to which tiiey were set had been forgotten. But this is very different from implying such an accompaniment for all pieces that commonly pass as lyrics. The dis- cussion will be forwarded by a glance at certain developments in music itself. Such is its present state that critics would probably be as perplexed to agree on what is meant by "lyric" in music as others are to say what the word con- veys as regards verse. Whereas former- ly lyric music must above all else have melody, some composers, notably De- bussy, are now depending instead on harmony, coloring. When he wishes to describe the play of moonlight on the water, Debussy resorts to a series of tinkles broken by syncopated glissan- dos and mingled with something like whispers. His "Reflet dans l'eau" shows an entirely different treatment from Nevin's woodland sketches. Botn men have essayed to speak for nature. The latter has made her tuneful, and in any age would be accounted a true lyrist; Debussy, accepting certain fea- tures of nature as in themselves the embodiment of lyric sentiment, has been content to decorate, to sophisti- cate. He has replaced melody — one of the traditional marks of the lyric — by dexterous harmony; and through this "programme" variety of music has car- ried the lyric into close association with other musical types. Manifestly, then, those critics who stick for a musical basis of the lyric should distinguish the kind of music meant. "Lycidas" suggests music no more strongly than many portions of "Paradise Lost," or, if so, does not recall the pure melodies which critics would still unite in term- ing lyrical. Nor can much significance be extracted from the fact that the son- net owes its form to a combination of stanzas which usually went with song, or that in some instances the sonnet it- self has received a musical arrange- ment. Certainly within the last three centuries composers of sonnets could never have had the thought of music in mind; and only such supersensitive ears as Mr. Rhys's could possibly dis- cover a "hidden note" of song at the bottom of, say, Shakespeare's lines be- ginning Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit Impedimenta. If they convey any note, it is Milton's tion, though this would exclude the ma- jority of selections found in the "Golden Treasury." In endeavoring to hold to a concep- tion of the ancient Greeks we have real- ly confused their ideas. They recog- nized the kinship of the lyric and song, though they did not use it as a strict test, but also the more general re- lation of poetry and music. If lyric verse was sung, so were the epic and large portions of the drama, and the instru- ment of accompaniment might, at least in the first two instances, be the same, the lyre. Yet it is true that to most minds to-day the lyric appears to have a prior claim to a musical alliance. Partly this is because it is the only one of the three poetic divisions which continues to be set to music — a thor- oughly arbitrary distinction. But more especially it is because the beginnings of poetry, like the beginnings of music, were "lyrical," in the sense that they fell easily into the jingle of song. This must have been the reason for the style, "lyric Apollo," to character- ize the god of poetry and music, who was rooted in their ancient traditions. And down the centuries lyric verse and lyric music have furnished enough examples of early uncomplicated melo- dies to keep the two, in human in- stincts, subtly bound together. "O my luve's like, a red, red rose" has not advanced far in rhythm beyond poetry in an elementary stage, which, cf course, only heightens its homely freshness. The movement of Keats's "Ode to a Grecian Urn" has no such implication, and though it might set an ancient Greek to chanting, it does not so affect us moderns. In retaining, de- spite the inconsistencies of our prac- tice, a musical basis exclusively for the lyric, we are but emphasizing the stream of, as it were, primordial poetry which still runs through it, though it also runs through the drama and epic in less degree. It is heard now and again in "Samson Agonistes" and in Homer's episode of Nausicaa. II. I have referred to a present tendency in lyrical music to replace melody by skilful harmony playing over choice aspects of nature. Something much akin to this has long been operative In lyric poetry. Off-hand one would not think of turning to Petrarch for an il- lustration. Coming on the heels of the troubadours, whose songs he laid under heavy contribution, he would surely seem to give the strongest reinforce- ment to the musical test. Nearly always of his stanzas were obviously intended to be sung. But nere again the test is not decisive, for his sonnets are no more melodious than parts of Chaucer's nar- rative, such as the lines And smale foules maken melodye That slepen al the night with open eye, or than much of the "Divine Comedy." In the hands of all three authors poetry of whatever type still betrayed its twin- birth with music. Petrarch's greatest influence on oth- ers came undoubtedly from his pecu- liar use of nature. It was not origi- nal with him, but his expertness gave it the widest currency, and then and there created the nature cult which still has adherents. In illustrating his love for Laura he connected her with nature's treasury. Her curls were tossed by the gentlest breeze, the laurel was instinct with her presence, the stars gained in lustre by resembling her eyes, her footsteps consecrated the meadows, the flowers that brushed her were an in- spiration henceforth, and a stream once visited by her thereafter murmured music. Sappho had furnished charming natural settings, but it was left to Petrarch to bring nature and love into fusion. French and English caught up his manner until no mistress was worthy if unattended by nature's store of tenderest fragrances, colors, and sounds. The insincerity of many of these writers does not remove the fact that nature was then made an almost in- dispensable accompaniment of what passed as lyric poetry. The thought of music might be absent from the poet, but nature must in some fashion serve him. From continual use in this way certain natural features came to have an almost independent lyric value, especial- ly the stars, the dawn, a stream, and flowers. Though the vogue of flower poems such as Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton yielded to, was enhanced by a special sentiment which each flower acquired, their main effect was the sheer beauty bestowed by long lyric associa- tions. And in a more general way Spen- ser and later Thomson were content to rest the value of whole lyric stanzas upon a lovely array of sweet natural de- tails. Nor has the practice been neglected by more modern writers. In the case of "Fiona Macleod" it attained the pro- portions of a naturalistic rcve. Indi- vidual details of nature had received from centuries of poetic use (so we may suppose he felt) such an accumulation of emotional value that merely to pro- nounce their names was enough to fur- nish a lyric background; much after the manner of any catalogue of ships which, ever since Homer's famous list, has been apt to start in the mind a reminiscence of epic poetry. In not a few of his poems William Sharp gives little more
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23^ r I i T J i e N a, t i ii [Vol. 98, No. 2540 than an enumeration of these alleged lyric features, as in the following lines: There is in everything an undertone . . . Those clear In soul are also clear In sight, And recognize in a white cascade's flash The roar of mountain torrents, and the wail Of multitudinous waves on barren sands, The song of skylark at the flush of dawn, A maylicld all ablaze with king-cups gold, The clamour musical of culver wings Beating the soft air of a dewy dusk, The crescent moon far voyaging thro' darked skies. And Sirius throbbing in the distant south, A something deeper than mere audible And visible sensations. Sharp's tendency — which is shared by many, among them Maeterlinck, I sus- pect— to see a "rainbow of feeling" in any nosegay of nature is most similar, it must be admitted, to Debussy's way of imputing subtle, fleeting emotions to his formless chromatics. I have pur- sued this speculation to illustrate the danger of exalting a poetical accom- paniment, whether it be song or nature, to a test of type. III. The other test usually employed to mark off lyric poetry is personal, sub- jective emotion. Like many other words that come trippingly from the tongue, these are meaningless unless strictly in- terpreted. Taken to signify merely the language of feeling, as they generally are, they lead nowhere. Is Horace's pleasant quarrel with Lydia, is many a pretty trifle by Austin Dobson, subjec- tive emotion simply because both poets have used words of the heart? Was Robert Herrick subjective when he chaf- fered in the conventional conceits of his day? Are we to ignore the fact that the troubadours had a special motive for proclaiming a Blanche or a Diana to be a nonpareil? And there is the whole class of so-called lyrics which retouch ancient mythology, such as the Ana- creontic of Cupid stung by a bee, whose sentiments are artificial by the nature of the case. Are they, too, subjective? But even when held to denote the poet's expression of his own sincere feeling, as I construe it, the subjective test furnish- es no simple rule of thumb; for how shall we be sure when a poet is feign- ing? There is, for instance, the sonnet se- quence of Thomas Watson, which he openly declared to be merely an exercise in a fashion of the day. Now, oddly enough, it sounds in parts not less sin- cere than similar works of his time; and probably other writers, if pressed, would have had to confess that they, too, were merely playing at a game. Nor is it reasonable to accept, as Professor Reed would do, a sonnet as being necessarily a truer chart of an author's own senti- ments than are various lines In a play. If there was a Dark Lady, who shall say that the views on life and death in "Hamlet" were not in part the poet's own? If there is a ring of sincerity in the lines of Sonnet LIV: O! how much more doth beauty beau- teous seem By that sweet ornament which truth doth give! it appears to be present also in There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Hough-hew them how we will. In attempting to reach a man through his works one has to penetrate the veil of art, whatever the form of the poem chosen. In any case, the author reacts poetically upon a given theme or situa- tion, and unless the poetical equation is clearly understood, a critic would be rash to say that here the poet's heart lies bare. Take an individual sonnet unconnected with a sequence or a liter- ary vogue. Its metrical arrangement, especially in the Italian form, and its requirements of balance, climax, and point are too complex, within such small compass, to be adjusted readily to a poet's feeling without causing some sac- rifice to art. Milton, determined to speak his mind on the atrocity at Pie- mont, in the sonnet commencing Avenge, O Lord, Thy slaughtered saints, almost broke down the sonnet structure, employing a loose construction sugges- tive of Biblical utterance. Even while we marvel at the happy result, the im- pression obtrudes that here the art of the sonnet received the smallest toll on record. In some other sonnets, Milton, supreme poet that he was, so mastered the medium he worked in as to make his perceptions seem spontaneous; and Keats undoubtedly had similar success. But this does not mean that the poetical equation is not present for the critic to solve. The mechanism of a sonnet may be thought of as an alembic which distils a poet's sentiments. Its effect is too subtle to be often detected by the critic. Yet any one who has written a sonnet (as who hasn't?) realizes that the mood in the finished product is apt to differ from the original conception, and that the transforming power of art is opera- tive when least we think of it. The predicament of the lyrist who would be sincere may be illustrated by a modern tendency in the drama. The desire to represent life on the stage exactly as it is brings the finicky realist face to face with certain insurmountable conditions of dramatic construction. There is the element of time. Try as he will, he can- not make the stage square with life. Crises do not form with the celerity of stage convention, and in numerous other respects the dramatist of things as they are has to admit himself balked. This directing power of artistic form Increases, naturally, according to the intricacy of the type used. A drama or epic may impose a large number of external conditions, and quite conceal the author's own feelings. They are there, nevertheless, and could be sifted out if the laws of artistic construction were accurately known. By contrast, the lyric in general puts few restraints upon the poet. Particularly in open stanzas he would seem to have a good chance to express his very self. The language of Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is so simple and direct as to leave no doubt that it came straight from the heart. But between the extremes represented by this poem and by such an impersonal perform- ance as an yEschylean play the degree of subjectivity varies so much, what- ever the literary form, as to make personal feeling a tricky test of type. It is hard, for instance, to imagine Wordsworth concealing his own feeling even in a drama. And Schiller's "Wil- helm Tell" is in many portions as close an index of his feeling as is his simplest lyric. IV. Francis Palgrave, searching for a prin- ciple of selection for his "Golden Trea- sury," held the term lyrical "to imply that each poem shall turn upon a single thought, feeling, or situation." He ig- nored the tests of music and personal emotion and included in his collection eminent poems of supposedly single and continuous inspiration, in a word, all varieties of relatively short poems. The soundness of his definition might be dis- puted on the ground that, Poe's well- known views notwithstanding, "Para- dise Lost" is the embodiment of hut a single mood, albeit a huge mood. Yet if slightly arbitrary, Palgrave's distinc- tion, which is based mainly on extent rather than on kind, is immensely con- venient in practice; and I know of no other which would be usable for an anthology. Looked at in the light of what has been said, the poems in Palgrave's col- lection show, it is true, certain charac- teristics which grow out of their brev- ity. Admitting that even a small struc- ture, like a sonnet, has its artistic al- chemy, it naturally lacks the resources of poetic works of considerable com- pass. Why is it, for instance, that Des- demona's simple utterance, "If you say so, I hope you will not kill me," is su- preme poetry? It is because these pro- saic words are released from a situa- tion which has been long preparing and which in itself is surcharged with imag- ination. Not being included in a plot, the lyric as defined by Palgrave must depend much upon its surface value — upon graceful conceits, poignant turns of thought, choice of detail, and the piil nancy of its seeming artlcssness. It obviously has not the artistic frame- work to support any large measure of
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March 5, 19 14] T li e JNT a t i o n £35 sentences which, save for the metre, are prose. So no one can conceive of a short poem including the following passage from "All's Well that Ends Well": O! were that all. I think not on my father; And these great tears grace his remem brance more Than those I shed for him. What was he like? I have forgot him: my imagination Carries no favour in 't but Bertram's. I am undone: there is no living, none, If Bertram be away. Yet in their proper place in the play these lines are effective. Not that the short lyric's appeal is always super- ficial. Though superficial in artistry, it has in general been occupied with ideas and feelings as old and deeply planted as life itself. Thus the simple line, "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may," symbolizes a fundamental tragedy. And only the slightest poetic heightening is absolutely required when the theme is a lyric standby, owing to the carrying power of the implicit sentiment. But richness of surface, though usual- ly an essential of the short poem, is not a safe distinction. Poets like Shelley would never have been satisfied, even when writing drama, with anything less than a succession of individually glow- ing lines; and Milton and Shakespeare, while not given to Shelley's excess of fancy, resorted to figures in many in- stances where another might have used plain, dignified language, trusting to the poetic structure to carry it. Shakespeare has, indeed, many passages in his plays which bear a striking resemblance to poems generally accepted as lyric. Take Macbeth's lament, previously referred to: She should have died hereafter; There would have been time for such a word. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-mor- row, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor play- er That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. Is this less "lyric" in effect than the following lines of similar content in Pindar's eighth Pythian Ode? In a little moment groweth up the de- light of men; yea and in like sort falleth it to the ground, when a doom adverse hath shaken it. Things of a day — what are we, and what not? Man is as a dream of shad- ows. Even if we were to go back to the test of subjective emotion, Macbeth's words would still qualify as lyric. The sharp situation in which they are uttered makes them appear to be entirely the expression of personal feeling. It is quite possible that the lyric, ex- cept in Palgrave's practical use of the term, means little more than a poetic quality. It comes close to signifying what is conveyed by the vague phrase "pure poetry." That is to say, when poetry is manifestly functioning effec- tively— namely, distinguishing itself from prose — it is lyric. This condition is not prescribed necessarily by brevity, though it is obviously more difficult to sustain poetry at great length. On the other hand, a plot may at times furnish a lyric, or poetic, intensity hard to at- tain in a short poem. Shakespeare and Milton, superb poets that they were, contrived to be almost constantly lyric even while they were, respectively, dra- matic and epic. V. There is lyric form — in Palgrave's sense of a relatively short poem — on the whole a natural distinction, since it de- scribes a large body of poetic practice. And there is lyric sentiment, or color- ing. The latter is so bound up with the very nature of poetry that to isolate it is impossible. Some such discussion of the lyric as I have attempted here ought, if pursued further, to clarify opinions as to poetry in general. Too often the complaint has been made that Pope, for example, was not a true poet because he employed to so great an extent the language of rea- son. In the first place, it would be well for his critics to define this term "rea- son"; and, secondly, to consider pas- sages of his, not as detached units, but as portions of large structures whose artistic effect Pope relied upon very much. An examination of this kind would greatly discredit the study of poetry in vacuo and the tendency to overprize, especially in long poems, a glut of romantic imagery. H. deW. F. NEWS FOR BIBLIOPHILES. There will shortly appear at auction in New York the original Revolutionary journal of Cadwallader Colden, son of the famous Lieutenant-Governor of the Pro- vince of New York. It will be remem- bered that the Lieutenant-Governor was a violent Loyalist who adopted every means at his command to frustrate the growing tendency towards revolt by the American colonists, and in consequence was cordially hated and harshly treated by the Sons of Liberty. His third son, Cadwallader, inherited the estate of Cold- engham, in Orange County, and resided there during the greater part of his life. His father was away from home most of the time on public business, and Cad- wallader's education devolved on his mo- ther. Her influence, together with his natural proclivities, inclined him to farm- ing, but he also held the political views of his father. He occupied various minor public positions in the town and county and was considered so influential that when, at the outbreak of hostilities, he publicly announced that he was for the King and Parliament, the American lead- ers decided to keep a careful watch on his movements. The journal begins with an account of his arrest, November 26, 1776, by order of the Committee for detecting Plots and Conspiracies, which sentenced him to be sent to Boston, there to remain under the direction of the Selectmen of that town. During his imprisonment he was subjected to many petty annoyances and some rough handling, of which he com- plained in his numerous petitions to the Committee and the State Convention. Re- ceiving no reply to any of his petitions he quietly ignored the sentence of ban- ishment and returned home. He was again arrested, on March 2, 1777, and examined by a Committee composed of Philip Livingston, John Ten Broeck, and Christopher Tappan, by whom he was paroled and ordered to remain in King- ston. Here he wrote the following; Private thoughts and resolutions on reading the Resolves of Convention, by which I find that the oath to the pre- tended Independent States is again to be tendered or on refusal am to have leave, or rather compelled to move with my family to New York. As I have ever looked upon these inhabitants of these American Collonies as enjoying the great- est share of blessings and liberty, both Civill and Religious of any people in the known world, and this I have heard con- fessed by the most judicious; notwith- standing of which, as long as I can re- member I have known and heard of evil and discontented spirits among us, who by their writings and other practices, have been endeavoring to overturn this happy constitution both in Church and State, and to fill the minds of people with groundless jealousys and uneasy- ness. Therefore I concluded that our troubles and unhappy disputes with the Mother Country proceed more from the aspiring and ambitious views of some of her sons, together with a rooted invet- erosy against the Church, than from a design in Great Britain to inslave a brave and free people, and that she yet means to restore us to both Law and Liberty, and therefore I have ever been opposed to such measures, as I thought were brought about with no other view but to advance this grand scheme of Indepen- dency or Republic government, which (I confirmed) however it may gratify the ambitious and malignant views of some men, will never leave the country at large so happy a people as they were, and might for ages have remained. And as for barely professing these sentiments, I have been abused, insulted, threatened and condemned to banishment, unless I would take the oath of allegiance to this imaginary state. This I have refused to do in modest, but as positive terms as I could, at the same time willing to give any security for my remaining neutral during the present disputes, yet still the oath Is now urged upon me, tho' I have declared that should I be vile enough to take it, I should not think mvself bound by it— and notwithstanding this declaration, I am yet now promised that if I will but take the oath. I shall remain with my family quiet and undisturbed. Temptations great indeed (but that I may not be led into Temptation is my dally prayer). Shall I now to avoid a little temporary uneasyness and inconveniency give the lye to all my former conduct and even appeal to the malesty of Heav- en to confirm the lye — God forbid— Shok-
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236 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2540 Ing thought that one Christian can ex- port this from another! — No, the idea of being torn from my family, distressing as it was to me never suggested such a thought, and now that the temptation is less (by the punishment for non-com- pliance being softened) and that it has pleased God to put it into their hearts to let me remove with my family — Resolv- ed, In the Name of God, let me go. Inserted in the journal is a copy of his letter to the Convention refusing to take the oath and asking for a pass for him- self and family to remove to New York. This was refused, and he was ordered to await the action of the Convention. He was again arrested on May 1, and thrown into jail at Kingston, from whence he was sent aboard one of the sloops of the prison fleet on the Hudson River. Many pages are devoted to his suffer- ings and interesting experiences while a prisoner. They tell of starvation; of filthy conditions; of his companions, some of whom were taken from his side to be executed for treason ; of the escape of prisoners from the sloop and his reasons for remaining behind; of his numerous letters and petitions to be released; and of his transfer on parole, September 1, to reside at the house of Capt. Vanduesen, at Hurley. On the advance of the British troops above the forts of the Highlands all prisoners were sent away except Colden and another, who protested so strenu- ously that they were allowed to remain. After the departure of the British, Col- den was again placed on parole in the house of Jacobus Hardenberg in Hurley until November 5, 1777, when he was transferred to Nine Partners in Dutchess County, and after an appeal to Gov. Clin- ton was allowed to go home. In July, 1778, he was again summoned before the Commission for Detecting Plots and Con- spiracies and asked to take the oath of allegiance to the State of New York, and on his refusal was ordered to remove with his family within the enemy's lines before August 3. He at once went to New York, but left his family in pos- session of his estate. On January 13 he wrote a memorial to Sir Henry Clinton, asking to be appointed to some office, and set forth his services and past sufferings. This memorial is virtually a summary of the contents of the journal, with one important addition: That in April, 1777 an officer or mes- senger charged with dispatches from the Commander in Chief at Canada to Sir William Howe, passing through the coun- try, and being pressed, fled to the house of your Memorialist for protection, which he not only received, but your Memorial- ist hired guides who conducted him safe, at the risque of their lives; and on sus- picion of this your Memorialist was again committed to the common jail, but hap- pily for him the Rebells could not prove the fact or he would undoubtedly suffered death. The journal ends at this point, but it may be surmised that Colden never re- ceived preferment at the hands of Sir Henry Clinton, or his lands would have been confiscated two years later by the general confiscatory act. The only portions of this journal which appear to have been published are some of the petitions to the Committee of Plots and Conspiracies which were printed in their reports; and as the authentic ex- perience of a Tory farmer of New York who wished to remain neutral, its his- torical value can scarcely be overesti- mated. H. Correspondence THE ROMAN LIBERALS TO LIN- COLN. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: Among the echoes of Lincoln's assassination in Europe one that is lit- tle known in America is the action of the Liberals of Papal Rome on the re- ceipt of the news of the Liberator's death. The war for emancipation in the United States had not been without its emotional effect on the struggling Ital- ians, especially in Rome, where the fu- ture was not yet clear. Regretting that the Roman Unionists, "still severed from the bosom of the great Italian family," had not had "from the theocratic powers still in control, a worthy interpreter of their sorrow for the horrible crime," the Liberal Committee proceeded to inde- pendent and tangible action. The Agger of Servius Tullius had recently been ex- cavated in Rome, and the name of the early Roman King was heralded as the champion of popular liberty against pa- trician oppression. A group of young Liberals, headed by Domenico Ricci, Alessandro Doria, and Pietro Jonni, se- cretly removed from the Agger a block of stone, on which was cut the following inscription in Latin: The Citizens of Rome Dedicate to Abraham IAncoln Pres- ident of the United States This Stone from the Agger of Servius Tullius That the Memory of These Champions of Lib- arty May Be Passed on United to Pos- terity. MDCCCLXV. The memorial was delivered to Mr. Stielmann, American Consul at Leghorn. It was embarked, August 4, 1865, on the English steamer Uhla for the United States. The Uhla, however, was wrecked on the Bermudas in September of that year. Inquiries of the donors at Washington and with Mr. Stielmann received no reply. P. Gerardi, writing in Fanfulla delta Domenica, Feb- ruary 25, 1912, shows that the stono was saved from the wreck and for some time lay on the beach in the Bermudas, whence ultimately it disappeared. So far as we know, no recognition of this courtesy was ever received from the United States. Arthur Livingston. Columbia University, February 27. published in 182G, contains an account of such a school at Naples. Kelly was arrested in that city one evening in the year 1799 and compelled to pass a night in prison, for striking a Neapolitan in a quarrel at the theatre. Among his fellow-prisoners was "a captain of Cala- brian banditti" who had been, in earlier days, a "hero of the pickpockets on the Largo di Castello." During this "jolly night" the ex-pickpocket and professed bandit told "many of his exploits, and something of his education. When a boy he had been placed at a school, where his trade was regularly taught. A large fig- ure, made of straw, was placed in the middle of a room, about which [the fig- ure] were arranged watches, trinkets, pocket-handkerchiefs, &c. The master of the school (and a very great master of arts he was) stood by and gave in- structions. No one was allowed to be an adept, or [to be] fit to take the field, till he could rob the figure without being observed or deranging a single straw." The parallel with Fagin's methods is cer- tainly striking. "Oliver Twist" did not appear in Bentley's Miscellany until 1837 (Jan., 1837-Mar., 1839), the same year that Dickens arranged to write his "Memoirs of Grimaldi." In reading the- atrical anecdotes and reminiscences for the latter purpose, Dickens may have obtained a hint for Fagin's school from Michael Kelly. J. R. Crawford. Yale University, February 28. FAGIN'S SCHOOL. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: The school for pickpockets which Dickens describes in "Oliver Twist" has always had a romantic appeal. The gut- ter-snipe apprenticed to the thief in or- der to learn the trade of scientific rob- bery from an "efficiency expert" is a pe- culiarly fascinating subject. It is not surprising, therefore, now and then, to find this legend of the thieves' school told as sober fact in memoirs. It makes a traveller's tale almost as irresistible as the miracles of the Indian jugglers. "The Reminiscences of Michael Kelly," singer at the Theatre-Royal, Drury Lane, THE PEOPLE'S WANTS. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: Perhaps the strongest defence ever made in behalf of sensational journalism is that it gives the people what they want. Of course, as I said in a letter to the Nation of March 18, 1913, the same plea is made with equal justice by the saloonkeeper. But, Mr. Editor, I believe that if the people have a hearing, col- lectively or individually, they will not de- clare in favor of the ordinary newspaper, to say nothing of the particularly "yellow sheet." Some time ago I asked twenty-five col- lege presidents to point out three defects of the American newspaper. From the score of replies received, only one of- fered voluntarily a favorable comment following the adverse criticism. I repro- duce three of these letters: President George C. Chase, Bates Col- lege, Me.: First, the space, prominence, and de- tail with which newspapers present ac- counts of crimes, family difficulties, suits for divorce, and kindred matters con- nected with the lower qualities of human nature and appealing to instincts which should be regulated and held in check rather than stimulated. Under this head might be included the minute and some- times coarse descriptions of boxing matches and similar exhibitions. Second, the violation of the sacredness of personal and of family life by bring- ing to the public incidents and peculiari- ties that can serve no good purpose, but that cultivate in newspaper readers an impertinence and often a morbid curiosi- ty in regard to persons and experiences in which the public can have no worthy Interest. Third, the space given to unimportant things, such as the dress and bearings of persons taking part in social functions.
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March 5, 1914] The 1ST a t i o 11 237 President Frank L. McVey, the Univer- sity of North Dakota: The chief fault in American newspapers Is their failure to appreciate proportion in the presentation of news. This is true not only in the assignment of space, but in the emphasis placed upon minor events and facts. A second fault is their over-use of head- lines and the presentation of startling and sensational matter really detrimental to public morals. Third, a lack of sincerity, and the evi- dent desire to make a story for the story's sake rather than for the sake of news. President Benjamin Ide Wheeler, the University of California: The first censurable feature in Ameri- can newspapers, which I should like to mention, is the feeling apparently held by the newspapers that each of them must take some stand on some current question. I think it would be better if they avoided taking a position, particu- larly on political questions. They would be less likely to be tempted into "color- ing" the news. The second bad fault lies in the desire of every paper to make "a story" out of a plain occurrence of fact. We do not want the news written up; we want the news. Many newspapers chop up the good materials which are given them and then hang them up decoratively on a pre- servative slab. We want more complete and unadulterated documents. Again, it is a vicious habit of many newspapers to lead you down to the bot- tom of a column on the first page and then suddenly announce that the narra- tive is continued on page 4, column 7. This is only one of a number of false principles now being applied to the for- mal makeup of newspapers. I wish news- papers would spare us the horror of il- lustration and colored ink. But. these opinions, which are very typical of the views expressed by college presidents throughout the United States, represent only a small class of the peo- ple. What about other professions, or even the "masses"? In answer to one of my letters, a class of more than forty students in journalism in the University of Oregon canvassed about all the trades and professions and representative citi- zens in private life in the city of Eugene. Few persons showed any reluctance to talk, and in only one instance was there a wholly favorable view expressed. I re- produce verbatim an account of a single interview: The greatest defect of our American newspapers is sensationalism [said the president of the First National Bank]. And by sensationalism I mean the print- ing of rot and untruth and that which maliciously stirs up the people. Most of our papers give only half of the story. They want to give the people the wrong impression. Take, for instance, the case of banks: in New York we read that a certain bank was making hundreds of thousands of dollars interest on a small sum of money which represented their own capital. The newspapers printed this to stir up antagonism, but they did not consider all the rest of the capital which this bank had out, which was in excess of their capital, and would have thus greatly lowered the per cent, of their in- terest. The second defect the banker believes to be the printing of stuff that is not news: By news I mean that which is of in- terest and value to all the people. A nasty little scandal in Eugene is not news to people in other cities, and yet such an occurrence would be printed in many of the big Eastern papers. Again, in a Middle Western city I re- quested a class in journalism to make a similar canvass. Lawyers, bankers, teachers, physicians, and ladies and gen- tlemen in private life were interviewed, and the results were strikingly similar to those given in the two cases above. Fi- nally, reports obtained in a slightly dif- ferent manner from a city in a South- eastern State are closely in keeping' with the opinions I have reproduced. Thus it would seem that the people are not getting what they desire in this case any more than they were getting what they desired when they bought canned goods and patent medicines previous to June 30, 1906. An indictment of the or- dinary American newspapers might read: They have appropriated and distorted the methods of fiction and advertise the result for fact. They are, therefore, prop- erly classed with adulterated food prod- ucts, patent medicines, and with all frauds practiced upon the public for the sake of profit. They are degrading to the taste and morals of the public, especially our youth. Surely, that which goes into one's head deserves the same scrutiny as those products which enter the stomach. Chas. V. Stansell. Ottawa, Kan., February 25. HARDY'S "TRAGIC POSSIBILITIES." To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: Writing in the Nation of Febru- ary 12, under the heading "Tragic Pos- sibilities," Mr. L. A. Noble has asked: "In the terrestrial scheme developed by the novels of Hardy's maturity is not the influence of woman synonymous with that of nature?" I, for one, cannot think so. The tragic possibilities of which Hardy- makes use lie deeper. To discern them, we must first recognize that in the novels ol his maturity he portrayed woman with scientific theories of determinism, en- vironment, heredity, and the survival of the fit, dominant in his mind. Secondly, we must recognize that nature is for him not the "cold, passionless, unloving mother to whom the sorrows, fears, and aspirations of man are indifferent be- cause unknown" — as Watts-Dunton says in describing the scientific feeling; nor is she the Natura Benigna of Words- worth's holy plan ; but the Natura Maligna of the pessimist. When we rec- ognize these two facts, we must discern that, creating characters with the aid of scientific data, and then betraying them to hostile circumstance, Hardy re- veals the malignancy of nature from the point of view of the unfit who do not survive. In the terrestrial scheme which this original point of view develops lie tho tragic possibilities. Harry W. Hastings. Elanover, N. H., February 27. criticise the remark: "Enabled the play- ers to bring a strong attack against their adversaries in the first four or five moves, rendering, indeed, a 'fool's mate' possible within the first four." Is not the "fool's mate" the one achieved in two moves, whereas the ordinary four-move mate is the "scholar's mate"? O. R. Howard Thomson. Willlamsport, Pa., February 15. THE FOOL'S MATE. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: It seems ungrateful to pick at so generous a review as that in the current number of the Nation of Murray's "His- tory of Chess," yet one may legitimately [Your reviewer can only state that for the past fifty years he has known the four-move mate in question by the title of "Fool's Mate." The two-move mate to which your correspondent doubtless refers (P to KB 3— P to K 3; P to KKt 4 — Q to KR 5) implies such crim- inal complicity on the part of White that it certainly deserves a more dyslo- gistic name than folly. Whether the crime in question should be entitled Sui- cide or Treason (to our Sovereign Lady Queen Caissa) is a matter which I did not know had been determined, certain- ly not by any of the "authorities," who naturally do not discuss so elementary a blunder. However, in the matter of calling names, it seems to be a ques- tion of depositing your coin and select- ing your epithet. Your reviewer, for this occasion only, prefers folly to schol- arship.— The Reviewer.] A BOOK OF SEA STORIES. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: Some years ago, when I was in search of information regarding early editions of Carlyle's "Heroes," I sent a brief request to readers of the Nation for help. Their response was immediate and most helpful. No unknown scholar in a corner could ever have received more generous aid. Encouraged by that experience, I venture to appeal to them again. When I was a boy in Ontario, many years ago, I borrowed from an old Ameri- can gentleman a book of sea stories, ship- wrecks principally. It was an American book, I feel certain, but it contained an account of the loss of H. B. M. Ata- lanta, sloop-of-war, at the mouth of Halifax harbor in 1813. The narrative (there were many "narratives") contain- ed the letter of the first lieutenant to his mother, describing the wreck. The book can be identified by a ringing ballad, which I have never seen since. It begins: A jolly comrade in the port, a fearless mate at sea, When I forget thee, to my haDd false may the cut- lass be ! And may my gallant battle flag be stricken down in shame, If, when the social can goes round, I fall to pledge thy name ! Up! up! my lads, bis memory! We'll give It with a cheer, Ned Bolton the commander of the Black Snake privateer. The verses go on to tell how Bolton fought the Spaniard, how the Black Snake grounded on a "cutting coral reef" near the hostile coast: The Spaniards shouted from the beach, bnt dared not venture near. Too well they knew the mettle of the daring privateer.
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238 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2540 When she gets off the reef, she is in a sinking condition; she has no boats, ami her commander "carries on" and sails her till she goes down all standing-, with her crew carousing and cheering on the deck. I do not recall the title of the book, and Inquiries at various centres have been fruitless. I should be grateful for any Information on the subject. Archibald MacMechan. Dalbousle University, Halifax, N. S., February 23. 101 >KN PHILLPOTTS'S STORIES. SCHOOLBOY To the Editor of The Nation : Sir: Your reviewer of Eden Phillpotts's boy chronicle, "From the Angle of Sev- enteen" (Nation, January 29), is mistaken in saying: "It is so unlike anything else by Mr. Phillpotts that one can hardly be- lieve it is his." It was in 1900 that Cor- key Minimus made his first appearance, as one of the several artless heroes in Mr. Phillpotts's delightful sketches of British school life, "The Human Boy" (published by Harpers), and there must be many readers who still remember that engaging youth's desperate battle with Bray, the cock of the Lower School, and the fateful "match with neckties" that preceded it. This book of schoolboy stories is so delicious in its humor, its vitality, and its rendition of genuine boy atmosphere, that it has always seemed to me to rank closely with "Stalky & Co." The chroni- cler of "Prom the Angle of Seventeen" must be Corkey Minimus, for it will be remembered that in 1900 Corkey Major was "a mere learning machine in the Sixth"; and Corkey Minor was the lucky chap who was saved fagging for exams, by something happening to his right lung, so he had to go on a fine trip to Australia in a sailing ship. Corkey Mini- mus was ten at that time, and in the Lower Fourth. Helen E. Haines. Pasadena, Cal., February 21. Literature COUNT PASOLINI'S RAVENNA. Ravenna e le sue grandi memorie. By Pier Pasolini. Rome: Loescher. Ravenna, unlike Rome, Florence, Venice, and many other Italian cities, has not a complete history such as lends Itself to orthodox literary treatment; were the whole of its story set forth from remote origins down to the pres- ent day, much of it would prove of very little interest, and of purely local im- portance. But it has had its moments of great celebrity and glory, when for a short time it became a centre of world interests and its name was In all men's mouths. Count Pasolini has set about writing the history of his native town in the only way it should be written, for he has not attempted a consecutive narrative, but has chosen out the really great periods and episodes and devot- ed his whole attention to them, discard- ing the dreary records of colorless ob- scurity under Byzantine officials or Papal legates and of civil strife under native rulers. The stirring events which from time to time made Ravenna famous, and the men of universal celebrity who were as- sociated with the city, are dealt with in the author's pleasant original style, coupled with profound knowledge and laborious research. The aspect of Raven- na as we see it to-day offers close paral- lel to the character of its history, for the dull brick walls and obscure streets are lit up here and there by gorgeous visions of gold mosaics and splendid palaces. Count Pasolini lets us see tfae whole brilliant pageant of Ravenna's memories; emperors, generals, Byzan- tine exarchs, pontiffs, and poets pass through the city amid a blaze of color. Ravenna first springs into fame in the year 50 b. c, when Julius Caesar oc- cupied it with his legions while await- ing the answer of the Senate to his ulti- matum. He had declared himself ready to lay down his arms if Pompey did the same; otherwise he should have to de- fend his own rights. Having received no satisfactory reply, he set forth from Ravenna, crossed the fatal Rubicon, and moved towards Rome to found the Em- pire. "Five hundred years more, and the Roman Empire, after having handed over to the Christian Church the ideal- Ism and organization of a universal jur- isdiction, and after having exercised over the world an irresistible fascination and an influence which survives to this day, was to come to end at Ravenna." Galla Placidia is the next great figure appearing in the city's history, the Em- press who, in the dark days of trium- phant barbarism, impersonated the Ro- man Empire, the Roman idea, the Ro- man Church. Her mausoleum Is one of the most splendid examples of mosaic decoration, or rather we should say of mosaic architecture, in existence, and her memory still lives in Ravenna as that of the good queen who protected the poor and Insured them their rights. Romulus Augustulus had his capital at Ravenna until, in 476, after a skirmish *n the Pineta, where his few troops were defeated by Odovakar, king of the Heruli, he was deposed, and the Roman Empire fell. Under Theodoric Ravenna became the centre of a great and splen- did experiment — the fusion of Roman and Goth into one powerful nation and the establishment of toleration as the basis for ecclesiastical policy. For Theo- doric, although himself a Goth, was so thoroughly imbued with the Roman idea that he wished to continue the tradi- tions of Rome amid his own Gothic peo- ple, while he believed that Arlan and Catholic could dwell peacefully side by side. For many years this double plan succeeded admirably, until the uncom- promising bigotry of the Eastern Em- peror Justin and his persecution of the Allans aroused Theodorlc's Gothic and Arlan prejudices and drove him in his later years to cruel persecutions of the Catholics. Ravenna springs into fame once more duriug the reign of Justinian and Theo- dora. Belisarius occupied Ravenna for Justinian in 540, and for 212 years the city remained under Byzantine rule as represented by the exarchs. During a period of nearly eight cen- turies the history of Ravenna was of slight interest, until its connection with the great name of Dante attracted the attention of the world. It was at Raven- na that Dante spent the last years of his troubled existence, and there, enjoy- ing the hospitality of the house of Da Polenta, he finished the "Divine Com- edy." Count Pasolini sheds much light on the poet's last years, and gives an ac- count of his diplomatic mission to Ven- ice, where by his political tact he saved his host, the lord of Ravenna, from the ire and cupidity of the Serenissima. After the death of Dante, Ravenna again lapses into obscurity, until the battle of Ravenna in 1511. To this event the author devotes a long chapter, for he deems it peculiarly important as being the first battle of the modern age, for it was the first to be decided by the use of artillery. In 1797 Ravenna is again talked of, owing to the remark- able personality of its archbishop, Monsignor Codrouchi, whose friendship with Napoleon exercised some influence on the Emperor's ecclesiastical policy. Twenty years later we find Byron at Ravenna, which became the scene of his love episode with the beautiful Contessa Guiccioli. But this was far more than a grande passion, for the fair Italian Inspired the English poet with a deep love for her country and a keen desire for its resurrection. The long last chap- ter of the book tells of Garibaldi's con- nection with Ravenna. The subject is to some extent familiar to English readers through the stirring pages of Mr. Tre- velyan's "Garibaldi's Defence of the Ro- man Republic," but the present work contains much fresh material collected from unpublished sources, and the rec- ollections of the few living witnesses. The story of the hero's flight through forest, canebrakes, and marshland with the Austrian soldiers and Pontifical gen- darmes ever at his heels, his move- ments hampered by the necessity of car- ing for his dying wife Anita, is set forth In eloquent language by the author, who feels all the emotion of the episode and succeeds in imparting it to his readers. "The tragedy of Anita, which takes place between Rome and Ravenna, the two classical and Imperial cities," as Car- ducci wrote; the tragedy of the faith- ful and fearless wife who, after having risked and suffered so much, succumbs exhausted In the arms of her husband, the hero, "pursued to death throughout the land,"
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March 5, 1 914] The Nation 239 is perhaps the most beautiful, surely the purest and most patriotic, of the many tragedies which for nineteen centuries love and warfare have shown us: Su la marina dove il Po discende Per aver, pace co" seguaci sui. CURRENT FICTION. Horace Blake. By Mrs. Wilfrid Ward. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. It has become rather fashionable to begin the novel, instead of ending it, with the hero's marriage; the next logical step is to begin with his death. Something like this Mrs. Ward has done. The first of the three parts of her book tells the story of Horace Blake's last days and death. Blake is a brilliant dramatist, in his philosophy cruelly cynical, in his life utterly cor- rupt. His wife is a strong woman, brought up in an atmosphere of skep- ticism, who has forgiven and shielded Blake in her ambition for his fame. At- tacked by a baffling and mortal disease, Blake goes to Brittany for rest. He takes with him not his wife, who wea- ries him in his weakness, but his daugh- ter, who has been brought up by Mrs. Blake's sister in entire ignorance of her father's character. Before his death in Brittany Blake successfully exerts him- self to win his daughter's love, and be- comes a convert to the faith of his boy- hood. The story proper is concerned with his influence after his death upon three persons: his wife, his daughter, and Stephen Tempest, who has visited him in Brittany, has fallen in love with his daughter, and has been selected by his wife as his biographer. Each is ignor- ant of essential parts of Blake's life. The daughter, Trix, knows only of his last days. Mrs. Blake will hear noth- ing of that period, regarding Blake's conversion as a cowardly surrender to •superstition. Tempest has known Blake only after his conversion. The fuller knowledge of Blake which comes to them all puts Tempest in an intolerable position, shakes to the foundations the poise and philosophy of Mrs. Blake, and nearly crushes Trix. All three char- acters are analyzed with a good deal of subtlety. But the real achievement of the book is its successful portrayal of a man of genius. The Light of Western Stars. By Zane Grey. New York: Harper & Bros. In "Desert Gold" Mr. Grey gave us a stirring melodrama, written against a background of the plains and desert mountains of the Southwest. "The Light of Western Stars" has a similar set- ting, described with the same imagina- tive sweep and vigor. But the story it- self is far inferior to "Desert Gold." The author has fallen back upon convention- .al material — the rich and beautiful East- ern girl transplanted to the West, and the English lord among cowboys. He has taken over his opening situation from Charles Alden Seltzer's "The Trail to Yesterday." In both books the East- ern heroine, arriving alone at night, comes into the power of a more or less drunken cowboy, who forces her to go through the form of a marriage with him by threatening to shoot the priest or minister. In both cases the cowboy turns out to be an admirable man whom the heroine is ultimately glad to claim as a husband. The original suggestion for this situation may perhaps have come from Moody's "The Great Di- vide." If we add to the conventional elements, borrowings, and repetitions certain up-to-date properties, such as a high-powered automobile and a number of Mexican rebels of the most villanous type, we have summed up the book pretty well. The Butterfly. By Henry Kitchell Web- ster. New York: D. Appleton & Co. If there are any dull pages in this frolicsome tale, the reviewer did not find them. It is the sort of story that seems to have written itself, for the sheer plea- sure of it. Brinsley Butler, the narra- tor and hero, is a stage-struck but sen- sible professor of drama in a State uni- versity not far from Chicago. When Elaine Arthur, the famous dancer, comes to town, Butler calls upon her fiance, a classmate of his, in the hope of being invited to meet her. "There is," he be- gins, "I think you will admit, a certain piquancy about getting kissed by mis- take." He never finds out who kissed him, but from the time when, waiting in his classmate's room at the hotel, he has this experience, adventures and mysteries crowd thick upon him. He is suspected of complicity in a murder; he is involved in a scandal and quasi-elope- ment; he loses his university position and recovers it through the wiles of the delightfully impossible Elaine. With each succeeding situation the mystery surrounding Elaine grows deeper. All questions are satisfactorily answered; but if the reader can guess the solution, he ought to become a detective. The book is a most entertaining mixture of mystery, fantasy, and farce. Liliecrona's Home. By Selma Lagerlbf. Translated from the Swedish by Anna Barwell. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. This is a story of more general ap- peal than anything else by this writer, and her accession to the Nobel honor roll will bring new readers to the translation. It is an idyll full of deli- cate feeling and fancy, and not without a touch of northern magic. The beloved home of Maia Lisa Is on enchanted ground; we are not unduly surprised when her wicked stepmother turns out to be an evil water-sprite, and vanishes in the ghostly depths of her lost Black Lake. Before that happens, much suf- fering comes to Maia Lisa. The good old pastor, her father, is under the spell of the malignant spirit who has usurped his home. Not until his daughter's good health, good name, and happiness seem to have been destroyed beyond hope, are his eyes opened. Maia Lisa is sweet and genuine, the eternal maiden with a personality as real as it is fragile. Liliecrona, her lov- er, is a less credible person, a ladies' hero, the dark, mysterious male of fic- tion. He is made a little ridiculous by the inadequacy of the past crime over which he wills to brood. However, Maia Lisa does not see anything absurd in him, his past, or his fiddle, and that is the main thing. Enough for us that in the end she succeeds in winning him out of his dark mood to the heaven of her love, which is fated to be "Lilie- crona's home." THE ROMANCE OP THE MIDDLE AGES. Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartrcs. By Henry Adams. With an Introduction by Ralph Adams Cram. Illustrated. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. $6. Of this unique and fascinating volume it would be difficult to give an adequate idea without quotations more extensive than the limits of this review will per- mit. The circumstances of its publica- tion were sufficiently unusual to arouse high expectations, wide curiosity, or skeptical doubts, according to one's tem- perament. Privately printed by Mr. Adams for distribution among his per- sonal friends, it fell into the hands of Mr. Ralph Adams Cram, the well-known architect, who was so profoundly im- pressed by its literary charm and its his- torical as well as artistic importance that he urged the directors of the Amer- ican Institute of Architects to procure its publication under their imprimatur. It is a testimony at once to their wise judgment and to the merits of Mr. Adams's work that they adopted the sug- gestion; and the compliment thus paid to Mr. Adams is the more signal in the fact that the Institute rarely engages in the publication of extra-official docu- ments, and that it insisted on this un- dertaking in the face of Mr. Adams's too modest reluctance. The reader or the reviewer may find himself hesitating to follow to the full extent of the superla- tives in Mr. Cram's Introduction, but he will certainly understand and pardon its enthusiastic tone, if he possess a spark of responsiveness to Mr. Adams's persuasive humor, or of appreciation for literary charm, or of interest in the his- tory, art, literature, and spirit of the Middle Ages. The title of the book and its publica-
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240 rr li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2540 tion by the Institute of Architects sug- gest an architectural treatise; but only 197 of its 401 pages are concerned with architecture; the remainder are devoti d to the poetry and learning of the Mid- dle Ages. The real subject of the two groups of essays which make up its six- teen chapters is the mediaeval spirit In its threefold manifestations in architec- ture, poetry, and philosophy— chiefly the French mediaeval spirit — and the dom- inant and emphatic note or motive of these studies, though by no means their exclusive note, is the adoration of womanhood, as expressed in the wor- ship of the Virgin, in the poetry of the trouveres, in the history of Abelard and Helo'ise, in the "Miracles of Notre Dame," in the plan, details, sculptures, and windows of the Cathedral of Char- tres. The author disarms criticism at the outset by his disclaimers of archi- tectural or historical erudition, and by his declared purpose to write not an historical treatise for scholars, but an exposition of French mediaeval thought and feeling for "tourists," and these his personal and intimate friends, his collective "niece" as he whimsically ex- plains in his preface. In spite of his disclaimers, the reader, thus hospitably received into the group whom Mr. Adams as Uncle accompanies to the Mont Saint Michel, thence through Nor- mandy to Chartres, and after that through the pages of various poets and scholars, realizes that his guide is a scholar, a profound student of art, lit- erature, and life, and an enthusiast, gift- ed with a genial and subtle humor that enlivens and illumines every subject he touches. The great merit of the book, however, lies less in its scholarship than in its sympathetic effort to penetrate to the core and kernel of mediaeval thought and feeling. One may not agree with the claim for the south tower of Chartres (a claim which the author, in- deed, does not specifically endorse, but evidently approves) that "it is the most perfect piece of architecture in the world." The architectural student will certainly wish to correct the statement on page 67 that the dome of St. Peter's at Rome was building between 1507 and 1517, at which time it had not even been designed; and when the author contends, on page 112, that the archi- tect of Chartres "might at least have brought the vaulting of his two new bays, in the nave, down to the ground," the reader detects one of the very few loose and ambiguous statements in the volume. In spite of these, and possibly a very few other minor slips or doubt- ful assertions, Mr. Adams's architectur- al analyses and criticisms are accurate and illuminating. In discussing Chartres he places himself in the twelfth century, assumes its point of view as he feels it, gravely credits the Virgin herself with a personal share in its design, and plc- :i. this superb cathedral as her spe- cial shrine. "You may," lie says, "if you really* have no imagination whatever, reject the idea that the Virgin herself made the plan; the feebleness of our fancy is now congenital, organic, beyond stimulant or strychnine, and we shrink like sensitive plants from the touch of a vision or spirit; but at 'least one can still sometimes feel a woman's taste, and in the apse of Chartres one feels noth- ing else." This quotation must suffice for a sam- ple of the flavor of the book. The dis- cussion of the windows of Chartres is delightful and valuable, as is the de- scription of the cathedral itself, and the account of the Mont Saint Michel. The second half of the book is devoted to chapters on The Court of the Queen of Heaven, The Three Queens, Nicolette and Marion, Les Miracles de Notre Dame, Abelard, The Mystics, and Saint Thomas Aquinas. The same genial hu- mor, the same qualities of style, the same point of view, pervade these chapters that characterize the studies of archi- tecture. There are copious quotations of the original texts, with admirable translations set over against each. This review must close without an attempt at criticism of these chapters, leaving that task to scholars specially qualified to pick flaws and correct errors in this field of erudition. The book is one to be read aloud, or conned by the winter fireside, and he must be a hard-headed and skeptical reader who can wholly resist the insid- ious lure by which it seeks to draw him out of his twentieth-century sophistica- tion and materialism into the dreams and visions of a by-gone age; into a sympathetic understanding of what we call its superstitions and of the mar- vellous works which were their fruit Nietzsche, sein Leoen und seine Werke. By Richard M. Meyer. Munich: C. H. Beck. The Philosophy of Nietzsche. By Georges Chatterton-Hill. New York: D. Apple- ton & Co. The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. By Henry L. Mencken. Boston: Luce & Co. $1.50 net. These three books, which rank in im- portance in the order above mentioned, have this common feature among oth- ers, that they are all products of a sym- pathetic understanding of Nietzsche's main doctrines. Each is a defensive ex- position. Mr. Mencken, in his jauntily written book, which now appears in a third and enlarged edition, goes still fur- ther. Adopting all of Nietzsche's philoso- phy, except the doctrine of Eternal Re- currence, he is chiefly interested in ap- plying it to problems of the present day. Mr. Chatterton-Hill has produced a thoughtful If not a profound book, and bae succeeded in treating his subject much more objectively than Mr. Menck- 1 ii. His chapter entitled Theory ot, Knowledge is a valuable discussion of a point which recent criticism is coming more and more to emphasize, namely, Nietzsche's view of the relativity of truth. The book as a whole seems ratti- er loosely constructed and contains some needless repetitions. There are at least two errors of fact: the date of Nietz- sche's death is given as 1899 instead of L900 (p. 55), and La Rochefoucauld . is assigned to the eighteenth instead of the seventeenth century (p. 99). Professor Meyer, of the University of Berlin, is well known as the author of the standard "Geschichte der deutschen Literatur des neunzehnten Jahrhun- derts." He brings to the study of Nietzsche vast general reading, a detailed knowledge of the particular questions at issue, and an almost boundless en- thusiasm, which, however, does not wholly blind his critical judgment. His volume comprises nearly 700 pages, ex- clusive of bibliography and index. The preliminary chapters, dealing with the "fulness of time," the preparation for Nietzsche's appearance, contain some of the most stimulating matter of the whole book. Especially the chapter on Ver- wandte Naturen suggests many ingeni- ous parallels and comparisons, with per- haps too great leaning on the philo- sophic and literary side, and not enough regard for scientific movements. Dar- win, for instance, who bulks so large in Mr. Mencken's book, receives but scant consideration. About 75 pages only are devoted to biography. The point of greatest interest here is the author's guarded reference to Nietzsche's insan- ity. He adopts the now generally accept- ed theory of paresis as against paranoia, though he does not think that the pa- ralysis necessarily went back to venereal infection. Then follows the main sec- tion of the book, a discussion of the various writings of Nietzsche in their chronological order. Professor Meyer is stanch in the opin- ion that Nietzsche had a coherent philos- ophy, which, however, was developed vertically rather than horizontally. The vagueness inevitably attendant upon such an unsystematic presentation is the cause of the doubt which still ex- ists, for example, as to the meaning of the term Uebermensch. Was the Ueber- mensch to be an individual or an ideal for the elite of the race? Those who seek here a definite answer to this ques- tion will not be greatly enlightened, for Professor Meyer is almost as wavering and uncertain as Nietzsche himself. His final opinion, however, appears to be that Nietzsche inclined more and more to the collectivistic notion. The handling of the doctrine of Eter- nal Recurrence is more satisfactory. It is well known that this came to be
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March 5, 1914] Nietzsche's favorite dogma, and that he embraced it with almost mystic ardor. It added, as Professor Meyer shrewdly points out, just that poetic, irrational touch necessary to convert his philoso- phy into a religion. The current objec- tion that this doctrine destroys the value of the Uebermensch theory, Professor Meyer is able to refute with convincing neatness. For Nietzsche, he argues, the development of the will to power was more than power itself. Becoming, not being, v as his highest ideal. Hence it follows that in his eyes even "progress in a circle" was infinitely preferable to any static condition, even though it were upon the very heights of existence. He also conceived of truth itself in terms of becoming rather than of being. This biological view of truth gives him, in his critic's opinion, an assured position in the history of philosophy, making him in a measure a forerunner of James, Poin- care, M. Bergson, and — longo intervallo —Mr. H. G. Wells. Professor Meyer touches lightly on what is crass and offensive in Nietzsche — his exaggerations and perversions, his intolerance and his intemperate abusiveness. He describes him in terms of hyperbolic praise as "der positivste Denker der Neuzeit" and "der gedanken- reichste Schriftsteller, der je gelebt hat," and in the concluding paragraph of the book he adds the amazing statement: "Wir haben die Erneuerung des Reichs erlebt, und wunderbare Grosstaten de3 erflndenden Menschengeistes, und Fried- rich Nietzsche." It appears that to Pro- fessor Meyer, although he eschews the name of disciple, Nietzsche has been a moral, intellectual, and artistic tonic. The appearance of Professor Meyer's book at this late date coincides curious- ly enough with a marked decline of Nietzsche's influence in Germany, and probably also in the rest of Continental Europe. It is very doubtful whether the book, authoritative as it is in many re- spects, will do much towards stemming this receding tide. Most people will probably continue to find in Goethe the best of Nietzsche without the latter's aberrations. It should not be forgotten that the term Uebermensch was first used in "Faust," and that the concept itself is there almost full blown. If the gospel of effort, of the unfolding of the will to power, is to be preached, no- where in Nietzsche has it heen better done than in the lines: Wer immer strebend sich bemiiht, Den konnen wir erlosen, or in those other familiar verses from "Faust," which Mr. Chatterton-Hill is so fond of quoting: Nur der verdient sich Freiheit wie das Leben, Der taglich sie erobern muss. We have also from the aged Goethe this brief formulation of the dynamic con- ception of truth, with its almost star- The ]NTation tling anticipation of Pragmatism: "Ich habe bemerkt, dass ich den Gedanken fur wahr halte, der fur mich fruchtbar ist, sich an mein iibriges Denken anschliesst, und zugleich mich fordert. ' One would be willing to spare a hun- dred pages or so of Professor Meyer's somewhat diffuse book in exchange for a chapter on Nietzsche's literary influ- ence. But possibly the subject is too large for a mere addendum to the pres- ent volume. At any rate, here is a task which is still to be done, and which, competently accomplished, would fur- nish an illuminating contribution to the criticism of contemporary life and let- ters. 24=1 What Men Live By: Work, Play, Love, Worship. By Richard C. Cabot, M.D. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. $1 net. There is little in the style of this New Englander to suggest his Tran- scendental forebears, yet the spirit of Transcendentalism broods upon his pages. Individuality, fidelity to self, is the cornerstone of his working philoso- phy, and it must be a creative fidelity, conscious of the mystical or symbolic relations of things. The substance of the book is expressed most compactly in its closing sentences: Work falls flat, play and art become sterile, love and worship become con- ventional, unless there is originality, personal creation in each. I must do my job in my own way, find an individual outlet in the symbols of art or game, and an individual answer in love and prayer, if I am to feel at home in the world. Yet this individual note is no cry in the void because it claims brother- hood with all future and distant notes. . . . By originality and symbolism, then, the home of our spirit is conse- crated, but still more clearly, perhaps, by our free and final allegiance. Our will is needed to invest the world with its own divinity. We hoist a flag and take possession once for all with a sort of "cosmic patriotism," grateful for our es- cape from chaos and the dark. What means have we of escape from the confusion and wear-and-tear of mod- ern life? This would be one way of putting the question to which Dr. Cabot here suggests an answer. He has ap- proached it by the direct road of his own work as a physician. The pro- blems of the care of the tuberculous, the neurasthenic, the unmarried mother, suggested the broader problem. So by degrees it came to him that the only solution was to get back to life, to "real life," a life made up of all the elements which contribute to health of body and spirit. That these elements are four — work, play, love, and wor- ship— he did not fancy to be a discov- ery of his own, but a truth of which we are all obscurely conscious: "We know where we are travelling, but we need a time-table to remind us of details." The interplay of these four elements is here presented as "the end of life and the sole worthy end." Governments, systems of education, the cure of soul or of body, are of value as they are directed, consciously or unconsciously, towards such interplay. "This is our justification for the enormous machin- ery and the costly ugliness of civiliza- tion. This is the essential of that 'more abundant life' which many prophets ex- tol without defining." The writer is spe- cific in his protest against attempts to merge or identify these forms of real life. Each of them has its own value and dignity as a means of escape. Work is not play, or love worship, but none is of the utmost efficacy without the others. Work goes a long way by itself with active, sanguine men, but the rem- edy for sad or anxious ones is more likely to be found elsewhere. In his chapters on the nature and function of work (which he admits is his own fa- vorite remedy), Dr. Cabot is especially vigorous. He distinguishes work from play on the one hand and drudgery on the other; has a word to say for "com- mercialism"; and sharply challenges the familiar contrast between work of the mind and of the body: "Let us abolish terms like 'physical culture' or 'men- tal training,' " he cries. "To be con- cerned with either one's mind or one's body is a morbid practice. One should be occupied with tasks that make us forget both mind and body in the high- er union of both." Equally energetic is his denunciation, in the chapter on Play and Its Enemies, of seriousness, once so highly accredited in New England. Seri- ousness, he says, is one of the many things worth having in the background — and keeping there. Absolute serious- ness is "a residual state into which one relapses when one has nothing better to do or say." We are serious when dull or relaxed, just before sleep or just after waking. Playfulness, on the con- trary, is a sign of vitality and health, the instinct of re-creation. So far the reader will have no difficulty in accom- panying his guide. When, however, af- ter laying down the principle that art and play fulfil the same function, he proceeds to identify them, one's bump of caution begins to throb. Baseball is an art, and is to be grouped with danc- ing and drama as among the three pop- ular arts of America. The social graces are "minor arts." Humor, speaking, threading one's way deftly in a crowded street, anticipating another's wish, smil- ing— these are "minor arts." Or "sci- ences." if we are to use words so loosely! The chapter Trance in Play begins by describing ecstasy as "the goal and climax to which musician, painter, dancer, poet are leading us." It is a state good in itself, but "If we cling to that climax and try to prolong It, we
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24=12 T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2540 may easily slide over into a sort of Nir- vana where life is quenched." This is the danger to which the aesthete suc- cumbs, as also practitioners of "swing- ing, rocking, chewing gum, and any formless type of music, dance, or verse." A slow, monotonous rhythm is narcotiz- ing in effect — " 'Move on' is the watch- word of the Lord, obeyed in every live play and art, as it is in every animal tissue that holds off death by reincarna- tion." "We have wished merely to suggest the flavor of this book, since it is not a book to be conveyed by citation or summary. The sections dealing with the functions of love and worship are the most difficult portions of the writ- er's task, but here pure seriousness keeps its rightful place in the back- ground as naturally as in the earlier chapters. In short, the book practices what it preaches, has the unforced hu- mor, the vigor, the blitheness of men- tal and bodily and spiritual health. In this day of halting phrases and half- thoughts it has the beneficent quality epitomized in that old phrase of Dr. Cabot's fellow-New Englanderg: "good for sore eyes." Government Ownership of Railways. By Samuel O. Dunn, Editor of the Rail- way Age-Gazette. New York: D. Ap- pleton & Co. $1.50 net. Mr. Dunn has written a useful book and its publication is well timed. The information as to government-owned railways in the various countries of the world is given in simple and readable form and bears every appearance of accuracy. The author's discussion of the respec- tive merits of government-owned and privately-owned railways is character- ized by moderation of language and sound common-sense, even though it is clear that he is a thoroughly convinced advocate of private ownership and oper- ation. Naturally, the chief interest in the book is in the light that it throws upon the situation of the United States as a possible field for government owner- ship. Two main considerations are ap- parent from Mr. Dunn's facts and argu- ments. One is that public ownership is the more successful the further the sys- tem of government is removed from the democratic ideal. Prussia and Ja- pan are the two countries which make the best showing of government rail- way operation. The other is that under public ownership the tendency is for rate tariffs (freight) to be made upon a rigid distance basis, as against the principle universally adopted under pri- vate ownership — namely, what the traf- fic should bear. The rate-systems of the United States — about half-a-dozen in number, all mutually connected — have all been constructed on the latter prin- ciple under which interregional compe- tition has been maintained and regional monopoly avoided. The effect of govern- ment ownership would be ultimately to b purely distance tariffs, and this would, ultimately, destroy the inter- regional competition and establish re- gional monopoly. Mr. Dunn admits that there is more danger of harmful dis- crimination under private ownership than under government ownership, but regulation has already removed a good deal of this, and can in time remove most of the rest. Mr. Dunn quotes Mr. William M. Ac- worth, the English railway authority, as saying that the United States will ap- proach "the brink of nationalization" more closely than it has yet done, "and will then start back on the edge of the precipice and escape by some road not yet discernible" (p. 5). As a matter of fact, the pending application of the rail- ways in classification territory for a horizontal increase of 5 per cent, in freight rates seems to the reviewer to be a most important milestone on the road to nationalization. If the Inter- state Commerce Commission shall rec- ognize the principle that rates may rise as well as fall, then it may be said that the danger of government ownership will be materially less, even though the amount of increase allowed be small. But, on the other hand, should the prin- ciple be denied, we shall have advanced a long step nearer to the unwelcome goal. For as soon as it becomes impos- sible to get a reasonably free supply of private capital for the railway, the de- mand for government ownership is like- ly to become vociferous. It is to be hoped that Mr. Dunn's book may find many readers, meanwhile, for it is a powerful piece of evidence against nationalization of railways — at all events in the United States. Notes Among' the miscellaneous announce- ments in Macmillan's spring list are in- cluded: "The Story of Phsedrus: How We Got the Greatest Book in the World," by Newell Dwight Ilillis; "The Flight and Other Poems,", by George Edward Wood- berry; "The Foothills of Parnassus," by John Kendrick Bangs; "Stories from Northern Myths," by Emilie Kip Baker. Mississippi Valley Historical Review, a new quarterly published by the Missis- sippi Valley Historical Association, will begin to appear June 1. The managing editor is Prof. Clarence W. Alvord, of the University of Illinois. For the enthusiastic student of the works of Thomas Hardy "Thomas Har- dy's Wessex" (Macmillan) will be valu- able as a book of reference. For any who care to follow for themselves in the footsteps of Tess or Jude or any other of Mr. Hardy's characters through the country that he has made his own, Iden- tifying real places and scenes with their fictitious counterparts, this volume will he quite Indispensable. The author, Her- mann Lea, has made the Hardy country his hobby for twenty years. He has been over the whole of the ground more than once, and there can hardly be a place mentioned in either the novels or the poems susceptible of identification which has escaped his searching scrutiny. The book is illustrated with 240 excellent pho- tographs, numbered to facilitate refer- ence, and with a map of Hardy's Wessex in which real and fictitious names are distinguished by the use of different type. In style somewhat like the Tudor and Stuart Library, but in modern type, the Oxford University Press has brought out an edition of Erasmus's "Praise of Folly," in John Wilson's translation which was first published in 1668. For frontispiece there is a good photogravure reproduc- tion of the portrait of Erasmus which was painted by Quentin Matsys in 1517 for presentation to Thomas More. The introduction is furnished t>y Mrs. P. S. Allen, who gives a sufficiently clear and full account of the Fool Literature which wras started by Sebastian Brant's "Nar- renschiff" in 1494 and went careering over Europe. She tells also the story, so far as it is known, of the conditions under which Erasmus wrote his "Morise Enco- mium" while staying at More's house in Bucklersbury. Her comments on the "Encomium" itself are sound, but she might, we think, have developed a little more clearly the idea of the higher illu- sion which, like Plato's "divine mania," is so strangely mixed up by Erasmus with his amusement over the simpler follies of mankind. It has always seemed to your reviewer that the grace and mischief in the pun on the word Moria rested on Erasmus's perception of something like the same mixture in More himself of the divine illusion with a wit that did not al- ways disdain the commoner; folly. Mrs. Allen has done well in selecting Wilson's translation rather than Chaloner's or Kennett's. The original spelling has been retained, but the punctuation has been modernized and the text paragraphed. A few coarse words have been omitted. Those who care to have a fuller ac- count of the hospitable household in which Erasmus wrote his "Praise of Folly" may be glad to hear of Randall Davies's book on "The Greatest House at Chelsey" (Lane). Life in the mansion which Sir Thomas More built for him- self in what was then a mere village was on a larger scale than at Bucklers- bury, where the famous visit of Erasmus took place, and he himself was more in the eye of the world, but in tone the two 1 itablishments were no doubl the same. ,11 Davies comes to his subject as an antiquary and historian, and his pages lacl tli<" intimacy of Miss Manning's charming talc of "The Household of Sir Thomas More"; but they have the ad- e of not transgressing the actual documents. Diagrams of the mansion .•iikI of the ground: and B number of Il- lustrations, including excellenl reproduc tions of Holbein's portraits and the Cam- 1 sketch i' i"i reality to the narrative, v C01 Hi' hie Itself, before the < \ 11 days of Henry's persecution, thai cannol he better described than by the words of Sir
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March 5, 1914] The Nation. 243 Thomas in a letter to his wife after the burning of his barns: Therefore I pray you be of good cheer, and take all the household with you to Church, and there thank God both for that he hath given us and for that he hath taken from us, and for that he hath left us, which if it please him he can increase when he will. ... I pray you with my children and your house- hold be merry in God. . . . It would be hard to find a prettier phrase in English letters than that last. But this was not the spirit that ruled always in the great house at Chelsea. Some of the vicissitudes through which the place passed may be guessed from the list of its owners given by Mr. Davies in his preface: Sir Thomas More, the first and second Marquises of Winchester, Lord and Lady Dacre, Lord Burghly, Sir Robert Cecil, the Earl of Lincoln, Sir Ar- thur Gorges, the Earl of Middlesex, the great Duke of Buckingham, the younger Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Bristol, the Duke of Beaufort, Sir Hans Sloan — by tho last of whom it was demolished in the year 1740. In that period of barely two centuries it probably saw as much of the various manners of mankind as any house in the neighborhood of London. Mr. Davies, already known for his anti- quarian studies of Chelsea, gives a fairly vivid picture of the successive occupants. Not the least interesting of these is the Earl of Lincoln, who, if the letters do him no injustice which Mr. Davies prints by permission of the present Lord Sack- ville, was as fine a specimen of Elizabeth- an madness as one would care to know. One of these letters, from Sir Robert Cecil, is a complaint to "Our very good Lord" because, "when her Majesty did lately ride abroad, and was accompanied with the Scottish Ambassador, she was very desirous to have gone into your house and gardens; from whence she was kept out in so rude a fashion, as we protest unto you your enemies wanted not a color to say it was by your di- rection." Another letter is from Lincoln's stepson to Cecil, complaining in behalf of his mother: . . . whom he [Lord Lincoln] threat- ens to abandon if she makes any means to depart his house; which to prevent, he keeps her locked up like a prisoner, without suffering her either to write or hear from any of her friends, having ap- pointed to guard her an Italian, a man that hath done divers murders in Italy and in the Low Countries, from which he fled into England; from whom I protest she has just cause hourly to fear the cut- ting of her throat. We cannot follow the further fortunes of the house. The occupant in whom Mr. Davies seems to show the most interest, after its builder, is the Quaker gardener, one Edmund Howard, who took care of the place for a while before the last owner demolished it. From Howard's artless au- tobiography, which has been published in the Friends' Quarterly Examiner, he quotes several quaint passages — a fitting close to a rather unusual book. Mr. Walter Heape, of Trinity College, Cambridge, has written a volume on the feminist movement, which he approaches as a student of biology. The title of his book, "Sex Antagonism" (Putnam), In- dicates the aspect of the subject that is uppermost in his mind. The most arrest- ing feature of his study is his carrying of sex antagonism back historically to the primitive practices of exogamy, which he attributes to "the instinctive sexual impulse of the Male to find a mate who will stimulate him," and of totemism, which he regards as a feminine creation having special relation to maternity. His conclusion is uncompromising: "For the present the man is very patient with his woman-kind, and is remarkably silent concerning the discomforts he himself is subject to; perhaps for these very rea- sons he will act with all the more force when the proper time comes for action." If Mrs. John Clarence Lee had inten- tionally striven to prejudice her readers against her story of "Across Siberia Alone" (Lane), it is difficult to see how she could have chosen a more effective way than her selection of an American wedding in Shanghai for her first chap- ter. This chapter is ultra-personal, it is supra-sentimental, it is everything that the rest of the book is not. From the moment that she starts on her trans- Siberian trip at Dalny, one reads with delight, and one has no desire to stop until Moscow and the end of the little book is reached. Somewhere the writer mentions Marie Claire, and it is a great compliment to say that in this work we find the same strong simplicity, the same elusive attraction. The traveller has no greater adventures than over-presuming officers and objectionable "persons," but every happening, however trivial, both on the train and at the two-day stops in Irkutsk and Tomsk, is of keen interest. The vast waste of this great continent, the few splendid cities built ■ chiefly by exiles, political and criminal, the omni- present soldier, and the peasant and his poverty are all made very vivid and real, and one closes the book with more facts fixed firmly in mind than would result from the perusal of many more preten- tious but less clearly written volumes. Mr. George Macaulay Trevelyan has gathered into a volume entitled "Clio, a Muse, and Other Essays, Literary and Pedestrian" (Longmans) eight papers written by him in the last few years. The most important, "Clio, a Muse," gives a survey, brief but illuminating, of the dif- ferent fashions which have prevailed in the writing of history during the past two centuries. Coming down to recent times, he shows how history cannot be a "science," in spite of the common de- lusion that whatever is examined by the "scientific method" must be a "science." He shows also how the study of documen- tation, the analysis and criticism of "sources," is no more history than the physiological examination of the parts of the body is portraiture. He makes an effective plea for the imagination, and, naturally, he concludes that history, in the high sense, must be "literature." The various studies which are passed off as history, though they may be valuable each in its field, flourish with borrowed plumes. Nobody mistakes a doctor's the- sis on Chaucer's metre for poetry; but the corresponding mistake is common among the professors of history. Mr. Trevelyan characterizes in a few preg- nant pages the principal English histo- rians of the last century. He sees signs of a change in England, where a revul- sion from Teutonic pedantry has resulted in the revival of the noble conception of history. A similar revival has already made headway in France. With what is perhaps unconscious sarcasm, Mr. Tre- velyan tells the "scientific historians" that the literary side of history, which they pretend to despise, demands hard labor. His essay is very lively and ought to be read by every teacher of history. Lovers of good writing will read it anyhow. Of the other papers, that on George Meredith deserves particular mention, and the speculation on what would have happen- ed if Napoleon had won Waterloo is in- genious. To write a history of "Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition" (Brentano's) in English in these days, and ignore the fact that the late Henry Charles Lea ever contributed anything to our knowledge of the subject, demands a perhaps unen- viable courage. This feat, however, has been performed by M. Rafael Sabatini; at least, there is no indication, either in his footnotes or in his fairly ample bib- liography, that he ever read or even heard of the masterly four volumes of the "History of the Inquisition of Spain." Yet, on the other hand, it would be most unjust to imply that Mr. Sabatini's work is entirely without merit. He partially atones for ignorance of Lea by a very considerable acquaintance with the vari- ous Spanish writers, ancient and modern, on his subject (Llorente and Fidel Fita are his main reliance). His work is cer- tainly non-partisan- — "written neither in the Catholic interest, the Protestant in- terest, nor the Jewish interest." The au- thor "holds the view that on the score of intolerance it is not for Christians to cast a stone at Jews, nor Jews at Christians, nor yet Christians of one sect at Christians of another." And last- ly, Mr. Sabatini's book is interesting. The personal element is emphasized throughout, while the institutional side falls into the background; a number of characteristic anecdotes (taken from such writers as Pulgar and Bernaldez without any effort to test their veracity) add vividness and life. The valuable ac- count of the trial of Yuce Franco, pub- lished by Fidel Fita in the Boletin de la Real Academia de la Historia, is now made accessible to English readers for the first time. The illustrations are well chosen and well executed. Mr. Sabatini's book is scarcely to be regarded as serious history; but for those whose stomachs are not strong enough to digest Mr. Lea's great work it will prove a not entirely unworthy substitute. A very satisfactory piece of work is Dr. J. I. Gorfinkle's edition of "The Eight Chapters of Maimonides on Ethics" (Co- lumbia University Press; Lemcke & Buechner). Maimonides is important not only for the history of Jewish me- diaeval ethical philosophy, but also for the whole European ethical thought of the period, and his "Shemonah Perakim" ("Eight Chapters") gives his system briefly and clearly. To make the work easily accessible to Jews it was necessary that it should be translated into Hebrew, and this task was well performed by
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24=4= T li e Natio n [Vol. 98, No. 2540 Ibn Tibbon, a contemporary of Mai- rnonides. But in the course of time the text of his translation became corrupt, and a critical edition was desirable. Such an edition is hero offered by Dr. Gor- ftnkle, who has consulted numerous manuscripts and printed editions and compared these with the Arabic original, having throughout the competent aid of Professor Gottheil and Dr. Henry Malter. The Hebrew text is amply provided with textual notes; an annotated English translation is added, and in an Introduc- tion the editor gives an outline of the thought of the treatise. The small well- printed volume will be welcome to stu- dents of the history of ethical philosophy. The three large volumes of "Unpub- lished Correspondence of Napoleon I, Pre- served in the War Archives," which Ern- est Picard and Louis Tuetey have recent- ly edited under the superintendence of j the Historical Section of the French Army Staff, have been issued in attrac- j tive English translation (Duffield). The commissions appointed by Napoleon III, which published the official thirty-two- volume edition of Napoleon I's Corre- spondence during the Second Empire, were sensitive about revealing material which might, tarnish the glory of the founder of the Imperial Dynasty; they, therefore, omitted such documents as were deemed politically inadvisable. Others were omitted because the material was so vast in amount. Since the com- pletion of the official edition in 1869, therefore, there have appeared many small supplementary collections of Na- poleon I's unpublished letters, of which the most important are those by Hiiffer, Bingham, Du Casse, Schlossberger, Le- cestre, and Brotonne. A full bibliog- [ raphy of them is conveniently given by I the present editors in their introduction; [ to it should be added Arthur Chuquet's "Ordres et Apostilles du Napoleon I" (3 vols. 1911-12). The 4,942 documents which Picard and Tuetey publish are all from the archives ' of the War Department, and are arrang- ed chronologically from December 4, 1804, the date of the coronation, to the close of the year 1810. They cover the campaigns of Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, Wagram, and the beginning of the troubles in Spain and Portugal. They do not throw much light on the tactics of battles, be- cause Napoleon's orders on the field of battle went directly to commanding of- ficers and did not find their way back to the archives in Paris. They do contain an invaluable mass of material upon the preliminary strategy of the campaigns as seen in the orders for the assembling and movement of troops. They exhibit Napoleon's superhuman mastery of detail — his untiring attention to shoes, saucepans, overcoats, biscuits, and fortifications, as well as to men, mo- ney, and guns. These documents are thus an invaluable source for a study of his genius as an organizer of armies. They moreover illustrate his generosity In pardoning and restoring officers to command and in making money gratui- ties, his personal influence over his men, his care to prevent straggling and dis- order in the rear, and his heavy contri- butions levied on conquered peoples. These documents are, however, only a supplement to the official edition of the Correspondence (still untranslated), and must be used in connection with it. The lack of an index is regrettable. In "Madame Tallien," translated into English with illustrations (Lane), a French journalist, L. Gastine, describes at length the wanton career of a young woman who was regarded by her con- temporaries as one of the most beauti- ful of creatures. Theresia Cabarrus, of Bordeaux, wife and divorcee in turn of the emigre" Marquis de Fontenay, and of the Terrorist and traitor to the Terror, Tallien, finally settled down after 1805 with a third regular husband, the Prince de Chimay. As Princess de Chimay she lived much of her later life at Brussels and died in 1835. She was the mother of eleven children who bore various sur- names; seven of them were perhaps really the children of her legal husbands. The easiness of her virtue was so no- torious that even Bonaparte would not have her at his imperial court, though she had been the intimate friend of Josephine and though Tallien had stood as one of the witnesses of his marriage to Josephine. Writers hitherto, notably Arsene Houssaye in the biographical fan- tasy of La Belle Tallien entitled "Notre Dame de Thermidor," have woven a mass of legend about Tallien and his wife, who were regarded as the instruments of Robespierre's overthrow on the Ninth Thermidor. M. Gastine ruthlessly tears this legend to shreds. He condemns Tal- lien as either the ringleader or the ac- complice in the hideous massacres of Au- gust and September, 1792, in the butch- eries of La Vendee, in the cowardly, treacherous deportations under the Di- rectory, and in wholesale robberies which brought many families to starvation and death. "It is revolting that such a wretch should have been suffered to live on till he was fifty-three." The chief traits of his beautiful wife appear to have been her vanity, immorality, and unscrupu- lousness. Though the author overshoots his mark with exaggerations and repeat- ed denunciations, and though he does not always carry conviction because of lack of logic or of documentary author- ity, his book is nevertheless of value as a corrective to the uncritical, legendary accounts of the Talliens which have ob- tained hitherto. In "Our Southern Highlanders" (Out- ing Publishing Company), Mr. Horace Kephart has written a faithful and read- able account of a highly interesting peo- ple. For a century and more these moun- taineers have needed a pen which should tell their story plainly. A too plentiful fiction, liberally besprinkled with "we- uns" and "you-uns," and cast in romantic form, has misrepresented them long enough, and made them the object of popular astonishment. Mr. Kephart's book is virtually a journal of his several years' stay in the Southern Appalachian Mountains. The highlanders — a name un- known to them — are a people of a century ago, both in manners and customs. But it must also be remembered that they are perhaps the most self-reliant of any group of people in this country, are hardy, and have many virtues. Their "blood-guiltiness" and I hen violence with rifle or pistol have been overdone in the popular mind. In reality, they are an easy people to get along with, if one does not offend their dignity and self-respect; and a traveller stopping with them is absolutely safe. They are hospitable, and, if the questioner is honest in his inquiry, they are frank. Mr. Kephart brings out all these points, and makes clear, as well, the entertaining quaintness of their talk and life. The reviewer knows of no bet- ter story-tellers in the world than these mountaineers, especially when recounting a hunt, like the account given by Mr. Kephart. The larger part of the book is devoted to the anecdotal description. A fifth volume, embracing titles from Polytechnics to Zwingli, of "A Cyclopedia of Education" (Macmillan), edited by Paul Monroe, completes the work. As a reference book for facts in educational history and biography and concerning national and State systems of public in- struction and educational institutions, the work fills a distinct want and is of unquestioned value. There has been no work of similar scope in our language, and the seeker for information concern- ing the educational organization of Wis- consin or Utah, or Russia or Uruguay, and the inquirer who has need to learn the denominational affiliation of William Jewell College or the date of Emma Wil- lard's petition to the Legislature of New York, will hereafter turn naturally to this encyclopedia. The biographical notes are good, with excellent bibliogra- phies, especially noteworthy in the pres- ent volume being the article on Rous- seau. Dr. Ellwood P. Bubberley's articles also on the educational systems of sev- eral States are comprehensive and con- cise. A large amount of information is con- tained in the articles on Universities and American State Universities. Subjects related to practical and industrial educa- tion receive the emphasis, rather than topics of interest in classical and liberal culture. Virgil and Xenophon find men- tion in the present volume, although to- gether they are accorded less space than either the Ventilation of Schools or Edu- cation for the Secretarial Profession. The radical school superintendent, who de- sires to introduce classes in millinery and shop-work, will find help for his propaganda, while the old-fashioned master, who is striving to keep alive on the earth a knowledge of the Greek tongue, can only be grateful that he has not been entirely forgotten. There is en- tire absence of criticism in the articles on the various institutions; many of them read like a prospectus or a section of the catalogue, and were written by interested officials. Consistency has not always been maintained, the article on the State of Vermont stating that "the State maintains no higher institutions of learning of its own," while the following article describes the University of Ver- mont as a State institution. The first illustrated edition of Macau- lay's "History of England" is in process of publication (Macmillan). It is to be in six largo volumes. The first, which has just appeared, contains above seventy illustra- tions, besides a dozen full-page plates In
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March 5, 1914] The Nation •245 color. In the preface to this volume, the clitcr, Ch.irles Harding Firth, regius pro- fessor of modern history at Oxford, sets forth the principle governing the selec- tion of the illustrations. These include portraits of both the leading and the minor personages of the time covered, caricatures, mips and plans, places and building's, broadsides, ballads, and auto- lUide engravings now and then are not scorned, since they are sometimes the only pictures obtainable; sometimes they represent the popular conception of same prominent figure. All sorts of col- lections, famous and obscure, have been drawn upon, among them the National Portrait Gallery, of which Macaulay was one of the original trustees; the medals struck in England, France, and Holland, some of which were satirical ; and private possessions. Especially interesting are pictures which Macaulay himself had in mind when he wrote, as "the drawings of English landscapes made for the Grand Duke Cosmo," broadsides which he men- tions in his footnotes, and ballads from the Pepys Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge, which, although least known of all the great collections, was consulted by Macaulay more than any other. The editor, while recognizing the desirability of a critical edition of the History, has not thought "an illustrated edition of a British classic . . . the proper place for a critical commentary." He seems to promise one, however, in saying that "it has seemed best to reserve any critical observations for a separate publication." The volume which has appeared contains examples of all of the various sorts of illustrations mentioned above, beautifully ! reproduced. To say how much such well- chosen pictures add to the interest and the value of the text is unnecessary. Major-Gen. Joshua L. Chamberlain, Surveyor of Customs at Portland, Me., since 1900, who died on February 24, was born at Brewer in 1828. He was grad- uated from Bowdoin College in 1852, and received an A.M. degree in 1855. In the same year he was graduated from the Bangor Theological Seminary. He re- ceived the honorary degree of LL.D. from Pennsylvania College in 1866, and from Bowdoin in 1869. He was appointed lieu- tenant-colonel of the Twentieth Maine Infantry on August 8, 1862, and colonel on May 20, 1863. He served with great distinction through the Civil War, in the course of which he was awarded the Con- gressional medal of honor for conspicu- ous gallantry at Gettysburg, was pro- moted by General Grant to a brigadier- generalship on the field of battle at Petersburg, and was brevetted a major- general, United States Volunteers, March 29, 1865, being appointed to command the parade at the formal surrender of Lee's army at Appomattox in the following month. After the war he was elected Governor of Maine, and served from 1866- 71. Before the war General Chamberlain was professor of rhetoric and oratory at Bowdoin from 1856-62, and at the close of the war he served in the same capa- city, and from 1871-83 he was president. He was United States Commissioner to the Paris Exposition in 1878. General Chamberlain was a member of numerous historical societies, and was the author of a number of books dealing with his- torical and political topics. The Rev. Samuel Rolles Driver, D.D., regius professor of Hebrew at Oxford, and canon of Christ Church since 1883, died on Thursday of last week. Dr. Driv- er was born in 1846, and was educated at Winchester College and at New Col- lege, Oxford. He was placed in the first class in the School of Literpe Humaniores in 1869; was Pusey and Ellerton Hebrew Scholar, I860; Kennicott Hebrew Schol- ar, 1870, and gained the Houghton Syriac prize, 1872. He became a fellow of New College in 1870, and was fellow and tutor from 1875 to 1883. He received the fol- lowing honorary degrees: D.Litt., Dublin, 1892; D.D., Glasgow, 1^01; Aberdeen, 1906; Litt.D., Cambridge, 1905. From 1876 to 1884 he was a member of the Old Testament. Revision Company. He be- came a fellow of the British Academy in 1902, and a corresponding member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences in 1910. He was the author of numerous treatises on Biblical and Hebraic sub- jects, among which may be mentioned his "Isaiah: His Life and Times," 1893; "An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament," 1909; "Notes on the He- brew Text of the Books of Samuel," 1912. He was also joint-editor of the Holy Bi- ble, with various renderings and read- ings from the best authorities, 1888; and joint author of "A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament," 1906. Science Commercial Gardening. Edited by John Weathers. London: Gresham Publish- ing Co. 4 vols. When we consider the time, skill, and thought devoted by the English to their gardens, it is not surprising that one of the most complete works in this field published in recent years should have come to us by way of London. The edi- tor, himself a commercial gardener of note, has associated with him in his work ten other experts of the soil, each of whom adds his own informing ac- count of a particular specialty. The first volume takes up in order the science of plant growing, the method of propagation, and the different soils in an interesting and readable way, espe- cially from the botanist's point of view. The chapters on manures are full of valuable aid, and in them we are cautioned against the pitfall so many of us (who are too busy to experiment in our gardens or too willing to take the last word of the fertilizer agent) are prone to fall into, namely, the assump- tion that because a crop like turnips, for instance, takes up from the soil 112 pounds of nitrogen, 33 pounds of phos- phoric acid, and 148 pounds of potash, therefore those different plant foods must be returned to the soil forthwith in the form of commercial fertilizer or stable manure. As a matter of fact, "the soil is by no means deficient in these foods," and "in the Broadbalk Field, Rothamsted" — that world-famous agri- cultural experiment station — "it has been found that a soil which had been cropped, but not manured for fifty years, still contained 2,500 pounds of nitrogen, 2,750 pounds phosphoric acid, 6,750 pounds potash, and 62,250 pounds of lime to the acre at a depth of nine inches." Certainly these figures are re- markable, and our cultivators would do well to bear them in mind. Mr. Weath- ers then goes on to point out that if the money spent on a ton of "special" artificial manure for one acre were spent in digging the soil to the depth of one foot, it would bring from seven to ten acres into a most satisfactorily fer- tile condition. Insects, both beneficial and injurious, are discussed at length, and it is put very forcibly before the reader that, "al- though Nature has sent many insects to plague' the cultivator of plants, it has also provided antidotes in the way of birds of all kinds — ichneumon flies, lady- birds, lacewing flies, tiger and oth- er beetles, frogs, toads, lizards, hawk flies, spiders, and even slugs — by which they may be kept in check. Unfortu- nately"— and here the author sounds a note of warning which we in America have even more reason to heed than our English cousins — "with the many poi- sonous washes now in use . . . the cultivator is slaughtering his friends as well as his enemies. Indeed, he is practically not even on speaking terms with his friends, and in many cases would not recognize them as such if he saw them. It would, indeed, he well worth while to make a special effort to culti- vate colonies of ladybirds, ichneumon flies, lacewing flies, and hawk flies, espe- cially as these, by sheer force of num- bers, would readily suppress the vari- ous destructive aphides and caterpil- lars." The second volume is devoted to the raising of hardy and semi-hardy her- baceous plants, bulbs, and flowers suit- able for marketable purposes, arranged alphabetically, and to this formidable list are added plants for the greenhouse as well as water plants. This admira- ble arrangement enables the garden-lov- er to look up at his ease the exact plants desired and to find full information con- cerning them as to seed, care, and gen- eral cultivation. The third volume is wholly given over to fruits, and while the introductory chapters, giving the cost of starting a commercial orchard in England, are in- teresting and informing, we turn in- stinctively to that part of the book which describes minutely the growing • luscious small fruits and wall- grown [ lums, and pears so of- i in England; for where is the real garden-lover who does not long for
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^4:6 r I 1 T li e IN" a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2540 a row of the magnificent English goose- berries, not the green, sour, puckery kind with which we are so unfortunate- ly familiar, but the large red and white ones, the size of blackberries? The thought of an acre of gooseberries yield- ing four tons and a profit of $125 net is not unpleasant, but most of us would be satisfied if, after reading Mr. Weath- ers's directions, we might And ourselves with a modest row of three or four healthy bushes. In the first part of the last volume we find advice as to the growth of trees, shrubs, vines, and woody climbers, di- rected to the nurseryman and his cus- tomers. Like the list of flowers, this is alphabetically arranged, and although we are not told, except in a general way, how to cultivate and care for these trees and shrubs, yet those of us who are lov- ers of such plants know full well that the essential point in the case is always whether the particular specimen we are ambitious to grow is suited to our lo- cal climatic conditions, and as no gen- eral treatise could possibly attempt to throw light on such a point we think the author showed judgment in confin- ing himself merely to a general and practical description. The remainder of this volume is devoted to vegetable gar- dening, and here every step is carefully taken up. We are told the secrets of hothouse management, and how to start and operate a French garden success- fully, which requires a capital outlay of about £630 for two acres, while the re- turns run about £860. Special mention should be made of the beautiful colored plates and excellent photographs throughout the book, and also of the chapter on garden surveying, levelling, and the useful mensuration tables. Nothing has been overlooked in these volumes, yet the author has con- densed his great mass of material into a practical and useful book, both for business and pleasure. The death was recently announced of Horace Bolingbroke Woodward, the emi- nent geologist and authority on British stratigraphy. Mr. Woodward, who was born in London in 1848, was for some time an assistant in the library and mu- seum of the Geological Society, and in 1867 joined the Geological Survey, where he was best known for his work on the strata of the Jurassic age. He was presi- dent of the Geologists' Association, 1893- 94, and in 1909 the great prize of the Geo- logical Society, the Wollaston gold medal, was awarded him. Mr. Woodward was an industrious writer, of much literary ability. Among his principal works may be mentioned his "Geology of England and Wales," and his edition of Stanford's "Geological Atlas," as well as several survey memoirs, including three volumes on the Jurassic rocks. Prof. Georg Joachimsthal, of the Uni- versity of Berlin, director of the Berlin University Hospital for Cripples, died on Sunday in his fifty-third year. Profes- sor Joachimsthal was one of the foremost experts in Germany on physical malfor- mations, and was the author of numer- ous works bearing on the subject. Drama SHAKESPEARE AT THE SAVOY. London, February 20. When the manager of the London the- atre is in doubt, he plays Shakespeare — unless he happens to be Sir George Alexander, when Oscar Wilde is his win- ning card. It comes, therefore, as no surprise that to an unusually dull sea- son Granville Barker and Lillah Mc- Carthy should now offer what brand- new relief they can with the latest ver- sion of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" — at the Savoy. Not that they have much dulness themselves to atone for; except for ah occasional indiscretion, like Bernard Shaw's "Androcles and the Lion," their performances are among the best worth seeing in London. Few oth- er managers have as stimulating a rec- ord, and it must be admitted by the most amiable critic that the present dramatic season has so far been an empty one. It needs but a glance at the principal theatres to understand the need of some- thing to stir the London dramatic world out of its lethargy. At the Little The- atre is Chesterton's "Magic," childish in plot, full of the cheap cleverness and cheaper paradox Shaw brought into fashion, saved by one delightful piece of acting — Fred Lewis's impersonation of an inconsequent duke. This play has received a new lease of life by a reduc- tion in the price of seats, and is adver- tised by the portraits not so much of the author as of the author's large Falstaffian paunch. To such depths has the serious drama fallen that the dra- matic author refuses to allow the actor the undisturbed monopoly of personal glory in advertisement, but, making capital of a physical peculiarity, amount- ing almost to deformity, adorns the in- ner walls of the theatre with caricatures and photographs of himself, and the out- er walls with his silhouette on the post- ers. At the St. James's, Sir George Alex- ander struggles with poor success to give life to the English translation of Bernstein's "Attack," a drama that Is as the poles apart from English life and English thought, and it is no surprise to hear that the end of the struggle is announced for next month. Tree, at His Majesty's, has returned to a previous triumph, "The Darling of the Gods," Japanese and Chinese themes being in favor for the moment. The Authors' Producing Society, discovering no home genius to encourage, turns to Brieux as the present exponent of thought and progress. At the Queen's, Hale Hamil- ton, a delightful actor if he finds the farce or comedy to give him a fair chance, has been showing, with "The Fortune-Hunter," just the sort of play it is a mistake for America to export to London, or to exploit at home, for that matter. It is a play that seemed to take me back to the remote days of "Solon Shingle," or "Lord Dundreary," or any other of the old-fashioned ma- chines that had nothing to do with the expression of character, but everything with its exaggeration. I have read in the last number of the North American Review that the American dramatist is now concerned with ideas and litera- ture, but I, as an American, deplore the care he takes to conceal the fact in the examples of his work that cross the At- lantic. At the Royalty, C. B. Fernald's "Pursuit of Pamela," now finishing its run, shows that there is one American — though his work is now less identified with America than with London, where he lives — who has some respect for lit- erature; for it is the literary touch in the dialogue, and the feminine charm of the principal character, as well as the author's good fortune in finding in Miss Gladys Cooper the right actress for the part, that give vitality to a com- edy so light and graceful that, without the right interpretation, there would be little of its lightness and grace left on the all too solid boards of the English stage. At the Kingsway, or just mov- ing from it, Lydia Yavorska, the Rus- sian Princess Bariatinsky, is playing to crowded houses a travesty of "Anna Karenina" and making up by a lavish display of the latest fashions for what- ever is wanting in her acting and what- ever may hurt the sensitive ear in the harshness of her English. At the Strand, "Mr. Wu," after first failing to please the public fancy, has taken strong hold, as it deserves to do, for, though not distinguished as drama, it has its merit and its strength as melodrama, supply- ing at least one good thrill; and emo- tion of any kind is about the last thing the London theatre nowadays abounds in. The fact that whatever interest I have found of late in this theatre should centre about a melodrama helps to ex- plain to the puzzled critic why the le- gitimate drama has such hard work to compete with the music-hall and the "cinema," and also, incidentally, why the time has come for that periodical re- vival of Shakespeare upon which it de- pends for a periodical revival of popular- ity. As the present revival is due to Gran- ville Barker and Lillah McCarthy, it is almost superfluous to add that its chief interest is spectacular or pictorial, for the memory is still fresh of their ren- dering of "A Winter's Tale" and of "Twelfth Night," in both of which the Interest was concentrated upon the Bi 1
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March 5, 19 14] X 1 1 e N" a t i o n 247 ting rather than upon the acting. But, indeed, when the popularity of Shake- speare to-day is analyzed, no one can question that it is less Shakespeare than the new use made of Shakespeare to which he owes his irresistible attraction — less the beauty of this scene or that than curiosity as to whether it will be omrtted or restored, less the music or philosophy in the verse than the cos- tume of the actor who recites it. It is because the chances for infinite varie- ty in the interpretation are so many that Shakespeare proves an invariable draw. I cannot imagine that anybody could any longer sit, as we sat in my youthful days, through those macaronic- performances, when the famous Italian actor would give us on our American stage his Hamlet or Macbeth or Othello in Italian, while a company made up of the veriest hacks that could be got to- gether would present the rest of the cast in English. Under those conditions only interest in the play, or reverence for the poet, made Shakespeare endur- able. Revive the conditions, and I ques- tion whether as dramatist he would now outlive them — whether, at a crisis, he would save the situation. You have only to listen to his verse as delivered by the actors at the Savoy to realize how little he counts with them in comparison to the dress they put on to spout his lines in, and the stage upon which they strut for the spouting. The last thing the English actor seems to learn is how to use his voice. It is the first thing the French actor is taught, which is why the longest rhodamontades of Racine may become music in his mouth. In the mouth of the English actor, Shakespeare is usually unintelligible rubbish. The beautiful lines in the "Midsummer Night's Dream," as a rule, are delivered in much the same see-saw sing-song that is now the classic delivery on the Eng- lish pantomime stage. Even Lillah Mc- Carthy, as Helena, fails to get much meaning or any rhythm into her longest or shortest speech. But if the actors' voices were trained to express the finest shades in Shake- speare, the honest critic would still have to confess that "A Midsummer Night's Dream," as a play, drags heavily in parts. It has scenes of great beauty, scenes of genuine humor; it transports us to a fairyland full of fragrant flow- ers and sweet conceits, where it is al- ways pleasant to wander. But it has also scenes of deplorable tediousness, scenes that are no better than handy pegs upon which the fairy interlude is rather clumsily hung. The rustics pall after a time; the lovers are sad bores; the mortals are almost all the fools Puck finds them. So many liberties are taken with Shakespeare that the wise stage manager might be forgiven were he to go as little further than his pred- ecessors and cut down the play ruth- lessly, sacrificing everything save its loveliness and its poetry, which would then fill one crowded hour with sheer delight. As it is, at the Savoy, the play most certainly is not the thing. Nevertheless, the performance gives one plenty to think about. There is no reason why in the theatre the eye should not be pleas- ed as well as the ear. The Greeks knew it when they built their theatres open to the sky and within sight of the sea, or under the shadow of the hills. The modern reformer of the theatre can talk and preach of hardly anything else, though when it comes to settling just what should please the eye, he reveals his limitation as a prophet. Rein- hardt, the much-vaunted, runs to excess almost as inartistically as does Tree at His Majesty's. Gordon Craig, basing practice on an irreproachable theory, runs to affectation. He advocates sim- plicity, but understands it so little that his simplicity disturbs and annoys, where the Greek simplicity rested, the eye. At the Savoy, Granville Barker, or I should say Norman Wilkinson, who is responsible for the "decoration of the play," is modern enough to have aimed at simplicity above all, and not Greek enough to attain his aim without tum- bling headforemost into affectation. The general scheme at the Savoy is admirable: it fails in detail. The stage is the now familiar "apron-stage" used for such revivals. The woodwork enclosing it and the drop curtain are white and severe, giving the theatre as a result the feeling of repose that you get in a room with pale bare walls and little furniture. The scenery is scarce- ly more elaborate. Painted curtains are the background for the shorter scenes. Trees, in long strips of rich blue and green curtain, fall against an unbroken flat hanging of purple, and, in a formal design, surround the space in the wood where Titania sleeps or holds her revels, and the lovers come wandering, busy with their foolish game of cross-pur- poses. The palace of Athens is an af- fair of stately white steps, and white columns just touched with black, and behind them walls of black and rose and white. Neither palace nor woodland is like anything belonging to real life, and for that reason is all the more in keep- ing with the fantasy of fairyland. But this simple setting — simple, that is, in intention — has its disturbing elements. It is difficult to get altogether away from the artist who designed it, to lose one's self in fairyland. Fairyland seems bewilderingly burdened with the most modern fads and fashions. One cur- tain, in its embroidered pattern, sug- gests a return to Morris's medievalism; another recalls a Japanese print; a third savors of the Post-Impressionist's landscape. Memories of Gordon Craig and of Ricketts hang about woodland and palace. Fantastic the "Midsummer Night's Dream" may and should be, but not a puzzle to set the audience groping for the clue to its jumble of styles and fancies. It would be absurd to criticise the costumes for archaeological inaccuracy or inappropriateness. Mortals and fairies are as free to dress as they will in Shakespeare's Athens as in his Bo- hemia by the sea, and very picturesque- ly they profit by this freedom under Mr. Wilkinson's direction. The fairies strike a distinctly new note. No more by wings and wands alone are they to be distinguished from mere mortals, but by their color. For they are golden fairies, golden from head to toe, their hair and faces as golden as their rai- ment. And the effect is not only novel, it is beautiful. Moreover, their faces are so carefully painted that as they pose, standing or sitting, motionless when mortals draw near, a high light seems to fall here and there on a cheek or a nose or a brow, and figures and groups are turned into bronze. In the midst of these fantastic bronze beings Puck flutters to and fro, a brilliant streak of scarlet, his face ungilded — a link between the golden fairies and the mortals clad in garments of many col- ors and many fashions — garments that run to crude crimsons and yellows, to shapeless tunics, to peg-top trousers, to grotesque helmets, to all the eccentrici- ties now in vogue on the ultra-modern stage. So clad, the mortals make a restless, chaotic crowd, leaving beauty to the fairies, seeking to charm by the ugliness, the, discord that gives the key- note to modern self-conscious art. The variety of conflicting influences grows wearisome as the play goes on, forcing you to forget Athens and Shakespeare. Throughout, costume and pose are for- ever recalling Beardsley as the chief source, to whom the most modern of modern innovators owe their inspiration. You see him everywhere — in the gay, distorted little form of Mustard Seed as in the outline of some golden figure set against the white wall; in the long, stringy hair as in the huge bows on the shoes of mortals and fairies; in the daintily dotted muslin of a tunic as in those irrepressible peg-top trousers. It is extraordinary how many are the proofs of the growth of his influence with the years. The music and the dances, arranged by Cecil Smith, bring still another ele- ment into this curious medley, for these are of English folk origin, the "Berg- amask," as solemn and humorous a dance as has ever been danced on any stage, an irresistible bit of fun and gayety with which to end probably the most interesting version of the "Mid- summer Night's Dream" seen in the modern theatre. But the interest is too long-spun-out to last: that is a great
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24:8 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2540 fault of this new version. A greater fault is the sense of effort felt from be- ginning to end — the effort to be at the very topmost height of every modern fashion in art. This has no place in fairyland or in Shakespeare's Athens. In the attempt to rescue the stage from the exaggeration of modern realism, its valiant deliverers threaten to precipitate it into a worse exaggeration of the last fad, the last artificial pose in what is called modern art. N. N. Prof. C. M. Gayley's second volume of "Representative English Comedies" (Mac- millan), appearing- a full decade after the publication of its predecessor, deals with the later contemporaries of Shakespeare. Ben Jonson, as he would doubtless agree was only proper, is represented by three plays out of the five, "Every Man in His Humour," "The Silent Woman," and "The Alchemist"; he is a collaborator also in the fourth, "Eastward Hoe," along with Marston and Chapman; and the fifth, "The Merry Devil of Edmonton," is by an unknown hand. All of these plays are accessible elsewhere, but it is some- thing to have them assembled, with sound texts and special introductions by schol- ars of distinction, and prefaced by a sub- stantial essay from the pen of the gen- eral editor. In the course of this, Pro- fessor Gayley finds no cause to question the judgment of the world, which has treasured the comedies of Shakespeare, but has willingly let die, so far as the public stage is concerned, all but one, Massinger's "New Way to Pay Old Debts," of the 250 comedies produced by his later contemporaries. But Professor Gayley endeavors to explain it partly by an analysis of contemporary theatrical con- ditions and partly by a critical examina- tion of the comedies themselves. The present study concerns itself chiefly with Jonson, Chapman, and Marston. A third volume, soon to appear, will consider the work of Fletcher, Dekker, Middleton. and Heywood. The matter of the "stage quarrel" or the "war of the theatres," upon the in- tricacies of which Professor Gayley does not enter, finds fuller illustration in Prof. Josiah H. Penniman's edition of Jonson's "Poetaster" and Dekker's "Satiromastix" in the Belles-Lettres series (Heath). Of all the plays which ingenious conjecture has drawn into the outbreak of personal satire indulged in by some of the leading playwrights during the two years before and after the turn of the century, only these two are clear documents in the case. Whether Marston made fun of Gabriel Harvey, and Jonson of An- thony Monday, and both of them of Dan- iel, we can scarcely be certain; the boun- daries between personal and general satire are not easily discernible at this distance. What may have been Shakespeare's part in the matter, for he bore a part, is also far from clear, but we at least know that Jonson confessed himself "provoked," and in the "Poetaster," acted in 1601, staged Marston as Crispinus, and Dekker as Demetrius. At the end of the play, in Caesar's pres- ence, Horace (Jonson) administers a dose which purges the wretched Crispinus of his "wild outlandish terms" — "magnifl- cate," "prorumped," "obstupefact," and the like. Dekker replied by inserting into a comedy he apparently had on hand some scenes which set forth Horace struggling in the throes of composition and crowned at last, in the presence of the triumphant Crispinus and — no less — of William Rufus, with stinging nettles for "his stinging wit." Eventually, the matter was patched up, for Marston dedicates his "Malcontent" to Jonson in 1604, and the next year Jonson goes to jail with Chapman and Marston, for making sport of King James in their joint comedy, "Eastward Hoe." Profes- sor Penniman brings all this discussion down to date. The reported engagement by Charles Frohman, for a long term, of Phyllis Neilson-Terry is an interesting item of theatrical intelligence. It would be un- wise, perhaps, to accept at their full face value all the printed encomiums upon her acting in the London press, but there is every reason to believe that she is an ac- tress of rare natural ability and unusual physical charm. Her father belongs to a family famous on the stage for genera- tions, while her mother, Julia Neilson, if she has never quite fulfilled the promise of her earliest years, has won an enviable reputation in comedy and emotional ro- mance. Miss Neilson-Terry has already taken her place among the most popular leading ladies of the day, and has found critical acceptance, not only in Shake- speare— as Juliet, Rosalind, and Viola — but in the heroines of Goldsmith and Sheridan. King George has become the patron of the London Garrick Club, in succession to King Edward, who was president from 1867 until his accession, when he became the patron. The Garrick Club was in- stituted in 1831 "for the general patron- age of the drama; for the purpose of combining a club on economical princi- ples with the advantages of a literary so- ciety; for the formation of a theatrical library and works .on costume; and also for bringing together the patrons of the drama and gentlemen eminent in their respective circles." Its original home was in King Street, Covent Carden, where Douglas Jerrold, Charles Dickens, Albert Smith, Thackeray, Robert Keeley, Charles Kean, Clarkson Stanfield, and a number of other celebrities of the time assem- bled. Sir Herbert Tree will be seen, next autumn, in a new dramatization of "David ( "opperfield," by L. N. Parker. It has been so arranged that he will be able to double the parts of Peggotty and Mi- cawber. The London Times pays a strong trib- ute to the acting of Walker Whiteside in "The Melting Pot." It says: His conception of the part is a won- derfully powerful dramatic study. Mr. Whiteside has played the part in Ameri- ca for three years past, and one feels that the actor himself has fallen under the spell of the ideas which Mr. Zang*wlll| puts forward. He suggested with jTeal skill the nervous, dreamy temperament of the young Jew emigrant, and in the one really dramatic scene which is af- forded him when be finds that the fath- er of his Gemile lover is the man under whose orders his relatives have been massacred — Mr. Whiteside diplayed a force of intense passion of which one had hardly suspected him up to that point. If the author could see his way to omit one or two speeches bodily, the performance would be all the better. At the close of the run of "The At- tack" at the London St. James's Theatre, Sir George Alexander will produce — prob- ably early this month — a new comedy in four acts, by Alfred Sutro, entitled "The Two Virtues." Music A FANTASTIC FRENCH OPERA. The latest novelty produced at the Metropolitan Opera House, Charpen- tier's "Julien," demonstrates that it is not always an advantage for a composer to write his own librettos. It was so to Wagner, and it was, perhaps, to Char- pentier when he wrote his "Louise," that realistic picture of low life in Paris which brought him fame and for- tune; but in the case of his latest work it has proved a decided handicap. The poem of "Julien" is the most extraordi- nary farrago of fantastic allegory and realism imaginable. A good "opera book" should tell at least the main outlines of the plot to the eyes of the spectators, but so far is this from being the case in "Julien" that even after a second read- ing of the libretto one feels in doubt as to its writer's intentions. There are some effective and imaginative lines, but as a whole the poem is obscure, chaotic, phantasmagorical. Of Charpentier's "Louise" some admir- able performances were given at Oscar Hammerstein's Manhattan Opera House in 1908, with a cast including Mary Gar- den, Bressler-Gianoli, Zeppilli, Trentini, Dalmores, and the late Charles Gilibert, who gave a most realistic and powerful impersonation of the laboring man whose daughter, Louise, elopes with the poet Julien. He throws his chair after her when, after an angry scene, she runs from the house and is lost in the wilds of Paris. "Julien" may be looked on as a sequel to "Louise" inasmuch as the poet and Louise again appear in it; but that, apart from a few bars of music, is the only connection between the two operas. The earlier one is a series of vivid pictures of Parisian life in street, home, and shop, realistic in its music as well as its spoken lines and its scenery; whereas "Julien" is a poet's dream, elid- ing in an agonizing nightmare. This new opera — if opera it may be called — consists of a prologue and four acts, with eight tableaux. In the pro- logue, Julien occupies, as winner of the Prix de Rome, a room in the Villa Medici with Louise, who, waking up, finds him asleep in an armchair. Tho four acts of the opera may be regarded as tho presentation to the spectators of his dreams. This, at any rate, Is the
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March 5, 1914] The Nation 249 case with the first act, which is filled with dream maidens, worshippers ot beauty, and other fantastic creatures, the background revealing the Temple of Beauty on the Holy Mount. A change of hows the Dark Valley, from which arise the agonized voices of Hapless Poets. A third change takes us to the interior of the temple, in which Louise ;i as the incarnation of supreme beauty. The second act takes the spectator to a picturesque valley in Hungary. Julien deplores the fate of the peasants, who chant their songs of labor. One of the girls — who has the face of Louise — in- vites him to remain, but he repulses her and passes on. The scene of the third act is on the coast of Brittany, near Julicn's birthplace. His old grandmoth- B in vain to win him back to re- ligious belief. She, too, has the fea- tures of Louise. In the last act Louise appears again as a young woman — a wo- man of the streets. A noisy crowd in- dulges in merrymaking in front of the Moulin Rouge. The characters of the preceding scenes reappear in grotesque attire, transformed into beasts, Julien and Louise join them, singing the praises of bestiality. The mob wrecks the showman's movable theatre. A phan- tom vision of the Temple of Beauty is seen in the background; Julien curses it and sinks at the feet of his intoxicat- ed companion. Critical opinion is divided as to wheth- er the whole opera or only the first act is to be considered a visualization of Ju- lien's dreams. Those who believe the lat- ter will find it difficult to explain how Louise, in the third act, can appear (ex- cept in a dream) as Julien's grandmoth- er; and how will they account for the vision of the Temple in the last scene? However, it is hardly worth while to consider the question seriously. Opera librettos enjoy more than their share of poetic licenses, because the music is supposed to cover a multitude of sins. Unfortunately, in this case the music is almost as weak as the libretto. There are a few reminiscences from "Louise," and here and there one comes across diluted borrowings from Wagner and other composers. The best tnings by far in the score are excerpts from an early work by Charpentier, "La Vie du Poete," composed for solo voices, chorus, and orchestra. Though entitled a "sym- phonie-drama," it is not in the least dramatic, judging by the excerpts in- cluded in the opera. The fatal defect, indeed, of "Julien" is that it is not a music-drama, nor even an opera in the usual sense of the word, but rather an acted oratorio. While it has some splen- didly effective choruses, there is little melody of a distinctive or alluring kind for the voices. No attempt is made, in the Hungarian act, to introduce local color in the music. There is much beautiful orchestral tone-painting, which sometimes makes one forget the poverty of invention. Much of the music is dull and inflated. The final scene in Mont- martre, though vulgar and noisy, is real- ly the best in the opera, as it has at least the merits of sincerity and real- ism. In it one recognizes the real pow- er of the genius who, in "Louise," so charmingly translated into music the diverse sounds of Parisian street life. Although Geraldine Farrar and Ca- ruso, the two most popular operatic art- ists in the world, headed the cast, "Julien" won surprisingly little applause at the Metropolitan. Inasmuch as it was not a success in Paris, where it was produced last June, and no other manager has cared to accept it, one won- ders why it was staged here, especially in view of the fact that so many of the French masterworks are neglected at the Metropolitan Opera House, among them "Carmen," the operas of Massen- et, and those of Saint-Saens. Siegfried Wagner has completed a new opera, entitled "Dor TTeidenkonig" ("The Kincr of the Heathen"). Mr. Kalisch, the eminent London r-rilic, endorses the suggestion made by Tobias Matthay, in his new book on "Mu- sical Interpretation," that pupils should be started on modern music, and work backwards to Bach and others. Arrigo Boito is at the head of a com- mittee which has been formed with the purpose of making music obligatory in all the elementary and high schools of Italy. "Agnete," an opera by Prof. Julius Rontgen, who was for years one of the most intimate friends of Grieg, has been produced with great success at Amster- dam. It has previously received the first prize offered by the Netherlands Operatic Association of The Hague. Arnold Schoenberg wrote a long and flattering letter to the members of the Queen's Hall Orchestra, after they had played some of his music. In it he made some remarks about the orchestras of Germany, which will surprise those who think that in that country everything is as it should be: I must tell you that on the Continent, as far as my knowledge goes, there are at the most only two orchestras which could be compared with you: the Amsterdam Orchestra and the Viennese Philhar- monic. I must say that it was 1 1 time since Gustav Mahler that T hoard such music played again as a musician of culture demands. I presume that this letter will be published, and that is the reason I mention this fact, so that it should be taken note of by some of our German orchestras which have too much false pride to learn w*hat is expected of them at the present time. Putnam Griswold, the greatest operatic basso America has produced, died on Feb- ruary 2G, following an operation for ap- pendicitis. Mr. Griswold was born in 1876 in Minneapolis, but at an early age moved to Oakland, ("al.. wbere he sang in churches and at concerts. In 1900 he went abroad to study, first at the I loyal College of Music in London, and then in Paris. Proceeding to Germany, he made his debut in Frankfort, where Col. Sav- age heard him and engaged him for Gurnemanz in the English production of "Parsifal." After finishing his engage- ment with Savage, he went to Berlin, where he studied bel canto with Franz Emmerich and soon became the leading bass of the Royal Opera. This led to his engagement at the Metropolitan Op- era House, where he quickly became a favorite. Art In "Colonial Architecture for Those About to Build" (Lippincott), Messrs. Herbert C. Wise and H. Ferdinand Bei- dleman have made a welcome addition to the record of the architectural activities of the colonial period; for those who deal with this subject are usually tempt- ed to concentrate their attention upon the developments in New England and the South, and to overlook the work done in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Dela- ware, to which the authors of the book before us limit themselves. No one who examines the illustrations in the book can fail to note that a special character was given to the work done in this re- gion by the particular traditions of the settlers, although these were felt rather than clearly formulated. Certain of the buildings referred to have a dignity and charm which is surprising when one con- siders the lack of training of the design- ers, which was but one of many serious limitations under which they worked; but it must be confessed that a large proportion of them show too clearly the result of these limitations. As our au- thors well say (p. 204), "There are those who claim perfection for all things an- cient, and disparage the new. Sentiment did we let it, would weave a spell over the imagination and breathe a mist be- fore the eyes." It is to be agreed that this sentiment is an important aesthetic element, and should be welcomed as such in our judgment of the beauty of any work of art. But there can be no surer obstacle to advance in architectural de- sign and appreciation than the over-em- phasis of this sentimental influence, which tends to blind us to crudities and actual ugliness. Such we find all too often in the work considered in this int. historical survey. The historical matter given by the authors, indeed, adds much value to the book as a whole. It is very well printed and illustrated by no less than two hundred and seven excellent photographic reproductions. In "Repertoire de l'art quaternaire" (Paris: Leroux) Salomon Relsai fere a most useful corpus of bone scratch- ave paintings, and statuettes of the earliest periods. A brief survey of overies in the field of Quaternary art shows a gradual accumulation of excavated objects, mostly incised bones, from the year 1834 to the present. The discoveries or cave paintings are of re- cent date, mostly after 1900, though as early as 1879 the little daughter of Sau- tola noted the animal paintings on the
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25Q T h. e N" a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2540 roof of the Altamira cavern. M. Rein- ach's repertory comprises something more than 1,500 outline Illustrations arranged on L89 pages and illustrating- perhaps 700 separate objects. M. Keinach esti- mates that as many more pieces may remain unpublished in the portfolios of the Abbe Breuil and other explorers. It was a good service to make this pro- visional collection of materials every year becoming more confusing. The arrange- ment is alphabetical by localities, but full indexes make it easy to consult the Illustrations topically or by museums. The captions are sufficiently explanatory, and the whole work is conducted with that good sense and orderliness which one expects of the learned conservateur of the Museum of St. Germain. In run- ning through the outlines we are most struck by the considerable variety of the work. In the cavern of Lortet we find a really splendid naturalism; in the Made- leine a flaccid sort of schematism; in Batuecas near Salamanca a rigid, fairly pictographic schematism. Altamira seems to represent a semi-conventional stage lying artistically between Lortet and Madeleine. Except for a few incidental cuts, M. Reinach has excluded the rock engravings of Scandinavia, North Africa, and the Rhodesian caves as of uncertain antiquity. We hope he may be moved some day to collect, if not a corpus, at least a representative anthology of de- signs which have so much in common with the art of the cave men. Charles Calverley, the sculptor, who died on February 25, was born in Al- bany, N. Y., November 1, 1833, and came to New York in 1868. Mr. Calverley was known especially for portrait busts in bronze of Horace Greeley, John Brown, Peter Cooper, and Elias Howe. He was elected an associate of the National Academy of Design in 1872, and three years later was made a full academician. His best work is the bronze statue of Robert Burns in Washington Park, Al- bany. Sir John Tenniel, who died in London last Thursday at the age of ninety-four, was the last survivor of the brilliant group of artists and humorists who con- tributed to build up the reputation of Punch in the latter half of the nineteenth century. He joined the staff as second cartoonist in 1851 on the retirement of "Dickey" Doyle, and succeeded John Leech as leading cartoonist on the lat- ter's death in 1864. From that date until his retirement in 1901 he drew a cartoon for Punch regularly week by week except on about ten occasions. Two, at least, of his cartoons have become classics, that representing Britannia laying a wreath on the death-bed of Lincoln, and the famous "Dropping the Pilot," illustrating the resignation of Prince Bismarck in 1889. As the illustrator of Lewis Car- roll's "Alice in Wonderland" and "Alice Through the Looking Glass" Tenniel is known to an even wider public than that which became familiar with his work in the pages of Punch. He also illustrated "Lalla Rookh" and "The Ingoldsby Leg- ends." Sir John Tenniel was a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Wa- ter Colors, and received his knighthood in 1893. Albert Neuhuys, the Dutch painter, of the school which counted the brothers Maris, Israels, and Gabriel, who died re- cently in Switzerland, was born in Utrecht, June 10, 1844. He began the study of art with Gys Gravanger, a lo- cal teacher. After working in Utrecht for several years, he went to the Ant- werp Academy of Art, and then to Am- sterdam, where he took up the style for which he is best known, the painting of homely Dutch interiors and peasant fam- ilies. He was a friend of Anton Mauve and Alma-Tadema. BOOKS OP THE WEEK. Altscheler, J. The Guns of Bull Run. Appletons. $1.30 net. 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March 5, 1914] Raymond, W. A Wayfaring Soul. Dut- ton. $1 net. igs Id American History. Ed. by Scribners. iic d'Arl el d'ArcheoIogie. Paris. Bibllotheque d'Art. Revelli, P. Manuale Coloniale. Milan: Hoi J. C. The Primal Lure. Dodd, St Nicholas Society. Portraits of the of the Society. Schofleld, A. T. Where He Dwelt. Rand. McNally. gkeal v. Tudor and Stuart ird: Clarendon Press. T li e N" a t i o 11 Sowers, Don C. The Financial History of New York State. Columbia Uni- versity. Studies in Political Science. Longmans, Green. Taylor, J. H. Joe Taylor, Barnstormer. Jenkins. $1.25. Thorns, Craig- S. The Working-man's Christ. Dodd, Mead. $1.25 net. Vices and Virtues and Other Vagaries. Longmans. $1.20 net. Walker, A. H. The Income Tax Law Clarified. Walker. $1 net. Walker, A. H. The Unconstitutional Character and Illegal Administration of the Income Tax Law. Walker. $1 net. 251 Wason, R. A. The Dog and the Child and the Ancient Sailor Man. Boston: Small, Maynard. $1 net. Whitney, N. R. Jurisdiction in Ameri- can Building-Trades Unions. Balti- more: John Hopkins Press. $1.00 net. Williams, H. The Winning Hit. Apple- tons. $1.25 net. Who's Who in Science. International, 1914 Ed. by H. H. Stephenson. Mac- millan. $3.25 net. Winther, P. Das Gerettete Venedig. Berkeley: University of California Press. Xenophon's Anabasis. Ed. by Murray. Scott, Foresman. $1.60 net. HENRY HOLT & CO. widst. Publish this Week PYCRAFT'S Courtship of Animals By Dr. PYCRAFT of the British Museum, author of "The Infancy of Animals." With many illustrations. #1.75 net. A consideration of the subject from the ant to the ape. A Modern History of the English People H> IS. 11. BRETTON "As brilliant as Mi- Herbert Paul at his best." 1 - ulil. "The development of England's prosperity since 1 ii'_-liii<-s bas been treated with an en- ■ "i. I item which is only paralleled in 1 • of Mr. Arnold Bennett." — Scotsman. "So tonic ir is, sc] extraordinarily sensible, bo bracing In Its Immed effects." — Liverpool Cour- ier. V 1. 1880-1898, 448 pp. V. II, 1899-1910, .168 pp. The Set sf^.OO net, carriage extra. Small, Maynard & Company, Boston The Poetical Works of William Drummond oi Hawtiiornden With "A Cypresse Grove." Edited by L. E. KASTNER, M.A., University of Manchester. With Bibliography, Notes, Index, Facsimiles, and Por- traits. In 2 Volumes. 8vo. $6.75 net. (Postage 38 cents.) In preparing this edition of the works of the seventeenth-century Scot- tish poet, access was had to the Drummond originals belonging to the late Lord Crawford and the University of Aberdeen. By reason of its comprehensiveness and the large amount of new light which is thrown upon Drummond and his work, this is likely to become the standard edition. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., NEW YORK Foreign Books and Magazines Correspondence Solicited E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 681 Fifth Avenue, near 54th Street NEW YORK The Meaning of God in Human Experience By WILLIAM ERNEST HOCKING, Ph.D. The profound impression which THE MEANING OF COD IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE by W. E. Hock- nin continues to make, encourages its Publishers to bring it to the attention of readers of this lournal with the firm conviction that in doing so they are rendering thoughtful students of religion aii,l Ufe no slight service. (Circular on request.) (Second Printing.) Crown 8vo. Cloth binding. Gilt top. 586 pages. Index. Price $3.00 net; carriage extra. YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS, New Haven, Conn. 223 Fifth Avenue, N. Y. Citv The Curious Lore of Precious Stones BY GEORGE FREDERICK KUNZ. With numerous plates in color and double-tone. 8vo. Cloth, Boxed, $5.00 net. Carriage extra- Being a Description of Their Sentiments and Folk-Lore, Superstitions, Symbolism, Mysticism, Use in Meiliciue, Protection, Prevention, Religion an.! Divination. 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"Possesses uncommon literary distinction and should find a wide field for usefulness not only as a work of reference, but as a 'popular' history. Indeed, it is difficult to recall any similar undertaking in which the fundamental requisites of the art of history-writing have been so admirably met. May be safely recommended to the student who would learn what the latest research has to teach him, and to the educated public who, though no more than the student, desire history served in an entertaining way." — Literary Digest. THE VOLUMES ARE: I. England Before the Norman Conquest. Being a History of the Celtic, Ro- man and Anglo-Saxon Periods down to the year A. D. 1066. By Charles Oman, M. A., All Souls' College, Oxford. II. England Under the Normans and Ange- vins. 1066-1272. By H. W. C. Davis, Fellow of Bal- liol College, Author of "Charle- magne." III. England in the Later Middle Ages.1272-1485. By Kenneth H. Vickers, M. A., Professor of Modern History in the University of Durham, Author of "Humphrey, Duke of Glou- cester." 'Olumc is adequately AIL BOOK8HLLERS G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS IV. England Under the Tudors. 1485-1603. By Arthur D. Innes, sometime Scholar of Oriel College, Oxford, Author of "Britain and Her Rivals," "A Short History of the British in India," etc. V. England Under the Stuarts. 1603-1714. By G. M. Trevelvan. Fellow of Trinity Colic Idge, Au- thor of "The Age of Wycliffe," etc. VI. England Under the Hanoverians. 1714-1815. By ('. Grant Robertson, Fellow of All Souls'. Tutor in History to Magdalen College, Oxford. VII. England Since Waterloo. 1815-1900. By .1. \. R. Marriott, Lecturer and Tutor in Modern History and Economics at. Worcester College, Oxford, Author of "George Can- ning and His Times." supplied with maps. JUST PUBLISHED HARVARD UNIVERSITY DIRECTORY Corrected to September, 1913 Svo. Cloth, 1660 pages, .$2.50. 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252 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 21540 Uht l&jmittg *$0§l fluilMng. Are You on the Right Road? If not, why not locate in the only up-to-date office building in the most refined, quiet business street in the heart of downtown New York? r icbool catalogues, directorial, reports, etc. Free to Inquirers, address Educational 1.1 brary, THE NATION 20 VESEY STREET, NEW YORK CITY
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Weliesiej xH reo juiuraxj, Wellesley, Mass. The Nation VOL. XCVIII— NO. 2541 THURSDAY, MARCH 12, 1914 lii%a%. PRICE TEN CENTS ■■JJHUIMWM NEW MACMILLAN BOOKS OF TIMELY IMPORTANCE THE PHILIPPINES: Past and Present By the Hon. DEAN C. WORCESTER Secretary of the Interior, Philippine Insular Government, iQOi-13 A timely, accurate work on Philippine conditions by "the one man on earth who [knows most about the subject." — N. Y. Times. Two vols. Richly illustrated. $6.00 net MEXICO: The Wonderland of the South By W. E. CARSON A new, revised and enlarged edition of this important book, with additional chapters on present conditions, bringing this standard work up to date. Illustrated. $2.50 net SOUTH AMERICA: Observations and Impressions By JAMES BRYCE A new, revised edition of Viscount Bryce's illuminat- ing book, "the most comprehensive work that has been written on the history and present condition of the South American Republics." Colored maps. $2.50 net EGYPT IN TRANSITION By SIDNEY LOW Introduction by the Earl of Cromer An accurate account of the great modern progress and present conditions in the valley of the Nile, distin- guished by acute observation and attractive literary Style. Portraits. $2.50 net THE MACMILLAN COMPANY %££%,* 64-66 5th Ave., N.Y.
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11 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2541 rr The Nation A WEEKLY JOURNAL. FOUNDED IN 1865. [Entered at the New York City Post Office as second-class mail matter. ] The Nation Is published and owned by the New York Evening Post Co. Oswald Garrison VUlard. President : John Palmer Gavlt. Secretary and Treasurer; Emll M. Scholz, Business Manager; Paul Elmer More, Editor; Harold deWolf Fuller, Assistant Editor. Three dollars per year In advance, postpaid, in any part of the United States or Mexico; to Canada $3.50, and to foreign countries comprised in the Postal Union, $4.00. Address THE NATION, Box 794, New York. Publication Office. 20 Vesey Street. CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER. The Week 253 Editorial Articles: Short Cuts to the Millennium 256 The Associated Press 256 American University Presses 257 Spades and Shovels 258 Offensive College "Loyalty" 259 Special Articles: Miscellaneous German Books .... 259 News for Bibliophiles 260 Correspondence : A Reincarnation of Touchstone . . 261 Consistency 262 Wesley's Words 262 Unwelcome Evidence for Immor- tality 263 Billboards and Attractiveness .... 263 Literature : New Standard Dictionary 263 The White Gate 265 The Best Man 265 Our Mr. Wrenn 266 The Goddess of the Dawn 266 Studies in Milton and an Essay on Poetry 266 Boycotts and the Labor Struggle. . 267 Japan as I Saw It 267 Philosophy of the Practical: Eco- nomic and Ethic 268 Notes 269 Science: The Grocer's Cyclopedia. — The Economy Administration Cook Book. — The American Cook Book. — Around the World Cook Book. — Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen. — Dishes and Beverages of the Old South 272 Drama : Goldoni: A Biography 273 Music: My Art and My Friends 276 Art: Pictures at the Metropolitan Mu- seum 277 Finance: Undoing the Mischief of the Past. . 278 Books of the Week 279 HARVARD ECONOMIC STUDIES REOKNT ADDITIONS Till', HISTORY OF THE GRAIN TRADE IN FRANCE, 1400 -1710. By A. I". USHEH. instructor in Economics In Cornell uni- versity. Vol. ix. Cloth. Bvo. 405 pages. $2.00. CORPORATE PROMOTIONS AM) REOR- GANIZATIONS. By A. S. Ddwino, sometime Instructor in Economics In Harvard University. Vol. x. Cloth. 8vo. 615 pages. $2.60. THE INVOLUTION OP Till''. ENGLISH CORN MARKET, FROM THE TWELFTH TO THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. By N. s. B. ghas, Assistant Professor of History, clark University. Vol. xi. In prrHx. HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS Our Monthly-Income Policy Insures Your Insurance OF course you know that the claim under any insurance policy in any established old- like the Postal Life, will be set- tled according to contract. Next to Government itself, Life Insur- ance is the safest of all institutions, and your beneficiary —wife or daughter, let us say — will get what's coming — and promptly. ^« But the all-import- ant question for you to consider is: "What will she do with the money?" v» Does she know how to hold on to it? 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Of course, the Postal Life issues all the standard forms— Whole-Life, Limited-Payment Life, Endowment, Joint-Life, and Child 's Welfare : all these are yours to choose from. But what we think you will be especially interested in knowing about is our Monthly-Income Policy, and how much it will cost you to make sure that your beneficiary will receive an income of from $10 to $500 a month throughout life or for a fixed term — let us say twenty years. Call at the Home Office or simply write and say: " Mail full particulars about your Monthly - In- come Policy as mentioned THE NATION lor March 12." And be sure to give: 1. Your full name. 2. Your occupation. 8. Your exact date of birth. 4. Your beneficiary's name and date of birth. STRONG POSTAL POINTS First: Standard policy -reserves nowncarly810.000.000. Insur- ance in/or«nearly*50.000. 000. Second: Old-line legal-reserve Insurance — not fraternal or assessment. 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March 12, 1914] The Nation 111 Educational The WOLCOTT SCHOOL, DENVER,COL Superior climate. Accredited with Eastern College* r.,r girls. Bine music advantages. Gymnasium, 'THE F1SK TEACHERS' AGENCIES, J. Kvkiii 1 r officers w1ntbd I'iik collides and schools Director, JAMES LEE LOVE, formerly of Harvard. Foreign Dealers in Rare Books, Prints, Etc. JUST PUBLISHED A CATALOGUE OF SECOND HAND BOOKS ON English Topography, Family History, Genealogy, Heraldry, etc. WITH AN ILLUSTRATED SUP- PLEMENT OF FINE OLD ENGRAVED VIEWS OF ENGLISH TOWNS AND COUNTRY SCENERY Including many fine Coloured Aqua- tin I a of very decorative character. The above will be sent post-free on application, from HENRY SOTHERAN 8b CO. 4:; PICCADILLY (or 14 Stra LONDON, ENGLAND. BARGAIN BOOKS PAUL MASSON, book dealer, Mon- tauban, Tarn-et-Garonne, France, will mail his catalogue free of charge to any one sending him name and ad- dress. Ask for catalogue No. 24, which contains several old maps of America, as well as rare and curious books. RARE BOOKS We can supply the rare books and prints you want. 153 classified catalogues Issued. When In Europe, call and see us in Munich. Over a million books and prints In stock. Always send your wants to The Ludwig Rosenthal Antiquarian Book Store Hildegardstr 14,Munich,Lenbachplatz 6, Germany Founded 1850 Cables: Ltmnos, Munich BOOKS — All out-of-print books supplied, no matter on what subject ; write me, stating books wanted; I can get you any book ever published; when in England, call and inspect mv stock of 50,000 rare books. BAKER'S OREAT BOOK- SHOP, John Blight St., Birmingham. England. ROOrC^ In all branches of Literature, Art, f VyvyrVO Bibliography, Drama, Rare, and Privately Printed Items. Manuscripts. Catalogue now in press, upon application. FJERBERT E. GORFIN, 82a, Charing Cross Road. London, W.C. BOOKS Catalogues including Americana post free. R. 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This work is a sort of Plutarch's Lives for the History of Continental Law. Papinian, Alciat, Bartolus, Vico, Bacon, Leibnitz, Sel- den, Montesquieu, Cujas, Vattel, Sav- Igny Bentham, Beccaria, Von Iher- Ing, Mittermaier — these and a few other names stand out as land- marks for all European Law. C?" Send for descriptive pamphlet of the Continental Legal History Series. LITTLE, BROWN & CO., Publishers, Boston JUST PUBLISHED ALGEBRA OF LOGIC By LOUIS COUTERAT. Authorized Translation by L. G. Robinson; with a Preface by Phillip E. B. Jourdain, of Cambridge. Cloth $1.50. "This is much the simplest and most concise exposition of the subject, which has been treated much more extensive- ly and ponderously by other represen- tatives of symbolic logic — for instance, Boole in England, Schroeder in Ger- many, Peano in Italy, and Peirce in the United States. "Couterat's treatise is fitted to serve as an introduction to the study of mathematical logic. Mr. Jourdain's pre- face is of an historical character, and gives a very thorough account of the development of the subject, and the various phases of it especially em- phasized by each of its different repre- sentatives." The Open Court Publishing Co., Chicago HUMANISTS' LIBRARY ANNOUNCEMENT JN the Spring of 1914 two new volumes will be pub- lished in The Humanists' Library. These are; PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA: APlatonick Dis- course upon Love. GIOVANNI DELLA CASA: The Galateo— Of Manners & Behaviour. The books are printed in red and black on hand- made paper, and are sold at $3.00 net each. The edition of each volume is limited to subscrip- tions received before publication. Persons inter- ested should send for a descriptive circular to D. B.UPDIKE, The Merrymount Press, 232 Summer St., Boston STORY WRITERS Send 10c. for list of 300 places to sell MSS.; valuable Information and instructions. ALTHOMAR CO.,3501N. H.Ave., Washington, D.C. A SCHOOLBOOK MAN with five years' varied office and road experi- ence would like position in local territory or wit! editorial department of N'cu York publisher, Ad dress 1906, care Nation. JUST PUBLISHED PROBLEMS OF POLITICAL EVOLUTION By Raymond Gettell, Nurtham Profes- sor of History and Political Science. Trin- ity College, Hartford, Conn. Svo, cloth, 4O0 pages, $2.00 This volume formulates and traces the evolution of fundamental problems of gov- ernment. Drawing material from many sources, and applying scientific methods of treatment, the author brings out clearly the evolutionary nature of political progress, the connection between institutions and environ- ment, and the constant need for adjustment and compromise in political development. At a time when social and political ques- tions are arousing so great an interest, this discussion will prove of great practical value, not mil) to teactters and students of his- tory, political science, sociology, and econom- ics; but to all citizens intelligently inter- ested in the problems of present-day democra- cies. GINN AND COMPANY, Publishers Boston New York Chicago London Atlanta Dallas Columbus San Francisco From the Cambridge University Press THE GENUS IRIS By WILLIAM RICKATSOS DYKES With 4H colored plates and 30 line drawings in the text This magnificent work brings together the available information on all known species of Iris. The most striking feature of the book is the life-size colored plates, reproduced from originals drawn from living) plants — making it a volume of remarkable beauty as well as of great scientific importance. 254 pages, demi folio, half morocco; $37.50, postage extra (weight 11 lbs. 7 oz. ) . The University of Chicago Press 5758 Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois A Modern History of the English People By R. II. BRETTON "As brilliant as Mr. Herbert Paul at his best." — Glasgow Herald. "The development of England's prosperity since the early eighties lias been treated with an en- grossing minuteness which is only paralleled In the works of Mr. Arnold Bennett." — Scotsman. "So tonic It is, so extraordinarily sensible, bo bracing in its immediate effects." — Liverpool Cour- ier. V. I, 1880-1898, 448 pp. V. II, 1899-1910, 368 pp. The Set $.f.OO net, carriage extra. Small, Maynard & Company, Boston Bays Miniature I.aw Library. Only complete work on Com- mercial law. Contains Lrcal forms of all kinds. Should be in every Library. Fits the pock- et. 9 volumes fl2.00. Safe counsellor. Worth its weight in gold. 2000 pages. Order Now. Sent on approval. OALLAGHAN A CO.. Law Publishers, OHIOAQO FRESHMAN RHETORIC By JOHN R. 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IV The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2541 LONGMANS' RECENT PUBLICATIONS ACoKoniaS Governor in Maryland Horatio Sharpe and His Times, 1753-1773 By Lady Eduau. With 19 Illustrations and Facsimiles. 8vo. Pp. xvi+311, $3.50 net. (Postage extra.) This is an historical work recounting the events from 1753 to 1773 through which Horatio Sharpe lived while Governor of Maryland. The most important of these events relate to the war with the French, the main incidents of which are told in some detail. Political measures of less magnitude are also related, and there are extensive quotations from contemporary documents. "Students of the colonial period have for some time felt the need of biographical works dealing with men like Governor Sharpe . . . whose career was 'dis- tinctly interesting* and 'illumines a most fascinating period.' More especially has it been recognized that sufficient attention has not been directed to the im- portant and difficult part played by the colonial execu- tive. . . . Sharpe's administration covered a period peculiarly adapted to the study of the position, func- tions, and problems of a colonial governor. ... A large part of the book is made up of long but pertinent excerpts from Sharpe's correspondence and the Mary- land Gazette. This does not make the volume less in- teresting, for the excerpts are skilfully woven into a very readable and entertaining narrative. . . . One of the most interesting features of the book is the glimpse which it affords of social life in the eighteenth century. Some well-selected illustrations of colonial homes help to make this more vivid. The volume is concluded by a biographical sketch of the proprietors and a history of the province compressed into less than fourteen pages." — E. I. McCormac, in the American His- torical Review. The Wanderer's Necklace By Sir Rider Haggard, author of "She," "Allan Quater- main," etc. With Colored Frontispiece and 3 Other Illustrations. Crown 8vo. $1.35 net; by mail, $1.45. "There is plenty of incident of the most stirring sort. It is a fascinating tale of adventure, and in its telling lacks nothing of that persuasive charm of which Mr. Haggard has so many times shown himself a master." — N. T. Times. "This is good romance. An excellent piece of work from a veteran hand, and an interesting story as well." — N. Y. Tribune. "If Sir Rider Haggard is given the praise that is his due he will receive the highest award due the story- teller. He knows and he practices his art with the as- sured skill of a master, and what more can any man do?" — E. F. E., in the Boston Transcript. The Snakes of South Africa Their Venom, and the Treatment of Snake Bite By F. W. Fitzsimons, F.Z.S., F.R.M.S. New Edition. With Portrait, Colored Plate, and 196 other illustra- tions. 8vo. $4.50 net. Men and Matters By Wilfrid Ward. 8vo. Pp. xii+451. $3.50 net. (Post- age extra.) Contents: Disraeli — Lord Cromer on Disraeli — George Wyndhnm — Mr. Chesterton Among the Prophets — John Stuart Mill — Cardinal Vanghan — Tennyson at Freshwater — Cardinal Newman's Sensitiveness — Union Among Christians — The Conservative Genius of the Church — St. Thomas Aquinas and Mediaeval Thought — Cardinal Newman on Constructive Religious Thought — Reduced Christianity — Papers Read Before the Synthetic Society. Published by Xongmans, (5reent & Co. Fourth Ave. and 30th St. New York NEW PUBLICATIONS, SPRING, 1914. Travel, History, Biography DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 443 Fourth Avenue, New York m &UJQ>t Lombard Towns of Italy By EGERTON R. WILLIAMS A delightful companion volume to the author's well-known "Hill Towns of Italy" and "Plain Towns of Italy." Small 12mo. $1.75 net. Panama and the Canal By WILLIS J. ABBOT The human side of the building of the Canal, told in vigorous and graphic style. Svo. $2.00 net. Japan's Inheritance: The Country, Its People and Their Destiny By E. 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The Nation. W \l rOBK, nil RBDA.Y, MARCH 12. 1914. The Week President Wilson's message to Con- gress on the Panama tolls was a master- piece of condensation. In less than 500 words he said all that is necessary, and with a force and impact that must go deep into the mind of Congress and the country. The gravity of his appeal is enhanced by his brevity. Some issues are too serious to be drenched in lan- guage. In the highest matters, saith the Preacher, "let thy words be few." The President has laid this to heart. And if there is truth in Voltaire's saying that it is not the books of many pages which move men to great social changes and even revolutions, but the broadside, the pamphlet, the thin volume all aglow with passion, it is certainly true that Presidents are not heard for their much speaking; that long and wordy messages to Congress which nobody reads cannot have the effect of a swift and direct ut- terance which all can take in in five minutes, and which is yet couched in such terms as to compel thought and thought yet again. L It was necessary that the President should state his personal conviction that the Panama act violated the Hay-Paunce- fote treaty. This he did unmistakably. Long study of the matter has convinced him that Congress was betrayed into thinking it had a power which it had really parted with by treaty. If Mr. Wilson did not devoutly believe this in his own heart, he could not have gone to Congress with his moving appeal. But he does not rest the case on his own belief. He points, rather, to the con- sensus of opinion everywhere except in the United States; and throws himself upon Congress as the Executive who is directed by the Constitution to conduct foreign affairs, asking for the removal o£ an obstacle to a good understanding with other nations, and so to the suc- cess of our own country in dealing with great problems, to solve which we acute- ly need the good will and help of Euro- pean Powers. We do not see how Con- gress can possibly reject his plea. Mr. Oscar Straus is not of those who put the inviolability of party platforms above that of an international treaty. He openly repudiates the Progressive tolls- exemption demand of 1912, observing that a question of public honor is one in which partisanship, as well as campaign planks, is to be thrown to the wind. It is in the spirit of his declaration, "I hon- or the courage, statesmanship, and inter- national conscience of the President when he appeals to the highest motives," that support from all three parties prom- ises to be given the repeal bill in Con- gress. When both Democratic and Pro- gressive leaders take the view of Mr. Straus, not much is left of the "sacred party pledge" of which Senator O'Gor- man and some others would make so much. The resignation of John Bassett Moore from the State Department is much to be regretted. So much is evident from Mr. Wilson's own words of thanks and praise. It is not necessary to go into the question how deeply Mr. Moore was dissatisfied with the conditions under which he worked — it is unfortunately quite clear that he was dissatisfied — to point out that this leaves the State De- partment without a single trained ad- viser and diplomatist in high place, if we except Mr. Adee. Without him there could, of course, hardly be a State De- partment, for, while Secretaries and counsellors come and go, Mr. Adee goes on forever. The loss of Mr. Moore is, therefore, peculiarly severe at a time when the President's most difficult pro- blems are foreign ones, and there is con- siderable lack of confidence, not in his Secretary of State's earnestness of pur- pose, but in his tact and diplomatic knowledge and ability. Unless the Pres- ident can promptly find another man of Mr. Moore's quality and experience, the prestige of the State Department will be still further impaired. In appoint- ing Mr. William Phillips he has chosen just the right kind of young man for Third Assistant Secretary of State, one with experience abroad. This is a step in the right direction, a recognition at last that fitness and training do count. So far, the State Department has seem- ed to be run on the theory that its work can be done by any one; and Mr. Moore's resignation must, for the moment at least, intensify the widespread dissatis- faction with conditions in it. Gov. Colquitt and his Rangers ought to place themselves under the command of Senator Penrose, of Pennsylvania. For he has discovered the way to make war peacefully. In the statement which he issued on Sunday, as at once his own bid for reelection and an attack upon President Wilson, he lays down his posi- tion. He is opposed to war with Mex- ico. He has "never advocated political intervention in Mexico." All that he would do is to notify the Mexican au- thorities, civil and military, that they will be held responsible for "depreda- tions to Americans or their property," and follow up this notice by "sending American troops to the threatened point to enforce the same." This beats the Texas Rangers hollow; and if President Wilson had a proper sense of patriotic duty, he would at once appoint Boies Penrose general in command of an in- vading army that is against interven- tion, and would scrupulously refrain from acts of war. It will be interesting to see what the advocates of a big navy can contrive to say in reply to the appeal which a group of distinguished women has addressed to members of Congress. Every one of the six points of the appeal will put the Hobsons to their best efforts to make an answer that will stand investigation. Will they deny that arbitration has never been refused us when we have asked it; or that, with the exception of a brief war which we began, we have been at peace with the whole world out- side of this continent for a century; or that, although we have maintained the Monroe Doctrine, we have got along with a small navy; or that Japan neith- er can nor cares to rear its horrid head against us; or that the man who sells guns is the last man to give impartial advice regarding the need of guns; or that we are losing by preventable dis- eases yearly many times as many as we have lost all told by foreign bullets? The whole matter is put into a nutshell in the sentence: "Nations, like men.
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254 The N ation [Vol. 98, No. 2541 niu.st prepare to deal with reasonable probabilities, not with fantastic possi- bilities.'' Tbis is almost as statesman- like an utterance as the ordinary Con- gressman could make! The custom of delivering messages in person suffered a slight check the other day when Gov. Blease, removing his coat, suggested that he had a few blows to deliver along with his message. Phys- ical and intellectual appeals are too con- trary to mix well, and we can but think that it would be much better for the in- tellectual to precede the physical. Oth- erwise, the former might occasionally not be made at all. Broad-minded Amer- icans will sympathize with the belliger- ent Governor. Here was an Executive to whom the letter of the law is killing, but whom its spirit maketh very mucn alive, compelled to listen to a mere Rep- resentative raise the technical point that the Governor was not within his Constitutional rights in addressing the Legislature in person. What would be- come of political aspiration if it were to be confronted at every point by the statute-book? In particular, what would become of rare souls like South Caro- lina's leading citizen? If the Columbia legislators know their business, they will encourage him to pour out his heart before them, for they may never see his like again. The "Nuisance Act" which went into effect in Tennessee on Monday shows how every State prohibition law re- quires ingenious enforcing legislation. Directed against the three largest cities, Memphis, Chattanooga, and Nashville, which have defied the rest of the State to close their saloons, it compels obedi- ence by putting the execution of the law in the hands of the judiciary. No more can recalcitrant officers balk its operation; hereafter, on complaint of ten taxpayers, armed with proper evi- dence, the courts are authorized to step in directly and close, as a "public nui- sance," any place where liquors are sold. The saloons were shut at midnight with an avowal «by the police that thereafter the cities would bow to the law they had fought, as town against country, for two years. The necessity for such a mea- sure implies a sad reflection upon the ordinary guardians of local peace and order. We suggest that Mr. George W. Per- kins should address an open letter to the players of the National League and American League, proving that the age of competition is dead; and see what sort of answer he will get. If it were Rudyard Kipling who came up the bay last Friday on the Lusitania; if it were William II with the announcement that he was open for lecture engagements, the publishers and the lyceum agents would hardly have shown so much agi- tation as marked the arrival of the Giants and White Sox. Baseball "mag- nates" swarmed over the Lusitania, baseball "moguls" apparently went down on their knees to their players, holding between their clasped hands contracts for the players to fill out with their own terms. The record baseball salary has now been pushed up to one thousand dol- lars a year more than the salary of an Ambassador to the Court of St. James's. One player had a long-standing griev- ance against his club president involv- ing unpaid salary. "The question was settled by the president handing over the amount in cash." Messrs. Tris Speaker, Mathewson, Tinker, and other baseball stars whom the advent of the Federal League has made happy, would decidedly disagree with Mr. Perkins on the decay of competition. have obtained some large indirect or ul- terior profits in these various transac- tions, the banking house now states to the chairman of the company: Answering your specific inquiry, we beg to state that none of our firms, nor any member of them, ever had any inter- est in any properties, such as the West- chester, the steam railways, the trolley lines, or the steamship companies, ac- quired by the New Haven Company or any of its subsidiary companies. The only exception to this comprehen- sive statement, it is pointed out, affect- ed a relatively small holding in a wharf and terminal property, inherited by Mr. Morgan and transferred by him, on the basis of an outside appraisal, to the New Haven at that company's request. The detailed statement by J. P. Mor- gan & Co. to the chairman of the New Haven Railroad, as published in Mon- day's papers, answers conclusively the loose charge that the road had somehow been "bled" by its bankers to their own advantage, and that such a process was responsible for the company's present condition. The firm presents transcripts from its books, showing an exceeding- ly moderate average profit, whether in case of underwritings or of commissions as fiscal agents of the company. In sev- eral of the underwritings, prior to the "fiscal contract" between the New Haven and the bankers, there is reported an actual and substantial net loss by the banking house. In the matter of com- missions on purchase or sale of securi- ties for the railway, the commission paid to J. P. Morgan & Co. ranged from 1-16 of 1 per cent, to iy2 per cent. Con- siderably more than half of the amount thus financed carried a commission of '/i of 1 per cent, or less. Regarding the insinuations made that the firm must | It is on the now somewhat celebrated purchase of the New York, Westchester & Boston by the New Haven that public interest has specially converged. The formal opinion of Interstate Commerce Commissioner Prouty, last June, declar- ed this to be "an enterprise which has cost the New Haven Company $12,000,- 000 in excess of the value of its proper- ty on its own showing," and further stated, as a result of examination of the New Haven's books, that "so far as those records go, this money has vanished into thin air." The Messrs. Morgan now sub- mit book entries and official correspon- dence to show that the firm's advances of capital in connection with the opera- tion were made as fiscal agents of the New Haven, for the account of the com- pany and under its instructions, and without profit to the banking house. Mr. Oakleigh Thorne, who was interested in the financing of the Westchester under- taking, declares in an interview that the New Haven "obtained on the investment a return that justified the deal," and that the assertion that $12,000,000 "van- ished into thin air" is absurd. But Com- missioner Prouty's opinion rested on the fact that the New Haven's payment ex- ceeded by that sum the company's own official statement of the tangible value of its property. The fact that J. P. Morgan & Co. have cleared themselves from the imputation of undue profits on tlieiir own account, therefore, leaves the ques- tion open, Was tbis payment, so largely in excess of estimated value, warranted? II 11 was not, then it ought to be ascer- tained whether any one, responsible for the transaction, obtained a wrongful pe- cuniary profit, if it was, then the truth
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March 12, 1914] The Nation 255 of the matter ought to be made public, in justice to all concerned. The Inter- state Commission, under the instructions of Congress, is now engaged in an in- vestigation which should answer these questions. The figures of unemployment in Chi- cago, resulting from a canvass made by the Police Department at the request of the Federal Commission on Industrial Relations, are extremely interesting. The total number of unemployed men (we give the nearest thousand throughout) was found to be 46,000; and of these 38,000 were residents of the city. These figures are so vastly below any such per- centage of the population for Chicago as was presented by the number of unem- ployed men given in the A. I. C. P.'s estimate for New York, as to make it in the highest degree probable that the lat- ter number was far beyond the fact. The Chicago police census may be more or less imperfect, but it is safe to assume that it is a close approximation to the truth. Out of the 46,000, the number set down as "honestly hunting work" is 33,000, leaving 13,000 of the kind that are not of this type. Thirteen thousand is also the number that are classed as "skilled workmen," and many of them must be accounted for by the building trades. In these the exceptionally high pay during the season goes far to bal- ance the off-season unemployment, which is counted on in advance, and thus the number of skilled workmen who can be supposed to be suffering great hardship does not appear to be at all formidable. The leaders of the I. W. W., an organ- ization consisting almost entirely of leaders and organizers, are bound to pro- test against the peculiarly infamous na- ture of the persecution to which they have been latterly subjected. We are not referring to the arrest and imprison- ment of the "army" which has been in- vesting the churches in this city. Ar- rest and imprisonment are a species of attack which the I. W. W. welcomes as a form of martyrdom which is essential to the ultimate triumph of their ideas. A much more cruel form of persecution was brought into play by Gov. Johnson of California, when he offered work to the unemployed crusaders at Sacramen- to on their way to Washington. It was almost as brutal an assault as the dec- laration made by the charity authori- ties in this city, that there was no need for the unemployed to march on the churches, since the city's resources were sufficient to take care of everybody who applied for food and shelter. This is inhuman warfare. Gov. Johnson and the heads of the Municipal Lodging House in New York might just as well have called out the army and the police against the I. W. W. demonstrators. Such action would have interfered less cruelly with their plans. The paradox that it is the exclusive- ness of cum laudc and magna cum laude degrees which leads our university youth to think that they are not worth trying for seems a somewhat perilous basis for college policy, but Princeton has boldly made use of it. That it has an element of truth has been proved by the British universities, with their wholesale distinction between "honors" and "pass" degrees. The English stu- dent who will not put on the higher steam required in an attempt to avoid the "pass" degree is a sorry young man; and even in Scotland, where it has late- ly come to represent a formidable stan- dard, he is distinctly below the average. The adaptation of the British plan which the Princeton faculty has just announc- ed includes not merely an equally broad distinction between the degrees with honors and without honors, but a re- quirement that each candidate for hon- ors must enroll, in general, early in his course. It is thus hoped to mark off those who loaf through on a bare mar- gin, and, by furnishing a more general incentive for intellectual distinction, foster a college sentiment that any stu- dent not aspiring to honors labels him- self at the outset as wanting in academ- ic self-respect. About 60 per cent, of the first class eligible have already en- rolled. This experiment in making scholastic distinction democratic, while still keeping it high in significance, will be watched with interest by other col- leges. goes over, by so much, to the Unionist demand for a plebiscite, and also for the exclusion of such parts of Ulster as may decide to be excluded. The offer has been coldly received by Bonar Law and Sir Edward Carson, but this was to be expected. The Unionists would not be really enthusiastic over anything short of complete surrender by the Govern- ment. Yet it is plain that the Prime Minister's proposal is shrewdly conceiv- ed as a means, if not of final and peace- ful solution, at least of postponing the crisis and giving the country ample time to think the matter over. More- over, it is a plan that cuts very deep, logically, into the Ulster contention. This has been that Ulster Protestants simply would not submit to the Cath- olic majority of Ireland. But if that is so, the Protestant majority — a very small one — in Ulster cannot demand that the Catholic minority in the prov- ince submit to it. What Mr. Asquith has done is to suggest that the splitting- up process, on which Ulster has insist- ed, be carried a little farther. There is no likelihood that the plan will meet with early acceptance, but neither can it be rejected out of hand, as Sir Ed- ward Carson's plea for a modification shows; and to have gained time for con- sideration is much. Mr. Asquith's proposals, in the matter of the Home Rule bill, have been accu- rately foreshadowed in the recent press reports. In undertaking to allow each county in Ireland to vote on the ques- tion whether it will come under the Dublin Parliament, the Prime Minister In view of the fact that with the ar- rest of the South African labor leaders the backbone of the strike movement was broken, it would now appear that by expelling the strike leaders from the country the South African authorities have only given an enormous amount of free advertising to the cause of their op- ponents. Had the leaders been allowed to remain in Africa under detention, the probabilities are strong that the paci- fication of the country would have proceeded very much as it did. Premier Botha and his fellow Ministers could hardly have contemplated the possibility of the imprisoned men being liberated by an armed uprising. In jail at Pretoria, or Johannesburg, Messrs. Bain, Poutsma, and their associates would have been no greater source of embarrassment than they are to-day, in view of the remark- able expression of protest in Great Brit- ain against the arbitrary act of the South African Government. The ques- tion of Imperial citizenship would not have been thrown open as it has been.
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25(3 Tli e Nation (Vol. 98, No. 2541 SHORT CUTS TO THE MILLENNIUM. It must be confessed that the whirl- wind reformers of this poor old world and all that is therein are getting on. One objection which used to be made to their plans no longer serves. A common remark upon vaguely benevolent schemes to make the earth over formerly ran like this: "What you say may be all very well, and certainly does honor to your heart, but you must admit that such ideas can never be enacted into a statute. To draw a bill embodying your proposals is beyond the wit of man. And you must perceive that, no matter how fine are your speculations about the fu- ture, they can never be reduced to prac- tice unless they can be stated in terms of law." If this once had power to put to con- fusion impatient yearners for the mil- lennium, that power is now lost. Every man of them is to-day ready with his little bill to provide a short cut to peace and plenty and the earthly paradise. Con- sider, for example, two bills lately intro- duced in the Massachusetts Legislature. One of them, House bill No. 1,861, pro- poses to abolish poverty by the easy method of re-defining it. Section 1 pro- vides that "all poverty existing in Mas- sachusetts shall be regarded and treat- ed as a disease." One sees the simplicity as of genius in this. The moment you are compelled by law to conceive of the poor man as a sick man, you instantly see the need of a "new type of physi- cian" to treat him. Such a type is speci- fied in the bill, to be "trained and paid by the State"; and, thereafter, the same sort of "organized warfare" which we now wage against tuberculosis, for in- stance, shall be made upon the twin-dis- ease, poverty. What could be more se- verely practical? The other bill— House bill No. 1,864— is more ambitious but equally confident. It proposes nothing less than "the in- telligent, voluntary reorganization iof society upon lines embodying modern ideas, to establish justice, social effi- ciency, and happiness." This looks like a large order, but the means prescribed are as large as they are loose. The thing is to be done in convention assembled. All residents of the State, as well as "individuals and organizations in any part of the world," are to be summoned to convene "next autumn or winter," and "submit plans" for making all things new. Some of these are to be laid before the Legislature for "imme- diate adoption," though others are to be held back until "general arrangements are completed." As between these two bills, the Springfield Republican thinks that the Legislature will prefer the scheme of a "perpetual welfare con- gress," since "in time it might talk its head off, with no harm done." Such flighty projects are not, of course, to be considered an alarming sign of the times. The bills will probably be heard of no more. They may have been intro- duced merely "by request." It is impos- sible to imagine their having a serious backing or receiving serious attention. At the same time, they suggest the sort of ideas that are afloat, and the great ease with which they now get an airing and even solemn embodiment in a pro- posed piece of legislation. Behind any particular display of folly of this kind there lies the larger folly of supposing that poverty can be abolished, and so- ciety completely reorganized — if only people would put their heads together, draw a suitable bill, put it on the stat- ute-books, and then thank Heaven that they are done with that job. We have always had with us the panacea-men, and the men with skeleton keys guar- anteed to unlock every door that bars the race from progress; but the symp- tomatic thing is that they are getting both more numerous and more pushing. Entirely convinced that their favorite social remedies are infallible and also easy to understand, they cry out that a chance ought to be given to the people to vote whether they will accept the rem- edies or not. It would be wholly unfair to class with the Massachusetts freak bills the proposal in New York to submit to a referendum the plan of halving the tax on buildings in this city. In favor of this measure a petition was presented to the Legislature last week, signed by several thousand names. Now, we should never think of asserting that they and the promoters of the bill are crack-brain- ed. Their project is one on which there is a great deal of serious argument to be advanced, on either side. But the point is that the plan is obviously one very involved, very hard for even I Ik* closest students to form a sure judg- ment upon, and one that is as ill fitted as could be imagined for inviting an off- hand popular verdict upon. Yet a sin- gle-taxer will not hesitate to affirm in print that the scheme is so "perfectly clear" as to be just the thing to be sub- mitted to popular vote. We suppose that the electors would merely be asked to say whether they wanted their rents re- duced! That would align the proposals with those which Jack Cade submitted to a referendum — namely, that the three- hooped pot should have ten hoops, and that in England seven half-penny loaves should be sold for a penny — and on which he got triumphant popular sup- port. It is very easy for a King Gama to lay question-begging projects before the electors, with the result that This people mild politely smiled And voted them delightful; but this neither removes the difficulties nor averts the consequences. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. A meeting was recently called at Cooper Union in this city as a protest against the suit for criminal libel brought by the Associated Press against the editor and the cartoonist of The Masses, a Socialist monthly publication. Into the merits of that lawsuit we do not propose to enter. But what is the state of mind at the bottom of the sym- pathy manifested for the assailants of the Associated Press? That state of mind was pretty fairly represented by Amos Pinchot, the first speaker at the meet- ing. "It doesn't matter about Mr. Noyes," said Pinchot, "but it does mat- ter if the Associated Press is a common carrier and a monopolistic concern which gives out only such information as will lead to conclusions desired by the officers in control of it." Now of course neither Mr. Pinchot nor anybody else believes, or means to be understood as believing, that the Asso- ciated Press literally "gives out only such information as will lead to con- clusions desired by the officers in con- trol of it." And it is not worth while to quarrel over what is obviously a bit of rhetorical license. But, if he is sin- cere— and we do not question his sincer- ity— his words indicate a belief that there exists at least a distant approach towards such a state of affairs, lie !><• lieves — and doubtless good men and wo- men believe with him — that there is systematic and deliberate suppression or news by the management of the ajum dated I'ress, and that on a groat scale That these good people are victims ol
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March 12, 1914) The Nation 257 a delusion, we do not hesitate to say. To prove this would indeed be difficult; all we can attempt is to show the nature of the delusion, and to give some idea of the kind of nourishment on which it is fed. In the course of a year, there are hundreds of thousands of items of news handled by the Associated Press. Among them it must inevitably happen that some fail to get proper attention; once in a long while an item of impor- tance must even fail to get on the wires at all. This may arise through acci- dents of haste; it may arise through the incompetence, or the dishonesty, or the partiality of the local man on whom the Associated Press relies for its supply ot the news of a given place. Now, if a social or economic reformer is eagerly watching for any sign of the corrupting influence of capital, he is bound to find omissions which relate to the matter he has at heart. The astonishing thing is that so few instances of this kind have been seized upon. But the nature of the instances is even more significant than their paucity. A single, but striking, example of this must here suffice. Prof. E. A. Ross, In an article in the Atlantic Monthly on "The Suppression of Important News," presented just one instance in the field of political news of a general nature. When the Supreme Court of Oregon sus- tained the constitutionality of the in- itiative and referendum, the news, he says, was not sent out to the press of the country. We have not taken the trouble to find out whether this is true or not. But assuming it to be true, what is the conclusion we are rationally to draw? Did the Associated Press expect to keep it a secret that the people of Oregon were going to continue to have the initiative and referendum? Does it try to keep the annual results of the Oregon refer- endum votes secret? Is it likely that the Associated Press was so solicitous about the suppression of this particular bit of news, when it sends out every day news a thousand times more revolu- tionary or radical in its nature? These questions answer themselves; that they should not have occurred to a man of Professor Ross's intelligence is remark- able evidence of the way in which pre- judice may paralyze judgment. And any one who uses his judgment must see that precisely the same consideration rules out, as having no significance whatever, nearly all the Isolated in- stances of alleged suppression that are cited. They are few in number; and in kind they can be matched a thousand times over by items far more objection- able to "capitalism, ' which are prompt- ly flashed over the wires and conspic- uously printed in the newspapers. Now to say this is not to say that the Associated Press is faultless; not even that it is free trom grave defects and shortcomings. In the matter of the West Virginia labor troubles, for example, it is not impossible that it may have fallen far short of what might properly have been expected of it. One of the really serious weaknesses of its system is that frequently — though by no means al- ways— it is slow in rising to the grav- ity of a situation. For its news from the thousands of points — other than the principal centres — whence its dispatches come, it must depend normally upon lo- cal men, men connected with the local newspapers; and it is thus exposed to the danger of being supplied with news colored in accordance with the interests or prejudices of the locality or the at- titude of a particular paper. For this danger it ought to be on the lookout; and as soon as a situation begins to pre- sent aspects of great general interest, It should send an able and trustworthy special representative to the spot. This it actually does do very frequently, and the duty is more clearly recognized now than ever before; but there are undoubt- edly cases in which it has been remiss, with unfortunate consequences. But It is one thing to charge it with not com- ing up to the full measure of an ex- tremely high and arduous responsibil- ity, and an altogether different thing to accuse it of wilful and systematic sup- pression. The falseness of the accusa- tion none know so well as those who are most intimately acquainted with the actual working of the Associated Press. AMERICAN UNIVERSITY PRESSES. At Yale's recent alumni gathering, when graduates flocked back to see the University in workaday clothing, no new- thing was exhibited with more pride than the Yale Press. Treasurer Day, as the Hartford Courant reports, "opened the eyes of the alumni when he told them that many wtio had never heard of Yale were led by the fame of the Press to look into the fame of the Uni- versity. He said that one of the largest orders recently came from Japan. The Press already had 125 volumes to its credit, and spread Yale thought broad- cast about the world, and encouraged worthy scholarship generally, not con- fining itself to Yale." President Hadley remarked in his speech that the Yale Press had just published a volume by one of the professors which nearly every important firm in America had rejected, and was fast making money on it! He added, of course, that the object of the Press was to issue such books without thought of loss or gain. Either way, the Yale alumni may well take pride in such an institution as in nearly half-a-dozen of our universities has of late years be- come prominent — the endowed univer- sity press. Its possibilities are fast forc- ing attention outside academic circles. The actual achievement of such press- es is considerable. It is, moreover, of surprising breadth when one takes into account how carefully each university press has limited its scope and ambi- tions. The formal statement of the press established last year would serve for all: "Inaugurated primarily for the pub- lication of books of a highly scholarly character, the Harvard University Press aims to aid in the advancement of knowledge by making possible the wide distribution of the work of the fore- most scholars of the world. It does not plan, however, to compete with the com- mercial publisher, since its chief func- tion will be the issuance of books not commercially profitable." The Princeton Press, housed and equipped in 1911 by gift of Charles Scribner, '75, was organ- ized under the act providing for "asso- ciations not for pecuniary profit," and specifically chartered "to operate a print- ing and publishing plant for the promo- tion of education and scholarship." Yet how much can be accomplished under this severe programme is shown by that older establishment, the University of Chicago Press. Its assortment of astro- nomical and mathematical signs, special type-setting apparatus, with fonts of Syriac, Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, and Ethiopic characters, were the jealous pride of President Harper in the 'nine- tics. Many of Its 26 widely circulated journals would be impossible to any but an endowed press. Such recent titles among its 650 books as Loeb's "M istic Conception of Life," McLaughlin's "The Courts, the Constitution, and the Parties," Bronson's "American Poems,"
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258 T1 li e !N" a t i o ii [Vol. 98, No. 2541 and others are calculated to excite envy in the ordinary publisher. The publica- tions of the Yale Press are of sufficient general interest to repay general adver- tising. Yet these works involve no de- parture from the original purpose. As to the value of such a Press to the university world, it lies necessarily in scholarly publications, and in giving permanence to the results of scientific research. To set down the function of a university press as "relating the hu- manities to the general national life," is largely mistaken. There is no end to the difficulties the faculties would meet if they began to seek mouthpieces of this colossal sort. The presses are main- tained to encourage the investigation of fact, by taking works which the ordi- nary book-world refuses, and yet giving them a wider currency than they would get in the ordinary form. Exact scholar- ship of a petty, burrowing kind has al- ready stimulation enough; but the uni- versity presses, standing midway be- tween such scholarship and the writing of books for the commercial public, can lift it to a higher, freer range. They can be invaluable, moreover, in encour- aging specialized magna opera that would otherwise be unattempted. An exhaustive grammar of the English lan- guage, for example, is a desideratum ad- mitted to have been stifled by the cer- tain prospect of refusal on any terms by any publisher. It would be unfor- tunate, as President Hadley implied, if in the whole mass a book of wide intel- lectual appeal did not often crop out. Works that active and able professors are always producing for the general publisher might be included for the spe- cific purpose of inviting general attention to the lists of the university presses. It is true that the university reviews interpret their mission broadly, and have even been stated to fill the gap with the cultivated public which the "popular" magazine has left. But their distinction from the journals of schol- arship has always been clear. They print formal essays of a critical charac- ter, and exploit a field of abstract thought. They stand apart from the university presses, which have to repre- sent not only the guardianship of know- ledge and the critical reworking of ideas, but the search for concrete, bur- ied truth. Properly, of course, the re- views are simply one phase of the gen- eral university press movement; the al- liance between learning and printing must take on many sides. It is this whole alliance which is significant of the awakening of our universities to their opportunity to disseminate learn- ing far beyond the campus, "not merely from time to time, but all the time." SPADES AND SHOVELS. The "repeal of reticence" Miss Rep- plier calls it in her Atlantic paper, this frenzy of plain speech on subjects prop- er and improper — mostly improper — that characterizes public discussion to- day. At one end of the scale the col- lege professor who believes sincerely in the necessity of teaching a certain amount of sex hygiene to children; at the other end of the scale the Broadway manager who has capitalized the broth- el; between the two a whole army of writers, speakers, educators, agitators, more or less intelligent, more or less sincere, who have been working on the single assumption that the evils of the world need only to be sufficiently adver- tised to be cured — this is the situation. Let the reader consult Miss Repplier's extremely forceful statement for him- self. He will disagree with some of the things she has to say. He will agree with most of the things she has to say. We have little doubt that he will agree with her main thesis, which is that noise and progress are not synonymous; that the Puritanism which is so bitter- ly flagellated was a Puritanism of utter- ance which did not stand in the way of a fair appreciation of the facts of life; and that in general the trumpeted reve- lations of social evils are largely the emphatic way a young generation al- ways has of announcing the discovery of things which their fathers have known all along. But for the moment we are less concerned with the amount of good and bad involved in the abolition of reticence than with the causes that have brought about this remarkable change in our habits of speech. The emphatic note, or the hysterical note, as one may choose to call it, was struck first some ten years ago by the "muckrakers." We use the term in no invidious sense. There are few people nowadays who will deny that, along with a vast amount of exaggeration, the great magazine crusade which began roughly with Mr. Lincoln Steffens's "Shame of the Cities" has been productive of some good. How far the magazine crusade was merely a symptom of the Social Awakening we now speak of, how much it was an accelerating cause, it would be difficult to determine. The point is that in the discussion of public problems the academic note made way for the loud note. The high pitch may have been due to sincere conviction, or it may have been merely blatancy, as with "Frenzied Finance." But the key for public discussion had been set. Later the note grew more and more shrill, un- til, in accordance with the law of phy- sics, it resolved itself into silence. But at the beginning there was a certain justification. In speaking of bosses, of grafters, of the entire family of leeches that had attached itself to the govern- ment of our cities and States, there was an excuse for not mincing words. The habit of loud speech received a new impetus from the woman move- ment— suffrage in its narrower aspect, feminism in its broader connotations. The application of the muckraking rhet- oric to feminism was all the more nat- ural because the woman movement is so intimately a part of the social agita- tion which opened out of the campaign against political misrule. It was impos- sible to speak of bosses and political cor- ruption without speaking of the vicious saloon and the brothel, those twin sup- ports of bossism. To what extent our reticence in the terminology of sex is due to the very genius or the English language, and to what extent it is due to Puritanism, hardly matters; the fact remains that where other nations used plain terms we were in the habit of em- ploying euphemisms or circumlocutions. We spoke— and for that matter still speak very often — of "unfortunates," of "the social evil," of "resorts." But in the striving for more and more emphasis on the one hand, and on the other in the great numbers — young men and women for the most part — who gave themselves sincerely to social ser- vice, the straight-from-the-elbow vocabu- lary was bound to make its way. Young men and women who went down to the tenement districts, who began to con- cern themselves with nurseries, settle- ment houses, dance halls, moving-pic- ture theatres, with the entire life of the poor among whom the reticences, the privacies, and the delicacies of life are apt to undergo considerable modifi- cation, naturally acquired the babi1 i
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March 12, 1 9 1 4] Tli e Natio ri 259 plain speech. To the degree in which the lives of these young women from the well-to-do families became less shel- tered, their vocabulary became less shel- 1 1 riil. Thus the way was prepared for tin- technical discussions of problems of sex morality and of race improvement. Behind such specific causes working for the abolition of reticence is the out- standing feature ot our national psy- chology, our genius for throwing our- Belves with unrestrained enthusiasm and credulity into what we are doing. The may not last; it usually does not last, because of this very excess of energy we apply; but the habit is there. we are a nation of business men, other nations are accustomed to call us a practical people; what they mean is that we are an intense people. We work hard and play hard and break clown from overplay as from overwork. We are not practical. We are a nation of believers in patent medicines and panaceas. The latest thing that comes along is sure to regenerate the world. It may be eugenics, it may be the Boy Scouts, it may be the direct primary, it may be grated peanuts. Grated peanuts are not merely a food; taken in sufficient quantities they will make us successful in business, purify our politics, adjust our industrial problems, and solve the servant question. OFFENSIVE COLLEGE "LOYALTY." The reasons why a man should have a feeling of gratitude, or even devotion, to his college are so plain that they do not need to be stated. To put it on the lowest ground, he is a beneficiary of the institution in which he was educated. What he got was furnished to him at less than cost. The opportunities which he enjoyed represented charity, and pos- sibly sacrifice, on the part of those who endowed his college; or else a free gift from the State. To be insensible to all this would argue him an ingrate. It is no particular credit to a graduate to be what is called "loyal" to his Alma Mater. The virtue, ir it be a virtue at all, belongs to the negative class. To display it is no merit, though to be without it would be a disgrace. In a true and just sense, also, a col- lege man should cherish grateful re- membrance of his teachers. They did their best for him ungrudgingly, often, as he is compelled to admit on later re- flection, having to work on most un- promising and refractory material. In opening his mind and enlightening his ignorance, they did him as great a ser- vice as it often falls to one man to be- stow upon another. Not to have a prop- er sentiment in return for all this would be most unworthy. Something of this must have been in Herder's mind when he said that a scholar who attacks his teacher "bears Nemesis on his back and the sign of reprobation on his forehead." All right-minded college men agree to that. In this and many other significa- tions of the word "loyalty" that might be mentioned, they fully concede and act upon their duty to be loyal to their college. There are, however, certain extensions or perversions of the idea which they balk at and resent. One of the worst of them is the fantastic notion of college "loyalty" which has grown up in con- nection with undergraduate athletics. It has often been exposed. The Head- master of Phillips Andover recently wrote about it in the Atlantic with both wonder and severe condemnation. How does it come about that a set of ordi- narily decent and manly and honorable young fellows apply an utterly false and indefensible moral standard to athlet- ics? How is it that they will condone and even applaud trickery, wink at cheating, and keep silent in the pres- ence of manifest falsehood? Why, it is because they are bidden to do so in a spirit of intense loyalty to their school or college. And, of course, the thing spreads into graduate life. An alumnus is looked upon as a poor creature who will not go and cheer himself into a frenzy, and chill himself into a rheu- matism or a fever, at one of the "big games." Upon another strange form of gradu- ate college loyalty we feel bound to say a word. Every alumni association must know the type of man we mean. He is the graduate, of anywhere from five to twenty-five years' standing, who makes himself a perpetual nuisance and of- fence through excess of what he calls "loyalty." In his case, it moves him to be forever babbling about the "dear old college," or else calling upon everybody he meets to yell for the class of 1890. He infests college reunions, clapping strangers on the back and putting his arms about college mates, and shouting that he never can forget the time when Jones made a hit with the bases full. At every college dinner he gets tremen- dously effusive, as a result either of drink or a rush of sappiness to the head, and makes a speech declaring that if he could only let you see his heart you would see that all his blood ran blue, or white and green, or orange and black, as the case may be. This terrible college loyalist is the getter-up of all kinds of uncouth and impossible alumni "move- ments." He is all the time proposing new funds, or passing around subscrip- tion-blanks, or writing impudent letters to people whom he does not know de- manding that they join his particular organization, or send him a thumping contribution, all for the greater glory of the college to which he is so insufferably loyal. He is ordinarily so dull and thick- skinned, this type of graduate, that it is almost hopeless to seek to wake him to his folly, or make him see how offen- sive he renders himself to his fellow- alumni. But if any word of ours could penetrate the dark of his intellect and his sensibility, we could wish that it might rouse him to perceive that a man who has nothing to brag of but his col- lege degree has a poor excuse for boast- ing. If he learned anything worth while during his college course, he should have learned not to behave like a boun- der; and if he has not learned anything since — as he usually makes it too plain that he has not — he ought somehow to be made to feel that his insistent and protesting identification of himself and all his interests with the college through which he somehow scrambled, is not the highest compliment to his Alma Mater. There was a time in this country when the name Loyalists meant something hateful. Such some forms of loud-sound- ing college loyalty might easily become. MISCELLANEOUS GERMAN BOOKS. It seems rather early to be writing the memoirs of Young Germany. But since Germany has abandoned the tradi- tion of honoring its poets only after their death and is celebrating their fif- tieth birthdays, why should not these poets begin their reminiscences as soon as they like, unless on the ground that age brings perspective? Max Dauthen- doys "Gedankengut aus meinen Wan- derjahren" (Munich: Albert Langen) suffers from the short-distance view of forty-six years. Yet it is an interesting attempt; for the author's recollections
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260 T lie Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2541 are more than autobiographical, they trace the evolution of his generation, spiritual and aesthetic. The thread that runs from Flaischlen's "Martin Lehn- hardt" and Hauptmann's "Einsame Menschen" to the first part of Dauthen- dey's memoirs is readily recognized. His was not an individual but a typical case. Religious doubts tortured, not a few of the young men in the last quar- ter of the century, before a reading of life based upon science set their minds at rest. The conclusions at which Dauthendey arrived under the influence of his philosophical friends differ little from the monistic philosophy which has taken the place of dogmatic creeds among the intellectuals of his genera- tion. But there are many pages in the two volumes in which the individual and not the type speaks, and these pages have an intimate charm. Dauthendey's strong attachment to the soil of his fathers, his love of his moth- er tongue, his faith in the love of wo- man and the durability of the marriage tie, are expressed with simplicity and sincerity. Nor has his love of home a note of that nationalism which by over- emphasis becomes repulsive. His first impressions of Italy, based upon a very brief visit to Venice, are puerile. Eng- land he visited with a more open mind and in a more receptive mood. Scan- dinavia won his sympathies by subtle beauties of nature and a certain freedom of line in the physical build of the peo- ple as in their habits of life and mode of thought; eventually it also captured his heart. But his attitude towards France and the French is perhaps the most surprising: it has no trace of the pride of the conqueror, which still col- ors much that is written by Germans about France. He is not uncritical, but he refrains from censure. A journey to Greece makes very fascinating reading. The voyage around the world is rather briefly disposed of. Not the least inter- esting features of the work are the refer- ences to his contemporaries, native and foreign; his impressions of Richard Dehmel, Frank Wedekind, Stanislaus Przybyszewski, Ola Hansson, Laura Marholm, Ellen Key, Obstfelder, Strind- berg, Munch, and others. He draws their portraits in few words, yet suc- ceeds in making them live. Although he dwells in the earlier part of the work upon the systematic manner in which he tried to school himself in the aesthet- ic principle of his generation, to see things as they are and record them as he had seen them, the two volumes are singularly free from the objectionable features one meets in the writings of other adepts of the naturalistic creed. The theological and clerical contro- versies associated with the name of Jatho are revived by the publication of a book, entitled "Zur Freiheit seid ihr berufen" (Jena: Eugen Diederichs), with a preface by his son, Carl Oskar Jatho, beginning with this significant quotation: "Er suchte eine heilige Welt, nicht eine heilige Kirche." The book contains sixteen sermons, the first be- ing the one delivered by the famous pas- tor in Trinitatis Church in Cologne, five days before he was removed from the pulpit by the judgment of the Evangeli- cal Synod of Prussia. The others were given in various meeting-halls in Bar- men, Elberfeld, and Cologne in the two years before death claimed him. The publisher deserves credit for having undertaken the reproduction of the ser- mons from the shorthand notes of a stu- dent, which the deceased had pronounc- ed absolutely trustworthy. A book of unique interest, not only for the general reader but also for the stu- dent of the Reformation, is entitled "Aus Luther's Heimat" (Eugen Diederichs), and has for its author Georg Putzke, a native of Eisleben, who has illustrated the book with most attractive pen-and- ink sketches of his own. He treats Eis- leben as a city of monuments, devotes a chapter to the Luther landmarks of the town, to the castle of Mansfeld, which suggests comparisons with Heidel- berg, to the tombstones of the Mansfeld country, to the "Hausmarken" which, with the family arms and the signatures of the artists and artisans, are found on many tombs and houses, especially in Eisleben. There is also a chapter on the "Eisleber Steinbibel," which deals with the twenty-nine sandstone tablets in the Annenkirche, the work of a sculp- tor of the sixteenth century, represent- ing scenes from the Scriptures. Other chapters recount tales of provincial folk- lore. The book is a mine of suggestion for the historian and archaeologist and of information for the mere tourist. One closes the book with the impression that, quite regardless of its close association with Luther and the Reformation, Eis- leben is worthy for picturesqueness and unadulterated medievalism to be rank- ed next to the popular Rothenburg ob der Tauber. Another volume which must have been a welcome publication of the holiday sea- son is the "Bayernbuch" (AlbertLangen), a book of five hundred pages, with a nosegay of old-fashioned garden-flowers as a cover design. It is an anthology of Bavarian authors covering ten centuries and presenting one hundred names. The editors, Ludwig Thoma and Georg Queri, do not attempt to classify the authors according to any literary stan- dard or any label whatsoever, and have arranged them alphabetically. It is a rather appropriate coincidence, however, that the first author, Engelhart von Adelnburg, is also one of the oldest, and that the second to last selection is by "Meister Kuonrat von Wiirzeburc." The student of German literature will be surprised to find in the book a number of names not especially associated with Bavaria, among the older writers Wolf- ram von Eschenbach, Nithart, Tanhuser, and Rosenplut. A most extraordinary work is a small, illustrated volume, "Ira Palast des Minos," by "Sir Galahad" (Albert Lan- gen). The author's familiarity with the work of British and American archaeolo- gists and his admiration for Arthur Evans make it a unique tribute to An- glo-Saxon research. But apart from that it stands in a place by itself in the litera- ture of archaeology. For scientists delv- ing through the dust of ages are rarely able to shake off a certain traditional dryasdust manner. This is the special merit of "Sir Galahad"; he has produced as readable and attractive a book on the subject as if he had indulged in a brilliant causerie on some vital problem. For he reconstructs before the reader's eyes the world of those Greeks that lived long before Hellas and Mycenae, three thousand years before Christ, a dark- skinned, long-headed, beautiful race which inhabited the Mediterranean ba- sin since the stone age and whose pal- aces and homes, tools and games we have known only for a few years. The initial sentence gives a fair idea of the original point of view and of the style: Das Marchenbuch ist der Baedecker des Archaologen. Wo Tochter aus dem Blut der Sonne im Haupt der Krote den Smaragd erlosen — wo Holde mit Unholden ringen — Taten tosen um Blut und Gold — harrt immer ein Wirkliches der Enter- dung. "Sir Galahad" points to Schliemann, who, intoxicated with the reading of Homer, set out to discover the Homeric world, and remarks that Arthur Evans, too, read Kingsley's tale of the birth of Zeus in the Dictaean cave before he set out for Knossos and began to unearth the palace of Minos. "In der Geographie ist jedes Marchen verlasslich wie eine Generalsstabskarte" and others are ap- parently clever paradoxes, but contain great truths. One could go on quoting indefinitely from this book, rich in information and in suggestion. That the author who hides his identity under the pseudonym "Sir Galahad" completed it at Pebble Beach Lodge, California, is likely to whet curiosity. A. von Ende. NEWS FOR BIBLIOPHILES. Every scrap or detail bearing remotely or nearly on Charles Lamb's life or writings is of interest to his admirers, of whom there are doubtless as many in America as in the land of his "kindly engendure." In this belief, I offer the fol- lowing report of a law-suit in connec- tion with the "Tales from Shakespeare" — the first fruits of the joint literary labors of Charles Lamb and his sister. It is copied from a manuscript in my posses- sion, which, I should judge, was meant for publication; but whether it was printed is unknown to me. There is no
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March 12, 19 14] The Nation 261 Indication as to the name of the report- er. Before transcribing the account, it may be well to preface it with some remarks on the "Tales" while they were still in the making. The first reference to them is in a letter written by Charles Lamb to Man- ning shortly after the latter's departure for the East, "to plant the cross of Christ among barbarous Pagan anthropophagi," as Lamb, with characteristic inexactness, puts it. The date of the letter is May 10, 1806. Lamb writes: "She [Mary] says you saw her writings about the other day, and she wishes you should know what they are. She is doing for Godwin's book- seller twenty of Shakspear's plays, to be made into Children's Tales. Six are already done by her, to wit, 'The Tem- pest,' 'Winter's Tale,' 'Midsummer Night,' 'Much Ado,' "Two Gentlemen of Verona,' and 'Cymbeline.' The 'Merchant of Ven- ice' is in forwardness. I have done 'Othello' and 'Macbeth,' and mean to do all the Tragedies. I think it will be pop- ular among the little people. Besides money. It is to bring in 60 guineas. Mary has done them capitally I think you'd think. These are humble amusements we propose." Later, on June 2, Mary tells her friend, Sarah Stoddart, afterwards the wife of William Hazlitt, that her Tales "are to be published in separate story books, I mean in single stories, like the children's Ut- ile shilling books. . . . Charles has written Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, and has begun Hamlet; you would like to see us, as we often sit, writing on one table (but not on one cushion sitting) like Hermia and Helena in the Midsummer's Night's Dream; or rather like an old lit- erary Darby and Joan: I taking snuff, and he groaning all the while, and saying he can make nothing of it, which he always says till he has finished, and then he finds that he has made something of it." Early in July they have only six to do to complete their task, and the writing of these is to occupy Charles's "holidays" — "all to be spent at home." On December 5 Lamb informs Man- ning that the Tales "are near coming out, and Mary has begun a new work," and on January 29, 1807, the work in two volumes is sent off to the Wordsworths at Grasmere. Lamb's comment is as fol- lows: "I am answerable for Lear, Mac- beth, Timon, Romeo, Hamlet, Othello, for occasionally a tail piece or correction of Grammar, for none of the cuts and all of the spelling. The rest is my sis- ter's: We think Pericles of hers the best and Othello of mine — but I hope all have some good. 'As You Like It' we like least." Then, in a postscript: "I had al- most forgot. My part of the preface begins in the middle of a sentence, in last but one page after a colon, thus: — which if they he happily so done &c. The former part hath a more feminine turn and does hold me up something as an instructor to young Ladies: but upon my modesty's honour I wrote it not." Several of the Tales were printed sep- arately— how many, and when first pub- lished, cannot be stated positively. Four were offered for sale in Lon- don last April by Messrs. Maggs Brothers. These were "Timon of Ath- ens," 1808; "King Lear," 1808; "Romeo and Juliet," 1808, and "The Merchant of Venice," 1809, and they were priced at £125, £105, £52.10, and £105, respective- ly. Some ten years or so previously, four others were noted in a catalogue of an- other London dealer, viz.: "The Winter's Tale," 1809; "Othello," year not stated; "A Midsummer Night's Dream," 1811; and "Cymbeline," 1811. These four Tales had been bound in one volume. Each one in both of the foregoing series contained three plates, whereas when the "Tales" were issued in 1807 in two volumes, only one appeared with each tale. In addition to the above-mentioned copies, seven oth- ers are in the possession of Mr. T. J. Wise, a well-known English collector. It would be interesting to know if others are in the collections of American biblio- philes. The first publisher of the "Tales," both separately and in the collected edi- tion, was William Godwin, who also pro- duced all the other juvenile books writ- ten by Charles and Mary Lamb. Some years following the first publication, the unsold copies of the two-volume edition were handed over, along with the copy- right, to Baldwin & Craddock, who were the plaintiffs in the law-suit, the account of which is now given. It is not men- tioned by Talfourd or Procter and does not appear to have been known to Lamb's recent biographers or editors. The legal proceedings are not, so far as I have been able to discover, referred to in the Law Reports of the day, and only the barest notice of the trial was made in the London Times. The MS., which fills four small quarto pages, is headed: JOINT AUTHORSHIP. LAMB'S TALES FROM SHAKESPBAR. BALDWIN & CRADDOCK AGAINST TILT. A case or considerable Interest as re- gards the rights of joint authors came on before the Vice-Chancellor on Thursday [August 11, 1836]. The facts, so far as we could catch them, were these: In the year 1806-7 the late William Godwin, who then carried on business as a Book- seller in Skinner Street, published a work bearing the title of "Tales from Shake- spear, designed for the use of young persons, by Charles Lamb." In the pref- ace to the work, the Author states that In the tales taken from the Tragedies, Shakespear's own words have been used with very little alteration, but that in those from the Comedies "I found myself scarcely ever able to turn his words into the narrative form &c". When Godwin's stock was disposed of, Messrs. Baldwin & Craddock became the purchasers of the copies on hand and copyright of these Tales, though it does not appear that Godwin held any legal assignment of the latter from the Author. Charles Lamb died in December, 1834. In the early part of the present year Mr. Tilt deter- mined on adding the "Tales from Shake- spear" to an elegant series of the Eng- lish Classics which he is now publishing at a low price. When the work was in course of printing, Mr. Moxon, the Book- seller who acts as trustee under the will of Charles Lamb, heard of it, and called at Mr. Tilt's shop, but not finding him at home, left a message with his shop- man that the copyright of the work had not expired inasmuch as the whole of the tales from the Comedies were written by Miss Lamb, and that therefore by pub- lishing the work he would render him- self liable to an Injunction. The work | was notwithstanding published In the month of June last at one-third of the price of the edition published by Messrs. Baldwin & Co. Mr. Knight, who appeared for the plaintiffs, moved the Court to grant in- junction to restrain the defendant from proceeding with the sale of the said work. The case was indeed so very clear that he did not see upon what ground the application could be opposed. In sup- port of the application two affidavits were put in, one by Messrs. Baldwin & Co., proving that they had purchased the copyright of the work from Godwin and the other by Mr. Moxon that the exceed- ingly delicate state of Miss Lamb ren- dered it impossible to procure any affi- davit from her without the greatest risk, but that he had been assured by the late Charles Lamb that his sister was the Author of the Comedies and that he — Mr. M. — had given notice as above stated to Mr. Tilt "several months ago." Messrs. Baldwin & Co., who held no legal assignment of the Copyright of the work from Charles Lamb, have since the pub- lication of the edition which formed the subject of the present motion, obtained for the sum of fifteen pounds a convey- ance of the same from Miss Lamb. Mr. Turner, who appeared for the de- fendant, contended that the work having been published for thirty years as Charles Lamb's, and that Miss Lamb having, it might fairly be presumed, parted with her interest in the work to her brother, so as to vest the copyright in him, that in the absence of all notice to the contrary it was not competent for her to now come forward and seek trevi manu to restrain his client from its publication. He re- ferred to the decision of the Court in the cases Piatt v Butten, and Rundle v Mur- ray, in both of which the works which formed the ground of these actions hav- ing been permitted by the authors to be published as the property of others for years, the Court refused to interfere. He questioned indeed if the facts above stated did not amount to an abandonment of Miss Lamb's copyright at any rate they formed sufficient ground for the court to refuse the present application. Mr. Knight replied. His Honour in giving judgment said that the work having been published for so long a period as the unquestioned pro- duction of Charles Lamb, the defendant had a perfect right to avail himself of the work on the expiration of his— Charles Lamb's— copyright. Now as it did not appear that notice of Miss Lamb s claim had been given till the defendant had gone to the expense of purchasing types and paper for printing this edition —for he could not allow of such loose- ness of expression as the "several months ae-o" used in the affidavit— he could not interfere in the matter. Injunction Re- fused S. BUTTERWORTH. Correspondence A REINCARNATION OF TOUCH- STONE. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: It is a remark of an excellent critic (Prof. C. T. Winchester, in "A Group of English Essayists") that a good deal of Touchstone lives again in Charles Lamb. The remark is arresting and, upon second thought, convincing. For Touchstone was no mere clown. He was philosopher as well as jester. Whimsical, sympathetic, eccentric in phrase, he cap- tured even the melancholy Jaques — who says, if the text be correct at this point, "Good my lord, like this fellow." And the Duke replies, "I like him very well." Truly, Touchstone and Lamb were both preeminently likable men. The acid of their wit never curdled the milk of human kindness in them.
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262 T h e 1ST a t i o ri [Vol. 98, No. 2541 Lamb would not have been offended by iiic comparisons, [ndeed, on many an oc- casion he deliberately sel out to play the clown. lie never made any effort to please Strangers whom lie disliked, and was consequently often taken for a mere buffoon. Carlyle's cruelly Inaccurate ver- dict upon him, especially the phrase "ghastly make-believe of wit," is notor- ious. There was little in common be- tween Carlyle and Lamb. Ella would probably have admitted that this Cale- donian was one of his "imperfect sym- pathies." Consider, too. Lamb's treat- ment of the unfortunate controller of stamps who persisted in asking Words- worth foolish questions. It would have seemed to a stranger both presumptuous and irresponsible. As the controller gravely inquired whether .Milton was not "a great genius," Lamb, snatching a can- dle, cried with mock politeness: "Sir, will you allow me to examine your phreno- logical development?" Wordsworth's "my dear Charles!" failed to subdue his risibility, and he had finally to be con- ducted from the room, still murmuring his longing- to examfne the gentleman's bumps. This is the true Touchstone vein. For the moment the clown seems to have ex- tinguished the philosopher; but turn to the "Essays of Elia," and the latter re- appears. The essay in which Laml) most resembles Touchstone the present writer believes to be "The Two Races of Men," in which the author discusses in his hap- piest vein the borrowers and the lenders, designating the former as "the great race." Such a passage as the following is decidedly reminiscent of Touchstone: He applieth the lene tormentum of a pleasant look to your purse, which to that gentle warmth expands her silken leaves, as naturally as the cloak of the traveller, for which sun and wind con- tended! He is the true Propontic which never ebbeth ! The sea which taketh handsomely at each man's hand. In vain the victim whom he delighteth to honor struggles with destiny; he is in the net. Lend, therefore, cheerfully, O man or- dained to lend — that thou lose not in the end, with thy worldly penny, the rever- sion promised. The love of whimsical phrase exhibited in this and in most of Tomb's essays is, though individual, not dissimilar to Touchstone. And Lamb was inordinately fond of seventeenth-century English. Al- though he writes intentionally a mixed style, for humorous purposes, there is a strong flavor of the antique. There was nothing ancient about Lamb's humor, however, except his dic- tion and style. No man's humor is more thoroughly individual, more thoroughly an effluence of his own personality. And so with Touchstone. Nevertheless, in his courtship of Audrey, "a poor virgin, sir, an Ill-favored thins, sir, but mine own," he might be replaced by Lamb with scarcely a jar, so similar are their quiz- zical natures. Lamb's humorous remarks on "The Behaviour of Married People" are well known, as should be also his amusement upon watching his friend Hazlitt's wedding, when fie was so over- come with mirth as to incur danger of being removed from the church. Touchstone, not being a principal char- acter in "As You Like It," is not drawn at sufflcienl length to enable one to com- pare him with Lamb fully; but the like- ness is in several respects surprising. The affection in which the clown is held Shows that he possesses an unusually sympathetic nature; and this, of course;, Is a famous trait of Lamb's. In other circumstances it might have been more fully depicted in Touchstone, but in "As You Like It" there is no occasion for this. He is a faithful companion to Rosalind, and especially to ("elia, but no sentiment is developed on the subject, de- spite their dependence on his protection in their flight from the court. Touch- stone's chivalry is, like Lamb's, unassum- ing. There is one interesting contrast: Touchstone seems quite in harmony with the forest of Arden; but Lamb, a Lon- doner born and bred, cared little for the country. His comments on such a place as Arden would have been distinctly worth while. Touchstone's remark upon arriving at the forest is about what we might imagine Lamb as uttering in a similar situation: "Now am I in Arden, the more fool I. When I was at home, I was in a better place, but travellers must l<e content." In his letters he perhaps comes even closer to Touchstone than in his writings for the public eye. They exhibit much of the clown, thus proving that this was always a central element in Lamb. Life was a precious serious business to him, with a mad sister on his hands; but he contrived to regard it usually as a jester's court. And if" any one objects to con- sidering Lamb as a clown or jester, ob- jects to comparing him to Touchstone, let that person read some comments on Touchstone towards the close of "As You Like It," after he has been analyzing the "lie seven times removed" — a bit of phil- osophizing quite in Elia's vein. Jaques, the Hazlitt of the play, says: "Is not this a rare fellow, my lord? He's as good at anything, and yet a fool." And the Duke replies: "He uses his folly like a stalking-horse and under presentation of that he shoots his wit." When we think of Lamb's mournful jest, "The wind is tempered to the shorn Lambs," written to a friend after one of Mary's homecomings from her periodical visits to an insane asylum, how vividly does the Touchstone element appear in him! To these two indomitable optim- ists, the one fictitious, the other real, everything was opportunity for mirth. Hakkv t. Baker New York. December '<■ CONSISTENCY. To the Editor ok The Nation: Sib: in your Issue of February 26, under the caption "Bristow vs. Common- Sense," you loin Senator Owen in point- il "what everybody in his senses knows to in- true, thai there are many things in the pi omiscuous and has- tily concocted deliverances of platforms which cannot be thought of as binding the party to a given course of action in the future, no matter what may happen." This, to my mind, is contrary to all your previous conclusions on the subject When William Howard Taft was Presi- dent your attacks for his failure to re- duce the tariff, as he had promised in his platform, were continuous. You were quite right in doing this if you really be- lieved it, but the situation was decidedly harder for President Taft, with a Con- gress frankly hostile to him, than it is for President Wilson to-day, with a Con- gress generously favorable towards him. Then, too, you have forgotten your re- peated attacks on former President Roosevelt. You have always insisted that he should have uncompromisingly sup- ported any issue advocated in his pre- election campaigns. Even when he is on his vacation in South America you are eager to reveal some discrepancy in two consecutive words he may breathe. Imag- ine the language of protest in your es- teemed columns had Theodore Roosevelt dared to repudiate any minor statement put forth in his platform! And yet you coincide with the words that "the idea of fettering a party for all time [by prom- ises embodied in its platform] is the height of absurdity." I quite agree with you in your judg- ment that a party must not be held too closely to the words issued in its political planks, but I find it amusing to note the bold inconsistency in your vacillating de- mands on Woodrow Wilson and your iron-bound demands on Theodore Roose- velt. I am not criticising your views on this subject, but I do believe that con- sistency should not be sacrificed on the altar of partisan enthusiasm. Curt H. Reisinger. New York, March ::. WESLEY'S WORDS. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: I am sure that not all readers of the Nation will accept as satisfactory the explanation made in your last week's is- sue by Mr. Sherman of his attribution to Wesley of the sentiment, "Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven," nor aside from this quotation will all accept his comparison of Wesley with Cobbett as happy. Doubtless, all strenuous lives have something in common, but it seems to me unfair to refer to Wesley the well- known quotation from Milton's Satan and place him in comparison with such a man as Cobbett, even if it can be proved that in a single instance he applied these words to himself. The two men may have been equally masterful, but the key- note of Wesley's life was service, while that of Cobbett was selfishness, and I am sure that whatever Wesley's faults or however absolute his rule, his disposition to serve was supreme. All historians, Including Professor Winchester, quoted by Mr. Sherman, bear out this conten- tion. But the only authority we have tor supposing thai Weslej ever applied the words Of Satan to himself is an obsolete pamphlet of 1792, by the Lev. Alexander (lordon, quoted in the Dictionary of Na- tional Biography. I am quite certain thai Several mil- lions of Wesley's followers, comprising 1 :,i bodj of Protestants In \mm lea, would count it more appropriate that. If the words of Satan were to be used to characterize Cobbett, thej should be
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March 12, 1914] The Nation 263 quoted from their usual source, rather than referred to Wesley on so slender authorlty, and thai candid and Intelligent 1 other afliliations, Including Mr. Sherman, will accept this as a not un- reasonable attitude of mind. EVBRBTT (). KlSK. Boston, March '/. UNWELCOME EVIDENCE FOR IM- MORTALITY. To the Editor op The Nation: 8m: In the minds of most people the belief in personal immortality rests chiefly upon two foundations: the teach- ings of Jesua and His own resurrection; and a more or less positive conviction thai the conservation of moral and spir- itual eni 1 mands an opportunity for ■ "ii itj beyond this present life. To be- lievers in immortality it might seem that any kind of proof would be welcome. It possibly, therefore, sounds a little ungra- cious to speak of unwelcome arguments for a proposition which is by no means universally accept* d. The recent utterances of Sir Oliver and the more recent death of Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace have brought to the front a so-called scientific argument for immortality which bids us accept the revelations of the mediums as evidence that personality is continued after death. We are told that if these leaders of phys- ical and biological science are convinced of the truth of these revelations, the rest of us ought, joyfully and unquestioning- ly, to fall in line. Much is made of the splendid scientific skill of Sir Oliver Lodge which has been brought to bear upon these problems, and it is pointed out that men of this class are unusually well fitted to pass judgment upon their claims to consideration. To me the point does not seem to be well taken. The training of a great physicist is not the best prepa- ration for undertaking investigations of this character. Let us consider, for ex- ample, one of the best-known investiga- tions of Sir Oliver Lodge. It is a dis- puted question in physics whether the earth drags the ether with it in its mo- tion through space, or whether the ether remains at rest relatively to the earth's motion. Professor Michelson's celebrated experiment tended to show that there was no relative motion. Sir Oliver Lodge, by rotating two metal disks in opposite directions, reached a different conclusion, because he found no shifting of the in- terference fringes. It is unnecessary to set down the technical details of these experiments, but attention is called to the fact that the experimenters placed absolute confidence in the conditions un- der which they were working. They may have, neglected certain factors in the ex- periments, or they may have reached conclusions based upon insufficient data, but when they asked Nature a straight- forward question they got a perfectly straightforward answer. It never en- tered their minds to question this. If scientists were obliged to add to the dif- ficulties of their investigations, the task of detecting whether or not Mother Na- ture might be playing tricks upon them, their labors would at once cease. Granted that spiritualistic phenomena are proved facts, no one would be better able than Sir Oliver Lodge to express the spirit forces in dynes, or to measure their rate of transmission in centimetres per second. But nothing in his training as a man of science would entitle him to be compared with a man like W. J. Burns in the matter of detecting possible fraud. An immortality of dignity and service has a well-nigh universal appeal. An im- mortality of table-tipping and joint- cracking and banjo-playing; an immor- tality of concern for the trifling and the frivolous, has, most fortunately, a limit- ed appeal. We are justified, then, in re- ferring to such purported evidence for human immortality as unwelcome. For the dignified veiled picture of a future life which Jesus gave us, we should find little to substitute which would add to human knowledge or human happiness. James S. Stevens. University uf Maine, Orono, Jie., January 30. must be provided. It is respectfully sug- gested that upon an appointed day — to be known perhaps as Village Beautifica- tion Day — each student of the public schools be requested to bring a board or nail or material suitable for the appli- cation of paint; that on such day a citi- zens' committee provide for the erection and maintenance of as many signboards as may be required to make the town truly attractive. With this aid it would no doubt be possible to secure the fur- ther cooperation of certain of the na- tional advertisers who profess to favor the outdoor advertising methods. Harry W. Frantz. Stanford University, March 0. Literature BILLBOARDS AND ATTRACTIVE- NESS. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: Your recent editorial on "Village Improvement" certifies, quite correctly, to the "dreariness of most Western, Atlan- tic, and Southern villages." The methods you suggest as likely to better this con- dition do not, however, include that most practicable means of village beautifica- tion — the extension of the signboard sys- tem. Who that has witnessed the civic trans- formation that has been wrought in re- cent years through the multiplied use of billboards for advertising purposes has failed to note the increasing attractive- ness of the average American city? Wherever the eye rests is the imposing, compelling, gratifying work of the sign painter or billposter. Vacant lots or naked brick walls are rarely visible. Facts, and illustrations of soaps, cigars, subdivisions, soubrettes, circuses, and what not, greet one everywhere. The weary commuter, homeward bound from his daily toil, sees from the car window not the scenery but the signs. He is delighted and refreshed, and feels that urban existence is not without its aesthet- ic charms. But in the village, be it Skykomish or Baraboo, Palatka or Monrovia, the sign- board has not to a like extent contribut- ed to the gratification of eye and mind. True the great tobacco companies have not failed to provide the smaller centres with their ten-by-twenty-foot patronage (generally facing the right-of-way for the benefit of railway passengers, how- ever), and every passing circus agent's car has fired a broadside of posters against defenceless barns (the idea must have originated with old P, T. Harnum — he of the "right idea"), but generally the billboards in small towns are not many in number or varied in interest. This deficiency must he remedied. The city should not monopolize the advantag- es of open-air advertising. Perhaps it is too much to request that the advertising agencies extend their lumber and paint propaganda into the smaller villages. And the country mer- chant can do little. Obviously, assistance COMMERCIALIZED LEXICOGRAPHY. New Standard Dictionary. One volume; nearly 3,000 pages; over 7,000 illustra- tions. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Co. $30. Whether well done or ill, this impos- ing volume must be conceded to mark an instructive stage in English lexicog- raphy. It shows wrought out to the very limits that conception of a dic- tionary which sets store by the treat- ing of a maximum of verbal items. With a thesaurus of the English language — construing "English" liberally to take in the various Latinate nomenclatures of science — it incorporates many thou- sand entries of the sort offered by vari- ous hand-books, viz., abbreviations, for- eign proverbs and phrases, mythological names, a gazetteer of place-names, and a biographical dictionary which, listing many names of living men, now pushes into the field of a "Who's Who." No sharp line, of course, can be drawn about the field of a dictionary. Its defi- nitions must, in the case of words mean- ing things or processes (c\ g., dynamo, lithography) overlap the field of the en- cyclopaedia; in the case of other words (e. g., names of knots) definitions must give way to pictures if any precise mean- ing is to be conveyed. Within this le- gitimate borderland the New Standard Dictionary has large assortments of in- formation effectively presented. Con- densed essays, such as appear at croqtu t, cross; tabulated classifications, such as enlarge upon dye, language ; diagrams, such as that showing the moves of chess-men; and excellent illustrations, some in colors, as at spectrum, all clari- fy terms that would get little from a bare lexical statement. So much of true dictionary work can be done by pictures and diagrams that it is regrettable to find many pages of valuable space given up to pictures merely catchy to the tin- critical eye. Thus, while the interesting terms plain hunt, hob, grandsirc, dotln< are left unintelligible for lack of a small chart of change-ringing, the quite self- defining term, steel construction, is
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264: The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2541 made a pretext for picturing the Wool- worth building, and full-page plates de- voted to safety devices, fire department, police and postal services, railroad and telegraph equipment seem to have stray- ed into the dictionary from the Sunday supplement. Such frankly popular features, of course, affect the plan of the book in no such radical way as does its claim to treat 450,000 terms. When in 1909 Web- ster's New International raised its total to 400,000, even the uncritical must have surmised that these mounting additions to the vocabulary represented not actual growth in the language, but mere inclu- sions from an indefinitely available fund — inclusions that will afford rivalry between dictionaries so long as their publishers can count on numerical to- tals to make a commercial appeal. This appeal, it is to be hoped, will get its reductio ad absurdum in the New Stan- dard. One need examine but three class- es of terms to see that they can swell the book's bulk without adding appre- ciably to its value. First, the Latin names of plant and animal species rep- resent at most but a selection from the lexicons of science; of orchidacew alone nearly 5,000 species can be listed when- ever a bigger showing is sought. Next, the free formatives anti-, contra-, pro-, pre-, re-, un-, -able, -less, -ize, etc., sup- ply "perpetual nonce-words" at will. The New Standard gives thirty-six columns of such words under un-, and the list might be doubled, if the mere fact of occurrence is to warrant their inclu- sion. And, third, the entering of phrases can go on so long as the verbal kaleido- scope holds out to turn! Many phrases, of course, are real sense-units, calling for definition. Thus, semicircular canal (overlooked by the Standard editors) has a specialized application in the anat- omy of the ear. But no such warrant can be shown for Japanese art, Italian opera; and one fails to see why, having accorded dictionary treatment to mod- erately heavy wood, education for ef- ficiency, our editors stopped short of moderate variable winds and votes for women. This indiscriminate glut- ting of the vocabulary may even conceal a failure to note useful additions to the language. Thus, while the Standard now incorporates the native Philippine words (anabo, a grass; anac, a son; anay, white ant; aral, to teach, etc.), which its supplement of 1903 listed in shoals, it has missed such genuine new words as cacogenics (answering to eugenics), cafeteria. It will, of course, be pleaded that such accretions, after all, do not impair the book's serviceableness to those whose concern is with literary English. The standard words of the language are all there in their places, and the other mat- ter one is free to skip. One must, in- deed, grant that if words are to be sought in it but once or twice a fort- night on the chance needs of a miscel- laneous reader, it matters less what their neighbors are on the dictionary page. Chaucer's athre, "in three direc- tions," though incongruously crowded among Athole, a district in Perthshire, Athor, the Egyptian goddess, Athos, Dumas's hero, and athrepsia, the dis- ease, is nevertheless accessible to a ran- dom and vagrant curiosity. But if the dictionary is to serve the language stu- dent and the writer, it cannot simply open up a heterogeneous welter amidst which the standard words apparent rari nantes. Students of a literary text can get no cumulative mastery of its diction, unless each turn to the dictionary brings up not only the one word sought, but a fringe of reinforcing impressions as to other words in the same field. The writ- er wants his word displayed with its cognates and derivatives, for these sug- gest by-senses and possibilities of phrasing. From such workers, a short experience of searching out their staples of mental exchange among gastropods, towns in Ohio, Biblical worthies, and zymotic diseases will draw the protest that the English language has here got lost in the ruck. The sheer numbers of items defined, moreover, leave little space for that kind of information which a dictionary should offer in untrammelled complete- ness. A treatise on words that is ex- pected to serve schools and colleges in the study of English must do for the lexical features of the language what an advanced grammar does for its syntax. It should aim, of course, to give a biog- raphy of each word. This, to be sure, is often something of a problem, since important words like cast, head, power, develop their meanings in no such chronological single file as appears in a column of definitions. But the mislead- ing serial treatment imposed by exigen- cies of printing can be offset by little prefatory analyses, as in the Oxford Dic- tionary, or by small diagrams such as Greenough and Kittredge's "Words and their Ways" suggests for power, treacle, showing where meanings have branched off simultaneously from a common point, or where they have alternated generalizing and specializing forces. Furthermore, it should give an abun- dance of illustrative quotations. A word does not get all its expressive value or its limitation conveyed by bare lexical statements; it must be seen in action. The dictionary, again, should apply to synonyms, perhaps also to philosophical words involving questions as to the na- ture of meaning, the results of such se- mantic work as that of K. O. Erdmann's "Bedeutung des Wortes." Finally, it should afford a view of the word's af- finities and special bearings: etymol- ogies should note its doublets (cross, crucial, crucifix, crusade, cruise, crux) ; definitions should take at least passing note of loci classici (as the Oxford Dic- tionary does under tell, for "Every shepherd tells his tale"), and of impor- tant translation-meanings, especially in the English Bible, as for sin, spirit, re- deemer, in Jonathan's "sin" (2 Sam. xiv, 38), "The Spirit of the Lord" that came upon Samson, and "I know that my redeemer liveth." With these considerations in mind one can quickly gauge the serviceableness of the New Standard in the field of word-study. Biographical treatment of the word it deliberately sacrifices for the sake of putting the chief current meanings first. Thus bedlam, for which the sense-development was (1) the Lon- don hospice of St. Mary of Bethlehem; (2) this hospice as an asylum for the insane; (3) any mad-house; (4) a tu- mult, the Standard treats in the sense- order (4), (3), (1 and 2). The end of setting the more important meanings in relief could surely be served better by the use of large and small type. Quota- tions, again, are sparse. Indeed, one can hardly proceed with this inquiry without noting the conception of lexi- cography betrayed by the managing edi- tor in his account of the treatment ot quotations in the Standard. In the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts for October 24, 1913, he says: With dictionaries immediately before him, usually seven in number, and other reference books available, he [the de- finer] created a definition that did not infringe the rights of any one of the books. . . . Next, quotations were selected to illustrate the various mean- ings of words. These quotations were verified and edited, then attached to the work of the definer. This procedure would actually invert the order of treatment by which sound definitions are made. Quotations are the fountain-source of all definitions. If the English lexicographer of to-day must work with the Oxford Dictionary before him, it is because that work supplies an unsurpassed fund of accurate evidence in its quotations. Its definitions, and the definitions of all other dictionaries, are simply interpretations of the evi- dence, and can be made the basis of fur- ther defining only with the risks that attend working at second hand. The New Standard shows repeatedly what these risks are. Thus, acreman, for which Webster's New International has: "O. Eng. Hist. The man whose duty it was to lead and manage the common plow team," the Standard renders: "The man who led and managed the ordinary plow-team." But quotations show that "common" here means not "ordinary" but "held in common" (by the folk of the manor or village). Of the stock words of the language which are the unique field of the dictionary it must be Bald that in general the Standard's treat- ment Is bald and superficial. Thus ,vi< /,<;, to which the Oxford Dictionary accords two interesting columns, it disposes of
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March 12, 19 14] The Nation 235 In the line: -sicker, a. [0. Eng. & Prov. Scot.] Safe; sure." Tear (the verb) gets no notice in its quaint sense of "blaspheme," although under the separ- ate rubrics tearer, tearing, the editor would have found "these God tearers," "the tcarynge of Goddis name." Take, on which the Oxford Dictionary (issue of April, 1912) bestows six pages — not counting those devoted to its phrases — affords a test of the Standard editors' work where they could not profit by the careful digesting given by Webster's New International to the Oxford ma- terial published prior to 1909. After its first three definitions, which are fairly elaborated, it gets a treatment scant, vague, and devoid of any real analysis. Thirty-four transitive and fourteen in- transitive senses file down the column in almost random order, and with phras- ing so loose as at once to overlap one another and to miss the point of — No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm. So far, it might be pleaded that these strictures assume a more literary pur- pose than the New Standard professes, that it is to be fairly judged only as an example of its type: the omnium gath- erum designed not for word-study but for occasional reference, and claiming as such no other merits than workable- ness and accuracy. Now, workableness in a dictionary is a matter of vocabulary order and cross-referencing. If, turning from an old text to look up arede, arreed, corte, or curt, you fail to meet the form in its vocabulary place, you are balk- ed in your quest as effectually as if the form were omitted. That it oc- curs run on as a variant after aread or court will not help, since the identifica- tion is precisely what you were seeking a clue to. A count of such instances (variants run on without cross-refer- ence) on eighteen pages, taken at ran- dom about 150 pages apart, if a fair sampling for the whole book, gives it above 37,000 word-forms thus inaccessi- bly buried. Phrases, again, are entered now under the first word, now under the second: thus, open fire, secondary clay, volcanic mud under the adjectives; open wood, secondary wood, volcanic sand under the nouns. The eighteen-page count indicates that ' above 85,000 phrases have their location thus in doubt. Many, indeed, as green monkey, orange fly, obscure rays, line of level, are entered and defined at both places —an accident not only prodigal of space, but disconcerting when the definitions disagree. Accuracy, however, must be the cri- terion uppermost in judging a book that details many thousand statements of fact. By the test of accuracy the New Standard comes off fairly in its con- tributed matter, especially in its tables and short treatises, but decidedly ill in the work of its office staff. A rapid com- parison of its Gazetteer entries with the latest official sources shows many errors (e. g., at Broach, Bruxton, British Honduras) both in descriptions and sta- tistical figures. Its etymologies — too meagre, in any case, to have scientific value — show no advance upon those of the prior edition. It is hard to believe that a professional philologist would have disregarded Skeat's revised ver- dicts on dismal, havoc, parricide, or Wiener's evidence on avoirdupois, gro- cer, tartan, or would still derive ponti- fex from pons, and sepal from separ. Its definitions fail repeatedly in two re- quirements of accuracy: sharp differ- entiation, and the remarking of status. Thus factitious, as used of the "facti- tious loyalty" imposed at college by fraternities and organized athletics, is not simply "proceeding from or created by art as opposed to nature"; it is "arti- ficial" in the sense of unspontaneous, wrought up by conscious effort. Quite as "considerably" should be stigmatized as slack; so-long (good-bye) and en- thuse are not simply "colloquial"; they consort with chewing-gum; and dump (verb, sense 3) is low. In short, the errors of all kinds occurring within the compass of single pages (there are at least twenty-two on page 771) suggest that the editorial work has been scamped. Both in conception and execution, then, the New Standard Dictionary is not a textbook for literary study. Its choice of vocabulary does, indeed, dis- close an aim to serve school use. The entries aretted, assoil, chivachye, fetis- ly, pricasour, tretys, wanhope, show that, while professing to debar obsolete words, its publishers claim to cover the literary vocabulary as far back as Chaucer. But this aim is not carried out. Not only are Chaucerian forms of modern words omitted (e. g., bigonne, aryve, asseged, ayeins, bismotered, reule), but their Chaucerian senses un- der the modern forms (c. g., under be- gin, arrive, the senses in, "he hadde the bord bigonne" ; "at many a noble aryve hadde he be"). The book will sell by its appeal to the semi-educated, to a public interested not in ideas but in things, and disposed (as its editors sug- gest) to view any lingering over a word's history or expressive value much as trolley-men view stopping for pas- sengers— as irritating delays in an oth- erwise quick trip. the properties and perquisites of this or- der of romance, and come down to the dull realities of modern life, calls for a good deal of courage. Mr. Deeping has shown the courage, but not quite the ability, for this feat. Though modern dress is specified, the story has many of the qualities of the costume novel. Roymer, the English village in which the scene opens, might seem to some people, the author confess- es, "in sympathy with that school of fic- tion that scorns anything dramatic and prefers to regard life as one long flux of dreary detail." He himself is evidently unable to regard life in any such way. In fact, we must confess that his Roy- mer heroine is only the maiden of the tower, and his Roymer hero the chival- rous knight born to rescue her. Of course, her bonds are not physical; and her isolation is due to her possession of and by that popular figure in current novels, a shameless and frivolous moth- er. Our Constance's paternity is less doubtful than disgraceful; she herself has the dovelike innocence now known as mid-Victorian. Skelton, the knight, is ingeniously if not successfully dis- guised as an engineer and inventor. He loves his Constance at first sight, and when she will have none of him, carries her off under the married-in-name-only agreement, which appears to be a peren- nial spring of opportunity for our nov- elists. The nominal honeymoon in Italy, which ends as a true one, is not made as interesting as it might have been. We would suggest that Mr. Deeping made a mistake in leaving out that necessary complement to the hero of chivalrous romance — the villain, his rival. CURRENT FICTION. The White Gate. By Warwick Deeping. New York: McBride, Nast & Co. Mr. Deeping has scored a good many successes as a writer of more or less his- torical romance. He has shown a profit- able fondness for swashbuckling heroes, maidens in towers, excursions, alarums, and hairbreadth 'scapes. To abandon The Best Man. By Grace L. H. Lutz. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co. Most of us would refuse to espouse an unknown person merely as a part of professional duty. Only Cyril Gordon had a different conception of loyalty. When the chief of his Detective Bureau entrusted him with the recovery of an important document from a band of criminals, he went forth ready to lay down his life, not to mention his hap- piness. Accordingly, when he had pro- cured the paper and, to elude the pur- suing crooks, had to take refuge in a church during a wedding ceremony, and found himself escorted to the altar, and there presented with a blushing bride, he thought he was merely adding the ni' tar of best man to his other accom- plishments. However, when he discov- ered that he had been mistaken for an imported bridegroom who had obtained the bride through blackmail, and that the bride was his "until death do them part," he perceived that his profession had thrown him into the meshes of life. And he had yet the paper to deliver to his chief! The honeymoon adventures of the
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266 Tli e UST a t i o ri [Vol. 98, No. 2541 duty-groom and his bride, their attempts at mutual explanation and extrication from their matrimonial entanglement, and their decision to remain enmeshed, form a most cheerful little tale. One fantastic bit of description occurs at sunrise when "the sun shot up between the bars of crimson like a topaz on a lady's gown that crowns the whole beau- tiful costume." Our Mr. Wrenn. By Sinclair Lewis. New York: Harper & Bros. One puts down the book in a pleasant frame of mind, with the feeling of hav- ing wandered awhile in an odd and delightful world of make-believe. Mr. Lewis's is better than the average first book, and best of all, holds promise of more telling work in the future. There is simplicity, a grateful lack of straining for effect, in this story of a little New York clerk's seeking for the world of adventure and romance conjured up in his fancy by the Fourteenth Street mov- ing-picture palaces, and nurtured on the gaudy circulars of steamship companies and tourist agencies. The girl, Istra Nash, is a very real figure. Mr. Wrenn met her in a Kensington boarding-house, and she led his wistful middle-class soul for a brief space into the world of Fu- turist art and letters. She is a stock character of modern fiction, of course, the unconventional, cigarette-smoking girl artist, but she is flesh and blood as Mr. Wrenn sees her. The narrative of Mr. Wrenn's voyage to England on a cat- tle-steamer and the scenes of boarding- house life in New York are well done. It is a story out of the ordinary, with an individuality that atones for a certain slowness in pace. The Goddess of the Dawn. By Margaret Davies Sullivan. New York: G. W. Dillingham & Co. The intention is praiseworthy. The author has set out to show that life is really full of illusions which are solid and dreams which come true. She lias fittingly chosen a wealthy, beautiful Southern girl as her heroine. Of her nar- rative she devotes a considerable part to ten years in her heroine's life beginning with her ante-college days. Miss Sulli- van, in order to prove that the good and virtuous triumph nnally in this world, introduces a young sculptor, who is striving to pay off his father's debts and who loves the heroine, but does not confess his love because of his poverty. The girl inspires him with his two best works, The Goddess of the Garden and The Goddess of the Dawn. The heroine, for her part, heads straight for matrimony. She escapes marrying one suitor, marries another, and at the death of the latter seeks her true love, the sculptor. The kaleido- scopic succession of betrothals and mar- riages makes the reader rather welcome the end of the book as a guarantee against other matrimonial ventures on the part of the heroine. A LOVER OF .MILTON. Studies hi Milton and an Essay on Poetry. By Alden Sampson. New York: Moffat, Yard & Co. $2 net. The appearance of this book seems to us of happy augury. Too much of our serious writing about great books and authors conies from the men who teach them professionally, and too lit- tle from men who may be styled, in the best sense of the term, cultivated amateurs, life-long students, and lovers of the best literature, qualified through their love and study to write about it worthily. As a result, the pedant and the dry-as-dust often elbow the critic out of the very heart of his kingdom, which we take to be the lives and works of the supreme masters. In further conse- quence, the public reads too many books and essays about second-rate men and works furnished by critics unwilling or unable to master the erudition held to be requisite to any creditable treatment of the great classics; or else, worse fate, the public too often reads books and es- says about the masterpieces of litera- ture written by men who are neither true scholars nor well-qualified critics. Mr. Sampson, in our judgment, has safely made his way between the sand hills of aridity and the bogs of fatuity. He knows his Milton thoroughly, but he loves him even more thoroughly. He writes with the public in view, yet he never descends, either in style or in substance, to a presentation of his great theme that suggests thinness or smart- ness. On the contrary, fulness of read- ing and depth of loving meditation are evident on almost every page. The book is divided into three sections. The first — almost a monograph — entitled "From Lycidas to Paradise Lost," is de- voted to a study of the sonnets, but it is so discursive and inclusive in its methods of treatment that it brings out much of the charm of the youthful poet of "Comus," much of the grandeur of the blind epic "bard," and not a little of the strenuous nobility of the Milton of the prose period, the assertor of liberty, who lost his sight in his defence of his coun- try and his ideals. This discursiveness and inclusiveness enable Mr. Sampson to give his readers copious quotations from Milton and apt citations from oth- er writers, as well as good comments of his own; but it must be confessed that they serve also to impart to his essay too much of the appearance of a tour de force. This does not greatly matter, however, since others have given us an abundance of straightforward crit- icism of Milton, and since the wealth of apposite quotations would of itself suf- fice to make the essay both readable apd valuable. The second essay, "Milton's Confes- sion of Faith," is also something of a tour de lone through a protracted par- allel drawn between Milton and George Fox; but again Mr. Sampson's ingenuity produces results that are happy as well as useful, in the concluding essay, "Cer- tain Aspects of the Poetic Genius," Plato shares with Milton our author's allegi- ance, with Wordsworth and Emerson al- most admitted to the inner circle. The mere naming of these four writers shows that the "aspects" of the divine art that occupy Mr. Sampson's attention are those that may be described as high rather than broad; but this means only that his essay, though scarcely catholic or meant to be such, is permeated by a fine idealism. In reading it we were reminded of the well-known story — we may twist it a bit — of Wordsworth walk- ing ahead with Hogg, Lamb and some one else bringing up the rear. Lamb said to his companion, "There go the poets." Wordsworth — ever singular — turned round with, "Poets, poets, where are the poets?" Would Wordsworth walking with Emerson in heaven just in the wake of Milton and Plato make to his companion Lamb's remark, and would Milton imitate the terrestrial Wordsworth? Mr. Sampson does not help us to an answer that is conclusive, nor does he enable us to judge how Byron would report the incident, grant- ing— and we do not know that Mr. Samp- son would grant it — that that poetic peer is in heaven and anywhere near Words- worth. It seems ungracious, In conclusion, to point out that a book which we have read with much interest and profit con- tains some lapses from accuracy that might easily have been avoided. But it may go to a second edition, and in that case perhaps its author will change a few loose statements For example, it seems incorrect to write, as on p. 16, that in 1640 Milton recorded the hope that he "might leave something so writ- ten to after-times, as they should not willingly let it die." These famous words occur in "The Reason of Church Government Urged Against Prelaty," which is generally assigned to the early- months of 1642. Again, on p. 118 Mr. Sampson's language would hardly imply what seems to be the fact, that before the reply to Salmasius was fin- ished, Milton's physicians had warned him of a probable loss of sight. We admit that Leslie Stephen's awkward insertion of a supporting reference to the "Second Defence" in his article on Milton in the Dictionary of National Biography seems to countenance Mr. Sampson's language, but the latter's way of writing is none the less misleading. as one may see by comparing Qarnett'B "Milton," p, 111. Furthermore, it is surely hazardous for Mr, Sampson to charge Lander with forgetting that "pe-
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March 12, 1914] The 1ST a t i o ri 267 culiarities of spelling and punctuation" of the first edition of "Paradise Lost" lay "beyond the scope of the author's re- vision" (p. 205). Compare this with Masson's remark, "It seems likely that Milton himself caused page after page to be read over slowly to him, and oc- casionally even the words to be spelt out." There are other statements of Mr. Sampson to which, it seems to us, ex- ception may be fairly taken, but they are comparatively unimportant, and they do not at all diminish our grati- tude for such a passage as the follow- ing: "When we say that 'Paradise Lost' possesses the quality of decorum, 'which is the grand masterpiece to observe,' we mean that it is nobly decorated with everything which learning, scholarship, poetic power, and sensibility could bring. It is the record of an eye and ear ever alert and eager to seize the myriad forms of beauty which others behold and do not apprehend, and it has all those traits of excellence which a deep-brained intellect and sound char- acti r 'ould contribute under the majes- tic rule of law." Boycotts and the Labor Struggle. Eco- nomic and Legal Aspects. By Harry W. Laidler. With an Introduction by Henry R. Seager, Ph.D. New York: John Lane Co. $2 net. Doubtless Mr. Laidler did, as Profes- sor Seager in the Introduction says he did, "approach the problem [of boy- cotts] without prejudice or preconcep- tion," but had the Professor not said so it would have been impossible for the reviewer to guess it. For excellent as is Mr. Laidler's collection of facts bear- ing upon the legality of boycotts in la- bor warfare, making of his work, as his introducer says, a very good "case-book," it is certainly not unfair to say of it that it reads much more like an argu- ment by an advocate than a scientific inquiry by a dispassionate observer. This is not to say that his argument is not a strong one, but that the judicial attitude is not discernible at any stage of his progress through the subject. It is not perhaps necessary to labor this point, as> the reader will hardly fail to note it for himself before he gets very far into the volume. Broadly speaking, Mr. Laidler's argu- ment is that as labor has finally made good its right to strike, it should be al- lowed to "organize its purchasing pow- er," i. c, its ability to boycott as a fur- ther means of accomplishing betterment of its economic position, for this latter right is equally fundamental and in- herent. A boycott in labor disputes may be de- fined [says Mr. Laidler] as a combination of workmen to cease all dealings with an- other, an employer, or, at times, a fellow worker, and, usually, also to induce or coerce third parties to cease such deal- ings, the purpose being to persuade or force such others to comply with some demand or to punish him for non-com- pliance in the past. (p. 60.) Boycotts may be negative, i. c, oy means of the "union label," or positive, t c, of the "We don't patronize" kind. They are further distinguished as pri- mary, secondary, and compound, and of the compound variety there are two kinds. A primary boycott "may be de- fined as a simple combination of persons to suspend dealings with a party obnox- ious to them. . . . This form, how- ever, is rarely used in labor disputes, as it is comparatively ineffective" (p. 64). A secondary boycott "may be defined as a combination of workmen to induce or ■persuade third parties to cease business relations with those against whom there is a grievance." The compound boycott "appears when the workmen use co- ercive and intimidating measures, as distinguished from mere persuasive measures, in preventing third parties from dealing with the boycotted firms"; and of these compound boycotts there is the kind where "threats of pecuniary injury'1 are used and the kind where "threats of actual physical force and vio- lence" (p. 65) are made. Mr. Laidler points out that "negative" boycotts and "positive primary" boy- cotts are generally admiited by our courts. Secondary and compound boy- cotts have been generally condemned as illegal in this country, both by statute law and judicial decision; but in some foreign countries, notably England, have been virtually legalized. It is the sec- ondary and the first variety of com- pound boycott that Mr. Laidler desires to see completely legalized in this coun- try. It is only proper to say that the "physical violence" variety of compound boycott is not defended by him. Chap- ter xvii, seven pages in length, contains a statement of the case against the boy- cott. In chapter xviii, fifty-four pages in length, is the case for the boycott, and the arguments are summarized by Mr. Laidler at the outset of this chapter as follows: The argument for the legalization of the boycott from a social and economic- standpoint is based primarily upon the hypotheses that the well-being of society is intimately connected with the con- dition of the working class; that that condition at the present time is great- ly in need of improvement; that such improvement depends to a very large extent upon the strength of labor's organizations; that that strength is con- tingent upon the weapons of defence and offence permitted to it; that the employ- ing class is now in possession of cer- tain powerful weapons denied to the la- borer, and that justice demands that or- ganized labor be placed in possession of such weapons as tend to place it on a more equal footing with the employing class in its struggles for a larger part of the social product. While acknow- ledging the possibilities of occasional abuse, the advocate of the boycott be- lieves that the tendency to abuse it be- comes less marked, and that the good accomplished far outweighs the evil. He also points to the danger of the secret use of the boycott, and to the injurious results which follow when a group in so- ciety continues a practice in defiance of law. He declares that there is also the possibility that the worker will use more iniquitous weapons should he be totally deprived of the use of the boycott. Final- ly, he argues for the legalization of the boycott on the ground that its prohibi- tion would deprive the workers of a fundamental human right. (Pp. 274-5.) What Mr. Laidler desires to see writ- ten out of the law in order to legalize boycotts of the "secondary" and "com- pound" variety is, in the main, the doc- trine of "conspiracy" and the doctrine of "malice"; he desires the law to rec- ognize— at least so far as labor is con- cerned— that what may be legally done by one person may with equal legality be done by two or more persons in com- bination, as is provided in the English Trades Disputes Act of 1906. In other words, labor unions or workingmen should be as free to conduct boycotts of all kinds — short of the point of violence — as they are to conduct strikes. Mr. Laidler sees no distinction of kind be- tween the right to strike (and induce by all legal means others to strike) and the right to boycott and induce by all means short of physical violence others to do the same thing. Rights involve responsibilities, and it seems to the reviewer that in demand- ing that unlimited use of a weapon so powerful as the boycott be permitted to labor unions, Mr. Laidler might very properly have considered the general question of responsibility of labor organ- izations for their acts arising from the use of the weapon. It may be hoped that if another edition of his work is requir- ed, he will devote a chapter to this mat- ter. Japan As I Saw It. By A. H. Exner. With Special Illustrations in Collo- type, Engravings, and Pictures drawn by Various Special Artists. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co. $2.50 net. This is an attractive volume, with its carefully finished collotype plates, its clever engravings, its soft and pleasing duo-tone illustrations. Yet on closer in- spection it is found to lack a primary quality that we demand in a really ar- tistic volume, that the reading matter shall interpret the pictures and be il- lumined by them. For instance, over against the page that describes the "ar- tistic embroidery" and "magnificent col- oring" of a Kyoto temple, where "a sa- cred stillness reigns at twilight." ap- pear a pair of hideous itinerant medi- cine-sellers, with cheap modern umbrel- las and straw hats. And opposite page IT*;, where the "Matchless Fuji-no-yama"
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268 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2541 is the topic, we have a long procession of these same "advertising Johnnies." Indeed, to justify the nature of the il- lustrations, the chapters of the book ought to be a bright series of character sketches — which they are not. Japanese art is not to be approached with profit from the side of the human figure, but rather from the side of out- ward nature, viewed symbolically. How little the author is in sympathy with the quaint symbolism of the Jap- anese garden, which materializes for daily contemplation some vision of beauty that has been registered among the eternal hills, may be gathered from his remarks at page 188: "Where there is a little house garden, which is often only the size of a few mats, it has no flower beds at all, but merely consists of a cartload of rocks, a shovelful of pebbles, a pail of water, an artificial lit- tle lantern, and one or two dwarf pine trees." Earlier in the book, at page 116, he treats the native type of garden less superciliously; but there he asserts that "to enjoy the charms of these minia- ture gardens, one must be a native Jap- anese." A fatal concession, if a writer would aspire to be a real Interpreter of Japanese art. The author seems merely to have seen the Japan of transition, from the ports of Nagasaki, Kobe, and Yokohama, all of them hybrid settlements, which do little more than suggest the real Ja- pan. His sketch of Japanese history, to which he devotes almost a third of the whole book, is blundering and defec- tive. At page 23 we are told that "on the foundation of the dynasty the gov- ernment of Japan was a feudal one, and the sundry princes in the various parts of the country lived in utter dependency on the Mikado. Gradually this position changed," and feudalism declined. The very reverse is the case. It is true that W. G. Aston, our best authority on the subject, finds even in the earlier days of paternal rule at Nara and Kyoto Lome traces of feudal tenure. But, lat- er on, the stronger elements in the na- tion broke away from the ineptitude of an officialdom modelled on the Chinese pattern, which was dominant for so many centuries, and feudalism asserted itself. With feudalism, however, began that duality of government, with Sho- guns ruling at Kamakura and Yedo, and Mikados reigning at Kyoto, which lasted to our days and forms a unique feature in the national history. The author makes an awkward mis- take at page 27, when dealing with the Hojo regents, who for nearly a century and a half held the reins of power, while the Shoguns were puppets in their 1 ands. He calls them Shukke, or priests, in place of Shikken, or regents; and fails to give them their due as rulers. Our latest authority on the subject, Mr. James Murdoch, in his "History of Ja- pan," Vol. I, chapter xv, declares that, Curing the greater portion of the 140 years of the Hojo regency, the Shogunal administration was at once strong, ef- ficient, and on the whole highly bene- ficial; indeed, that Japan was better ruled during the last three-quarters of the thirteenth century than France un- der Louis IX, or Scotland under its Alexanders — excellent rulers as they were; that it "enjoyed the benefit of an administration more economical, more honest, and more efficient than was known anywhere in contemporary Eu- lope." Words of praise, truly, and help- ful in explaining the overshadowing in- fluence wielded by the Shogunate for 700 years. The author hardly seems to comprehend the nature of the Shogunate, tor he calls Yoritomo, who founded the institution, "ancestor of the Shoguns." But Yoritomo left no descendant worthy to carry on his work or his name; and early in the thirteenth century the line became extinct. The author's summing up at page 74 is unfortunate, both in regard to the facts and the form: It is a widespread mistake to believe that Japan has ever been a monarchy or even a despotism, from a regular point of view. ... A monarchical idea has only been represented sporadically and for short intervals by single prominent characters. As for the rest, the country wasted away under the continual fights between smaller and bigger lords. It is true, upon the whole, there was always floating the Imperial idea, but it was more a mere idea than a real sovereign- ty. The dynasty, said to descend from heaven, and being the representative of deity, feels proud of being the oldest dy- nasty in the world, and of its looking back upon a reign of 2,500 years. But, if we investigate its history more closely, it soon comes to light that it was exactly the succession to the throne which al- most regularly has caused quarrel and conflict, and that there is very little of divine spirit to be discovered in it. The author has, no doubt, been reading lecent criticism, which argues that the singular devotion of the Japanese people to their sovereign, as the fountain of honor and of all state "virtue," is of re- cent growth and bears with it elements borrowed from the devotion of the re- tainer to his feudal lord. But this plea, even if allowed, does not justify the statement that the monarchical idea has not held sway in Japan from time im- memorial, or that the Emperor ever ceased to be the true centre of the body politic, whose endorsement or seal was in the final issue an imperative neces- sity to give an act of government valid- ity. "Japan As I Saw It" — an indexless book, by the way — is, in truth, a sum- mary of Japanese history and civiliza- tion that has been undertaken without adequate knowledge or preparation. The author fails to understand the whole drift and meaning of the national evolu- tion, or to grasp the religious symbol- ism and ideals that lie at the root of the best in Japanese art. Philosophy of the Practical: Economic and Ethic. Translated from the Ital- ian of Benedetto Croce by Douglas Ainslie. New York: The Macmillan Co. $3.25. The present is the third and conclud- ing volume of Croce's "Philosophy of the Spirit," of which the previous volumes are the "^Esthetic," translated by Mr. Ainslie, and the "Logic," which he prom- ises to translate. Seldom have author, translator, and printer conspired so suc- cessfully to present a system of philoso- phy attractively. The reader who mas- ters the first three or four chapters of the "Philosophy of the Practical" will find Croce always stimulating, if not al- ways satisfying, refreshingly direct, if somewhat dogmatic, graceful and in- formal amidst a wealth of learning. The architecture of the system is impres- sively simple. The philosophy of the spirit recognizes four "forms," or cate- gories, for the treatment of life, or real- ity: two theoretical forms, or forms of knowing, and two practical forms, or forms of doing. There is no third kind of form; feeling, for example, resolves itself into a matter of knowing and do- ing. The two theoretical forms are the aesthetic and the logical. They consti- tute the subject-matter, respectively, of the first two volumes of the philosophy of the spirit. The two practical forms are the economic and the moral, and both are covered by the present volume. The relation of the aesthetic to the logi- cal is parallel to that of the economic to the moral. Logical thought presup- poses aesthetic intuition, and is at the same time aesthetic intuition become re- flective and discursive. Similarly, mo- rality is utility become self-conscious and deliberate; utility seeking the per- fection of its own meaning. In the end, however, the theoretical and practical forms are nothing more than distin- guishable aspects of the one Life, Spirit, or Activity. "Motionless beings" and "unconscious beings" are meaningless phrases. Significant as a contribution to thought are Croce's inclusion of the eco- nomic among his fundamental "forms, " and his method of defining moral val- ues always by the contrast with eco- nomic values. Economists and moralists are both accustomed to speak as if the values studied by the sister science lay in another world. And yet the most defi- nite ethical theory of modern times, English utilitarianism, was clearly an economic theory of ethics; virtually all of the utilitarians were both econo- mists and moralists; and utilitarianism has its representatives in tho ethical discussion of all times. Croce makes it
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Croce balks at the term "prag- matism"; yet in standing for a reform of the intellect, for a refusal to limit the spiritual to the intellectual, or to admit that there can be a process or knowing which is not at the same time a process of living — indeed, a bodily ac- tivity—the "philosophy of the spirit' simply reinforces the teaching of Euck- en in Germany, of Bergson in France, and of the pragmatists of England and America. Most striking, however, is the close and detailed parallelism, amounting almost to a' photographic reproduction, between Oroce's philosophy and the pragmatism of Professor Dewey. Each might be called a pragmatic Hegelian. For both the world is an "activity," which is at once and indistinguishably a practical and utilitarian process and a dialectical process. In psychology they refuse to separate the conscious from the physical act; in ethics the will, or motive, from the overt act. In the matter of an ethical criterion neither will be satisfied with anything narrow- er or more definite than the demands of "life"; since the present is always a unique crisis in the cosmic activity. Both alike hold that the historic sys- tems of philosophy are but so many ex- pressions of special and passing pro- blems; and in both philosophies it seems that, while individuality is the essence of life, the individual life is but a pass- ing vortex in an oceanic stream of "ac- tivity." The main difference is a dif- ference of emphasis. Where Dewey em- phasizes the doing, Croce fixes his at- tention upon the knowing; so strongly, indeed, that at times he might be mis- taken for an "intellectualist." At any rate, no one in recent times has stood so firmly as this Italian pragmatist for the Socratic doctrine that virtue is knowledge. Knowledge and freedom— this is the sum-total of Croce's ethical teaching. To act morally is to act freely, and to act freely is to act with a clear self-con- sciousness with regard to your ends — to choose your act rather than simply to be carried along on the stream of habit or instinct. Every moral situation pre- supposes a certain organization of life, i. e., a certain economic situation, which has developed internal difficulties. For example, it is neither moral nor immor- al to earn your living in some accepted line of business. The moral question arises when the claims of the business have to be measured against other claims. Moral conduct then consists in a readjustment of the competing claims in the direction of an enhance- ment of life. But what marks this direction? Croce dismisses the ques- tion with the statement that every mor- al situation is unique. Life creates the moral problem and life alone can fur- nish the solution. Every attempt to state the problem abstractly, to devise a plan or system of life, is simple casuistry. The effect of this statement is with one stroke to sweep aside most of the questions that have occupied our moral philosophy. And here again Croce's method reminds us of the American pragmatist. Both have a way of dis- covering that most of the questions raised in ethical literature are simply foolish. In the traditional formulation the fundamental question is whether the good of life consists in the enjoyment of what we have or in the realization of some more comprehensive purpose or ideal. Roughly speaking, the issue seems to lie between economic content- ment and spiritual advancement. Croce definitively rejects the first alternative. "Man," he says, "is not a consumer of pleasures, but a creator of life." Yet the substance of life is to be found always in the demands of the present situation. What he means is that for an enlighten- ed self-consciousness the demands of present enjoyment and the demands of a larger life could not possibly differ; and here, doubtless, he is right. Mean- while, one would like to know just how the "economic" desires are transformed by the ethical self-consciousness. Is there any relation that can be stated be- tween a given economic conflict and its ethical resolution? Croce's answer consists only in af- firming that the ethical resolution is al- ways something original and new. Pos- sibly no other answer could be given. But the point is instructive in showing the essential similarity of Croceanism with other forms of pragmatism, and at the same time in revealing the es- sence of pragmatism. The philosophies of Bergson, of Eucken, of the English and American pragmatists, and of Croce all rest alike upon the proposition that reality is life, and life is ever creative and new. "In every new situation," says Croce, "the individual begins his life all over again." In this proposition they mark their dissent from the rational- ists and idealists, who hold that life is a dialectical process in which the conclu- sions are rigorously implied in the premises. This, indeed, is just the point at which Croce parts company with Hegel. But would Croce admit that it is "life" to act in the present without reference to what you have done, or promised to do, in the past? May "life" be as incoherent as you please, provided it is always "new"? Long ago Aristotle set the problem of life by showing that life aims to be ever creative and orig- inal, yet ever continuous, orderly, and reposeful. And when Kant resolves all morality into consistency he merely re- minds us that a rational and responsi- ble being is one who acts at each mo- ment in the light of a clear self-con- sciousness with regard to the present and the past. The pragmatists object that the Kantian rational being is as lifeless as a machine. The question is whether they, in their exclusive empha- sis upon the originality of the present, are not proposing to make human life as irresponsible as the winds. The nat- ural and demoralizing outcome of such preaching is the romantic love-philoso- phy of Ellen Key, in which the new love is always authoritative over the old and the "true self" of the present always free to repudiate the self of the past, how- ever sincere the past may have been. Thus the Crocean ethics, like the ethics of pragmatism generally, is an irrespon- sible emphasis upon one of the demands of life which fails to touch the real problem either of life or of moral re- sponsibility. Notes Houghton Mifflin Company announces the forthcoming publication of "Me- moirs of Youth," by Giovanni Visconti Venosta, and "They Who Knock at Our Gates," by Mary Antin. The Century Company announces for publication, on March 20, "Dodo's Daugh- ter," by E. C. Benson; "Barnabetta," by Helen R. Martin, and "Little Essays in Literature and Life," by Richard Bur- ton. The Oxford University Press announced the oublication last week of "Nazareth and the Beginnings of Christianity," by Champlin Burrage, and "A Concise Dante Dictionary," revised from the "Dante Dictionary," by Dr. Paget-Toyn- bee. Moffat, Yard & Company announce the forthcoming publication of "The Auto- biography of a Happy Woman," Anony- mous, and "The Desert and Mrs. Ajax," by E. S. Moffat. Putnams announce the publication next Saturday of "The Shadow of ^Et- na," by Louis V. Ledoux; "Initiation in- to Philosophy," translated from the French by Sir Home Gordon; "The True
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270 The N" a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2541 Ophelia and Other studies of Shake- speare's Women," by An Actress. John Lane Company will publish "With the Russians in Mongolia," by 11. <;. <'. Perry-Ayscough and ('apt. Otter-Barry, and "Victory Law," by Anne Warwick. Putnam's publications last week includ- ed: "Java and Her Neighbors," by Ar- thur s. Walcott; "One Year of Pierrot," by The Mother of Pierrot, and "The Marriage of Cecilia," by Maude Leeson. Longmans, Green & Co. announce the forthcoming publication of "Essays on Faith and Immortality," by the late Father Tyrrell, edited by Maude Petre, and "Flying: Some Practical Experi- ences," by Gustav Hamel and Charles C. Tinner. McClurg announces the following- books for publication this month: "Shea, of the Irish Brigade," by Randall Parrish; "The Coming Hawaii," by Joseph King Good- rich; "Cubists and Post-Impressionism," by Arthur Jerome Eddy, and "The Green Seal," by C. E. Walk. "Taxation," by C. B. Pillebrown, and a volume on "Banking," by Prof. W. A. Scott, have been added to the National Social Science Series. Frederick A. Stokes Company an- nounces for publication in April: "My Autobiography," by S. S. McClure; "World's End," by Amelie Rives; "The Cost of Wings," by Kichard Dehan. Frederick A. Stokes's spring list of an- nouncements includes: "The Two Ameri- cas," by Gen. Rafael Reyes; "America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat," by Dr. Wu Ting-fang; "The Dance, Its Place in Art and Life," by Troy and Margaret Kinney; "Other Peo- ple's Money and How the Bankers Use It," by Louis D. Brandeis. In fiction the same company announces "The Wo- man's Law," by Maravene Thompson, and "Bat Wing Bowles," by Dane Coolidge. From London comes the announcement of the appearance, at the end of the month, of The New Weekly, edited by R. A. Scott-James. The price of the new publication will be four cents; and its aim will be to bring' the large public, which does not habitually read the six- penny weeklies, into closer touch with . the literature, art, music, and drama of the day. "Robespierre and the Women He Loved" (Appleton) is a translation from the French of Hector Fleischmann. The translator, Dr. A. S. Rappoport, has omitted, however, all the footnotes of the original, and English literature would not have seriously suffered if he had omitted the rest of his translation. Robespierre's sister, Charlotte, once de- clared that, "My brother's amiability with women captivated their affection; several, I believe, felt more than ordinary friendship for him." But the author un- dertakes to show that the stories of the Incorruptible's liaisons, repeated by Thiers and others, are all malicious lies. With more poetic imagination than his- torical investigation he avers that Robes- pierre did not love any women, so that his volume is like the famous chapter on the snakes in Iceland. The book raises a good many questions which it docs not attempt to answer-, and is furbished up with portraits of a gallery of Revolution- ary leaders who have no particular con- nection with the author's subject. In L905 the Clarendon Press issued in elaborate and handsome form "The Po- etical Works of William Blake," for which Mr-. John Sampson, librarian in the University of Liverpool, had pre- pared a text from the manuscripts and original editions, and had written full bibliographical notes. His work in that, most difficult field showed a masterly precision, and the ever-growing- army of Blakists will be glad to know that "The Poetical Works" have now been brought out in the cheap yet very attractive "Oxford Edition." For the most part the text of the earlier volume has been taken over unchanged, only a few slight errors being corrected and some shifts made in arrangement. The footnotes in the present edition are confined to Blake's own variant and cancelled read- ings, and to occasional explanations of a necessary sort, and for the ordinary reader the absence of the bulkier com- mentary and prefaces will make this cheaper edition really the more service- able. The earlier volume contained only the poems of strictly lyrical and metri- cal form, but the present edition includes also the Minor Prophetic Books, besides selections from "The Four Zoas," "Mil- ton," and "Jerusalem." When it is con- sidered that among the Minor- Prophetic Books is "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell," which lets one so deeply into Blake's philosophy, the importance of the inclusion will be recognized. The most notable feature, however, of this new edition is the reprinting for the lust time of "The French Revolution." In 1791 the first book of this rhythmical piece was set up in type by the book- seller-, Johnson; the proofsheets were kept by Blake, and bound into a little volume, but apparently nothing further was done towards publishing. It was seen by Gilchrist, Swinburne, and the Rossettis, who quote the title page, and a transcript, partial or complete, was made by Palmer; but the book itself, which turns out to have been all the while in the possession of Mr. John Linnell, and forgotten by him, has just been rediscovered after a disappearance of half a century. It is a demy quarto of 18 pages, 11V4x8% inches. The title page runs: "Thb/French Revolution. / A Poem, / in Seven Books. /Book the First. / London: / Printed for J. John- son, No. 11, St. Pauls Church-yard./ MDCCXCI. / (Price One Shilling.) Of the absolute value of the more re- condite of Blake's Prophetic and Minor Prophetic writings there are decidedly two opinions. To the present reviewer the symbolism and mythology of the poet's later years seem largely the pro- duct of a mind diseased, and he can see small profit or pleasure In attempting to unravel their meaning. "The French Revolution," however-, though bordering on the ecstasy of madness, has compara- tively little of its incoherence, and is in places richly eloquent. It begins with a royal council: Troubled, leaning on Necker, descends the King to his chamber of coun- cil ; shady mountains in fear utter voices of thunder; the woods of France embosom the sound; clouds of wisdom prophetic reply, and roll over- the palace roof heavy. Forty men, each conversing with woes in the infinite shadows of his soul, Like our ancient fathers in regions of twilight, walk, gathering round the King: Again the loud voice of France cries to the morning; the morning prophe- sies to its clouds. Perhaps as striking a passage as any in the poem is the symbolic description of the Bastille, conceived in all the hor- rors lent to it by the popular imagina- tion. The picture is too long to quote, but there is something of the same Os- sianic grandioseness in the brief speech of the Duke of Burgundy, who delivers the King's command to the envoy of the people: "Seest thou yonder dark castle, that moated around, keeps this city of Paris in awe? Go, command yonder tower, saying: 'Bas- tille, depart! and take thy shad- owy course; Overstep the dark river, thou terrible tower, and get thee up into the country ten miles. And thou black southern prison, move along the dusky road to Versailles; there Frown on the gardens — and, if it obey and depart, then the King will dis- band This war-breathing army; but, if it re- fuse, let the Nation's Assembly thence learn That this army of terrors, that prison of horrors, are the bands of the mur- muring kingdom.' " Like the morning star arising above the black waves, when a shipwrecked soul sighs for morning, Thro' the ranks, silent, walk'd the Am- bassador- back to the Nation's As- sembly, and told The unwelcome message. Silent they heard; then a thunder roll'd round loud and louder-; Like pillars of ancient halls and ruins of times remote, they sat. Like a voice from the dim pillars Mira- beau rose; the thunders subsided away; A rushing of wings around him was heard as he brighten'd, and cried out aloud: "Where is the General of the Nation?' The walls re-echo'd: "Where is the General of the Nation?" It is not easy to gainsay Glenn D, Bradley's statement on the title-page of "The Story of the Pony Express" (Mc- Clurg) that it is "an account of the most remarkable mail service ever in ex- istence"; and in the arrangement of his material he properly emphasizes its ap- pealing human interest, above and apart from bare historical values. The Pony Express was operated, as readers of "Roughing It" may remember-, in 1860-61. To carry letters and Government dis- patches from St. Joseph. Mo., to San Francisco, 2,(100 hazardous miles, during the sixteen months previous to the open- ing of the first transcontinental tele- graph, its managers built up a system round which cluster- some of the most stirring incidents in the development of the West, Tin- book is outlined in a fashion that promises a popular and sparkling narrative-, with chapters on the organization and first, trips of tin- Bis press, followed by two on Riders and famous Itides and Anecdotes ol lie- Trail. The Btyle, however, is somewhal color-less, and the proportion Far from
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March 12, 1914] The Nation 271 good. The historical value is impaired by an attempt to exaggerate the seces- sion crisis in California, and par suite the value of the Pony Express in main- taining- communication with Washington. The chapter on The Secession Menace abounds in such evasions as "the exact details of this [rebel] plot are hard to secure," and such indirections as "that the conspiracy existed has never been dis- proved." There are few references to Ity or critical notes. We have received the statement for 1912-13 of the Rhodes Scholarships Trust. The statistics given indicate that the scholars more than hold their own with the average of intellectual achievement .11 Oxford. Their attainments, however, are still below the level of those of the native scholars from the public schools or grammar schools of Britain. Among the most interesting features of the re- port is the list indicating the lines of work taken up by Rhodes scholars who ornpleted their course. Of the 431 who have left Oxford, 144 have devot- ed themselves to educational work and 113 to the law. The School of Jurispru- dence, indeed, appeals to exercise an al- together disproportionate attraction for the scholars, both from this country and from the British colonies. Out of the 167 scholars distributed among the different courses of study in the last academic year, thirty-eight were reading jurispru- dence, and nine were studying for the B.C.L. degree. Thirty-one were reading for the various departments of the Nat- ural Science School, nineteen for mod- ern history, and fourteen for literae hu- maniores. In the last-named school only one scholar was placed in the first class last year, a disappointing result, when one remembers that the traditions of Ox- ford are preeminently classical and philo- sophical. Six University prizes were gained by Rhodes men in the course of the year, five of them by Americans, and another American was elected to the presidency of the Union Society, a dis- tinction which many undergraduates would prefer to a "first" in one of the schools. The emphasis which Rhodes placed upon athletic distinction in the election of the scholars is evidently ob- served, for their record in this field last year is a remarkable one, twenty- four of the scholars having represented their University against Cambridge in various events. The fascination of the details of the crimes perpetrated in the name of liberty and justice in 1793-4 has led Alphonse Dunoyer to examine anew the extent of the responsibility of Fouquier-Tinville, "The Public Prosecutor of the Terror" (Putnam). The volume is well trans- lated from the French by A. W. Evans, and is attractively provided with a num- ber of appropriate illustrations. In the first half of his volume, M. Dunoyer gives a very readable but brief account of the extraordinary rapidity with which the Revolutionary Tribunal dispatched to the guillotine "batches" of forty to fifty per- sons a day. It acted with such criminal haste that sons were executed in mistake for their fathers, and vice versa. Persons whose names were on the long lists hand- ed in by the Prosecutor for condemna- tion were not even properly identified be- fore being sent to the tumbrils. If the accused asked for papers which would establish their innocence, the Prosecutor replied, "Give them nothing." If the judges or jurors delayed or gave acquit- tals, the Prosecutor would storm and threaten because "the business was not moving quickly enough." After his own arrest a great many witnesses appeared to testify that they had often heard Fou- quier-Tinville make such remarks as, "Come, fellows, things must move. There must lie 400 or 450 this decade"; or, rub- bing his hands, in a gay tone, "We shall unbreech [diculotterons] a good quantity of them this decade." This first part of the volume, though well written and aim- ed to show Fouquier-Tinville's part in the bad business, adds little, however, to the fuller accounts already i>ublished in the authoritative works of Campardon (1866), Wallon (1881), and Lenotre (1909), the last of which has also been translated into English. In the second part of his volume, M. Dunoyer makes a real contribution to our knowledge of Fouquier and the Tribunal. Instead of relying mainly on Fouquier's own published memoir and on the docu- mentary material in Buchez et Roux, he has analyzed and printed the substance of the depositions preserved in the Ar- chives Nationales, which were made by 400 witnesses, who came to testify against Fouquier-Tinville after the fall of Robespierre, when the Public Prose- cutor in turn came to be arrested and prosecuted. Fouquier defended himself cleverly and audaciously, maintaining that he had done nothing except perform his duties diligently; he had been only carrying out the orders of the Govern- ment, he said, which had formulated the procedure to be followed by the Revolu- tionary Tribunal. He sincerely believed in his own innocence. To his wife and his seven children, whom he tenderly loved, and who were totally dependent on him, he wrote: "I have nothing to re- proach myself with; I have always con- formed to the laws: I am satisfied; my innocence will be recognized later." A long trial was given him, and full oppor- tunity to defend himself. But the cloud of witnesses who rose up against him when he himself sat in the seat of the accused leaves no doubt that he had been arbitrary, violent, and indecently hasty in his zeal to get large numbers condemned. Now that the smoke of battle has cleared away (some time ago, in fact), the time seems to have arrived for a calm estimate of what pragmatism has contributed to philosophical thought. Prof. William Caldwell writes his "Prag- matism and Idealism" (Macmillan) from the standpoint of a Scotchman, brought up in the traditions of the neo-Hegelian school of absolute idealists, who spent several years at universities in the Unit- ed States before going to McGill Univer- sity in Montreal (he has a chapter on Pragmatism and Americanism), and his attitude towards pragmatism is distinct- ly conciliatory and appreciative. Brief- ly, he is an idealist who would be a prag- matist if only pragmatism would cease to dwell so exclusively upon the more vul- gar practicalities. According to Profes- sor Caldwell's idealistic interpretation, pragmatism stands for a "rediscovery by our age of the doctrine of man"; for the doctrine, in other words, that human needs and aspirations are implied in any statement of truth. By "rediscovery" he means that pragmatism is, after all, a continuation of the critical and human- istic movement begun by Kant, on the basis, however, of a wider range, Dar- winian rather than Newtonian, of scien- tific conceptions. Strangely, yet not quite falsely, he takes Bergson to be the ideal successor to Kant. On the other hand, in an instructive chapter on Pragmatism and Humanism, he undertakes to show that human desires and ideals are indeed pathways to- objective realities — that, for example, the Hebrew spirit reached a conception of the divine nature which was inaccessible to Greek culture just because the Hebrews were different. Here he takes issue — cautiously and reverently —with the leading "Greek" of his school, Dr. Bosanquet, going so far as to sug- gest that the inhumanity of Bosanquet's absolute marks a reversion of thought from genuine idealism towards material- ism. As against Mr. Bosanquet, it is the humanistic pragmatist who really stands for "the sovereignty of the sririt." Just how the logic of pragmatism is to be reconciled with the metaphysics of ab- solute idealism, Professor Caldwell does not say. His book is a reflection and an appreciation, a contribution to current discussion, rather than a systematic and well-digested statement of the problem. As such, however, it is timely and sug- gestive. Of the antiquity of fools we have the word of Sir Amorous La-Foole in Jon- son's "Epieoene": "We are as ancient a family as any is in Europe." Kinsfolk of that house, not to mention readers of the Boston Transcript, will be interested in the genealogical notes on one of the col- lateral lines in the section TOMIiAL- TRAHYSH of the Oxford English Dic- tionary (Clarendon Press). Thome Fole as a quasi-proper name is found as early as 1356-7; from 1337, says Sir James Murray, he is frequently mentioned by learned writers as Thomas fatuus. FYom a citation of 1565 we learn that Tom- Foole kept geese. A reference of 1640 in- dicates that Tom had brothers: "A foole- reall . . . such ffooles wee commonlie expresse by the names of Tom ffoole, Dick ffoole, and Jack ffoole." The celebrity of Tom appears in the Cornhill MaffOi 1865: "More folks know Tom Fool, than Tom Fool knows." Considering the time that he has been in the public eye, it is surprising to find the authors of the "IN - l Addresses," 1812, set down as the Inst coiners of Tomfoolery. And though Southey in 1799 had struck out the epi- thet Tom-foolish, it apparently remained for Jerome K. Jerome so late as 1889 to bring in loin foolish hcss in "Three Men in a Boat." The history of the word seems to show that Tom Fool should be employ- ed as a kind of middle term between Fool on the one hand and D Fool on the other. The exact force of Tom as an element lr. word-formation demands the attention
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272 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2541 of grammarians. In the case of span- ners, screw-drivers, and gazelles, the tom- my variety la small, or the smallest of its kind. But in the case of Tomboy, Tom- cat, and Tom Jones, the Tom suggests the larger and more vigorous representatives of the boys, the cats, and the Joneses. Tomboy has Shakespearean and elder au- thority, though Stoughton, in 1622, says angrily that "of such short-haired gentle- women I find not one example either in Scripture or elsewhere." Tom-cat takes its rise from a popular anonymous work of 17G0, "The Life and Adventures of a Cat"; being unacquainted with the work, we cannot say whether the hero owes anything to Tom Jones. Tom Thumb is traced back only to 1579; but Fielding, in a learned note to his tragedy, "Tom Thumb the Great," quotes Justus Lipsius as follows: "Thomam ilium Thumbum non alium quam Herculem fuisse satis constat." By some irony of fate, George Moore, in the "Mummer's Wife," 1884, gets the credit for the introduction of Tommy rot, upon which, as noted in the Chicago Advance of 1895, wits have em- broidered an adjectival ending: "A whole school of what has been humorously call- ed erotic and tommyrotic realists, . . . asserting that progress in art requires the elimination of moral ideas." In this goodly concourse of Tommies, we miss Tommy Coddle and the fine phrase, Tom- my-coddle nonsense, which should not be absent from a dictionary compiled, as Johnson says, "for the use of such as as- pire to exactness of criticism or elegance of style." One need not share the strongly con- servative views of Mrs. Archibald Colqu- houn's "The Vocation of Woman" (Mac- millan) to say that scarcely anything so thoughtful, and at the same time so at- tractive and genial in style and spirit, has appeared in the literature of the subject. Mrs. Colquhoun offers an ex- tensive discussion of the mental and physical differences of men and women, and takes the ground that women, though not inferior to men, are different, and should therefore have a different ed- ucation and different occupations. View- ing the sex problem from the standpoint of conditions in England, Mrs. Colqu- houn finds it to be created by the fact that, while marriage is monogamoys, there are many more women than men. Under these conditions she holds that feminism, with its demand for the eco- nomic independence of women, single or married, is a game in which women have everything to lose and nothing to gain. For while, in a broader view, women are not inferior to men on the practical side of life, they are inferior economically; that is, they are unfitted for the grind of store or factory. Mean- while, the family ties which feminists propose to loosen in return for economic independence are all to the advantage of women. The very meaning of monoga- mous marriage is that thereby the wo- man binds the father of her children to herself and makes him permanently re- ble for the family welfare. Wo- men cannot afford, therefore, to weaken the obligations of wife and mother; rather should they make it a point to emphasize those of husband and father. The chiefly problematic question, then, is what to do with the surplus women. Here Mrs. Colquhoun advises an emi- gration of women to the colonies, where there is a surplus of men. Sir Almroth E. Wright in "The Unex- purgated Case Against Woman Suffrage" (Paul B. Hoeber) is amusing, though less amusing than we had expected. One may suppose that Sir Almroth sat down in a blind rage after dinner and com- pleted the book in the course of a single night. Only once does he betray any consciousness of humor — when he de- scribes the male suffragist as the man who greets an anti-suffrage argument with, "Sir, do you mean to insult my wife?" Sir Almroth is determined that women shall be shown their place. "Xet he regrets the necessity; for, according to his conception of the social contract, obedience is to be counterbalanced by chivalry. "Unexpurgated" is therefore an apology for rudeness as well as for in- delicacy. Virtually all of the indelicacy is relegated to an appendix containing Sir Almroth's famous letter to the Times, in which he made the grim and rather tell- ing suggestion that the suffrage move- ment is the outcome of sexual disorder. His dominant tone, however, is one of scandalized amazement. Can't you see, ladies, that you are not wanted here? What! One or more women on every public board or commission? Pray, tell us how we are to transact business with women around? And how are gentlemen to be guarded from indelicate and em- barrassing situations? Sir Almroth Wright is not precisely a model of dispassionate reason; yet his statement that in Eng- land, owing to the preponderance of wo- men over men, three-eighths of the wo- men of marriageable age are unmarried, helps to explain the intensity of the sex war there, though the fact deserves a more considerate treatment. Sir George William Ross, Senator of the Dominion of Canada and for- merly Premier of the province of Ontario, died last Saturday. He was born at Ontario in 1841. A law- yer by profession, Sir George was elected in the Liberal interest to the House of Commons for West Middlesex in 1872, and continued its representative until November, 1883, when he entered the Mowat Administration in Ontario as Minister of Education. In 1899 he suc- ceeded to the Premiership, which he held until February, 1905. He entered the Sen- ate of Canada in 1907, and was knighted by King George in 1910. He devoted some years to journalistic work, holding various editorial positions; was the au- thor of several historical works, and was a member of many scientific and educa- tional societies, and the recipient of hon- orary degrees from a number of Cana- dian universities, as well as from St. An- drew's University, Scotland. Miss Annie S. Montague, associate professor of Greek In Wellesley College, died on March 5 in Cambridge, Mass. She was graduated from Wellesley with the first class, that of 1879. In 1882 she received the degree of M.A. from the College, and the same year became an associate professor. She was also a mem- ber of various administrative commit- tees. Frederick Townsend Martin, who died in London last Sunday, was born in Al- bany December 6, 1849, the son of Henry Hull and Anne Townsend Martin. He was educated at the Albany Boys' Academy, and graduated from the Albany Law School with the class of 1872. Through- out his life Mr. Martin was interested in labor questions and settlement work, frequently visiting the Bowery Mission in New York. He contributed a number of articles on these and kindred questions to magazines, and wrote two books and a play. The first of his writings to at- tract attention was "The Passing of the Idle Rich." That was followed by "My Personal Experiences of Meeting Snobs," and a little later, "The Reminiscences of My Life" appeared. The death at the age of eighty-four was recently announced from Milan of Luigi Monti, the last of the guests of Longfellow's "Wayside Inn," and a close friend of the poet. Monti, "a young Sici- lian ... in sight of Etna born and bred," was a member of the Harvard class of 1857, and was an instructor in Italian there from 1854-59. His wife was a daughter of Dr. William Thomas Par- sons, also celebrated as the poet of the "Wayside Inn." Science The Grocer's Cyclopedia. By Artemas Ward. Published by the Author. $10. The Economy Administration Cook Book. By Susie Root Rhodes and Grace Porter Hopkins. Hammond, Ind.: W. B. Conkey Co. The American Cook Book. By Janet Mc- Kenzie Hill. Boston: The Boston Cooking School Magazine Co. $1 net. Around the World Cook Book. By Mary Louise Barroll. New York: Century Co. $1.50 net. Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen. By Mrs. B. C. Howard. Baltimore: Nor- man Remington Co. $1.50 net. Dishes and Beverages of the Old South. By Martha McCulloch-Williams. New York: McBride, Nast & Co. $1.25 net. Believing that the grocers and gener- al shopkeepers of the United States greatly needed a book giving informa- tion regarding their business, Artemas Ward issued, in 1882, "The Grocer's Handbook." It was so crude a perform- ance that he now feels ashamed of it. During the three decades that have since passed, he has diligently gathered ma- terial for a better book, the result be- ing "The Grocer's Encyclopedia," a large volume of 748 pages, which treats of more than 1,200 subjects. The author's activity, for twenty years, as editor of the National Qrocer, gave aim t ial opportunities, which ho supplemented instructor in Greek. In 1893 she became ' by writing letters of inquiry to all parts
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March 12, 1914] The ISTation 273 of the globe. The result is a work, of great value and Interest — a book indis- pensable to intelligent distributers of foods and at the same time of impor- tance to housewives, who would less frequently have inferior articles foisted on them if they knew just what to ask for and how to judge quality. In these pages they can find out when different fishes are in season; what are the best coffees, teas, potatoes, apples, wines, and so on. There are twelve pages on cheese, with descriptions of forty-eight varie- ties; twenty on coffee, with a color-page showing twelve varieties. Altogether, there are 449 illustrations, eighty of which are full-page plates in color; some of these are purely ornamental, but most of them are useful, as e. g., the four which show the most important cuts of beef. Under Canned Goods many will be surprised to read that, while in the matter of quantity we hold the rec- ord, in variety Europe surpasses us, Hol- land having canneries which put up several hundred kinds of edibles. Inci- dentally, there is a great deal of miscel- laneous information, such as how to cook bacon, how to eat mangoes, how to test butter. There are also general articles of use to all business men, such as Trade-Marks, Partnerships, Good Will, Window-Dressing. The subject of adulteration is not treated as fully as it might be; nor does the author dwell as he should on the advantages of re- frigeration over freezing. Recipes from nearly 540 of the best- known women of the United States are included in the "Economy Administra- tion Cook Book." Mrs. Woodrow Wilson heads the list, and the authors tell the story of the Wilson family cook book, which is replete with gems for the good housekeeper. Several pages of recipes from it are reprinted, some of them in facsimile. There is a chapter on White House Table Ware. Mrs. Champ Clark contributes a few pages of reflections, interspersed with recipes, one of them being how to cook a beefsteak sufficient for two men, with a fire made of two newspapers. She is one of many con- tributors who represent the South. No section of the country is neglected. Mrs. Josephine Clifford McCracken, of Cali- fornia, tells how to make the "most de- licious of all preserves" of skinned Mus- cat grapes. Few know how to cook rice; Mrs. Joseph Eugene Ransdell, of Louisiana, reveals the secret. We note a few errors of judgment in some cases, such as the statement that lemon peel improves the flavor of baked apples. Not if the apples have a good flavor of their own! Two men have been allowed to say a word: "Oscar," who contributes a few pages of recipes, and Dr. Wiley, who writes the preface, in which he laments the fact that "in buying we are getting farther away from the producer every year." The volume is adorned with many portraits, and it has an elab- orate index of 46 pages. Janet Mackenzie Hill begins her "American Cook Book" by remarking that our cuisine has become cosmopoli- tan in character, the New England cook- ery having been superseded by cookery that has culled the best from every land and clime. This change is exemplified in her book, which does not, as its name might suggest, confine itself to special- ties of the country. She begins with appetizers, and each of her chapters (on soups, fish, vegetables, meats, etc.) is prefaced by a few pages of general re- marks, which all cooks should know by heart. Here is one: "Shortening makes tender pastry; water, tough pastry.' Evidently, there is too much water in the national pie crust. Under "Salads" the amazing assertion is made that "a salad is not an acid dish"; yet she al- lows from one to three spoonfuls of vine- gar to three spoonfuls of oil. Mary Louise Barroll's "Around the World Cook Book" contains the culinary gleanings of a naval officer's wife. Louisiana gumbo, Argentine puchero, Hawaiian taro, Japanese fish paste, Swedish fish timbales, Italian gnocchi, Spanish steak, Mexican chili con carne, Turkish pilau, stewed kidney a la Creole — these are a few of the hundreds of dishes described. There is also a good deal of miscellaneous information about the care of furniture, cosmetics, per- fumes, simple remedies, and first aids. "Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen" is, like the "American Cook Book," more cosmopolitan than its title indicates, though it has a Southern flavor. It has long been a favorite, this being the fifth edition, a fact which speaks for it- self. An excellent page is devoted to the important subject of making puff paste; but it saddens one to find, fol- lowing it, directions for flavoring apple pie with cloves and lemon peel and juice. American apples are the best in the world. Why not enjoy their unique flavor as it is? Several pages are devoted to miscellaneous kitchen lore. A special welcome must be extended to the last volume on our list to-day — Martha McCulloch-Williams's "Dishes and Beverages of the Old South." Here, ■at last, is abundant, readable, and trust- worthy information about the much- vaunted Southern cookery, which, on the whole, merits all the praise that has been bestowed upon it. As a matter of course, there is a good deal about all sorts of cornbread and cakes, which in the South are so much better than in the North, where the corn is degermi- nated and deflavored. There are chap- ters on Creole Cookery, on all the prin- cipal kinds of food, pages on roasted 'possum, gumbo soup, cherrybounce, per- simmon beer, banana pudding, etc. It should be specially noted that, while many recipes are given in detail, the book is not a dry collection of such, for kitchen use merely, but a volume to be read in the parlor. The most important chapter is the one beginning with the assertion that "plenty in the smoke- house was the cornerstone of the old- time Southern cookery." The details given regarding the old-fashioned smoke- houses, with their special arrangement for supplying well-veDtilated smoke, are of melancholy interest in these days of "liquid smoke" and denatured bacon and hams. The Bibliographie Geographique for the year 1912, just issued by the Annates de Geographie is the twenty-second vol- ume of this valuable series. The method of arranging the publications under the subject and countries, and the condensed explanatory notes of the editor, M. Louis Raveneau, and his fifty-nine assistants, give it a unique value and usefulness. Great care has been taken to record the geographical work of all the countries; there is, for instance, a list of the pa- pers relating to the physical geography of the Balkan Peninsula published by the Servian Geographical Society. Nearly three pages are given to a record of the work of a Russian Geological Committee in the exploration of the gold-bearing re- gions of Siberia. The size of the volume is exactly the same as that of the pre- vious year, but the number of works on the least-known parts of the earth has much increased, with a corresponding de- crease of works on Europe. The United States is covered by 44 titles out of 1,039. Drama Goldoni: A Biography. By H. C. Chat- field-Taylor. New York: Duffield & Co. $4 net. Goldoni's life is often called "a com- edy in itself," but neither the wildest of anti-classic melodramas nor the most extravagant of scenari can match his career in multiplicity of action. Through what changing scenes he moved, con- stant only in good humor and in pas- sion for the stage! In Venice, at the age of eleven, he wrote his first com- edy. At the Jesuit School of Perugia his debut as actor won him a shower of sugar-plums — his only scholastic hon- ors. He deserted the study of philoso- phy at Rimini to voyage homeward with a most amusing company of players. His father taught him a little medicine, his father's patients a little trickery, and his uncle a little law. Then, for more serious schooling, the tonsure, and the uniformed dissipation of the Papal College at Pavia, whence a too success- ful satire banished him. At Udine, In token of reform, he summarized Father Cattaneo's Lenten sermons in a sonnet sequence. Renewed study of the law became the background for a long series
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£74= T li e JST a t i o 11 [Vol. 98, No. 2541 of adventures, amorous and dramatic He spent two years as coadjutor In the chancery of Chioggia; got his degree at Padua alter a night or gambling; won his first ease in Venice; and fled soon afterward from an ugly flancde. In Milan he read his first opera to a troupe of pitiless professionals — and burned li is manuscript the next morning. He saw courteous siege and stark battle- fields in the War of Don Carlos. Aus- trian deserters robbed him of all his worldly goods save a tragicomedy, which won him employment as play- wright with a company of Venetian ac- tors. Their road led hither and yon across the peninsula, bringing him at length to Genoa, where he found a wife, and a commission as Genoese Consul to Venice. The chief event of his short consulship was the loss of a thousand pounds to a swindling captain who had persuaded him to enlist as auditor in an imaginary regiment. From Rimini, where he had enjoyed Spanish patron- age, he fled with his wife before the Austrian advance. Their baggage was confiscated, their driver deserted them, and Goldoni forded the swollen Cat- tolica with his wife on his back, re- marking in mid-stream: "Omnia bona mea mecum porto." At Pisa he prac- ticed humdrum law and adorned the lo- cal Arcady as "Polisseno Fegeio" — only to be captured and brought back at last to Venice by the comedians D'Arbes and Medebac. Then the picturesqueness of his life diminished, and its real business began. Between 1748 and 1762 he wrote above one hundred and fifty plays — comedies, tragedies, tragicomedies, farces, operas, comic operas, interludes. Nor did he write in peace. He was fighting a long, hard fight against actors, managers, and public for the overthrow of the Com- media dell' arte and the establishment of true comedy of character; and he was at the same time defending himself from the parodies and invectives of a jealous imitator, Chiari, and a fantas- tic genius, Carlo Gozzi. Poor Goldoni! No wonder he had the "vapors"! "Some- times," he writes, "my imagination was heated by the effervescence of the bodily fluids, and sometimes the animal econ- omy was deranged by apprehension." Finally, courage gone, he left his be- loved Venice to become playwright to the Com^diens du Roi de la Troupe Italienne. He went with high hopes and resolute good humor. Not long af- ter his arrival Mme. du Boccage wrote to Algarotti: "Goldoni loves Paris mad- ly. Even the hubbub of the streets pleases him, and save for the opera and the high cost of provisions, he is en- chanted with everything." But his comedians were unwilling to learn writ- ten parts; the struggle against impro- visation and the Masks began all over again, and ended in defeat. After the expiration of his contract, Goldoni liv- ed on the precarious royal bounty, teaching Italian to the princesses and learning courtly etiquette. But the stairways of Versailles were a hard path for him — all his life he had been a re- publican at heart. Two weeks after Louis XVI mounted the guillotine, the Convention, on the motion of Marie-Jo- seph Chenier, voted Goldoni a pension of 4,000 livres. But death had found the old Venetian in his poverty the day before that vote was passed. Happy the biographer with such a hero! Happy, but daring too, for Gol- doni's own Memoires are easily second among Italian autobiographies. Mr. Chatfield-Taylor's daring is well justi- fied by the excellence of his work. He follows the course of the Memoires, quot- ing frequently, paraphrasing and sup- plementing in an efflorescent style that is none the less spirited and compact, altering the proportions of the story to suit modern interest, and correcting the many inaccuracies by careful reference to recent monographs. Besides the seven chapters devoted to biography, there are seven on the com- edies of Goldoni, and three on special topics, The Improvised Comedy, Gol- doni's Rivals and Critics, and Goldoni and Moliere. In the chapters devoted to the comedies of Goldoni, Mr. Chat- field-Taylor discusses some sixty plays, giving in most cases a brief analysis of the plot, an account of the leading char- acters and their social milieu, and some criticism. In a few cases, typical scenes are quoted in translation. The analy- ses are clear and, in general, accu- rate. It is not true, however, that Mirandolina "has a hankering" for the Cavaliere, nor that he "offers her his heart and hand"; and Ottavio, in "II vero amico," neither hides his money in a well nor dies on hearing of its loss. The dramatis persontr. and their little worlds are discussed with amiable sym- pathy. To these discussions, in partic- ular, the several prints of genre pic- tures by Pietro Longhi add effective il- lustration. The translations are dull — inevitably so, to be sure, for Goldoni is weakest in dialogue, as he is strong- est in the gradual humor of consistent personality and in the cumulative fun of clever situation. His books, after all, are but fuller scenari, librettos Tor ac- tion. Isolated scenes cannot represent him fairly, least of all isolated scenes in foreign disguise. Mr. Chatfield-Taylor's estimates of the single plays are on the whole catholic and just. He regards the Venetian com- edies as finer than those in Italian, and "Le baruffe chlozzotte" as the best of all. He recognizes not only the great charm of this play, but its deeper sig- nificance also, for he calls It "the first comedy of any land to mirror truly and affectionately the common people, with- out nobles to scorn them or clowns to belie them." Well-merited praise is giv- en to several comedies that are often slighted, as "La dama prudente," "La guerra," and "11 matrimonio per con- coiso." The reviewer does not share all of Mr. Chatfield-Taylor's likings. "La bottega di caffe," for instance, is forced and poorly balanced, "La casa nova" in- organic and disagreeable, and "II cava- liere e la dama" monotonous and ver- bose. On the other hand, the reviewer would claim a higher rating for "Gli in- r.amorati," which would excel even "La locandiera" if only the third act were worthy of the other two, and for the perennially delightful "Ventaglio," the nearest equivalent, in lingua, of "Le baruffe chiozzotte." Goldoni's work marks, for Italy, the return of literature to life. His prede- cessors had drawn almost exclusively from literary models; Goldoni drew from human nature. The purpose to be true to nature was clear and resolute in his mind. It is stated definitely and often in his letters, prefaces, and Memoires, and it is carried into effect throughout the long series of the com- edies. Voltaire, whose admiration for Goldoni was immediate and lasting, was wont to call him "the lovable painter of nature," a title well deserved and well bestowed. The types Goldoni chose for portraiture were the types of his own day and his own land: their perma- nence in interest bears witness to the fact that he was more concerned with their essential humanity than with their passing customs. Nevertheless, as Mr. Chatfield-Taylor shows exceptionally well, Goldoni felt, and voiced, to some extent, the particu- lar movements of his century. The laws of Venice made open satire impossible for him, and he was by nature a lover of peace and order, yet liberal opinions are expressed again and again in his plays. His aristocrats, for all their for- eign titles, are drawn with a subtle and dangerous truth. Goldoni's enemies, at least, were not blind: he was more than once denounced to the Venetian Govern- ment for "exceedingly liberal and demo- cratic tendencies." In old age, accord- ing to Claviere, "his greatest anguish was to be obliged to beg for the restora- tion of a pension he had received from Louis XVI: he warmly expressed the re- gret that he was unable to throw its patent into the fire that had consumed the attributes of royalty." And long before, in a comedy played while the first "Discours" of Rousseau was in the press, Goldoni had written: "Nature regards us all as equal, though the ar- rogance of the great does not deign to consider the small. The day will come. however, when one pudding will again be made of both small and great." Goldoni not only drew from life; he sought to Influence life. Mr. Chatfleld-
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March 12, 1914] The Natio n 275 Taylor, like the majority of modern crit- ics, refuses to credit Goldoni with a mor- al purpose. "Nowhere," he says, "does Goldoni poise his lance and ride in bat- tle array against the vices and follies of his time. Instead of making them an issue, he is content to point the finger." But Mr. Chatfield-Taylor's own summar- ies and quotations would serve to show- that Goldoni did make an issue of the most characteristic vice and folly of his time, cicisbeism. Such plays as "II cavaliere e la dama" and "La dama prudente" were clearly written with a reforming purpose; and there is scarce- ly one of the many comedies of the aristocracy in which the cicisbco escapes sharp ridicule and straight invective. There is more than jest in Don Rodri- go's inability to understand why the stealing of a man's wife should be per- mitted when the stealing of his watch is forbidden. Moreover, Mr. Chatfield-Tay- lor, though he cannot see his hero with lance in rest, recognizes that Goldoni's own morality is an essential element in his enduring value. "In the breadth of Goldoni's sane vision," he writes, "and in the cleanliness of his mind, quite as much as in his unfailing humor and gayety, lie the sources of his glory." And, again, he terms Goldoni, "the most wholesome example of good humor in the realm of comedy." The chapter on the Commedia dell' arte is distinctly inferior to the rest of the book. The general impression it conveys is fairly correct, but it is faulty in detail. Mr. Chatfield-Taylor is quite wrong, for instance, in saying or implying that written comedy in the Cinquecento could boast only a handful of writers gifted with the dramatic sense, that the mountebanks used out- lines called scenari, that the Commedia dell' arte is merely a development of a popular drama devised by mountebanks, that the lazzi are always scenes, that Harlequin and Brighella appear only in lazzi, that the Doctor always speaks in the Bolognese dialect, that Pulcinella made his debut in the sixteenth century, and that the libretto for Mozart's "Don Giovanni" was based on a scenario. The other chapters, however, maintain a high standard of accuracy in all re- spects. There is a second work, and a nota- ble one, between the handsome covers of Mr. Chatneld-Taylor's volume, a Gol- doni bibliography by Prof. F. C. L. van Steenderen. Its main feature is a set of four chronological lists of Goldoni's writings. In the first list, "Improvised Comedies, Comedies, Tragedies, and Tragi-Comedies," there are 173 entries; in the second, "Books for Operas, Light Operas, and Interludes," 92; in the third, "Cantatas and Serenatas," 8; and in the fourth, "Miscellanea," 11. After the title of each work follow a few lines of apposite information. These lists, more complete, more accurate, and more detailed than those by Rabany, will b> of very great value to students of Goldoni. Neither the Pasquali pref- aces nor the letters, it may be noted, are mentioned in the list of Miscellanea. From a fifth list, devoted to the Eng- lish translations of Goldoni, it appears that twelve of the comedies and five of the librettos have been translated once or more than once. Professor van Steen- deren apparently had not seen a copy of the earliest libretto translation he re- cords, "The Accomplish'd Maid," of 1767, which is, as he surmises, a version of "La buona figliuola." It is of special interest both for its completion of a literary circle — "La buona figliuola" is adapted from the comedy "Pamela nu- bile," which was based on an Italian translation of Richardson's novel — and because it is, according to the preface, the "first attempt of bringing an entire Italian musical composition on the Eng- lish stage, by applying our language to the harmony of their most excellent composer" (Niccolo Piccini). Finally, Professor van Steenderen adds a good general bibliography, containing some 600 numbers, in which the most impor- tant editions of Goldoni's works and the most important studies of Goldoni are registered. The new volume of translations from Brieux (Luce) comprises the well- known "Blanchette" and "The Escape," which under its French name, "L'Eva- sion," was crowned years ago by the French Academy. "Blanchette," in type, is the most undramatic of plays; in view of the absence of conflict, plot, suspense, its distinguished success at the Theatre Libre must be classed perhaps with the other anomalies in the history of that extraordinary institution. The chagrin of two provincial innkeepers at the fail- ure of their duly certificated daughter to obtain the expected teacher's post leads to recriminations which drive the girl from home. After pitiful distresses in Paris (merely narrated in the play), she returns to accept thankfully the simple life and rustic wooer whom she had once rejected with contempt. This unfortu- nate girl, with her fatal diploma, her snobbishness, her textbook learning, and her show-case morality, brings out with commanding distinctness the faults of an educational system which unfits peas- ants to work with their own class with- out insuring them a livelihood among the higher circles. The usual charge of ex- aggeration has been brought against this play, but it seems to us that the abey- ance of drama proper has allowed the author to handle the mere problem with good sense, good temper, and modera- tion. The three loitering acts in the sleepy parlor of a provincial inn have distinguished merit as a reflection of vil- lage life and character. The heroine, indeed, is hardly more than a ped convenience, hut her rustic associates BTC full of lite, and the two parents, in par- ticular, are masterly delineations, pre- sented with transparent clearness, with that instinctive justice which goes farther than the intention to be just, and with a sympathy so admirable in its latency as to elude possibly the perception of M. Brieux himself. "The Escape" is inferior to "Blan- chette" as literature, but is unquestion- ably a better stage- play; the art is still rudimentary, but the author has learned to make interest virtually continuous, to give his curtains the crispness of epi- grams, and to dash at his point with a brusque precipitance which somehow lands him at his goal at whatever cost of dignity or discretion. The design, also, has its merits. The assertion of human will against fate is a theme of which age has not lessened the nobility, and "The Escape" has a really great moment when two victims of ancestral influence, de- scendants respectively of hypochondriacs and prostitutes, join hands in the strength of their mutual love and their common peril, to withstand the impending doom. Their instant relapse into commonplace after this brief exaltation might have been set down to ironic perspicacity in M. France; in M. Brieux its source is in- sensibility. The surrender of the couple on their first trial is disgracefully prompt; they are saved almost by haz- ard, and the close of the play finds them abjectly pleading for a remission of sen- tence from the dying physician who has volunteered to act as the mouthpiece of destiny. The play is at bottom less a repudiation of fate than an assault of Molieresque virulence on the time-serving, hypocrisy, dogmatism, and inefficiency of physicians. M. Brieux's difficulty, as the English preface indicates, lies in his fail- ure to perceive that the man who wishes to prove that respectable physicians are charlatans in an esoteric sense must take care that the specimens he depicts shall not be charlatans by popular standards. The confutation of the author of "The Escape" may be left to the author of "Damaged Goods." The materials and agents in .this play are prevailingly second-rate, amorous intrigues that even Paris would find con- temptible, and characters who are under- bred and puerile in the precise ratio of their claims to gentility and education. There are no gentlemen in M. Brieux's salons; you may find one here and there in the servants' hall or in the pasture. He is an honest man and a good citizen, but the tone of his mind does not cor- respond with the generosity of his pur- suits. A propagator of ideas, he is hard- ly thoughtful ; engrossed with morality, he lacks elevation. A not undiscrimi- nating preface, marred by a few Inca tious statements, has been contributed by H. L. Mencken. The publishers have seen fit to entrust the rendering of M. Brieux's French into our vernacular to a gentleman who is conversant with neither language. The performance of "The Merchant Venice," which Philip Carr has been giv- ing successfully in his Little English Theatre, in Paris, has been transferred to the Court Theatre in London. A prom- inent critic says of it: "The perform- ance is well worth a visit. The play is without cuts or transpositions; it is j, laved straightforwardly and intelli-
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276 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2541 gently; and though the cast has its weak Spots and the ensemble its occasional mo- ments of roughness and feebleness, a very fair idea of the play is presented. Cer- tainly the Shylock of Mr. Michael Sher- brooke is notable. Mr. Sherbrooke does not attempt the majesty and terror of the Irving Shylock, nor does he give us the downright comedy of the Poel or traditional Shylock. What he excels in is malignity. His malignity is horrible. And with it he is not in the least afraid of such comedy as is consistent with his reading of the character. He fawns and grins and cringes; he may positive- ly be said to 'chortle' with evil joy as he drags off Tubal to the synagogue. He is the Jew of the comic stage and the com- ic papers, as well as the most meanly malignant Shylock that we have seen. As Portia Miss Maire O'Neill is perhaps a little monotonous in the early scenes; but there is glowing passion in her scene with Bassanio; she speaks her two great speeches quite beautifully, meaning and music bearing out each other, and her conduct of the trial (the whole of which is sensibly and knowledgably staged) is just and entirely rid of the usual faults. Charles Frohman promises a revival of "Diplomacy" for next season, with Wil- liam Gillette as Henry Beauclerc, Blanche Bates as Zicka, and Marie Doro as Dora. This arrangement suggests the nucleus of an effective cast, but a good deal will depend upon the selections for the Julian, Orloff, and Baron Stein. As Henry Mr. Gillette will challenge comparison with some famous impersonations, notably those of Charles Coghlan and Lester Wal- lack. Of all the Zickas up to the present time Rose Coghlan's was the best. Miss Bates's interpretation will be awaited with interest. The part of Dora, of course, presents no particular difficulty. The once famous melodrama, "The Sil- ver King," is to be revived in London, in May, for the benefit of King George's Pension Fund for Actors and Actresses. There will be a very special cast, and the performance will be given in His Ma- jesty's Theatre. The possibility is sug- gested that E. S. Willard may be induced to emerge from his retirement and re- sume the part of Capt. Skinner — The Spider — in which he won one of his ear- liest successes. Henry Arthur Jones and Henry Herman were the joint authors of the piece, which in general workman- ship and character was greatly superior to most melodramas of its period. Sir Herbert Tree has now decided upon Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion" for his Eas- ter production at His Majesty's Theatre in London. The play is a fantastic piece of work, originally designed for Mrs. Pat- rick Campbell, who will appear in it as a Cockney flower-girl, qualified to play the part of a duchess by the instruction of a professor of phonetics. The part of the professor will be played by Sir Herbert Tree. The play, which is in Ave acts, was originally produced in October last at the Burg Theatre, Vienna. A fortnight later it was acted at the Lessing Theater, Ber- lin, with critical and popular applause. It was translated by Herr Siegfried Tre- bitsch. A project started some two years ago has at last taken definite shape, and on April 16 next the "Agamemnon" of .lEschylus will be performed in the an- cient Greek theatre of Syracuse. Nearly twenty-four centuries have passed since Hiero I. embellished his city with the theatre which tradition attributes to the architect Democopor Myrilla. The theatre itself is one of the largest as well as the most ancient in the Greek world. Cut out of the rock of the hill upon which it stands, it has a diameter of nearly 140 yards, and still possesses forty-six rows of the sixty which once formed the am- phitheatre. The nine divisions of these rows of seats can still be distinguished, as can also the altar of Dionysus, which stood in the centre of the orchestra. But the great beauty of the theatre is the su- perb view commanded by the upper ranges of seats, a view which comprises the Island of Ortygia, the valley of the Anapus, the Great Port, and the wide reaches of the Ionian Sea. The trans- lation of the "Agamemnon" that will be used is by Prof. Ettore Romagnoli. Music My Art and My Friends. By Sir Fred- eric H. Co wen. New York: Long- mans, Green & Co. $3 net. Throughout the English-speaking world Sir Frederic Cowen is known as the composer of some very popular songs. His "Scandinavian" symphony in- troduced him into many concert halls, and it is only one of six symphonic works he has produced. He has also composed four chamber-music works, four operas, three operettas, five ora- torios, and a number of cantatas. In England he has long been admired as one of the best of native conductors. In Lon- don and other cities he has come into contact with many eminent men and women, not a few of whom became his intimate friends. Of these he writes in a chatty way. One of them was the poet Browning, for a time his neighbor; he had "the curious habit of always walking with his umbrella or stick over his shoulder, as if he were carrying a gun." Throughout his book Mr. Cowen's main object is the entertainment rather than the instruction of the reader. There are many pages of anecdotes and jokes, some of them rather stale; but we do not remember having come across the one told of Brahms, who, on listening to a new work, was observed making a knot in his handkerchief and, when asked why he did it, answered: "To re- member that pretty melody by." Incidentally, one gets interesting glimpses of English musical activity during the last fifty years. Mr. Cowen happened to be born at Kingston, Ja- maica, but he was only four years old, in 1856, when his parents returned to England. He was a youthful prodigy; at the age of six he composed a waltz, and at eleven he made his first public appearance as concert pianist, on which occasion the black nurse who had been brought over from Jamaica cried out proudly, to the amazement of the audi- ence: "That's my boy! That my boy!" Santlcy was one of those who helped him by singing his early songs. Lloyd was another great singer by whose friendship he benefited. At seventeen he composed his first symphony. After studying at the Leipzig Conservatory he returned to London and joined Ma- pleson's Opera Company as accom- panist, coach for the soloists, and drill- master for the chorus. There was in those days much indifference to the pro- prieties, artistic or other. Thus, in Ire- land, during the performance of an opera, it was not unusual for the audience to stop the prima donna and make her sing "The Last Rose of Summer," "Tne Min- strel Boy," or some other popular fa- vorite, before the performance was al- lowed to go on. Not to be outdone in informality, the members of the com- pany at Limerick one day fastened the bill posters to their backs and paraded the town in the capacity of their own sandwich-men. The experience gained by Mr. Cowen during his travels with the Mapleson Company were of good use to him later when he undertook to write operas of his own. Four he composed, but none of them was a success. He writes of his failures with perfect frankness and good cheer, but with the conviction, nev- ertheless, that under more favorable con- ditions his "Thorgrim" and, still more, his "Harold" might have been more fortunate. "The British composer who writes an opera under present condi- tions is doomed beforehand to failure," he declares. British patriotism, so con- spicuous in politics, literature, art, sports, does not extend to music, and, least of all, to serious operatic works. Influential subscribers of Covent Garden actually protested against the inclusion of an English opera in the repertory. An- other impediment lies in the lack of good librettos, concerning the art of writing which the author has some remarks worth heeding. In the last analysis, however, Sir Frederic feels that the blame lies largely on his own shoulders. The critics praised his "Thorgrim," the performance was excel- lent, but all these things "are of no use without that indefinable something which attracts the public and holds it in sympathetic interest throughout a performance." The form of native art most relished by the British public is the ballad. To this class Cowen has contributed a number of specimens, of which some have become popular; nor Is he ashamed of this, though he admits that the best ballads are not usually the most re- munerative. In Wales he was surprised to find that the place of the ballad or
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March 12, 1914I The Nation 277 the folksong is so often taken by the hymn tune. In nis wanderings he fre- quently came across small parties of Welsh folk "seated on the grass slopes, singing in good four-part harmony any pieces they could remember, chiefly hymn a." A trip to Australia as musical director of the Melbourne Exposition gave him an opportunity for antipodal comparisons, which on the whole are flattering to the Australians. "The Guide to the Chassevant Method of Musical Education," by M. P. Gibb, is announced for publication next month by the Frederick A. Stokes Company. Of "The Vanity of Vanities," a new choral symphony by Granville Bantock. • . ! nt Iy produced in London, the London Timrs says that Mr. Bantock "is most himself when he escapes from 'the vanity of vanities,' when he indulges in a piece of word painting, the wind whirling about continually, for instance, when he aban- dons the words to develop a quasi-Orien- tal dance sung with closed lips imitating the sounds of flute tunes and drum rhythms, or when he bursts into a bril- liant C major phrase, 'Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart.' . . . Mr. Ban- tock is exploring the technique of the chorus, not perhaps doing anything as enterprising with the voices as Berlioz did in the 'Symphonie Fantastique' with muted horns and muffled drums, but still searching out their possibilities consis- tently." Richard Strauss has completed the score of his ballet. It is now being print- ed as his opus 63 under the title of "Eine Josephslegende," by Adolph Fiirstner in Paris. The duration of the work will be about the same as that of "Salome." The first performance is to be in Paris, by Russian dancers. For pianists, amateur as well as pro- fessional, an indispensable book is Rut- hardt's "Wegweiser durch die Klavier- literatur." It contains carefully classified and graded lists of nearly everything of value in music for the piano, either alone or in combination with other instruments. The utility of the book is indicated by the fact that the eighth edition of it has just been published by Gebriider Hug & Co. in Leipzig. It is thoroughly revised and greatly enlarged, and the author tells frankly what he thinks of certain anar- chistic tendencies in the music of to- day. Sibelius is at work on his fifth sym- phony. A clique of "freakish-looking fanatics" gave "frenetic applause" to Arnold Schon- berg's "Kammer-Sinfonie" in Berlin the other day, while others in the audience indulged in hisses and cat-calls. Caroline V. Kerr writes in the Musical Leader that "the chamber-symphony is written for fifteen solo instruments and is as laden with dissonances as an overheated mo- tor. Throughout the score there is noth- ing that could be designated as a theme or characteristic figure, but the small orchestra goes joyfully on its way, obey- ing to the letter the scriptural injunction of not letting 'the right hand know what the left is doing.' " Art PICTURES AT THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM. The Metropolitan Museum has just published a "Catalogue of Paintings" from the competent hand of Curator Bryson Burroughs. Now, to publish a thoroughgoing catalogue might seem a most normal proceeding for a great mu- seum. As a matter o'f fact, it is still rather an exceptional grace. It is only in Germany that one has the right to assume the existence of well-made cata- logues, and it is only about ten years since the Metropolitan Museum has made the preparation of such catalogues a regular part of its policy. The "Cata- logue of Paintings" marks a stage in a very active process of weeding out bad pictures, buying good ones, and rear- ranging the galleries. Within ten years the Metropolitan Museum has gained great funds for purchases, and in the same period has been systematically strengthening its staff. In the most con- spicuous exhibit we have the opportu- nity of reviewing this development. On the side of rearrangement too much good can hardly be said of the work. It was to be expected that Director Rob- inson would secure a chronological ar- rangement, but few probably realize how difficult it was to effect this. At last all the older schools are displayed in order and chronologically, while such individ- ual exhibits as the Wolfe, Hearn, and Vanderbilt collections, although escap- ing the general historical classification, have been brought into relatively har- monious relations to the rest. Ten years ago the galleries looked like two very fine private collections — the Marquand and Vanderbilt, with several mediocre private collections appended. Noth- ing could be learned except with great difficulty, and rather little could be en- joyed. Of course, that confusion had its sufficient reasons, and was nobody's fault. All the same, high credit is due to those who have straightened out the tangle and have made the galleries al- most without exception places of instruc- tion and of high pleasure. The new Catalogue gives occasion both to review the purchases of recent years of quick expansion and to con- sider the present condition of the col- lection as a whole. When one remem- bers that the great purchasing funds of the Museum put it far in advance of all European competitors, the purchasing success of the Museum has not been bril- liant. A kind of mediocrity has per- force presided over the choice, for it is the choice not of an individual, but vir- tually of two committees, an informal committee of the staff and a stated com- mittee of the trustees. No quick or bril- liant transaction is possible under these conditions, and a kind of law of aver- ages prevails. Illustrative examples are the purchase by the Museum of the least attractive member of a Paolo Veronese series at the moment when Mr. Frick was buying the two preferable pieces; or the recent purchase at a great price of a metallic and mannered composi- tion, the appearance of which entirely belies its ascription to the greater Tin- toretto; or the purchase of a Bellini Madonna that has merely a faint echo of the quality of the most delightful of Venetians. Against such acquisitions should in fairness be set the splendid Correggio, Four Saints; the Carpaccio Pieta, the Rubens, Wolf Hunt, and many a more modest purchase, either intrin- sically desirable or historically apposite. Some acquisitions leave one perplexed. Take the Botticelli St. Zenobius: one is glad to have so imaginative a thing on any terms, and yet reluctant to see anything so marred by old neglect and recent restoration. Such considerations tell the story of the recent buying cam- paign. It has been only fairly success- ful, and this will be the case so long as the buying is done by committee. Of course, this may be a business necessity of the situation. One can imagine the state of mind of trustees towards the spending of the great sums in their charge. It is hard to delegate such spend- ing without the usual business controls. Yet the fact remains that only one mu- seum buys freely and well, namely, the Kaiser Friedrich Museum at Berlin, which has prospered mightily under the benevolent tyranny of Dr. Bode. Inci- dentally, the best buying in the Metro- politan Museum has been in the depart- ment of decorative art, where the arti- cles are too numerous to be passed by any committee, and in the classical de- partment, where the Director may be able to influence the committee more than any curator could do. The whole matter of museum buying remains to be worked out, and it must be admitted that if the Metropolitan Museum in its picture-buying is doing only moderately well, few museums are doing conspic- uously better. Taking the collection as a whole, with some twelve hundred pictures, in mere numbers it approaches the famous for- eign galleries. In French painting of the nineteenth century no museum but the Louvre is better supplied. This is the only point of unqualifiedly favorable comparison with foreign museums gen- erally. Whatever the growth in other directions, there has boon significant growth. The collection of Dutch and Flemish old masters, while not large, is singularly complete and well balanc- ed. It is by far less rich than similar collections in the second-class museums of Europe, but it is well selected and,
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278 The Natio n [Vol. 98, No. 2541 broadly speaking, entirely adequate to the especial needs of the Museum. In Italian and Spanish old masters merely a good beginning has been made, and pictures of first importance are excep- tional. It may be the Museum leaves the Spanish field to the Hispanic Society, whose gallery is notably rich. The most pressing need is the systemic upbuild- ing of the Italian galleries. The scarcity of fine examples and the great prices make the task staggeringly difficult; still much is already under way in filling the gaps. When we turn to English painting of the eighteenth century the prospect is more cheerful. It is not a remarkable display from the point of view of quality, but no museum outside of England has a better one. In French painting of the eighteenth century the Museum is lamentably deficient. Prices here are become almost prohibitive, and the Museum must depend largely on gifts. The Early American school still needs building up; the later American paint- ers are represented with appalling gen- erosity. Here, largely owing to the lib- erality of the late George Hearn, there has been a steady increase. On the whole, the buying has been well done, and the gifts no worse than need be; but we believe this influx of canvases by living artists is distinctly a misfortune for the Museum. Much of this mate- rial is not worth museum honors now, and most of it will simply go to fill the storerooms in a matter of twenty years. In its own defence, the Museum will be forced either to limit such exhibits severely or put them under a separate roof. That' would be far the best plan, a kind of American Luxembourg for con- temporary art, from which the pictures of abiding value might be culled out for permanent exhibition. The weakest aspect of the Museum's policy to-day is precisely this patronage of contempo- rary art. It is not the buying itself that need be objected to, but the premature placing of work of unproved value in a museum devoted to the approved work of the past. The solution is an extra- mural department of contemporary art. It should be added that the Altman collection will bring a great accession of strength, especially in Early Flemish and Dutch painting; but, unhappily, these pictures can never be put in his- torical sequence with the general collec- tions. The task of balancing the collec- tions goes on with much system and in- telligence, but without much insight. A kind of collective intelligence may be got from committees, insight is solely a product of individuals. The danger of the Metropolitan Museum, for here the galleries of painting are merely symp- tomatic of a general condition, is that of being overfilled with objects which, while of a certain historic and arehajo- logical significance, are of no high artis- tic merit. Museums thrive not by his- toric sequences, but by the possession of masterpieces, and masterpieces are much rarer in the Metropolitan Museum than need be, considering the greatness of its funds and the capacity of its staff. As Mr. Bryson Burroughs's "Catalogue of Paintings" represents the first sys- tematic scrutiny of the Metropolitan Mu- seum's collections, many new attributions of familiar pictures are only to be expect- ed. Mr. Burroughs has provided rather a careful hand-list than a full-fledged cata- logue. There is brief information about each artist, a terse identifying description for each picture, and, when necessary, a brief note concerning attributions. Recent acquisitions have usually been fully stud- ied, in the Museum Bulletin. References to these articles are a welcome conve- nience. At all points conciseness has been the aim. The student would welcome in- formation as to provenance — and it seems to us that in exceptionally interesting and important cases such information should have been given. However, one must rather admire the consistency with which the text has been kept down to bare es- sentials. A fuller catalogue will doubt- less follow in due course. Throughout, the work has been conducted with good sense and sound scholarship. We notice no serious slip except in the account of Antonello da Messina, where the latest discoveries have not been taken into ac- count. The catalogue introduces an in- teresting novelty in the use of the Cutler system of library classification for num- bering the pictures. Each artist is desig- nated by his initial with a coefficient, and the pictures are designated in the order of acquisition. Thus R 28 is Rembrandt's number. R 28 — 2 means the second Rem- brandt acquired, to wit, the Portrait of a Man in the Marquand collection. An ap- pended S indicates a school piece. R 28S — 1 denotes the old copy of Rembrandt's Adoration of the Shepherds, also in the Marquand gift. The system is entirely flexible. It was adopted particularly be- cause the Metropolitan Museum is in rapid growth and naturally wishes to avoid perplexing change of numeration. But the system seems equally good in all cases where museum material can be classified under artists' names. The weak- est point in this catalogue is the typo- graphical arrangement, which is confus- ing, but easily amended. By printing the artists' names in a heavier face, the pres- ent confusion with the titles of the pic- tures would be avoided. This is an im- provement that should be made in a sec- ond edition. This catalogue comes as the crowning record of a long process of weeding, purchase, and rearrangement, by which within ten years the attractiveness and usefulness of the galleries have been doubled. The steady production of hand- books like the present is the surest evi- dence that a museum can give of the pos- session of a competent and devoted staff. Mr. Burroughs is to be congratulated on the successful accomplishment of a task requiring not merely scholarship but a high degree of tact and good judgment. "The Renaissance of the Greek Ideal," by Diana Watts, is announced for publi- cation next month by the Frederick A. Stokes Company. In his "Raphaels! udien," a handsomely printed pamphlet of forty-eight pages (Berlin: Hyperionverlag) , Mr. Oscar Ollen- dorff presents with further evidence and new extensions his interpretation, first published in 1896, of the figure of Aris- totle in the School of Athens. The sub- stance of this interpretation is that Ra- phael's Aristotle is an embodiment of the "perfetto cortegiano," the Renaissance ideal of the many-sided, cultivated aris- tocrat. In support of this view are cited Castiglione's own application of the term "cortegiano" to Aristotle, the grace, dig- nity, and air of moderation expressed in the figure, and Raphael's friendship with Castiglione and other members of the court at Urbino during the period to which the dialogues of the "Courtier" are- attributed. Castiglione himself had de- rived his ideal from the "Nicomachsean Ethics"; the virtues of his courtier are explained as lying midway between two extremes, equally avoiding excess and de- fect. Further, Raphael himself was a courtier-nature, in Castiglione's sense, marked as such by his love of classical antiquity, his enthusiasm for learning, his aspiration towards lofty ideals, and his personal grace and charm. Thus it is by no accident that he should have be- come interested in Castiglione's specula- tions, that he should have embodied in his Aristotle a conception of which Aris- totle was the real originator, and that he should have introduced his own portrait into the picture, upon the Aristotelian side. The last circumstance is the more significant as being the sole instance in which Raphael himself appears in any of his compositions. The figure of Aristotle is held by Mr. Ollendorff to be the culmination of a series, showing Raphael's gradual realiza- tion of an ideal of manhood in which grace should be conspicuously present. Later the Christian ideal supplanted the courtier-ideal; the apostles of the Vatican tapestries are akin, not to Aristotle, but to the Plato of the School, a type of ex- clusively spiritual striving, neglectful of external graces. But the Christ of Feed My Lambs still retains certain features of the Aristotle-type, with such differences as must distinguish the heavenly Prince from the earthly courtier. Mr. Ollendorff brings both scholarship and sympathetic insight to his interpretation of Raphael, whose aristocratic culture he believes to be inadequately appreciated in the pres- ent democratic and materialistic age. Finance UNDOING THE MISCHIEF OF THE PAST. When the Supreme Court, acting un- der the Sherman Law, began to decree the dissolution of certain great so-call- ed "Trusts," there was an agonized oul cry, from both Wall street and the In vesting community. Wall Street's dis- tress was caused by tho conviction,
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March 12, 1914] T li e Natio 11 279 which had been carefully instilled into its mind by the financial leaders, that we 1 ould not go on doing business suc- cessfully without these enormous com- binations of corporations. The misgiv- ings of the outside investor were inspir- ed by his notion that "dissolution' meant destruction of plant, good will, and business profits. Both very soon turned out to be curiously mistaken. The separate companies, released from the domination of one company which controlled them all through the ma- Chlnery of corporate ownership, contin- ued to do a successful and prosperous business. This gave a somewhat different turn to the public's point of view. Even the simple-minded began to realize that these huge combinations, which had been talk- ed of as if prosperity itself had been originally created by them and could not exist without them, were in reality experiments of a single decade; that they were the outgrowth of a period marked by conceptions of finance which often verged on delirium, and that many of them had been notorious failures. As a further inference, it began to be dim- ly felt that the outcome of "dissolu- tion" might also mean return to a sound and stable condition of affairs. But the so-called great Trusts were not the only new phenomena of "com- bination" in that period of extravagance and delusion. Three contrivances were introduced with a flourish by our finan- ciers of 1899 and 1901. One was the "community-of-interest" idea, whereby one company (usually in the railway field) would buy up a block of shares in another competing company, hold those shares in its treasury, and elect one or two directors in the other corporation. The notion seemed to be that competi- tive concerns would thereby, so to speak, direct one another's affairs and remove unpleasant competition. This expedient lost its vogue when it was found that "community-of-interest directors" were virtually snubbed by the regular mana- gers, and excluded from active partici- pation in the management. The "holding company," which bought up other corporations by exchanging its own shares for theirs, was the next ex- pedient. The United States Steel was one of these; the Northern Securities was another; the Standard Oil yet an- other. Their purpose was, first, to an- nihilate competition between the compa- nies bought up, and, secondly, to concen- trate control perpetually in a few hands. Those purposes were often denied, but the denials were wasted words. The Northern Securities and Standard Oil decisions of the Supreme Court put an end to the process. The third expedient was the buying up by one company of the shares of an- other, and raising the money for the purpose through issuing a bond of the purchasing company, secured only by the shares of the company acquired. The Mercantile .Marine and the Inter- borough-Metropolitan did this, and so did the Rock Island. That is what gives peculiar interest to the present situa- tion in the last-named property. In most cases where the expedient was employ- ed the collateral trust bond was issued on the credit of a strong existing com- pany, which had used that machinery to keep under its own control the other company whose shares were deposited as pledge for the bonds. But the men who in 1901 used the proceeds of their reckless company pro- motions and wild speculations to buy up control of the fine old Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific property carried the process to its last analysis. They con- structed a fictitious "holding company"; put the old railway shares under a col- lateral trust bond, issued by another fic- titious company owmed by that shadowy concern, and, in exchange, presented themselves with the collateral trust bonds and with no less than $140,000,000 in stock of the "holding company" — stock which had absolutely no property or assets back of it except the shares of the old railway, all of which were pledg- ed as security for the 4 per cent, collat- eral trust bonds. Financially considered, this perform- ance was clearly nothing but the recapi- talizing of a railway for three times the amount of stock on which it had previously paid a conservative divi- dend. Considered as a physical experi- ment, it was lifting one's self into pros- perity by the boot-straps. But the pro- jectors of the scheme had a different end in view, which, in fact, was cynically avowed at the time. Their purpose was, as in the case of the other peculiar ex- pedients of 1901, to control a company without keeping their capital tied up in it, and, for this reason, the ringleaders of the Rock Island promotion expected to keep the "holding company's" pre- ferred stock (which alone controlled the board of directors), and sell their com- mon stock and collateral trust bonds, which had no control at all. They succeeded in getting the com- mon stock and bonds into the public's hands. But they overlooked two facts which are now seen to have been ahead of them all along. One was, that skill in constructing paper corporations does not make men respectable railway man- agers. The other was, that when inter- est should be no longer paid on the col- lateral trust bonds, the holders of those bonds could automatically acquire the shares of the whole railway property, and leave the "holding company'' with nothing. This is the situation which has devel- oped in the Rock Island, as a sequel to the foolish performances of a dozen years ago. It is a situation which at least points its own moral — equally with the dissolution of the enormous "Trusts" — as to the economic worth and value of the New Finance of 1899 and 1901. It raises the query whether it was not the deficiencies of our corporation law, rather than "tendencies of the age," which really made possible this un- scrupulous thimble-rigging, in the face of the courts and the police. It conclu- sively answers the question — not often asked, however, nowadays — as to wheth- er we should not all have been better off if our Government had left "Big Busi- ness" to its own devices. BOOKS OF THE WEEK. Appel, Joseph H. My Own Story. Piatt & Peck. 50 cents net. Barclay, Mrs. H. East of the Shadows. Doran. $1.25 net. Bower, B. M. Plying the Ranch. Dil- lingham. $1.25 net. Brown, W. The Judgment of Very Weak Sensory Stimuli. Berkeley: University of California Press. Brucker, E. Botany. Zoology. Double- day, Page. 50 cents each net. Camp, W. Auction Up to Date. Piatt & Peck. 50 cents net. Carson, W. E. Mexico. Macmillan. $2.50 net. Champagne, M. Love. Boston: Badger. $1.25 net. Cohn, A. M. A Bibliographical Catalogue of the Printed Works Illustrated by George Cruikshank. Longmans. $5 net. Curwood, J. O. Kazan. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. $1.25 net. Delbriick, H. Numbers in History. Lon- don: University of London Press. Dussaud, R. Introduction a L'Histoire des Religions. Paris: Leroux. Dusserre, A. Jean and Louise. Doran. $1.20 net. Ekblaw, K. J. T. Farm Structures. Mac- millan. $1.75 net. Evans and Merhaut. Ein Charakterbild von Deutschland. Heath. $1 net. Fleming, G. 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280 Tli e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2541 Presidents of the United States. Ed by J. (J. Wilson. 4 Vols. Scribners. Kabindranath Tagore. Chitra. Macmil- lan. $1 net. Recit et Contes de la Guerre de 1870. Ed. by M. S. Bruce. Holt. 35 cents net. Redgrove, H. S. Experimental Mensura- tion. Van Nostrand. $1.25 net. Reyes, Rafael. The Two Americas. Trans, from the Spanish by L. Grahame Stokes. $2.50 net. Reynolds, B. A Doubtful Character. Doran. $1.25 net. Roy, Lillian E. Five Little Starrs on a Canal Boat. Piatt & Peck. 35 cents net. Seidell, Charles A. Everyman's Garden K\ ery Week. Dodd, Mead. $1.25 net. Sherman, C. A Wise Son. Indianapo- lis: Bobbs, Merrill. $1.25. Stambler, B. Les Roumains et les Bul- gares. Paris: Pedone. Street, G. E. Gothic Architecture in Spain. Dutton. $2 net. Swanwick, H. M. The Future of the Women's Movement. London: Bell. $1. Tapper, Thomas. The Boy as a Citi- zen. Piatt & Peck. 35 cents net. The Empress Frederick. Anonymous. Uodd, Mead. $2.50 net. Turner, H. H. Tables for facilitating the use of harmonic analysis. London: Milford. Young's Freshman English By FRANCES BERKELEY YOUNG, formerly Instructor in the University of Wisconsin, and KARL YOUNG, Associate Professor in the same, xii+679 pages. 12mo. $1.25. This is a substantial revision and material enlargement of Berkeley's Writing from Models. The most important change is the provision in Part I. of chapters on The Planning and Writing of Themes, Paragraphs, Sentences, Punctuation, and Words. These embody sensible working suggestions and rules, illustrated by student themes and by selections from standard authors. With the foundation laid for correctness in writing, Part II. deals with the various forms of discourse, taking up first a few general principles and then a number of literary examples. Many of the model selections in the original book are retained, but there have been several additions, and there is a chap- ter on Argumentation, which form of discourse was not treated in the earlie.- M. HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY. "KSS81- Dedications An Anthology of the Forms Used from Early Days of Bookmaking to the Present Time Compiled by Mary Elizabeth Brown $2.50 net. By mail $2.75 "A quaint and extraordinary anthology. ... A kind of history of men and manners in allusion and epigram." — N. Y. Evening Post. "Not only a real addition to the literature of reference, but affords ex- ceptionally interesting reading." — Hartford Courant. "Commendably chosen and edited, the book can assuredly be read for pleasure as well as instruction." — Boston Transcript. "An interesting collection of curiosities of literature, as well as a fine specimen of typography." — N. Y. Times. New York 2-6 W. 45th St. Q. P. Putnam's Sons 24 Bed^st", strand GRADUATE, AMERICAN, FOREIGN UNIVERSITIES (Ph.D.), specialty Germanics, but having also taught French, Spanish, Eiigllnh, History, seeks re-engagement, College, Normal, High or Private School, having recently spent three ad- ditional years abroad. Total European resi- dence, nine years; ten years' experience teach- ing In College and High School; some estab- lished reputation as Author, Lecturer. High- est possible credentials, references. Salary first year (if engaged early) secondary con- sideration. Might consider vear of substitute work. Address PROFESSOR J., care The Nation. WILLIAM H. TAFT POPULAR GOVERNMENT Its Essence, Its Permanence and Its Perils Price 91.15 net "Delightful reading, (showing 1 a compres- sion Which Is masterly." — -Westminster Oa- zette, YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW HAVEN, CONN. NEW KOBE CITY HIGH CLASS RESEARCH For Lecturera,Speakers, Writers, Club-women, Debat- ers. Outlines, briefs and other literary assistance. Bureau of Research, New Albany, Ind. NEW MAGAZINE ON EGYPT An Illustrated quarterly mngnzlne, beautifully Illustrated, with news of late discoveries, edited by PROF. PETRIE. began with the January num- ber embellished with frontispiece of jewelry In Colors. Price $2 a year. The discoveries by Petrle and others for the EGYPTIAN RESEARCH ACCOUNT (Society) relate to the arts of Ancient Egypt anil to its predynastlc age. An annual quarto volume, profusely Illustrated, and the magazine should be in all public ami man; private libraries. Circulars of these publications (reel; furnished. Address REV. I 'it. W. C. vVINSLOW, r,2.r> Beacon Street, Boston. The Curious Lore of Precious Stones BY GEORGE PRKDRRICK KUNZ. With numerous plates in color and double-tone. Svo. t'loth, Booed, |B. 00 net. Carriage extra. Being a Description of Their Sentiments and Polk Lore, Superstitions, Symbolism, Mysticism, l!sr ill Medicine, Protection, Prevention, Itellglen and Divination, On Crystal Gazing, Birth Stones and Royal Jewels. .1. it. Uppim-oH c., Phlladelptatai >'»• "TO LIBRARIANS " It it of interest and importance to know that the books reviewed and advertised in this mm) azine can be purchased from us at advanta- geous prices by PCBIiIC LIBRARIES SCHOOLS, COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES A. C. MeCI.UIKi A CO., CHICAGO Chicago and the Old Northwest 1673-1835 By MILO M. QUAIFE This book is in scope and subject- matter a history, but in language and content it is as thrillingly inter- esting as romance. It is a history of the founding of old Port Dearborn at the mouth of the Chicago River at the time when the modern metropo- lis of Chicago was but a wilderness hunted over by Indians. It describes the "Fort Dearborn massacre," the contest of the British and Americans for the Indian trade of the great Northwest, and the Indian wars, massacres, and frontier experiences which figured in the development of Chicago. The work is the most ab- sorbingly interesting contribution to the history of the Northwest that has appeared in years. It is fully il- lustrated. 470 pages, 8vo, cloth. Price $4.00, postage extra {weight 3 lbs.) The University of Chicago Press Chicago, Illinois Foreign Books and Magazines Correspondence Solicited E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 681 Fifth Avenue, near 54th Street NEW YORK SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS First Folio Edition. Edited by Char- lotte Porter. 40 vols. Cloth, 75c per 70l.; leather, $1.00 per vol. "By all odds the best edition now accessible." — [The Living Age. THOMAS Y. CROWELL CO., New York For Lenten Reading ABISH0PAM0NGHISFL0CK By BISHOP ETHELBER T TALBOT Bishop of Bethlehem, Pa. Author of Ma People of the Plains." 91.00 "■■■•"' upon application
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The Nat VOL. XCVIll— NO. 2542 THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 1914 vllEmL PRICE TEN CENTS Important Books of the Spring Annals and Memoirs of the Court of Peking By J. O. P. BLAND and EDMUND BACKHOUSE. "Of the importance to us to-day of understanding or endeavoring to understand the Chinese, no one will entertain a doubt, and therefore we heartily welcome a book like this in which the attempt is made, and made, we believe, successfully, to trace cause and effect back to the buried foundations of Chinese philosophy and civilization and to look at things from the Chinese point of view." — London Olobe. Lavishly illustrated. $4.50 net. Postage extra. George Borrow and His Circle By CLEMENT K. SHORTER. "A treasure and a delight to admirers of Borrow." — London Athenaeum. "A sane book about a sane and magnificently wholesome man." — London Daily Express. "A delightfully entertaining Borrovian is Clement King Shorter. . . . The work is distinguished by a wealth of new material, much of which consists of hitherto unpublished letters of Borrow and his friends." — San Francisco Chronicle. With frontispiece. $3.00 net. Postage extra. The Passing of Empire By H. FIELDING-HALL. One of the most important and authoritative books that have yet appeared about the Brit- ish rule in India. It is an important contribution to the history of Colonial administration, which at the present time has a special pertinence to American readers, confronted, as we are, by very similar problems in the Philippines. $2.50 net. Postage extra. Commodore George Hamilton Perkins, U. S. N. By CARROLL STORRS ALDEN. An important addition to American historical biography and a most readable and engrossing biographic narrative. Commodore Perkins served with Farragut in some of the most notable naval en- gagements of the war; and he was in command of the monitor Chickasaw, which had the most conspicuous part in the battle of Mobile Bay. Illustrated. $1.50 net. Postage extra. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, The Story of His Life By MARY THACHER HIGGINSON. This intimate biography tells for the first time the full story of the life of one of the most interesting of American soldiers and writers. Fully illustrated from portraits, views of Colonel Higgin- son's homes, friends, etc., and with facsimiles of interesting manuscripts. $3.00 net. Postage extra. The Americans in the Philippines By JAMES A. LeROY. With an Introduction by Hon. William H. Taft. The first complete, comprehensive, and au- tnoritative history of the first years of the American occupation of the Islands. Mr. LeRoy was Secretary of the Phil- 'PP'"^ Commission. He had a personal knowledge of most of the events of which he wrote, and spared no pains in /vW research of documents, records, and newspapers (both American and Spanish). The work is not less readable than sound. 2 vols. Boxed. $10.00 net. Postage extra. POETRY OF VARIED INTEREST The Poems of Walter Conrad Arensberg The "Poems" of Mr. Arensberg touch a note of fantasy that has rare- ly been heard in English Terse. It is to men like Verlalno and Laforgue that one must look for kinship to such interpretation, at once capricious and searching, of the senses and the spirit. Finished in execution, they are compact in phrase, daring in versification, and vividly personal in imagery. $1.00 net. Postage extra. In the High Hills By MAXWELL STRTJTHERS BURT. This little book Is one that the lover of poetry cannot overlook. Mr. Burt has authentic poetic- In- spiration and a fine command of poetic language and his work will be read and treasured. .$1.00 net. Postage extra. The Poems of Joseph Beaumont Poems, most of them hitherto unpublished, of Dr. Joseph Beaumont, a seventeenth century divine. The manuscript was loaned by Prof. L-eorge n. 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11 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2542 A WEEKLY JOURNAL {Entered at the New York City Post Office as second-class mail matter.] The Nation is published and owned by the New York Evening Post Co. Oswald Garrison Villard, President; John Palmer Gavit, Sec. and Treas. Three dollars per year in advance, post- paid, in any part of the United States or Mexico; to Canada $3.50, and to foreign countries comprised in the Postal Union, $4.00. Address THE NATION, Box 704, New York. Publication Office, 20 Vesey Blreet. HAROLD db WOLF FULLER, Editor. STANLEY WENT, Assistant Editor. PAUL ELMER MORE, Advisory Editor. F.MIL M. SCHOLZ, Business Manager. CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER. SUMMARY OF THE NEWS 281 THE WEEK 282 The Amended Trades Commission Bill 285 Mr. Galsworthy's Protest 285 Westlnghouse and His Times 286 Religion with a "Punch" 287 Ph.D 288 Reviewing the Reviewer 288 FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE : France's Stake in the Mexican Trouble. — Appeal by Frenchmen in Mexico to Eu- ropean Powers 290 Effects of the Balkan War.- — Other Problems In Austria-Hungary 291 The Famine in Japan 291 Imagination in the College 291 I'OETRY: A Lay o' the Day 294 BOOKS AND MEN: Sir John Tenniel 294 Early Plays at Harvard 295 Transcripts of Bird Songs 296 CORRESPONDENCE : The New "Nation" 296 Realities in the Near East 297 The American Historical Association 297 The Blight of Athletics 298 Albertus Van Beest 298 The Foreign Critic 298 A Request for Letters 298 Duffers and Experts 298 LITERATURE : A History of Socialism 299 When Ghost Meets Ghost 300 Simple Simon 301 The Judgment of the Sword 301 The Remington Sentence 301 Mgean Days 301 S. Bernardino of Siena 302 The Minor Poems of Joseph Beaumont.... 303 NOTES 303 SCIENCE : Brief Biography and Popular Account of the Unparalleled Discoveries of T. J. J. See 307 DRAMA: The Chicago Theatre Society 308 European Dramatists 309 "As You Like It" 309 MUSIC: Afro-American Folksongs 811 ART: French Colour-rrints of the XVIII Century. .",12 FINANCE: Mexico and the Markets 313 BOOKS OF THIE WEEK 313 Railroad Reorganization By STUART DAGGETT, Assistant Professor of Railway Economics In tlie University of California. HARVARD ECONOMIC STUDIES, VOL. IV 8vo. Cloth. 404 pages. $2.00 An examination of the financial history of eight large railroads that failed, and of forty-two reorganization plans. "The work should be of great aid to the Investor who Is involved In any of the cur- rent reorganizations, as well as an Important source of materials for class-room study. " — Journal of Political Economy. 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March 19, 1914] The ]STation 111 CROWELL'S SPRING BOOKS Adventures of The Infallible Godahl By FREDERICK IRVING ANDERSON These fascinating chapters from the career of a character even more ingenious in conception than the famous Raffles have made a great sensation during their publication in serial form. Not only are they well worth reading for their interest-compelling plots, but they gain an added value from the exceptional merit of the author's literary style. Mr. Anderson has developed a vein of fiction that well-nigh outclasses the work of both Hornung and Conan Doyle. 8 illustrations. 12mo. $1.00 net. By mail, $1.10. THE COMMUTER'S GARDEN Edited by W. B. HAYWARD A book for those who possess small plots of land and want advice on how best to improve and beautify them. Full of valuable information. 16 illustrations from photographs. 12rao. $1.00 net. By mail, $1.10. TUBERCULOSIS: Its Cause, Cure, and Prevention By EDWARD O. OTIS, M.D. The simple facts about this dread disease presented in a form interesting and intelligible to the layman. Dr. Otis is an authority on the "Great White Plague." 16 illustrations from photographs. 12mo. $1.25 net. By mail, $1.37. RICHARD WAGNER: The Man and His Work By OLIVER HUCKEL A sympathetic study of the great composer, from a fresh viewpoint. Issued in style uniform with Dr. Huckel's well-known translations of the Wagner Music-Dramas. Illustrated. Cloth, 75 cents net. Limp leather, $1.25 net. Postage 8 cents. HOW TO REST By GRACE DAWSON Points out in a practical way the right method of living. Brief and to the point, and filled with sen- sible advice. 12mo. 50 cents net. By mail, 55 cents. THE MESSAGE OF NEW THOUGHT By ABEL LEIGHTON ALLEN A clear exposition of the basic ideas of New Thought and comparison of its teachings with those of the orthodox religions and Christian Science. 12mo. $1.25 net. By mail, $1.37. THE DEAF: Their Position in Society By HARRY BEST The results of a thoroughgoing, scientific study of the deaf and so-called "deaf and dumb" in the United States. An authoritative contribution to the litera- ture of a vitally important subject. (In Crowell's Library of Economics.) Svo. $2.00 net. By mail, $2.20. HEROES OF THE FARTHEST NORTH AND FARTHEST SOUTH By J. K. MACLEAN Stirring accounts of leaders in Polar exploration, in- cluding Franklin, Kane, Greely, Nansen, Peary, Shackleton, and Captain Scott. Illustrated. 12mo. 50 cents net. By mail, 55 cents. ROGET'S THESAURUS Revised by C. O. S. MAWSON New large-type, thin-paper edition of this indispens- able aid to students and literary workers. Revised and greatly enlarged. Cloth, $1.50 net. Limp leather, $2.50 net. Postage 15 cents. The Education of Karl Witte Translated by Professor LEO WIENER and edited by H. ADDINGTON BRUCE The first edition in English of the remarkable story of the early training of the German boy who at fourteen took his degree of Ph.D., and at sixteen was made a Doctor of Laws and appointed to the teaching staff of the University of Berlin! An important book for parents and educators. 8vo. $1.50 net. By mail, $1.65. THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY, NEW YORK
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IV The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2542 IMPORTANT NEW MACMILLAN BOOKS TRAVEL. DESCRIPTION MEXICO: The Wonderland of the South. By W. E. CARSON. A new, revised, enlarged edition, with additional chapters on present con- ditions, bringing this standard work up to date. Illustrated. $2.50 net THE PHILIPPINES: Past and Present. By DKAN O. WORCESTER (Secretary of the In- terior, Philippines, 1901-13). A timely accurate work on conditions in the Philippines by "the one man on earth who knows most about the subject." Tivo vols. Richly illustrated. $6.00 net SOUTH AMERICA: Observations and Im- pressions. By VISCOUNT BRYCE. A new, re- vised edition of this "the most important work on South American republics." Colored maps. $2.50 net EGYPT IN TRANSITION. BySYDNEY LOW Introduction by the Earl of Cromer. A faithful account of the great modern progress of Egypt. Illustrated. $2.50 net FICTION GRANNIE. By MRS. GEORGE WEMYSS. A beautiful novel of home life, of the sweetness and significance of age, and the link bewteen old and young. $1.35 net THE TREASURE. KATHLEEN NORRIS'S New Novel. By the author of "Mother," etc. A new novel by this popular author, redolent again of the home atmosphere. Illustrated. $1.00 net SANDY. S. R. CROCKETT'S New Novel. By the author of "Patsy," "The Stickit Minister," etc. A hero, this time, as captivating as Mr. Crockett's previous attractive heroine, "Patsy." Illustrated. $1.35 net THE RECONNAISSANCE. By GORDON GARDINER. A novel of striking power and originality, a vivacious story of adventure. Colored frontispiece. $1.35 net POETRY. DRAMA THE TRAGEDY OF POMPEY. By JOHN MASEFIELD. The latest work of this powerful poet. $1.25 net CHITRA. By RABINDRANATH TAGORE. An idealistic lyrical drama by the spiritual Ben- gali poet-philosopher. $1.25 net THE FOOTHILLS OF PARNASSUS. By JOHN KENDRICK BANGS. A delightful selection of this entertaining poet's best verse. $1.25 net ART THE PRINCIPLES OF GREEK ART. By DR. PERCY GARDNER (Univ. of Oxford). An interesting analysis of the psychological and artistic attributes of Greek art. Illustrated. $2.25 net EDUCATION A CYCLOPAEDIA OF EDUCATION. EDITED By DR. PAUL MONROE (Columbia Univ.). The most important of the encyclopaedias. Just completed. Five vols. Illustrated. $25.00 net the set TRAINING THE GIRL. By PROF. WIL- LIAM McKEEVER (Univ. of Kansas). One of the sanest contributions towards the education of girlhood. Illustrated. $1.50 net GOVERNMENT. POLITICS PROGRESSIVISM AND AFTER. By WIL- LIAM ENGLISH WALLING. A forceful survey of radical political progress from the practical, economic standpoint. $1.50 net THE AMERICAN DOCTRINE ON JUDI- CIAL SUPREMACY. By DR. CHARLES GROVE HAINES. The origin and development of judicial control over legislation. $2.00 net AMERICAN GOVERNMENT AND POLI- TICS. By CHARLES A. BEARD. A new, revised edition of this important work for students and the general reader. $2.10 net ON POLITICS AND HISTORY. By VIS- COUNT MORLEY, O.M. A world-wide review of past, present, and future public policy. $1.00 net SOCIOLOGY VIOLENCE AND THE LABOR MOVE- MENT. By ROBERT HUNTER. A dramatic, historical narrative of the labor conflicts of the last half century. $1.50 net WHERE AND WHY PUBLIC OWNERSHIP HAS FAILED. By YVES GUYOT. An exhaustive expert treatise on state ownership and operation in different countries. $1.50 net FINANCE A THEORY OF INTEREST. By CLAR- ENCE GILBERT HOAG, A.M. A sincere attempt to solve correctly the problem of interest, intro- ducing some important modifications in the theory of value. $1.25 net AGRICULTURE FARM STRUCTURES. By K. J. T. EK- BLAW (Univ. of Illinois). A practical work en- abling the farmer to solve his building problems. Illustrated. $1.50 net SCIENCE THE UNCONSCIOUS: The Fundamentals of Human Personality. By MORTON PRINCE, M.D., LL.D. An introduction to the study of ab- normal psychology. $2.00 net THE CHILDHOOD OF THE WORLD. By EDWARD CLODD. A work which describes the source of the human race, its institutions and culture. Illustrated. $1.50 net THE ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES [OF GENERAL BIOLOGY. By JAMES F. ABBOTT (Washington Univ.). A lucid statement of funda- mentals for student and general reader. $1.50 net RELIGION. PHILOSOPHY THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY. By PROF. HENRY C. VEDDER. A vivid, accurate narrative of the great religious struggle of the 16th Century from the economic standpoint. $3.00 net THE FAITH OF JAPAN. By TASUKU HARADA (Pres. Doshisha Univ.). An admirable interpretation of Japanese ethical and religious belief. $l.so net THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL. By Dr. MOSES BUTTENWIESKR. A luminous study of the great literary Hebrew prophets. 92.00 net Published at 64-66 Fifth Ave., N. Y. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY On Sale Wherever Books Are Sold
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The Nation. KBW YORK, THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 1914. Summary of the News The most important development in the Mexican situation during the past week was the withdrawal of Gen. Carranza from the position he had assumed with regard to the right of the United States to investigate the Benton or similar cases. Following a conference with American Consul Simpich, acting under instructions from the State Department, Gen. Carranza announced that he had de- cided to accept representations from the United States concerning all foreigners in Mexico. Meanwhile, it is freely stated that Villa is ambitious to become the next President of Mexico, and that a break between him and his nominal leader is only a question of time. Villa himself, however, has denied that any friction ex- ists between the Constitutional chief and himself, and has declared explicitly that he will not be President. On the same day that Gen. Carranza made his an- nouncement the President directed an in- crease in the force of regular troops on the Mexican border to check any inclina- tion on the part of the Texans to organ- ize a raid over the frontier. On Satur- day night some Mexicans crossed the border at San Diego, Cal., burnt the general store containing the post office, and murdered Postmaster Frank John- ston. Efforts will be made to have the murderers returned to California for trial under extradition proceedings. A storm in a teacup was aroused by Ambassador Page's speech last week be- fore the Associated Chambers of Com- merce in London, with the result that a resolution was passed in the Senate call- ing on the State Department to place before it a copy of the speech. Exception was taken to the passages in which Am- bassador Page alluded to the Monroe Doctrine as meaning that "the United States would prefer that no European Governments would gain more lands in the New World," and in which he stated that it added greatly to the pleasure of the people of the United States in the building of the Panama Canal to know that the British would profit most by its use. Secretary of St te Bryan has cabled instructions to the Ambassador to for- ward the full text of the speech. In the meantime Mr. Page explains that the misunderstanding was due to too great condensation in the reports of his speech published in the press, and that the pass- ages to which exception was taken in the Senate were spoken in a facetious vein. The Senate Immigration Committee de- cided last week to report the Burnett Im- migration bill favorably to the Senate. The literacy test therefore remains in the bill, and the question will be fought out on the floor of the Senate. The application of the "gag" rule to the debate in the House on the repeal of the exemption clause in the Panama Canal tolls bill indicates that the measure will be transferred to the Senate to-day or to-morrow. According to a preliminary canvass of the Senate it is probable that the motion to repeal the clause will ob- tain a sufficient majority. The attempt to amend the Sherman Anti-Trust law by attaching to it a series of definitions has been abandoned. The difficulty of framing legislation to define exactly what constitutes a "monopoly" has apparently been found to be insuper- able, and the President, according to the Washington correspondent of the New York Evening Post, "has noted that every time a new definition is attempted in this connection it makes a new series of cases to interpret the definition." As a result of the competition of the parcel post it was announced last Fri- day that the United States Express Com- pany would go into liquidation. Reports of business during recent months show an enormous decline in comparison with the corresponding months a year ago, and it is said that the small surplus that existed on December 1 last year had by the close of February been converted in- to a large deficit. In order to preserve its assets the stockholders have decided to dissolve the company. Three indictments were handed down by the Grand Jury on March 11 against Henry Siegel and Frank E. Vogel, the principals in the conduct of department stores in Boston and New York. The indictments charge fraud in accepting de- posits in the private bank of Henry Siegel & Co. when the firm knew that it was insolvent, and in having obtained a loan of $25,000 from the National Bank of Commerce by misrepresentation of as- sets and liabilities. It is possible that the differences be- tween the United States customs officials and the Limoges porcelain manufacturers may hold up indefinitely the voting by the Chamber of Deputies of the appropriation for the French exhibit at the Panama Exposition. According to the Paris cor- respondent of the New York Sun there is no likelihood of the budget committee voting the appropriation unless the Li- moges difficulty is settled, and as the present Chamber has less than two weeks more of existence before the elections it is probable that the matter will have to be postponed for the consideration of the next Chamber. In that case, the appropriation could hardly be voted in time to make preparations for the open- ing of the Exposition. Premier Asquith's statement in the House of Commons on Monday threw no further light on the Home Pule situa- tion. The Premier admitted that he was "not much encouraged" over the recep- tion of his proposal to allow the nine counties of Ulster to decide separately, by a plebiscite, whether they would accept Home Rule or remain directly under the government of the Imperial Parliament. He refused to discuss the details of his scheme until the general principles of the proposal had been accepted by the Opposition. Mr. Bonar Law, leader of the Opposition, insisted that the details must be laid before the House before the matter could be discussed; where- upon Mr. Asquith undertook to afford an opportunity for the discussion oi his re- fusal to enter into details. Gaston Calmette, editor of Figaro, was shot on Monday evening by Mme. Hen- riette Caillaux, wife of Joseph Caillaux, the French Minister of Finance, and died late the same night. Mme. Caillaux's action was prompted by a desire for re- venge for a series of bitter attacks made by M. Calmette on her husband in Figaro. M. Caillaux has resigned his portfolio, and the Premier, M. Doumergue, has re- arranged his Cabinet. The general strike in Rome was brought to an end early last week by the prompt action of the Government. There were serious clashes between the troops and the rioters, and a number of persons were injured. While the ostensible reason for the strike, which paralyzed the entire traffic and business of the city, was to protest against the closing of a Govern- ment hospital, it is generally believed that the real purpose of the leaders, as has been the case in similar strikes, was to test the strength of the labor organ- izations. The recent elections to the Spanish Cortes resulted in a decisive victory for the Government, the Ministerialists ob- taining a majority of sixty-six Deputies. The St. Petersburg correspondent of the London Times professes to give details concerning the proposed increase in Rus- sian armaments that has been reported. A secret meeting of Cabinet Ministers and representative members of the Duma was held in St. Petersburg on Saturday, of which, according to the Times corre- spondent, the proposal was made by Min- isters that Russia should increase her army on a peace footing by 460,000 men, bringing the total up to 1,700,000. The cost of the increase, estimated at $250,- 000,000, would be spread over a term of three years. It is understood that the members of the Duma represented at the meeting, among whom were not included Socialists, Labor members, Poles, or Mo- hammedans, are prepared to vote the necessary supplies. The scandal arising out of the naval graft charges in Japan has resulted in a deadlock between the upper and lower houses of the Parliament over the naval estimates, and it is thought probable either that the Cabinet will resign or Parliament be dissolved. The latest of- ficer to be involved in the scandals is Vice-Admiral Tsurutaro Matsuo, who has been arrested on a charge of grafting in connection with naval contracts. The deaths of the week include: Gen. Francis A. Osborn, John Lambert Cad- walader, Dr. Thomas Morgan Rotch, March 11; George Westinghouse, March 12; Judge C. A. Willard, March 13; Right Rev. Dr. John Scarborough, Protestant Episcopal Bishop of New Jersey, March 14; William Lummis, March 15; Sir John Murray, March 16. ^ ' e Public Libra
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282 T li e 1ST a t i o 11 [Vol. 98, No. 2542 The Week The little diplomatic passage at arms between Secretary Bryan and Carranza has ended by the hitter's climbing down as gracefully as possible. He concedes, in language made as high-flown as may be in order to conceal his yielding, that he will consider representations made to him by the United States in behalf of British subjects, or other foreigners, im- perilled in Mexico. The incident is of no great importance in itself, but it illus- trates the difficulty of dealing with the Mexicans, whether in the north or in the capital. Their rulers have smart law- yers associated with them, who have a keen scent for every opening and lose no chance to score a point. Carranza's le- gal advisers evidently thought that they had a fine opportunity, in the Benton matter, to force recognition by the Brit- ish Government. So they drove at it with a good conceit of their own clever- ness. It came to nothing in the end, as it was bound to, but they had had their flourish, and enjoyed it. As for the hard facts and obvious dangers of the case, those they lightheartedly ignored. It was enough to have made their magnifi- cent gesture. This combination of per- tinacity in controversy with great per- sonal pride has long been familiar as a weakness of the Spanish character. The Mexicans have their full share of it; and it makes trouble for anybody who seeks to do business with them. Though the Senate was hasty and rather childish in demanding all the de- tails of Ambassador Page's jocose re- marks in London about the Canal and the Monroe Doctrine, it must be admit- ted that Mr. Page was indiscreet. Cer- tain topics an Ambassador had better keep free from jesting. This is espe- cially the case when those topics are un- der active discussion in his own coun- try. It is much wiser for him to omit not only joking about them, but all pub- lic reference to them. This is not to de- mand that an American Ambassador, particularly in England, should always be solemn and formal. It is well for him to exercise his wit, but he should do it upon non-contentious subjects. If tempted to say something flippant about the Panama Canal, he should restrain himself, and at least go no further than Jeffrey, who, it will be remembered, spoke disrespectfully of the Equator. We have no doubt that Ambassador Page will be able to prove to the satisfaction of the Senate that he was merely in- dulging in a little harmless levity which his immediate audience did not fail to understand. But it is the audience at the end of the Atlantic cable that he should never forget. To it, and on most political or controverted matters, it is a recommendation of an Ambassador that he "jokes wi' deeficulty." It appears to have been decided at Washington to abandon the attempt to amend the Anti-Trust law by plastering some new definitions over it. This seems to us eminently wise. From the first the Nation took the view that the sta- tute, as expounded and applied by the Supreme Court, is now a sufficiently stout hook to put in the jaw of levia- thans of monopoly and restraint of trade, and furthermore, that the effort to make some new verbal descriptions of the kind of thing it is sought to prevent would be perilous. The inevitable re- sult would be to unsettle what has been determined and to let loose a flood of new litigation. Define and refine as law- makers may, it is for the judges finally to say what is the legal effect of their definitions. This fact has apparently been borne in at last upon the minds of the ardent definition-makers in Con- gress. They have discovered the truth that there is no short-cut to an indus- trial millennium by merely getting up a new form of words. It is an old story. The adoption of a Code in New York was so to simplify the law and judicial procedure that the wayfaring man would know all about it and that the volume of litigation would be cut down very small. In fact, nearly every phrase in the Code has been litigated and made the subject of a large body of judicial decisions. Such would have almost cer- tainly been the fate of extemporized defi- nitions thrust into the Anti-Trust law. They can be given up without a pang. The statement made before the Senate lobbying investigation committee by a Washington lawyer, that he had been employed by a certain shipbuilding com- pany to work for the Panama tolls ex- emption, is controverted by the head of the business concern In question. It would appear that the Washington at- torney had been hired to work. for sec- tion 11 of the Panama Canal bill, and not for section 5, which relates to tolls. There is here a certain refinement of pleading which the ordinary mind will find it rather hard to follow. The ordi- nary mind will seize upon the broad fact that private business interests were not unconcerned in a question which was interpreted as involving the vindication of our national dignity against the in- solent demands of foreign Powers. The public is learning to put to a close scrutiny all arguments in which the na- tional dignity demands that something be done in violation of national honor. For that matter, the argument from na- tional dignity is losing force, in gener- al. Recent disclosures the world over — in this country, in Germany, in Japan — have revealed an intimate connection be- tween the preservation of the national dignity as the professional patriot sees it, and fat commissions from the arma- ment makers. When the Colonel's away, the boss- lets will play. But there is a growing curiosity as to what will happen when the leader returns. This curiosity cen- tres just now on Lieut. Perkins. There are whispers that some of the Moose are beginning to fear lest the for- mer Trust connections of this zealous convert are becoming a burden upon the party. At the same time, it cannot be denied that he is an aggressive fighter. His plan of campaign for the immedi- ate future is understood to be to wage war against the shining lights of the progressive Republicans, with the idea that, with them eliminated, the old par- ty will have no claim whatever upon public attention. Senator Cummins is said to be slated as the first victim, and there are stories of a huge campaign fund to defeat him in Iowa this year. Then will come the turns of Senators Borah and La Follette. On the other hand, the Republicans are not napping. The first great battle takes place in Pennsylvania, and the progressive Re- publicans of that State are endeavoring to concentrate their forces behind a single candidate, in order to make the defeat of Penrose as nearly certain as possible. The factor of urban congestion in the cities of the Atlantic Coast is conceded- ly one of the outstanding problems of immigration. It is therefore of Interest
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March 19, 1914] Tlie JSTation 283 to see what has hitherto been accom- plished in the way of a more even geo- graphical distribution of immigrants. The latest report of the Commissioner- General of Immigration says: "There can be no question but that many of the evils that grow out of our present ex- cessive immigration would be remedied, or at least alleviated, if the congestion of aliens in our large centres of popula- tion could be broken up. Distribution of admitted aliens is a thing much to be desired." A commentary on this state- ment is offered in the thirteenth annual report of the Industrial Removal Office operating in this city. Since 1901, this bureau has been instrumental in trans- planting something more than 71,000 aliens from New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, to homes in 1,155 cities and towns in every State of the Union and Canada. The West Central States have taken half of this number. If these re- sults can be attained by private initia- tive operating with comparatively lim- ited resources, it is plain that much more might be accomplished if Gov- ernment agencies were to cooperate with private effort. Probably there are more pressing mu- nicipal problems waiting for solution in New York than the question of a bridge across the Hudson, which was de- bated last Friday in the rooms of the Merchants' Association. But the na- ture of the arguments brought forward by opponents of the project is instruc- tive. Citizens of New Jersey took the position that any improvement of com- munications between that State and New York is bound to divert trade from lo- cal merchants to the department stores of this city. This has actually happen- ed in Jersey City, partly as a result of the Hudson tunnels improvement and partly through the building of the Penn- sylvania Station, which has greatly re- duced Jersey City's importance as a terminal. If better traffic facilities are bound to injure New Jersey interests, it apparently follows that New York city must benefit proportionately. But no, argue real estate interests in this city. A bridge across the Hudson means the pouring out of New York's surplus pop- ulation into New Jersey, whereas they ought to go to the Bronx and Long Isl- and. Thus, instead of the broad view that in the long run both New York and New Jersey are bound to profit by the change, one as a trading centre, the oth- er as a residential region, two narrow views confront each other. The death of John L. Cadwalader re- moves not only one of the most distin- guished New York lawyers, but one of its most public-spirited citizens. Few men have more deeply felt their civic as well as professional responsibilities. In his personal dignity, his general cul- ture, his rounded legal knowledge, and his concern for the standards of his pro- fession, he was a great ornament to the Bar. Though he had reached and passed three score and ten, he campaigned night after night for the ticket of the Judici- ary 'Nominators with the enthusiasm of youth. To many he personified the old- fashioned lawyer who was neither a corporation tool nor a mere money-mak- ing machine, but an attorney who was both friend and counsellor. As presi- dent of the Bar Association he was un- tiring in his efforts to better legal con- ditions. To the New York Public Li- brary his services have been singularly devoted and of far-reaching value, not- ably in the consolidation of the Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations. With John Bigelow, Dr. Billings, and Mr. Cad- walader gone, that institution finds itself hard hit indeed; and Mr. Edward Robin- son but voices the feeling of many in declaring that Mr. Cadwalader's death will be "an almost irreparable loss" to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A home in which not a stroke of house- work shall be done except by profes- sionals, hired to come in by the hour or day. — Mrs. Gilman. In 1890, according to the Census, there were in the United States female domes- tic servants — "servants and waiters" — to the number of 1,216,000. Ten years later the number had risen to 1,283,000. The figures for 1910 are not available, but assuming a like rate of increase, there must be to-day not far from 1,400,- 000 women household servants. The number of families that employ "help" is, of course, a small percentage of the entire population. If every home in the United States were to depend on profes- sional domestic labor, we should need, at a moderate estimate, say, ten million women servants, allowing one servant for the work of two families. Where are these ten million women laborers to come from? Obviously, they can come only from the ranks of the women who have been liberated from the burden of toiling for their husbands and their chil- dren. It does not matter whether the cooking or the laundry work of the fu- ture will be done in individual homes — Mrs. Gilman says she wants the home preserved — or in great central institu- tions. Apparently, therefore, the future of woman depends on adopting the in- stitutions of China, where they make a living by taking in each other's wash. Women are to be emancipated in or- der that they may do each other's cook- ing. Mrs. Smith will kiss her children good-by and go out to cook Mrs. Brown's dinner. And Mrs. Brown will kiss her children good-by and go out to cook Mrs. Smith's dinner. Being obliged to keep professional hours, however, the chances are that they will have no time to kiss the children good-by. St. Louis's "triumph" over the bill- board nuisance, after a battle of nine years, has a gentleness in its method that will not too severely offend adher- ents of this style of civic decoration. Its main effect is to stop an insane competi- tion in the size of rival billboards. By the law of 1905, now called into enforce- ment, the height of each is limited to 14 feet, the length to 50. The gap between two billboards must be all of six feet. All this seems calculated to save the advertiser needless expense, and yet per- mits of an ample scheme of utilizing vacant lots and glaring walls. But the worst enemy of the billboard can still congratulate himself on certain gains. They are demolishing no less than 1,800 signs which have exceeded the legal lim- it. Reconstruction will be somewhat checked by a tax of $1 per lineal five feet. Finally, the billboards must leave an open space of four feet from the ground, to avoid the possibility of screening objectionable objects. There was a time when poetry was not merely the best seller, but the only seller. The court minstrel earned his board and keep by his song, and no lit- erary rival was to be seen anywhere on the horizon. This condition can hardly be restored, but poets will be more than content with Mr. Brett's diagnosis of the present situation. For the first time since Tennyson, he is quoted in the New York Times as saying, poets are among best sellers, and he gives cold figures to
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284 T li e N a t i o ii [Vol. 98, No. 2542 substantiate the statement. Tagore's "The Gardener," according to these sta- tistics, has sold to the extent of 100,000 copies in this country alone. One is bound to agree with Alfred Noyes in his repugnance to the notion that a poet is to be judged or is to weigh his happiness by the amount of his bank account, but in so far as figures of sales indicate a larger interest in poetry, they are most gratifying to everybody who wishes one of the oldest and finest of the arts to have its proper place in the pub- lic esteem. Especially interesting is Mr. Brett's explanation of the comparative decline in the popularity of fiction. You can present a story in moving-pictures, he remarks, but not poetry. The London Times, in announcing its reduction of price from two pence to one penny, states that this step has been decided on "in view of the grave impor- tance of the present political situation." The statement made by the publisher of the Times, in an interview, is more frank. "In view of the grave impor- tance of the political situation," he says, "the authorities at Printing House Square consider the moment an appro- priate one for the issue of the Times at its new price." That the moment is well chosen there can be no doubt; that the step itself, however, was to be tak- en in the near future had for some time been regarded as settled. The change is one that is of interest to the whole English-speaking world; and the ques- tion of real concern is neither by what motive it was actuated, nor what finan- cial success may attend it, but whether the character of the paper will be main- tained. The change from three pence to two pence, made since Lord Northcliffe took possession, has left the quality of the Times in the main what it was be- fore the reduction of price — though not equal to that of the palmiest days of the Thunderer; and we believe that a cor- rect calculation of business results, as well as considerations of journalistic pride and of public spirit, would pre- scribe maintaining its standard as the only true policy for the London Times. With facts about Shakespeare long in as eager demand as pieces of the true mulberry tree, it is surprising to learn that his cranial classification is just de- termined. Professor Keith, Conservator of the Royal College of Surgeons Mu- seum in England, announces that Shake- speare was round-headed, and therefore a descendant of the Celtic people who invaded Britain in the Bronze Age. He has the word of anthropologists, more- over, that it is this stock which, diffused over Europe, produced the greatest art- ists. He estimates, from the Stratford bust, that the poet had a huge brain- capacity for a roundhead — 1,540 cubic centimetres. It appears from Dr. Keith that a mere long-head, like Burns, can trust to no advantage of brain capacity to make him more than a second-rate poet. How strong a point is scored here by the admirers of Shakespeare the Ba- conians will be quick to realize. Unless they can prove that their man had a round head also, and a still more capa- cious one, their cause will have no standing in the anthropological world. The glorious proposal for an Authors' Bank has just died in its London cradle, out it is gratifying to learn that Messrs. Zangwill and Marriott have procured a vote favoring a substitute for the insti- tution where young poets were to get a cash advance on manuscripts. The new plan is a trade union. A minimum wage enforced against the sweating pub- lisher was debated, but it was thought that the number willing to print at their own expense made it impracticable: Only by strong trade union action could the thing actually be done. Lit- erature is a skilled trade, but every one has some elemental acquaintanceship with its tools. Weak action would be use- less; but a militant trade union which contained every author of any status in England might kill some enterprises which are not fit to live, and bring some employers up to a decent standard. The advance represented by this over the original scheme, as over the French "poets' bank," is in its elimination of the risk run by the cashier in accepting works of genius as collateral. The union acts as holding company for the liter- ary output, and it is the publisher, fran- tic over idle presses, who hastens to fill out the checks. But with this worldly precaution, the romantic beauty of the project vanishes. Its success lies in banding together writers already suc- cessful. It offers no aid to the strug- gling genius, sure to succeed if only he can find a few pennies for food and a few shillings for attic rent. To ask whether the Irish have a sense of humor would bring shillelahs about the head of the rash questioner, but it might be safe to ask if they can take a joke. The mobbing of "General John Regan" in Ireland is a case in point. It must have seemed to Canon Hannay as alone deserving another play on the Irish character. And now comes something even more ludicrous. A short time ago, Punch had a facetious article on William O'Brien, and his resigning as member for Cork in order to be reelected. It fancied many more resignations by him on fantastic grounds. But one of his in- dignant followers wrote to the Free- man's Journal, declaring that "this Eng- lish production will be publicly burned in Cork by 100,000 Cork Nationalists." If each one of the hundred thousand buys a copy of Punch in order to burn it, that paper need not mind. The re- venge would be as terrible as that taken by the mob on an unpopular banker — gathering all of his banknotes that they could lay their hands upon and burning them. People who know the Paris Figaro sufficiently well to rememDer its make- up will recall the little figure of the crossed foils which always accompanied the editorial articles on the first page signed by Gaston Calmette. The militant symbol was an announcement of the editor's readiness to be called to account for his statements. It is doubtful, however, whether the editor of the Figaro expected to be called to account with such fatal directness as marked the tragedy in the Rue Drouot. The cam- paign which the Figaro has been con- ducting against M. Caillaux was bitter enough, to be sure, but such press cam- paigns are far from uncommon in Con- tinental politics, and especially in Paris. If M. Calmette's attacks on the Minister of Finance were exceptionally virulent, the thing to have been expected was that the inevitable meeting on the field of honor between the Cabinet Minister and the editor would be a bit more ser- ious than the ordinary encounter of this sort. But the affair had evidently gone beyond the point where a drop of blood from the forearm would satisfy both parties. In the mind of the hysterical woman who did not hesitate at murder, the issue seems to have presented itself as a choice of disaster for her husband or for his enemy. The publication of a letter in the Figaro was the specific cause of the tragedy.
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March 19, 1914] The Nation 285 THE AMENDED TRADES COMMIS- SION BILL. The first comment which will be made on tht'Trades Commission bill, in the new and altered shape in which the House Interstate Commerce Committee is sub- mitting it to Congress, is that the most objectionable features of the original draft have been removed. When it was first drawn up and published, during January, we pointed out that its provi- sions were inquisitorial in such degree as needlessly and most offensively to annoy a great body of incorporated en- terprises to which the real objects of the law had little or no reference. Its man- datory clauses were applied to every cor- poration, great or small, doing business in more than one State, or with a for- eign country. It required every such corporation to furnish to the Commission whatever in- formation regarding its business, finan- cial condition, and management the Com- mission might prescribe. Nor was this enough; for the bill gave to the Com- mission or its agents "complete access to all records, accounts, minutes, books, and papers of such corporations." As if to prove conclusively that the purposes of the bill were nearer to sheer meddle- someness than to pursuit of a useful public end, the original measure further declared of these highly confidential data that "the Commission shall, from time to time, make public such informa- tion, in such form and to such extent as it may deem necessary." The new bill, whose text was given out on Monday, eliminates for the most part these obnoxious provisions. Its manda- tory provisions are now applied to cor- porations owning or controlling a prop- erty of $5,000,000 or more. The kind of information which such a company is to give to the proposed Trades Commis- sion is now reasonably defined in the bill, instead of being left subject to such excessively vague language as the orig- inal bill's stipulation of "information to such degree and extent as may be pre- scribed by the Commission." Direct in- vestigation of the business and records of such a corporation — which, under the original bill, the Commission would have made, and the results of which it would have published, at its own volition — is now proposed only as a result of Execu- tive or Congressional order. Reports of the investigations "may be made pub- lic in the discretion of the Commission," but in certain cases they "shall be made public only upon the direction of the President." We do not say that the bill as now revised is itself satisfactory; in several respects it is not. Its wording is clum- sy and obscure in some highly impor- tant clauses; one of which, in fact, after exempting from the provisions of the law corporations with less than $5,000,- 000 capital, thereupon proceeds to in- clude any smaller company "which be- longs to any class of corporations which the Commission may make." This ut- terly vague declaration, which no other section of the bill explains, might quite conceivably result in subjecting the en- tire application of the law to the whim of the Commission. But such defects are susceptible of amendment in the na- ture of definition or limitation; the es- sential fact is that a bill which was objectionable from start to finish is re- placed by a bill which, with some ob- vious alterations, might be made prop- erly workable. In reality, it adds little to the powers possessed by the existing Bureau of Corporations; the main differ- ence being that the law which in 1903 created that Bureau provides that its officers begin their investigations only "under the direction and control of the Secretary of Commerce," instructs it to make its reports only "to the President from time to time, as he shall require," and authorizes its publication only "as the President may direct." What the prospects are of enacting this revised bill we do not know. The aspect of the matter which most im- presses us, however, is the plain indica- tion, from the manner in which the House committee has dealt with the original and faulty measure, that the present Congress is capable of states- manlike deliberation, even in the case of measures having more or less of indis- criminate popular clamor behind them. This is equally evident from the manner in which the proposals for sweeping pro- hibition of holding companies, and for "definition of restraint of trade," have similarly had to run the gantlet of thorough and judicial examination in committee — with the result that the mea- sures have not been drawn up at all in the shape originally expected, and prob- ably never will be. The action of Con- gress, thus far, on these various mea- sures, fairly supplements its action on the Currency bill in showing by facts, and not merely words, that the business community's dread, a year ago, lest we were entering an era or reckless and purely destructive legislation, was un- founded. We are nevertheless inclined to re- peat the expression of regret which we made at the time this new "Trust legis- lation" was announced as on the pro- gramme. We said then, and we believe now, that both Congress and the Ad- ministration would occupy a stronger position, at the end of the present ses- sion, if they had left these additional and purely experimental corporation measures alone. By confining themselves to the session's necessary legislation, af- ter the quite unprecedented achieve- ments of the extra session, both legisla- tive and executive branches of Govern- ment would have retained the enviable reputation, for courage and progressive- ness combined with useful conserva- tism, which the whole community con- ceded to them three months ago. MR. GALSWORTHY'S PROTEST. A fine flame of righteous indignation burns in John Galsworthy's letter, print- ed in the London Times under the title, "The Heartlessness of Parliament." He cites "a few only of the abhorrent things done daily, daily left undone; done and left undone, without shadow of doubt, against the conscience and general will of the community." All of them, he de- clares, are removable, and many of them by small expenditure of Parliamentary time, public money, and expert care. "And I say it is rotten," he exclaims, "that, for mere want of Parliamentary interest and time, we cannot have mani- fest and stinking sores such as these treated and banished once for all from the nation's body." Mr. Galsworthy's outburst of fiery im- patience with the slow process of hu- man betterment will stir many souls, and may result in some practical steps towards making the way of humane leg- islation easier. It is doubtless true that a considerable element in the difficulty of passing some measures of that nature is the mere heavy-footedness of law-mak- ing bodies, or, as Mr. Galsworthy puts it, "mere want of Parliamentary interest and time." It is possible that his appeal may start a movement for the devotion of some definite part of the time of Par- liament to the consideration of such
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286 The 1ST a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2542 measures. But If this gifted novelist and reformer really thinks that the dif- ficulty lies no deeper than this, that it can be overcome by a mere readjust- ment of the time-schedule of Parliament, he falls into an error from which a man of his intellectual rank might be sup- posed to be exempt. In the list of ten abuses which he names as crying out for immediate abolition there are, in- deed, some which an energetic drive in Parliament, given a fair chance, would suffice to bring to an end; but there are others, and these incomparably the biggest, which are of a totally different character. A bill to prohibit "mutila- tion of horses by docking" might per- haps be quickly passed, if Parliament would but give it attention; but does Mr. Galsworthy really think that noth- ing but the assignment of a certain number of hours to its consideration stands in the way of ending the "em- ployment of boys on work that to all intents ruins their chances in after life" or the "insufficient feeding of chil- dren"? To imagine such a thing is to show that one lives, after all, in an un- real world — a world in which the whole problem of the statesman is to think what ought to be and compare it with what is. It will not do to load too much of the blame on the adventitious element in the case. As regards the really difficult problems — the problems of labor and of poverty — the trouble, as we have said, lies deep in the nature of the question; but even as to the others, what are the facts about the feeling of the public? How many persons in England have ever bothered their heads over "export of horses worn out in work for English- men"? What proportion of the people of Great Britain are convinced that there ought to be a law forbidding the caging of song-birds? It may, indeed, be the duty of Parliament to act in these particular matters without waiting for any pressure from public opinion. But, as Mr. Galsworthy himself says, the things he cites are "a few only" of the things that are demanded by this or that group of humanitarians; and if Parliament were to pass the whole mass of measures about which one or another of these groups feels just as intensely as Mr. Galsworthy does about his, we rather fancy that the average English- man would give Parliament a piece of his mind. And incidentally, how is it that John Galsworthy himself can find it in his heart to enjoy a vacation at Taormina — whence his letter is dated- while the hideous brutalities he speaks of are filling his soul with indignation and rage? In the field of social betterment there has been in England a great deal of hard work, and a great deal of progress, in the past fifteen or twenty years. If there has not been more, it is not be- cause Parliament has been too sparing of its time; it has been for two very substantial reasons — that those who de- sire the pace to be faster are very much perplexed as to ways and means, and that there are many who think that the pace has in some respects been not too slow, but too fast. A curious sidelight is thrown on Mr. Galsworthy's percep- tion of the realities of political struggle by what he says about the time wasted in debate on the Home Rule bill. He speaks of the hours spent on it "since the last new thing was said on both sides," giving to the phrase the empha- sis of italics, in token, no doubt, of the importance of his discovery. But what the contestants are bent upon in a grim struggle like that is not to say a "new thing," but to hold up their end by hook or by crook. They are fighting out an age-long fight; what they are really car- rying on is a trial of strength, not a trial of wits. Whatever they may think about the Poor Laws, or the regulation of sweatshops, it is out of the question to substitute a discussion of these things for the fighting out of the Home Rule issue. While that fight is going on, the other class of questions are doubtless considered by Government experts and Royal Commissions, the results of whose labors will in due time be laid before Parliament; and that is all that could be done in any case. WESTINGHOUSE AND HIS TIMES. No one will, we think, deny that George Westinghouse has been one of the great figures of American business and industrial life for the last forty years. To few men is it given to achieve such success by inventions so early in life as he, and to still fewer is vouch- safed the creation of great manufactur- ing enterprises, employing thousands upon thousands of men, along lines of the greatest value to everybody. West- inghouse and Edison Illustrate to best advantage that organization of society which gives free scope to individual tal- ent and places no limit upon the legiti- mate rewards it may reap. Both began without inherited wealth, and both have contributed enormously to the revolu- tion in social and industrial life due to the utilization of electricity. Mr. West- inghouse's claim to popular fame lay, of course, more in the railway field than in the electrical; one has only to contem- plate what wonders have been accom- plished by his air-brake in safeguarding life to understand that he is entitled to be known as a benefactor of humanity. In the electrical world he was, per- haps, more an adapter and organizer than an inventor; but a great and never- tojbe-forgotten service was in connection with the development of the alternating current system for light and power. For this he received, only two years ago, the Edison gold medal of the American In- stitute of Electrical Engineers, than which, we fancy, no honor could have been more welcome, since it was Edi- son himself who in the beginning most bitterly opposed the introduction of the alternating current, calling it "imprac- tical and deadly." In this contest be- tween these two men of vision, West- inghouse saw the furthest and the deep- est; and his dogged pertinacity in stick- ing to his views in the face of ridicule and protest illustrated the strength of his character. It was only in the finan- cial field that Mr. Westinghouse appear- ed unpractical; there his dreams betray- ed him, his visions led him astray. But no financial failure could daunt his spir- it or check the fertility of his brain, as is illustrated by his recent invention of the air-spring, which, if properly devel- oped, should become indispensable in the operating of motor cars. More than 15,000 patents were controlled by him, and he held more than 300 for his own individual inventions. Withal, he never for a moment lost his interest in the individual working- man; though he could snatch a tool from a mechanic and indignantly show him wherein he was doing his work badly, he never forgot that man's welfare. He was always a regular attendant at the meetings of the association of original employees of his airbrake works. Who can measure the benefits conferred upon labor by this man, whom so many of our fellow-citizens would denounce and .strip because he achieved wealth as the
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March 19, 1914J The Nation 28? result of his genius? Even with genius, success does not come without constant application and study, and, in Mr. West- inghouse's sphere nowadays, not with- out enormous, unfruitful expenditure. Like Edison, he thought nothing of ex- pending a hundred thousand dollars or several hundred thousand dollars to search for a new method or to demon- strate the feasibility, or the reverse, of a new device. Of this the very large sum spent in developing the Nernst lamp is a case in point, and the clearest proof that there is no royal road to wealth, even when one controls patents which should insure a rich reward to inventor or exploiter. But no review of Mr. Westinghouse's career can fail to take note of the extra- ordinary period in which he lived — truly the golden age of invention and indus- trial development. The submarine cable, the telephone, the electric light, the ocean greyhound, the conquest of the air by flying machines and of the ether by wireless, the automobile — these are but a few of the marvels of science Which came to pass during Mr. Westing- house's lifetime, and are accepted as a matter of course by the oncoming gener- ation. Indeed, one may almost say that his sixty-eight years embrace the whole history of the railway. In all this, noth- ing has been more marvellous than the development of electrical and hydro-elec- trical power plants, the harnessing of the streams and rivers, the transmission of power over long distances, and the lighting of cities, for a large share of which thanks are again due to Mr. West- inghouse for his devotion to the alternat- ing current, so brilliantly illustrated by the lighting of the World's Fair in Chi- cago in 1893. Few to-day realize that the first electric trolley car was run by Frank J. Sprague in 1887, not thirty years ago; that the first arc light at- tracted great crowds in this city about 1880; that the first steamer equipped with incandescent electric light in the face of the opposition of the underwrit- ers left this city for the Pacific in 1881; that the telephone is but thirty-four years old, the automobile less than twenty. Never has the general welfare heen so subservea by industry and in- vention as during the last few decades, and never has human progress been so rapid. Fortunate, indeed, is the nation which can take the lead in these mat- ters by the aid of such talents as those of George Westinghouse. RELIGION WITH A "PUNCH:1 What is the most humiliating task that a man of intellect and character can be asked to undertake? We should say that it was to find a justification for what he heartily disbelieves in; to set up a defence for what shocks and repels and saddens him; to work out a philoso- phy which is as a mantle of charity to be thrown about things demoralizing or disgusting. Men in many different walks of life are called upon to stoop to this. The college president is expected to argue that the apotheosis of athletics makes for mental discipline and sound learning. The journalist is looked to for a glozing over of the offences of sen- sational newspapers. He can be seen doing it in the last Atlantic. But the spectacle is perhaps never so depressing as when those set apart to teach morals and religion cast about to find reasons for approving and supporting what in their hearts they must abhor. The latest example of this to fall un- der notice is the attitude of some New York clergymen towards the Rev. Billy Sunday. His address in Carnegie Hall last week was his first in this city, we believe, but was only a repetition of the kind of sermons he has been deliv- ering in various parts of the West for some years. Against the man himself, we have not a word to say. His sincer- ity we do not question. Nor do we doubt that he has helped some men to a better life. It appears to be well established that his "booze sermon" has led drunkards here and there to reform. But the point is that he makes of re- ligion a huge sensation and a blazing vulgarity. He speaks of the most sa- cred things in the language of the sa- loon, the race-track, and the gutter. His rudest sneers are for ministers of re- ligion whom he calls "fudge-eating mol- lycoddles," and for church-members, of whom a frequent description by him is that they are a "world-loving, danc- ing, card-playing, whiskey-guzzling, gin- fizzling, wine - sizzling, novel - reading crowd." As for professors in theological seminaries, what he would do with them is to "stand them on their heads in mud- puddles." His general style of speech is well exemplified in his saying in one Western city, that he was going to stay there and preach "till hell freezes over, and then I'm going to get a pair of skates and keep on soaking it into Satan." Now, it is in behalf of such a man and such methods that educated relig- ious teachers are inventing apologies that read for all the world like apologies for yellow journalism. Vulgar, yes; de- moralizing, certainly; but only see how it circulates. The Rev. Mr. Sunday sets every nerve in a deeply reverent nature tingling with pain and shame, but only observe how the crowd runs after him. "Tabernacles" are built for him in Pitts- burgh and elsewhere. Millions have thronged to hear him. He talks to them, to be sure, in the language of a newsboy or a longshoreman, but his own defence is that if he used such po- lite words as the clergy he wouldn't have larger numbers to preach to than they do. His recipe for reaching the crowd is very simple: "I loaded my old muzzle-loading gospel gun with ipecac, buttermilk, rough on rats, rock salt, and whatever else came handy, and the gang has been ducking and the feathers flying ever since." Noise and numbers! There it is, the old fallacy made to ex- cuse such a treatment of religion as really tears up its deepest roots. The old notion about the Lord not being in the earthquake but in the still small voice has become ridiculously obsolete. Conversions to the accompaniment of a brass band and shouting thousands are the great proof of spiritual power to- day. A book has just been published (F. H. Revell) on "The Real Billy Sunday." It is written by the Rev. Elijah P. Brown, D.D., who further identifies himself as "Ram's Horn Brown." It is right enough that a volume should be devoted to a great religious phenomenon — for this Mr. Sunday unquestionably is. Mr. Brown recites the facts of his life, the circumstances of his becoming relig- ious, with many details about his sub- sequent activity and enormous success. Sunday has simply developed sensation- alism in the nth power, and applied it to the work of saving souls. He is adrip with the slang of the slums. He claps Jehovah familiarly on the back. He puts a smear as of the barroom over the holy things. But countless thousands fight to hear him. He gets the crowd. And that is enough, even in religion! As he himself says, he "hands out the
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288 Tlie ]STation [Vol. 98, No. 2542 goods," he "dopes it out for the Lord," he pitches "hot ones" to that "smooth guy," the devil. At last, religion has got its "punch"! PH.D. The time has come when a serious at- tempt must be made to determine Gilbert and Sullivan's permanent place in the world of creative art. A brief review of the musical-comedy output during the last theatrical season will convince any one that we are sufficiently far removed from "Pinafore" and "The Mikado" to in- sure a true perspective. Happily, the material for a systematic examination of the subject is accessible. It is true that we are still without a defin- itive text of the Gilbert librettos. For this we must wait until Professor Ruck- sack, of the University of Kissingen, has published the results of his monumental labors. So far, we have from his learned pen only the text for the first half of the second act of "The Mikado." This is in accordance with the best traditions of German scholarship, which demand that the second half of anything shall be pub- lished before the first half. In the mean- while, there are several editions of Gilbert available, which, though somewhat im- perfect, ought to present no difficulties to the scholar. For example, in the edition of "The Mikado" issued at Chattanooga last year, the text reads: And he whistled an air, did he, As the sabre true Cut cleanly through His servieal vertebrae ! where "servieal" is evidently a misprint for "cervical." So, too, the trained eye will at once, discern that in the following passage from the Peers' chorus in "Iolan- the": 'Twould fill with joy And madness stark The hoi polloi (A Greek rebark), the sense is greatly improved by reading "remark" for "rebark," unless we argue that the chorus had a slight cold in the head, an assumption which nothing in the text would justify us in bringing forward, and which, indeed, would be contradicted by the highly emphasized summer style in which the chorus is apparelled. Thus forewarned, then, we are ready to enter upon a detailed examination of the in- tensely animated personages in whom Sir William S. Gilbert has embodied his ultima ratio, his dernier cri, and his Weltanschauung. In Ko-Ko, the author has given us a Man, with none of the sentimentalities of August Strindberg, with nothing of the limited, vegetarian outlook upon life of Bernard Shaw, with nothing of the over- refinement of Mrs. Wharton. Ko-Ko is atingle with all the passion and faults of humanity. He is both matter and spirit. He comes close to us in his rare flashes of insight and in his moments of poignant imbecility. The human being is not lost In the Lord High Executioner. He is alive straight through to his entrails and liver, 1 London might say. He is infinite, even as life is infinite. He is, by turns, affable, as with Pittl-Slng; cynically dis- dainful, as with Pooh-Bah; paternal, as with Nanki-Poo. In the presence of Yum-Yum he is that most appealing figure, a strong man In love torn between desire and duty. The firmness with which he rejects the sug- gestion that he decapitate himself, argu- ing that in the nature of things such an operation was bound to be injurious to his professional reputation, reveals a character of almost Roman austerity. There is something of the Roman, too — or shall we say something of the German? — in the thoroughness with which he would enter on his career. He would prepare himself for his functions as Lord High Executioner by beginning on a guinea pig and working his way through the animal kingdom till he came to a second trombone. This is the old standard of conscientiousness of which our modern world knows so little. And yet a very modern man withal, this Ko-Ko. Mr. Chesterton would have loved him, and would have had no difficulty in proving that his name should be pronounced not Ko- Ko, but the second syllable before the first. He is modern in his extraordinary adaptability to time and circumstance. Starting life as a tailor, he adapts himself to the august functions of Lord High Executioner. He adapts himself to Yum- Yum. He adapts himself to Katisha. No sooner is he released from prison to be- come Lord High Executioner than he has ready his convenient little list of people who never would be missed. Of his pow- ers of persuasion we need not speak at great length. His wooing of Katisha is a triumph of romantic eloquence. It car- ries everything before it, as in that superb climax when Katisha inquires whether it is all true about the unfortunate little tom-tit on a tree by the river, and Ko-Ko replies: "I knew the bird intimately." He is modern through and through, our Ko- Ko. He is at one with Henri Bergson in asserting that existence is not stationary, but in constant flux, and that the uni- verse takes on meaning only from our moods: The flowers that bloom in the spring, Tra la, Have nothing to do with the case. Far less subtle a character is the Lord High Chancellor in "Iolanthe," although, within the well-defined limitations of his type, he is as real as Ko-Ko. Like Ko- Ko he has risen from humble beginnings. But whereas our Japanese hero attains fortune by trusting himself boldly and joyfully to life, letting the currents carry him whither they will, like Byron, like Peer Gynt, and like Capt. Hobson, the Lord High Chancellor's rise is the result of painful concentration and steadfast plodding. Ko-Ko is at various times the statesman, the poet, the lover, the man of the world (as when he is tripped up by the Mikado's umbrella-carrier). The Lord High Chancellor is always a lawyer. In response to Strephon's impassioned cry that all Nature joins him in pleading his love, that dry legal soul can only remark that an affidavit from a thunderstorm or a few words on oath from a heavy shower would meet with all the attention they de- serve. Plainly, we have here a man who has won his way to the highest place in his profession by humdrum methods; the same methods which Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B., employed when, by writing in a hand of remarkable roundness and fluency, he became the ruler of the Queen's navee; the same methods brought into play by Major-General Stanley, of the British army and Penzance, when he qualified himself for his high position by memorizing a great many cheerful facts about the square of the hypothenuse. There is matter enough for an entire volume on Gilbert's self-made men — Ko- Ko, the Lord High Chancellor, Major- General Stanley, and the lawyer in "Trial by Jury," who laid the foundation of his fortunes by marrying a rich attorney's elderly ugly daughter. The suggestion is made in the hope that it will be some day taken up as the subject of a Ph.D. thesis in the University of Alaska. That is only one hint of the unworked treasures of research that await the stu- dent in these librettos. How valuable would be a really comprehensive mono- graph on the royal attendants in Gilbert, including a comparison of the Mikado's umbrella-carrier with the Lord High Chancellor's train-bearers! REVIEWING THE REVIEWER. The despotism of the professional crit- ic— literary, art, or dramatic — is one of the forms of social injustice against which a hard-driven democracy fre- quently revolts; so frequently, indeed, that one is surprised not to find a plank in the Progressive platform for the Fed- eral regulation of interstate criticism. Most often the hitter plaint comes from the great army of creative artists, pub- lishers, and producers. The occasion, rather strangely, is, as a rule, the pub- lication of an unfavorable review. Man- aging editors seldom find letters like the following on their desks, or if they find them they apparently suppress them in accordance with the well-known ten- dency of the newspapers to suppress things: Dear Sir: In your issue of last Mon- day an ignorant reviewer, in commenting on my latest novel, "Why She Didn't," ventures to put it beside the best of Thackeray and Balzac. You and he and I know that this isn't true, and in the interest of honest art I protest against the framing of comparisons that can only make the judicious grieve and cause dead authors to turn in their graves. My book is a pot-boiler. I put the best that is in* me to make it such, and nothing that you may say can alter the fact. I trust you will give this letter as much publicity as you did the original review. Is your critic dishonest, or mere- ly illiterate? No; the letters that reach the manag- ing editor nearly always have a differ- ent tone. Unfavorable reviews are round- ly denounced, and favorable reviews are thankfully appreciated. Putting both kinds of correspondence side by side, the managing editor learns that his review- er is an incompetent and disingenuous
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March 19, 1914] The ]STation 289 trifler, whose learning and fine sense of discrimination cannot be too widely rec^ ognized. But it is not always the persons di- rectly interested who protest against unfavorable criticism. The general pub- lic will occasionally intervene, and writ- ers and artists not implicated in the specific review will chafe under the self- assumed authority of the man who crit- icises for pay. Sometimes his motives are aspersed. Sometimes his mere hu- man limitations are brought into the dis- cussion. Thus the promoters of a new London literary weekly announce in their prospectus that the paper "will not rely upon the jaded taste of one exclu- sive dramatic critic, but will publish the opinions of a variety of qualified writ- ers." The scheme is not a bad one. In- stead of having one review of a book or a play, have five reviews from several different points of view; this will surely do away with the autocratic element in criticism. But note what a writer in the London Athenwum proposes: nothing less than a Review published and writ- ten by authors. As matters stand at present, "reviewing is chaotic, and an intending reader is bewil- dered by conflicting pronouncements." Whether multiplying the number of re- viewers by five would render critical opinion less chaotic is an open ques- tion. Whether the reviewing of poems and novels by poets and novelists would be always just and discriminating also calls for consideration. Yet the problem of the jaded profes- sional appetite cannot be put aside. The only question is, what is one going to do about it? Is the professional reviewer to be abolished? We doubt whether many would favor such a plan. The writer of the Athenwum letter uses a suggestive phrase, "the intending read- er." The reader of newspaper criticism does turn to the reviews for some lead as to how he may most profitably spend his two dollars for a theatre seat or his dollar-fifty for a novel. The newspaper reviewer is his taster. Appetites may grow jaded, and yet there are tea-tasters and wine-tasters who draw very hand- some salaries. Why should it be assum- ed that the dramatic critic's appetite necessarily grows stale with practice? As a matter of fact, it frequently does. But why should it be assumed that he fails to make allowance for that fact? Those who have written reviews and those who have edited them know well enough how hard the average reviewer will strive to make allowances, how he will try to find all the good there is to be said for a production which as a whole he thinks bad; and that if the re- viewer finally does hit out it is because, with the best will in the world, the stuff he is concerned with is hopeless by aesthetic standards, or utterly reprehen- sible by moral standards. But there are standards and stan- dards. Why should one individual seek to impose his own upon the crowd? 1 am not speaking now from the point of view of the highest conception of crit- icism. There are editors and reviewers, no doubt, who regard it as their duty to make no compromise with popular taste, where such taste obviously sets in to- wards mediocrity or sheer emptiness. Such a reviewer will maintain that it is wrong to speak of the great mass of popular fiction as harmless merely be- cause it is written for the hour, and with no other intention than to kill that hour or two for the reader. A contin- ued diet of literary pap, in the eyes of such a critic, is bound to bring about a state of mental and aesthetic debility in the reader which is more harmful to the welfare of the race than if people did not read at all. The robust, primitive strength of sheer illiteracy is preferable to the flabby culture that feeds on best- sellers and plays with a "punch." And yet for our present purposes, let it be admitted that this lofty standard of a critic's duty is altogether too rigid for the uses of our democracy. The review- er I have in mind is the one who is perfectly willing to accept the fact that the great mass of books of to-day, while not literature, still calls for sympathetic consideration. In appraising the vast output from the fiction mills he is pre- pared to lay aside the standards of great fiction. The question is whether he is to throw away all standards, whether his book-notices are to consist of a sim- ple statement of what the book is about, supplemented by praise when he thinks the book worth while; and when the book is not worth while, whether he shall say nothing. Well, this method has been tried, too, and commercially it is probably the most successful method that can be practiced. Yet let no one imagine that it leaves author or producer altogether satisfied. The author, in his heart of hearts, aspires to be the artist and finds him- self longing for true appraisal in place of puffery. The author's financial back- er is too good a business man not to be aware that a steady flow of treacle in the review columns is apt to cloy the public appetite. The author wants as- surance that his reviewer is not a hired press-agent, but he wants to be reas- sured at some one else's expense. From A's point of view it would be much bet- ter if a little gall were occasionally mix- ed with the honey, and he thinks that the occasional damning of a book by C, D, or F would increase the prestige of criticism. And C, D, and F think that the best interests of literature demand the occasional slating of a book by A. So it is not rare to hear authors, pub- lishers, producers complain of an excess of saccharine criticism. The invincibly fresh appetite is not quite what they want. What they do want is a fine and discriminating taste that shall infallibly recognize the high merits of the particu- lar book or play in which they are in- terested. The critic does not impose his stan- dards. He is an expert who simply announces his findings, and it is for the customer to decide whether he will buy or not. Play-producers have of- ten protested against the critic's habit of overlooking the enormous expendi- ture of effort, hopes, and money involv- ed in the staging of a play, and the loss its failure must mean to writer, pro- ducer, and actors. That puts criticism on a purely business basis. It is an ar- gument which reacts with deadly force against those who bring it forward. If the manufacturer of a new ketchup sub- mits his samples to the Bureau of Chem- istry, he will hardly argue that the size of his investment should have anything to do with the chemist's analysis. The purveyors of mineral water depend very largely on the chemist's tables for their advertising effects. So does the tea and wine and cereal food merchant. The more you view art as a business, the stronger the argument becomes for a professional taster of art. Another way of summing up the in- dictment against the professional re- viewer is to say that he is not repre- sentative of the common mass of taste and opinion. He may be unrepresenta- tive either because he knows too much — the "highbrow" curse — or because he knows nothing. Just why a reviewer should be representative of common opinion is not very clear. His work is not that of a prophet, but of a judge after the event. One can easily imagine how immensely valuable the gift of knowing what the public will like would be to those who act as literary advisers for publishers and play-producers. It must be extremely useful for a literary entrepreneur to have about him a taster of whom he can say, "What this man likes, one hundred thousand other peo- ple will like." Such a man's opinion de- termines the nature of the product, de- termines whether the product shall be marketed or not. But once the product is put on the market, there is no longer need for a prophet. The venture has been made; the prophet must make way for the judge. What difference does it make whether the judge thinks like a hundred thousand other people, or thinks along his own lines? Provided he is honest, he will deliver decision ac- cording to the merits of the case. Per- sonally, the chemist may detest ketchup. But more than that. The accusation that a reviewer's opinion is not at all representative may possibly hold against the critic who knows too much; it does not detract from the authority of the reviewer who is accused of knowing too little. It may be unjust to have the
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290 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2542 merits of a "crook" melodrama or a book of Wild West fiction passed upon by a "highbrow" literary taster. But if author and publisher are really anxious to get a line on public opinion, whose opinion can be more convincing than that of the reviewer who is not better informed on his subject than a hundred other men who might be picked up by chance on Park Row or Broadway? I am not so sure but that this may be the best way of selecting a literary or dra- matic reviewer for a great metropolitan paper. And lest the reviewer's taste grow jaded, his tenure of office might be limited to a week, or even less. There is no reason why every new play and every new book might not be reviewed by somebody fresh from the street, bringing with him no standards of artificial cul- ture, no preconceived notions based on acquaintance with the author's previous work. For that matter, it is a method that to a very considerable extent is al- ready being practiced. The habit is common of advertising the opinions of non-professional critics, to serve either as a reinforcement or as a counterbal- ance to what the professional critic may have said. The practice has not been carried to its fullest logical develop- ment, because the opinions printed are usually of well-known actresses, clergy- men, and social reformers. To the ex- tent that they are notabilities, their views can hardly be representative of the taste of the general public. The opinions of a dozen men taken from the City Directory would be better. Still it is an advance. In all seriousness I believe that much is to be said in favor of substitut- ing some such system of criticism by partial plebiscite for the present system of individual reviewers. It would be per- fectly sound business and perfectly hon- est business to find a half-dozen men of note who really like a book, and to print their opinions at space rates instead of letting the book take its chances at the hands of some almost unknown reviewer. If the writer of the present article were the author of a book and could obtain endorsements from Mr. William Dean Howells, Dr. Parkhurst, Mr. George W. Perkins, and several Y. M. C. A. secre- taries, he would be rather indifferent as to what the hired men of the press might think. This does not contradict what has been said before as to the un- desirability of having five different men review the same book or play. That pro- posal was based on the assumption that the views of these five men would show a wide range of difference. This would indeed make criticism chaotic. The ideal is to obtain five men who are all agreed — in favor of the book or play. The revolt against criticism regular- ly arrives nowhere. Common-sense as- serts itself to show that if you want judgments, you must have a judge, though occasionally one may be tempted to exercise the recall on his decisions. It is all very well to say, "I know what I like, and the self-constituted crit- ic may go hang." The multi-millionaire from Pittsburgh may like chromos, but when he wants to buy a Velasquez he goes to some one who can tell him whether Velasquez painted the picture. There is a kind of taste in art which is not individual and arbitrary, which is not taste at all, but knowledge. The issue is between a trained palate which sometimes grows jaded and no palate at all. As a matter of fact, the indignant victim of criticism does not know which he wants. Sometimes his critic knows too much. Sometimes he doesn't know enough. The appellant simply knows what he doesn't like in the way of crit- icism, and that is anything that hurts. S. S. Foreign Correspondence FRANCE'S STAKE IN THE MEXICAN TROUBLE— APPEAL BY FRENCH- MEN IN MEXICO TO EUROPEAN POWERS. Paris, February 21. The following passages are a faithful resume of an appeal made by French- men in Mexico to the European Powers most interested — England, France, Ger- many, Spain. These are "particularly authorized to speak up for the protec- tion of their citizens and their invested capital, both of which are in danger." France holds Mexican investments to the amount of several thousand million francs — more than $1,000,000,000 exclu- sive of property owned by Frenchmen living in the country — in Government funds, in banks and railways, and in bus- iness enterprises of every kind, electric transportation, mills, and factories, etc. "It is necessary to say this because the United States ignores systematically the share taken by France in the develop- ment of Mexico. Official documents make no mention of it. The American press is mute concerning it. Open an Ameri- can guide-book to Mexico and you will find everything in it except the French colony and French business enterprises." Among such enterprises, the appeal cites mines like the Dos Estrellas and El Boleo; El Buen Tono tobacco manufac- tory in the City of Mexico; the textile fabrication at Orizaba; and the big French shops in Mexican cities, modelled after the Paris Bon Marche. "In nearly all the banks, it is chiefly French money. Our merchants have obtained a first place in importation. The French resident col- ony numbers more than 4,000, and comes immediately after the American and Spanish colonies and ahead of the Ger- man and English." The appeal goes on to attribute the "American error" to the idea that Mexico is a "Latin Republic," whereas it is in reality an "Indian Empire." This mistake it considers radical. First, it argues from the Mexican population In round figures — only 3,000,000 of white race out of a total 15,000,000, while of the remaining 12,000,000 only half are of mixed white blood, leaving 6,000,000 pure Indians. The Mexican Republic has never cared to com- memorate the European conquest and colonization, and when the Spanish Am- bassador, at the diplomatic New Year's reception, recalled the "Spanish origin" of Mexicans, President Porfirio Diaz answer- ed: "That is true — in part!" The usual arguments — from the char- acter of the population — are presented to show the impossibility of any genuine re- publican or constitutional system work- ing in Mexico as the United States and Europe understand a republic. A native authority, J. Sierra, is quoted: "What part can universal suffrage play in a new country where the principles of national representation exist only in an embryo state, where there has been no political education, where school instruction is all but non-existent, and where a population thinly scattered over an immensity of space vaguely aspires to a well-being which it cannot define itself?" This may be compared with the let- ter of an Englishman resident in Span- ish America for thirty-five years: "I doubt if any voter would be able to give any reason for supporting any particu- lar candidate, either Presidential or Con- gressional. He might reply, 'He belongs to my party,' or, 'He is a good man,' or 'He is a member of my family,' or 'He is an intimate friend of mine,' or, 'He will give our city water-works,' etc., etc. Note that in every case it is the man that is voted for; whereas in the United States it is principles that are voted for, not the man." The French colonists' despairing appeal adds to this: From the hot lands of equatorial cli- mate to high plateaus at an altitude of 9,000 feet, the mixture of the elements of the population is such that all is varied and confused, and without real cohesion — unless when at great moments the in- stinct of national defence is awaked. The American thesis (President Wil- son's) is just— ideally— and we admit it willingly. But we are face to face — not with a theoretic problem, but with the Mexican situation as it exists. Suppose that Huerta withdraws, or is conquered. There must still be the mockery of elec- tions making a choice among rival lead- ers. Why should Zapata obey Carranza? Why should Carranza be in command of Villa? And what are the others going to do — Pablo Gonzales, Torribio Ortega, Eulalio Gutierrez, Aguilar — not to choose among these adventurers of insurrection? No; the law of the strongest will have to speak again — amid new upsettings a single one will have to impose his rule — and everything will begin all over again. It is the duty of the great Powers to come to an agreement and make North America understand that there is also a Europe in existence — and that the long patience of Europe is exhausted. It is time that French, English, Spanish, Ger- man citizens should have their interests and their properties defended. We de- sire a collective and friendly communica- tion of European Governments with President Wilson, to obtain from him, if not a declaration, at least an attitude of neutrality in conformity with the United States' recognition of Mexican Federal power. At this writing, there is a rumor that a Frenchman — Henry Simon, or Samson — has been "executed" somewhere in Mex- ico, like the English Benton; also, that Germany is again feeling the way to con- certed action on the part of the four Eu- ropean Powers most concerned. No one
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March 19, 1914I The ISTation 291 imagines that orders already given by France to Ambassador Jusserand — to ad- here to the policy of Washington just as far as possible — will be modified essen- tially. But there is an uneasy feeling, in political and financial circles, that some- thing has to be done. S. D. EFFECTS OF THE BALKAN WAR— OTHER PROBLEMS IN AUSTRIA- HUNGART. Vienna, March 1. Commercial depression owing to the political troubles of last year has re- duced the demand for all kinds of commodities in Austria-Hungary this year to a minimum. The fear of fur- ther difficulty, because Russia is spend- ing $375,000,000 on railways, many of them strategic lines to the Austrian frontier, and is forming four new army corps, ha3 kept up the feeling of dis- quiet. The unrest has manifested itself in a disinclination to use money in that eltss of investment which depends upon the political situation, and in many cases persons of means have placed their prin- cipal in other countries, or invested it in stock which would be unaffected by any upheaval, either in Austria or in the Balkans This is especially the case in Galicia, where many aristocrats have left the country for the south of France, and where business is at a standstill. Ap- peals have been made by the authorities at Lemberg to the central Government in Vienna for assistance for the unem- ployed, and since last Christmas several thousands of dollars have been distribut- ed to the starving. The distress, how- ever, is much too widespread to be re- lieved by doles of money. The people of Lemberg and other towns gave evidence of the straits to which they had been reduced by a great demonstration. Shops were plundered of food, and similar riots took place in Budapest this week, while passive demonstrations of the unemploy- ed have been held in Vienna. Unless the financial situation greatly improves immediately, there is likely to be great trouble in the country general- ly. The Ministers of Finance, both in Vienna and Budapest, may promise to suggest that money be lent on mortgage and devoted to building purposes, but they are not likely to take more than a mild interest in such a measure, while the Common Finance Minister is pressing so hard for money. He is pointing out that every available cent must be de- voted to military preparations, and that it is the duty of every patriot to put money into the funds. There is also a lack of small dwellings, municipal ac- tion being already necessary in Vienna to provide apartments for workers. The relief given, however, is by no means in proportion to the demand, and the new houses are let from cellar to attic, be- fore the foundations have been laid. The city is considering plans for construct- ing an underground railway, so that cheap workmen's flats can be built out- side the town; but at the earliest the railway cannot be opened for three or four years, and meanwhile the trouble increases. The number of unemployed grows, while the overcrowding gets worse from day to day. This applies to Budapest as well as Vienna. The question of duelling in the army has been ventilated in Vienna this week on account of a tragic case in Buda- pest, in which a lieutenant was shot by his brother-in-law. The whole thing originated in some trivial dispute between a husband and wife. The wife says that her husband always boasted that he had fought nineteen duels, and she longed to pit him against her brother, whom she believed to be the better shot. To accom- plish her object, she repeated some ex- pression used by her husband in regard to her family, and her brother appealed to the commander-in-chief at Budapest for instructions. He feared that if he failed to challenge his brother-in-law he should be branded as a coward, and per- haps cashiered. The commander appointed as seconds two hot-tempered officers who virtually forced the men to fight, although both were unwilling. The brother-in-law at- tempted to fire to one side, but, owing to his ignorance of the weapon, killed his man. The incident has excited widespread indignation, and it is probable that the entire law regarding the obligation of men in uniform to enter duels will be re- vised. The University of Vienna has taken an action in full accord with the spirit of the nation in proceeding to limit the number of students of medicine who may be accepted each year. The authorities take it for granted that all these stu- dents will become practicing physicians, and that the profession in a few years will be overcrowded. There is no doubt that the number of academically educat- ed men in Austria is too great, and that the cheap facilities for acquiring a degree, the expense of which at most amounts to a few dollars, and in cases of proven poverty is remitted altogether, are producing a class of men unfitted for their work in life. L. R. districts, gathering young girls to fill the brothels and factories of the cities. Girls from fifteen to twenty have been arriving in Tokio in large numbers, their parents having been willing, in numerous in- stances, to sell them. Plans are making to relieve the suffer- ing, through the press, through a special relief organization made up of Tokio busi- ness men and officials, and through mis- sionary organizations. The Government has set aside 6,000,000 yen for aid. But the difficulty with this is that it is not meant to supply food directly to the sufferers. The money is to be loaned to various village and prefectural authori- ties to be used in paying for special work, in order that the people may help them- selves, and is to be paid back to the Gov- ernment within a period of twenty years. Moreover, of this six million yen, only two and one-half millions are to be used this year. The remainder will be distrib- uted next year to help in paying for seed rice. It will perhaps be two or three months before a comprehensive report of the conditions can be made. Even with the aid that is now offered, and with the coming of spring, the suffering will not be over. Months must pass before an- other rice crop can be harvested, and the people must live, acquire strength to car- ry on their work, and must have seed for planting. J. B. A. THE FAMINE IN JAPAN. Tokio, February 14. Nearly one-tenth of the population of Japan is undergoing the worst famine that the country has had for more than 100 years. This has been brought on by the failure of the fishing industry and the almost entire failure last year of the rice crop in the northeastern and northern dis- tricts known as Tohoku and Hokkaido. The failure of the rice crop in these dis- tricts was owing chiefly to cold weather during the summer; the rice did not head up. And the cause of the cold weather — cold ocean currents— kept the fish away from their usual runs and at great dis- tances from the shores. An official report, issued by the Home Office, states that nearly 10,000,000 per- sons are in the famine district. A con- servative estimate places the number who are now in urgent need of food at 200,000. That the distress is already very real is shown by the many appeals for assist- ance which are sent to the Tokio press and to charitable organizations. Before the general public knew of the conditions in the north, persons who deal in humanity were already in the affected Imagination in College A SYMPOSIUM. [Not many years ago the complaint was occasionally heard that college training was a handicap to a young man who proposed to enter upon a career of busi- ness, and that if later he chanced to outstrip the clerk who had four years' start of him, it was by virtue rather of native talents than cf his higher ed- ucation. The past decade has seen a marked change of front on the part of colleges generally, the prevailing aim having been, despite a few strong pro- tests within their ranks, to prepare youths for the immediate business of life. In not a few institutions it is safe to say that whereas discussions of pure theory were formerly regarded as a desirable part of a boy's training, more recently "theoretical" has come to bear almost the stigma of "he- retical." To some minds it is a grave question whether present con- ditions do not prepare a student too per- fectly for the medium which he is about to enter. They wonder if it would not be well, as used to be the custom in col- lege, to leave the gulf between theory and practice unbridged; and if the old method was not wise which counted up- on a student's feeling some shock when he came into contact with actual life af- ter having experimented in theoretical possibilities. Theory, it was held, quickened the imagination and created a controlling vision which a youth would never quite lose. As State universities, more than oth-
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292 The JSTation [Vol. 98, No. 2542 era, have specialized in practical effi- ciency, the Nation has thought it well to ask a number of presidents of these institutions to say how the imagination of their students fares under such train- ing; and trusts that the discussion of this important matter may be continued in its correspondence columns. — Ei>. The Nation.] There are at least three ways in which the imagination may relate itself to life: as an aesthetic enrichment of experience, as an intellectual interpretation, and as a vision which supplies a motive to conduct. So far as literature, philosophy, art, music, travel, supply mental imagery, and open vistas into human life, I fear that the student mind is not richly fur- nished by his college course. The de- cline of the ancient classics, the flood of current fiction, the multiplication of stu- dent activities, are all hostile to literary and artistic mindedness. It is doubtless true that the State university fosters this type of imagination less successful- ly than do many of the institutions of the Atlantic seaboard. To recognize this condition is, however, not to surrender to it. While the technical schools are steadily increasing their efficiency, the arts college was never more alive to its opportunities and responsibilities. Something, too, may be said for ap- proaching a problem from the practical side. I am by no means sure that a student of agriculture, for example, may not in his study of soils appreciate quite as vividly the abstract principles of chemistry as the man for whom labora- tory experience is isolated from any practical problem. I feel some confidence in asserting that the keenness with which students in law, medicine, engi- neering, and agriculture are doing their work, and the large registration in mathematics, in physical and biological sciences, in history, economics, and poli- tics, in psychology and philosophy, jus- tify hope that the State university is doing much to give the student an in- telligent understanding of his environ- ment, and to make him value theory be- cause this is the basis, not the anti- thesis, of the practical. Perhaps the most searching questions that the community can put to a uni- versity are: How do your graduates imagine their lives in relation to the common welfare? Do they see the city and the State as mines to be worked or as causes to be served? Do they look through the eyes of a set or a social class, or has their course given them a disinterested point of view and a vision of duty? All of our institutions may well ponder these questions. How far has this test been met? Is the average university club a place in which men and measures are discussed with the calm detachment, the insistence on veri- fied facts, and the open mind which characterize the scientific spirit and the socialized imagination? The State uni- versity has no cause to vaunt itself, but may it not hope that as the institution is more and more consciously seeking to serve the commonwealth, students and alumni are with Increasing clearness gaining the vision of obligation and op- portunity, of what Wells calls "the sense of the State"? George E. Vincent. University of Minnesota. I have no hesitation myself in saying that the young men of to-day are dream- ing dreams on a larger scale, and think- ing in larger units, than the corre- sponding boys of my own college gen- eration, which was the first half of the seventies. When a boy grasps the idea that we are at work in our department of ag- riculture, for example, trying to deter- mine the conditions of a permanent ag- riculture; that is, that we are trying to find out a system of culture by which Mother Earth, instead of yielding con- tinually less, may yield continually more, his imagination will have caught fire, and he will look out on the world of agriculture and all its problems with that eye of a statesman which charac- terized Faust in the second part of Goethe's great tragedy. For with an improving agriculture comes an im- proving quality of the agriculturist, one element reacting on the other; and with the improving quality of the agricultur- ist, using that term in a large sense, comes an improving civilization, with all which that implies. The imagination of a student in ar- chitecture quickens and reaches up into newer and higher regions through his dreams of great and beautiful struc- tures, for it carries him into intellec- tual and aesthetic intercourse with the great architects and artists of all coun- tries and all times. The boy who catch- es a notion of what it means to the world and to civilization to subdue na- ture and to harness the winds, the streams, the ocean tides, and the heat of the sun to the car of human progress, can certainly not be accused of a lack of imagination. Take a still more "material" illustra- tion. The boy who recognizes what it means for our day and generation to dis- cover and utilize for human welfare the clays of a great commonwealth like that of Illinois in such a way as to in- crease the wealth of a community in the production of clay products; who has a vision of the far-reaching effects of the increasing facility and ease of life, following upon the use of brick, for example, as a paving material, and the consequent emergence of a whole great commonwealth from the thick muck and mud of its fertile fields to a solid basis of facile communication and inter- course; who realizes how investigations in this field may result in a complete change in our style of building, and in the incorporation into it of all the prin- ciples of art and beauty which human- kind has worked out in the course of ages, and how by a steady development of our scientific knowledge and our ar- tistic skill through this same use of clay products we may increase enor- mously the beauty and joy of life in the contact with the common articles of fur- niture about a house, like plates and dishes — when a boy, I say, has this vision and comprehends these relations and interrelations in a large way, he is living, and moving, and having his being in a world of imagination and beauty. The boy who is dreaming of making a combustion engine which shall get rid of smoke in our great cities, and in- crease the ease of movement throughout the world, certainly cannot be accused of not using his imagination; for the possibility of his success depends on doing this very thing. All the facts tnus far discussed re- late to what people are apt to regard as the purely material side of college life. Speaking of the students in the Univer- sity -of Illinois to-day, where we are supposed to have developed these non- imaginative sides of the university cur- riculum to the full extent, I believe that there are now more students here on this campus who are interested in art and literature, and looking forward to achieving something creative in those lines, than there were at Northwestern or Harvard when 1 was a student at those colleges, nearly forty years ago. An institution which has turned out a Lorado Taft, who certainly in the field of sculpture cannot be accused of lack of imagination; a Walter Burley Grif- fin, who dreamed of a great city, which will be realized as the capital city of the Australian Commonwealth; a Henry S. Bacon, who imagined the great Lincoln monument on the mall at Washington, which is to be realized in the next few years, can surely not be accused of de- stroying, at any rate, the imagination of college students. My own opinion is that a large part of the current criticism of American colleges and universities is based upon an exclusive study of the historic insti- tutions along the Atlantic seaboard, which may perhaps display all the evils which our friends, Flexncr, Birdseye, Corbin, and even President Wilson and President Lowell, discern; and I would not undertake to say that they do not know what they are talking about. But most of the criticism of that sort cer- tainly applies primarily to the institu- tions described by their friends, and has little or no application to the great State universities of the Mississippi Valley. I believe that the visions which
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March 19, 1914] The USTation 293 are seen by the young women and the dreams that are dreamed by the young men in these great centres of popular education are destined to change the face of our society, as they make stead- ily for an intelligent, cultivated, aspir- ing democracy, determined to dream and to realize its dream, that all the good which has been achieved by civil- ization thus far shall be maintained and made available for all mankinu. rich and poor, educated and uneducated alike. Edmund J. James. University of Illinois. Whether the present work of colleges and universities quickens the student's imagination less than the work of the college of former times is doubtful. It depends much on how restricted a meaning we give to the word imagina- tion. If we mean imagination in gener- al and not merely the higher form of this power exercised in poetry and art, I do not believe that the old college curriculum was more effective in this respect than is the diversified work of the present college or univer- sity. In the old institution the cur- riculum was required, and every one was compelled to conform to the same standards, whatever his interests might be. This of itself had a very re- pressing effect upon an appreciable number of students in every college. Furthermore, the number attending col- lege was, comparatively speaking, very small. Nor, again, can I see that the teaching, with some exceptions, was more vital and inspiring than it is at the present time. In fact, much of it was notoriously dull and dispiriting. I recall only a few great teachers. The subjects studied did not lend themselves more than does the present group of subjects to the stirring of the imagination. The Latin and Greek of that day were depended upon largely for imaginative development, but the methods of study and teaching were such as to make a slavish adherence to words and phrases the rule. The great increase in the study of French and German has, at least in part, made up for the decline of Greek and Latin. Philosophy was another subject that one might recall as having in the old days some effect upon the imagination; and indeed it had, especially if it were taught by a real teacher. But here again it is safe to say that in general the courses in philosophy as given now- adays, supported by courses in psychol- ogy and biology, are fully as inspiring in every respect as the courses of twen- ty-five years ago. In English there is a distinct gain over the past, since in the old days very little appeared in the courses of study under the title "Eng- lish." History, where the imagination comes often into play, was given in small and often uninteresting doses. The numerous courses of the present day, the increased equipment, and the unquestioned development in training for the teaching of history make the present ahead of the past. In science the contrast is very greatly in favor of the present. There was very little science taught in the colleges thirty- five years ago, and very little laboratory work, at least in American colleges. There was no call upon the imagina- tion. Nowadays a student can do noth- ing in science without the use of his imagination, nor can he in mathematics. Economics has developed in large mea- sure within the last three decades. Soci- ology was hardly heard of twenty-five years ago. Both of these subjects en- courage the exercise of the imagination. In the professions we find somewhat the same situation. In engineering and medicine there can be no constructive work of any sort without the use of the imagination. Therefore, in general, so far as subject-matter, the quality of teaching, and the general equipment of the institutions are concerned, the char- acter of the work done now is on the whole superior to that of the past, and ought, other things being equal, to arouse the imagination more than was possible in past decades. In spite of all this, the type of imag- ination that has to do with poetry, art, and music — with the emotional nature — may have suffered. Yet on this point I am in doubt, for it must be borne in mind that the increase in the enrolment of colleges and universities has been enormous. The college community is no longer limited to the select few, but includes a great mass of those who for one reason or another are enabled to seek a college education. The select few are still with us, and I am not con- vinced that they do not still respond to appeals to their imagination. They are lost to sight, however, in comparison with the total number. In addition, we must remember that a different type of imagination, that developed by history, science, economics, and the practical professions, has come into play, and overshadows at the present time the type attaching itself to poetry and art. The stirring of the imagination now is along economic and social lines. It is no longer contemplative. It does not have to do so much with poetry and art as it has to do immediately with life, and the imagination of students is eas- ily aroused in all moral, social, and economic questions. Then, too, colleges of liberal arts, where the greatest ap- peal to the imagination is made, are large and increasing. In the thirteen universities having the largest college enrolment, there are, according to Pro- fessor Rudolf Tombo, jr., 23,280 college students, and of these 14,648 are men. What a tremendous increase in twenty years! That there are great difficulties at- tending the development of appeals to the imagination of whatever sort there can be no doubt. They lie partly in the increasing and often foolish demand for the practical, for that which has an immediate money value. The things, however, that most hamper sound learn- ing, contemplation, the development of the imaginative side of the student's life, are too great freedom in the choice of courses, the lecture system, the rush and hurry of modern life, the enormous increase in the number of student ac- tivities, the growing complexity of our civilization, the great appeal of social life, the development of the moving- picture show, the modern theatre, col- lege athletics, innumerable books and magazines — all of which tend to relax his mental discipline. Here, to my mind, is the real centre of the whole difficulty. In the old days there were few lectures and much hand-to-hand work. There was time for meditation and rest, with opportunity for private reading and dis- cussion, and students had to get from one another through the exercise of their own qualities of mind their oppor- tunities for recreation and enjoyment. Added to this difference is the whole trend of our American life. Colleges and universities fight against the situation to the best of their abil- ity, but they are the creatures of the people themselves and partake of the character of life of the community that' supports them. Lastly, I cannot see that State univer- sities are in any way different from oth- er universities in these respects. While I believe it to be true that the old college training was too unpractical to enable the college graduate immediately to com- pete in business with the ordinary clerk, I am unable to see that the State university, on the other hand, now pre- pares the student too perfectly for life so that he fits into its workings with- out the shock which he would get, and in the old days used to get, if his imag- ination were encouraged to play around theoretical possibilities. That this change towards the practical is on the whole a disadvantage, few, I believe, would maintain. That it more than offsets the possible loss on the emotion- al imaginative side many would con- tend. The State university simply is doing its best to train students substan- tially well for their mission in life. In order to deal justly by its community the university must represent such call- ings and professions as have been or- ganized sufficiently to furnish material usable as educational instruments. And so far as I know, all the training of the State university, no matter towards what end it is directed, is intended to practice the reasoning powers, arouse the imagination, and give the stu-
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294 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2542 dent some ability to exercise creative power. Frank Strong. University Of Kansas. The history of learning may De fig- ured (even if one is not a disciple of Bergson) as consisting of two move- ments: the first, a succession of recon- structive impulses, each resulting in a better formulation of experience; the second, a stiffening and petrifying of the formulations achieved into an or- thodoxy which in turn resists succeed- ing reconstructive impulses. At every point along this circuit, from the be- ginning where discoveries are made to the end where ancient discoveries have fallen to be textbook routines, one finds teachers. At the beginning one finds the vital creative scholar. At the end one finds the "hidebound pedant the like of which shall in a subsequent century be made at Nuremberg out of wood and leather." What a school effects depends upon where its teachers range between these extremes. It is the same in all sorts of schools. Froebel did his work in the kindergar- ten. He has disciples who continue his work in his spirit. But also he has dis- ciples who make the Froebel play a deadening routine, and who, reciting the Froebel catchwords, develop in little children that ctat scolatre (described by Tolstoy in "La Liberte de l'Ecole"), in which the mind becomes a shrivelled edi- tion of its healthy self. It is the same in all subjects. The professor of lyric poetry may be a Doctor Blimber to whom "all the fancies of the poets . . . are a mere collection of words and grammar and have no other mean- ing in the world." On the other hand, the professor of historical grammar may be one to whom the secular changes of the Greek grammar through a thou- stand years afford a view of the evolu- tion of life and mind as profound as that which appears in the literature in which the grammar was hidden. A man of the better type, whatever his subject, draws those about him into faith in his work. It is faith in a great work, and no cheaper device, which saves a youth — imagination, heart, will — whatever there is in him. In the State universities I have known some teachers who seemed to me well down towards the level of Doctor Blim- ber. I have known many more, with varying ability, of the better sort. When I see, as I do every day, the young doctor of philosophy who burns with hidden fire in hope of establishing a new result in his subject, still better when I see the old professor who has outlived a large part of what he was taught and of what he has taught, and still faces the onrush of new ideas with undimin- ished faith, courage, and industry, I think the imagination of those whom such men lead is in no peril. William L. Bryan. :i University Poetry A LAY O' THE DAY. Oh, I'm homesick for the old days, the slow days, the days that used to be, When the stage-coach held the highway, and the frigate ruled the sea. We go scuttling over land, Skyrocketing through air, On our spit-fire devil-wagons, Getting — where? Give us back the long days, the calm days, the days when men could dream, When the town was still a village, and there wasn't any steam. Though we carry round on wires The live Promethean Spark, We are rather more than ever In the dark. Though truly these be live days, and brave days, days when strong men grind On the flints of circumstance cutting- edges to the mind; Yet the stroke that whets a hatchet, Turns a razor edge: Lest we blunt the finer spirit, Better hedge. Better give ourselves an off day, a whole day, a day to size up things, To weigh the fact that after all the soul was born with wings, And might, had we the courage left To break its prison-bars, Outsoar these aeroplanes, and float Among the stars. If ever dawns a new day, the true day, the day when we are through With this rag-time-tango living — oh, I know what I shall do: I'll sit me on the quiet grass Under a quiet tree — I'll sit, and very like I'll whistle — Quietly. Jeffekson B. Fletcher. Books and Men SIR JOHN TENNIEL. "Tenniel's White Rabbit is an Eng- lish squire." This was the comment made in a magazine when a number of artists entered the field which had been Sir John Tenniel's own — the illustration of "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass." The magazine writ- er chose the important character of the White Rabbit for comparison, and dis- cussed the conception of him as formed by Arthur Rackham, Peter Newell, and others. The White Rabbit of Tenniel certain- ly is an English squire. There he stands at the head of the first chapter, with checked tweed coat, well-filled waistcoat, heavy watch with a massive chain and seal, Gladstonian collar, and — truly Eng- lish touch — an umbrella. And there he stands, safe in the affections of thou- sands; of elderly people who were chil- dren when he first appeared, and of chil- dren who are making his acquaintance to-day for the first time. His portrait was the keynote, so to speak, for an as- sociation of author and arist which proved to be, perhaps, the most happy combination in the history of the mak- ing of books. None of the recent obituaries of Sir John Tenniel, in the newspapers, failed to mention the fact that he illustrated "the immortal Alice" — as they all called her. The notices of the artist's death almost invariably named his cartoons for Punch as his best work, and gave a secondary place to his illustrations of Lewis Carroll's books. The political in- fluence of the cartoons, and the long term of years through which they ap- peared, may justify this. Certainly Dropping the Pilot did as much as any one thing to fix Wilhelm II in the world's mind as a cocksure young up- start—a reputation which he was more than twenty years in living down. It is still a model for political cartoons — it was parodied in a New York newspaper last week. But I question if an artist would place the "Alice" pictures behind any of the cartoons in craftsmanship. If popular- ity counts, the picture of the Jabber- wock, the Mad Tea-Party, and the dis- appearing smile of the Cheshire Cat are known to thousands of persons who have never seen Dropping the Pilot, the pathetic drawing of Gordon at Khar- tum, or the caricatures of Disraeli. Finally, Tenniel had his equals in the cartoonist's field, but seldom his supe- riors as an illustrator, if one considers the sympathy, judgment, and humor dis- played in the two Carroll books. There was an almost universal out- burst of protest when, on the expiration of copyrights, other artists ventured to tread in Sir John Tenniel's footsteps. Some of them did it with full realiza- tion of the danger. The childish sweet- ness of Alice, wrote Mr. Peter Newell, is a characteristic which Sir John Ten- niel "has caught and fixed in a way none may rival." And "his work will live as long as Alice." Yet Mr. Newell attempted the impossible, with more suc- cess, perhaps, than would have been ex- pected. There is no admirer of Mr. New- ell's other work who will not have to admit that his White Rabbit is merely a scared little gentleman, his Mad Hat- ter a pot-house lounger out of Dickens, and his March Hare a rather bibulous beaver. Mr. Arthur Rackham tried the same thing, a few years later. His gnarled and writhing trees, his fondness for the grotesque and goblin-esque (to coin a word) elicited a picture in Punch. The real Alice of Tenniel was looking upon
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March 19, 19 14] The Nation 295 the brood of mock Alices — upon all the strange, twisted shapes, and exclaiming, as she did in the book on one occasion: "Curiouser and curiouser!" Lewis Carroll was by no means the easiest author for an artist to satisfy. The strange genius who could write such rollicking nonsense for children, and such prim letters to them; who could get miffed with two little girls who were writing a child's magazine, and refuse to receive their publication because it contained a limerick which he fancied carried a disrespectful allu- sion to some obscure dogma of the church; who could reprove W. S. Gil- bert for his line about "the pale young curate" because the curate "might have become pale while watching at a sick- bed or visiting the poor" — this was a character by turns generous and aston- ishingly peevish. Yet Tenniel and he worked together without serious difference. Tenniel found him exacting, as did Harry Fur- niss at a later date — Furniss speaks ot seven years spent in illustrating one book. Mr. Tenniel, as he was then, and Lewis Carroll came together through Tom Taylor's introduction. Tenniel made the pictures for "Alice in Wonder- land," and, six years later, in 1871, for "Through the cooking Glass " He wrote that after this work, "the faculty of making drawings for book illustra- tion departed from me, and notwith- standing all sorts of tempting induce- ments, I have done nothing in that di- rection since." His only earlier illus- trations seem to have been for "Lalla Rookh" and the "Ingoldsby Legends." "Don't give Alice so much crinoline," the author would write to Tenniel. Or "The White Knight must not have whiskers." Sometimes Tenniel would rebel. "A wasp in a wig," he wrote once, "is altogether beyond the appli- ances of art." Yet he achieved results apparently as difficult. A caterpillar sitting on a mushroom, smoking a hookah, would not, on the face of it, seem an easy problem. The artist came off with flying colors, as every one knows. In reviewing the pictures you are led to wonder how much of the detail, not directly demanded by the text, is due to Lewis Carroll's suggestions, and how much to Tenniel's imagination. That gift of the artist played about the au- thor's fancy, never straying too far afield, never rigidly bound by the letter. Who suggested, for instance, the straws twined about the March Hare's ears, in the manner of King Lear? Who invent- ed the Jabberwock's vest and gaiters? Who gave the Dodo his cane? Tenniel's pictures have become part of the life of so many of us. I know a man who followed a little girl and her nurse from one shop to another in an English watering-place, in great delight because the girl "had one of those combs which go over the head, from ear to ear, just like Alice in Wonderland." Mr. Edmund Gosse, in a volume of recollec- tions published a couple of years ago, speaks of the fact that the poet Aubrey de Vere looked so much like the Hatter that it was impossible not to notice the resemblance. When Mr. de Vere recited poetry it was especially hard to keep from smiling — as he recalled the picture of the Hatter quoting: How I wonder what you're at! Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! Up above the world you fly, Like a tea-tray in the sky. And an amateur performance of "She Stoops to Conquer" was ruined, for a number of the audience, when one of them pointed out, in a whisper, the sim- ilarity in appearance between one of the men in the cast and the Fish-Foot- man in "Alice in Wonderland." Edmund Lester Pearson. News for Bibliophiles EARLY PLAYS AT HARVARD. Valuable communications on early plays in this country have from time to time appeared in the Nation, nota- bly in the issues of January 28, Feb- ruary 11, 1909, and February 27, 1913. So far as I am aware, however, atten- tion has never been called to a perhaps not very important, but yet very inter- esting, phase of the subject — namely, plays acted by students at Harvard Col- lege before 1800. Information on this subject has been obtained from two sources: the "Diary" of Dr. Nathaniel Ames, who graduated in the class of 1761, and the manuscript records of the College. The entries in the "Diary" are so brief that they may be given in full. (The references are to the Dedham His- torical Register, where the "Diary" is printed.) 1758, June 22, "Roman Father a Play" (I, 13). 1758, July 3, "Cato a Play acted at Warrens Cham." (I, 13) ; July 6, "Cato to perfection" (I, 13) ; July 14, "Cato more perfect than before" (I, 14). 1759, April 20, "went to see the Drum- mer acted at Hows" (I, 50) ; April 21, "The Orphan Acted ye 13th inst." (I, 50) ; June 20, "the Recruiting Officer Acted by ourselves then Public" (I, 50) ; July 6, "the Revenge acted" (I, 50) ; Septem- ber 7, "Cato acted this evening" (I, 51) ; November 23, "went to Boston, the Re- venge Acted at Bowmans" (I, 52). (This was presumably Ames's classmate, the Rev. Joseph Bowman.) 1760, April 8, "Tancred and Sigismunda Acted with a Farce at ye end on't" (I, 112); June 13, "Acted Tancred & Sigism<i-i for which we are like to be prosecuted" (I, 112). 1765, Nov. 20, "Scholars punished at College for acting over the great and last day in a very shocking manner, personating the Jude etertat Devil, etc." (II, 27). In regard to Ames's final entry, it may be said that one student was expelled, one student was rusticated, and two stu- dents were "degraded" for their share in the "profane farce." The following extracts are from the books labelled "Faculty Records," though, as a matter of fact, the word "Faculty" was not employed at Harvard until 1825. 1762, April 28, "This Day was the pub- lic Examination, the Comtee of the Over- seers being present, after web Oliver & Huntington were allow'd to exhibit a Scene in Terrence before the Comtee they desiring it, but in Private in the Library none being present but the Comtee, the President & Tut<s" (II, 161). 1781, Nov. 16, "Voted — That To-mor- row evening, some Scenes of Busiris, a Tragedy written by Dr Young, be ex- hibited in the Chapel, as an academical exercise, by a number of the Students" (IV, 278). 1781, Dec. 7, "Voted — That a number of the Junior Sophisters who are to ex- hibit, this evening a piece from Pope's Iliad, be permitted to appear habited" (IV, 282). It has been stated that the Rev. Ben- jamin Colman (H. C. 1692; d. 1747) "was himself a poet, and wrote, inter alia, Gustavus Vasa, the earliest Ameri- can tragedy. It was once acted at Cam- bridge, at a Commencement of the Col- lege" (New Eng. Hist. & Gen. Register, 1860, XIV, 160 note) ; and Wegelin ("Early American Plays," 1890, p. 24) says that Colman left such a play in manuscript. Did Colman write such a play and was it ever acted at a Harvard Commence- ment? The "Gustavus Vasa" commonly acted in this country in the last half of the eighteenth century was, I take it, the play of that name written by Henry Brooke, and printed in London in 1739. When it is remembered that the preju- dice in New England against plays was great, that the opposition to all theatri- cal performances was bitter, and that the first theatre in Boston was not open- ed until February 3, 1794, it will doubt- less surprise many to learn that the Har- vard students not only had been giving plays for certainly thirty-six years be- fore that event, but that in so doing they had the sanction of the College authori- ties. It may be added that Ames on Septem- ber 9, 1761, recorded that "Boston Peo- ple flock up to Newport to see the Plays by the English Actors" (I, 145) ; that on August 23, 1762, he himself went to Prov- idence to see them (I, 147); that on No- vember 12, 1762, "in the evening acted a Play rebuked for it by our Parents" (I, 148) ; that on November 14, 1762, it was "Proposed to act a Play in Ded- ham" (I, 148); that on November 13, 1765, "Undertake to act the Orphan" (II, 27), and that on April 20, 1772, "The Farce called the Toy-shop was acted . . . before a numerous Audience of the most respectable Inhabitants of the first Parish in Dedham both male & female. General Prologue which I wrote for the Toy-shop . . . [here follows the Prologue in 38 lines.] . . . N.B. — The Guests were invited to come to an Evening Lecture" (III, 23-24). Finally, this is a convenient place for putting on record what is perhaps the earliest performance of a play in Eng- lish in Canada, at Annapolis, of which a notice appeared in the American Maga- zine for April, 1744, I, 348-349. Albert Matthews.
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29G The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2542 TRANSCRIPTS OF BIRD SONGS. In this day, when everything, includ- ing the last mysteries of life and the dearest personal sanctities, and exclud- ing only cubist art, is measured by a strict scientific standard, it is perhaps idle to bewail the application of scien- tific methods in the description of bird songs; especially since we are now hearkening, not to the melody of "smale foules," but to the music of humanity in that rosy and golden communal state which is the twentieth-century Heaven. Yet does not the lark (our horned lark as well as the British skylark) sing at Heaven's gate, and shall we not ever, on hearing it, pause in delight and awe? Of the several means of describing the songs of birds, we have foolishly pre- ferred musical notation. One book af- ter another is appearing, interspersed profusely with musical staves that look very scientific and useful, but, as a mat- ter of fact, are rarely of the slightest value. The keen ear of Gilbert White himself would not recognize these songs when played on the piano, and it is doubtful whether Mr. Burroughs, who might conceivably have been pestered into an understanding by this time, could do more than say what songs they were not. The cause of the failure of musical notation is well known — yet not regarded: few birds sing in accord with the intervals of the diatonic scale, and few birds sing without using notes that are indeterminate in pitch. These dif- ficulties are insuperable. While it is possible to reproduce with some success the song of the wood-thrush, it is be- yond the power of the cleverest musi- cian or naturalist to catch and keep the intricate warble of the magnolia war- bler, or the tumultuous jargon of the brown thrasher. And there is a further difficulty which is rarely mentioned — the variableness of quality in bird songs. Suppose we were able to set all songs on the musical staff; should we be bet- ter off? Not much, I fear. In my ex- perience (and in the experience of every field naturalist), I have named a bird, not by the form of the song, but almost wholly by the quality. Only in special cases is the form significant. In vir- tually every case the ear is arrested by, and the memory retains, the quality of the song. Those who are enthusiastic over musical notation forget that birds do not use the piano. An older method, based on the alpha- bet rather than on the musical staff, is still popular among ornithologists. I dare say, Mr. Burroughs has done more than any other person to illustrate its usefulness. What grammar-school teach- er, "birding" In the wake of a noisy crowd of youngsters, has not stopped with a "Sh!" and exclaimed: "Listen, children, the ovenblrd! Do you hear that, 'Teacher, teacher, teacher, TEACHER, TEACHER'?" But Mr. Burroughs has not been use- ful in more than a few instances. Nor have dozens of other writers, produc- ing every manner of astonishing descrip- tion, many of them little better than the following befuddling concoction which Minot intended to represent the song 01 the Blackburnian warbler: "'Wee-see- wee-see, tsee-tsee, tsee, tsee, tsee-tsee, tsee, tsee,' the latter syllables being on ascending scale, the very last shrill and fine" — a transcript which I have never been able to connect with the original. The versions, moreover, tend to multiply ad infinitum. For the red-winged black- bird we have an assortment that should satisfy every one. For the Maryland yellowthroat no less than two dozen are current: among them are "witchity, witchity, witchity";' "tswee-tee-tee, tswee-tee-tee-tee"; "I see, I see you, I see, I see you, I see, I see you"; to which so excellent an ornithologist as Mr. Chapman deigned to add, "I be- seech you, I beseech you, I beseech you"; and once, as I was passing an insane asylum, I was sure that that yel- low bird in the willows was calling, "You're crazy, you're crazy, you're crazy." This alphabetic method, though in- ferior to the musical in the representa- tion of form, is superior in the repre- sentation of quality, since the syllables chosen are sometimes capable of indi- cating the quality with preciseness. Yet we need to guard ourselves against va- garies, in particular against the appli- cation of this method to any and every song. Especially must we realize that most of these transcripts are recogniza- ble only by the trained ornithologist, who forsooth needs them not! In addition to the use of the musical staff, and of painstaking literal nota- tions, methods which are frankly scien- tific in spirit and result; there is a third, which might be called the liter- ary method. Whole pages — chapters even — devoted to scientific description of a bird's song are of less value than two well-chosen adjectives, as when Gil- bert White speaks of a bird's "sibilous, inward melody" — of less value than an apt comparison, as when Mr. Chapman says, "It has a quality about it like the droning of bees." In Mr. F. Schuyler Mathews's "Field Book of Wild Birds and Their Music" the discussion of the song of Wilson's thrush illustrates the use of all three methods. First, the literal notation: "0, veery, veery, veery, veery!" over which Mr. Mathews draws an undula- tory scroll which helps matters very lit- tle. Secondly, the musical notation: SOSTTffUrO /C\ tt Thirdly, the literary description: "The tone effect at a distance *s like the me- tallic twang of the Jew's harp; nearer by it resembles a reedy, harmonic strain from an accordion swinging in the air. Some one, I do not know who, has called the song 'a spiral, tremulous silver thread of music' " Surely the third method is the best. For my part, I confess a debt of grati- tude to that nameless poetic soul, "Some one," which I do not feel towards the eingehend Mr. Mathews in his scientific moods. I would not leave the impres- sion that the musical reproduction and the literal reproduction are useless. They are both useful at times, and tne second is more often useful than the first. But they are of trifling value gen- erally in comparison with the literary description. That this is true is largely owing to the complicated form of most bird songs, but it is mainly due to the difficulty presented by the quality of bird songs, which the literal transcript meets only imperfectly. This matter of quality is the more important, and the matter of form the less important, by virtue of the fact that the songs of many of our commonest birds (notably, of course, the song sparrow) vary wide- ly in form, and only slightly in quality. What is needed, therefore, is a method which, while not ignoring the form, is capable of describing the quality; and this means that, unless the scientist can invent a new method, we must turn to the artist of words. He can describe in a few terse, definite, and yet vague, words what the scientist without liter- ary talent could not describe in a pon- derous manual. He can apply the sub- tleties of a highly developed language to any song whatever. What is more, he can give to the city-dweller a distinct foretaste of what awaits him in the country — which hours spent in playing the piano or in pronouncing "wichu- wichu-wichi-chee" could never give. N. F. Correspondence THE NEW "NATION." To the Editor of The Nation : Sir: In answer to the leaflet in the last Nation inviting suggestions in regard to the programme of the new Nation, may I, as a very dependent reader of the old Nation, say a word? Like many another college professor, I am compelled to limit my list of period- icals to the bare necessities. I put the Nation first; and I do this because its criticism inspires my confidence. When T read that the scope of the journal was to be enlarged I felt misgivings; in such a review I want quality, not quantity. And I am reminded of the fate that over- took the London Academy a number of years ago when it sought to enlarge and make a wider appeal. It soon became useless for my purposes. It would be impertinent for me to sug-
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March 19, 1914] The Nation 297 gest that the Nation might become less authoritative in the hands of those who have so carefully guarded its interests. But I fear popularization of the Nation as I fear the pest. And I must, again as a dependent reader, candidly express my fear. With best wishes, W. P. Reeves. Qambler, O, Marcb 14. [We are glad to assure Professor Reeves and other friends that every ef- fort will be made by the new manage- ment to preserve the old standards to which the Nation has been and is devot- ed.— En. The Nation.] REALITIES IN THE NEAR EAST. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir:: If we review the years during which the Turks have been gradually forced back to Asia, during which also the Ottoman Empire in Europe has been bolstered up by the great Powers, we must be struck by the futility of diplom- acy and the want of foresight of cabi- nets. The main policy of the Powers was to uphold the Turkish Empire in Europe, however disastrous the conse- quences to the people whom the Turks oppressed, and however opposed to the use of civilization and material pros- perity in these regions. This policy has been in the result a complete failure. Inevitable forces against which the schemes of diplomats and chancelleries were quite unavailing have now almost driven the Turks from Europe. The re- tention of Adrianople and of a part of Thrace gives them next to no European interest, for this territory is — politically— a mere annex to Constantinople, and is a financial incubus into the bargain. Yet the futility which has always mark- ed European diplomacy in regard to the Near Eastern question was surpassed when the Turks were allowed to tear up the Treaty of London. Had Adrianople and the surrounding district remained in the hands of Bulgaria, the peace of the Balkans would have been assured, for the aspirations of Bulgaria would have been satisfied. Accordingly, the first re- ality which we have to grasp is that peace is not permanently assured so long as a mile of ground in Europe outside of Constantinople belongs to Turkey, and there is still a bit of ripe fruit to be seized. The main reality, however, to bear in mind is that the storm centre is now shifted to Asia Minor, and that the enemies of the Turkish Empire are no longer the small Balkan States, but the greater European Powers and Greece. Greece must be ranked with the great Powers by reason, not of her size, but of her geographical position. One has only to refer to one of the late Lord Salis- bury's large maps to perceive that the increase of the Greek race must inevitably cause the shores of the ^Egean Sea one day to become Greek territory. In the natural process of modern evolution the ancient influence of Greece must again become paramount in certain parts of Asia Minor. But though by the spread of the Greek population Turkish influence and rule will be weakened and finally overthrown on the ^Egean seaboard, it will be un- dermined inland by concessions to capi- talists under the support of their re- spective Governments. The Turks, it is certain, cannot conduct a modern ad- ministration and modern business, and now that the European source of supply to the ranks of politicians and officials has ceased by the loss of the European territories, officials will become more in- capable than ever. This incapacity has hitherto never been realized by the great Powers; it is now so indisputable that it will henceforth necessarily form an important factor in their Near Eastern policy. Therefore, as a governing race, the Turks are in a plight similar to that of the Red Indians of America or the Maoris of New Zealand. Diplomatists and chancelleries will continue to keep up the fiction of an independent Ottoman Empire and will connive at administra- tive abuses and injustice, but fictions can- not alter realities. We have also to realize that the policy of the great Powers in reference to Tur- key in Asia is purely selfish. All are engaged in a game of grab under the veil of concessions, treaties, and spheres of influence — a game which is stimu- lated by the weaknesses and pretentious- ness of the present governing group at Constantinople. The progress of the partition of Turkey in Asia must necessarily be gradual, but it is none the less inevitable, since it is based on supreme time forces. These will produce results in various forms. It may be in violent annexation, as in the case of Tripoli, or in peaceful annexa- tion, as in the case of Egypt. But as between the invaders it is a battle of cash rather than of cannon, for the mili- tary power of both Germany and Austria- Hungary is largely nullified by reason of their geographical position. Difficulties and dissensions are pretty sure to arise from time to time, because the condition of the Ottoman Empire is such that it is imperative for European Powers to ac- quire as far as possible indefeasible rights within its area. The progress of these acquisitions will one day form an interesting chapter in the history of the decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire. E. S. Roscoe. London, Eng., March 9. THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSO- CIATION. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: Since the nublication of my letter concerning the management of the Amer- ican Historical Association, which appear- ed January 22, three replies, or explana- tions, have been given to the public through the medium of the Nation. These letters were written by men of the high- est standing in the Association: Professor Fay, of Dartmouth; Professor MacDon- ald, of Brown, and Professor Jameson, of the Carnegie Institution. These gentle- men are not only learned scholars, but they are also good judges of the strength of an assumed position. If my statement that the American Historical Association, under the leadership of its council, had been conducting and administering its affairs in an illegal and unconstitutional manner, could have been refuted, it would, of course, have been done. As a discreet silence has been maintained on the only point at issue it is fair to con- clude that it is conceded that the "power of the council has increased, is increas- ing, and should be diminished." Professor Fay agrees with me entirely on that proposition. While it could hardly be expected that Professor Jameson and Professor Mac- Donald would concede so much, it is rea- sonable to suppose that they are not pre- pared to justify the shutting out of the hundreds of men who attend the annual meetings of the Association from having any part in its government, other than that of ratifying what had been done by the Council. At any rate they say nothing about the real point at issue. Professor Jameson flies from the real issue and tries to conceal his flight by bringing non-essentials into the discus- sion. The question of the popularity or unpopularity of my position at Charles- ton does not affect in the slightest degree the justice of my contention. I stated there that if any men on earth were ca- pable of self-government the members of the American Historical Association were capable; that we had allowed the Coun- cil to assume too much power, and that it was our duty to become self-governing. If the personal endorsement of at least one hundred men, including those who have held high positions in the Associa- tion, was an indication that I was not standing alone, such an endorsement was certainly voluntarily extended after the business meeting. My learned and dis- tinguished friend, I fear, does not read accurately the signs of the times or he would not take the position that the meth- ods of the Council are popular. If he thinks that the wiping out of constitu- tional guarantees is popular with the members of the Association he is blind. Professor MacDonald makes a labored effort to defend the nominating commit- tee. I have no quarrel with the com- mittee. Some of my best friends served upon it. I conclude that they did what they were appointed to do. Such a com- mittee has no legal existence, as the Council has no authority whatever to ap- point it. How the committee performed its duties has no proper place in this discussion. There was no criticism of its members at Charleston, therefore Pro- fessor MacDonald's defence is unneces- sary. To put the whole matter concretely, my contention is that the duties of the Council are carefully laid down in section 5 of the Constitution, as follows: ". . . the election of members, the calling of meetings, the selection of papers to be read, and the determination of what papers shall be published." It has no right to appoint a nominating committee which does nothing more than conduct a caucus by mail, the effect of which is to preclude a free and fair expression from the men who sustain the Associa- tion. The constitution contains the dem- ocratic ideal. Is it not our duty to see that it is not set aside? May I again emphasize the fact that my action in this entire matter is im- personal? I have repeatedly stated that
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298 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2542 it is the system, not men, that I am con- demning-. We have drifted consciously or unconsciously, it matters not which, into the rule of the few in the American Historical Association. I do not claim to represent the entire membership in my contention for self-government. I do know that I have unmistakable evidence that there will be a revolution if the question is not handled justly and wisely by those in authority. Dunbar Rowland. Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson, Miss., March 15. THE BLIGHT ON ATHLETICS. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: The great prevailing evil con- nected with college and school athletics is not the "mucker" ideals and practices on the playing field, but the grafter ideals and practices with respect to making up the teams before they reach gridiron or diamond. Except in a few colleges, usual- ly the larger ones, there is constant de- liberate violation of the professed ob- servance of the standards of non-profes- sionalism. Those responsible for the make-up of the teams say one thing and do another — essential crookedness. It should be added in fairness, however, that frequently in those institutions where conditions are the worst a committee of the faculty on athletics wages a gallant but losing fight for the maintenance of standards. The chief seat of the trouble usually lies with the managers, student body, and, most important of all, the alumni. When the present writer was a senior in preparatory school (an old endowed academy of good reputation), the chief "line bucker" that year on the football team was not a member of the school, although, of course, he was supposed to be. He had been a member of the school some years before, but at that time had no connection with the school whatever other than playing on the team. Yet the principal of the school and other masters stood on the side lines, and, "with indifference, approval, or motives of expediency," saw him play all through the season. In my home town, when the high-school team (baseball or foot- ball) plays the team of another high school situated at some distance, the managers of the respective teams think it smart to vie with each other in run- ning in as many semi-professional non- members of their school as possible. This sort of thing is, I believe, distinctly worse nowadays than it used to be. It is a manifestation of our national pro- pensity to over-organize things and to worship the god Get-there. To what depths the resulting degra- dation of spirit of the whole undergradu- ate body in a college may descend is illustrated by the following incident v/hich not long ago came directly under my personal observation. A paid pro- fessional on the baseball team (he was indeed a student also, but everybody knew he was paid, and one of the trus- tees, it was generally understood, fur- nished the money) was on one occasion refused by the manager an advance of his salary, while the team was away from home "representing the college" in Large city. The next time the team played at home he obtained his revenge by striking in the midst of the game. lie sat on the benches during the re- mainder of the game and saw his team whipped; and, of course, the student body at the time was furious. He was de- nounced in most thoroughgoing fashion in the next issue of the college paper. Now anybody would suppose that the wrath of the student body would be sufficiently deep and lasting to prevent such a trai- tor, who had so flagrantly and publicly disgraced them, from ever playing on the team again. But he was not only a star pitcher, but also a batsman who frequently rapped out three-baggers and home runs: and he did play on the team the following year. Of what avail is the attempt of pro- fessors in such a college to inculcate high ideals of honor and honesty in the classroom? Their efforts are counteract- ed many fold by the influence of the school of graft maintained by the depart- ment of athletics. What hope is there of keeping graft- ing out of business and politics in a nation where young men in higher in- stitutions of learning, during that period of their lives when, if ever, they are idealists, habitually and systematically cheat at their games? Idealist. New Haven, Conn., March 7. ALBERTUS VAN BEEST. To the Editor of The Nation : Sir: I should be glad to receive infor- mation about the American career of the Dutch marine painter, Albertus Van Beest (1820-1860), who from 1845 until his death lived and worked in Boston and New York. Among his American pupils are mentioned the marine painter, Wil- liam Bradford, and the landscape painter, R. Swain Gifford. Information concern- ing the whereabouts of his works in pub- lic or private collections will also be re- ceived with thanks. A. J. Barnouw. 44G Beeklaan. The Hague, Holland, March 5. THE FOREIGN CRITIC. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: A chapter might easily be writ- ten concerning mistaken literary judg- ments by foreigners. The perusal of such a chapter might even lighten for us the humiliation of certain cruel and rare moments when we realize that we have made ourselves ridiculous by immoderate censure or laudation (generally the lat- ter) of an English writer. Die Neueren Sprachen publishes frequent letters of literary appreciation, dated from London and signed by a name which may, strictly speaking, be either German or English. While some of these letters contain noth- ing so absurd or grotesque as to indicate a foreigner whose taste is as yet unform- ed, the criticism in the following passage (quoted from Vol. XVIII of the above review, page 421) looks quite in the op- posite direction : Mr. Mackereth's name deserves to stand very high among the poets of to- day, for there is a strength about his work which is very rare in English verge. His thoughts have a nobility and at the same time a restraint that is the prerogative of no special poet and age. "A Son of Cain" (Longmans, 3s. 6d. net) is everywhere full of an optimism that does not deny the pain of life but lifts its eyes to the hills all the same, and everywhere there is that deep, in- stinctive sympathy with all that lives that forms the finest note of our age. We have the rollicking of exultant pow- er in: I met a Lion in the way : Heigho ! his eyes were wild ! A bright, magnificent beast of prey, A daemon's child. He scowled, and scowled. With bristling mane; And growled, and growled, Like in angry pain. He stood aloof; I liked him well. Heigho ! his ivories ! Shades of Tartarin! I close with the sentiment of the fol- lowing lines which a French lady pre- served, in the form given below, in her translation of Du Maurier's Trilby: A feeling of sadness and longing, That is not aching to pain, And resembles sorrow only As the mist resembles the rain. Raymond Weeks. Columbia University, March 15. A REQUEST FOR LETTERS. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: Dr. J. M. Hulth, of the Univer- sity Library of Upsala, who has succeed- ed to the editorship of Carl von Linne's correspondence, formerly edited by the late Prof. Th. M. Fries, desires informa- tion as to the whereabouts of letters to and from Linne, which might be found in collections in this country. Individu- als or institutions having such letters are asked to communicate with the under- signed. Aksel G. S. Josephson. The John Crerar Library, Chicago, 111., March 14. DUFFERS AND EXPERTS. For the ordinary duffer the printed directions of the expert on how to play the game of golf are often a disheart- ening experience. His instructions to us to think of a dozen different things at once are as difficult to execute as to close simultaneously all but the third finger of a hand; and the diagrams, with their dotted lines and pointed arrows, which he employs to illustrate swing, and grip, and stance rival in intricacy a complicated problem in hydraulics. It may be doubted whether any mere duf- fer has ever derived benefit from the theoretical study of the game. Half an hour on the links under the supervision of a professional who has the happy knack of disguising the boredom he must inevitably feel is probably worth all the books that were ever written for the instruction of the initiated but inexpert. Nevertheless, there Is a fascination in the study of these books that we would not willingly forego, and we con- tinue to brave the derision of the family
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March 19, 1914] The 1ST a t i o n 299 circle and to endanger its penates by posturing, club in hand, upon the car- pot, fondly imagining that the contor- tions we are making bear some resem- blance to the hero of the diagram. Our next adventure on the links ought usual- ly to be sufficient to convince us that all is vanity, that duffers we came into the world of golf, and duffers, saving a miracle of regeneration, we are des- tined to leave it; but when the next book by a renowned expert appears we borrow it with the simple faith of lit- tle children. But even though in our less optimistic moments, as when our opponent is dor- my and our drive has been sliced out of bounds, we realize that not even a Var- don can restore to us that lost stroke or prevent its recurrence on another oc- casion, there is a considerable amount of interest in reading, as in a recently published symposium of famous play- ers,* how past masters of the game conceive that they themselves play their strokes. It is pleasant to follow in their wake haud passibus wquis, now and then recalling a memorable stroke, an epoch-making event in our own fooz- ling history. There was that time when we played the long "push" shot up to the pin at the seventh, laying it dead at the hole side exactly in the manner de- scribed by George Duncan; or that other never-to-be-forgotten occasion when from the abyss of the formidable bunker that guards the sixteenth, tucked up against the face of the hazard, we achieved a miracle of recovery in which we rec- ognize now that we employed precisely the methods advocated by Lawrence Ayton. The musical purr of a perfect- ly hit drive is a sound that, thanks to some special dispensation of whatever providence alternately encourages and casts down the golfer, most of us have heard at more or less infrequent inter- vals; but there is a satisfaction in learn- ing from Harry Vardon how intricate is the succession of movements that in our more inspired moments we must have achieved in the order prescribed. Young Mr. Ouimet, who contributes to the symposium an interesting chap- ter on putting, rudely upset what had almost crystallized into a tradition when he defeated Vardon and Ray in last year's open championship, for it had come to be very generally accepted that no amateur golfer, however good, could quite beat the best of the profes- sionals. In spite of Mr. Ouimet's re- markable performance that axiom is probably still sound, and why it should be so has been the subject of much spec- ulation. Clearly it is not because the professional has a great deal more prac- tice, for there are many leisured ama- teurs who spend a good part of their waking lives upon the links, whereas •"Success at Golf," by Harry Vardon and others. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. $1 net. the average professional habitually de- votes several hours a day to the dull routine of teaching. The explanation is probably in the main a psychological one; the professional makes his living by his ability to play golf. That which for the amateur, if he be playing well, is an agreeable exercise, if ill, an exaspe- rating waste of time, is for the profes- sional a solemn discharge of duty, a thing to be taken seriously, just as we take our account books and ledgers. The professional, especially the Scotch pro- fessional, who is the sublimation of his class, will make a golfing joke, but he will not make a joke on golf. At most of the famous links on his native heath there is a set of jests, hallowed by an- tiquity, to listen to which is part of the routine through which the stranger is expected to go, but golf itself is a sa- cred matter not lightly to be profaned. "How often- do you do that?" the pres- ent writer once inquired of a well-known Scotch professional when he was guilty of the elementary mistake of taking his eye off the ball, and fluffed an easy ap- proach into the bunker guarding the green. The professional gave the ques- tion his conscientious deliberation, and "Just aboot once a year-r, sorr," came the unsmiling reply. That remark seems exactly to express the difference between the amateur and the professional points of view. The former, be he an amateur champion or the plain average duffer, is privileged to take his eye off the ball as often as he likes, and may yet hold up his head among his fellow-men. The latter, since to err is human, may be allowed an an- nual indulgence of the weakness, but to repeat it with the careless insouciance of the amateur would be to put in peril his means of livelihood. Assuredly there is balm in Gilead for the duffer. Following a professional match, or playing ourselves with a pro- fessional and receiving a stroke and a beating, we may envy the mechanical accuracy with which he makes his "threes" and "fours" and "fives," hum- bling "Bogey" and making "Par" ap- pear absurdly simple, yet we know that he is not enjoying the mathematical pre- cision of his play one-half as much as we are enjoying our own spasmodic bril- liance. There comes in his round none of the sense of adventure that attends our own eccentric course. The back spin from the cunningly played mashie shot as his ball hits the green has for him no thrills, for the result that we hope for prayerfully is for him but the occurrence of the expected; and the in- tentional slice around the coppice on the woodland course, that we deem a suitable subject for the subsequent en- tertainment of our friends in the club- house, is to the blasfi expert no more than a part of the mechanical routine of the day's work. Even our emotional outbursts we would not sacrifice for the imperturbable poise which the profes- sional knows it is necessary for him to maintain, for though these are bad for our golf they are excellent purges of our souls. And if at times in the eye of the expert we catch a gleam of sar- castic commiseration for our ineptitude we can retort on him, as Chesterton makes King Alfred's men retort on the conquering Danes in his "Ballad of the White Horse": You are more tired of victory Than we are tired of shame. S. W. Literature SOCIALISM REVISED. A History of Socialism. By Thomas Kirkup. Fifth edition. Revised and largely rewritten by Edward R. Pease. New York: The Macmillan Co. $1.50. This edition of Kirkup's work has been prepared and published in a new form by an English Fabian, who ex- plains in his preface exactly what he has done. Roughly, Mr. Pease has brought up to date those chapters which described primitive Socialism and the origins of the present movement, has written several new chapters on the movement abroad, and particularly in England, and has collected (in chapters xv and xvi) Kirkup's own views on the question in general, these views in pre- vious editions having been scattered through six chapters, and being now re- arranged and much condensed. The re- sult of his labor is a handy edition of a valuable work. Chapters xv and xvi are, naturally, much the most interesting in the book and exhibit clearly Kirkup's special mer- it as a writer of Socialist history and a student of the Socialist movement. He is careful to impress upon the reader that it is not a mere collection of eco- nomic theories or doctrines, but a real movement. "It is not," he says, "wedded to any stereotyped set of formulas, whether of Marx or any other, but is rooted in reality, and while moulding facts, it must adapt itself to them. Above all, we must ever remember that it claims to represent the aspirations after a better life of the toiling and suffer- ing millions of the human race" (p. 405). It is "still in process of develop- ment. Its theories must undergo the rough-hewing of continual controversy, discussion, and criticism." "The com- petitive system has never entirely and exclusively dominated any society, and has been everywhere modified by cus- tom and the traditions of the past, by national and social interests and by moral considerations. . . . We must conceive Socialism in the same way as claiming, when certain historical con-
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3QO The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2542 ditions have been realized, to be the normal or prevalent type of economic and social organization." What this means is set forth as follows: Socialism, then, simply means that the normal social organization of the future Will and should be an associated or co- operative one. It means that industry should be carried on by free associated workers. The development of Social- i.sm will follow the development of the large industry. . . . It is a new type of industry and economic organization the practicability of which must be de- cided by the test of experience. It can- not be introduced mechanically. We can- not force or improvise such a change in the constitution of society. No revolu- tionary violence can avail to carry through a transformation which runs counter to the fundamental laws of hu- man nature or the great prevailing ten- dencies of social evolutions. This will be especially manifest when we consider that its realization will, above all things, depend on the ethical advance of the mass of the people (p. 415). Kirkup's Socialism is very far remov- ed from the present "stiff and barren orthodoxy," as he calls it, which is so deeply permeated with, and colored by, an aggressive materialism and a spirit of general and violent revolt. With this he has no sympathy. Marx he regards as having forged "new chains for the working class in the shape of dogmatic materialism, a rigid and abstract col- lectivism and ultra-revolutionary views which still hamper it in the task of emancipation" (p. 443). More than once he expresses strong disapproval of the attitude of modern Socialists towards "the family," and is at pains to insist that between Socialism, as he under- stands it, and religion there is no con- tradiction (pp. 447-449). To the re- viewer, however, it seems that he fails to recognize the instinctive antag- onism that exists between the Socialist Weltanschauung and that of the Chris- tian, if for no reason other than that the one is concerned exclusively with diesseits and the other mainly with jenseits. Platforms may assert as forci- bly as possible that "religion is a pri- vate matter" with which Socialism Is not concerned, but no intelligent Social- ist will deny that the entire body of So- cialist thought is altogether detached from religion, taking no account what- ever of those fundamental relations which are the substance of all religion, and from which no believer can logical- ly prescind in any rational act. It is quite true that the Christian churches are not in the least committed to any particular system of government or pro- duction. Society exists, as they see it, for man and not man for society, and whatever system of production best ena- bles man to fulfil his destiny here and hereafter is, from their point of view, good. But unless we are to deceive our- selves, we must not fail to recognize, in the Socialist movement, even as Kirkup describes it, a synthesis of many centri- fugal forces, all operating strongly against the existing order — indeed, the very foundations of the existing order — and notably against the notions of law and the supernatural destiny of man. Whether one hold any form of religion or not, there is no excuse for not rec- ognizing this fact, for it will probably, when fully recognized, greatly help to clear the field of discussion and enable those who are in doubt easily to find their proper camps. Kirkup's book will make an appeal to many who are tired of Spargo, Hillquit, and the other painstaking but tedious modern scholastics of the more reason- able and coherent Marxian school. To those who are fighting Socialism it will perhaps furnish suggestions for a change in the plan of campaign. Much ammunition is now going to waste on empty forts — such, for instance, as "sur- plus value" — which might be put to more profitable use elsewhere. Incidentally, it is worth noticing that Kirkup, al- though valiantly laboring to bring his Socialism into harmony with Evolu- tion a la Darwin, is much more of a Utopian than a scientific Socialist, and the general trend of the movement in this direction is now very marked. The "soap-box" school and a few of the faith- ful scholastics alone remain thoroughly orthodox and "scientific." CURRENT FICTION. When Ghost Meets Ghost. By William De Morgan. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Devoted readers of Mr. De Morgan will recall the whimsical "Apology in Confidence" appended to "A Likely Story." His preceding novel, "An Af- fair of Dishonour," had been sharply handled by reviewers. They had not only fallen foul of the story for what it was — a feeble attempt at historical ro- mance— but had censured the author for what it was not. They had expected him to be "Early Victorian and subur- ban, kindly and buttonholy," and he had disappointed them. He apologizes for his unfair treatment of them, and plumes himself on the "Victorianity" and "suburbanity" of his current offer- ing, "A Likely Story." Also, harking back to criticisms of his earlier books, he asks credit for having "slumped" from a quarter of a million words to less than 100,000 — "an essay towards conformity which seems to me to de- serve recognition." The physical aspect of "When Ghost Meets Ghost" leads one to suspect that convenience rather than conformity de- termined the length of "A Likely Story." Here is a chronicle running to nearly 900 pages and bulking a good deal near- er half a million than a quarter of a million words. If the characteristic summaries prefixed to the chapters had been printed as a table of contents, as they were in the earlier novels, some twenty-odd pages would have been add- ed to the volume. This may have been the straw to imperil the publisher's back: a list of short chapter-titles is furnished. But the important question is not how long the story is, but whether it is too long. The present reviewer (who would not spare anything of "Joseph Vance" or "Alice-for-Short") thinks it is. The substance of the narrative is alto- gether too slight for this scale of treat- ment. A pair of twins are separated in early womanhood, one following her convict husband to Van Dieman's Land, the other staying in England. After some years the husband, by a clever forgery, causes each of them to believe that the other is dead. Half a century later they are both in England. Prob- lems for the novelist: how shall they be brought together and how shall they be convinced of the truth? Mr. De Mor- gan's postulate is that these are prob- lems of almost superhuman difficulty, and that we are assisting at an extra- ordinarily subtle process of solution. In point of fact, the means employed is the simplest known to the romancer — coincidence. Never has that long arm been more deliberately extended. If little Dave Wardle, who lived in a par- ticular house in Sapps Court with one of the old twins, had not been run over by a particular fire-engine, and taken to a particular hospital, he would never have become the protege of the particu- lar nurse who was familiar with the particular village household in which the other old twin lived. If Lady Gwen had not chanced to be calling at Sapps Court at the precise moment when Mrs. Prichard's old table was about to be re- paired, she would not have taken charge of the old lady's papers, her father the earl would not have read the forged letter, and — so on. When, at the end of a very long chain of these petty coincidences, the facts have become plain to everybody except the two old parties, there is still a vast deal of fiddling to be gone through as to how they shall be made known to each other. Lady Gwen, who at this very moment is able to endure her lov- er's blindness and her bosom friend's dangerous illness without hysterics, is almost beside herself with dread as to what may happen to these two respecta- ble old women when they find that they are both alive! The noble earl, her father, is hardly less distressed; indeed, the anguished attention of a large aum ber of persons of all ranks and ages is focussed for some time upon this terri- ble moment of revelation. One of the twins does die shortly after the news is broken. But why shouldn't she? The
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March 19, 19 14] The N" a t i o n 301 truth is, there is interest, and a mild pathos, inherent in the situation, but one cannot make even a potential trag- edy out of the meeting, or failure to meet, of two nice old ladies of eighty- odd who have been lost to each other for fifty years. This is not the whole story, of course. Sapps Court is, roughly, the milieu of the opening chapters of "Joseph Vance" and "Alice-for-Short." Dave Wardle is again the gamin destined to become a gentleman. Uncle Mo is the rough dia- mond, the heart of oak. When we hear, in chapter one, that he is an ex-prize- fighter, we know that he will not have been so in vain, and the single right cross-counter by means of which he does for the villain (a very Dickensish jailbird) in the very last chapter, justi- fies us. Ancester Towers, the other set- ting, places the action, without undue violence, at the other social extreme. The earl is simply a gentleman and a connoisseur who happens to have a title. His lady the countess is of an older school. With her dowager-like, almost Trollopean, attitude, she is in odd con- trast with her daughter Gwen, and is, we suspect, less an anachronism than the latter, since the action is supposed to take place in the fifties. Gwen, the beautiful and audacious, is plainly akin to Mr. De Morgan's other delightful heroines. But the chronicler is so in- tent upon his two old grannies that, with all his half-million words, he does not succeed in finishing her love-story, and has to "gobble it up" as best he may in the very obvious exposition of the "Belated Pendrift" which closes the volume. Simple Simon. By A. Neil Lyons. New York: John Lane Co. Readers who remember the "Clara" of this writer will be prepared for the mix- ture of audacity and sentiment, social theory and satire, realistic detail and romantic feeling which give their pe- culiar atmosphere to these pages. The activities of Messrs. Wells, Chesterton, and Shaw have, to be sure, established something like a school of audacity. To be lively, and brilliant, and shocking, in one sense or another, is the essential. Some of the younger Englishmen who show this influence seem to be really above it, or to have something behind it. Two such we have noticed particu- larly of late, James Stephens, author of "The Crock of Gold," and A. Neil Lyons, author of "Clara" and of the present story. These writers are of their day; they do not dare not to he clever; they make great play with paradox and quip and shocking sally. But this is noth- ing more than the modish garment of their humor. For these are genuine hu- morists. There is a human warmth about them which one gropes for in Mr. Chesterton and misses outright in Mr. Shaw. Mr. Wells showed it in "Mr. Polly," and Mr. Bennett in "Buried Alive." As a group, the old guard of new-century wits have been chary of it as too much smacking of that damnable thing, sentiment. Mr. Stephens and Mr. Lyons, the more furious they are against the sham, the more ardently and openly they worship the real thing. Clara was a disreputable woman, but she not only loved much, she was perfectly lovable, and, on her own plane, venerable. In the present narrative, Mr. Lyons shows himself very angry against official char- ity, the dull hypocrisies of organized poor-relief. But this merely brings into sharp contrast the loving kindness of Simple Simon and his mate. One trait we hope Mr. Lyons will outgrow — a bel- ligerent tone due to the assumption that other people are probably less sensible than he. The Judgment of the Sword. By Maud Diver. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. "Here," the author's note tells us, "is no compound of history and romance, but the true romance of history. . . . Neither book (this or its predecessor, 'The Hero of Herat') has any relation to the historical novel proper, except in form." The exception is puzzling, un- less form means merely title and bind- ing; for the book does not even resem- ble a novel in form. There is no love story; there is no hero — or, rather, there are half a dozen. As the writer says, "No single figure, however heroic, could be made to dominate the tale of the First Afghan War without fatally up- setting the proportions of the whole." Once it gets under way, the narrative is picturesque and vigorous. Mrs. Diver has made good use of the background of mountain and defile, of the striking scenes of defence, retreat, and slaughter. It is not her fault that the story of Pol- lock's punitive expedition seems anti- climactic after the British disaster in which sixteen thousand men perished; but she might have told this more briefly. The Remington Sentence. By W. Pett Ridge. New York: George H. Doran Co. A quaint and quiet humor, the lei- surely progress of an unaccented plot, stress placed on minor detail, and a wide range of characters — these are fa- miliar characteristics of Mr. Ridge which his readers expect and which they find in the present volume. The vi- cissitudes of a sister and three brothers, condemned by the terms of a dead fath- er's will to "hard labor for five years," create whatever of plot there is. The young Remingtons leave their Hamp- shire country home to prove their met- tle in London, before coming into a sub- stantial fortune. These facts we discov- er by dint of reading between the lines. The whys and wherefores that lead to the imposing of "the Remington sen- tence" the reader may create for him- self. Upon this point the author is silent. Among the characters one recalls with interest Helen, the perplexed "big sister"; her lover, the explorer Salt- marshe; Kenton, one-time butler of the Remingtons, outwitting a nagging wife by well-acted aphasia; Mr. Clifford, the successful fruit merchant of Covent Garden, who indulges his "low tastes'" at Hampstead Heath on Bank Holiday; Signora Michaelis, of the Leicester Square ballet, once Nancy Dawkins, of the Chalk Farm Road bakeshop; Loo Riccardo, cockney blending of Italy and England; and Harkway, the schoolmas- ter, a pedagogical Wilkins Micawber, that Dickens might have drawn. With these and their fellows we wander through W. Pett Ridge's favorite Lon- don, the London of the lower middle classes — Tottenham Court Road, South- ampton Row, St. Martin's Lane, Hol- born Circus, Regent's Park. THE SPIRIT OF MODERN GREECE. J'gean Days. By J. Irving Manatt. Bos- ton: Houghton Mifflin Co. $3 net. Professor Manatt wrote this almost ideal book of travel with the experi- ence of a four years' consulate at Athens and of three subsequent visits and with a rich accumulation of Hellenic culture gained through a lifetime of loving study and honored teaching. He is thoroughly familiar even with the somewhat recon- dite works upon his subject, he has at his fingers' tips the political, literary, and artistic history of the yEgean dur- ing the ancient, mediaeval, and modern periods; he is renowned as an adept in the vernacular. His style is in the main easy, yet at times marked by the vice, so peculiar to the scholar when writing a popular treatise, of attempting facti- tious sparkle and energy. Thus it is that the comparisons may become far- fetched, as when he likens Concord to Colonus as a poetic hearth, Simonides and Voltaire to James Russell Lowell, or, most extraordinary of all, implying a certain lack of humor, his rehabilitat- ed Sappho to Alice Freeman. Professor Manatt errs in not bright- ening his volume with enough photo- graphs, and those that he does repro- duce are for the most part dimly print- ed. It is impossible, of course, to do justice to what is perhaps the finest landscape in the world; but these illus- trations do not even suggest the in- spiring nobility of Greek scenery as compared with the enticing luxuriance of Italian. It is, too, a little surpris- ing to find a man of the writer's in- clinations insulting Lesbos and the
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3G2 Tli e N~ a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2542 Lesbian poets by inserting a poor re- production ol' a wretched painting, Alma Tadema's Sappho and Alcaeus. The scheme of the work is eminently artistic. In Part I a summer's vaca- tion at Andros is used as a centre of interest, and around it are grouped ex- cursions to the near-lying Cyclades — Eubcea, Syra, Tenos, Naxos, and Paros. Part 11 is less unified, describing a short Aegean cruise under the enlight- ened conductorship of Dorpfeld, and visits to Ceos, Troy, Lesbos, Chios, Ithaca, and Leucas; but a certain con- nection is maintained by the recurrence of the Homeric motif through these sec- tions of the Hellenic world, and by the confinement of attention, with one or two exceptions, to the Asiatic coast and the adjacent islands. The unity is all the more remarkable in view of the fact that several chapters have already been published as occasional essays. In the course of describing each place visited, Professor Manatt contrives to introduce all the significant geographic, historic, ethnographic, literary, and even practi- cal information. But this is no mere guide-book. In his rambles with you he comes upon a ruined tower, a lone column, a half-effaced inscrip- tion built into a garden wall, and he is forthwith reminded of some ancient tale, some bit of lore, some verse of poetry connected with the fragment. He seems a pleasant comrade conversing casually and familiarly as you walk or ride or row or sail; and lo, when you have done, as if by magic you are well enough instructed to lecture yourself upon the places that you have visited in his company. In the end you find yourself possessing an adequate concep- tion of each JEgean island in its more glorious classical setting, in the ecclesi- astical ascendency of its Byzantine pe- riod, in the picturesqueness of the Ve- netian occupation, under Turkish mis- rule, in the heroic War of Independence, and in the almost realized hope of a modern resuscitation. Almost immediately on landing at Andros, Professor Manatt is haled before an absurd court for trespassing on pri- vate premises, and thus he has an op- portunity to sketch the whole petty polity of the island. He searches out a hymn to Isis chiselled upon a stone now used as a lintel, and he falls into de- lightful recollections of other Andrian inscriptions, which he employs to recon- struct the conditions of the place under Athenian and Roman sway. Meeting Dorpfeld on a steamer in the Ionian Sea, he allows the ingenious archaeologist to explain in his own entrancing and mo- mentarily convincing style his theories about an Ithacan Leucas. So he leads us on and on, beguiling us ever into the idea that we are merely chatting as we jog pleasantly along, never emphasizing too obviously the thesis that lurks be- neath the whole work. It is this thesis that creates a broader and a nobler unity. The author, in a word, is a fervid advocate of the con- tinuity of the old and the new Hellenic culture. He patronizes, to be sure, true New Englander that he is, rather than comprehends and honors the august church of the East, and in his treat- ment of the Andrian benefactor but heretic, Theophilos Kaires, he fails to appreciate the importance to the church of maintaining the standard of faith as well as of morals; but in general he is a steadfast friend of the modern Greek and a believer in his future. He con- stantly discerns ancient customs still persisting; he realizes that the deter- minative factors are an uninterrupted civilization and language, whatever fresh influx of blood there be. To one who has read the heroically poetic letter of a wounded Greek soldier to his wife in the May Atlantic of 1913, the identity of the past and present needs no demonstra- tion. This is a timely book, and to those who know and, because they know, ap- preciate and love modern Greece, it will prove a helpful apologia. It constitutes the best kind of a defence, for it is in- direct. There are few bald assertions of the superior character and energy of the present race, but the accidental pic- tures of their generous hospitality, their kindly curiosity, which is only another phrase for humane interest, and their almost fanatical desire for education under adverse circumstances, are more effective proof. When a distinguished historian in one of our greatest univer- sities visits the Balkans for but a few weeks, and then, abandoning his scien- tific reputation, presumes to issue an ultimatum upon the complicated pro- blem and upon the merits of the several combatants, it is comforting to listen to the sober judgments of Professor Manatt's ripened experience. S. Bernardino of Siena. By A. G. Fer- rers Howell. London: Methuen. The name of San Bernardino calls to mind, first of all, perhaps, the gaunt Franciscan figure that appears so often in the altar-pieces of the Quattrocento, distinguished by the lips drawn in over a sunken mouth, the bald head inclined a little, with its narrow circlet of white hair, and the attribute, a tablet with the sacred monogram YHS. Readers of Italian manuals will think at once of certain unique passages from sermons preached at Siena, stories and fables and sketches of contemporary life, recorded just as they were uttered, phonographic in the freshness of their dialect and the vivacity of their phrasing. But their author had little thought of place in art or literature; the powers of his keen mind and eager soul were wholly spent in ministry. He was the foremost fig- ure in Italian religious life between St. Catherine and Savonarola. He is truly named the Second Founder of the Friars Minor; he won back the allegiance of the Italian people to the Church, dis- honored and enfeebled by the Great Schism; and in his preaching, here and there and everywhere in Italy, he strove, flame-like, to enlighten and to burn away the gathering moral darkness of the Renaissance. Some twenty years ago Paul Thureau- Dangin published an admirable study of the life and preaching of S. Bernardino, a book very like Sabatier's "Vie de S. Francois" in spirit and in value. Since then, however, biographical and critical investigations have multiplied, and a new comprehensive work is therefore welcome. One misses in Mr. Ferrers Howell's style the clearness and grace of his French predecessor, but in com- pleteness and accuracy the new book is all that could be desired. The first of the four long chapters recounts the his- tory of the Strict Observance, the sec- ond is biographical, the third and most important is devoted to the sermons of S. Bernardino, and the fourth to his minor works. The preachers of the Quattrocento contented themselves, for the most part, with formal exposition of the gospel or epistle for the day. Bernardino, disre- garding that convention, chose a topic suggested by the immediate needs of the audience before him, and dealt with that topic directly, intensely — and at extreme length. In most of his ser- mons he attacks particular vices — gam- bling, love of finery, avarice, party strife; but his preaching as a whole illumines the entire field of religious experience. He combines searching moral diagnosis with generous common- sense. So he treats of wisdom in alms- giving, of caution in admonishment, of poverty and the love of poverty, of hon- est doubt, of religious sentimentality, superstition, and asceticism. His doc- trine bears eloquent witness to the passing of the Middle Ages: To take up the cross in a way that the body cannot bear, is not an inspira- tion of God, but a temptation of the devil; and the reason is, that God hates none of the things that he has made; wherefore he hates not our body, but loves it, and would have us love it, and preserve it for his honor, and not de- stroy it, nor give it a burden it cannot bear. . . . For the judgment is not between us and the saints, but between God and us: the question will be whether we have fulfilled his commands to the best of our ability; not whether we have done what the saints did. Yet his liberalism went hand in hand with a relentless intolerance of evil; and he wrought mightily upon the throngs that heard him. Often his ser- mon-courses ended in the red glow of a bonfire of vanities; and again and again he quelled the bitterness of local
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March 19, 1914] The Nation 303 warfare. Even now signs of his influ- ence remain throughout Northern and Central Italy, from the Alpine pass that bears his name to his burial place at Aquila, in the many churches that are dedicated to him, and in the represen- tations of the sacred monogram, carved, at his bidding, on city towers and on palace gates. Mrs. Ady (Julia Cartwright) contrib- utes to Mr. Ferrers Howell's volume an interesting chapter on S. Bernardino In Art. It is in Siena, naturally, that the figure of the saint appears most fre- quently, but there is hardly a local school that cannot show his likeness on wall or panel. The most notable paint- ings inspired by his life are Pinturic- chio's frescoes in the Aracceli and the charming little pictures at Perugia, by Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, representing S. Bernardino's miracles. At Perugia, too, is his most elaborate monument in stone, the facade of the Oratorio, decorated with the very lovely bas-reliefs of Agos- fino di Duccio. The Minor Poems of Joseph Beaumont. Edited by Eloise Robinson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. $5. Among the possessions of Professor Palmer, of Harvard, brought together in the course of his devoted study of George Herbert and Herbert's age, is the unique manuscript of the minor poems of Dr. Beaumont, which he bought at one of the sales of the Sir Thomas Phil- lipps collection in 1911. It is a quarto volume of 173 leaves, written in two hands, one that of the poet himself, the other that of John Gee, who apparently used the manuscript in preparing the selection of Beaumont's verse for his edition of 1749, and made various correc- tions to this end. Under the auspices of the English department of Wellesley College the whole volume has now been handsomely reprinted, with an ample introduction and notes. Relying chiefly on Gee and correcting some errors of Grosart by the way, Miss Robinson has incorporated in her intro- duction an excellent account of Beau- mont's quiet and in the end not unpros- perous career. He was, according to his own report and as his industry with the pen well testifies, a bookish man who might have been content to settle down in the university there to spend a life in digesting libraries of theology. In one of his birthday effusions — "Martij 13, 1643" — he pretty well sums up his intel- lectual course, and as the poem is not in the selection of 1749, and consequent- ly not in Grosart, we may quote several of the stanzas as an example of his rath- er rougher style: Th' importunate Drops at length some impresse made Upon my stony Intellect, & I Was put Apprentice to ye Bookish Trade At full fifteene ith' Universitie Where captiv'd in a Gowne, under ye shade Of thousand leaves \ sate, and by The losse of almost all ye Time since then Have learned to be ye foolishest of Men. My itching mind proudly desir'd to prie Into whatever Learnings Title wore. With unfledgd Wings I often towred high, And snatch'd at things above my pitch, before I had sure hold of what beneath did lie. Yet on I ventur'd still, & caught at more; I caught ye Wind of Words, which by a Blast Of following Notions soon away were past. At length I learn'd, & sure my Tutor was Th' ETERNAL, WISDOME, well to rest content With shallow knowledge of such Objects, as Can never blesse their Knower: Comple- ment And Ceremonious Learning I let passe To guild their Crest, who make Applause their bent Ambitious onely not to be a foolc In that, which Saints and Angells draws to Schoole. But our poet was soon cast out of his bookish ease. In the year 1644, accord- ing to the quaint account of John Gee, the Earl of Manchester was ordered "to garble and model the University of Cam- bridge, where Mr. Beaumont's avowed affection to the King's cause exposed him among the first, to the keenest edge of their resentment." Beaumont lost his fellowship (early in 1643, according to Miss Robinson's calculation, instead of 1644), but under the generous protec- tion of the Bishop of Ely he multiplied benefices and books in a way that ought to have made even a poet-clerk happy. Beaumont, as we already knew, be- longs with the school of Herbert and Vaughan and Crashaw and Traherne, and the present addition to his works only serves to place him a little more exactly in that band of religious poets. Though of course he never rose any- thing like as high as Crashaw or even as Vaughan, his work is rather more on a consistent, if not dead, level than theirs, avoiding the morbid conceits of the former which sometimes sink him to about the lowest degree of bad taste of any writer of mark in the language, and seldom if ever flowing in the flaccid manner of Vaughan in his more negli- gent moments. Miss Robinson admits freely that very few persons — none, we should say, unless they are reading in that period for a purpose — will care to go through all of Beaumont's 177 poems which she has printed. It would scarce- ly be a fair question to ask any scholar why he, or she, had ventured to add an- other volume of this kind to our bur- dened libraries, and as a matter of fact the present publication has a certain value and even interest of its own, though the latter must not be presum- ed on too far. Beaumont had the least spark of genius, and not much of the high fervors of religion, but he is an ad- mirable specimen of a man who lived in the intellectual and spiritual society of those who possessed both of those quali- ties in large measure, and he caught, as it were, the routine of their inspiration. He is in this way characteristic of the mean, though not precisely the golden mean, of his age. At times he utters a note of a more intimate sincerity, and for a moment we seem to see into the man's living heart. Having quoted the cruder stanzas from his "Natalitium," we feel bound to supplement them with a more alluring illustration. We take them from the first poem in the volume, "Suspirium," which was not known to Grosart: I think a thousand thoughts a day, Yet think not one: each doth betray It selfe, & halfe-made flyes away. I think of Heav'n, I think of Hell, Of what both heer & there doth dwell: Yet what I think I cannot tell. Through all ye World my Mind does run, And when her foolish Course is done, She onely is where she begun. Such Hudling and Perplexity In my tumultuous Heart there bee, That seeing all, I nothing sec. When our divine Dr. Beaumont wrote those words he was thinking not of the poems of Herbert or Vaughan, but of a sad experience which came to him often in his own study, and which has come to many another over-ambitious student since his day. Miss Robinson's editorial care in bringing out the volume is commend- able, but she has fallen into the too common error of editors in finding par- allels and suggesting borrowings on the most unconvincing coincidences of lan- guage. 'Notes The Yale University Press has under- taken the following publications: "Brac- ton: De Legibus et Consuetudinibus An- glise" (Vol. I), edited by George E. Woodbine; "University Sermons," by Henry Sloane Coffin; "Our Many-Sided Navy," by R. W. Neeser. The two volumes on the Civil War in Harper's composite history of "The American Nation" were contributed by Dr. J. K. Hosmer, and attracted consid- erable attention at the time of their ap- pearance. They are now brought out in a separate edition a3 "The American Civil War." The Bobbs-Merrill Company will pub- lish on March 21, "Five Years to Find Out," by Ida A. R. Wylie. D. C. Heath & Co. announce the forth- coming publication of Keller's "Die drel gerechten Kammacher," edited with notes and vocabulary by Prof. H. G. Collings,
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304= The Natio ri [Vol. 98, No. 2542 and of Gustav Frensen's "Jorn Uhl," abridged and edited with notes by Prof. \v. W. Florer. Sherman, French & Co. announce for publication next month "Candle Flame," by Katharine Howard. In the March announcements of Houghton Mifflin Company the following books are included: "The Women We Marry," by Arthur Stanwood Pier; "Emerson's Journals" (complete), edited bj Edward W. Emerson and Waldo Emerson Forbes; "The First Step," by Eliza Orne White; "Lost Diaries," by, Maurice Baring; "The United States Fed- eral Internal Tax History from 1861 to 1871," by Harry Edwin Smith; "Commo- dore George Hamilton Perkins, U. S. N.," life and letters, by Carroll Storrs Alden: "In the High Hills," by Maxwell Struth- ers Burt. The same publishers have added to their Riverside Textbooks in Education: "Rural Life and Education," by E. P. Cubberley; "The Hygiene of the School Child," by Lewis M. Terman; "Evolution of the Educational Ideal," by Mabel J. Emerson; "Chief Middle Eng- lish Poets," by Jessie L. Weston; "The Tendency to the Concrete and Practical in Modern Education," by Charles W. Eliot; "Art Education," by Henry Turner Bailey. The general meeting of the American Philosophical Society will be held at Phil- adelphia in the hall of the Society, In- dependence Square, April 23-25. The Nation evidently has done an in- justice to Mr. Zane Grey in its criticism of his "The Light of Western Stars," by the statement that he "has taken over his opening situation from Charles Al- den Seltzer's 'The Trail to Yesterday.' " In a letter to the editor, Mr. Grey de- clares that his novel "was written in 1912, and was begun serially in Munsey's be- fore Mr. Seltzer's novel began in another magazine." Investigation fully substan- tiates this statement. The Nation's re- viewer was misled by the fact that Mr. Seltzer's story appeared in book form several months before Mr. Grey's. The entire intent of the reviewer was to say that this novel was of the conventional sort as to situations, and inferior in that respect to the author's own "Desert Gold," published previously. It was not the intention to accuse him of wilful plagiarism, and any inference to that ef- fect is regretted. To the series of reference books pre- pared by William S. Walsh for the J. B. Lippincott Co. he has now added "A Handy Book of Curious Information." It comprises, as the sub-title states, and as some experience in using the volume confirms, "strange happenings in the life of men and animals, odd statistics, ex- traordinary phenomena, and out-of-the- way facts concerning the wonderlands of the earth." Naturally, the prime disad- vantage of any such miscellaneous cyclo- paedia as this is in the uncertainty one must always have whether a particular desideratum will fall within its province. We can only assure the searcher after .such books that the editor of this volume has made a truly curious collection of facts and stories from many scattered .sources. The anonymous author of "The Life of Sir ECenelm Digby" now offers "Policy ;incl Paint," some incidents in the lives of Dudley <'arleton and Peter Paul Ru- bens (Longmans, illustrated). Carleton was a general utility man in diplomacy for James I and Charles I, eventually becoming Foreign Minister. Rubens, as all the world knows, was British envoy for the King of Spain in the year 1G29. Some twelve years earlier, when Carleton was at The Hague, the two men had been associated in picture-dealing ways. Carleton was a zealous agent for the art-loving noble- men of England, especially for the fa- vorite Buckingham, and knew where to place a gift where it would do the most good. Carleton was something of a cold fish, but his career gains dignity from his constant devotion to the cause of Elizabeth of the Palatinate and Bohemia, whose royal husband had been dispos- sessed and exiled by the Emperor. The intention, one can hardly say the en- deavor, to reinstate his sister colored all the foreign policy of Charles I. It was the permanent obstacle to peace with the Empire and with Spain. Carleton, as a good royalist and Protestant, ever sought to make peace between England and France, a course made very difficult by the religious contentions in both coun- tries. Rubens, of course, sought peace with Spain. Both attempts succeeded, though on humiliating terms. Elizabeth of Bohemia remained unrighted. Charles and Buckingham complicated every nego- tiation by fluctuations of timidity, ill- calculated rashness, and perfidy. Carle- ton served difficult masters, kept him- self pretty clean, and probably deserves our author's commendation as the first real English diplomat, as distinguished from casual envoy and spy. Perhaps the chief value of the book lies in the picture it draws of the sheer incompetence of the Stuart regime in all foreign matters. For more than local reasons, a Cromwell was due. On the rather slender thread of the relations of Carleton and Rubens our author has constructed an excellent bit of biographical history. The neces- sary complications of the narrative make the book one rather for the scholarly than for the general reader. The reading of "The Science of Hap- piness," by Jean Finot, translated from the tenth French edition by Mary J. Saf- ford (Putnam), in spite of its numerous editions and its chaplet from the French Academy, has not removed the suspicion that Happiness, like Fame, will not speak to those Who have not learnt to he content without her. The author's habit of enthusiastic exag- geration, noticed in these columns on the appearance in translation of his "Race Prejudice," some seven years ago, is abundantly in evidence in the present volume. At the outset we are told that, "after all, if we consider man happier than he really is, perhaps some addition- al happiness will follow." But the sug- gestion seems to be at once forgotten by the author himself, for it would be hard to conceive humankind in a more wretched condition than is painted in many of the paragraphs that follow. Man craves only happiness and creates noth- ing but misery. He has created enough futile tears with his religion to drown the whole present generation. With all their racial gayety we may see at a glance that the representative minds even of the French people are "corroded by every evil, beginning with that of thought and ending with that of love." From all the heights of French intellect streams down the dreariness of desolation, pres- ent even when not visible. Disunited in most things, we have one point of soli- darity— "each member of mankind would believe himself dishonored if he did not provoke around him the bitterness of envy." "The object in life for the major- ity of men and women is nothing but tha desire to create along their path the worst of the moral deformities of man, envy." And if we were to banish all whose busi- ness is nothing but the creation of hatred, the cities, the suburbs, and the country would be alike depopulated. One begins to feel, at times, that one is dealing with a modern Juvenal, but the turning of a page will bring the com- forting assurance that the sadness which has thrown a veil of profound melancholy over the world and elicited more tears than the most terrible wars is but spu- rious after all, and its cult a mere fad. Religion has been the main offender in setting awry a humanity which is really born to be happy, and particularly the Christian religion, the predominant care of which "is to poison the little joys of life." In the happiness which is just ahead of us, then, we are all to give up our religions, so far as anything in the nature of a definite creed is concerned, and substitute religiousness in their place. Our happiness is not to be entirely freed from the condiment of sorrow, but not too much of it, if you please. We are cautioned, of course, as by the moralizers of all ages, not to depend upon wealth for happiness. And here again the author is seized with a spasm of pessimism; he interjects the remark that society always treats a very wealthy thief with more respect than a very poor honest man. But he immediately brightens up with the reflection that Mr. Roosevelt, by at- tacking dishonest millionaires in a coun- try where wealth outstrips all honors whatever, has shown the fragility of its worship and shifted the chances of suc- cess to the side of its opponents. It must be said for the author that, though his ideal of happiness is not very clearly denned, he does insist that it is to be a product of the moral life. And in spite of his slap at Christianity for trying "to poison the little joys of life" which the human heart craves, we are told finally that the coming pedagogy of happiness will implant in the mind the precept that "it is not wishes fulfilled, but duties ac- complished, which most surely and most easily procure happiness." There is, of course, nothing really new in all this, and few thoughtful readers, one imagines, would have felt any sense of injustice if the French Academy had withheld its crown. To go back to Keats again, we fear that the l'Yench seekers after happiness who have swallowed up ten ciitions so rapidly are wooing with too slavish knee. Rather than this —
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March 19, 19 14] The ]STation 305 Make your beat bow to bet nn<i hid adieu; riH-ii, If slip likes It, sue will fonow you. • It was a happy idea, in connection with the official life of Disraeli, which is com- ing out so slowly, to issue a volume of his political writings, and this has now been done, under the editorial care of Mr. Benjamin Hutcheon, as "Whigs and Whiggism" (Macmillan). Some of the pieces included have been reprinted in earlier volumes, but even these are now out of print, and the brilliance of their style, apart from their historical value, would justify their presentation again in popular form. The two longest and most important pieces are "The Vindication of the English Constitution" and "The Let- ters of Runnymede," the former of which appeared in December, 1835, as a "letter to a noble and learned lord," the latter in the first half of 1836 in the London Times, being republished anony- mously in July of the same year. Both the "Vindication" and the "Letters" were written while Disraeli was still in the wilderness, and are a part of his savage campaign, against the Whigs in behalf of Lord Lyndhurst The "Vindication" con- tains the fullest exposition of Disraeli's conception of the Constitution; it might not inaptly be described as Burke, with- out the deep undertone of philosophical emotion that surges through the "Re- flections," but sharpened and keyed up for a more modern taste. Occasionally there is a telling epigram, as, for instance, ♦his: "There was a time when our Kings affected to rule by Divine right. It cost our fathers dear to root out that fatal superstition. But all their heroic labors will prove worse than fruitless if the Divine right of Kings is to be succeeded bv the Divine right of the House of Com- mons." Occasionally enigram and argu- ment unite more elp^orately, as in this cutting, if not entirely fair, attack on the Westminster Utilitarians, against whom the "Vindication" was mainly di- rected: The blended Utilitarian system of mor- als and politics, then, runs thus: it is the interest of man to be a tyrant and a rob- ber- a man does not change his nature because he is a king; therefore a king is a tyrant and a robber. If it be the in- terest of one man to be a tyrant and a robber, it is the interest of fifty or five thousand to be tyrants and robbers; therefore we cannot trust an aristocracy more than a monarch. But the eternal principle of human nature must always hold good. A privileged class is always an aristocracy, whether it consists of five thousand or fifty thousand, a band of nobles or a favored sect; therefore the power of government should be entrusted to all; therefore the only true and useful government is a representative polity, founded on universal suffrage. "The Letters of Runnymede" are more personal than the "Vindication," and per- haps for that reason have been better remembered— unless it is the cleverness of the title that has given them a kind of factitious reputation. Junius was evi- dently Disraeli's master in their com- position, Melbourne and Lansdowne and Lord John Russell and Palmerston tak- ing the place of the Grafton and Bedford and Mansfield over whom the terrible nominis umbra poured his vitriol. That the animus, if not quite the deadly pre- cision of malice, of the older writer was taught by the younger may be seen from a typical specimen of the attacks on Lord John Russell: You were born with a strong ambition and a feeble intellect. It is an union not uncommon, and in the majority of cases only tends to convert an aspiring youth into a querulous and discontented man- hood. But under some circumstances — ■ when combined, for instance, with great station, and consequent opportunities of action — it is an union which often leads to the development of a peculiar talent — the talent of political mischief. The "Letters" were never acknowledged by Disraeli, and their present editor sug- gests that, as their author grew older and became better acquainted with the men whom he had so viciously abused, he regretted their publication. We need have no such regret to-day. To every college teacher, to each and every man, a book on the short story is an ambition that gives promise of early fulfilment. "The Modern Short-Story" (A. S. Barnes Company), by Lucy Lillian Notestein and Waldo Hilary Dunn, is the latest stone towards the completed edifice. The Short-story, properly hyphenated, is the exclusive subject of this latest work of collaboration. The authors have not a great mind, but great minds, for they flow from channel to channel with a fa- cility more admirable than that displayed by the lone Indian shooting the rapids of the St. Lawrence. Whole chapters are made up of a mosaic of quotations em- bedded in the cement of such startling profundities as that the Short-story "is akin to the other forms of narrative art." Besides, we are assured, hundreds of sto- ries have been read in the preparation of the volume. Those used for illustration can be counted on one's fingers, and not all of them seem to have been scrutinized. At least, in Kipling's "Drums of the Fore and Aft" is seen none of the satire that saturates it; it becomes "simply self-sac- rificing heroism." The little treatise is primarily a textbook to which the authors hope many college students will be ex- posed, but one may harbor the suspicion that the undergraduate mind, after en- countering these numberless hurtling phages of current doctrine, will be left gasping in bewilderment rather than keyed up to a creative point. To the general reader, familiar with recent the- orizing about short fiction, the volume is more likely to prove unintentionally en- tertaining. Various indeed are the topics in "A Bookman's Letters" (Doran), by W. Rob- ertson Nicoll, the veteran editor of the British Weekly. They range from such a good old-fashioned topic as Learning to Read to matters so recent as A New Critic — Mr. John Bailey. But all have the discursive air of one whose long custom it has been to converse in a pleasant- ly informal manner as ideas occur to him, but never to be elated or fervent or combatively aroused — an omnivorous reader without engrossing literary pas- sions or profound critical convictions. In this pedestrian manner he likes to relate reminiscences of Meredith, to recount the early career of Swinburne, to indulge in divagations anent Sir Walter Besant. Yet in general he avoids main-travelled roads, much preferring to meander down many an unfrequented bypath. He lin- gers over the strangely futile career of George Augustus Simcox; he retails the letters of long-forgotten Samuel Brown to seldom remembered George Gilfillan; he wonders whether Robert Buchanan was moral or not; and to Mr. William Hale White he devotes full five chapters of leisurely comment. Though poetry, the novel, the essay, and criticism re- ceive repeated notice in the four hun- dred-odd octavo pages of these fugitive writings, it is not so much literary art as biographical detail that has obviously engaged his warmest interest. Near the opening he converses of The Six Best Biographies, and throughout the volume he rehearses wherever he can little known facts of the flotsam and the "tramps" in the stream of literary history that will appeal to those of curious and desultory reading. Somewhere midway in the saintly line of social benefactors from St. Francis to Florence Nightingale stands the conse- crated figure whom E. K. Sanders has admirably described in "Vincent de Paul, Priest and Philanthropist, 1576-1660" (Longmans). It is as the patron saint of practical philanthropy, as the pioneer of social reform, organized charity, and assistance to wounded soldiers and gal- ley convicts that Vincent de Paul has been hitherto chiefly known. The world has acclaimed him as the organizer of the devoted Mission Priests who went to Scotland, Poland, and Italy, to Algiers and Madagascar, as well as throughout Fiance, and as the founder and spiritual adviser of the saintly Sisters of Charity, who included women of high and low degree, and who devoted their lives to forgetfulness of self in their service of others. Mr. Sanders does not abate a bit of this just fame, but he goes further; he pierces the veil with which the ce- lebrity of the philanthropical achieve- ments has enshrouded Vincent de Paul, and reveals him as a simple and sincere priest of the Catholic faith whose prime aim was to bring spiritual food to those who were in spiritual starvation. Born during the religious wars, and living through the worldly, selfish, factional struggles which stretched from Henry IV's death to that of Mazarin, this sim- ple saintly son of southern France saw that the common people were as sheep having no true shepherd. A spiritual tragedy at the bedside of a dying peas- ant convinced him of this, and produced the crisis in his own life which turned him towards mission work. "It is the priests living as most of them live to- day who are the greatest enemies of the Church of God," he cried. Henceforth he sought to raise the priesthood from its degradation and to have Christ's word preached to those who had never truly heard it. Looking at Vincent de Paul primarily as a spiritual reformer, Mr. Sanders unfolds the details of a life as ordinary as it is simple and beau- tiful. In the first half of the volume he sketches the outward life of Vincent de Paul as student, Turkish slave, papal agent, confessor of princes, adviser of Anne of Austria, and inspirer of saint- ly lives like his own; in the second half he describes the organization and work
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3QG T h. e N" a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2542 of the Mission Priests and the Sisters of and Shows the constant personal Influence which the founder continued to exerl upon both until his death in 1G0O al the age of eighty-rive. It is an excel- lent, edifying biography, worthy of its subject. Mr. Frederic Mathews's "Taxation and the Distribution of Wealth" (Doubleday, Page & Co.) has an ambitious title, and is issued by the publishers in ambitious form — a portly, well-printed octavo of nearly 700 pages. And the table of con- tents is no less ambitious — five parts, each divided in books, each book divided into chapters. The parts and books cover an extraordinary range of topics: Pro- tection, Taxation, the Natural Tax, Prog- ress (including Progress and Politics, In- tellectual Progress, Religion, Philosophy), and finally Politics. Unhappily a little delving below the surface shows that all this array of learning has but one aim and end: the single tax. The propaganda of the single-taxers takes Protean forms, and ranges from the one-page leaflet to the ponderous pseudo-scientific treatise. This volume belongs to the latter class. Testing Mr. Mathews's reasoning and evi- dence here and there, we find him using glibly the most untrustworthy material and settling summarily the most intri- cate problems. On the General Prin- ciples of Taxation, Adam Smith's well- known four canons are quoted, and there is an end. Indirect taxation, of course, gets hard knocks, and protective duties perhaps the hardest of all. However great may be one's impatience with the stock arguments of the crude protection- ists, such superficial and inaccurate ar- guments for free trade as Mr. Mathews presents can cause no less impatience. That he is not competent to deal with the really intricate problems of interna- tional trade is shown by his misunder- standing of Mill's reasoning on the possible transference to foreigners of part of an import duty's burden. As to the later parts of the book — on Intellectual Progress, Religion, Pre-Socratic Philoso- phy, Attic Philosophy, and, finally, Christ — he must be a brave single-taxer who will read it all, and a brave man who will bring himself to believe that he sees its bearing on the problems of taxation and distribution. In the concluding chap- ter we are told that "the words of but one man in the history of thought show a rational and scientific comprehension of the disease from which society is at present suffering"; and the volume ends at the very last with a resounding phrase which sufficiently indicates its quality: "One Tax, One Freedom, One Kingdom, and One God." The separately printed supplement to the January number of the American Journal of International Law gives translations of the various treaties en- tered into by the Balkan belligerents: that of February 29, 1912, between Bul- garia and Servia, with a secret appen- dix, and an agreement between the general staffs of the two armies; of May 20, 1913, between Turkey and the Balkan allies; of July 28 and August 10, 1913, between Bulgaria, Rumania, Greece, Montenegro, and Servia, with protocols annexed; of September, 1913, between Bulgaria and Turkey, and of November 11, 1913, between Turkey and Greece, with protocols annexed. In addition to these Balkan documents is given the United States proclamation of Novem- ber 21, 1913, prescribing rules for the measurement of vessels for the Panama Canal. In the Journal itself a valuable paper contributed by Mr. A. Schvan em- bodies suggestions for a combination be- tween the two great Anglo-Saxon Powers, for the maintenance of naval peace, Great Britain having for her sphere the Atlantic and the United States the Pa- cific Ocean. Mr. Schvan recognizes that with only one of the great Powers, the United States, are war interests of com- parative insignificance; but this "splen- did" isolation in his view is in danger of diminution, under the ever -increasing interdependence of trade, shipping, and finance. He trusts to the Dominion, on our northern border, and other outlying great provinces, to prevent England from forgetting that she has a greater role to play as the centre of a world- wide empire than as one of the historical Powers of Europe. He believes that a clear division of naval responsibilities would be all-powerful for the mainte- nance of peace on the high seas, with, as a corollary, the discouraging of military exploitation on the land. Another elabo- rate paper is the first part of Mr. Roy Emerson Curtis's "Law of Hostile Mili- tary Expeditions as Applied to the Unit- ed States." Denys P. Myers presents a study of "Representation in Public In- ternational Organs," with a very com- plete array of citations. The editorial comments are valuable and instructive, as are the summaries of international events and of public documents relating to international law. Prof. Herbert E. Bolton's "Guide to the Materials for the History of the United States in the Principal Archives of Mex- ico" (Carnegie Institution of Washing- ton) is one volume of a series that is designed to render more accessible to historical students the manuscript sources for American history in foreign archives. In the long and often lean years of American historiography, no single un- dertaking has been so full of promise as has this effort of the Carnegie Insti- tution of Washington to break away from the customary routes of historical travel, and to strike out into new and largely untrodden fields. With the materials in the United States, Spain, Italy, Germany, Canada, Cuba, and Mexico already fairly outlined; with the volumes on England nearly complete, and those on France approaching completion; with reports on Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Swed- en under way, and that on Russia pro- jected, the process of orientation is well begun, and the task of construction is al- ready awaiting the builder. But a his- tory of our colonial and national periods is not a matter of days but of years, and in years not of decades but of gen- erations. Mr. Bolton's "Guide" is the result of five summers spent in Mexico, followed by a period of sixteen months devoted to the actual gathering of information. To any one familiar with the difficulties of a task of this kind — pioneer work often of the hardest and most perplexing char- acter— it will not be necessary to read the author's preface to be impressed with the value of what he has done. Other volumes of the series will bear more di- rectly upon leading phases of our his- tory, but none will show more strikingly the intrinsic perplexities of the problem that every one engaged in this undertak- ing has had to face. In Mr. Bolton's case more than half the working hours spent in the archives were devoted to the physical tasks of searching for and handling manuscripts; many additional hours were consumed in the presenta- tion of credentials, and the gaining of admission to the various repositories vis- ited; while the remaining hours were taken up with the dreary business of studying the material thus unearthed. The conditions in Mexico were particu- larly discouraging, and the investigator left his work there, as other investiga- tors have left their work elsewhere, with the feeling that the resources of the ar- chives had been far from exhausted, and that even those collections which were examined were but part of a larger whole that will have to be dealt with some day. Prof. Rudolf Eucken, the idealist of Jena, has written two more books, which have been promptly translated, and pub- lished by Putnams. They are "Know- ledge and Life," translated by W. Tudor Jones, and "Ethics and Modern Thought," translated by Margaret von Seydewitz. The first is a portion "of a greater work already planned," which was interrupted by the author's visit to America; the second consists of the Deem lectures de- livered last year at New York Univer- sity. We have taken the pains to read these books, before putting them upon the shelves, though (after a dozen or so volumes of Eucken) with- out expectation; and our lack of expec- tation has been verified. They con- tain scarcely one distinguishably new idea, if, indeed, a new phrase. Yet they are not therefore to be summarily con- demned. Some men can sing a song with as much sincerity the thousandth time as the first; and Eucken, especially in "Knowledge and Life," tells the tale of the independence of the spiritual life with the same freshness and vigor of elo- quence (well rendered by Mr. Jones's translation) as if he had never told it be- fore. As usual, he is at his best in the critical summaries of prevailing ten- dencies of thought. His positive construc- tion, showing that knowledge and life are aspects of one movement, continuous yet always revolutionary of previous schemes of life, resists clear statement and leaves one, as usual, with an expec- tation always just to be satisfied. Yet to one who has not read Eucken the book may be recommended. Books on "The Greatest Books in the World" always attract some readers and evidently still find publishers; but it may be doubted whether the above title ought to have been chosen by Laura Spencer Portor for her little volume (HOUghtOD Mifflin) ,, ,1 Quixote," "Pilgrlm'B Pro*-
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March 19, 1914] The Nation 307 ress," and "The Book of Job." She shows neither familiarity with original sources where that alone might justify adding one more comment to the thousands that have been made on Homer, Dante, and Goethe, nor originality of thought, nor charm of style. There is much vague- ness and dim speculation throughout, to- gether with, as always in such cases, some unsupported positiveness. She finds "every bat Homer had a broad- er and deeper experience of life than cornea to most men"; but it would be su- perfluous to comment further on a wholly nous book. Prof. Rufus Byam Richardson, the loglst, v. In) died on .March 10, was born in West ford, Mass., April 18, 1845. He graduated from Yale in 1869, and re- celved the degree of Ph. D. in 1878 and of bachelor of divinity in 1883. From 1880 to 1882 he was professor of Greek at the Indiana University, and from 1882 to 1893 a1 I lartmouth. From 1893 to 1903 he was ;. director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. He exca- vated the ancient gymnasium at Eretria, and the site of ancient Corinth. Prof. Richardson edited /Eschines's Oration against Cteslpbon, 1889, was a contribu- tor to the American Journal of Archae- ology, and the author of "Vacation Days in Greece," 1903, "Greece through the Stereoscope," 1907, and "History of Greek Sculpture," 1910. He was a member of a number of archaeological societies. John Brown Dunbar, who died on March 12, was born April 3, 1841, at Bellevue, Neb., at that time Indian coun- try. Mr. Dunbar was brought up among the Pawnees and was considered an au- thority on their language, grammar, and customs. He assisted Father Gailland, of St. Mary's mission, in the preparation of a Pottawatami grammar and dictionary, and furnished the late Daniel G. Brinton with a collection of Indian songs, Paw- nee, Arikara, Caddo, and Wichita. He contributed an important series of arti- cles on the Pawnee Indians to the Maga- zine 0} American History, wrote an ap- pendix on the Pawnee language for Grin- nell's "Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk Tales," and was the author of a number of papers on Indians and early Western history. Allan Forman, well known as an editor and dramatic critic, died on March 13. Mr. Forman was born September 27, 1860, at Mattituck, Long Island, N. Y. After taking a special course in English literature and economics at Williams Col- lege, he started the Brooklyn Advance in 1881. He served as dramatic critic for various papers for five years, and estab- lished the Journalist in 1884, which, ex- cept during three years of travel in Eu- rope, he continued to conduct till his re- tirement in 1908. The death in England was announced recently of Christian David Ginsburg, who was one of the original four mem- bers appointed by convocation for revi- sion of the English version of the Old Testament. Dr. Ginsburg was born De- cember 25, 1831, and received the hon- orary LL.D. from Glasgow University in 1857. He was the author of a number of works of Biblical criticism, including commentaries on the "Song of Songs," "Ecclesiastes," and "Leviticus," and a critical text of the Hebrew Bible. He was also a contributor of numerous arti- cles to encyclopaedias. Alfred Charles Edwards, editor in chief of Le Matin, Paris, who died recently in that city, was born at Constantinople on July 10, 1857. He was the founder and for many years editor of Le Matin, and had previously been connected with Le Figaro, Le Gaulois, and Le Clarion. Science PROFESSOR SEE. Brief Biography and Popular Account of the Unparalleled Discoveries of T. J. J. See. By W. L. Webb. Lynn, Mass.: Thomas P. Nichols & Son Co. $2.50. Truly this is a daring book, every- where abounding in parlous surfeit of superlatives. Its subject, Professor See, has thought thoughts as vast as the uni- verse itself, and has surely acquired the cosmic attitude of mind. By heredity "a typical Missourian in every sense," the infant See, we are told, first saw the light on the 393d anniversary of Coper- nicus's birth, weighed nearly ten pounds, suffered from a "croupy tendency," showed himself "every inch a natural philosopher" by speculating on the origin of sun, moon, and stars at the tender age of two, never so much as dreaming that he should grow into a "little boy with methodical methods," and one day become "the greatest astron- omer in the world." This biographer believes in his sub- ject heart and soul: he leaves the read- er in no manner of doubt about it, fol- lowing the "triumphant career with un- abated enthusiasm." With agility the youthful See passes from Steele's "Four- teen Weeks in Astronomy" to Laplace's "Mecanique Celeste," side-steps the Uni- versity of Chicago, and publishes his first volume of researches himself, prob- ably his most important work so far. Later President McKinley appointed him professor in the navy. After brief duty in the East, he was ordered to Mare Island, where during the past twelve years he has pursued researches in uni- verse building to which has not as yet been accorded that full acceptance which their author and his ibiographer seem to believe has been the case. Professor See has published many ex- tended papers in the "Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia," where they have the wid- est circulation; but so far his revolution- ary theories seem only in small part acceptable to his scientific contempo- raries. Rather more than half the pres- ent book is See's own, a reprint of pa- pers and addresses in which he sets forth in his positive fashion the views which have enabled him to establish on an impregnable basis the two new sciences of cosmogony and geogony: at least that is what his biographer says. Looking into details, we find no especial novelty in his new theory of earth- quakes. John Michell (1760) put forth the same idea: subterranean sea-water turned into explosive steam. Whether right or wrong, Professor See is skilled in clear exposition of his ideas. He tells how, on his theory, the mountain ranges have been formed by the expulsion of lava from beneath the earth's crust, pushing it up in one place and permit- ting it to sink down in another, so that matter is transferred from one place to the other by the movement of lava streams beneath the cool, solid crust of the globe. As for any such secular ac- tion of the ocean in uplifting the land, one must close the eyes to the thousands of miles of ocean coast that are not ele- vated. There are many oceans with abysmal depths off their coast, but no mountains adjacent on the land; indeed, it would help the theory not a little if the Atlantic Ocean did not exist at all. The shallow Mediterranean hardly ac- counts for the Alps, nor do the moderate depths of the Indian Ocean for the Himalayas. It must be said that geol- ogists have shown no marked unanimity in thinking Von Zittel, and Suess, and Geikie, and Lyell, and Dana, and Cham- berlin all wrong, and See alone right. "A decillion decillions to one" may be the chances in favor of his theory, as See sees them, but geologists appear to think very differently. Coming now to his celestial research- es, astronomers are ready to acknow- ledge their debt to Professor See for agitating in England the question of publishing Sir William Herschel's vo- luminous papers, for nearly a century accessible only in the scattered "Philo- sophical Transactions," but now made available in collected form through the collaboration of the Royal Society and the Royal Astronomical Society, under the competent editorship of Dr. Dreyer, of Armagh. Concerning his own work Professor See well says it is most significant that his laws would unite all the different classes of heavenly bodies into one con- tinuous and unbroken whole. Nothing could be more acceptable than such a scheme of origin and connection, pro- vided it can be shown to be reasonably true. His capture theory has points of interest, and some astronomers are dis- posed to regard portions of it with fa- vor. Many generations, however, must pass before it can be definitely accepted; meanwhile the opinions of other experts are entitled to due consideration. See's biography is profusely illustrat- ed with fine half-tones, for the most part from photographs, terrestrial and celestial. There are also portraits of many eminent astronomers, from Her-
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308 T h e N" a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2542 schel to Huggins; a swaggering one ol the lion. Champ Clark, whose national lustre now receives sensible accretion as "member of Congress from Professor See's home district in Missouri." This is a unique story which may enhearten many a struggling youth with a death- less ambition. Dr. Thomas Morgan Rotch, professor in the Harvard University Medical School, who died last week, was born in Philadelphia in 1849. He graduated from the academic department of Harvard in 1870, and four years later from the medi- cal department. He was the medical house officer of the Massachusetts Gen- eral Hospital during 1873-74, and studied in European hospitals in 1875-76. He was a lecturer from 1878-88, assistant pro- fessor in diseases of children from 1888- 93, professor from 1893-1903, and pro- fessor of pediatrics since 1903. Dr. Rotch was the author of several medical books, among them a textbook on "Pediatrics," and one on "The Rontgen Ray in Pedia- trics." He was also a contributor to medi- cal journals. Sir John Murray, the naturalist and oceanographer, was killed in an automo- bile accident at Edinburgh, Scotland, on March 16. Sir John was born at Co- burg, Ontario, Canada, on March 3, 1841. He was educated in the public schools of London, Ontario, at Victoria College, Co- burg, at Edinburgh University, and in Germans'. He was one of the naturalists on the famous voyage of the Challenger, 1872-76, and was first assistant of the staff appointed to publish the scientific results of the Challenger expedition, 1876- 82, becoming editor in 1882. He was a member of the Triton and Knight Errant explorations in the Faroe Channel, and took part in numerous other explorations. Sir John was created K. C. B. in 1898, was a Fellow of the Royal Society, an LL.D., a D.Sc, and Ph.D., and was the recipient of various foreign orders and honors. He was the author of a number of works and reports on oceanography and kindred subjects, and was an honor- ary member of a large number of British and foreign scientific societies. Edward Singleton Holden, who died on Tuesday, was born at St. Louis, Novem- ber 5, 1846. He graduated from Washing- ton University in 1866, and from the United States Military Academy in 1870. He left the army in 1873, and from then till 1881 was professor of mathematics in the United States navy. He was director of the Washburn Observatory, Wis., 1881-85; president of the University of California, 1885-88; director of the Lick Observatory, 1888-98, and had been librar- ian of the United States Military Academy since 1901. Dr. Holden received the LL.D. from the University of Wisconsin and from Columbia; was a member of various American and foreign learned societies, and was the author of many books on astronomy and other subjects. Among his miscellaneous writings may be men- tioned: "Bastion System of Fortification," 1872; "Life of Sir William Herschel," 1881; "Mogul Emperors of Hindustan," 1896; "Primer of Heraldry," 1898. Drama THE CHICAGO THEATRE SOCIETY. Chicago, March 13. The Chicago Theatre Society, which was formed in 1911, has not attempted to lease and operate a theatre by the season, or to organize a repertory com- pany of its own. The directors have recognized that this would necessarily throw upon them a mass of detail which they had not the experience to handle. The general plan has been to make con- tracts with producing managers, guaran- teeing a minimum share of gross re- ceipts for engagements played under the auspices of the Society. The exact na- ture of these contracts and the amount of financial risk has varied considerably, but in no case has the Society invested capital before the opening of an engage- ment or assumed the actual lease of a theatre. It has, therefore, always been possible to compute the maximum lia- bility. The first venture under such an ar- rangement was a ten weeks' engage- ment of the Drama Players at the Lyric Theatre in February, March, and April, 1912. This company, supplied by the Shuberts, was organized and directed by Mr. Donald Robertson, who had been instrumental in forming the Society, and made up of well-known and compe- tent actors, among whom were Mr. Her- bert Kelsey, Miss Effie Shannon, and Miss Hedwig Reicher. Rehearsals were begun in October, 1911, and a series of bookings arranged prior to the opening in Chicago. Nine plays were selected by Mr. Robertson and the executive com- mittee, subject to the approval of the Shuberts, but the financial responsibility of the Society was confined to guaran- teeing the receipts of the ten weeks in Chicago, and all other expenses, includ- ing the salary of the director, were paid by the producing company. The net re- sult of the season, from the treasurer's point of view, was a loss of about $35,- 000, or approximately 60 per cent, of the Society's guarantee fund. On the artistic side, it is not so easy to arrive at a definite statement of re- sults. Of the plays produced, three were entirely new works by American authors, three were new translations of successful foreign plays offered for the first time in America, and the other three, Ibsen's "Lady from the Sea," Mo- liere's "The Learned Ladies," and Pl- nero's "The Thunderbolt," were virtual- ly new to Chicago audiences. The last- named group proved to be the most successful, while the American plays failed to arouse any particular in- terest. It is possible that some of the apathy displayed by the public was due to the fact that nothing was attempted in the "new manner of stagecraft," and that there was noth- ing either in the plays or in the meth- od of their presentation to set them no- ticeably apart from the offerings of the other first-class theatres, but I am more inclined to account for the lack of sup- port in other ways. The director, for instance, was embarrassed by a system of season-seat reservations for fixed nights, which made it necessary to with- draw certain plays at the very moment when they had begun to make a popular appeal, and to substitute others which had not been so successful. This handi- cap alone should account for a loss of several thousand dollars. The Lyric Theatre in itself was hardly suitable for the purposes of the Society. It had never been properly established in the minds of the theatre-going public as a successful playhouse. It was too large, and when only partly filled was any- thing but homelike and intimate. In the search for new American ma- terial, Mr. Hamlin Garland and others toiled valiantly, but it was discourag- ing to find that, while the general level of craftsmanship in the plays submit- ted was surprisingly high, there were no pieces of conspicuous excellence or originality, and that the playwrights of already established reputation apparent- ly did not think it worth while to offer new works. Add to this a general lack of interest in the repertory idea and the suspicion on the part of the average theatregoer that, since the venture was subsidized, it must be an attempt to educate his taste (an idea which he bit- terly resents), and you have some of the elements which contributed to the heavy tax upon the guarantors. For the second season, the Society found it impossible to raise enough funds to repeat the experiment with the same or a similar company. It, there- fore, decided to limit its activities to guaranteeing the pay-rolls, travelling expense, and necessary advertising of certain productions which would not otherwise be brought to Chicago. By special arrangement, the Society ob- tained the use of the Fine Arts Theatre, which seated about six hundred people, agreeing to pay rent only for such time as it was used for the Society's pur- poses. Thus was arranged and carried through a season of eighteen weeks, dur- ing which time fifty-one different plays were presented, among them about twen- ty-eight short pieces of one or two acts. The season opened with one week of the Coburn Players in "Electra," "Iphi- genia," "Macbeth," and "Twelfth Night." They were followed by one week of the Hull House Players, a local semi-amateur company, in Galsworthy's "Justice" and "The Pigeon" and Mase- fleld's "The Tragedy of Nan." After this came two weeks of "Anatol" from tlio Little Theatre in New York, four weeks of the Irish Players, and a four weeks' engagement of an English company
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March 19, 1914] playing Stanley Houghton's "Hindle Wakes." Beginning March 17, Miss Horniman's Players, from the Gaiety Theatre, -Manchester, occupied the the- atre for four weeks, presenting six mod- ern English plays and three revivals of old comedies. From April 21 to April 26, Miss Edith Wynne Matthison and her company appeared in a revival of "Everyman" and during the following two weeks presented four short plays, including "The Terrible Meek" and "The Necessary Evil, ' by Charles Rann Ken- nedy. There were also, earlier in the season, a special production of "The Drone," by Rutherford Mayne, given at four matinee performances, and one eve- ning and one matinee performance of four short American plays by the Wis- consin Dramatic Society. Thus far two engagements have been played under the auspices of the Soci- ety during the current season: four weeks of "The Yellow Jacket" and twelve weeks of repertory under the di- rection of Mr. B. Iden Payne. Mr. Payne was one of the early stage man- agers of the Irish Players, and after- wards for several years the director of Miss Horniman's company in Manches- ter. His company, which was nec- essarily smaller than the one which played at the Lyric during the first sea- son, included Miss Mona Limerick, Mr. Walter Hampden, Mr. Whitford Kane, Mr. Dallas Anderson, and a number of actors and actresses who had gained their experience in the English reper- tory theatres. Only three weeks of re- hearsals were possible before the open- ing, and the labor of putting up a new bill for each week of the engagement proved a most severe tax upon the skill of the director and upon the strength, willingness, and resourcefulness of the actors. The general average of the act- ing and of the stagecraft displayed was extremely good under the circum- stances; and the simplicity and sincerity of the productions justified, I think, the belief of the executive committee that, in spite of meagre attendance and much misunderstanding of its aims and in- tentions on the part of the critics, the Society has to its credit an effective achievement. It is expected that the to- tal loss to the Society will he less than that of last season. From the foregoing survey it will be apparent that, while the Chicago The- atre Society has not actually maintained a repertory company of its own, the whole experiment has been along the general lines of the so-called "repertory movement." and has tended towards the ultimate establishment of a permanent company under the control and sponsor- ship of the Society. This may be a mat- ter of the near future, or it may still be a long way off. The season at the Lyric, the engagements of the Irish Players and of Miss Horniman's Players, and more especially the twelve weeks just The ISTation closed, have tested the present attitude of the public and of the critics towards the repertory idea. There is no indica- tion that this attitude is likely to under- go a radical change. For it is rash to assume that the public can be conscious- ly educated in the theatre. What can be done is to offer to those people who are already genuinely interested in plays and methods of presentation not yet commonly found in other theatres a chance to gratify their taste. If such a policy is followed, without a truckling to sensationalism or a leaning to moon- shine, and above all without any as- sumption of cultural superiority towards those who are frankly more interested by some other form of entertainment, it is safe to count upon an already exis- tent portion of the public which (I quote here from a letter of Mr. Winthrop Ames), "can be slowly unified into a supporting and increasing audience." Kenneth Sawyer Goodman. 309 AN APOSTLE OF MODERNITY. European Dramatists. By Archibald Henderson. Cincinnati: Stewart & Kidd. Mr. Henderson is an apostle of mod- ernity. Like the faithful of other cults, he adopts his creed once for all in its unsifted integrity. The simplicity and expedition of this method are beset with the drawback that what is received as d priori impeccable often turns out on experiment to contain ingredients that are uncongenial or meaningless to the docile worshipper. In such a perplex- ity Mr. Henderson is the last man to cavil or temporize. He duly subordi- nates or piously suppresses his own un- reasonable feelings; far be it from him to set up his impertinent instincts in the face of works sustained by the two- fold vouchers of contemporaneity and eminence. In Mr. Henderson's sacer- dotal or ceremonial praise of pessi- mists and iconoclasts for whom as a mere man he entertains the most whole- some indifference, we seem to hear some genial and humane Calvinist of the early nineteenth century enlarging with perfunctory ardor on the merits of orig- inal sin and eternal punishment. Mr. Henderson, as man to man, cares noth- ing for Ibsen; but he praises Ibsen with a gusto that makes us really quite im- patient of those tepid and half-hearted proselytes, Mr. Archer and Mr. Gosse. He does not in the least like Strindberg, but he ransacks his own comprehensive and tri-lingual vocabulary for epithets of praise that would sound fulsome to Mr. Bjorkman. The truth is that Mr. Henderson, American citizen and householder, is, in no true sense, the author of the book called "European Dramatists." He has evoked a phantasm or spectre of him- self— a constructive entity, so to speak — whose function it is to consume latter- day literature in quantities that defy measurement, to enjoy them hugely, to praise them without stint, almost with- out mercy, and to indite copious essays for a receptive public. The real Mr. Henderson — a plain, kind, healthy Amer- ican citizen, no doubt, like the rest of us — very properly goes about his busi- ness and, beyond the needful concession of his name, repudiates all share in these extraordinary proceedings. But, no, we exaggerate; there are scattered passages in which the live man has, for a page or two, snatched the pen from his aerial secretary or "affable familiar ghost." The said living man wrote the criticism of Strindberg's "Easter," of Maeterlinck's "L'Intruse" and "Blue Bird," and of Barker's "Prunella," and he nods at us now and then over the shoulder of his industrious substitute, when the latter deals with theatrical performances. We think it needless to pass in min- ute review the opinions of a book con- structed in this fashion. That Mr. Hen- derson's spectral collaborator should trouble himself little with definitions, distinctions, qualifications, explanations, and the other adjuncts to precise and lucid thinking is a fault too natural to incur censure: these are the functions of a living organism. It is excusable, likewise, that this airy personage should express himself in a somewhat windy and inflated style, a style teeming with polysyllables which he enjoys in the measure of their sonority and their ab- stractness, and of many of which he clearly understands the meaning. We confess that we have reaped most profit from the papers on the genesis of Ib- sen's drama and on Granville Barker, which draw heavily on the author's abundant stores of knowledge and which illustrate the happy property in- herent in facts of retaining their spe- cific gravity, when everything in the neighborhood tends to rarefy and dissi- pate. Some day Mr. Henderson may quarrel with his literary factotum, and, in a fit of honest indignation, sit down and write a book himself: the day will be a luckless one for Ibsen and Strind- berg, and. a happy one for his reviewers. "AS YOU LIKE IT." Margaret Anglings representation of "As You Like It," in the Hudson Theatr<\ is a most workmanlike achievement, marked by notable intelligence If not by much inspiration. Its excellences Include a much greater reverence for the text than is commonly exhibited, some ex- ceedingly clever stage management — es- pecially in the ordering of the forest scenes — swift, smooth, and spirited ac- tion, and admirably painted scenery, not so spectacular as to block the progress or mar the proportions of the piece, but sufficiently beautiful to give pleasure and promote illusion. Unfortunately, the Rosalind of Miss Anglin — the designer and directress of this production — is
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310 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2542 not so successful as the framework which she baa prepared for it. Her impersona- tion has its distinctive merits — spirited execution, humor, archness, coyness, dig- nity, and refinement — but it suffers con- stantly from over-accentuation, a certain hardness that creates the appearance of artificiality, while it is curiously lacking In fanciful or poetic suggestion. The actress insists so strongly upon some of her points as almost to incur a charge of affectation, of which the merest sus- picion is necessarily fatal to the charm of Rosalind's character. Miss Anglin was most successful in the first act, where her retort upon the banished duke was delivered with ad- mirable feeling- and dignity, and in the scene with the bloody 'kerchief. In the purely comic or fanciful episodes she betrayed a self-consciousness which may have been due to anxiety, but robbed them of much of their appropriate charm. If her idea was to express Rosalind in terms of modern naturalism, she made a mistake which she will do well to rectify. Romance and realism are seldom com- patible. This was exemplified, more or less, in the realistic Jaques of Fuller Mellish, a clever study executed with fine consistency and precision, but one that took little note of the sardonic vein in Jaques's character. Sidney Greenstreet's Touchstone was another performance which was good mechanically, but poor in imagination. It had none of the quaint, wistful quality of which the old comedians made so much. The Celia of Ruth Boucicault was good, and Pedro de Cordoba was a virile and attractive Or- lando, especially in the earlier acts. The Corin of Max Montesole had uncommon merit — a capital bit of Shakespearean character — and E. Y. Backus and Harri- son Carter, as the banished and usurping dukes respectively, both did well. In gen- eral quality the performance was far su- perior to several more pretentious mod- ern Shakespearean revivals. J. R. T. NOTES. "Cymbeline" was the last volume of the New Variorum Edition of Shake- speare (Lippincott) to come from the hand of the late Horace Howard Furness. Indeed, the critical apparatus was not quite complete at the time of his death, and so the usual articles on the State History of the Play, Actors' Interpreta- tions, and the List of Books consulted are wanting in this volume. The Index has been compiled by Dr. Benson B. Charles, of the University of Pennsyl- vania. Fortunately, the Preface,, the elaborate notes on the text, and the dis- cussions of the source of the plot and date of composition were left ready for the press. The merits of this edition are so well-known that we need not dwell on them here. With regard to the question raised by Prof. A. H. Thorn- dike, as to the influence of Beaumont and Fletcher's "Philaster" on Shakespeare's latest group of plays — the so-called "ro- mances"— and on "Cymbeline," in partic- ular, Dr. Furness very sensibly concludes that the evidence is too uncertain for us to reach any decision. It is a question of priority and in view of the meagre data that have come down to us no one can say whether it was Shakespeare or the younger dramatists that led the way. For the rest, Dr. Furncss's estimate of the play strikes us. on the whole, as too low. Moreover, he tries to thrust upon some hypothetical collaborator virtually all responsibility for what is inferior in the work. His theory is stated in the following words: Regarded broadly, I believe that the Imogen love story and all that immedi- ately touched it interested Shakespeare deeply; the Cymbeline portion was turn- ed over to the assistant, who at times grew vainglorious and inserted here and there, even on the ground sacred to Imogen, lines and sentiments that shine by their dulness. Nay, one whole char- acter was, I think, confided to him. It is Belaiius — who bored Shakespeare. In support of his views Dr. Furness cites a number of lines which are objec- tionable on the score of slovenliness of style or of inconsistency with the char- acter of the speaker. It would be pleas- ant if by so simple a device we could relieve our favorite authors of the blem- ishes that offend us in their works, but Shakespeare, like the rest of us, will have to bear the responsibility of his own sins. Most critics will readily grant that the scene containing the vision of Posthu- mous is spurious. There is likely to be more skepticism in regard to the sup- posed defects of the final scene. It is a different matter altogether, however, when we are asked to reject scattered lines and fragments of lines here and there throughout the play in scenes whose authenticity is unquestioned. Pro- fessor Dowden and others have already remarked on the signs of declining energy that are observable in certain parts of "Cymbeline" and the weaker passages on which the present editor has laid his finger may well be referred to the same general cause. The truth is that in selecting a chronicle background for the central romantic theme Shakespeare did not make a very happy choice, and even his own interest, doubtless, slack- ened in the face of the inherent dulness of the subject. That the decline men- tioned above was only temporary, how- ever, is clear from the two plays that followed — "Winter's Tale" and "The Tem- pest"— in each of which we have ro- mance, pure and simple, set forth in a style that shows no flagging from be- ginning to end. But, after all, when we think of "Cymbeline," we think first of Imogen, and this character alone suf- fices to make the play worthy of the group to which it belongs. George Middleton, well and favorably known as an author of short plays, has now produced a three-act comedy, "Now- adays" (Holt), which is notable not only as a sane and veracious study of contem- porary life, but for dramatic qualities which ought to make it valuable in the theatre. Dealing with the relations of the sexes, and making a strong and effec- tive plea for a more equal partnership for women in tho opportunities and re- sponsibilities of life, it shows a philo- sophic realization of the limitations im- posed by nature and the hard facts of 1 latence. The story, free from all sen- sationalism or extravagance, is strong in the naturalness of Its situations and the vitality of its contrasted personages. Wil- liam Dawson, a prosperous contractor, and a liberal and affectionate man, is nevertheless, by training and instinct, a domestic tyrant. His creed is that a wife, if comfortably provided for, should find a full life in caring for her home, children, and husband; that girls, except in case of necessity, should regard mar- riage as the sole respectable means of livelihood, and that boys should succeed to their father's business or follow his direction. But he is willing that his son should have a liberal education, see something of the world, and have an op- portunity of sowing a few wild oats. For twenty-five years he has ruled his family in accordance with this policy, unsuspect- ing that he has robbed his wife of the zest of life by crushing her artistic am- bition. When his daughter, who has in- herited his dominant will and her moth- er's idealistic spirit, insists upon going to New York to study sculpture, he re- fuses to aid her, hoping that she will be starved into submission, but continues to let his son, a selfish young wastrel, run free, with a large allowance. The result is that the lad marries a pretty but fool- ish girl, whom he soon abandons shame- lessly, together with the partnership be- stowed upon him by his father, while Mrs. Dawson, driven into temporary re- volt, breaks her fetters and joins her daughter, who has won a great prize in a public competition. In the end old Dawson capitulates, agreeing to meet his wife's wishes in every respect, but in the meanwhile Mrs. Dawson has discov- ered that her artistic faculties have been paralyzed, and she patiently returns to the old drab existence at home, content to mother the deserted wife and her in- fant. The daughter, with the prospect of fame and fortune before her, offers her hand to the man who has long loved and encouraged her, but has never proposed marriage, fearing that his poverty might be a bar to her artistic progress. She decides that they will work together, that woman's nature needs a mate for its full development, and that life is not com- plete without the child. This is a sim- ple tale, without a shock or thrill in it, but steadily interesting and entirely hu- man. All the characters are depicted with fidelity and consistency; the dialogue is good, and the plot logical in its out- come. Mr. G. K. Chesterton's "Magic" is to be succeeded at the Little Theatre in Lon- don by "Love's Labour's Lost." This piece was selected by Charles J. Ma- thews and his wife, Mme. Vestris, for the opening of their season at Covent Garden on September 30, 1839. No one, not even the oldest actor in the theatre, had ever seen it played. The cast in- cluded James R. Anderson, Robert Kee- ley, John Pritt Harley, Mrs. Nisbett, and Mme. Vestris (as Rosaline). Unfortu- nately Mathews closed the shilling gal- lery, and the admission to the low < lery was reduced to Is. 6d. The "gods" resented this curtailment of their liber- ties, and the comedy was interrupted, often stopped, and all but "damned'' bj Hi. tremendous noise arid uproar. At last a man carrying a placard on a pol« gave the malcontents to understand that
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March 19, [914] Tlie Nation 311 the shilling gallery would be restored on the following night. There were, however, only nine presentations of the play at Covent Garden. I". 1:. Benson's American tour prevents him from assuming the management of the Stratford-on-Avon Festival this year. and the programme has been arranged by the executive committee of the Shake- speare Memorial. The proceedings, which will occupy two weeks, will be opened on Monday afternoon, April 20, by Sir Herbert Tree, who will produce "Othello," playing the Moor to the Iago of H. B. Irving and the Cassio of Henry Ainley. On the evening of that date Arthur Bour- chier will be seen as Shylock. On Thurs- day, April 23, Shakespeare's birthday, Mr. Bourchier will act Benedick. Miss Mar- garet Halstan will act Portia in "The Merchant of Venice" and Beatrice in "Much Ado About Nothing." In addition to playing Iago, H. B. Irving will appear as Hamlet. Oscar Asche and Miss Lily Brayton have been approached with a view to their playing in "The Taming of the Shrew." The general direction of the festival this year has been entrusted to Mr. Patrick Kirwan. During the festi- val Mr. Kirwan will produce two old plays, "The Two Angry Women of Ald- ington" and "A Woman is a Weather- cock." The first of these, which was not divided into acts, was published in 1599. The scene lies in London. Its full title is "A Pleasant Historie called The Two An- grie Women of Abington; with the Hu- morous Mirth of Dick Coomes and Nicho- las Proverbs." Of the five plays by Henry Porter which are mentioned in Hens- lowe's "Diary," this is the only one ex- tant. Charles Lamb praised it. "A Wo- man is a Weathercock" is of somewhat later date. It was acted before James I at Whitehall and "divers times privately at the White-Friers, by the children of her Majesties Revels." Published in 1612, it was dedicated "to any Woman that has not been a weathercock." The author, Nathaniel Field (1587-1633), was a player .as well as a playwright. He also wrote "Amends for Ladies," 1618, and he shared with Massinger in the authorship of "The Fatal Dowry," 1632, first acted at "Black- Friers." Music FOLKSONGS. Afro-American Folksongs. By Henry Edward Krehbiel. New York: G. Schirmer. $2 net. About thirty years ago Lafcadio Hearn conceived the idea of a book on negro music of which he and Mr. Kreh- biel were to be the joint authors. He was to write "a long preface and occa- sional picturesque notes" to go with his friend's "learning and facts." He would ■begin by showing how the blacks "carry their music with them to Persia and •even to mysterious Hadramant, where their voices are held in high esteem by Arab masters." Then he would "touch upon the transplantation of negro mel- ody to the Antilles and the two Ameri- cas, where its strangest black flowers are gathered by the alchemists of musical science and the perfume therefrom ex- tracted by magicians like Gottschalk." This book, unfortunately, never was written; but Mr. Krehbiel continued to study the subject, as he had already done for a decade, and to gather mate- rial for a volume of his own, which is now before us. It is not an attractive book to the eyes, and the numerous quo- tations are printed in type so small that one almost needs a microscope to read them; but these shortcomings must be overlooked because of the value of the material contained between the covers of this "study in racial and national mu- sic," as the subtitle calls it. A good deal of this material is but loosely connected with the main thesis of the book, but it is interesting to students of music and anthropology, although the frequent di- gressions make it difficult for the aver- age reader to follow the argument. What Mr. Krehbiel has attempted to prove is that Dr. Wallaschek, the author of a valuable book on "Primitive Mu- sic," was wrong when he expressed the opinion that the songs of the American negroes are very much overrated and that, as a rule, they are "mere imita- tions of European compositions which the negroes have picked up and served up again with slight variations." In Mr. Krehbiel's opinion, the songs of the black slaves of the South are original and native products: They contain idioms which were trans- planted hither from Africa, but as songs they are the product of American insti- tutions; of the social, political, and geo- graphical environment within which their creators were placed in America; of the influences to which they were sub- jected in America; of the joys, sorrows, and experiences which fell to their lot in America. Of the conditions under which the ne- gro songs were born this volume pre- sents vivid pictures, cited from diverse authors; sketches which explain why so many of the songs are "spirituals," and why more of them are gay than might be expected under the circumstances. This leads to a discussion of the psy- chology of the major and minor modes, concerning which interesting facts are brought to light. On examining the ne- gro folksongs in six collections Mr. Krehbiel found that 331 were in the ma- jor mode, 62 in ordinary minor, 23 mixed and vague, 111 pentatonic, and so on. The pentatonic scale and the use of the "snap" or "catch," which charac- terizes three-fifths of the songs and which in an exaggerated form lies at the basis of "ragtime," are the two most obvious features of the Afro-American folksongs and therefore the most fre- quently copied by composers and dance- makers; but, as the author says, "there is much more that is characteristic in this body of melody, and this 'more' has been neglected because it has not been uncovered to the artistic world." His object is to uncover these elements. He admits that, while the folksongs origi- nated in this country, "the essential ele- ments came from Africa"; and to Africa, therefore, he takes the reader in a chap- ter in which he learnedly discusses the many kinds of slaves, their aptitude and love of music, and their knowledge and use of harmony. Other chapters are entitled Folksongs in General, Songs of the American Slaves, Religious Charac- ter of the Songs, Variations from the Major Scale, Minor Variations and Characteristic Rhythms, Structural Fea- tures of the Poems, Funeral Music, Dances of the American Negroes, Songs of the Black Creoles, Satirical Songs of the Creoles. In this diversity of topics and digres- sions one is surprised to find no discus- sion of the relations between the songs of the American negroes and those of Stephen Foster. This omission is doubt- less due to the fact that Mr. Krehbiel ac- cepts the old-fashioned and foolish defi- nition of some of the German writers, who allow no song to be called a folk- song if its composer is known, even though it be in all other respects exactly like acknowledged folksongs. It is a definition which would exclude from the collections of folksongs all those the composers of which might happen to be discovered to-morrow! Stephen Foster's songs are true folksongs in every possi- ble way except that their composer's name is known. Nor are they the only songs which disprove the writer's state- ment that the negroes of the plantations alone lived under conditions which are essential to the development of true folksong. We have white and red as well as black folk music. What is more, the white and red music is purely Amer- ican, whereas in the case of the negro folk-music "the essential elements came from Africa," as Mr. Krehbiel admits and proves. In this he was anticipated by Jeannette Robinson Murphy, of Or- lando, Florida, who, in her "Southern Thoughts for Northern Thinkers," gives a more minute and vivid description of the characteristic "trimmings" of negro song than are to be found in the vol- ume under review. As for the numerous songs printed in Mr. Krehbiel's volume it need not worry any one that while he would have pre- ferred, as he admits, to present them without harmonic additions, he never- theless does present them with such. Students may disregard these additions. At the same time, as long as harmonies were added, it should have been done af- ter the methods followed by Grieg In Norway and Harvey Worthington Loom- Is in his arrangements of Indian
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312 T li e 1ST a t i o ri [Vol. 98, No. 2542 tunes, making the harmonies as exotic as the melodies, instead of following the rules laid down in Richter's man- ual of harmony. At a recent recital of Julia Culp, the audience was much pleased with two songs by John Alden Carpenter, included in the collection of six settings of poems from Kabindranath Tag-ore's "Gitanjali." Mr. Carpenter discovered the worth of these poems and set them to music long before Tagore had received the Nobel prize for literature; indeed, the "Soul of India" was at that time virtually un- known in America. The "Old Testament of Music," as Hans von Biilow called Bach's "Well -Tempered Clavichord," is offered for sale by a dealer in Munich (Rosenthalsches Antiquariat, Katalog 153) for the trifle of $8,000. It was believed until recently that the orig- inal of this work was lost; but of the Munich manuscript, sixty-two pages (out of ninety) are in Bach's own handwrit- ing:. It is thought that this manuscript belonged to his son Philip Emanuel. Although Paderewski could not play in California, he found there a cure for his neuritis, which had delayed his appear- ance in New York a fortnight, and made him lose another fortnight on the Pacific Coast. At the conclusion of his Eastern engagements he will probably return to California next month and give the re- citals which were postponed. Art French Colour-Prints of the XVIII Cen- tury. An Introductory Essay by Mal- colm C. Salaman. Illustrated by fifty representative examples in colors. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co. $12 net. The field of prints is apparently small. Yet it includes a remarkable range of possibilities because of the diversity of the media employed (etching, dry-point, line-engraving on copper, wood-engrav- ing, mezzotint, stipple, aquatint, and what not). And it offers an infinite va- riety of national, racial, and individual expression. Recently added attention has been devoted to the bypaths of the subject. Under the circumstances, the French color-print was bound to have its turn, and it is perhaps more signifi- cant than surprising that two books on the subject have appeared within a .year —that of Model and Springer ("Der franzosische Farbenstich des 18. Jahr- hunderts") and the one now under con- sideration. One must welcome the present book, even though some of the half-tone plates are rather flat in modelling and color. These reproductions are useful, how- ever, since there is not much opportu- nity to see the originals in this coun- try, American collectors of this special- ty being few. Your reviewer, in fact, knows of but one who has achieved real- ly noteworthy results. At their best the eighteenth-century Frenchmen used color with tact, a sense of harmony and a certain reticence, and with a wisely appropriate choice of media without obtrusive line (for color in line is thin) or grain. Furthermore, they manipulated the medium in such manner that, as the Goncourts noted, the process, the manner, the labor which produced the effect, were quite concealed. This last statement has reference par- ticularly to the plates in which Debu- court, Descourtis, and others worked in a mixture of aquatint and other meth- ods. Mr. Salaman, however, has treated not only this late eighteenth-century phase of the subject, but he takes us back to Le Blon and his early experiments, and in- cludes within his scope the "crayon" manner and its offshoot the "pastel" manner, as well as stipple engraving. The last named, with its facile adapta- tion to the taste for sentimental pretti- ness, had its vogue more particularly In England, and is but slightly associated with French art. The earlier crayon, or chalk, manner, on the other hand, is pe- culiarly an expression of the French spirit, and, further, of a factor of con- siderable importance in the history of all reproductive graphic art; that is to say, the interest in the reproduction of drawings. It is that, too, which brought into being the basic process of the aqua- tint, which is the main theme of the book before us. Aquatint, the invention of which is usually connected with Le Prince, and which was often referred to as gravure au lavis, "wash" engraving, was evidently born of the desire to re- produce wash drawings. In numerous plates by Janinet, Debucourt, Descourtis, and others, plates "not great but engag- ing and decorative," the reader receives a vivid impression of the taste and life of the Louis XV and Louis XVI periods. But it is the gay, light-hearted life of the rich only that is mirrored here. It is reflected, in the language of Brownell, with "audacity of suggestion," but no "vulgarity of pictorial expression," no "offence against artistic taste." We get in these prints a picture showing only one side of the shield. The author quite aptly points out that the "great, seri- ous, homely art of Chardin" has no place in the records of the color print, and Watteau but a very small one. It is at best the "piquant effrontery" of Bouch- er, and in the main the work of minor artists, which was reproduced in such terms of color. Among the artists who inspired these engravers in color — Huet, Schall, Boilly, and the rest of them — Boilly stands out; and to him Mr. Sala- man devotes a good deal of space. The recent revival of interest in Boilly, how- ever, has been anticipated by the American connoisseur who some time since brought together what is perhaps ■ — to speak guardedly — the most com- plete collection of prints by or after this artist. French color engraving must natural- ly not be judged from the point of view of the lover of etchings. Its object and achievement do not lie in that direction. It was not practiced as a painter-art, as a means of original expression, except by Debucourt, who was both designer and engraver. It had a quite special aim and intent. Mr. Salaman speaks of aquatint and the crayon manner as "pretty media," and in that spirit he appropriately handles his subject. The Vasari Society continues its useful work of publishing drawings by old mas- ters with undiminished vigor. The port- folio for the eighth and ninth years (1912, 1913) presents the usual assortment of important pieces from public museums, and, even more valuable to the student, of drawings in private collections. The policy of republishing a certain amount of familiar material is justified by the fact that the Society offers truer fac- similes and usually reproduces to scale. Thus in Portfolio VIII we find the first really adequate reproduction of the splen- did drawing by Antonio Pollaiuolo, A Prisoner before the Judgment Seat, in the British Museum. Other drawings of especial note among the thirty-three are St. Martin Dividing his Cloak, by Tinto- retto, from the Edinburgh Museum; fine examples of Piranesi and Antonio Canale, British Museum ; two quite magnificent Rembrandt sketches from private collec- tions; studies from a Negro's Head by Watteau. Benozzo Gozzoli, Michelangelo, Alonso Cano, Rubens, Jordaens, Hans Baldung, are other artists represented by drawings for the most part new to stu- dents. The attributions of a rather feeble sheet of pen studies to Fra Bartolommeo might awaken critical doubts. Portfolio IX contains twenty-eight plates and greater rarities. Three pieces each are accredited to Leonardo da Vinci and Rem- brandt. Michelangelo, Titian, Sebastiano del Piombo, Correggio, Diirer, Koninck, Altdorfer, Jean Fouquet, Jacques Callot, and Watteau are the outstanding names. Especially noteworthy are the tiny em- blematic design by Leonardo, owned by the Hon. A. Holland-Hibbert, and the bold pen sketch for Diirer's Christ on the Mount of Olives from Lord Hampton's collection. Mr. G. F. Hill, from the be- ginning the honorable secretary of the society, has recently resigned. Mr. A. M. Hind, of the British Museum, succeeds him. To Mr. Hind applications for mem- bership and the subscription of a guinea a year may be sent. Few publishing clubs are more worthy of support. None offers its members a more skilful management or a better money's worth. Arthur Parton, the landscape artist, who died on March 7, was born at Mud son, N. Y., March 20, 1842. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Kino Arts, in Philadelphia, and exhibited his first pictures there in 1862. Com- ing to New York in 1865, he bl came a regular exhibitor at the National Academy of Design. Ho received the gold
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March 19, 1914] T li e NkSb t i o n 313 medal of the American Art Association In 1886, and the Temple Medal, Phila- delphia. He also received honorable men- tion at the Paris Exposition, 1900. His works are represented at the Metropoli- tan Museum of Art and in other leading .,,11. lions. Mr. Parton was a member of the American National Academy, the National Academy, and the American Water Color Society. Mnance MEXICO AND THE MARKETS. "Mexico" has come to be a word which Stock Exchange operators cannot con- jure with. This is because, although the Mexican imbroglio is the foremost po- litical problem of the hour, every suc- cessive attempt to make of a new de- velopment in the tangled relations a basis for a general break on the New York Stock Exchange has failed. There have been various explanations for this, and they have been mutually conflicting. One theory is that our Government's policy is at all events averting war, and that without war, the Mexican situation is not a formidable financial menace. But another theory, which seems to be equal- ly widely held on the Stock Exchanges, is that the Washington policy is certain to cause war with Mexico, and that war would be preferable to the existing state of political chaos across the border. This second theory is interesting, be- cause unusual from the Wall Street point of view. Two questions always confront the financial markets when a nation goes to war. One is the actual and immedi- ate expenditure involved, and the Gov- ernment borrowings incidental to them. Even the Boer War, fought by a rich European Power against a remote co- lonial people, cost England, all told, a million dollars a day, or one thousand millions in all, and it utterly deranged the English financial position. The ex- tent of such a drain on resources de- pends on the duration of the fighting. Our own Spanish war, which lasted not more than five months, increased our expenditure on the army alone, in the two fiscal years within which the campaigns fell, by $220,000,000, and com- pelled our Government to sell $198,000,- 000 bonds. This was a larger rate of daily expenditure than England's in South Africa; hut the shortness of the contest averted a serious strain. It would therefore have to be considered, in a supposable Mexican campaign, whether the period of fighting would be nearer to the four months of 1898 in Cuba, or to the thirty-three months of 1899, 1900, 1901, and 1902 in the Trans- vaal. The other consideration which con- fronts financiers when such a contest begins is the question of foreign com- plications. This was temporarily a seri- ous matter in the Russo-Turkish War, and it was the paramount financial in- fluence in the recent Balkan contest, when nobody felt sure, from October, 1912, to June, 1913, whether the great European Powers might not be drawn in. A Mexican contest would reduce at least this difficulty to a minimum; tor the great neutral Powers with inte- rests in Mexico would probably be bet- ter satisfied to see us intervene than to have us hold our hands off. But behind all these considerations there would stand the utterly perplex- ing questions, Where would a process of armed interference end, how long would the process continue, and in what de- gree would it improve the present de- plorable condition of Mexican finance and business? All of these problems have been curiously tested once, by what occurred in Mexico, just when our own Civil War was breaking out. A Mexi- can President, duly elected and inau- gurated, had been driven from the capi- tal; an insurgent leader had been recog- nized by foreign governments as de facto President. Thereupon, however, the constitutional Government proceeded to hold its ground, and a state of anar- chy, similar to what now exists, pre- vailed. United States vessels were seiz- ed; foreign residents who refused to pay heavy cash requisitions were banished or executed without trial. The murder of Ormond Chase, then a matter of ex- ecutive inquiry, resembled in all respects the episodes of Benton and Vergara. Mexican trade was meantime ruined. Paper currency, issued by the de facto Government, fell to 60 per cent, dis- count. In 1861 a tax of 10 per cent, on all fortunes exceeding $2,000 was de- creed. Our Administration, having rec- ognized the insurgent Government, changed front and recognized the other Mexican faction. Meantime, the Mon- roe Doctrine was asserted at Washing- ton, but our own Government, confront- ed with war at home, could do nothing in Mexico. At length, in December, 1861, through the French Emperor's urgency (utiliz- ing the helplessness of the Washington Government), France, Spain, and Eng- land landed troops in Mexico, and in 1863, with the nominal consent of a Mexican "provisional Government," Maximilian of Austria was made Em- peror of Mexico. What followed, every- body knows Maximilian and his French troops were utterly unable to pacify the country. Three years later, they were still on the defensive, holding only part of Mexico. In 1866 Napoleon III, fright- ened at the attitude of the victorious Union Government at Washington, be- gan to withdraw his troops from Mex- ico. In 1867 Maximilian was captured by the insurgents, tried by court-mar- tial, and shot. It was then that Porflrio Diaz, at the time an insurgent leader, came upon the scene. Such was the course of events in the last instance of actual foreign interven- tion, to put a forcible end to political chaos in Mexico. The question, whether the failure of the present Mexican situa- tion to upset the markets is due to im- probability of war, or to probability of it, must be judged in the light of the above considerations. BOOKS OF THE WEEK. Andersen, H. Ch. Fairy Tales. Oxford University Press. Arden, Joan. A Childhood. Cambridge: Barnes & Barnes. $1 net. Baring, M. Lost Diaries. Boston: Hough- ton Mifflin. $1.25 net. Barnett, L. D. Antiquities of India. Putnam. $4 net. Barnouw, A. J. Anglo-Saxon Christian Poetry. The Hague. Nijhoff. Barrus, C. Our Friend John Burroughs. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. $2 net. Benson, E. F. Dodo's Daughter. Century. $1.35 net. Bolen, G. L. The Whole Truth About the Tariff. Battle Creek: Phoenix Co. Bradley, F. H. Essays on Truth and Reality. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Burt, M. S. In the High Hills. Houghton Mifflin. $1 net. Burton, a. Little Essays in Literature and Life. Century. $1.25 net. Catalogue of the Icelandic Collection. Ed. by H. Hermannsson. Ithaca: Cornell University Library. $6 net. Cohn, J. R. Vital Problems of Religion. Edinburgh: Clark. Curtis, H. S. Play and Recreation. Bos- ton: Ginn. $1.25. Dalrymple, L. Diana of the Green Van. Chicago: Reilly & Britton. $1.35 net. Don Quijote de la Mancha. Trans, by Kobinson Smith. London: Koutledge. Fielding-Hall, H. The Passing of Empire. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin. $2.50 net. Giovannitti, Arturo. Arrows in the Gale. Riverside: Hillaire Bookhouse. $1 net. Goldman, S. P. Handbook of Stock Ex- change Laws. Doubleday, Page. Guyot, Yves. Where and Why Public Ownership Has Failed. Trans, from the French by H. F. Baker. $1.50 net. Hubert, M. Jeanne d'Arc. Paris: Nour- ry. Hill, M. Sunrise Valley. Boston: Small Maynard. $1.25 net. Hoag, C. G. A Theory of Interest. Mac- millan. $1.50 net. Hubbell, H. M. The Influence of Isocra- tes on Cicero, Dionysius, and Aristides. New Haven: Yale University Press. Jastrow, M. Hebrew and Babylonian Traditions. Scribner. $2.50 net. Jordan, H. Carmen and Mr. Dryasdust. Putnam. $1.30 net. Kenna, E. D. Railway Misrule. Duf- field. $1.25 net. Law, H. E. The Power of Mental De- mand. San Francisco: Elder. Legge, E. More About King Edward. Boston: Small, Maynard. $4 net. Lincoln, N. S. The Man Inside. Apple- ton. $1.30 net. Lockhardt, Caroline. The Full of the Moon. Philadelphia: Lipplncott $1.26 net Lockhardt's Life of Scott. Ed. by Reld Macmlllan. 25 cents net. Lucas, B. Our Task In India. Macmlllan. $1 net. Lytton, Lady Constance. Prisons and Prisoners. London: Helnemann. Maoauley, C U. The Red Tavern. Ap- pleton. $1.30 net. McCTure, A. Making Built-in Furniture McBride Nast. 50 cents net. Martin, Helen It. Barnabetta. Century. $1.30 net. Maspero, G. Manual of Egyptian Archae- ology. Putnam. 1,. The Peacock Feather. Putnam $1.2.-) net.
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314: The ]STation [Vol. 98, No. 2542 Morris, William. The Life and Death of Jason. Poems by the Way. News iii .iii Nowhere. A Dream of John Ball, and a King's Lesson. The House of the Wolfings. The Roots of the Moun- tains. The Story of the Glittering Plain. The Wood Beyond the World. The Well at the World's End. The Water of the Wondrous Isles. The Sundering Flood. Longmans' Pocket Library. 75 cents each. Petit Kecueil de Chants Francais. Ed. by H. (.'alter. Oxford University Press. Pollard, A. F. The Reign of Henry VII. Vol. III. Longmans. $3 net. Poll, M. Van den Vos Reynaerde. Cin- cinnati: University Press. 75 cents. Prince, Morton. The Subconscious. Mac- millan. $2 net. Pycraft, W. P. The Courtship of Ani- mals. Holt. $1.75 net. Rackham, A. Book of Pictures. Cen- tury. $4 net. Ripley, N. B. Omar or Christ. Eaton & Mains. Rockwell, F. F. Making a Garden of Small Fruits. McBride, Nast 50 cents net. Sharts, J. VV. The King Who Came. Duf- fleld. $1.25 net. Singh, Saint Nihal. Japan's Moderniza- tion. London: Kelly. Singh, Saint Nihal. Progressive British India. London: Kelly. Smith, A. Elementary Chemistry. Century Co. $1.25 net. Sophocles in English Verse. Trans, by Arthur S. Way. London: Macmillan. $1.10. Stoddard, J. L. Poems. Chicago: Shu- man. Terry's Japanese Empire. A Guidebook for Travelers. Boston: Houghton Mif- flin. $5 net. The Quest Series: The Mystics of Islam, by Nicholson; Jewish Mysticism, by Abelson. London: G. Bell. $1 net. Thorley, W. Paul Verlaine. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 75 cents net. Topographical Catalogue of the Private Tombs of Thebes by A. H. Gardiner & A. E. Weigall. London: Quaritch. Trevelyan, W. B. Apples of Gold. Dut- ton. $1.25 net. Vandercook, M. The Loves of Ambrose. Doubleday, Page. $1 net. Villicrs Stuart, C. M. Gardens of the Great Mughals. London: Black. Ward, Wilfrid. Men and Matters. Long- mans. $3.50 net. Warwick, Anne. Victory Law. Lane. $1.30 net. Wells, Carolyn. Anybody but Anne. Philadelphia: Lippincott. $1.25 net. Wells, H. G. The World Set Free. Dutton. $1.35. White, B. The Carpenter and the Rich Man. Doubleday, Page. $1.25 net. Whitlock, Brand. Forty Years of It. Appletons. $1.50 net. Wightman, R. The Things He Wrote to Her. Century. 60 cents net. Williams, H. W. Russia of the Russians. Scribner. Woman and Morality. Chicago: The Laurentian Publishers. $1 net. World's Classics: Selected English Speeches. Poems by C. Rossetti. Lon- don: Humphrey Milford. Writings on American History. Ed. by G. Griffin. American Historical Asso- ciation. Young, W. T. Introduction to the Study of English Literature. Putnam. 75 cts. Young's Freshman English By FRANCES BERKELEY YOUNG, for- merly Instructor in the University of Wisconsin, and KARL YOUNG, Associate Professor in the same. xii+679 pages. 12mo. $1.25. This is a substantial revision and material enlargement of Berkeley's Writing from Models. The most im- portant change is the provision in Part I. of chapters on The Planning and Writing of Themes, Paragraphs, Sen- tences, Punctuation, and Words. With the foundation laid for correctness in writing, Part II deals with the various forms of discourse, taking up first a rj few general principles and then a t\ number of literary examples. BwL XJ TJ l^.P 34W. 33St. ^^HenryHolt&Co^New York Little Essays In Literature and Life By RICHARD BURTON Professor of English Literature in the University of Minnesota Distinctly worth-while "little essays," of delightful flavor, by a scholar and poet — the fore- most authority on the drama in the United States to-day. poK™ THE CENTURY CO. A new book by EDWARD HOWARD GRIOOS. THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART The meaning and relation of sculpture, painting, poetry and music. The author's most Important work so far published. 12mo, cloth, $1.50 net; by mail, $1.60 B.W.Huebsch,Publisher,225Fifthavenue,NewYork NOW READY THE AMERICAN YEAR BOOK FOR 1913 D. API'LETON & COMPANY, Publishers The Backward Child A Study of the Psychology and Treatment of Backwardness. A Practical Manual for Teachers and Students By Barbara Spofford Morgan $1.2 5 net A radical departure from present psy- chological lines of work. Its aim is an analysis of mental faculties to find the cause of individual back- wardness rather than the mere clas- sifying- of mental defectives; and its subject-matter is the backward child who will remain in the community, rather than institutional cases. Sug- gested systems of training- to develop the neglected or unexercised func- tions which are responsible for such backwardness, are offered. A book that will prove invaluable to educa- tors engaged in the training of chil- dren. G. P. Putnam's Sons New York London From the Cambridge University Press THE GENUS IRIS By WILLIAM RICKATSON DYKES With, 48 colored plates and 30 line drawings in the text This magniflcent work brings together the available Information on all known species of Iris. The most striking feature of the book Is the life-size colored plates, reproduced from originals drawn from living) plants — making It a volume of remarkable beauty as well as of great scientific Importance. 254 pages, demi folio, half morocco; $37.50. Postage extra (weight 11 lbs.). The University of Chicago Press 5758 Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois OUR MR. WRENN By SINCLAIR LEWIS "The drollest book I have read since 'Once Aboard the Lugger,' . . . yet, like most droll things, not so droll neither, but here and there a tear." — /-'. P. A., N. Y. Tribune. $1.00 net. HAItlMCH St BROTHER!. Umbersrirp of bonbon %)i*- tortcal Series The Reign of Henry VII from Contemporary Sources Selected and Arranged In Three Volumes, with an Introduction, by A. F. Pollard, M.A., Hon. Litt. D., Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford ; Professor of English History in the University of London. Crown 8vo. Vol. I. Narrative Extracts. Vol. II. Con- s< i« 11I ion.i I Documents, Social anil Economic History. Vol. III. For- eign Relations, The Church and Ireland. Each vol. $3.00 net. (Postage 13 cents.) LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. NEW MAGAZINE ON EGYPT An illustrated quarterly magazine, beautifully illustrated, with news of late discoveries, edited by PROF. PETRIE. began with the January mini ber embellished with frontispiece of Jewelry in colors. Price $2 a year. The discoveries by Petrie and others for the EGYPTIAN RESEARCH ACCOUNT (Society) relate to the arts of Ancient Egypt and to its predynastic age. 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March 19, 1914I The 1ST a t i o xi V Bill m<nm""'*t ininiiBiiii'inii mii'iwiiLs #J[ If somebody offered you four big books for five cents, and j| they were full of interesting stories, humorous and philo- sophical sayings, useful facts, and plenty of pictures, you would think you had a bargain. (Stye Keto )|orK fSbjenmg |M offers you precisely that every Saturday. Its four sections contain not only the day's news, but a valuable summing up of the week's events. JT The Photographers who make the pictures for the j\ Nettr IJork %btxaxi% J^Cd Saturday Magazine go everywhere and see things that no one individual possibly could. There are from 50 to 60 fine half-tones and other engravings in every issue, covering public life, society, sports, the theatre, the fashions and every other field. The Magazine is prepared solely for the New York Even- ing Post readers and is not the ordinary syndicated affair. Of the many regular features in the other sections, here are a sample half dozen : MUSIC: Henry T. Finck writes a column that keeps the Saturday reader in touch with the concerts, and contains timely anecdotes, news bits, and editorial utterances about musicians. His reports of concerts and operas are interesting even to the persons who don't know a semiquaver from a harpsichord. THE STAGE: J- Ranken Towse, veteran among the dramatic critics of New York, tells about the new things in the theatrical world and gives his estimate of plays and events in the dramatic world. WOMEN AND Some one has said, apropos FEMINISM °f The Evening Post's head "What Women Are Doing," that, if it knows that, it knows more than Socrates, Napoleon, and Abraham Lincoln. Possibly those three didn't know — feminism is pretty new — but anyone would certainly admit getting a fairly good inkling who reads the very full accounts of suf- frage doings, fashions, shopping, sociological movements, and no-mere-man-knows-what-not, written by Clara Savage, Louise TOWNSEND NlCHOLL, JEANNE STEV- ens, and other specialists. FINANCE An entire Supplement is devoted to this sub- ject and Alexander D. Noyes is its editor. It contains business diag- noses and letters from all the finan- cial centres, as well as full quota- N'ame tion tables. It is known as one of the most authoritative financial publi- cations of the daily newspaper world. Address CHURCHES AND Two full pages are given ORGANISTS t0 tnese subjects. Hun- dreds of people take the paper for this one feature ; and letters come from all parts of the United States from church musi- cians who keep in touch with New York in this way. E. N. Williamson edits this department. SOLDIERS and The page about Army, Navy SAILORS an<* Militia is known wher- ever a drum beats or a quar- termaster's whistle blows. It is a complete ency- clopaedia of the week's doings and of prospective happenings. The service everywhere reads this page. Of course, it is not necessary to say that the editorial page and the literary department are read by thinking people the world over and have been for upward of a century. What some people need to be told is that the price of this Saturday paper is ridiculously low : FIVE CENTS on the Newsstands. $2.50 a Year, by Mail, Out of Town. W& Kettr V&nk ftoeunuj ]M Please send me for one year the Saturday Edition of The New York Evening Post, for which 1 enclose $2.50.
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VI r 1 } 1 1 ( \ N Jitiou [Vol. 98, No. 2542 THE MASTERS OF THE WILDERNESS By CHARLES B. REED The opening essay, which Rives its title to the volume, is a highly inter- esting and carefully wrought account of the origin and upgrowth of the Hudson's Hay Company, with a por- trayal of its powerful influence on the development of Canada. "The Beaver Club," the second essay in the volume, is closely allied to the first, and concerns a social club of Mon- treal, the members of which were drawn from the partners and factors of the Northwestern Fur Company, for many years a rival of the Hud- son's Bay Company. The concluding essay, "A Dream of Empire," re- counts with many fresh details the idventures of Tonty in Old Louisiana. 154 pages, 16mo, cloth; $1.00, postage extra (weight 12 oz.) The University of Chicago Press CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. AGENTS The Baker and Taylor Company New York TheCambridge Univ. Press, London and Edinburgh Karl W. Hiersemann Leipzig The Maruzen-Kabushiki-Kaisha, Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto PROBLEMS OF SCIENCE By Federigo Enriques. Authorized translation by Katherine Royce, with an introduction by Josiah Royce. Cloth, 375 pages. $2.50. The author is professor of projec- tive geometry and geometric drawing in the University of Bologna, and is one of the most conspicuous of con- temporary Italian scientists. The volume here translated is a comprehensive and compendious sur- vey of what has been done and is yet to be done in the scientific field. It gives evidence of a most thorough scientific equipment and a remarkable familiarity with the results of the la- bors of scientists of all lands and nationalities. The Open Court Publishing Co., Chicago THE DISINTEGRATION OF MONOPOLY An Essay id Contemporary Politics BY SAMUEL RUSSELL 50 cents postpaid 415McCORNICK BLOCK SALT LAKE CITY NOW READY GREATJURISTSOF THE WORLD From PAPINIAN to VON IHERING BY VARIOUS AUTHORS With 20 portraits. Edited by Ed- ward Manson, Co-editor of the Journal of the Society of Compar- ative Legislation, and with Intro- ductions by Sir John Macdonnell, Professor of Comparative Law in University College, London, and by Van Vechten Veeder, Judge of the United States District Court, New York. 8vo. Cloth, $5.00 net. The aim of this volume In the Con- tinental Legal History Series is to set forth the life, work, methods, and influence of the great jurists who have had more than a merely nation- al importance in the development of European Law. This work is a sort of Plutarch's Lives for the History of Continental Law. Papinian, Alciat, Bartolus, Vico, Bacon, Leibnitz, Sel- den, Montesquieu, Cujas, Vattel, Sav- Igny Bentham, Beccaria, Von Iher- Ing, Mittermaier — these and a few other names stand out as land- marks for all European Law. tySend for descriptive pamphlet of the Continental Legal History Series. LITTLE, BROWN & CO., Publisher*, Boston HISTOR YOF ENGLAND By ALLEN C. THOMAS. A.M. Professor of History In Haverford College. TRACES social and Industrial progress, the rise of the common people to par- liamentary control, and the development of the British empire. Cloth. 660 pages. Maps and Illustrations. ?1.50. D.C.Heath&Co.,Publishers,Boston,NewYork,Chicago FRENCH GERMAN Fiction, Literature, Guides, Dictionaries, Conversational Books, etc. Hend for catalogue of any language SCHOENHOF BOOK CO. 128 TREMONT STREET, HOSTON, MASS. SPANISH ITALIAN THE NATION PRESS 2frt»Tgf curi- ous and unusual hooks has just I ><-< n i.'-Micil l.\ 'l'li«- Tni.li l'i ■ :;s nook shop, Cedar Raplda, [owa, Sent on receipt of a post cnnl.
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Wellesley, Mass "t* / ,. The Nation VOL. XCVIII— NO. 2543 THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 1914 P&Sak PRICE TEN CENTS Appleton's New Books Forty Years of It By BRAND WHITLOCK, formerly Mayor of Toledo, now Minister to Belgium. $1.50 net. Postage extra. Mr. Whitlr>ck's volume is in a sense a history of the progess of democracy in the Middle West. His rem- iniscences are of such men as Governor Altgeld, Tom Johnson, "Golden Rule" Jones. And in the telling of these men, their ideas and ideals, and of himself as the continuator of their work, he illuminates that spirit which makes for democracy. Few reminiscences have had the vigor, optimism, and personal appeal of Mr. Whitlock's pages. The Life of St. Augustine By LOUIS BERTRAND. Cloth, gilt top, uncut edges. $3.00 net. Postage extra. A brilliant account not only of the vital personality of St. Augustine, but also of the times in which he lived. The book is packed full of information so interesting as to make the life of St. Augustine seem more fascinating than fiction. Government Ownership of Railroads By SAMUEL O. DUNN, Editor of "The Rail- way Age Gazette," author of "The American Transportation Question." $1.50 net. Postage extra. A comprehensive and impartial analysis of the theory of government operations of carriers. The author carefully reviews the results achieved in countries where private management has predominated as well as those countries whose experience with public own- ership is enlightening. Rates, service, and financial return are discussed. "His book deals with facts. It is well organized, clearly written, and well summarized." — Record-Herald. Psychology in Daily Life By CARL EMIL SEASHORE, Professor of Psy- chology and Dean of the Graduate College, Uni- versity of Iowa. $1.50 net. Postage extra. A clear, non-technical interpretation of the relation of psychology to everyday affairs. It offers an ex- cellent method for cultivating a good memory and for obtaining the maximum mental and physical efficiency. "It may easily become as fascinating as a novel." — The Epworth Herald. Chemistry in America By EDGAR FAHS SMITH, Ph.D., Provost of the University of Pennsylvania. With illus- trations. $2.50 net. Postage extra. The history of the progress and achievements in one of the most useful sciences in this country. Com- piled, in response to an urgent demand, by one of the greatest chemists of the present day. The work includes many of the real treasures of the science which hitherto have not been accessible. Advertising and Selling By HARRY L. HOLLINGWORTH. Illustrated. $2.00 net. Postage extra. This book is a careful study of the scientific principles underlying the advertising and selling of com- modities. "No phase of the subject, no matter how remote or subtile, seems to have been overlooked." — The Scientific American. THREE NOTABLE NOVELS OLDJMOLE By GILBERT CANNAN, Au- thor of "Round the Corner," etc. $1.35 net. Postage extra. By a sudden turn in Fortune's wheel "Old Mole" is torn from his respectable, comfortable life In the North of England. Almost a wreck, his philosophy saves him and leads him into a verit- able voyage of discovery in life. RICHARD FURLONG By E. TEMPLE THURSTON, Author of "The Antagonists." $1.35 net. Postage extra. "One is inclined to rank the novel's heroine with the great heroines of Action, since she stands for gloriously unselfish love and so for mightily crea- tive womanhood." — Chicago Record-Herald. YOUTH'S ENCOUNTER By COMPTON MACKENZIE, Author of "Carnival." $1.35 net. Postage extra. A wonderful study of Youth, Its hopes, ambitions, and ideals. "The author shows a mastery of his art that makes him a force In contemporary letters to be reckoned with." — The Book News Monthly. D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, Publishers, NEW YORK
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11 The 1ST a t i o ii [Vol. 98, No. 2543 A WEEKLY JOURNAL [Entered at the New York City Post Office as second-class mail matter.] The Nation is published and owned by the New York Evening Post Co. Oswald Garrison Villard, President; John Palmer Gavit, Sec. and Treas. Three dollars per year in advance, post- paid, in any part of the United States or Mexico; to Canada $3.50, and to foreign countries comprised in the Postal Onion, $4.00. Address THE NATION, Box 704, New York. Publication Office, 20 Vesey Street. HAROLD DE WOLF FULLER, Editor. STANLEY WENT. Assistant Editor. PAUL ELMER MORE, Advisory Editor. EMIL M. SCHOLZ, Business Manager. CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER. SUMMARY OF THE NEWS 315 THE WEEK 316 EDITORIAL ARTICLES: Cheating Afterthoughts 319 Justice to Public Service Corporations 319 The Irish in Our Public Life 320 Professors in Council 321 Three Years of the Drama League &£* A Welcome Note 323 FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE : The Deported South Africans 323 Carnival In Spain 324 Holland's Financial Difficulties 324 PARTIES AND MEN. By Sir Henry Lucy ("Toby M.P.") 32j An Arctic Eye 32G CORRESPONDENCE 327 BOOKS AND MEN 329 NEWS FOR BIBLIOPHILES 330 LITERATURE : The Western Rebellion of 1549 331 Burbury Stoke 332 Vain Oblations 332 Guardian Angels 332 The Pillar of Sand 332 Victory Law 332 Notes on Politics and History 333 George Borrow and His Circle 333 Twenty-five Years' Reminiscences 334 How France is Governed 335 NOTES 335 SCIENCE : Matter and Some of its Dimensions 33S DRAMA : Reaction in France 339 The Idol Breaker 340 Margaret Angliu in Shakespeare 340 "A Pair of Sixes" 341 "Marrying Money" 341 MUSIC: Paderewskl in Amerif-a 342 ART: The Academy Exhibition 343 FINANCE: The Next Chapter 344 BOOKS OF THE WEEK 345 JUST PUBLISHED TABLES OF COMPLEX HYPERBOLIC AND CIRCULAR FUNCTIONS By AfiTHUa Edwin Kenneli.y, Professor of Electrical Engineering! in Harvard I Blty, 8vo. Cloth, 311 PP $3 00 Pi 1 1 iously issued CHARTS. 20x20 in. Cloth, 52 pp $4.00 Designed primarily to meet the requirements of electrical engineers who deal with (lltei natlng current conducting lines. These tables have been carried t" a higher degree of nu- merical precision than would usually be re- qulred, in order t.i make some contn 1., fundamental mathematics, isy the aid of ■light transformations, Hie; can also !«• used to evaluate complex circular functions. HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMimmriK. Massachusetts Unpopular Government in the United States By ALBERT M. KALES This volume by a prominent member of the Chicago bar is an especially timely hook, presenting with great clearness and cogency some of the political needs of the country, particularly the necessity of the short ballot. The author points out that the establishment in the United States of State and municipal governments, according to the plan of splitting up the power of govern- ment among many separate offices and re- quiring the widest and most frequent use of the elective principle, has cast so great a burden upon the electorate that an intelli- gent citizen is reduced to a state of politi- cal ignorance inconsistent with self-govern- ment. This situation has made it possible for a well-organized hierarchy to acquire the real power of government and to retain it, In the face of popular disapproval, for selfish ends. He discusses various expe- dients for restoring the American ideal of democracy and considers constructive pro- posals like the commission form of govern- ment for smaller cities, and the application of the principles underlying this form to larger cities and the State, and to the selec- tion of judges. 270 pages, 12mo, cloth; $1.50, postage extra (weight 24 oz.) The University of Chicago Press CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. AGENTS The Baker & Taylor Company New York The Cambridge tni v. Press, London and Edinburgh Karl W. H iersemann Leipzig The Maruzen-Kabushiki-kaisha. Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto A Modern History of the English People By R. H. GRETTON "As brilliant as Mr. Herbert Paul at his best." — Glasgow Herald. "The development of England's prosperity since the early eighties has been treated with an en- grossing minuteness which is only paralleled in the works of Mr. Arnold Bennett." — Scotsman. "So tonic it Is, so extraordinarily sensible, so bracing in its Immediate effects." — Liverpool Cour- ier. V. I. 1880-1898, 448 pp. V. II. 1899-1910, 368 pp. The Set $5.00 net, carriage extra. Small, Maynard & Company, Boston SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS First Folio Edition. Edited by Char- lotte Porter. 40 vols. Cloth, 75c per vol.; leather, $1.00 per vol. "By all odds the best edition now accessible." — [The Living Age. THOMAS Y. CROWELL CO., New York EARTH-HUNGER AND OTHER ESSAYS "Forceful," "pointed," "lucid," "tren- chant," "enlightening," "stimulating," are adjectives taken at random from the reviews of this book. William Graham Sumner Price 92.25 net YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW YORK NEW HAVEN, CONN. FRENCH GERMAN Fiction, Literature, Ciuldcs, Dictionaries, Conversational Books, etc. Send for catalogue of any language SCHOENHOF BOOK CO. 128 TREMONT STREET, BOSTON, 1»I\SS. SPANISH ITALIAN ANCIENT HISTORY By HUTTON WEBSTER, Ph.D. Professor in the University of Nebraska. ("1IVES especial prominence to the social. Industrial, and commercial life of the Ancients. Art, literature, religion, and po- litical development are not neglected. Cloth. 698 pages. 210 illus. 63 maps. tl.BO. D.C.He*th&Co.>I'ubli3hor.s.Boston,NewYork,Chicago The PRINCIPLE of RELATIVITY in the Light of the Philosophy of Science. By PAUL CARUS Cloth, 91.00. •The author recognizes the correctness of the Principle of Relativity, but criticises the ex- aggerated statements which have done much to confuse students and to mystify the read- ing! public. The Boston Transcript correctly summarizes his position as follows: "Absolute existence, in fact everything ab- solute, is impossible. Reality is not Im- movable and unchangeable absoluteness, but the effectiveness of things in their relation. All things are in a flux, and we ourselves are constantly changing. The only way to make knowledge possible is to ignore complications and to consider a thing as fixed. This Is a fiction similar to that in calculus where a curve is thought of as made up of a succes- sion of straight lines infinitesimal in length. "The philosophy of science is the philoso- phy. If the philosophy of science had been better known, the principle of relativity would have at once been rightly understood and the vagaries of many mystifying contentions would have been avoided." After presenting the problem and referring it to the domain of a priori reasoning rather than to that of experiment the author quotes anil discusses Prof. D. F. Comstoek's char- acterization of relativity, Prof. Emil Conn's account of the Fizeau experiment, Dr. Philip Frank's discussion of absolute motion and ab- solute space in which the contrasted views of Professors Ernst Mach and Alois HSfler are presented. Mr. Norman Campbell and Prof. William Francis Magie are quoted and the merits of the Michelson-Morley experiment are discussed. The Open Court Publishing Co., Chicago &tanbarb (English Classics Macaulay's Speeches on Copyright and Lincoln's Address at Cooper Inion Edited, with Introduction, Notes, Topics, and Questions, by CHARLES R. GASTON, Chairman of the English Department, Rich- mond Hill High School. New York City. 16mo, semlflexlble cloth, 101 pages, 25 cents THIS new edition presents two of Macau- lay's argumentative speeches and one of Lincoln's in a clear and accurate text, with sufficient introductory comment and just enough annotation to make clear the setting and content of the speeches. Attention to the speeches as the exposi- tion of living ideas with a definite relation to present-day life is emphasized in both In- troduction and notes. The edition includes abridgments of the Parliamentary debates of 1841 and lxt2 '>n copyright, and extracts from Douglas's Co- lumbus speech. GINN AND COMPANY, Publisher. Boston New York Chicago London Atlanta Dallas Columbus San Francisco Educational The WOLCOTT SCHOOL, DENVER.COL. Superior climate. Accredited with Eastern Colleges for girls. Fine music advantages. Gymnasium. THE FISK TEACHERS' AGENCIES, J. Eveiiitt O. Fisk & Co., Proprietors. Boston, 2a Park St. Denver, :'.17 Mas Tern. New York,166FtfthAv. Portland, 816 Journal Bd Washington, 1847 U St. Berkeley,2l61Snatt'k Av. Chicago, 2815. JacksonHd. Los Angeles, 848DouglasBd Send to any address above for Agency Manual Harlan P. French, Pres. Vincent B. Flsk, Sec'; THE ALBANY TEACHERS' IGENOY knows hOW, Twenty-two years of laccesifu] ox perlence in bringing together goo. I N SCHOOLS Director, Jamks i.kk L0VB, formerly of Harvard
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March 26, 1914] The IN ati on 111 Foreign Dealers in Rare Books, Prints, Etc. «7LTSr PUBLISHED: A CATALOGUE OF SECOND-HAND BOOKS ENGLISH AND FOREIGN INCLUDING ALPINE LITERATURE, SPORTING SUBJECTS IRELAND, SCOTLAND and WALES Post free, on application, from HENRY SOTHERAN & CO. 43 PICCADILLY, W. or, 140 STRAND, W.C. LONDON, ENGLAND BARGAIN BOOKS PAUL. MASSON, book dealer, Mon- tauban, Tarn-et-Garonne, France, will mail his catalogue free of charge to any one sending him name and ad- dress. Ask for catalogue No. 24, which contains several old maps of America, aa well as rare and curious books. RARE BOOKS We can supply the rare books an lecture topics, etc., furnish ed. Any subject. Booklet free. Write Authors' and Teachers' Bureau, 3G10a Vista Ave., Cinn., O BOOKS Catalogues including Americana post free. R. Atkinson, 97 Sunderland Rd., Forest Hill, London. SORRENTO, MAINE, TO LET Three attractive summer cottages singly or to- gether. Piazzas, fireplaces, modern conveniences, fully furnished, rent moderate. Magnificent views, ideal climate. Apply to M. T. JACKSON 14 Shepard Street, Cambridge, Mann, LETTERS AND MEMORIALS or Wendell Phillips Garrison Editor of The Nation, 1865-1906 In one volume, crown 8vo, 300 pages, with photogravure portrait. During the forty-one years in which he edited the Nation, with a thoroughness, ability, and conscientious devotion unsurpassed in the records of American journalism, Mr. Garrison was an indefatiga- ble correspondent, never em- ployimg an amanuensis, but writing tens of thousands of letters with his own hand to his contributors, who em- braced practically all the leading American scholars and critics of the period. From a dozen groups of these, which have been kindly loaned by the recipients, a sufficiemt number of selections has been made to illustrate the relations between Mr. Garrison and his great corps of contributors, the frankness and tact which he exercised towards them, and the wide range of his interests, tastes, and sympathies. The volume also contains a brief sketch of his life, a dozen of his best poems, and several of his characteristic editorials, re- views, and essays, besides a fine photogravure portrait. Price, $ 1.50 net postpaid. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN GO. BOSTOK NEW YORK NOW READY GREATJURISTSOF THE WORLD Fr.m PAPINIAN to VON IHERING BY VARIOUS AUTHORS With 20 portraits. Edited by Ed- ward Manson, Co-editor of the Journal of the Society of Compar- ative Legislation, and with Intro- ductions by Sir John Macdonnell, Professor of Comparative Law in University College, London, and by Van Vechten Veeder, Judge of the United States District Court, New York. 8vo. Cloth, $6.00 net. The aim of this volume in the Con- tinental Legal History Series is to set forth the life, work, methods, and Influence of the great jurists who have had more than a merely nation- al importance in the development of European Law. This work is a sort of Plutarch's Lives for the History of Continental Law. Papinian, Alciat, Bartolus, Vico, Bacon, Leibnitz, Sel- den, Montesquieu, Cujas, Vattel, Sav- igny Bentham, Beccaria, Von Iher- Ing, Mittermaier — these and a few other names stand out as land- marks for all European Law. C? Send for descriptive pamphlet of the Continental Legal History Series. LITTLE, BROWN & CO., Publishers, Boston Printing WnY not place your orders for and Printing where they will be ac- Book corded expert attention at mod- Manu- crate prices? "Cbe Tltnfcijcrbocftcc press r . (G- P. Putnam's Sons) raCtliring 2-4-6 West 45th Street The Curious Lore of Precious Stones BY GEORGE FREDERICK KCNZ. With numerous plates in color and double-tone. 8vo. Cloth, Boxed, .$5.00 net. Carriage extra. Being a Description of Tbelr Sentiments and Folk-Lore, Superstitions, Symbolism, Mysticism, t'sc in Medicine, Protection, Prevention, Religion and Divination. On Crystal flazlnjr. Birth Stones- and Royal Jewels. J. B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, Pa. 'RE5«Ji AN INTERESTING (and in many respects extreme- ly important) catalog of curi- ous and unusual books has just been issued by The Torch Press Book Shop, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Sent on receipt of a post card. "TO LIBRARIANS " /* it of interest and importance to know that the book* reviewed and advertised <n this mag- azine can be purchased from us at advanta- geous prices bv PUBLIC LIBRARIES SCHOOLS, COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES A. C. MeCLlRG A CO., CHICAGO AUTHORS OUR EXPERT SERVICE ami ADVICE WILL HELP fOD SELL Villi! 8TORIBS, POEMS, PHOTO PLATS, etc, Particulars free, .u-thors- SERVICE CO., B0 Wall St., New York, v y.
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IV The N at ion [Vol. 98, No. 2543 NEW PUBLICATIONS, SPRING, 1914. DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 443 Fourth Avenue, New York BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY By PRINCE BERNHARD VON BULOW (Formerly Chancellor of the German Empire. These reminiscences of the political changes in Germany during the past twenty years by one who was at the very head of the movements he describes, constitute one of the most important volumes for students of contemporary history that has recently appeared. Large Svo. $3.00 m t. The Empress Frederick: A Memoir anonymous A biography which possesses all the value of an historical document about a woman who has been singularly misunderstood by the public — the mother of the present Emperor of Germany. Illustrated. 8vo. $2.50 net. Imperial Germany Hellas and the Balkan Wars By D. J. CASSAVETTI The recent Balkan wars from the point of view of a Greek who was but an actor in the events he describes. Large Svo. $3.00 net. TRAVEL Lombard Towns of Italy By egerton r. wiluams A delightful companion volume to the author's well-known "Hill Towns of Italy" and "Plain Towns of Italy." Small 12mo. $1.75 net. Panama and the Canal By willis j. abbot The human side of the building of the Canal, told in vigorous and graphic style. 12mo. $2.00 net. Japan's Inheritance: The Country, Its People and Their Destiny By E. BRUCE MITFORD, F.R.G.S "Wanted: The truth about Japan," says the author. From long residence in Japan, he gives the truth about the Japanese people and their future as he sees it. Svo. $3.50 net. The Ideal Motor Tour in France Routes, roads, rates — everything that one needs to know in order to take through France. Small llmo. Cloth, $1.50 net. By WALTER HALE the Ideal Motor Tour Limp leather, $2.50 net. A Winter in India By Archibald b. spens A record of one who visited India to see and to enjoy, and who saw and enjoyed much. Illustrated, Small 8vo. $1.15 net. SOCIOLOGY The Workingman's Christ By craig s. thoms A new presentation of a topic which is at present uppermost in men's minds — how can the Church and the workingman be brought closer together? J. 'mo. $1.25 net. The Age of Mother Power By c. gasquoine hartley Author of "The Truth About Woman." marches into a most interesting period of evolution — the age of mother-right and mother descent, by one- of the keenest thinkers and cleverest writers of the feminist movement. 12mo. $1.25 net. Eugenics: Twelve University Lectures By Prof. C. B, DAVENPORT and others ected lectures discussing different phases of eugenics, by authorities on the subjects dis- hiiudU Svo. $2.00 net. EIGHT NOVELS Black is While By George Barr McCutcheon A long novel in the serious vein which characteriz- thi author's "The Hollow !' iter Hand." Illustrated in color by A. l. Keller, llmo. $1.80 net. Dark Hollow By Anna Katharine Green A melodramatic mystery story, as puzzling and mystifying as "Tin ei en Illustrated. 12mo. $1.35 net. The Youngest World By Robert Dunn A new author who has written, so critics claim, the i :tory of Alaska that has yet appeared. Vimo. $1.1,0 net. The Primal Lure By V. E. Roe a dramatic story of devotion, sacrifice, and love in B II ml: 'in I tay POSl , Illustrated. Llmo. $1.30 net. The Making of an Englishman By W. L. George Says the Evening Post of New York: "No! merely ,i splendid opportunity for contrast between nperamental differences of Frencl lish, hut a narrative of earnest merit." l.!i. $1.85 net Initiation By Robert Hugh Benson The initiation of a selfish man into a ali atii ' his real dutj and responslbilit net. A Pillar of Sand By William R. Castle, Jr. . i socii cleverly dra\t i inn storj or n clei '' id reel n $1.80 net. The Sword Hand of Napoleon By Cyrus Townsend Brady A picturesque and dashing novel centered about the Retreat from Ah Illustrated, l2mo. $1.85 net.
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The Nation. SEW YORK, TJIUItSDAY, MAHCII 20, 1!>14. Summary of the News The Mexican situation in its relation to the United States remains unchanged, and there has been nothing to confirm the report published in some of last Friday's papers that President Wilson contem- plates any change of policy. Fighting be- gan around Torreon on Saturday after- noon, Villa capturing Bermejillo after a running fight of sixteen miles. On the following day the rebel troops entered Brittingham, which is only nine miles from Torreon proper, and after hard fighting on Monday and Tuesday they took possession of Gomez Palacio, a strongly fortified position three miles from Tor- reon on the northern side. It seems to be established that the Federal forces are considerably inferior in numbers to those of Villa. At Eagle Pass, Tex., on Monday there was an insignificant clash between an American patrol and some Mexican Federals, due to the latter, who were pur- suing some Constitutionalists, having di- rected their fire to the American side. Opposition to the repeal of the exemp- tion clause in the Panama Canal Tolls bill has developed considerably, and filibuster- ing tactics have been employed to delay its consideration. It cannot be taken up in the House until the Rivers and Harbors bill is out of the way, and although that measure received the right of way on Monday, following an agreement among Democrats in the House, progress with it is so slow that it is doubtful when the Tolls bill will be taken up. The Presi- dent, however, expresses confidence that the free tolls provision will be repealed. Statements were issued on Saturday by Attorney-General McReynolds and How- ard Elliott, chairman of the New Haven Railway, \hat an agreement had been reached between the Government and the line for the reorganization of the system so as to prevent a suit under the Sherman act. Certain important concessions have been granted to the New Haven, notably an extension of time for the sale of the Boston & Maine line. Chairman Elliott in his statement expressed the belief that the settlement would have a beneficial effect on the industrial situation in New England. The Indiana Democratic State Commit- tee on March 19 unanimously adopted a plank endorsing a State-wide primary law. The popular support thus accorded President Wilson was the more significant in view of the fact that all of the Taggart nominees were subsequently chosen. The proposed amendment to the Fed- eral Constitution extending the suffrage to women was rejected in the Senate on March 19 by a vote of 35 to 34 in favor of the resolution, a two-thirds affirmative vote being necessary for its passage. An amendment offered by Senator Vardaman to repeal the Fifteenth Amendment grant- ing the franchise to negroes was lost by a vote of 48 to 19, and one by Senator Williams of Mississippi excluding negro women from the woman's suffrage amendment was rejected by a vote of 44 to 21. In its report for the fiscal year ending December 31 last, the United States Steel Corporation records the largest turnover of business of any year in its history. The gross earnings last year were $796,894,299, as compared with $745,505,515 in 1912 and $757,014,767 in 1907, the best previous year in point of revenue. The announcement was made on Friday of last week that Robert Lansing, of New York, and Cone Johnson, of Texas, would be appointed respectively counsellor and solicitor of the State Department in suc- cession to John Bassett Moore and Joseph W. Folk. The situation in Ulster, which appear- ed extremely grave at the end of last week, has cleared somewhat. On Friday, following the debate in the House of Com- mons and the departure of Sir Edward Carson for Belfast, the Government started moving troops into the province. A number of officers, understanding the movement as a preliminary to war, took advantage of the option said to have been given and resigned their commissions. Premier Asquith issued a statement to the Times on Monday declaring that the situation had been misunderstood, and that the movement of the troops was a purely precautionary measure. In the House of Commons on the same day he repeated his assurances, and the Secretary for War added a brief statement that the resignations from the army had been due to a misunderstanding and the officers had been ordered to rejoin their regi- ments. Throughout the crisis there have been no disturbances either in Ulster it- self or in the rest of Ireland. The British naval estimates for 1914-15, which were announced in the House of Commons on March 17, amount to $257,- 750,000, an increase over those of last year of $13,700,000. Mr. Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, in explaining the estimates, stated that the increase was due principally to the change to oil fuel, to the establishment of a naval flying corps, and to the increased pay of the per- sonnel of the navy. He held out hopes, however, that "in the absence of any new policy" the estimates for next year might be substantially lower. The rivalry with Germany was mentioned frankly, Mr. Churchill declaring that it is the aim of Great Britain to complete eight battle squadrons by the time Germany has five. According to dispatches received from South Africa the Labor party has made considerable gains in the elections throughout the Transvaal. The success of the Laborites is particularly noticeable in the Rand district, and the result is re- garded as a condemnation of the Govern- ment for its action in deporting the strike leaders. It is asserted also that the Labor victories indicate that the Boers have lost control in the Transvaal. The Caillaux case arising out of the shooting of Gaston Calmette, editor of Figaro, by Mme. Caillaux promises to de- velop into another Government scandal. Following the resignation of M. Caillaux from the Doumergue government and the readjustment of the Cabinet came the resignation of ex-Premier Monis, who held the portfolio of Minister of Marine. Statements were made in the Chamber that while M. Monis was Premier he had influenced the public prosecutor to post- pone the trial of Henri Rochette, who was charged with having swindled the public out of enormous sums of money. Before the investigating committee of the Cham- ber of Deputies Caillaux and Monis have given evidence directly contradicting each other. The Royalist party has seized upon the Caillaux case as a pretext for anti-republican demonstrations, and it is charged that Caillaux and other members of the Radical party have used their po- litical opportunities to accumulate large fortunes. The new Italian Cabinet formed by Si- gnor Salandra, former Minister of the Treasury, in succession to the Giolitti Cabinet, has been completed. The Premier assumes also the portfolio of Minister of the Interior, and the Marquis di San Giu- liano, who was spoken of in connection with the premiership, becomes Minister of Foreign Affairs. Greece's naval programme announced by the Minister of Marino in the Chamber of Deputies on March 19 is to include three battleships of the Dreadnought type, three armored cruisers, and lighter craft. The Minister of Marine emphasized the determination of the country to maintain the supremacy at sea gained as a result of the Balkan wars. Half of the Greek loan of $100,000,000 was issued on March 18. On Saturday the French Government authorized an issue of $35,000,000 for the French market, and the remaining $15,000,000 will be issued in England. The deadlock between the two houses of the Japanese Parliament arising out of the naval graft scandals resulted on Monday in the issue of a decree by the Emperor suspending the sessions for three days. Since Parliament adjourned yesterday in the ordinary course, the Em- peror's action is equivalent to a proroga- tion. The deadlock arose out of the fail- ure of the conference committee of both houses to agree on the respective amend- ments for the reduction of the naval esti- mates. As the budget has not been passed the situation is a serious one. leaths of the week include: Wil- liara Pateraon, March 18: Adolph F. A. Bandelier, Prof. Giuseppe MercalH, March 19; Wilton Lockwood, March 20; John Norris, March 21; Harry Thurston Peck, March 23.
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316 The 1ST a t i o ii [Vol. 98, No. 2543 The Week President Wilson was well advised in consenting to the publication of the infor- mal talk which he gave the Washington Press Club on Friday. The country will have read with interest and a new un- derstanding Mr. Wilson's account of the very human embarrassments of his office. Compelled to wreak himself upon his work, to order his day rigidly, and to shut out as many haphazard inter- rupters as possible, the President has been acquiring the reputation of one austere and aloof, merely a thinking ma- chine, a man of mystery. But in Mr. Wilson's frank disclosure of his inmost thought about all this, we perceive that he is throughout keeping his genial in- terest in everything that is human, though obliged to hold it, as it were, un- der cover. His humorous description of his own feelings about it all, his ex- planation of his frequent desire to cease to be a dignified official and to become a mere man again, and his unbosoming himself of his constant fear of making blunders, constitute delightful reading. The whole is a touch of nature which will make his countrymen feel more kin with President Wilson. The sub-committee of the House Ju diciary Committee which has been con- sidering the relations of Representative McDermott, of Illinois, with the lobby- ing activities of the National Associa- tion of Manufacturers reports a lack of evidence such as would justify his ex- pulsion, but recommends the adoption of a resolution declaring that the House "strongly condemns" his conduct, and pronouncing him "guilty of acts of grave impropriety." As these acts, according to the report, include not only "his as- sociations with M. M. Mulhall, a lobby- ist of the National Association of Man- ufacturers," but also "accepting loans of large sums of money from Horning, a pawnbroker, and from Harvey, a mem ber of the Retail Liquor Dealers' Asso- ciation, both of whom were vitally inter- ested in legislation pending before Con- gress," it cannot be said that the sub- committee is too harsh in its character- ization; indeed, a not altogether incon- ceivable standard of personal honor might suggest the voluntary resignation of the gentleman from Illinois. Fortu- nately, the report was unanimous. There seems to be general agreement that the provisional settlement which has been arranged between the Govern- ment and the New Haven Company is the best thing that was possible in the circumstances. Mr. Brandeis is quoted as saying of it that "the people of New England are to be congratulated." Pres- ident Elliott, of the New Haven, feels satisfied that the amicable adjustment arrived at has the merit of giving "am- ple time for the protection of the com- pany's property," and of recognizing New England's need of "peace and a chance for constructive work." Much is still left open for decision, but both sides seem confident that the completion of the programme will involve no serious difficulty. The whole story of the New Haven, from the time that it entered upon its policy of sweeping aggrandize- ment, forms one of the most significant episodes in American railway history, and the last chapters in it have been, in more ways than one, of a tragic charac- ter. The company is now at last facing away from that troubled past, and the thousands who are affected by its for- tunes and by its proper management must feel a long-wished-for sense of re- lief. liberties will do without their familiar bone of contention, but the signing of the treaty of peace between them must make the President face the Mexican problem with a smile. The most notable victory that peace has scored in decades, if reports say true, has aroused surprisingly little com- ment. Perhaps this is due to the well- nigh incredible nature of the report, for it is nothing less than that the line of- ficers of the navy have yielded to the staff officers in the long dispute whether the latter should have military titles. Who has forgotten the tempest that raged so fiercely a few years ago when a mere surgeon was put In charge of a hospital ship? What jests and gibes were made over the kind of orders that a surgeon would issue to those having to do with the navigation of the vessel! The line officers saw nothing but imme- diate disaster to the whole naval estab- lishment if such a condition was to be allowed. Nor were they so weak as to be impressed by the argument that in the army the staff officers had military titles. After all, the army is only the army, while the navy — well, the two words require to be pronounced in very different tones. And now the line has sur- rendered. Simple folk belonging neith- er to the line nor to the staff will won- der what these rival defenders of our The contest for the Alabama Senator- ship between Oscar Underwood and Rich- mond Hobson goes on its interminable course. As there is no real issue involv- ed, the struggle has degenerated into one of personalities. As usual, the un- fortunate negro has been dragged in and Alabamians were besought to defeat Underwood because, thanks to him, half a dozen black men hold minor places on the pay-roll of the House of Representa- tives— thus endangering the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race — until it ap- peared that Hobson himself had appoint- ed a colored bootblack or barber for a House committee. Then, going from black men to white women, the horrible charge was made by the Underwoodites that Hobson conferred with JaneAddams and other leaders of the National Suf- rage Association, who, be it known, are plotting to overthrow negro disfran- chisement in the South by getting Con- gress to enfranchise all women by a Constitutional amendment. Naturally, Hobson indignantly denied this sordid charge, so galling to a Southerner's hon- or, and retorted that his opponent is the agent of the Whiskey Trust. Ridiculous as all this is, it is undeniable that Hob- son has won the support of Prohibition- ists and temperance workers in extra- ordinary degree; to them he is a great national figure. Partisanship is never so offensive as in the administration of workmen's com- pensation acts. Yet the law which pass- ed the Kentucky Legislature just before adjournment was opposed by men fired with the same zeal as those who insist- ed that the New York Commission should be bi-partisan. They alleged that the governing board, composed of the Attorney-General and Commissioners of Labor and Insurance, would "be enabled to build up a political machine." This frightened no one, and a bill which had the support of labor and enlightened capital went through unchanged. Mod- elled on the Ohio law, it is optional in nature, provides a State Insurance fund, and sets the maximum death indemnity at $3,750, and the maximum weekly pay- ment for injury at $12. The laws of the
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March 26, 1914] The ISTation. 317 two other important States which dealt with workmen's compensation in 1913 show how variant are ideas, not merely upon the question of partisanship in the administrators of the State fund, but upon who these persons shall be. In Connecticut there are five Commission- ers, of whom it is stipulated merely that one shall be appointed from each Congressional district. In Oregon three industrial accident commissioners are appointed by the Governor, and it is pro- vided that not more than two shall be- long to the same party. Ex-Commissioner Worcester's gloomy letter in the New York Times on the 361 American employees who have been dis- placed in the Philippine service calls for distinctions. Dealing with so large a number of officials, it is mainly direct- ed at the dismissal of men in inferior posts. Yet in the happy days when he himself served in the islands, it was the avowed endeavor of the Adminis- tration to put natives in subordinate positions as fast as they qualified. What he now protests against is, therefore, an enlargement of the old policy; and this in face of assurances from the new regime that competence is insisted upon in the Filipino appointees. And a con- siderable part of the dismissals, as Mr. Worcester admits in veiled language, is traceable to a new and praiseworthy striving after economy. The last issue of The Filipino People, in editorial com- ment on the first successful passage of a General Appropriations bill in three years, which President Wilson signalized by a congratulatory telegram, explains that the long deadlock between Assem- bly and Commission was due to the latter's insistence upon "useless and unjustifiable expenditures" for a crowd- ed executive force. In reductions of force, as well as of salaries, a million dollars annually is to be saved the poor tao whom the ex-Commissioner would have us believe the politicians are bleed- ing. Dismissal on insufficient notice may have worked hardship In some cases; but his blanket indictment in- volves self-contradictions. Ex-President Eliot's eightieth birth- day on Friday passed without formal celebration. The day found him in "fine health and good spirits," and full of the keenest enjoyment of what he has called the "durable satisfactions of life." Mr. Eliot is to New England what John Bigelow was to New York — its First Cit- izen. Year by year he has been showing how one may reach great age with un- flagging energies and complete devo- tion to public questions. He decllnea the London Embassy chiefly because he could do more useful work at home; and on subjects connected with peace and war, education and morals, as well as on social issues, he speaks constant- ly to an enormous audience. Nothing that he has ever said is clearer and more incisive than his recent analysis of the labor unions, pointing out how the whole movement places its emphasis on the wrong things. He was free to say, what many public men feel but dare not utter, that the trades unionism of to- day is objectionable on moral and edu- cational grounds, even after proper rec- ognition of its achievements in raising wages, shortening hours, and improv- ing conditions of labor. Physically, Mr. Eliot is erect and vigorous — a wonderful example of what happens when an in- tellectually intense life is coupled with normal and sensible care of the body. The splendid conduct of the Welles- ley girls at the big fire so centred pub- lic attention as largely to relegate to the background, for the time being, the loss suffered by the College. In many ways that loss is irreparable; dispatches tell, for instance, of researches carried on for years and of great value to science, the records and results of which have been destroyed. But this should serve to remind the public, and especially the persons of large means who are in the habit of responding generously to any call in behalf of a good public cause, that the College is absolutely crippled, and that it has earned by four decades of good work the hearty assistance that it so desperately needs in this emergen- cy. It must not only erect new build- ings to take the place of the old central building that was destroyed, but must provide entirely new equipment for its laboratories and build up its library and its museums afresh. We have not heard of any systematic endeavor to obtain funds for these purposes, though Bishop Lawrence, the chairman of the execu- tive committee, issued a statement soon after the fire, setting forth the pros- trate condition of the College. In this he pointed out that, owing to the obso- lete nature of the construction of the central building, it had been impossible to place insurance corresponding to anything like the value to the College of the building and its contents. We feel confident that an appeal to the en- lightened liberality of those interested in the higher education will meet with a generous response. The process of deterioration which is supposed to set in with the second gen- eration of great fortune-owners in this country is not so widespread as one is led to imagine. The victory over England's professional court tennis champion by a rich young man argues rather ex- ceptional physical stamina and a clean outlook upon life. The heir to America's largest fortune has devoted much of his time and his means to useful work in the field of social service. The young heir to one of the great landed fortunes in New York city has displayed a com- mendable interest in matters of social and civic progress. The heir to one of the largest railway fortunes in the coun- try has given a great deal of time to coaching the university crew of his alma mater. It may be that amateur rowing or tennis or even the management of a campaign against the social evil is not an exercise conducive to the conserva- tion of great wealth. The three genera- tions from overalls to overalls, liberal- ly interpreted, might still hold. But that other form of decline which we as- sociate with the Pittsburgh school of millionaire ethics, as brilliantly exem- plified in the person of Harry K. Thaw, is apparently far from universal among the children of the very rich. The closing words of Mr. Asquith's speech in the House of Commons two weeks ago were as follows: If there is one lesson more clear than another, taught by the history of this ancient Kingdom of ours, it is that the union with us of law and of liberty has its source, and in moments of supreme urgency has its sanction, in the cor- porate sense of common interests and common responsibilities. There are times, and T believe this is one of them, in which we ought all of us to be ready to sacrifice much, not merely of preju- '1 prepossession, but of solid and dearly cherished aims and Ideals, for the paramount good of the whole. If we have been as a nation, as we may claim without boasting to have been, the pio- neers in the world of popular government, it is because our people, keen, tenacious, combative, self-reliant, learned In the stress of controversy, the most acute and
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318 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2543 apparently the most irreconcilable, to re- spect one another and to renounce the falsehood of extremes. This is a testing case. The best traditions of our past, no less than the undisclosed and fateful is- sues of tin; future, appeal to us to-day with imperious accents to pursue if we can the way of unity and peace. The line spirit of this passage, as, in- deed, of the Prime Minister's entire speech, was ful?v recognized by his im- mediate audience in the House, as by the major part of press and public in England. Yet Mr. Asquith's conciliatory proposals have not been accepted, though they went so far as to lead William O'Brien to assert that the Prime Minis- ter had consented to the erection of an Orange Free State in Ulster. An important distinction to be made is the difference between Ulster's excuse and Ulster's reason. Freely admitting, as Mr. Asquith did, that there are his- toric and racial difficulties to give point to Ulster's unwillingness to come un- der the government of a Dublin Parlia- ment and Executive, the practical ques- tion now is whether she is determined to fight despite the free opportunity of- fered her to decide whether she will ac- cept that government or not. Ample time is given for settling the matter. The Home Rule bill will not become law before July, 1914. Under its operation, an Irish Parliament could hardly be set up before July, 1915. But the Ulster counties could, by a bare majority vote, take themselves, out from under Dublin rule for six years. During that period, at least two general elections will occur, and if, as the Ulster leaders assert, the country is with them, there would be no possibility of another Imperial Parlia- ment "riveting the Dublin fetters" upon them. Their rights and privileges are fully safeguarded. It is this fact which has made the whole burning controversy seem factitious. Ulster may be as sin- cere as you please, but the way in which the English Conservatives have seized upon the Ulster issue for political effect has few of the marks of candor upon it. The Ulster club was good enough to shat- ter the Parliament Act, and drive the Liberals out of power. So the cry was raised of a great outrage upon Ulster, which all Englishmen must resist by force of arms, If necessary. But Mr. Asquith's plan of settlement was one eminently just to Ulster, and more than fair. Yet the Conservative leaders had gone so far and kindled such hopes in their followers that they would not draw back. They continued to talk as If the Prime Minister's proposals had not en- tirely altered the situation. This is par- ty tactics, not common-sense. It was a trifle more than impudent in Sir Edward Carson, the other day, to refer to Winston Churchill as "a poli- tician on the make." Whatever may be the case with Mr. Churchill, Sir Edward Carson is to-day playing a political game in which the stakes are, for him, dazzling. If he wins, he becomes the un- questioned 'eader of the Conservative party, with the reversion of the Pre- miership clearly his. For it was Sir Ed- ward Carson who devised the scheme of using Ulster discontent, skilfully fanned into Ulster resistance to the law of the land, as a means of tumbling the Home Rule bill in a heap and wrecking the Liberal Ministry. It was a daring pro- ject, which Sir Edward has thus far car- ried on with great tenacity; but its effect on his own political future, if he is finally successful, is so plain that it requires peculiar effrontery in him to rebuke another for being "on the make." Mr. Winston Churchill has revolu- tionized naval warfare, so far as the ex- perts are concerned, by announcing a new standard of international compari- son on the sea. This time it is the fif- teen-inch gun. In a reassuring speech the First Lord of the Admiralty assert- ed that Great Britain will have ten ships carrying these mammoth guns to Germany's two. Need anything more be said? In the naval war-game as play- ed by the experts it is a maxim that only the biggest fighting units shall be counted, everything else being relegat- ed to a theoretical scrap-head. The ex- perts will undoubtedly proceed to edu- cate themselves in the new arithmetic with characteristic zest, and the taxpay- ers of the nations will have to pay for the new educational course. For in- stance, it is only necessary for Japan to lay the keel of a single 17-inch gun battleship to make the United States navy obsolete — theoretically; and imme- diately we shall be called upon to bal- ance the naval ledger on the 17-inch basis. Every war leaves behind the real lesson that arithmetic is a delusion. But the experts undismayed cling to fig- ures. On the Continent they arc now busily engaged in comparing rows of figures as between Russia and Germany to show that both Russia and Germany must spend more money on bigger armies. English laments over the sale to Amer- icans of a part of the famous library of the Duke of Devonshire are natural, but ring a little hollow. Emphasis is placed by the London Standard on the severe pressure of English taxes, par- ticularly the death duties, which Is lead- ing old families to part with "heirlooms of great historical and personal inter- est." It is hard, the Standard affirms, for an impoverished nobleman to refuse an offer of $500,000 for books or works of art that he personally can get on per- fectly well without. This would be espe- cially true of one who never could speak, with Prospero, of "volumes that I prize above my dukedom." In the case of the great Devonshire library at Chatsworth, there may easily have been the added reason that the owner knew nothing whatever about the inside of his books. This was true of the late Duke. He did not even know how to get down from the gallery of the library, as is shown by the amusing story, in his Life, of his having to call a servant in order to show Lord Salisbury where the blind stairway was. The present Duke may be as indifferent to the contents of his rare volumes. As long ago as Dr. John- son's day, the Dukes of Devonshire had a reputation for "dogged veracity." This may lead to a more bluntly truthful ex- planation of the present sale than we have yet had. The political effects of the murder of the editor of Figaro may turn out to be serious for the Radical majority now in control. It is not so much that M. Calmette was editor of a journal of con- servative, and virtually royalist, senti- ments, and that his assassination may be made the occasion for further anti- republican "demonstrations." Of much greater consequence are the revelations now coming out of the intimate connec- tion between politics and finance as ex- emplified in the Rochette case. A Gov- ernment of stock-brokers is a favorite way among the anti-republican parties of describing the present Radical regime, and every little while enough comes out to justify the critics, in par- tisan eyes.
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March 26, 19 14] The Nation 319 CHEATING AFTERTHOUGHTS. • nator Foraker, in an address be- fore the Cleveland Chamber of Com- merce last week, argued for the right of the United States, under the Hay- Pauncefote treaty, to discriminate in fa- vor of our coastwise vessels using the Panama Canal. The contrary opinion he sought to reduce to the absurd. Why, he exclaimed, if we cannot thus aid our domestic shipping, and, of course, can- not favor our foreign shipping, then "no advantage whatever arises out of this great national work, the construction of the Panama Canal." We will not dwell upon the unplea- sant implications of this. It might be interpreted to mean that if we have not overreached somebody, or deceived and cheated some other nation, in building the Canal, then all our labor is in vain. We do not suppose that Mr. Foraker in- tended this, or would approve it; though it seems to lie tacitly in his argument. But he has misread the entire history of our work on the Canal, if he is not aware that the United States protested earnestly from the first day to the last that it sought no exclusive privileges at Panama. To affirm now that we get no "advantage," if we cannot twist the treaty, is coolly to forget that we vowed to all the world that we would never seek any special advantage — except, of course, for our navy. It is this historic fact which renders the present rueful at- titude of men like ex-Senator Foraker ridiculous. To make it appear that, after proclaiming for years our unself- ish motives, we are now chapfallen to find that we are debarred from playing a smart trick at the expense of other nations, is to class ourselves with the England of Dr. Johnson's day. He warn- ed his Irish friends against making a Union with England, saying that, if they did, "we shall surely rob you." He added: -"We would have robbed Scot- land if she had had anything worth stealing." The Hay-Pauncefote treaty was not negotiated or ratified in a corner. We knew what we were doing, and so did all the world. In the report of Senator Davis, for the Committee on Foreign Re- lations, recommending ratification of the treaty, he made it perfectly clear that we were setting up no "selfish mo- tive of gain." To do that, he said, would be "unworthy of the United States, even if we owned the country through which the Canal is to be built." And on the question of adopting the Suez rules for neutralization and entire equality of treatment, he said explicitly that this country could not oppose them "with- out discrediting the official declarations of our Government for fifty years." But California Mas alert then, as she is to- day, to the possibility of selfish gain through the Canal. Senator Bard, of California, moved to amend the treaty by adding the clause: "The United States reserves the right ... to dis- criminate in favor of vessels of its own citizens engaged in the coastwise trade." But the Senate voted this down. There could hardly be plainer proof that the treaty was not then believed to convey the right which it is now sought to read into it. Our virtuous protestations of disinter- estedness never rose higher than at the time the Panama Zone was forcibly seized. That act was felt to need every justification possible. It was seen that if, in addition to "taking" the Isthmus, we were to use it and the Canal to the prejudice of the world's commerce, this country would look not only very like a pirate — that we did not so much mind in those days — but like a low-down trickster. Accordingly, no one was more emphatic in asseverating our unselfish- ness than President Roosevelt. In his message to Congress of January, 1904, he declared: "If ever a Government could be said to have received a man- date from civilization to effect an object the accomplishment of which was de- manded in the interest of mankind, the United States holds that position with regard to the interoceanic canal." That was the tenor of all the talk at that time. We would hear of nothing except "the interest of mankind." Now we have waked up to the interest of our ship- owners! As they cannot get a direct subsidy, argues Mr. Foraker, we must give them one indirectly, by means of a remission of Canal tolls, or else con- fess that we didn't drive a sharp bar- gain when we had the chance to. The question has sometimes been put, rhetorically, what would the United States do if the shoe were on the other foot, and if it were England that was striving to evade the apparently plain requirement of a treaty? It is not nec- essary to confine ourselves to hypo- thesis. The thing has actually occur- red. By the treaty of Washington in 1871, provision was made that the use of canals along the great lakes, wheth- er American or Canadian, should be upon equal terms to citizens of both na- tions. But some years later, Canada undertook to give a rebate of nearly all the Welland Canal tolls to Canadian ships carrying merchandise to Montreal or beyond. This was virtually the same thing we have attempted at Panama — a discrimination in favor of coastwise trade. President Cleveland promptly pro- tested that this was to fulfil a treaty promise with only "the shadow of per- formance." The matter was taken up diplomatically, and Canada receded from her untenable position. It is a similar retreat from an act vio- lative of an international agreement, as all understood it at the time it was made, which President Wilson, to his everlasting credit, is urging upon Con- gress. All that he asks is that we do what we said we would do. The tolls-ex- emption was pure afterthought. And it was a cheating afterthought. Unless we set ourselves straight, no nation having a treaty, or contemplating a treaty, with the United States will feel safe in taking words in their ordinary mean- ing, or depending upon the understand- ing of the negotiators. Yet some Amer- icans think it highly patriotic to expose their country to such a reproach! They seem to be rather proud when a foreign Government comes to us with a treaty in its hand which we are trying to set aside, and asks the "Figaro" question, "Who is cheating here?" JUSTICE TO PUBLIC SERVICE COR- PORATIONS. Whatever may have been the sins of our railways and other public service corporations — and the Nation has not failed in its duty of pointing them out —it is undeniable that they are to-day paying a heavy penalty for the mis- takes of their managers in the past. In- deed, so beset are some of them as to make it clear that, in business circles at least, there is a revulsion of feeling due to the impression that the Govern- ment is no longer giving them a square deal, that the pendulum, having swung too far in one direction, Is going too far in the other; that owing to legisla- tion, regulation, and to threat of con- fiscation, and by autocratic use of Fed- eral authority, the lot of the railway company at least is becoming intolera-
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32G T li e 1ST a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2543 ble; that so much of the power of com- pany officials has been stripped from them by Government arbitration, con- trol, and regulation that they can no longer be held responsible by their stockholders for satisfactory results. It is even said that their present estate is so intolerable that complete Government ownership is beginning to appear pref- erable. Thus, in his recent annual report, Mr. Rea, the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, declared: "It is evident that the ability to regulate wages and work- ing conditions, and other heavy operat- ing expenses, has, as the result of Feder- al and State legislation, largely passed from the control of your management, as has also the power of your company and other railroads to charge reasonable rates for the public transportation ser- vice rendered." His own railway is confronted with an increased annual ex- pense of $1,580,000, of which $850,000 is due solely to the totally uncalled-for Full Crew act, passed at the behest of the labor unions; the other $730,000 be- ing occasioned by the raising of wages through the arbitration in 1912 under the new Federal law, the Newlands act. Now, an ordinary corporation, finding its expenses increased by causes beyond its control, would feel free to charge more for its product; but the railway Is estopped, since the power over rates has passed to the Interstate Commerce Commission. The difficulty is so much intensified by the diversification of gov- ernmental control that President Rea insists: Some way must be found whereby the serious but divided responsibility of gov- ernmental regulation of rates, wages, and other railway matters shall either be concentrated under one administrative branch of the Government, or the results of legislative acts, orders of commissions, and awards of arbitration boards shall be recognized by rate regulatory com- missions, so that regulation of wages, rates, and other matters may continue without working a manifest injustice to the railroads and those who have invest- ed in their securities. Should the Interstate Commerce Commission long postpone its rate deci- sion, or decide against an increase, there will inevitably be profound sym- pathy for the honest railway managers in search of new capital who find them- selves thus ground between the upper and the nether millstone. They also feel themselves seriously wronged when they appear openly before the Legislature to ask for the repeal of the Full Crew law, and find that neither the Legislature nor the press pays any attention to their protest. It does not help the situation to point to the mismanagement of the New Haven, the St. Louis & San Fran- cisco, and say that this sort of wrong- doing is responsible for the present sit- uation. The presidents may admit this sorrowfully, yet wake up the next morn- ing to find a bill in the Legislature at Albany to revise commutation rates downward in a given county by 50 or 60 per cent. The telephone company is in the same plight; but recently placed under the control of the Public Service Commission, it finds a bill introduced at Albany en- forcing a five-cent rate in New York. This may be a just proposal, but the re- sponsible telephone officials must be for- given if they feel a bit bewildered and go about wondering where the next blow is to come from. The Bell Telephone Company is facing the Postmaster-Gen- eral's demand that its stockholders be compelled to sell out to the Government. Its president, Mr. Vail, in his remarka- ble report just issued, attacks the Post Office's arguments for Government own- ership. They are obviously very mis- leading, if it is contended either that the postal business is well managed or that the parcel post is a financial suc- cess. Who can tell? Not Mr. Burleson. He has abolished the special parcel-post stamp, and would never think of reck- oning in rentals, or interest on plant, or overhead charges, to ascertain wheth- er the parcel post is carried at a deficit or not. Meanwhile, the Government refuses to reimburse the railways adequately for carrying the mails, and insists on dif- ferent rates for heavy and light mail matter carried in the same car. Is it any wonder that uneasiness grows and unrest continues? And both are intensi- fied by the situation of the express com- panies, however much they may owe their present plight to past stupidities. One does not have to be that worst of offenders, a "reactionary," or an inves- tor in railway securities, to see how great is the opportunity for constructive statesmanship on both sides, for the peace policy that Mr. Wilson outlined. That, we take it, is to be peace, with honor and justice, without mercy for corporate wrong-doers of the New Haven stripe, but with protection to those who would bury the dead past and play fair. Has not the time come, they ask, when they may receive a sailing chart to which they may adhere for at least a few years? Are they not to be freed from their present position of being un- der fire at once from all sides and at the mercy of demagogues, labor unions, experimenters, diversified government agencies controlling them without re- gard to one another's acts, and of the several Legislatures? THE IRISH IN OUR PUBLIC LIFE. In his series of articles on immigra- tion, Professor Ross gets round in the April Century to "The Celtic Tide." His discussion of Irish emigration to this country is brief, but seems to be well fortified by fact, and is not unsympathet- ic in spirit. A fuller treatment would bring out many points that Professor Ross here passes over. For example, he has previously given expression to the serious disquietude which many Ameri- cans feel to-day in connection with the new-comers from South European coun- tries. But their grandfathers were just as acutely concerned over the Irish emi- grants. These were, sixty and seventy years ago, as much disliked and even dreaded as are, by some, Slav and Italian to-day. America put up with those early Irish emigrants in much the same spirit in which it has had to reconcile itself to the later Italian tide. In both in- stances, it is the Caliban argument that prevails: as 'tis, We cannot miss him: he does make our fire, Fetch in our wood, and serves in of- fices That profit us. It may be asked, however, if the large immigration of to-day will not, half a century hence, look as harmless and even desirable as does now the Irish immigration of 1845-55. That the flow from Ireland has so greatly fallen off appears to be one reason why Professor Ross looks at it with a more kindly eye. The only good immigration is a dead immigration! So remote has become the old notion of an "Irish peril" in the United States that now one of the main questions dis- cussed is whether Irishmen have risen as they should to their opportunities in this country. This comes within the scope of Professor Ross's article. We may remark, by the way, that there
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March 26, 1914] The Nation 321 could hardly be a better proof of Irish assimilation here, and of the senseless- ness of the old fears about this element of our immigration, than sober debate whether Irish-Americans are as prom- inent as they ought to be in the profes- sions and the sciences. It is Professor Ross's opinion that they are not. "Those of Irish blood," he says, "are far from manning their share of the responsible posts in American society. Their con- tribution by no means matches that of an equal number of the old American breed." This would imply that the old American breed is holding its own fairly well, and is in no immediate danger. But it is also fair to remember that we must not make up a final judgment too hastily. Professor Ross justly observes that "it is too soon yet to expect the Irish strain [in America] to show what it can do." One thing, however, it has shown that it can do, though Professor Ross makes no direct reference to it. The Irish in the United States have displayed a won- derful talent for public affairs. Amer- ica is always mainly in mind when the old taunt is repeated that the Irish are able to govern every country except their own. The distinction won by Irishmen outside of Ireland is, indeed, an old theme. It was dwelt upon with a kind of proud humility by that great- est of all Irishmen, Edmund Burke. In France, in Spain, in South America, Irish names have been illustrious. But in the United States a great door, and effectual, has been opened to the Irish genius for politics. Its flexibility, its innate generosity, its human sympa- thies, together with an easy mastery of political machinery, has led it on to tri- umphs quite out of proportion to the numbers of Irishmen in this country. One sign of this Irish technical facility in politics is seldom noticed, but de- serves a word. Irishmen are natural- born parliamentarians. The best parlia- mentarians— in the sense, we mean, of ready grasp of rules of procedure — at Al- bany have for years been Irishmen. In the House of Representatives, to-day, an Irishman, Mr. Fitzgerald, is an acknow- ledged master in that art. It cannot be said, by even the warm- est friends of Irishmen, that their con- tributions to our public life have always been worthy or inspiring. Boston is now spoken of as an Irish city. It has had a succession of Irish Mayors. But their rule has not invariably been what it should be. It is not necessary to re- fer to Tammany, so long stamped by Irish dominance. The names of Kelly and Croker and Murphy do not feed Irish pride. Indeed, they are well known to be a cause of grief to truly patriotic Irishmen, whether in Ireland or in the United States. Irish priests and other visitors from Ireland have been known to express in private their astonishment and mortification at the kind of Irish- men who had seemed to come to honor in this country. Tammany in New York has been a standing and effective argu- ment against Home Rule in Ireland. But this, it may be believed, is in the way of being corrected. The admirers of the Irish race will at least hope that their extraordinary gifts in politics may be more and more used for the bettering of our public life; so that hereafter, in the struggles for higher things which are bound to mark our democracy, the rec- ord may be made, as it was long ago in one of the famous battles of France: "Nos Irlandois s'y distinguerent." PROFESSORS IN COUNCIL. A circular letter was sent out in the spring of 1913 looking to the forma- tion of a national association of uni- versity professors. The motive actu- ating the signers was indicated in the statement that, besides his interest in his specialty, the university professor is "concerned, as a member of the legisla- tive body of his local institution, with many questions of educational policy which are of more than local signifi- cance," and that "he is a member of a professional body which is the special custodian of certain ideals, and the or- gan for the performance of certain func- tions essential to the well-being of soci- ety." And the general purposes were declared to be "to promote a more gen- eral and methodical discussion of the educational problems of the university; to create means for the authoritative expression of the public opinion of the profession; and to make possible collec- tive action, on occasions when such ac- tion seems called for." The letter was sent out by Johns Hopkins professors to members of the faculties of nine oth- er universities, and the response was fa- vorable in all cases; a conference on the subject was held last November; and now announcement is made of the names of a committee, representing the chief departments of learning and near- ly all the leading universities of the country, whose task it will be to take the steps necessary for complete organ- ization. The distinctive feature of the Ameri- can university is the part played by the president. Nothing even distantly re- sembling it exists, we believe, in any European country. That he is not the absolute monarch he is sometimes rep- resented as being is true enough; but the limitations upon his power are of- ten of the same nature as those which have as a general rule obtained in the case of what are usually designated as absolute monarchies in the history of nations. No university president thinks of setting up his personal will as the sole guide of his policy. Apart altogeth- er from such check as may be exercised by the board of trustees, or other for- mal governing body, he usually consults the chief professors in any matter re- lating to their respective departments; and moreover there exists in every uni- versity some form or other of faculty organization. Nevertheless, the president, in most American universities, is the centre of power, the chief fountain of favor and disfavor, of advancement or retardation; and his disposition to- wards any question, whether relating to an individual or to a principle or a policy, usually has, or may have if he chooses, the controlling influence in its determination. This feature of the American univer- sity system has been the subject of end- less comment; but there exists along- side it, and somewhat resembling it in nature and effect, another feature that has attracted less notice. What goes on within any university is, in a certain sense, its own private affair; and it may easily happen that it is not the presi- dent, but one or more professors or pro- fessorial cliques, in whom real power rests, and by whom it is improperly ex- ercised. Now there has not been devel- oped in our country either a central organ — such as the Ministry of Public Instruction in European countries, for example— or a well-defined body of university tradition, to operate as a check upon any bad tendencies or un- just practices which may thus develop in a given institution. When such a state of things arises, whether the blame for it belongs to president or to
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322 T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2543 professors, all that is apt to happen is a certain amount of grumbling, perhaps of indignation; it is only in extreme cases that there is likely to be any overt action. It may be that some pro- fessor is the victim of downright perse- cution; it may be that manageable medi- ocrity is systematically preferred to high ability which is somewhat more difficult to handle; it may be that inde- pendence of thought or freedom of speech is frowned upon and discourag- ed. Whatever the trouble may be, ap- peal is impossible to any but the little circle within the university itself, which is to all intents and purposes a close corporation. That the new association may supply to the American university professor a basis for a wider and more catholic ap- peal in questions of moment, that it may become the means of promoting a professional spirit at once finer and stronger than that which has hitherto been general, must be the hope of all who are interested in the most truly distinctive service which universities render to a nation. Upon their imme- diate promotion of the general welfare, not only through the diffusion of intel- ligence and the improvement of educa- tion, but also through efforts expressly directed to economic and social ends, emphasis has been laid in these latter days as never before. This tendency is bound to continue; and the benefits that will flow from our universities in these ways are quite beyond calculation. But it is not difficult to imagine these results obtained by other instrumentali- ties, if the institution we call the uni- versity were not historically in exist- ence, and ready to furnish them. The thing that the university alone can sup- ply— the thing, at all events, in which neither history nor imagination sug- gests a possible substitute — is the pres- ervation of high intellectual ideals, the maintenance of noble traditions of science and learning. Of these ideals and traditions university presidents, however masterful, university admin- istrators, however efficient, cannot pos- sibly serve as the custodians. It is upon the men whose business is not to ad- minister but to teach and to learn, not to manage but to investigate and to in- spire, that we must depend for keeping alive the sacred fire. And if we read aright the announcement of its pur- poses, the new association is above all to be devoted to the strengthening of the conception of the professor's status. THREE YEARS OF THE DRAMA LEAGUE. The Drama League of America is cele- brating the completion of three years of existence. The review in Drama by the League's president, Mrs. Best, shows how this body suggests comparison with plans for state-aided drama. It is not merely a discriminating agency, but an active force in the encouragement of good plays. Founded on the idea of avoid- ing bad plays by getting skilled judg- ment of them, the League has come to have something of the group's power to create what it wants. Standing for the demand for better-written, better-produc- ed drama, it helps thus to insure the supply. It does not believe in the abil- ity of the mass to get what it wants, inasmuch as helter-skelter theatre-going gives the people small voice. The League also distrusts popular taste it- self, and insists upon a clearer under- standing than most have of the differ- ence between Galsworthy and Veiller. It tries to form a coherent group large enough to demand attention, and to sup- port those higher stage ventures often looked upon as precarious. "Take up the cultured man's burden" is a dreaded cry nowadays, and the League's progress is the more creditable in that it has had to make head against it. Its 90,000 members constitute in thirty-five of the largest American and Canadian cities units of genuine influ- ence, while a cooperative branch is be- ing formed in England. Its officials, from university professors to business men, are well known. An education de- partment reaches libraries, colleges, high schools, and a great many chil- dren, and in certain country and city districts paid workers are organizing amateur dramatics. It cooperates with a publishing house in issuing inexpensive plays, ten having now been planned for. But its main work is in establishing cir- cuits through the smaller cities, by bind- ing several hundred or a thousand peo- ple to take tickets to half a dozen better plays than they could otherwise obtain. Companies for one-night stands may be carried from coast to coast on the as- sured support of a series of towns, while a national taste is being formed on which managers desirous of raising standards may depend. The members should reap the double benefit of being kept in literary touch with the theatre, and — -where they live in the larger cit- ies— being spared the practical vexation of experimenting on performances. Chi- cago last year had 150 plays: 100 were musical comedies, and therefore not con- sidered; of the other fifty, sixteen were approved and bulletined. If the bulle- tins were taken as even a partial guide, thousands of hours and dollars must have been saved. The League says noth- ing of unapproved plays; and so long as its list is short, silence cannot be con- strued as condemnation. This promising organization will plainly count for little if the member- ship is not responsive. A year ago Wal- ter Pritchard Eaton found Western members (chiefly women) enthusiastic in attending meetings, but laggards in attending plays. The latter cost mon- ey; recommendations often ran counter to this or that critic, or this or that neighbor; many liked the sense of be- longing to the organization, but were indifferent to its work. Possibly, this has changed, for Mrs. Best reports the word of certain managers that receipts swell on the first favorable bulletin, and of others that approval has saved some plays. The idea is to create a ticket-buying patronage by common-sense means, not elevating the theatre above the audi- ence, not cultivating the "problem" drama, but supporting tragedy, comedy, farce, and melodrama alike, if only they are good of their kind. While its influ- ence may always safely be exerted up- wards, it has to reflect that in the pres- ent closeness of touch between the pub- lic and the stage, errors of taste or too great conservatism would be fatal. The significance, less of the League and similar organizations than of a larg- er impulse behind them, is two-fold. The dramatic production of the last half- century in Europe and America has cos- mopolitan qualities, and so transcends national lines that it is the common property of every stage. Granting prac- tical difficulties, it is unfortunate that more of what is admittedly good in all this bulk should not be often rep- resented. Thus Chicago, in one of whose suburbs the League originated, has a Little Theatre that has found a public ready to crowd to Murray's translations of Euripides, and to Synge, Yeats,
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March 26, 1914] The Nation 323 Maeterlinck, and Sudermann. Togeth- er with this goes the new yearning manifested in small places. The the- atre as it now exists is too purely met- ropolitan. The opportunity for inferior plays to scour the country banditti-like and hold up the smaller cities, hungry to see anything and only half-conscious that the modern stage "has such a scope to show her pride," has had too few checks. When this hunger organizes it- self, and presses its wishes home to the centres of play-production, the second- rate play may be exposed to a healthier and stronger competition. A WELCOME NOTE. For some time to come the barnyards of Iowa are to be the scene of cheerful tumult. As the rural free delivery con- tinues to pour into Iowa copies of the maiden speech delivered last week by Mr. Vollmer in the House of Represen- tatives, proud cacklings and duckings will arise from within the wired poultry stockade. Grunts of philosophic but pro- found satisfaction will issue from the pig-pen behind the barn. And within the barn there will be lowings of con- templative and approving comment. If the soil and the climate of Iowa had a voice they, too, would join in the chorus of self-congratulation; and the farmer might rub his jaw with satisfaction. For even in the pages of the Congres- sional Record, the official organ devoted to the regularly recurrent praise of na- ture and nature's God, one must search far to find so handsome a tribute to the good will of Providence as it manifests itself in the agricultural statistics of Iowa. We welcome the reappearance of the fine old native type of Congression- al eloquence which for some time has been submerged by the dry discussion of free foreign bottoms and interlock- ing directorates. The forces of change may play fiercely about us, but America will be America so long as new Con- gressmen from the South remember to pay tribute to the soft murmurings of the Chattahoochee, and new Congress- men from the North lay wreaths of laurel at the feet of the American hen. We welcome Mr. Vollmer's impas- sioned defence of the American farm- er as a type of American manhood and its capacities. We have latterly fallen into the habit of self-dispraise. From comparing our cities with the cities of Europe to our disadvantage, we have passed on to comparing the foreigner's farming methods with our own. After pointing out how much better they do things in Diisseldorf than they do in Chicago, we have gone on to show how much better the market-gardeners around Paris do than the farmers of our prairies. And so the legend has grown up of a rather shiftless American farmer who doesn't dig deep enough, who doesn't feed his soil enough, who doesn't rotate scientifically. The farmer has had his turn under the muckrak- er's harrow. But what are the facts? Turn to Iowa: Argentine corn! Have you seen it? ired with our Iowa corn, it is a measly, scrawny article, like popcorn, and full of bugs. All the imports of ine corn for a year would not furnish a morning breakfast for the hogs of Iowa — - Loud grunts of "Hear, Hear" from the hogs of Iowa. All the importation of Chinese eggs would not furnish a nestegg apiece for the hens of my State — Shrill soprano cackle of "Right you are" from the hens of Iowa. I have travelled all through Central and South America. The Latin-Ameri- can is not yet born who can compete with the Iowa farmer in raising corn. One need not be a farmer or the son of a farmer to feel the blood of pride mantling the check of patriotism. It is good that such things be said. Cheering as a sign that the natural optimism of this people is far from dead, Mr. Vollmer's remarks take on profound significance in the light they throw upon a political revolution that is now working itself out. For the extra- ordinary fact must not be overlooked that Nature has been pouring forth her bounties in Iowa under a Democratic Administration. The American hen has been laying like mad although a Dem- ocrat is in the White House. The American hog has been growing tender- loins and bacon at an amazing rate with a Democratic majority in the Senate. Iowa's swelling ears of corn have been growing faster than Argentine corn with Champ Clark as Speaker of the House. What Republican Administration can show a snowfall that may even com- pare with the heavy drifts that have recently been blanketing the farmer's fields, protecting his young growing things, and steeping his soil in benefi- cent moisture? Thus, in the great shifting of party principles and programmes, it may yet prove to be the decisive factor that the rainfall, the temperature, the wind out- put from Medicine Hat, and the fre- quent volcanic eruptions in Alaska, with their perceptible effect on climatic conditions all over this country, are no longer to be found exclusively in the Republican platform, but may confident- ly be expected to be handled with equal, if not superior, courage and statesman- ship, by the Democratic party. Admit- ted to power on sufferance, the Demo- cratic party may yet develop strength in quarters least expected. The farmer will naturally go with the party in whose hands are the lightning and the thundercloud. This leaves the Republican party in a parlous state. The Progressives have stolen a great many of its votes. The Democratic party has now stolen most of its clothes — the retired farmer with his house on Main Street and his Ford machine ever ready to take him to church or the moving-picture show, the growing deposits in the country banks, the swelling crops, the climate; above all things, the American hen. We dis- tinctly visualize Uncle Joe Cannon gaz- ing sadly through the henyard wiring and muttering, Et tu, Brute t Foreign Correspondence THE DEPORTED SOUTH AFRICANS —AN UNUSUAL DEMONSTRATION IN HYDE PARK. London, March 7. Any one who arrived at the Marble Arch entrance to Hyde Park on the first Sunday of this month could see at a glance what exceptional interest had been aroused by the meeting called to welcome the South African "exiles." Four o'clock was the time fixed for the be- ginning of the speeches. By that hour the multitude was already far larger than the normal total of what is regard- ed as a very successful Hyde Park dem- onstration. Walking south to the Hyde Park Corner entrance, one found the vanguard of the chief procession begin- ning to pass through another dense crowd. It was not until about six o'clock that the last detachment made its way in. The deported leaders themselves marched under the words "Exiled! They Conquer." Other legends were "Welcome to the Deported," "Unity now Interna- tional," "Your Liberty at Stake," "Work- ers of London and Workers of South Africa Stand United against Botha." Out of the hundreds of mottoes displayed on these banners, only two or three could be regarded as at all violent or abusive. Not every one, of course, among the hundreds of thousands of persons pres- ent could be claimed as a sympathizer. It was just the kind of Sunday after- noon, with its bright sunshine and genial air, that would tempt into Hyde Park — its pleasant sward fenced off by no "Keep off the grass" notices — large numbers of people who cared little about politics. Doubtless, too, mere curiosity to see what the deported leaders were like attracted a good many. The Monday papers pub- lished a snapshot showing F. E. Smith, the Unionist member of Parliament, with silk hat on his head and cigar in his mouth, listening to one of the speeches. Many others, certainly, came to the park and went away again with no more demo- cratic zeal than Mr. Smith. But the welcome that was given the "exiles" when they reached their several plat- forms, and the enthusiasm with which the nine meetings carried the resolution of the day, showed how strong a body of opinion supported the protest. A big demonstration of this kind is of some value as an index to popular feel- ing, especially in cases where for some reason or other it has not been able to find adequate expression in Parliament or the press. The gathering was a Lon- don crowd pure and simple. The proces- sion was not swollen, as at so many pre- vious Hyde Park meetings, by deputa- tions from the country. This rally gave one some impression of the forces of London labor. Yet of the sixty-one mem- bers for London constituencies in the present House of Commons, how many belong to the Labor party? Only three. Is it any wonder that so many of the younger and more impatient spirits with- in the labor ranks are declaring that the hope of accomplishing anything by Par-
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324= The Natio n [Vol. 98, No. 2543 liamentary representation is only a de- lusion? A great demonstration, too, is a useful corrective of mistakes made by the press la its estimates of popular feeling. In commenting on the Hyde Park meetings, the Daily News — one of the few papers that have realized the significance of re- cent events in South Africa — truly says that the action of the Botha Government has touched popular instincts in a man- ner and to a degree of which organized political opinion has very little concep- tion. "It is clear that the papers do not recognize it. It is fairly certain that none of the regular political parties has any real appreciation of the magnitude of the storm brewing. This is not an ordinary labor agitation, any more than the pas- sionate protest against Chinese serfdom was an ordinary labor agitation. What the man in the crowd feels, perhaps, rath- er than thinks and says, is that, in their dealings with these men, Gen. Smuts and his colleagues have struck a blow not at trade unionism only, but at the very heart of civilized democracy of any kind." The British Government and Parlia- ment, one may take it for granted, will do nothing. If the Colonial Secretary's doctrine of colonial independence is cor- rect, there is no power at home to inter- pose the slightest check on Gen. Botha so long as he can obtain a majority in South Africa. This very helplessness will only embitter the feeling of those who re- sent the Botha policy as an affront to the British traditions of liberty and justice. Before this trouble arose, there was al- ready good reason to fear a general strike on English railways next summer. The effect of the South African martial law and deportations upon the temper of the labor world has been such as to make this prospect almost a certainty. H. W. H. CARNIVAL IN SPAIN — ONE-ACT PLAYS— THE OPERA. Madrid, March 8. The chief attraction of the carnival, which, at the beginning of Lent, tempo- rarily drives politics from the field, is the procession on the Recoletos, the chief boulevard, in the gayly decorated car- riages and picturesque floats. A prize of $600 is offered for the most artistic effort, but on various occasions, including this carnival, no entry was accounted worthy of the first prize. This is due to the fact that the carnival season here in Madrid is getting to be more and more a festival of the poor, and the appearance of most of the floats is flimsy and cheap. Various wealthy families adorn their carriages with flowers and ribbons, and make a picturesque addition to the spectacle, but the floats are the criterion. Another feature has driven out the purely artistic effort, and that is the op- portunity of advertising. Thus a very successful float filled with gay young peo- ple, dressed as hunters and huntresses and representing "Valor and Beauty," may be followed by a grotesque figure silting in a huge shoe and carrying the ad- vertisement of the only shop worthy of your patronage. An Insurance com- pany also entered a float in which the most prominent object was a sign urging every one to get his or her life insured, and to do it now. It all reminded me of my boyhood days, when, after the won- ders of a Barnum circus parade, came the anti-climax behind the last elephant in the form of a darky driving a wagon with a huge sign extolling some quick- lunch counter or a new brand of easy- chair tobacco. In the smaller cities some of the old- er traditions have fortunately been pre- served. Thus the procession of giants, grotesque figures representing in some places various nationalities, in others characters from pictures or folklore, still issues forth, and after parading through the chief streets and performing a cu- rious local dance in the principal square, enters the church itself. There, accord- ing to the ancient tradition of some towns, the figures repeat their dance before the image of the Virgin, or of some saint, no doubt in order to let him share the merriment and to afford him a little amusement in the midst of the ennui of unending heavenly bliss. At the end of the festivities, the giants are stored away in the sacristies, to show that they are not only sanctioned by the church, but form a part of the various religious pro- cedures and ceremonies. The theatres and places of amusement here hardly resemble those anywhere else. During the days of carnival, espe- cially, when it was frequently suicidal to remain out of doors, the small theatres, which give only one-act plays, were crowded. The briefness of these per- formances allows the presentation of several plays in the course of the after- noon and evening. Indeed, the next morning should be included, for it is often two o'clock before the theatre closes. The striking feature of these per- formances is their utter lack of formality. They begin half an hour late, or more; they have been insufficiently rehearsed because they are apt to be taken off with surprising haste after unfriendly demonstrations on the first night; the prompter plays the chief role, and the heroine is likely to find him more inter- esting than her passionate lover; the musicians drop in casually smoking, and with their hats on, and by and by the leader appears, which may indicate that the audience will not be kept waiting much longer. Sounds of scene-shifting continue, curious faces appear at the side of the curtain to ascertain whether the number and temper of those present de- mand a prompt beginning. Presently the orchestra strikes up and a character- istic, light musical comedy has begun. The scene generally opens on a village square, which enables the composer to put the audience into an expectant frame of mind. Many things can happen on a village square, the worst being a song by an untrained but willing chorus, made bearable by some rather clever dancing. Then the hero comes in and discloses the difficulties he finds in the conquest of his love. When you feel perfectly certain that she will never have him, she enters, sings a song with her eyes fas- tened on the director, and finally disap- pears with her lover, in defiance of the unsuspecting lather. The scene then shifts to Paris. I have never been able to determine why in almost every play the scene shifts to a brilliantly lighted Parisian hall. Be that as it may, the cli- max of the intrigue is now reached. The eloping couple appear; so does a fabu- lously wealthy American; champagne flows in rivers; flimsily dressed danseuses show the possibilities of night life in a great city ; songs and choruses succeed each other. In the meantime, the hero- ine resists the bribes of the wealthy American; the father arrives in hot pur- suit, but is convinced of his helplessness by the facts of the situation, and the cur- tain falls with the lovers grouped near the prompter's box, while the prompter himself hands a cigarette to the irate, but appeased father. The performances at the Royal Opera House are no less characteristic of Madrid. No mise en scene of a more lux- urious character could be devised; evi- dently neither time nor money is spared to make the costumes and the decora- tions equal to any in Europe. This win- ter many Italian operas are being pre- sented and also a few of Wagner's are at- tempted. I use the last word for many reasons. In the first place Germanic traditions are as foreign to these people as are the customs of the Chinese. In the second place Italian and Spanish sing- ers rarely interpret Wagner in a way sat- isfactory or even endurable to a German musician. Finally, it is an exceptional Spaniard who will understand music such as Wagner's. The musical rhythm of the people here is, as it has been for cen- turies, purely Oriental — cadences, melo- dies, and trills. Wagner, therefore, seems to enjoy a success based on his great name rather than any local apprecia- tion. The Italian opera, on the other hand, is the greatest drawing card, and is gen- erally presented with a good deal of fire; and, when the singers are imported from the leading opera houses, is thoroughly successful. R. S. HOLLAND'S FINANCIAL DIFFICUL- TIES—OLD-AGE PENSIONS — THE NAVY. The Hague, March 14. Holland, like many other countries, an- nually publishes a book containing the official trade statistics. But the man who has to make use of such tables had bet- ter take any figures than these official "returns." This untrustworthiness may be excused on two grounds. In the first place many kinds Of goods arc free from im- port duties, and it is not necessary to take account of the quantities thereof coming into this country. Secondly, quan- tities of goods cross the frontier daily to be re-exported. It is in relation to value that figures are altogether wrong. Again tho explain at ion is easy, but can hardly servo as an excuse. Tho statistical service was or ganized in 1850, and the prices of various l a1 thai tl were taken as a basis to calculate the value o^ the trade. That these prices have va- ried in sixty years has only recently 1 upon t lie official mind. I 'ei u \ I .- 1 > 1 hark, worth $20 a kilogram then, is still regarded as worth the Mini
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March 26, 1914] The ]STation 325 though it can now be obtained at about one-hundredth of that price. A thorough overhauling of this state of affairs has been promised and a bill has already reached the second Chamber pro- viding for reforms. When the trade re- turns for 1914 are published next year a considerable diminution of the value of imports and exports is likely to ap- pear, but this will be purely clerical. The old-age pensions accorded to sep- tuagenarians by the previous Administra- tion prove far more expensive than it was thought they would, and other measures — the increase of the colonial navy, for instance — demand many millions. Mr. Bertling, the Minister of Finance, is in a far from enviable position, as he has to find the money, not only for what the present Government does, but also for the measures passed by its predecessor. That Administration proposed to revise the tariff and to make it fiscal and "mild- ly" protecting at the same time. But this met with an unmistakable "no" from the electorate. Other financial measures, such as a 10 per cent, surtax on several duties and a tobacco tax, were vehement- ly opposed also, the former as a "make- shift unworthy of a real financier," the latter as an intolerable burden on the Dutch, who smoke as soon as they can walk to a cigar shop. Minister Bertling, however, cannot have his single income tax passed in time to use it this year, and thus has to resort to the makeshifts which were condemn- ed in his predecessor. Even he has announced a "technical" revision of the tariff, a tobacco tax, and surtaxes. And the latter are much higher than those paid at present. Thus on the death duty a surtax of 20 per cent, is proposed, on the earned income a duty of 20 per cent., on the unearned income a duty of 25 per cent., and on the income tax, levied on companies with limited liability, a surtax of even 50 per cent, is asked. There are those who think that even the $100,000,000 desired by the State is not sufficient to guarantee Holland's in- dependence, much less that of her colo- nies. At present the Dutch fleet is not more than a make-believe. The ships are small and for the most part too old to be of any account in war. There is not a single dreadnought among them — noth- ing to protect the commercial fleet, Java, and the rest of the Indian Archipelago. Several Royal committees have studied the problem, and it is probable that be- fore long an Indian squadron will be built. In the meantime private people are do- ing their best to support the State. The firm of Driessen, cocoa manufacturers, have devised a novel way to assist the Navy League in collecting money for warships. Every packet of chocolate, every tin of cocoa contains coupons of a value corresponding to the size of the packet. Buyers are requested to re- turn these coupons to Messrs. Driessen, who undertakes to send the amount print- ed on the coupon to the Navy League. It is only a matter of 2,000,000,000 two- penny tablets or thereabout. Every Dutch man, woman, or child to eat one tablet a day, and the Junketer may be put on the stocks within a year! Was there ever a sweeter way to show one's patriotism? F. H. A. Parties and Men. SOCIAL AMENITIES IN POLITICAL LIFE. By SIR HENRY LUCY ("Toby, M. P."). On the opening day of the famous case of Bardell versus Pickwick the defen- dant observed a serjeant with a fat body and a red face who nodded in a friendly manner to Mr. Serjeant Snub- bin and said it was a fine morning. "Who's that red-faced man," whispered Mr. Pickwick to his solicitor, "who said it was a fine morning?" "Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz," was the answer. "He's oppos- ed to us; he leads on the other side." It is recorded how Mr. Pickwick "was on the point of inquiring with great ab- horrence of the man's cold-blooded vil- lany how Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz, who was counsel for the opposite party, dared to presume to tell Mr. Serjeant Snub- bin, who was counsel for him, that it was a fine morning," when he was in- terrupted by the entrance of the judge. This touch of nature, noted by Dick- ens, makes akin the political world on both sides of the Atlantic. In their so- cial relations opposing parties in the various Legislatures dwell apart. They lunch and dine together, strictly within the lines of party demarcation, and re- gard with suspicion interchange of so- cial friendship with adversaries. An exception to the rule is to be found in London. Party spirit is not less bit- ter, but it does not extend beyond the limits of the actual battlefield. In the dining-room of the House of Com- mons particular tables are in a few in- stances set apart for particular com- panies. There is, for example, one at which His Majesty's Ministers sit. No private Member would presume to join the circle. Analogous provision is made for leaders of the Opposition. The Irish Nationalists also have their par- ticular quarter in the dining-room. But under the mellowing influence of the prospect of Home Rule, they are less exclusive than they were in Parnell's time or in the early days of Mr. Red- mond's succession to the leadership. They may frequently be seen dining at tables where the main body of private Members promiscuously sit. This disposition to fraternize with the enemy at the social board is in increas- ing degree displayed at private gather- ings. There remains a certain line of distinction. If the host and hostess be- long to the Liberal party, the majority of guests are of that faith. The rule applies with equal foree to the houses of Conservatives. But at what usually turn out to be the most successful par- ties there is a leavening, whether of Liberalism or Toryism as the case may be. The same circumstance exists in the case of the great "crushes" at which the opening of a new session is cele- brated. The Prime Minister and his wife are "At Home" to his supporters in both houses, and to their wives and daughters. On the same night the lead- er of the Opposition throws open the stately rooms of Lansdowne House. The vast proportion of both guests belong to their several political parties. But in both houses there is a fair sprinkling of the other side, usuaUy represented by its most popular members. The rupture of the Liberal party fol- lowing on the introduction of Glad- stone's first Home Rule bill dealt a blow at this happy condition of affairs from which in individual cases it has not yet recovered. There is nothing so bit- ter as the animosity of severed friends. The five-score members of the Liberal party who followed Mr. Chamberlain and Lord Hartington in secession from their party would hold no truck with former comrades. The latter were equal- ly bitter in their resentment of those whom they regarded as deserters from the Liberal flag. It so happened that what were at the time known as Dis- sentient Liberals included the major- ity of those accustomed to play the host. Mr. Chamberlain gave many dinner par- ties throughout the session. Previous to the break-up of 1886, Devonshire House was the splendid centre of social life for the Liberal party. Thereafter its doors were angrily closed against old familiar faces. The only member of Gladstone's Cab- inet who managed to retain friendly re- lations with former colleagues was Sir William Harcourt. Mr. Chamberlain by chance meeting his once bosom friend, John Morley, passed him with- out sign of recognition. Sir George Trevelyan, with whom for years he was accustomed to exchange hospitalities, became a particular aversion, inas- much as, having at the outset seceded with the rest, he, upon reflection, went back to the old fold. But up to the time of Sir William Harcourt's death there was no interruption of intimacy between him and Mr. Chamberlain. The same friendly relations were maintain- ed with Sir Henry James, afterwards Lord James of Hereford, a man who for conscience sake sacrificed the blue ribbon of his profession when within his grasp. When in 1886 the landslide on the Home Rule question rent the Liberal party in twain, it was made known to Henry James that in Glad- stone's reconstituted Government the woolsack was at his disposal. He was, however, a convinced anti-Home Ruler, and turned aside from the luring bait A pretty tale hangs by the uninter- rupted amity of Harcourt and Henry James. One day, in conversation with Harcourt, the late Lord Morris, one of the wits with which Ireland occasional- ly endows a Saxon Parliament, remark- ed upon the charm of this personal In- cident in the storm and stress cf party warfare.
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32(3 T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2543 "Yes," said Harcourt, with a wistful, far-away look in his eyes, "we art, as you may say, brothers." "So were Cain and Abel," murmured Lord Morris. As illustrating the happy state of the social relations of political antagonists in the Parliamentary circle, I may men- tion an incident of personal experience. During the term of his Premiership Mr. Arthur Balfour had accepted an invita- tion to dine at my house. Casting about for men whom he would particularly like to meet, I thought of Sir William Harcourt. On the face of it, the experi- ment was exceptionally risky. As lead- er of the H use Mr. Balfour was in per- sonal charge of an Education bill whose genesis and provisions were abhorrent to Liberals. Harcourt ably led desper- ate resistance to the bill. At that pe- riod there was being tried the experi- ment of adjourning the sittings of the House of Commons from 7 P. M. till 9 o'clock in order that Members might dine. On the day of our dinner an ex- treme controversial point had come up for discussion on the bill in committee. From three o'clock till seven Arthur Balfour thundered across the table at Harcourt, who, the light of battle in his eyes, vigorously replied. At eight o'clock they unexpectedly met at dinner and were undisguisedly pleased at the rencontre. Early in the course of the meal Har- court announced that, in view of the urgency of the position of the Educa- tion bill, he must be back in his place at nine o'clock, when the sitting would be resumed. Arthur Balfour smiled at this noble exhibition of devotion to duty, but made no remark. He recurred to the subject later when, consulting his watch, he found it was five minutes to nine. "Harcourt," he pleasantly said, "it's time you were off." Harcourt, who loved a cigar after dinner and the talk that accompanied It, gloomily looked across the table. Then he rose and said, "I beg to move the closure," and stalked from the room. The Prime Minister, who, by the way, does not smoke, was in no hurry to de- part. He read in the papers of the next morning how the leader of the Opposi- tion, rising at ten o'clock, indignantly protested against the absence of the right honorable gentleman in charge of the bill. "Where is the Prime Minister?" he inquired, thumping the table with closed fist, and with familiar gesture looking round to his supporters, who responded with strident cheer. "He ought to be in his place to answer for this iniqui- tous bill." Among the charges brought from the opposite benches against Mr. Asquith is that he is too frequently disposed to dine out when the House Is in session, and may not be counted on to return before eleven o'clock, the hour of ad- journment. it must be admitted that Lhe custom on the part of a Prime Min- ister is comparatively modern. While Disraeli was Prime Minister he never, or hardly ever, dined out while the House was sitting. Stafford Northcote followed his old chief's example. W. H. Smith improved upon it in character- istically genial manner. He had a spe- cially prepared dinner sent to his pri- vate room behind the Speaker's chair, provided his own wines and cigars, and invited a few of his colleagues or prin- cipal supporters to share the comforts of the situation, their consciences made easy by knowledge that they were with- in sound of the division bell. As for the leader of the House, he was at in- stant call should a sudden turn of events demand his presence on the Trea- sury Bench. Mr. Gladstone during his successive Premierships rarely dined at the House. His official residence in Down- ing Street was, at his habitual speed, within seven minutes' walk. He found the brief exercise and the change of air refreshing. Moreover, he liked to munch his mutton at his own table, with full opportunity to bestow upon each mouthful those thirty-two bites he once declared were necessary to com- plete digestion. But his absence never exceeded in duration the canonical hour. Sometimes at periods of storm and stress it fell considerably within its limits. When he was carrying his sec- ond Home Rule bill through committee I have seen him stride out past the speaker's chair on the stroke of eight o'clock, and watched him return to his place at twenty minutes to nine, having in the meantime bolted his evening meal. Possibly at such crises he would put on a spurt that would reduce his walk there and back to ten minutes. That allowance made, the feat was one that should humble the pride of the American quick-luncher. It was Mr. Arthur Balfour who broke the traditions of the Treasury Bench in this respect. Impatient of the dulness of debate, tired of the tedium of hour- long lounging on the Treasury Bench, he shrank from the supplementary or- deal of eating a not-particularly good dinner in the company of men who, worthily esteemed as colleagues, inevita- bly suffered from the drawback of dif- fusing the sadness of monotony. To dine at the House would be very plea- sant, say once a week, or, better still, ence a fortnight. "Toujours perdrix" is proverbially a distasteful item of the bill of fare. When in succession he came to be Prime Minister or leader of the Opposi- tion, Mr. Balfour, most delightful of companions, found himself the recipient of a stream of invitations to dinner out- side the precincts of Westminster. Af- ter heroically withstanding temptation tor a while, he yielded. In course of time what began as an exception grew into a habit. So powerful was its iorce that it captured both Front Benches, Ministers and ex-Ministers nightly go- ing out to dinner with a light heart. In Disraeli's time, and with occasional ex- ceptions during Gladstone's Premier- ship, the spectacle of a Minister show- ing himself on the Treasury Bench in dinner-dress created something of a sensation. In these days (or rather nights) it is common enough. An Arctic Eye. VISION OF THE SNOWY OWL. Because we human beings have rea- soning powers, we command the laws of physics and optics; we make the waves of light our plaything, thinning, concen- trating, bending, filtering them with lenses, mirrors, and prisms. And when all is done, it is no more than an at- tempt to remedy the degenerate condi- tion of our two eyes. Everything must be judged by comparison. If there were no eyes but our own they would be re- garded as perfect. But there are the eyes of a snowy owl, and when I look deep into those yellow depths, I am conscious of inferiority. In some ways an owl's eyes are much like our own. The yellow irides of the snowy owl face well to the front, giving him binocular vision; so we hail him as. like ourselves, one of the pursuers of earth, who has more need in life to look forward than back. Furthermore, he winks with his upper eye-lid, and not his lower, in which respect he differs from most birds, and he has eye-lashes, too; but why we know not, for his froz- en tundra home is not dusty. Beyond these resemblances, comparison shows us in a sorry light, which is calculated to disturb, momentarily, the poise of the Lord of Creation. In size the owl's eyes far excel ours, but to what extent we fail to grasp un- til we see his skull. Then we realize that he is indeed a specialist. His whole personality is subordinated to vision. He is primarily a pair of great, golden optics; his feathers keeping these eyes warm, his wings serving to carry them from place to place, his food captured chiefly for their nourishment. Their relation to his skull is like that of the brain to ours. Indeed, the cubic con- tents of each of his orbits is actually greater than his brain capacity. We watch his iris carefully and see it expand and contract like the dia- phragm of a camera shutter. In his icy home near the top of the world, when the sun sinks for the last time and the winter night shuts down, these golden irides enlarge and the convex surf the lens draws in every available wave of twilight from star and aurora, re-
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March 26, 1914] The Nation 327 vealing through the dusk the small creatures of fur and feather, and direct- ing their pursuit and capture. But what of the Arctic day when for months the snowy glare is poignant pain and men must guard their eyes with dark glass or flounder about helpless with snow blindness? In the inner corner of our eye we have a little roll of skin, use- less and unsightly, a heritage from some saurian-like ancestor. The owl has also received this third eyelid, but in working order; and when the glare be- comes unbearable, this membranous curtain flows gently outward, filming the eye with translucent tissue. Thus can the eagle look at the sun and live; and the owl scan the light-scorched tun- dra and follow the leaps of an Arctic hare. The interior of. an owl's eye viewed through a simple mirror ophthalmoscope is a marvel'ous sight, seeming, like the X-ray, to admit us to the deeper secrets of the living body. The moment the pencil of light strikes the retina, the iris contracts, and readjusting itself a mo- ment later, reveals the whole back of the inner eye, the blood-orange choroid- al coat and Its delicate pigmentation. Below the level of the pupil is the cu- rious, fan-like pecten, throbbing rhythm- ically, its black tissue crumpled into half a dozen folds. The human eye wholly lacks this structure, and we can only presume that its function is to help nourish the great eye as a whole, or to aid in accommodation. The full face of the snowy owl is one of its human resemblances. Among mammals we find much the same angle of divergence in dogs and bears, both of which look forward in life and not side- ways. But unlike these creatures, the snowy owl has eyes with little pow- er of rotation. The law of com- pensation steps forward and presents the owl with fourteen neck vertebrae, which move upon one another so easily that the bird can describe almost a om- plete turn of its head. The bears, with but half this number of neck bones, can twist only part way around. The owl is like a binocular, revolving light- house; the bear like an oscillating but stationary one. When the owl flies silently through the dusk, it has need to concentrate its vision in but one direction — downward. No prey offers, nor does danger threat- en from the side or above. Now this sort of hunting, peering through the dim light, or, in the Arctic day, searching the far distant tundra, re- quires far-sightedness. But when the ground is under his feet, and his prey within reach, this long vision Is swiftly replaced by the short-sightedness neces- sary to the swift moment of capture. In captivity, with opportunity only to look closely at objects, the snowy owl may become short-sighted or else astigmatic, but we so closely reproduce his normal conditions of life that he thrives for many years. In our climate he will not survive the heat and continued glare of the summer's sun, so at this season the change to Arctic night is simulated by removing him to a cool, dark cellar. Here he eats his daily portion of mice and sparrows, he preens and moults his plumage, occasionally converses in a low tone with his fellows, and still more rarely sends his loud mating call, "craou! craou!" ringing through the night. Or he sits silent and introspec- tive, seeing again perhaps the sights which have been photographed on those great pupils: the coming of the colorful Arctic spring, with the unreal brilliance of tundra blossoms; the eternal warfare of the wolves and the musk-oxen; the inverted sex-life of the phalaropes; and his own home life, the scratched-out hollow in the cool moss, and the half- dozen sombre-clad owlets for which he foraged through all the intense, brief summer of this desolate northland. William Beebe. Correspondence THE NEW "NATION." To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: The announcement sent out with the last number of the Nation will be of great interest to all its old readers and subscribers, and since you generously in- vite them to comment on the changes that are proposed, I am tempted to ex- press my pleasure at the promised restor- ation of the summary of the week's news, which was a valued feature of the Na- tion for a brief period some years ago. At the same time, the "marked increase in the number of pages per issue," which is foreshadowed, fills me with apprehen- sion. It has always seemed to me one of the fine distinctions of the Nation that its high qualities were contained in such compact compass. I should fear that any marked enlargement of its field such as is suggested by the items in your list: "Out of Doors," "The Animal World," "Sports," would result in some loss in its own special distinction of character with- out adequate compensating gain. Through the medium of reviews, these subjects may be said to have received in the past a quite adequate consideration in your columns. May I express the hope that, by expanding them into special features, the Nation will not, with the rest of its enlarged programme, approach too nearly the swollen ranks of the magazine and the bloated weekly editions of the daily paper? Harold B. Warren. Brookllne, Mns^., March 17. To the Editor op The Nation: Sir: The writer begs to do himself the pleasure of saying — apropos of your recent announcement of changes to be made — that the best possible guide to fu- ture enlargement would seem to be your past. Dr. Holmes to the contrary not- withstanding, it Is sometimes possible to steer a ship by reference to its own wake. In point of scholarship, independ- ence, cosmopolitan range of intelligence (whether political or literary), grasp of large subjects, you have conferred on the writer what I may call a "perennial favor," and a most exceptionally great favor, ever since the Nation was first published. You have championed the identical ideas incorporated in President Wilson's leading measures — the "safe and elastic" principles combined in the Cur- rency bill, in particular. I am yours with great respect and genuine gratitude. Reader. Hartford, Conn., March IT. A PLAGUE OP SOCIOLOGICAL, GOSSIP To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: The most incorrigible gossip, par- ticularly if his specialty be sociological gossip, can generally silence criticism by a virtuous protestation of his interest in facts. If he ask foolish questions, he is only "seeking light" ; if he sticks his nose into dirty business practices, he is a devoted truth-seeker, trying to get at the facts. The Almighty Fact has become one of our lesser gods and bids fair to be raised to the rank of the two great gods, the Almighty Dollar and the Al- mighty Ballot. Who is there that dares to question the value of fact and the superlative merit of the fact-seeker? At the risk of sacrilege, it must be said that facts are what the gossip, as well as the scientist, seeks; with this differ- ence: that the scientist values a fact be- cause of its relation to some truth which he believes to be of value, whereas the gossip values it because of the interest he can create by telling it to somebody else. The unthinking world has often mistaken the gossip for the scientist, es- pecially when they have dealt with some of the same facts. How many Government commissions of inquiry have we had during the last fifteen years? Does anybody remember now what they did or what they discov- ered, though at the time our ears tingled with horror at the facts brought out? Has any real good come of any of them? If one wants to know why these moun- tains of published evidence have brought forth so little, let him follow carefully the hearings of any commission of the present day. Let him try to determine how much of their inquiry is mere eco- nomic or sociological gossip, and how much relates itself to any real problem in any logical way. The theory seems to have been that, if we can only pile up a large enough mountain of fact, the truth will, in some magical manner or Dy some process of parturition, emerge. Truth is not to be discovered in that way. Suppose that a court of law, with- out any idea as to what evidence waa relevant and what was not, should pro- ceed to gather volumes of evidence, valu- ing each fact for its own sake, whether It had anything to do with the question at issue or not, how long would it take to determine the merits of even the most ordinary case? What Is especially need- ed in these inquiries is some general Ideas on the relevancy of sociological evi- dence. That is the only thing which will
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328 The ]STation [Vol. 98, No. 2543 prevent them from becoming mere col- lections of gossip. It has long been believed that when, for any considerable time, there are more laborers seeking employment than are wanted by the employers, then labor conditions are bad; but when, for any considerable time, employers are look- ing for more men than there are men to be had, labor conditions are good. Now, this is either true or it is not true. If any commission of inquiry into social conditions doubts it, why does it not test it out and determine, once and for all, whether it is true or not? If it is true, It furnishes the key to the whole situa- tion. All that has to be determined is how the number of men looking for jobs can be reduced, or how the number of jobs looking for men can be increased. If your commission cannot do that, it had better disband as incompetent to handle the question. It would be an interesting inquiry if the members of the commission would spend half their time disguised as em- ployers seeking unskilled labor, and the other half as unskilled laborers seeking employment. By this means, they could determine whether it is harder for an employer to find an unskilled laborer who is willing to work for him than it is for an unskilled laborer to find an employer who is willing to employ him, or vice versa. If it is especially hard for em- ployers to find unskilled laborers who are willing to work for them, obviously we should either have more unskilled la- borers, or fewer employers, or both. Most employers would certainly agree to that, and they would probably set themselves to get more unskilled laborers imported. By the same reasoning, if it is especially hard for unskilled laborers to find em- ployers who are willing to employ them, most obviously we should try to get more employers or fewer unskilled laborers. If it is good policy to import unskilled laborers when they are scarce and hard to find, it ought to be equally good pol- icy to stop importing them when they are so abundant that they have difficulty In finding employers enough to employ them all. No one who is not willing to do this need be taken seriously if he jprofesses interest in "labor." Our industrial system needs a balanced ration; but it seems to have an excess of unskilled labor and a deficiency of em- ployers. Obviously, the ration can be balanced up only by reducing the exces- sive ingredient or adding to the one which is deficient. Why not do both? At the present time we are doing the opposite in both cases. We are not only importing vast numbers of unskilled la- borers, but we are discouraging employ- ers by holding them up to public odium and ridicule, especially if they are un- usually successful. When we need more employers who can start new productive (not acquisitive) enterprises and carry them through successfully, we should hold them up to public esteem. Other- wise we are imitating the old woman who threw clubs at her chickens because they would not come when she wanted them. If we shall stop doing the obviously wrong things, and do one or two obviously , we shall need no more, or very little more, "social" legislation. Moreover, the sociological gossips will be among the unemployed. T. N. Cakver. Harvard University, March 19. BANDELIER. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: By the death of Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier, on Thursday, March 19, in Madrid, Spain, American anthro- pology has lost its most distinguished scholar. It is very doubtful whether his intimate personal knowledge of the races of both North and South America, based as it was on many years of life in the very dwellings of the Indians and ex- panded by exhaustive researches in Span- ish colonial archives, can ever be equalled. It certainly has never been surpassed by his predecessors or con- temporaries. By his death it is as though a storehouse of priceless manuscripts had been burned. Professor Bandelier was born in Berne, on the 6th of August, 1840, and was, at the time of his death, in his seventy- fourth year. It may have been due to his Swiss ancestry that his literary pro- duct seemed to combine German patience and thoroughness with an originality and brilliance that is French. Coming to America at an early age, he soon became interested in the study of American archaeology. At forty we find him in the Southwest and Mexico, where he lived for twelve years, devoting his time to long journeys on foot, living for months at a time in Indian communi- ties without so much as seeing a white face. His zeal for acquiring at first hand an exact knowledge of the manners and customs of the aborigines led him into many dangerous situations. But neither danger, nor, what is far harder to en- dure, the filth and squalor of Indian life, was allowed to interfere with his investi- gations. After five years of field work that would dismay any but the most ar- dent and devoted enthusiast, he settled down in Santa F6 to undertake extensive researches in the documentary evidence. Much of this time he was in charge of studies made for the Hemenway Archae- ological Expedition. In 1892, through the generosity of Henry Villard, Bandelier left Santa F6 for the West Coast of South America. Here, chiefly in Peru and Bolivia, he con- tinued his ethnological, archaeological, and historical studies. For fourteen years he worked on South American subjects In connection with the American Museum of Natural History, gathering a large part of the extensive collection of Peru- vian antiquities which deservedly adds to the fame of that museum. While he was in Lima he married, in 1893, Miss Fanny Ritter, who was destined to become, not only his faithful comrade in the field, but also his enthu- siastic co-worker in the library, and dur- ing many years of the latter part of his life, his eyes as well. In the decii>ii< tin Ml 1 (.-instating of colonial manuscripts, :i field in which he took high rank, Mrs. Bandelier was of the greatest assistance, 1 1, I'm 1 1 tandelier bt came a led urer ai Columbia University and was able to teach in his favorite field: Spanish -Amer- ican literature in its connection with eth- nology and archaeology. Failing eyesight hampered his work but never dampened his zeal. Not long ago he was rejoicing in restored sight and shortly before his death was engaged on further researches in the realm where he was master. The list of his published works reads like a bibliography of American anthro- pology. It includes scientific reports on his archaeological tours; contributions to the history of the Southwest; semi-popu- lar books like "The Gilded Man," a vivid picture of the period of Spanish explora- tion and discovery; and, finally, "The Isl- ands of Titicaca and Koati," the best ex- ample of his ability to combine intensive field study and wide literary research. The last-named book, which was pub- lished by the Hispanic Society of America in 1910, is typical of hia life-long crusade against tradition and for the truth. In it he shows the falsity of many historical myths for which the Spanish chroniclers and their followers were responsible. Prescott had to rely almost entirely on such sources as Garci- lasso Inca de la Vega. Yet that noble Inca left Peru when but a youth, lived forty years in Spain before he began to write, and then with pardonable pride sought to surround the empire of his ancestors with a glamour that should com- mand the respectful admiration of six- teenth-century Europe. Bandelier, by his long years of actual residence among the Indians, was able to remove much of the accumulated crust with which romance and imagination had surrounded the truth. It was due to this ability that his comments on the literature of early Span- ish-America were so valuable. His loss will be felt by students of American anthropology for many years to come. Among his published works, the follow- ing are the best known: "On the Art of War and Mode of Warfare of the Ancient Mexicans," 1877; "On the Distribution and Tenure of Lands, and the Customs with Respect to Inheritance among the Ancient Mexicans," 1878; "On the Social Organization and Mode of Gov- ernment of the Ancient Mexicans" (these three published in the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Annual Reports for 1877, 1878, and 1879); "His- torical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico," 1881; "A Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos," 1881; "Report of an Archaeological Tour in Mexico in 1881," 1884; "Final Report of Investigations among the Indians of the Southwestern United States 1880-5," part 1, 1890, part 2, 1892, two volumes; "Contributions to the History of the Southwestern United States carried on mainly in the years from 1880-1885," 1890 (all these in the Papers of the Archaeological Institute of America, American series, constituting volumes 1-4) ; "The Romantic School of American AiT]i;eoluf,i.s1s" (New York Hist Boa, ins:.); "The Dellffhl Makers" (a novel of Pueblo Indian life), 1892; "The Glided Man (EI Dorado), and ( H her I 'id hits of 111 ■ < Kcupancy of America," 1898; "Aa outline ol the
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March 26, 1914] The ]ST a t i o n 329 Documentary Report on the Relative Antiquity of Ancient Peruvian Burials," 1904; "History of the Zufii Tribe," 1892; "The Indians and Aboriginal Ruins of Cha< hapoyas, Peru," 1907; "The Islands of Titicaca and Koati," 1910. Finis omnia coronat. Hiram Bingham. Vale T'nh'trMtj-, M:ircli 21. NATURE IN THE EARLY EIGH- TEENTH CENTURY. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: In view of the prevalent con- ception that the early eighteenth century had no appreciation of nature, the fol- lowing lines may, perhaps, be of inter- est. They are from an anonymous poem which was published in 1729, under the title, "The Loss of Liberty: or the Fall of I tome." The piece is of some signifi- cance on its own account, as it seems to me to be better than all but a few of the blank-verse poems published before "The Task" (1785). Thomson's "Win- ter," "Spring," and "Summer" had pre- ceded it, and probably influenced it, but it does not particularly recall "The Sea- sons." The lines given below have noth- ing to do with the subject of the poem, but are introduced for their own sakes: The Sun, with all his Glory, from the Sky Descended, an unclouded Blaze ! the East Was darkcn'd o'er with Night's Increasing Shade, 'Till, hy Degrees, the ample Vault of Heav'n Was vell'd amid the Gloom; the Stars alone, With twinkling Radiance sparkled from above, And gemm'd the glitt'rlng Round; 'till In her Wane, The languid-looking Moon, all sickly, pale, And yellow'd o'er with horizontal Mists, (Jleam'd thro' the waving Trees, and drove her Car, In Silence o'er the World ; then slept the Winds, And still'd the murm'ring Wood, the ruffled Stream ; Peace brooded In the Calm, and Nature seem'd To slumber o'er her Charge. Raymond D. Havens. University of Rochester, March 15. IMAGINATION IN COLLEGE. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: Apropos of your first symposium, may I remark that what is left unsaid is as important as what is said ? The stress in every one of the letters is laid only on what the imagination is stimulated to do; our State universities apparently deem themselves altogether successful If they can inspire their students to build better bridges and make two ears of wheat grow where one grew before. No one wishes to belittle the material ser- vices of these institutions to their com- munities. But that such stimulation is the chief function of education is open to question. What of the stimulus — which these gentlemen so completely overlook — to oe, to conceive an ideal of character and conduct? Does not the college which gives its students a conception of a well- ordered life, which inspires them to strive for self -regulation and proper self -devel- opment, also benefit the community? For, after all, very few undergraduates can become Edisons or Burbanks, on however small a scale, but they may be roused to make the best out of themselves. To my mind it is more urgent at present that they be successes as men than as farm- ers or engineers — for the man who aims at realizing a sound humane ideal is quite likely to "get on in the world" and is sure to realize his duties as citizen, while the man whose goal is material, even material service, may live a disorganized and impoverished existence. Herein, I fancy, lies the cause of the slight querulousness discernible in these letters towards the Eastern colleges and the classics. On the Atlantic seaboard the humanistic ideal still survives to some extent. Probably the State uni- versities more nearly fulfil their pur- pose, although the older institutions are by no means such abject fail- ures as some people would have us believe. However, the latter do seem to lose their inspiration in proportion as they subordinate the classics, and some of us who owe allegiance to more "up-to- date" branches of learning would like to see the old supremacy reestablished. To us Plato and Aristotle seem to give a finer stimulus than stock-raising and the theory of the gas engine, and Sophocles to yield a deeper insight than Sudermann or stereotomy. T. K. Whipple. Princeton, X. J.. March 21. Books and Men SWINBURNE. A few of Swinburne's essays and stud- ies have been gathered into a volume and published by Mr. Richard G. Bad- ger, at the Gorham Press, Boston. The first of them, a sort of brief "morality," called "A Pilgrimage of Pleasure," gives its name to the book. It is attributed to Swinburne, but apparently without absolute certainty. The date of it is 1864. Other numbers, in the same book, are "Dead Love" — "a dim sort of short story in prose," as Mr. Gosse calls it; a re- view of Baudelaire's "Les Fleurs du Mai" — written in a Parisian Turkish bath, according to the same authority; an article on Simeon Solomon's "Vision of Love"; a page or two about Mere- dith's "Modern Love"; the enthusiastic and slashing article on Dickens, from the Quarterly Review of July, 1902; a Fortnightly article on Charles Jeremiah Wells — "An Unknown Poet"; and a brief review of John Nichol's "Hanni- bal." A bibliography by Edward J. O'Brien closes a book the importance of which lies almost wholly in its interest to collectors, and in the fact that it is made up of articles from the hand of a man who was a great poet. A life of Swinburne is iu preparation, it is said, for the English Men of Letters series. The author is Mr. Edmund Gosse. The limits of space Imposed upon the contributor to that series should not be irksome. The poet's out- er life was the comparatively unevent- ful one of the typical literary man; of his inner life it may be that no biog- rapher will ever try to write fully. Those who are acquainted and those who profess to be acquainted with the intimate side of literary gossip may possibly understand why so little has been generally known about Swinburne. This is not to deplore the lack of small talk, the scarcity of anecdotes about him. It simply means to point out that, while the magazines of the past thirty years have contained scores of articles about his great contemporaries — articles pub- lished both before and after their deaths — the few which dealt with Swinburne were almost all critical. They contain- ed little or no biographical material. Those who were born years after he had written the poems which made his name one of the glories of English liter- ature knew simply of his living in re- tirement with his friend, Mr. Watts- Dunton. This was all, until his death five years ago next month. The forth- coming biography, about the "most ex- traordinary human being" its author ever knew ought to be an interesting book. Mr. Gosse's essay on Swinburne of about two years ago promises that. It was a wonderful time, for his friends and worshippers, when the poet stood in the morning light of his fame: When, with flame all around him aspirant, Stood flushed, as a harp-player stands, The implacable beautiful tyrant, Rose-crowned, having death in his hands; And a sound as the sound of loud water Smote far through the flight of the fires, And mixed with the lightning of slaugh- ter A thunder of lyres Naturally, it turned their heads a little. Some of the cult, when Swin- burne recited that very poem, "Do- lores," to them for the first time, sank literally upon their knees before him, and offered the adoration due a god! Surely, no one need waste satire on a scene like that. His own conception of himself was of one who should have been an ancient bard. "I should like to stand on a promontory In Sark," said he, "in the full blaze of the sun, and shout my verses till all the gulls come fawning to my feet. That would be better than scraping and spluttering over a filthy pen." He was right. And his worshippers, though rather absurd and hysterical, were not far from right. It is true they erred, somewhat, in their prophecies — the world's great age did not begin anew with the "Poems and Ballads," the republic of life and letters which he hailed afar has not come to pass. But thi* strange poet burst upon a stodgy,
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330 rJ0 li e ]ST a t i o ii [Vol. 98, No. 2543 mid-Victorian world; he came with words of fire. Language had a new sound on his lips, things hitherto unat- tempted in English prosody were child's play to him. You can duplicate the experience; you have duplicated it if you read Swin- burne for the first time when you were nineteen. That is the only age when most men read poetry; it is certainly the age to encounter the "Poems and Ballads." It is easy, from the quietude of sixty, or the cynicism of forty, to look back with amusement upon the days when Swinburne was bidding Eng- land and Europe, and the rest of the world, to have done with kings and queens, with marriage rings, apparent- ly, and with clothes as well. But you have either missed a great experience or wilfully parted with your illusions if you do not recall with emotion your first entrance into that garden, where there is Not a flower to be pressed of the foot that falls not; As the heart of a dead man the seed- plots are dry; From the thicket of thorns whence the nightingale calls not, Could she call, there were never a rose to reply. Over the meadows that blossom and wither Rings but the note of a sea-bird's song; Only the sun and the rain come hither All year long. Reading "The Triumph of Time," with its numerous magnificent stanzas, and reading "Faustine," "Dolores," "A For- saken Garden," "By the North Sea" — to name but a few — has been a memorable event for thousands of lovers of poetry. If it came at the right time in their lives the magic pages burned, to their excited imagination, like those of an il- luminated manuscript. On others lines of Shelley have made a similar impres- sion, though without quite the same ju tification. The healthy mind took no harm from Swinburne. Much that was extrava- gant, a little that was morbid, was pass- ed by without lasting impression. Some of his eroticism was beautiful; some of it plain fudge. He had a good deal to do with founding the school of poets and prose- writers who clamor that only the illicit can possibly be "artistic"; who are as narrow and bigoted in their insistent dwelling upon one theme as any of the "Puritans" they denounce. To some extent he may have influenced the sickly band, who, as Mr. Alfred Noyes justly points out, brought poetry into disgrace and made it seem only a plaything for effeminates. Many of his longer poems, most of the dramas, are read only by students and a few others. But there remain perhaps a score of ex- quisite songs and lyrics, unharmed by parody, undiminished in their beauty by the lapse of nearly half a century. And this can be said of few poets, ex- cept the supreme masters. Edmund Lester Pearson. News for Bibliophiles GRIMAREST'S "VIE DE MOLIfcRE." The bibliographers give 1705 as the date of the lirst edition of Grimarest's "Vie de Moli^re." To be sure, Brunet, "Manuel du libraire," Vol. Ill, col. 1808, adds the note: "Dej& impr. a Lyon"; but he doubtless intended to refer to an edition printed at Lyon by Jacques Lyons with the date 1692, which was really a pirated reprint of the 1705 edition, antedated by the printer so as to avoid being inter- fered with by the privileged publishers of Paris. This reprint of the "Vie," Lacroix suggests, was intended to form a part of the pirated edition of Moliere's works is- sued by Jacques Lyons about 1710, with the fictitious date 1692 (see "Biblio- graphic Molieresque," 1875, Nos. 982, 283, 300). The real editio princeps of the "Vie" was published at Paris in 1705 by Jacques le Febvre and by P. Ribou ; it appeared in Dutch at Amsterdam in the same year. In 1706 there appeared an anonymous "Lettre critique a Mr. de * * * sur le livro intitule La vie de Moliere," in reply to which Grimarest produced his "Adition [sic] a la Vie de Moliere, contenant une response a la critique que Ton en a faite." The "Vie" was printed at Brussels in 1706, and in English with a translation of Moliere's Works, London, 1714. In 1709 it was included in the five-volume edition of Moliere printed at Amsterdam; and, together with the "Lettre critique" and the "Addition," in the edition printed by Denis Thierry at Paris (see Lacroix, Nos. 298, 299, 982-87). Lacroix states distinct- ly that the edition of 1709-10 is the first printed in France which contains the "Vie," "Lettre critique," and "Addition." A copy in the Harvard College Library (Paris, chez la Veuve Gabriel Huart, M.DCCX) contains in the first volume the above pieces, with the statement that they have not before been included in the "CEuvres de Moliire," and two plays, "Le Depit amoureux" and "L'Etourdi" (cf. T. F. Currier and E. L. Gay, "Catalogue of the Moliere Collection in Harvard Col- lege Library"). An edition of Grimarest's "Vie" which apparently contradicts the foregoing- statements, and seems not to have been recorded, has recently been acquired by the Yale University Library — a single vol- ume with the following title-page: LES I CEUVRES | DE | MONSIEUR | DE MOLIERE, I TOME I. | Nouvelle & derniere Edition. | Enrichies de Figures en Tallle-douce. | [Vignette.] A TOULOUSE, | Chez Jean-Francois Caranove, | pros Saint Rome, a la Bible d'Or. | M.DC.XCIX. | AVEC PERMISSION. On the verso of this title is the list of "Pieces contenues en ce premier volume," including' prefatory matter, "La Vie de M. de Moliere par Monsieur Grimarest," the "Lettre Critique," the "Addition," and two plays, "L'Etourdi" and "Le DepH amoureux." Then follow fifteen more unnumbered leaves, containing the "Priv- ilege du roi" granted In 1680 to Denis Thierry for the edition of 1682; the "Per- mission" issued in 1696 to Dominique Desclassan, and by him transferred to Caranove, to reprint for three years in Toulouse the 1682 edition; "Ayis sur cette nouvelle edition," "Table geherale" of the contents of the eight volumes, "Preface" (reprinted, with variations, from the 1682 edition). "La Vie de M. de Moliere" occupies pp. 1-90; the "Let- tre critiaue," pp. 91-107; the "Addition," pp. 108-36. The remainder of the volume is filled by the plays, "L'Estourdy, ou les contre-temps," pp. 137-236; "Le Depit amoureux," pp. 237-324, ending with the words "Fin du Tome premier." The Yale copy appears to be complete as to text, but does not have the engravings an- nounced on the title-page. The bibliog- raphers describe two eight-volume edi- tions printed at Toulouse, one by Dupuy, Desclassan, and Caranove in 1697, one by Caranove in 1699; both reproducing the Paris edition of 1682 (see Lacroix, Nos. 288, 290; Lacroix adds: "II est de tradition, a la Comedie francaise, que les Editions de Toulouse donnent le meilleur texte de Moliere"). Since the publication of Mr. Currier's "Catalogue," the Har- vard Library has acquired a set con- taining Vols. I-VII of the 1699 edition, completed by Vol. VIII of the 1697. A comparison of Vol. I with the single vol- ume in the Yale Library yields curious results. The title-pages are identical in wording, with minute differences of type; H. has "pres Saint Rome" where Y. has "pres," and the vignettes are quite differ- ent. H. has no sign of Grimarest's life; it contains after the title-page ten un- numbered leaves, with the preface of the 1682 edition, "Avis au lecteur," and verses; then follow four plays: "L'Etour- dy ou les Contre-tems," pp. 1-114 (notice the difference in spelling) ; "Depit Amour- eux," pp. 115-217 (not "Le Depit Am.") ; "Les Precieuses Ridicules," pp. 219-63; "Sganarelle," pp. 265-304; after p. 304 come the "Privilege du Roi" and the "Permission d' imprimer." There are oc- casional differences in the text of the two volumes, and Y. has three lines more to the page than H. The Yale volume undoubtedly belongs to a pirated and antedated edition which was first mentioned in 1886 by E. La- pierre, "Les Trois Editions de Toulouse," in Le MoMrisie (Vol. VIII, pp. 213-17). Lapierre states that in some copies of Vol. VIII of the genuine 1699 edition, Grimarest's life (1705 edition) was bound in. He then discusses the antedated edi- tion, pointing out that its text is more correct than that of the other Toulouse editions, that the order of the plays is different, and that it contains several writings (e. g., a criticism by Bayle) which do not appear in the previously known authentic editions before 1710. However, he had seen only an Imperfect copy, without engravings, and evidently ,,,,( including Vol. I, for he makes no mention of the "Vie," the "Lettre Cri- tique," and the "Addition." His conclu- sion is undoubtedly correct, that about 1710 some printer, whether Caranove or another, brought out an edition based on that of 1710, and dated It "Toulouse 1699" In order to take advantago of the three- \< .11 iiiivildge which expired In that year. K. McKicNzua.
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March 26, 1914] The Nation 331 Literature THE ENGLISH PEOPLE AND THE [FORMATION. The Western Rebellion of lSlfi: An Ac- count of the Insurrections in Devon- shire and Cornwall Against Religious Innovations in the Reign of Edward \ I. By Frances Rose-Troup. Illus- trated. London: Smith, Elder & Co. This elaborate account derives its im- portance and interest neither from the eminence of its author nor from the in- trinsic value of the subject, but from the prominence of the author's sponsors and from the broad general conclusions which she (and apparently they) be- lieve this piece of minute research estab- lishes. As the preface states, Dr. James Gairdner read and revised the manu- script; Dr. T. N. Brushfleld suggested the subject and provided material. The approval of these scholars enables us fairly to regard the book as an exam- ple of the most recent methods approv- ed by historians of the English Reforma- tion, whose sympathies are confessedly Roman Catholic. The Roman Catholic view of the Eng- lish Reformation teaches that its cause lay not in the wickedness of the clergy nor in the alienation of the people, but in the political ambitions of king and nobles, and that the measures by which the power of the Pope was abolished and the monasteries dissolved were stained by fraud, violence, and deceit. Until, however, popular opposition to the Reformation measures, actuated by religious preference for the old regime, could be definitively established by re- search so sound as to stand the test of critical investigation, the burden of proof must still lie upon the Roman Catholics. If a majority of the p"eople did object, why did they not revolt? The object of this book is to show that they did. It is the most elaborate attempt yet made to investigate popular upris- ings, and to meet the contention of re- cent students that the risings between 1536 and 1558 were chiefly the result of the economic crisis, and were only to a very minor extent connected with the Reformation. The author's methods are those of the new Roman Catholic school, to let the facts speak for themselves and to with- hold comment or criticism. We are ex- plicitly told, however, that England in 1536 "from one end to the other was permeated with sedition," and the care- ful account of the Pilgrimage of Grace, of Exeter's Conspiracy, and the like, are obviously to show us that the seething discontent underneath the apparent apathy or acquiescence of the people burst forth several times prior to the particular outbreak with which this book deals. How two or three thousand men, headed by a few gentlemen and priests, rose in Southwestern England in 1549, besieged Exeter, demanded the restora- tion of the old ceremonies, fought a "battle" or two with the royal forces, and were finally dispersed and the lead- ers executed, is all told with such a wealth of detail that probably the nar- rative of this event will never need to be rewritten. Indeed, the critical appar- atus is so erudite that few but scholars well versed in the field will be able to verify the citations from pure inability to know to what they refer. The veriest tyro will identify "L. and P."; few man- uscript workers will be puzzled by "Caligula E.," but "Invective, sig. e. v." will puzzle many, even though the full title of this little-known tract is quot- ed later in the text for another pur- pose. What, too, is "Cotton Appx."? The list of authorities contains neither the initials of the authors, the editions used, nor indications of relative value. The index is meagre and inaccurate. The means of filling out the indications in the footnotes are lacking. Important steps in the narrative are unsubstantiat- ed by even such references, while abun- dance of exact citations is constantly poured out upon the most trivial and minor matters. We insist upon this point because tne Roman Catholic or Protestant layman, for whom this vol- ume is intended, may very probably con- clude that such erudition on minor mat- ters indicates so great erudition upon the vital facts, for which no references are given, that the mass of information could not be cited in mere footnotes. He will be apt, therefore, to accept the author's fundamental conclusions as proved. The fallacy of such an assumption and the subtlety of such a method appear when one realizes that upon the really material facts of the inquiry — the extent of ttie movement in territory and in numbers, and the real sentiments of the people — the author virtually vouch- safes but one witness. Only one lengthy narrative of the event has been found, and the book is, therefore, a restate- ment, with some corrections and elab- orate additions, of the opinion of John Hoker, or Hooker, alias Vowell. From the very considerable literature of print- ed and manuscript material the author was able to draw little of value on pop- ular opinion, however voluminous were the details about troops, marches, and trials. This is the most vital count in any indictment against the general con- clusions that the book seeks to estab- lish. Only less damaging is the fact that Hoker is not shown to have been an eye-witness of these events, nor to have written his account within some brief time thereafter. He seems to have writ- ten about 1570, or perhaps later, in con- nection with his work on Holinshed's "Chronicle." This fact the author is ap- parently unwilling to confess to her reader. Nowhere do we find the full titles or whereabouts of the various ver- sions Hoker wrote; nowhere do we find any account of him, of his opportunities for observation, of his character, of his veracity, nor even of his connection with Exeter. Indeed, though references to "Hoker" are sprinkled throughout the book, we find no description whatever of that citation till we reach page 134, where a footnote refers us to Appendix D, a brief half-page of details concern- ing the manuscript copies. Worst of all, the important sections of the text, for which no citations are given, are all based on Hoker, and are not, as might otherwise be supposed, careful summar- ies of an amount of contemporary evi- dence too voluminous for citation. The longest and most direct state- ments about the ideas of the people are carefully circumstantial, but obviously imaginary, descriptions of scenes and in- cidents, every detail of which could be supported by adequate evidence except the fact around which the description was written. When the rebels are tak- en to prison, the discomforts of a six- teenth-century prison are vividly de- scribed, not from evidence furnished by the rebels, but from some well-known source. We learn what manner of a court tried them by evidence drawn from Sir Thomas Smith's "Common- wealth." A chapter headed Religious Feeling in Exeter contains a few ap- posite quotations from Hoker, and bio- graphical details from unimpeachable sources about the cathedral clergy and the single Exeter martyr! The chap- ter on the condition of the country enters into the economic argument, but advances only one specific explana- tion, and that not the author's own, of the claim that the agrarian discontent in the West was slight; few cases have been found in the Star Chamber or in the Court of Requests from Western England. But the records of both courts are notoriously incomplete; we know almost certainly that Western England formed a legal district quite apart from Eastern and Southern England, and that the Stannary courts of Cornwall, the manorial courts, the forest courts, or some royal council may very likely have heard such cases. Absence of evidence in this case proves literally nothing, and, lenst of all, that this rebellion, not be- ing agrarian, was religious. Even if all these rebels were animat- ed solely by religious motives, even if we accept the largest contemporary es- timate of ten thousand (Hoker's esti- mate is two thousand), we hardly find in these facts valid evidence regarding the opinions of some half-million souls in Western England. We must have numerous first-hand explicit opinions of actual witnesses, indirect evidence
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332 T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2543 above the suspicion of having been man- ufactured for any one's purpose, to de- monstrate a positive attachment of the people to the Pope or to Catholic rites. It is more than probable that the vast majority throughout England would have been willing to retain the old ritual and liturgy, but that they were ready to take any active steps to pre- serve them must be shown by other evi- dence than this book affords. We must have, too, some account taken of the in- ternational situation, of the rivalries of noble factions, of the possible claims of men like Exeter upon the throne, of the "national" feeling in Cornwall (p. 221), of the common use by Protestant and Catholic alike of religious pleas to cloak all sorts of interests and schemes, be- fore we shall see the full significance of this rebellion. CURRENT FICTION. Burbury Stoke. By William John Hop- kins. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. Mr. Hopkins here returns frankly to the atmosphere and setting of the book by which he won his audience — "The Clammer." Clams are not involved in the present action, but those which fig- ured in the earlier tale were so clearly employed as supernumeraries that they might as well have been called trout, or humming-birds, but for the immedi- ate need of a salt-water flavor. Boats now serve the same purpose, somewhat more conventionally. The supposed nar- rator, who is known to us only as Peter, is not so strictly a recluse as the Clammer, since his father and sister live with him. But he has the recluse instinct, and sees little of the people who live beyond the six shore acres which he has protected with a high wall. A man invades this territory by swimming ashore from a wreck. Bur- bury Stoke is a handsome young Eng- lishman, and, though he gives no ac- count of himself, Peter takes him in as a guest for some time. Then Peter's sister, Felicia, comes home, and we per- ceive that Stoke is her rejected but not despised lover; Peter is less under- standing, since he is made precisely according to the Clammer recipe of dun- derheadedness and sensibility. We do for a time share Peter's uncertainty as to which of the two Marys provided for his consideration he is really in love with, but the uncertainty lasts longer on his part than on ours. Vain Oblations. By Katharine Fullerton Gerould. New York: Charles Scrib- ner's Sons. Feminine cleverness cannot go much farther than it has gone in the writing of these seven stories. They are ex- tremely skilful products of the art of the short story. Not one of them is built upon a commonplace situation; and of the seven episodes here developed, none stoops to follow the line of least resist- ance. They are not pretty or pleasant stories; in fact, they are without excep- tion "disagreeable," grewsome, or har- rowing. Whether from instinct or meth- od, each story is based upon an impos- sible situation, some human impasse within which lie vain struggle and suf- fering. The title of the initial tale thus becomes a fit title for the collection. An- other thing the tales have in common is that, with a single exception, they are supposed to be told by a man — not al- ways the same man, but some man of middle age or more, with wide experi- ence of men, places, and things — a man of the world, in short. The style is suit- able for such a person — or for a clever woman's theory of him. It is sophisti- cated, grim, a trifle weary — suspicious of sentiment, though dryly aware that there may be something in it. It is also adroit, alert, to the point, beyond the ut- most of smoking-room colloquy. And at bottom, despite its gruffness and grim- ness, despite its attempt to achieve the air of the detached male, its deliberate immersion in an atmosphere of whiskey and tobacco — at bottom it is feminine, and rather morbidly feminine. Guardian Angels. By Marcel Prevost. New York: The Macaulay Co. M. Prevost has brought his authority as an Academician to the telling of a story with a moral. He does not believe in governesses; and undertakes to show, by four typical examples, their evil in- fluence in French domestic life. A plea- sant suggestion of their collective char- acter is given in the second chapter, which portrays all four getting drunk together in a suite maintained by the lover of one of them. They do not de- liberately plot against society; their deadly work is individual. Rosalie, the most innocent of them, becomes gover- ness in the household of a baroness with delightful children and an affectionate husband. The girl soon comes to share the baron's esteem for his amiable wife. Notwithstanding, nature so works in her and in the baron that his abuse of her is hardly seduction. The upshot is the baron's pretended suicide and his flight from France with his fellow-vic- tim of circumstance. The argument does not seem over-strong thus far, unless one admits that no pretty girl a degree above the rank of menial can safely be admitted into a household containing a middle-aged husband. Rosalie, Sandra the Italian, Magda the German, and Panny the Englishwoman, in different fashion, bring havoc and ruin into the bosom of French families. We must re- fer the reader to the narrative for de- tails; the author does not stint them. In translation, at least, the book is thor- oughly disagreeable and only moderate- ly impressive. It is too much like a mere story to be a good tract, and too much like a tract to be an effective story. The Pillar of Hand. By William R. Cas- tle, Jr. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. The aristocrats here brought forward and put through their paces do not strikingly remind one of the New Eng- land Brahmins one has met, whether in life or in letters. They mean to be very refined and noble and superior to prole- tarian clay; and that is all that can be- said for them. They are less real than the aristocrats cf "A Tale of Two Cit- ies." Something may be said for the au- thor, however. He may lay claim to the distinction of having undertaken an un- popular and disinterested task. The late David Graham Phillips used to love to- assault the Harvard man and to snort at the claim for good blood. Mr. Castle does not hesitate to urge the obsolescent advantages of birth and breeding. His, hero is a young Boston poet of weak ex- terior, but with the marrow of the In- ner Circle in his bones. His villain is a fellow born without the pale, and there- fore a cad, a liar, and a bully. Of course, Hugh Brandon could not steal: no Bran- don ever stole. Of course, Francis Evans kept a mistress and abused her, dealt unkindly with widows, lashed children out of his path, plotted against an innocent man. His ancestors were not known on Beacon Street. The book is a queer survival; it belongs to the age of Sandford and Merton. We doubt if Boston Society will be deeply stirred by it. Victory Law. By Anne Warwick. New York: John Lane Co. Victory is a great actress, but she has the scorn of any healthy woman for the supposedly accompanying "tempera- ment." She has no intention of falling in love with more than one man, and him she wants very simply to marry, and does marry. Two other men are in love with her, but one of them has the wit to keep it to himself, and the other she manages to transform into the de- voted friend he has hitherto posed as being. The real conflict of the book is that between Victory's love for her hus- band and her love for the theatre. Her behavior here, too, is very human. She does not stand about balancing one force against the other; she is simply over- whelmed first by one need and then by the other. Each is imperative and irre- sistible, and it looks as if they would tear her to pieces between them. The husband finally has his eyes opened and learns to dissociate his enemy, the the- atre, from fancied corporeal rival that it is not really an enemy at all — and then the three live happily ever after.
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iMarch 26, 1914I The Nation tLORD MORLEY'S NEW BOOK. Notes on Politics and History: A Uni- versity Address. By Viscount Morley, O.M. New York: The Macmillan Co. $1 net. In the summer of 1912 Lord Morley, as Chancellor of the University of Man- chester, delivered the address which forms the basis of this precious little volume. Here is the wisdom of the fore- most British historian and one of the weightiest British statesmen, now liv- ing, on the interlocking subjects — his- tory and politics. With amazing brevity Lord Morley discusses the chief ele- ments of politics — monarchy, absolute and limited; republicanism, the develop- ment of the Cabinet, the rise and power of the press — and he illustrates eacn point by concrete examples, drawn from his very wide range of reading. Instead of controversy, he teaches or suggests by the clearness of his statements, but he lets you see that, before reaching any conclusions himself, he has canvassed both or all sides of the question. Coming to history, Lord Morley takes up the various methods of writing his- tory, passing rapidly from Thucydides to contemporary historical writers, who are, and apparently must be, specialists. He ranges himself here, as he has done vigorously in many previous essays, with the "literary" historians, always presupposing, however, that they pos- sess the solidity of information which patient research can alone supply. He touches upon the unity of history, upon the influence of churches in determin- ing secular politics, upon nationality, and upon the Janus-faced problem of progress. He uses Treitschke and Taine to illustrate two important matters. Cos- mopolitanism— promoted by science, art, and the present international Socialists and industrial revolutionists — he refers to as the step beyond nationalism. Of science he says: "Besides all else that it is and does, [it] is the strongest unifying agent of the time, especially if we include the inventions that science makes possible, and the commerce that inventions stimulate and nourish." Of another similar unifying agent he re- marks: "The curse of industrial life is insecurity. The principle of insurance applied to risks of every kind has ex- tended and ramified in a truly extra- ordinary way during the last fifty years, until it is now one of the subtlest inter- national agencies, uniting distant inter- ests and creating perforce a thousand mutual obligations." But he adds, later: "The recruiting sergeant now holds the international scales." Lord Morley concludes by consider- ing modern theories of the state, and a few of the chief exemplars of different schools — Mazzini the prophet of nation- ality; Cavour, who worked through Lib- erty and "set ideas before cannon," and Bismarck, the protagonist of Authority, whose chosen means were blood and iron. No summary can do justice to Lord Morley's survey, because it cannot re- produce the mellowness of his temper, or his sagacity and breadth of view, or his clear style. It would be hard to name a modern book of similar weight and significance that is written so sim- ply. We might call this Lord Morley's political testament, were it not that on many questions he prefers to set forth the doctrines of conflicting parties rath- er than to emphasize or even to reveal his own. He has transmuted erudition into culture. We note two or three slips in proof- reading, for correction in subsequent editions: "Austro-Hungary," which is as monstrous a hybrid as "Anglo-Scotland" or "Belgo-Holland," appears twice (pp. 99 and 139); the omission of a comma converts "De Maistre Proudhon" into one person, p. 114; "Pontevechio" should be "Pontevedra," p. 120, n. 1; and "Fer- rari" should be "Ferrara," p. 158. ANOTHER LIFE OF BORROW. George Borrow and His Circle. By Clement King Shorter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. $3 net. There were already four lives of Bor- row' in existence when Mr Shorter fin- ished this volume, which has taken him "ten years to write, and has been a labor of love." He tells us frankly that his intention wras not to compose a for- mal biography, but to follow the lead of his fancy and to draw on the large stores of manuscripts by and about Bor- row which form part of his inexhausti ble literary treasures. This was well though it was scarcely necessary, how ever characteristic, to print the testi monies in praise of his earlier achieve' ments in this same field. For those who need an introduction to Borrow's strange career, it must be said at once that the present work will not take the place of the elaborate, if somewhat overburdened, biography published by W. I. Knapp in 1899. Mr. Shorter also, from a proper wish to avoid unnecessary repetition of what others have done, makes little use of the "Letters of George Borrow to the Bible Society," edited by T. H. Darlow in 1911, which give so vivid an account of Borrow's life in Russia and Spain, and on which Herbert Jenkins drew so heavily in his biography, is ued about the same time. Nor will the reader of critical taste find in Mr. Snorter's pages any attempt to throw a new light on Borrow's philos- ophy of life. Our annalist takes his task jauntily, and, if truth be told, i sionally a bit down at the heels In his way of proceeding. He is at his best, we think, in the chapters that deal with his hero's early years in Norfolk and London. Here he has followed Borrow with indefatigable industry, and has un- tangled his wanderings and friendships as no one hitherto had been able to do. We get a clear idea of what Borrow was doing in those years when he was ar- ticled to Messrs. Simpson & Rackham, of Norwich, ostensibly studying the law, but in reality learning outlandish lan- guages and preparing himself for his career of philological vagabondage. More particularly Mr. Shorter has made Sir Richard Phillips, the publisher un- der whom Borrow served his hard liter- ary apprenticeship in London, a precise human figure, although the outcome in its larger lines is not much different from the portrait in "Lavengro." In regard to the mysterious novel, "The Life and Adventures of Joseph Sell," of which Borrow gives an account in "Lavengro," but of which no trace has ever been found, Mr. Shorter broaches a new theory. Dr. Knapp tried to get round the difficulty by declaring that it "was not a book at all, and the author of it never said that it was"— an explan- ation which Mr. Shorter promptly inval- idates by showing that in nine lines of "Lavengro" the author four times re- fers to it distinctly as a "book." His own suggestion is taken from a letter of John Borrow's of 1829, which con- tains this significant passage: "Let me know how you sold your manuscript." Now as there is no record of the sale of any other manuscript in that year, Mr. Shorter asks whether this may not have been the lost "Joseph Sell," which the author, by a lapse of memory of the sort only too common with him, threw back to 1825. The suggestion is ingeni- ous, but hardly more. Borrow had abund- ance of manuscript poems which he was likely enough to have been trying to vend in 1829, or in any other of his early years. It is easier just to suppose that "Sell" was never sold, except in the writer's imagination. The manuscript material from which Br. Knapp drew his book is now in the archives of the Hispanic Society in New York. The most important of the bio- graphical documents in the possession of Mr. Shorter are the letters of Borrow to his wife and the correspondence of his step-daughter, Mrs. MacOubrey, by means of which he tries to mitigate the rather disagreeable impression we have had of Borrow at home and in his old age, From several chance ezpr< Dr. Knapp concluded that money, and not love, was the motive of Borrow's marriage to a widow aged about forty and somewhat his senior, and to dis- credit this insinuation Mr. Shorter now prints at length a number of Borrow's letters to her. These documents, not very interesting in themselves, li still quite possible to conjecture that when our Benedick came, as he says, "to suffer the halter," he had in mind, hesides other feelings, no doubt, his
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:j:*4 T li e JN ci t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2543 own adage: "Marriage is by far the best way of getting possession of an es- tate." But they do prove abundantly that he was a devoted and very depend- ent husband, and it is pleasant to have this sorter light thrown on his some- what embittered years of retirement. Those who are familiar with Borrow's "Wild Wales" will be ready to believe that he was fond of his step-daughter Henrietta, and will be glad to have the worst stories about her challenged. After Mrs. Borrow's death it will be re- membered that Borrow lived with his step-daughter and her husband, Dr. Mac- Oubrey. This is Dr. Knapp's well- known account of his death, which con- forms to the village gossip of the last thirty years: On the 26th of July, 1881, Mr. Borrow was found 'dead in his house at Oulton. The circumstances were these. His step- daughter and her husband drove to Lowes- toft in the morning on some business of their own, leaving Mr. Borrow with- out a living soul in the house with him. He had earnestly requested them not to go away because he felt that he was in a dying state; but the response intimated that he had often expressed the same feeling before, and his fears had proved groundless. During the interval of these few hours of abandonment nothing can palliate or excuse, George Borrow died as he had lived — alone! In rebuttal of this hateful charge Mr. Shorter quotes letters showing that the relations between Borrow and his daughter were of the kindest sort, and cites this brief note from her diary: "George Borrow died at three o'clock this morning." His comment on these words is convincing: "It is scarcely possible that Borrow's step-daughter and her husband could have left him alone at three o'clock in the morning in order to drive into Lowestoft, less than two miles distant. At this time, be it remembered, Dr. MacOubrey was eighty-one years of age." No doubt the story of Borrow's lonely death is legend- ary, at least in the precise form in which it has come down to us, but from the facts which Mr. Shorter himself ad- mits the life of the three old people at Oulton was of a strange and unconven- tional kind, and it is more than prob- able that Borrow suffered from, perhaps unintentional, neglect. Withal we have to thank Mr. Shorter for an entertaining and informing book on a subject which ought to be dear to every lover of good literature. May he give us others of the same sort from his great collection of documents. But one of his footnotes alarms us a little. He contemplates, he says, an edition of Borrow's works which is to include un- published verse and, apparently, other new material. That may be of service to Borrow and to letters; but, alas, it may also be the reverse. There is no surer way to lessen the number of an author's readers than by loading his with a mass of his second-rate and ephemeral writings which ought to have been burned by the first person into whose hands they fell. Mr. Shorter, in the opinion of some people, has al- ready committed this unpardonable sin in the case of another, and we are un- easy for our much-loved Borrow. THE IRELAND OF PARNELL. Twenty-five Years' Reminiscences. By Katharine Tynan. New York: The Devin-Adair Co. $3.50 net. The present reviewer's card of mem- bership in the Irish National League is dated September 1, 1887 — his twenty- first birthday — and is signed by "Tim" Harrington. In his youthful days he bought the suppressed United Ireland (at three-pence the copy) from ragged urchins who lurked in the doorways of Dame Street and College Green, and not infrequently produced the famous jour- nal from under their shirts. Many a time in the dark days of 1882-1884 he saw "Foxy Jack" Spencer, with his flam- ing red beard and brave sad face, clat- ter down the street on horseback sur- rounded by his clanking escort of dra- goons. He trudged away of a Sunday to Clontarf or Dundrum or what not to hear "Tim" Healy and "Joe" Biggar take a fall out of Col. Saunderson or John- ston of Ballykilbeg. He, too, has been in Sarah Atkinson's house, and she in his; and he has heard Rosa Mulholland read aloud from her wonderful store of fairy-tales, and knew the adventures of "Puck and Blossom" before ever printer saw the manuscript. He, too, was born into print in the Irish Monthly under Father "Matt" Russell, surely the kind- liest, most painstaking, and most pa- tient of all editors that ever lived. How, then, in Heaven's name, is he to "deal faithfully" with Katharine Tynan's "Reminiscences," the pages of which are besprent with names like these? What is there for him to do but give thanks to Heaven — and to his editor — that the book came his way, and to pray that it may so come to others of his race and time who, like himself, are twenty-five or thirty years away from Innisfail? For it is for these that the book is written. There is in it something for those who are of to-day and of other lands. The chapters on the Rossettis and the Meynells will interest those who care little for the days of Parnell and the Ireland of the Land League, and there are anecdotes of William Morris, of Cardinal Manning, of Russell, of Kil- lowen, of Oscar Wilde, of W. B. Yeats, and so forth, which will bear detaching and resetting. But it is first and last a book for Irishmen of the "Parnell times," written without restraint as in- timately as a diary, wherein great and small, tragic and trivial, mingle and |osi le as in a crowd. There is little form to it, no artifice whatever, and an utter naivete of expression that is in itself a plea in avoidance of criticism. If one must pass judgment on it, then let it be quickly said that the chapters cover- ing the author's childhood days are the best in form and expression, that some of her swans have a little of the hon- est "goose-look" about them in the cold gray light of twenty years after, and that it is precisely the unstudied, un- finished, disorderly arrangement of the matter that gives the book its peculiar charm for those for whom it is written. The author is — or at least was — a good hater and a most loyal lover. She has perhaps added a line or two to the pic- ture of Mr. Parnell as it stands to-day in the memory of Irishmen. The clos- ing chapters on the "Parnell split" and 1891 vividly revive recollections of those sad days when the "dying lion" was making his last fight and when Irish- men were so sharply divided, and so bit- terly. She tries to be just to the anti- Parnellites: "There may have been some honest among them," she admits! And she has at least had little to say of them nominatim, but, if one may say so, there is eloquent emphasis in her silences. These two chapters will make many an old wound sting again for a moment, and perhaps twenty-five years from now when she writes of her "fifty years" she may find it in her heart to delete here and there a sentence — there are not many — and save some one a smart in his old age. For Irishmen all they were in those days, however much they dif- fered. She ends her book with the burial of Mr. Parnell, and it Is a striking picture that she draws of the last scene: We stood near the grave-head Inside the line of camans. The storm had pass- ed by, and it was very still and chilly, the air suffused with a clear green and gold light, the autumn evening fast draw- ing in. Stars were looking out of the quiet sky; and a great peace had fallen in the wake of the storm. At last came the procession and the solemn funeral ser- vice of the English church. . . . The voice of the reader was a good voice and he did justice to the glorious words. The great crowd, nearly altogether a Catholic crowd, listened in a mournful silence to the living words of hope and consolation while the Gaels, with their linked camans, kept the pressure away from the grave. The service went on to Its close. "Man born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery: he cometh up and is cut down like a flower: he fleeth as it were a shadow and never continueth in one stay." The coffin was lowered. A woman shrieked, and there was a second's con- fusion; then stillness and the silvery voice of the reader. But as earth touched earth -and any one who was present will bear me out in this — the most glorious me- teor sailed across the clear space of the and tell suddenly. He had omens and portents to the end.
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March 26, 1914] The Nation 335 THE FRENCH PRESIDENT ON CIVICS How France Is Governed. By Raymond Poincare. New York: McBride, Nast & Co. $2.25. If any oue is qualified to tell "how France is governed" it ought to be a man who, after being a lawmaker for twenty-five years, a Minister for five or six, and a lawyer all the time, finally was elected to preside over the govern- Qt of France. Obviously, when he wrote, for a publication addressed to young people, these elementary chapters on civics, M. Poincare did not dream that they would appear in book form and be translated in foreign languages aftor he became President. But politics, nowadays, plays such tricks on Presi- dents of republics with literary pasts. M. Poincare, however, has no reason to be ashamed of his book. Written for young Frenchmen, it will prove instruc- tive to readers of all ages everywhere. The childlike simplicity, the familiar style, the homely similes, and humorous anecdotes can but add to its pedagogi- cal value. Even if the author were not an expert conveying first-hand informa- tion on the workings of the govern- ment of which he is a part, his well- known lucidity of style and the solid historical background of his exposition would make the book invaluable for the students of politics. It has, however, another and more per- sonal interest. French Presidents, like Constitutional monarchs, once in office, have to confine their public utterances within the limits of universally accept- ed truisms. Hence there is something refreshing in getting here some of the last personal expressions of M. Poin- care's political thought before he be- came President. Thus the story of the Minister of Finance who, on an excur- sion through Auvergne, heard a peasant addressing his donkey as a "devilish Minister," is an amusing and instruc- tive philological illustration, seemingly drawn from his own experience. The remarks about the "lamentable taste" of the frescoes in the bathrooms of the Chateau of Rambouillet may be of in- terest to artists only, although there is some humor in the fact that now he must use these bathrooms himself. But his political opponents, who have been accusing him of vague dictatorial de- signs, ought to rejoice to hear him condemn plebiscites as serving to con- fiscate popular sovereignty, while seem- ing to ratify it. The advocates of state ownership will welcome the statement that certain state-owned services are "in- dispensable to the progress of civiliza- tion," while the other side cannot but be pleased to hear M. Poincare' charac- terize state management of industrial affairs as being often "clumsy, idle, and dilatory." Furthermore, those who are familiar with the President's oft-express- ed doctrines will not be surprised to hear him chide his fellow-citizens for their extreme reliance on the state as on a Providence that ought to distribute "relief, subventions, awards." Thus ad- monition mingles freely with exposition and narrative with description in this book, which aims at being both a text- book and a guide for good citizenship. Unfortunately, the chapter on the military law is already out of date, and the very interesting treatment of the Wallon amendment has been entirely marred by a mistranslation complicat- ed by a misprint. Notes The University of Chicago Press an- nounces the publication of "Masters of the Wilderness," by Charles B. Reed. Houghton Mifflin Company announces for publication early next month "South Africa" (The English People Overseas series), by A. Wyatt Tilby. The Bobbs-Merrill Company will pub- lish on Saturday "Pidgin Island," by Harold MacGrath. John Lane Company will publish on Saturday: "Napoleon at Bay"; "The Tower of Mirrors," by Vernon Lee; "The Fortunate Youth," by William J. Locke. Among the volumes announced for im- mediate publication by the Harvard Uni- versity Press are: "The Spiritual Message of Dante," by William Boyd Carpenter (the William Belden Noble lectures for 1912-13) ; "Works of Vitruvius," trans- lated by the late Prof. M. H. Morgan and edited by Professor Howard and Profes- sor Warren; "The Harvard Expedition to Samaria," by Dr. George A. Reisner. Students of the French Renaissance will welcome the reproductions of "Manu- scrits a Peintures de 1'Ecole de Rouen," prepared by Georges Ritter, of the Bib- liotheque de Rouen and issued by the Society de l'Histoire de Normandie. The chief works of the school of Rouen owed their inspiration to Cardinal d'Amboise, and the influence of the models which he brought back from Italy is distinctly traceable in the beautifully executed manuscripts of Petrarch, Josephus, and Ovid, of which the finest pages are here reproduced. There are also illustrations from books of hours of the more strictly Norman school which followed. Sidgwick and Jackson (Cambridge, Eng.) have issued an edition of "Tom Brown's Schooldays," with an introduction which relates the his- tory of the book, and collects what evidence is available for the identifica- tion of the principal characters. The pre- face is written by Lord Kilbracken — better known, perhaps, as Sir Arthur Godley — who is a distinguished old Rug- beian. Much interest has been aroused in England in the career of a new writer, Patrick MacGill, who has just written an autobiographical story, "Children of the Dead End." Though now only twen- ty-two years of age, he has worked for several years as a farm laborer and as a navvy. He wrote his first verses at the age of twelve while working from 5 A. M. to 11 P. M. as a farm hand in the Irish midlands. A London publishing firm, according to Mr. C. K. Shorter, admits that last year it made more money out of selling rights of cinema production than out of pub- lishing proper. But the picture palaces are starting a new copyright problem. At the last meeting of the committee of management of the Authors' Society it was stated that many authors and play- wrights were being placed in a serious position, owing to the use by various film manufacturers of titles which had been employed by the authors for their books and plays. After hearing evi- dence on the point, the committee de- cided to take a test case into the courts. In the event of an unfavorable judg- ment, the Government is to be asked for remedial legislation. Last year the two thousand charities in the British Isles of which particulars were forthcoming, had a total income of sixty-four millions of dollars. This was an increase of $1,000,000 over 1911. Such are the facts which the twenty-fifth edi- tion of "Burdett's Hospitals and Chari- ties" (London: The Scientific Press) is able to record. The volume contains its usual fulness of detail, despite the diffi- culty of obtaining the information sought owing to the inexcusable failure of insti- tutions to respond to repeated requests. A good word is spoken for this country in the statement that "the better man- aged hospitals of the United States are gradually waking up to the necessity for some uniform system of keeping their accounts." THE "Centenary Volume 1810-1910" of the Royal Belfast Academical Insti- tution (Belfast: M'Caw, Stevenson & Orr) is an extraordinarily complete record of the foundation, the struggle for existence, and the final success of what was for many years the most important teaching institution in Protestant Ireland. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Bel- fast, then a small but flourishing com- munity, whose conditions and needs at that time are here described in detail, had a few fairly good private schools, but no public endowment for secondary or collegiate education. The Institution was founded by Belfast merchants, and thereafter maintained by them in the face of discouragement by the British Govern- ment, which was easily persuaded by the authorities at Dublin that it would be unwise to foster the education of the "disloyal" inhabitants of Belfast. A nig- gardly grant from London was awarded at last but was suspended for several years with the excuse that the school was not approved by the strictest Presby- terians in Ireland. The Institution, how- ever, prospered in spite of meagre sal- aries for the instructors, unfinished build- ings, of which Soane, the founder of the Soane Museum in London, was the un- paid architect, and, above all, in spite of the machinations of the Presbyterian Synod. Its history is a monument to the effective power of Scotch-Irish "grit" But it owed its success chiefly to the dis- tinguished men who consented to teach
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336 The N a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2543 there for salaries ranging- from £50 to £150. Among these was James Thom- son, the father of Lord Kelvin, who, ap- pointed at a salary of £50, held the chair of mathematics tor seventeen years until he was called to Glasgow. The Insti- tution, therefore, claims Lord Kelvin as one of her sons and gives him a full- page portrait, though he was only about eight years old when his family removed to Glasgow. The Institution aspired to become the University of Ulster, but the organization in 1845 of the Provincial colleges in Ireland and the opening of Queen's University curtailed this am- bition. Among the famous men who were educated there were Allingham and Ferguson, the poets; Dill, the well-known authority on Roman Society; Darbishire, the classical scholar; Sir Joseph Larmor, the physicist; Sir Almroth Wright, the pathologist; Sir Donald Currie, the ship- owner; Lord Pirrie, the shipbuilder, and many others whose portraits and biog- raphies are given in this volume. AFTER the cooperative histories of Kngland from the hands of special- ists, like the series edited by Oman, Poole, or Traill, there is a reversion to the J. R. Green type of a considerable survey from a single hand. In the first volume of his new "History of England and the British Empire" (Macmillan), Arthur D. Innes gives the story of English political growth, from the invasion of Caesar to the end of the Wars of the Roses. The Tudor and Stuart period, from 1485 to 1689, will fill his second volume, and the last two hundred and twenty-five years the third and fourth volumes, bringing the narrative down to 1914. In thus giv- ing a full half of his space to the pe- riod since 1685 — a period which occupies less than a fifth of the space in J. R. Green's "Short History" — Mr. Innes wisely recognizes the increasing desire of readers to have the complicated re- cent history more fully treated than is usually done in the ordinary handbooks. The great economic changes, the impor- tant constitutional developments, the rapid growth of the overseas dominions, and the widening sphere of government activity in social legislation, amply jus- tify this shifting of emphasis to the more modern times. In the volume before us Mr. Innes gives a clear impression of the unity and continuity of national develop- ment. He writes a brisk narrative of the political history for a period, and then adds a good summary of the growth of commerce and industry, of social changes, and of the development of lit- erature during the same period. He gives more attention to Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, which are to be parts of the British Empire, and less attention to the details of constitutional history than most of the larger handbooks. His nar- rative, so far as we have tested it, is accurate and acquainted with the best scholarship, and is also very readable. THERE is unquestionably a certain amount of careful information in Philippe Bunau-Varilla's "Panama: Its Creation, Destruction, and Resurrec- tion" (McBride, Nasi), but this is Inevitably lost in the immense dis- of the author's vanity. For tli- 1 1 long look of the writer upon his work with ineffable satisfaction at finding it good in every part. It has been said that Charles Sumner's egotism was so great as to be equivalent to an insult to every man he talked with, but M. Bunau-Varilla leaves Sunnier and all other vain men of whom there is a record gasping far behind him. His self-complacency is so colossal that the reader soon ceases to resent it, and merely rocks with laughter at it. Bunau- Varilla is Tartarin and a cadet de Oas- cogne rolled into one and delivering him- self page after page in the most pom- pous and staccato style of Victor Hugo. He concedes, grudgingly as it were, some- thing to the Creator for having made the Isthmus of Panama, and to Lesseps for having conceived the idea of cutting it, but all the rest he claims for himself. It was he who devised the modification of the original plans, which would have made the canal feasible and saved the company from bankruptcy, if only France had not been led astray by calum- niators and traitors. Then it was Bunau- Varilla who converted the United States from Nicaragua to Panama, captured Mark Hanna, persuaded Roosevelt, com- pelled Congress to reverse its vote. It was he, again, who first thought of and plotted and carried out the revolution in Panama; who used John Hay and Presi- dent Roosevelt and the American navy as his toys and tools; who, in fact, did everything that was worth doing and that was well done in connection with build- ing the Panama Canal. A stupid engi- neering board has not yet come round to his notion of the "Straits of Panama," but this will surely be seen in time. M. Bunau-Varilla, however, does not wait for that in order to emit a paean of self- praise. His book is so inflated with vain- glory throughout that you finish it with all other feeling put aside except that you have been standing in the presence of the most ridiculous braggart who ever put himself in print. w FIVE new volumes of the Loeb Classi- cal Library, though they perhaps show some improvement over earlier is- sues, only confirm the common judgment that a grave and, it may be, irreparable error was committed in entrusting the publishing of the series to a house which apparently lacks the sense of good form and style in book-making. We speak not of the Macmillan Company, who im- port the volumes, but who, if we are rightly informed, have no responsibility for their manufacture. That responsibil- ity must be shared between William Heinemann and the general editors, and we can only wonder whether they are aware of the sort of comments that are commonly passed on the mechanical exe- cution of their duty. In this respect, the Latin volumes are, as a rule, decidedly better than the Greek, but some of these, too, leave much to be desired. In the pre "i Issue, the flrst volume of the Suetonius is particularly bad. From the i::-:o of poor paper and from imperfect th lines often show through the page In a way quite offensive to The ! Scero i:; l«ss opi □ to critl- , th 1 pect, bu1 even here one la annoyed by turning from e double leaded to slngl V adi d pa re, or vice versa, in the Latin text, when a little intelligence on the part of the printer would have arranged the lines and notes so as to avoid this fault. The Horace does not suffer from this defect, but lacks distinction, and is in its appear- ance without a touch of the "simple ele- gance" (to use Professor Bennett's hap- py rendering) which that poet might claim as a right. Of the two Greek vol- umes, one, the Dio Cassius, has a very clear impression of the text, and only suffers from unnecessary alternation of crowded and open type. The other, the second volume of Julian, is printed in such a way as sadly to try the eyes and temper of the reader. E have spoken of this mechanical aspect of the Loeb Libraryatwhat may seem undue length, but it is really a matter of supreme importance to the suc- cess of the undertaking. Otherwise, one recognizes gladly that excellent work is goinginto the books. Among the present volumes the palm for dexterous transla- tion will probably go to Prof. C. E. Ben- nett for his rendering of the Odes and Epodes of Horace. He has eschewed metre, but has given his language a sufficiently poetical cast, without over- stepping the bounds of prose taste. We have dipped into the book in many places, and have nowhere found a passage which seemed to us clumsy or inadequate, and have, on the contrary, often been sur- prised at the skilful imitation in Eng- lish of some precious phrase or line which we had supposed incommutable. An index partly, but by no means whol- ly, supplies the absence of the few notes that should have been added, and very brief introductions might well have been furnished for some of the Odes. THE volumes differ oddly in this matter of aids to the reader. In this respect, Prof. J. C. Rolfe has been unusually gen- erous and judicious in the first volume of his Suetonius. His translation also is good, although at times the style becomes a bit languid. In some ways the task of Walter Miller in rendering Cicero's "De Offlciis" was even more difficult than that of transferring Horace into English prose. Mr. Miller in one of his notes explains the difficulty as being due to the fact that Cicero had to invent terms to correspond to the ethical vocabulary of the Greek Stoics, and that explana- tion is no doubt in large measure cor- rect; but beyond it lies the impossibility of finding words in any modern tongue which will convey the exact meaning of some of the classical conceptions of mor- als and manners. Nor is it much easier to find an equivalent tor the Greek KadrJKov than for the Latin offlolum which Cicero uses. And in the nature of this differ- ence in ethical ideas, it may be said in passing, lies the greatest value of classi- cal study, as well as the impossibility of 1 ttlng this value by th* use of transla- lone. Mr. Miller, in our Judl DOM Hi has been successful in his .search I d possible e.|iii\ .ilents for the Latin terminology, and has known how to bt helpful in biS note:: withOUl being dlf ,, ere 1 bis the place, however, we .1,1 hi a 1 ■" "■' w 1th Mi note on
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March 26, 1914] The Nation 337 I, xliii, in which he finds Cicero incon- sistent in dealing with "wisdom" and the "bonds of union between gods and men." Possibly a closer tracking of Cicero's ideas in this place might lead to a clear- er notion of the relation between the ideal sapiens and the man of practical moral- ity. MRS. WILMER CAVE WRIGHT adds the second volume to her Julian, of which we shall probably have more to say when the third, and concluding, volume has appeared. A translation of "the Apostate" is not so easy as it may seem, and Mrs. Wright is carrying out her task with notable success. In a few places her rendering is questionable, and once (p. 33), by an odd slip, she has given "staff" for the Cynic's rplfiuva. A new pro- ject begins with Earnest Cary's transla- tion of the "Roman History" of Dio Cas- sius. It was proposed at first to revise for this purpose the version by Foster published in Troy, N. Y., in 1905-06, but the revision was so radical that the gen- eral editors properly give the credit and responsibility of the work to the later man. The present edition when complete will run to nine volumes, the first, which now appears, containing the fragments of books i to xi. The various forms of a fragment, when such occur, are ar- ranged on the same page. ERNEST CUSHING RICHARDSON, who is Princeton's librarian, has studied and written to no small extent on the history of libraries. A volume on "Some Old Egyptian Librarians" appeared about two years ago. There have also been essays, in the professional magazines, on mediaeval libraries, and other similar topics. And now we have "The Begin- nings of Libraries," published at the Princeton University Press. Dr. Rich- ardson looks upon these, including the present book, each as a "sort of pre- liminary report or investigation in the field, pending full and systematic report." This would seem to indicate that a com- plete work is contemplated, and that these books and essays will form parts of that work. It is likely to be on a rather ample scale. For when an author can produce a fair-sized little book of a hundred and seventy-odd pages, and scarcely touch his subject at all, any "full and systematic report" which he may make is sure to be pretty exhaus- tive. Some idea of his method may be gained from reading the third chapter, on the Definition of the Library. Dr. Richardson argues that a single book may be a library, that a single word may be a book, and that a single sign or dot may be a word. Therefore, we are led to the conclusion that any sin- gle mark or dot which means anything is a library. Surely, this is a case where the "scientific method" parts company with common-sense, and where it had been better to follow common-sense. Otherwise, an absolutely limitless field of unprofitable speculation is opened, and the investigator must ramble for- ever in a fog. There follow chapters on Antediluvian Libraries, Libraries of the Gods, Animal and Plant Libraries, Preadamite Libraries, and so on. All that the learned author can do is to indulge in learned guess-work about sub- jects of which nobody has knowledge. The remainder of the book is devoted to "quipus," message-sticks, wampum, leop- ard-teeth, tattooing, and other topics be- longing properly enough to the anthro- pologist. Chapters about The Adminis- tration of Primitive Libraries and The Beginnings of Library Schools come near the close of the book, and indicate what can be done when a conscientious scholar tries his best to make a chapter out of nothing, and forgets to use his sense of the absurd. "C AMBRIDGE Poets, 1900-1913" (Cambridge, England: Heffer) is an anthology of verse written by Cam- bridge men, and a few Cambridge women, during the period mentioned, and piously collected by Aelfrida Till- yard. Surprisingly few of the poems owe their inspiration to University scenes or traditions; nor does the collection as a whole indicate that Cam- bridge has in the past few years pro- duced any especial "school" of poets. It must, indeed, be reluctantly admitted that, though this volume contains some very creditable work, the general stand- ard, whether of inspiration or of metrical skill, is by no means high; it is, in point of fact, hardly high enough to justify Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch's apology for the volume made in the preface that he con- tributes: "I shall take it to be conceded, at this time of day, not only that good poetry is worth writing, but that our language has a capacity and our nation a rather special aptitude for it." Else- where in his preface, Sir Arthur speaks a "small word of protest," deploring the predominance of the lyric form that he finds in the volume, and seeing in it the reflection of an unfortunate tendency of the age. In a collection, however, most of the contents of which is the product of adolescence, the predominance of the lyric is entirely natural. Much of the verse, as was to be expected, is imita- tive, and in two instances, certainly, the legends "with apologies to Robert Brown- ing," and "with apologies to Rudyard Kipling" might not inappropriately have been appended to the respective titles. One of the most interesting pieces in the book is Harold Monro's "God," a clever poem in dramatic form. A pleasing fancy, gracefully phrased, is James Elroy Fleck- er's "Oak and Olive." We quote two stanzas: I ponder how from Attic seed Tliere grew au English tree. How Byron like his heroes fell, Fighting a country free, And Swinburne took from Shelley's lips The kiss of poetry. Ami while our poets chanted Pan Back to his pipes ami power, Hunt Vorrall, bending at his desk, And searching hour on hour Found nut old gardens, whore the wise May find a Spartan flower. There are some unfortunate examples of careless proofreading, notably on p. 58 ("The Challenge," third line), where the insertion of the word "own," evidently from the line above, gives an extra foot to the verse; and on p. 101 (third line from the bottom), where "beauties" is an obvious mistake for "beauty's." "B USINESS Organization and Combi- nation" (Macmillan), by Lewis H. Haney, is the first attempt to present a systematic treatise on industrial organi- zation. Written primarily as a college textbook, it should be estimated from this point of view. There have been many books on corporations and Trusts, but this differs from its predecessors in treating more systematically of the general na- ture and evolution of business forms. It considers the characteristics and adaptability of the individual entrepre- neur, the partnership, joint-stock com- pany, and corporation, and then investi- gates the development of the pool, the Trust, the holding company, the amalga- mation, and merger. In each case the author has endeavored to weigh the ad- vantages and disadvantages from the so- cial point of view, a purpose which is ad- mirable, but is in many cases carried out with such detail as seriously to confuse the student. The book lays its stress upon the administrative and legal aspects of business organization, and intentional- ly eliminates financial problems so far as possible. This results in depriving it of much attractive and useful mate- rial and leaves in many portions only dull administrative details of less funda- mental value. For example, the chapter which discusses simple Trusts, such as real-estate Trusts, might well have been left to a legal treatise, and the one on in- ternal organization seems superfluous. On the other hand, more attention might well have been given to corporation finance than the scanty treatment in the chapters on promotion, underwriting, and reorganization. But in view of the fact that the question of public policy occu- pies an important portion of the book, the most surprising omission is the failure to consider the history and interpretation of the Sherman Anti-Trust act, upon which has centred all discussion of the Trust problem for the past fifteen years. The author urges the need of a new form of organization to fill the gap be- tween the partnership and the corpora- tion, and suggests the limited-liability association. The book is well supplied with documentary material, and in spite of its omissions is a distinct addition to the literature of the subject. (('THE Ways of the South Sea Sav- 1 age" (Lippincott), by Robert W. Williamson, is well defined by the sub-title as "a record of travel and observation amongst the savages of the Solomon Islands and primitive coast and mountain peoples of New Guinea." It is a volume of ethnolog- ical observations, interspersed with personal experiences and small adven- tures, gathered from cannibalistic tribes which had not hitherto been studied and the existence of which was hardly known, and is remarkable for its completeness, when the circumstances of the investiga- tor are considered. Mr. Williamson is a lawyer, of London, who had nourished for many years the desire to do something of this character, but had been repeatedly prevented from beginning. He was en- tirely inexperienced in travelling in sav- age regions or in field investigations, was alone and weak with illness most of the time, and always at the mercy of
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338 rT h N" at ion [Vol. 98, No. 2543 savages who, he well knew, had 1 gard lor human life than for that of tin pig which lakes .so large a plan- in their ceremonial as well as practical affairs Yet he brought back an amazing- amount of novel and coherent information, in- cluding large collections of material ob- jects to illustrate the cultural stage and manner of life of each tribe visited These, and the author's account, seem to indicate that the mountain tribes of New Guinea resemble in their habits and way of looking at things the more de- based Africans of the upper Congo val- ley more nearly than they do any other barbarians. Mr. Williamson believes them to be a remnant of an aboriginal Negrito stock. The book, which is copiously illus- trated from excellent photographs, is one that no student of the ethnology of New Guinea or of the Solomon Islands can afford to neglect. AFTER seven years' labor, the Swe- dish Emigration Commission has finished its investigations into the conditions, in Sweden and in Amer- ica, that may have promoted the emigration of large numbers of the healthiest and most energetic of the younger generations of Swedish farm- ers and city laborers. In his final re- port (Betankande; Stockholm: Nordiska Bokhandeln), Gustav Sundbiirg, the Com- missioner, gives a summary of the twenty accompanying monographs, pre- ceded by a statistical history of Sweden, the whole making a vol- ume of 892 pages. Professor Sund- barg's conclusions are interesting from several points of view. He sees in the presence in America of friends and relatives one of the chief attractions that cause the present large emigration to this country. But the deeper cause he dis- covers in economic and social conditions in Sweden, the cure for which can come only from economic enterprise and so- cial reforms. He adds that the present large influx of immigrants to this coun- try from Southern and Eastern Europe is not calculated to attract immigrants of Germanic race. And this is serious for America, because: If we consider who the men were that built up the present greatness of the United States, we find at once that it has been, in the first place, immigrant Anglo- Saxons, Germans, Scandinavians, and Hollanders, and their descendants, in the second, and a few following generations. And, further: It is manifest that other times are at hand in the economic life of the United States. We have above taken the liberty to declare the crisis of 1907 as the probable turning-point. During the last years progress has not come like an avalanche, as heretofore. The degree of rapidity shows more and more a tendency to bo- come comparable with that of, e. g., Ger- many, which in itself is very fine, but still does not correspond to what Ameri- cans have been accustomed to regard as normal. Professor Sundbarg also remarks the extensive method of American agricul- ture, the devastation of our forests, and the fast-diminishing mineral resources of the land. Hairy Thurston Peck, who shot him- self on Monday at Stamford, Conn., was born on November 24, 1856, at Stamford. He received his A.B. from Columbia in 1881, his A.M. a year later, and his L.H.D. in 1884, having in the previous year received the Ph.D. from Cumbei land University. Becoming a tutor in Latin at Columbia soon after his gradu- ation, he was appointed in 1904 to the chaii of Anthon professor of the Latin language and literature, a position which he resigned in 1910. Professor Peck en- joyed a wide reputation as a classical scholar and an authority on Latin philo- logy. He was editor of the Bookman from 1895 to 1902, and literary editor of the New York Commercial Advertiser from 1897 to 1902. He also edited a num- ber of important publications, including "Harper's Classical Dictionary," the "In- ternational Encyclopaedia," the "New In- ternational Encyclopaedia," the "Library of the World's Literature," and the Co- lumbia University "Studies in Classical Philology." Among his other writings may be mentioned "The Semitic Theory of Creation," "Latin Pronunciation," "The Adventures of Mabel," "The Personal Equation," "What Is Good English?" a volume of poems called "Greystone and Porphyry," "Life of Prescott," "The New Baedeker," "History of Classical Philolo- gy," and a translation of Petronius's "Tri- malchio's Feast." Science THE BODY AND SOUL. Matter and Some of its Dimensions. By William Kearney Carr. Library of Living Thought. New York: Harper & Bros. The criticism of this hook, which at- tempts to link the actions of man, oc- curring in space of three dimensions, to his spirit, which is supposed to exist in a space having four dimensions, is a difficult task. The first part requires a knowledge of physics, but the author fortifies himself against criticism by stating that "of all the attributes of the human mind, those which characterize the average orthodox scientist . . . are the least attractive." And as the second part finds the soul entangled in the body and influenced by its weak- nesses, the author disposes of the criti- cism of his medical facts by saying that the majority of physicians cannot shake off the early influence of official training and that they often confound hasty generalizations with facts. He lastly characterizes himself thus: "All progress is from below upward; hence we should expect to hear wisdom from the humble and the unintelligent." Then he classes St. Francis of Assisi and Jesus with himself in the category of the humble and unintelligent from whom we should expect to hoar wisdom. The author's train of thought resolves itself into this: The modern theories of physics have replaced matter by elec- tricity, which is amoral agent, and lias luhlimated material substance Into Lm- materia] ether, ( He should read Sir Oli- ver Lodge's arguments for the massive nature of the ether published in this same Library.) This ether is but one of a series of ethers, each more immaterial than the preceding of the series; he settles on five as the proper number for this series. Matter is a stress in the coarsest of these ethers, and this gigan- tic stress cannot be kept up, "without a personality of some kind exerting it, and hence it is literally true that in the body or mind of some great Being all things do live." By a simple sifting process these five grades of ethers separate into five rings, each of a homogeneous sort, and the electrons of matter are entangled in the grossest ether only, which, of course, is the most immoral of them all. This is true because the author prints a picture showing just how it looks. "The only shocking element in the concept is that it places man so low in the scale of existence — almost at the foot of the ladder." But he takes some comfort in the fact that, while a man's body exists in this low form of ether and must be satisfied with only three dimensions of space, his soul is at the same time liv- ing in the next ring of ether and so can have four dimensions and a much better existence. The body and the soul have a serious time of it, as one may well imagine, and it is no wonder that men are wayward, for their two identities are continually striving against each other. The thing to do is to get out of three-dimensional space and out of our bodies. This we do when we have visions or hallucina- tions. The author knows how to help us, for he has done it. Being a humble man, he has got into the four-dimen- sional space only twice in his life, and both times only after periods of great mental distress. Unfortunately he can- not tell us what he saw, for his eyes, his tongue, and his pen only operate in three dimensional space. But he does tell us how to follow him: "That the perfectly normal, well-sustained animal, man, ever s a great fundamental truth by deduction is to be doubted." We must make ourselves abnormal in order to have the vision of pure truth. Any of these ways will do — "a blow on the head, a brain lesion, the delirium of fever, prolonged fasting, or a congenital erversion of the nervous system." These are all pretty severe methods, and his other recipe of eating rice is probably just as good. After these specimens of the writer's logic, 11 la needless to point out thai cts, whether drawn from physics, medicine, or from psychology, are for the most part false, or are twisted to mean things which are not germane to them. it would have served no purpose to consider this book at length if it had appeared In the form of the usual freak- I ,, 1 1 oduction, But Included, as it is. in
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March 26, 1914I The 1ST a t i o 11 339 a collection whose preceding volufnes have borne the names of distinguished men of science who, while they may have indulged in a certain amount of specu- lation, yet had accurate knowledge at their command and did not confuse fact and fancy, this book assumes a certain importance and authority. It is an example, too, of the perils that con- front any scholar who fills his head with vague scientific phrases and formulae and then fuses these with equally vague ethical and religious ideas. There is more of this confused sort of thinking abroad, and even in high places, than might be supposed. The Harvard University Press will publish shortly "Headings in Scientific Management," edited by C. B. Thompson, Bad "Preservatives for Food: Their Use and Abuse," by Dr. Otto Folin. John Lane Company announces for publication on Saturday "The Garden i Du Bois Flint. Drama REACTION IN FRANCE. Paris, March 10. French plays, like French novels, have sometimes their vogue abroad after they have lost it at home. A change is cer- tainly coming over the spirit of the French dramatic dream. All the insen- sitive cosmopolitanism of Paris is not proof against it. For it is only part of a whole nation's movement towards its own native traditions and habits of mind, which foreign and unnatural and morbid influences have been troubling for more than one generation. Ibsen lasted but a season, and now naturalists and intellectuels find they have outstayed their welcome and must be packing, with Symbolists and De- cadents and all the other shadows of dreadful night. Exotic subjects and treatment, scene decoration and ballet, have not been enough to keep going the opera and theatre which American mon- ey was supposed to subsidize for the bringing of novel art to Paris. The for- mer success of Henry Bataille, with the continued countenance of the official Comedie-Francaise, and all his scintil- lations of lyric sentiment have not been enough to keep in favor splendidly act- ed parts which represent abnormal, un- balanced, hysterical, improbable human beings. Bernstein's matchless command of stage art has not held the public, which was expected to follow after him. Take out all foreigners who are des- perately resolved to be Parisian accord- ing to their preconceived ideal of what is Parisian; eliminate all Parisians whose snobbishness sets them running after every new fashion; and there re- mains this native public which may be despised, but which is necessary to the theatre's support, material and mental and moral. If any one says the passing season has been bad for the theatre, seek the cause no further. This necessary public is simply and spontaneously show- ing its dislike for plays which do not please it. And, with equal heartiness, it shows its liking where a play happens to please. For once, the French Academy seems to be in agreement with the public. It has elected Alfred Capus, popular play- wright for French people, to the chair of Henri Poincare, who was a genius and master of mathematics for the whole world. It might be too much to call Capus a genius, and not all his pieces are equally popular; but he is more than a playwright. No French v.iiter so completely represents the aver- age Frenchman — orderly from an old, minute, refined civilization; nourished on the old humanities, in whose routine the art emotions of the world have run ever since Greece and Rome set the ex- ample; knowing the sorrows as well as the elation of our day's society, which lives for money and the pleasure money can buy; kindly, gay even as the un- tainted French have always been, in his outlook on life. "L'Institut de Beaute," the piece of Alfred Capus which has had a half- year's run at the Theatre des Varietes, is not one of his best; but it is good and representative of many things in this new spirit which is the old. Nowadays we are all of us bourgeois — middle-class — seeking more or less laughably to rise. Monsieur and Madame Lagraine are prosperous wallpaper merchants in mid- Paris; but they aspire — he to literature, and she, like a dutiful French wife, to pushing her husband. They change their comfortable, well-ordered life and seek society in fashionable hotels. Like the prudent bourgeois they are, they soon find 100,000 francs a year of ex- penses cannot be made to balance with 20,000 francs of receipts. Then the rich uncle of their expectations, who has al- ways been dying, starts up serene and whole in body and mind, dispensing with his doctor by a sort of French Christian Science. Altogether, they try to raise the wind by opening an Insti- tute of Beauty to heal the ravages of society among its devotees. Madame keeps her head when she turns one lady's complexion too ruddy — "That's our fashion this season!" But she also keeps her eye on her husband, whose poetry amid these fine ladies is particu- larly dangerous — until she seizes and brings him back, for safety and affec- tion's sake, to bourgeois life and wall- papers. There is no thesis to the play; but it is a kindly satire on the social incoher- ence of the times. And it is very bour- geois in the good sense — for it has noth- ing to do with Philistines — just as Brieux, who is also a member of the French Academy, is bourgeois. To his new piece at the Odeon, Brieux has even given the name, "Le Bourgeois aux champs." The educated, rich inhabitant of a city, with a fortune from business — for this is really all that is meant by bour- geois— instead of aspiring socially, dreams of revolution in society, turns Socialist, and goes to grass; that is, he goes to live in the country with his wife and daughter, to do good, as the dilettante kind of Socialists understand social good. He takes for his chauffeur a bright young fellow who is just out of prison, where he had been sent for fighting a country policeman. Then he tries to get the peasants to drink boiled water and give up alcohol. And his daughter tries to marry a young landed proprietor of the region. Of course, the peasants teach him a thing or two; the young landed proprietor will not marry his daughter, and the father gives her to wife to the chauffeur, and himself goes into politics. But he keeps his chateau and turns his back on peasants, who find it odd he should like the coun- try better than riches in the city. It is all very much like Balzac's "Paysans" — and it is another revival of very na- tive French comedy and sentiment. Another sign of the way the wind is blowing may be seen in the return, pop- ular and fashionable, to a very French style of opera bouffe. The Varietes, which has been reviving Offenbach for several years, has taken for its second half-year the "Merveilleuses" of Sardou, transformed by Paul Ferrier to music of Hugo Felix. Offenbach was not a French- man, but he was a genuine Parisian of Empress Eugenie's time, and court emo- tions swayed to his strains. So Hugo Felix is an Hungarian, cradled to music by the blue Danube of Johann Strauss; but he has drunk the latest brand of Parisine, and no wonder if his spright- ly sonorities tickle French nerves in this changing period of the republic. For it is still Sardou that really counts, and he is native French enough for the most exacting Nationalist. The play is of the society that amused itself after Robespierre was guillotined and the worst of the Revolution was over — a time of reaction. It was rep- resented for the first time in 1873 — in the reaction from the Commune. And now, disguised as operetta, it comes back when French society is again swinging to reaction. Five sets of po- lice have to dart on and off the stage and save the Republic, one and indivisi- ble, from these elegant and gallant and earnest Muscadins and Merveilleuses. Sardou as a bashful boy was led out to dance by the compassionate widow of Le Bas, who was Robespierre's comrade in life and death. La Montansier, who
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S4=Q The JSTation [Vol. 98, No. 2543 founded the Varietes, had her own neck saved from the guillotine by their death, and she thankfully steered her theatre along genuine French lines, to which it still keeps. Beaumarchais indicated them, first writing his "Barbier de Seville" as an op6ra-comique, and then rewriting it as a comedie-vaudeville. This reaction keeps time with others — patriotism; art, from ballet to furni- ture; literature; and, it has to be said, sports. Men and women who go in for motoring and golf, aeroplanes, and box- ing matches are no more capable of sit- ting through Ibsen — the object of Paris curiosity twenty years since — than Louis the Fourteenth's fencing courtiers who had seen the wars would have been. Alfred Capus, in his weekly "Courrier de Paris," has told how far, both up and down, all this reaction of which the drama is the sign may extend: Shall the energy this generation shows push it back to Catholic unity or, over- looking religious questions, consecrate it to Patriotic worship alone? We can hardly see that it thinks of any other than these two directions — and it still hesitates between them. I know there is also a Socialist youth, but it has suffered its banner to be shut up among financiers — and without a banner there is no mak- ing enthusiasts. But — as Capus notes elsewhere — we have also "the neurasthenia of the cinema — all that debauch of emotions on a back- ground of sadness, which characterizes the strenuous life." S. D. A PLAY OF REVOLT. The Idol Breaker. By Charles Rann Ken- nedy. New York: Harper & Bros. $1.25 net. This is the third play in the series of seven, for seven players, of which "The Servant in the House" and "The Winter Feast" were the first two. The subject of it is Freedom, and, like the preceding works of the same author, it is marked by uncommon literary abil- ity, vivid characterization, and intense if not always profoundly philosophical earnestness. In many ways it is a not- able addition to the rapidly growing list of the modern printed drama, and it might even be successful on the stage if actors capable of interpreting it in the right spirit could be found. It has a message, and delivers it potently. But it has the defects of its virtues. In his zeal for the cause of the proletariat and the brotherhood of man, Mr. Ken- nedy seems to ignore the fact that in the social economy there are produc- tive agencies besides physical labor. There are many kinds and degrees of workmanship, and not all the workers are unrewarded. Actually, he deals with only one phase of an enormously com- plicated question, and it is extremely doubtful, to say the least, whether the social revolution, of the kind suggested in his allegory, with all the workers self-dependent, rid of all their real or imaginary shackles, would bring about the millennium. The weaker still would go to the wall. This is the crucial and hard fact that all socialistic and anar- chical enthusiasts of Mr. Kennedy's imaginative and emotional type always fail to take into full account. Their vision is obscured by their faith and their ideals. This is why in this piece, in which he poses as a seer as well as a dissector and satirist of the body poli- tic, he is more impressive as a dramatist than as a prophet. Nevertheless, there is a body of historical fact at the bot- tom of his thesis, and enough actual unrest in the world to exempt him from the charge of being a mere sensational- ist. The scene of his drama, which is wholly symbolical, is a forge, the work- shop of the world, and his hero, Adam the blacksmith, typifies all the creative labor since the beginning. The place, Little Boswell, is anywhere within the confines of modern civilization, although many of the references point unmistak- ably to the United States. Adam, the producer, in furious revolt against the organized system which, as he sees it, dooms him to perpetual labor for the benefit of others, is in the mood to smash things. He has been cast out by the Constituted Sons of Freedom as a crazy revolutionist when he denounced them as a community of slaves. To him, in the guise of a woman of the high road, clad in red, comes the spirit of Freedom, Naomi, who revives in him the memory of previous incarnations, his successive forms of servitude, his futile insurrections and renewed abase- ment. She tells him of the golden cit- ies built by the workers of bygone ages and of the joys of individual liberty in wide spaces on the uplands, and helps him, in a scene full of broad humor and satire, to discomfit utterly a committee of Little Boswellians, representing the press, the Sunday-school, the law, and capital, appointed to discipline him. He would claim Naomi as his mate, but is confronted by the Wastrel Jake — the spirit of Hate — who explains that he has been her constant associate. This Naomi admits, but adds that to him she has ever been barren, and warns Adam that he will be lost if he listens to so evil a counsellor. Jake taunts Adam with his slavery, saying that he can be no mate to Freedom, who is royal, and urges him to seek his only possible sat- isfaction in violence; but the Smith re- jects that temptation, declaring that he will seize Freedom for his own, by vir- tue of his self-mastership, and start with her to build new cities in remote re- gions, subject only to divine law. Naomi thereupon acknowledges Adam as her true spouse, but leaves him to continue her mission on the highway, while Jake, defeated, perishes. The curtain falls upon an intimation that the theories of Adam (who is also Charles Rann Ken- nedy) have prevailed at last in Little Boswell, where hereafter individualism will be supreme, and paradise on earth attained. It would be easy to deride this play as the product of an anarchical rhap- sodist. The generalizations in it are violent and the philosophy visionary. But the evils which it assails, and the proposed remedy for them, the acquire- ment by the laboring classes of equal rights and perfect individual liberty, in an evangelical spirit of brotherly love, is, if somewhat Utopian, altogether praiseworthy and legitimate. Unfortu- nately for the great mass of mankind, equal opportunities for all would mean little without an accompanying equal- ity in character and brains. But the idea is a large one, and Mr. Kennedy has illustrated it with imaginative and dramatic ability and an adroit combina- tion of symbolism and realism. His dialogue is simple and vigorous, and his three principal figures, Adam, Naomi, and Jake, are striking studies. A sketch of the yellow journalist, Snark, is a bit of savage but truthful satire. The technical workmanship of the play, the entire action of which occurs with- out break In the two and a half hours of its actual representation, is exceed- ingly skilful. MARGARET ANGLIN IN SHAKE- SPEARE. The notable points in Margaret Ang- lin's revival of "The Taming of the Shrew," in the Hudson Theatre, were in the stage management rather than the acting. The "Induction" was omitted — although an admirable Sly might have been found in Fuller Mellish — and the rest of the text was treated with scant reverence. But the piece was dressed and mounted with liberality and good taste, both scenery and costumes being artistic in an uncommon degree, while the action was smooth and rapid — prov- ing careful and prolonged rehearsal — and the grouping exceedingly effective. In the general interpretation, however, the dom- inant mood was one of reckless and often undignified farce, the chief aim, appar- ently, being to compel laughter by the sheer extravagance of the situations. There is abundant theatrical precedent, of course, for treating the play in this fash- ion, which doubtless offers the easiest road to popular success. "The Shrew" is qoI a masterpiece demanding the pro- foundesi respect, bul it does possess some of the qualities Of romantic com- edy, and tin onsidoration which was not accorded them on this oc- casion. Miss Anglin, overlooking the sup- posed social condition of Katharlna, de- picted her as a virago of an essentially common order. Her Impersonation had broad humor and vigor, bill lit lie of the manner appropriate t" •■> daughter of a merchant piince oi i 'adua. Katharlna, in her maddest fits, ought not to be entirely
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March 26, 1914] The Nation 341 unmindful of the dignity of her class. It is this, indeed, which should distinguish her from the common herd of scolds and five her increased dramatic significance. But -Miss Anglin pitched her performance In a strident key and her company fol- lowed her lead. Eric Blind's exertions as 1'etruchio sometimes left him breathless and inarticulate, and what might have been a capital performance was spoiled for want of a little moderation. The best bits of individual acting were the Grumio of Max Montesole and the Pedant of Ful- ler Mellish. As a pictorial stage frolic the whole affair was very well managed and often highly amusing, but there was not much of the Shakespearean essence about it. And the same remark is true, with minor reservations, of Miss Anglin's re- vival of "Twelfth Night." In this, too, a production notably good in some respects was spoiled for the true Shakespeare lover by the buffoonery — some of it doubtless rooted in theatrical tradition — imported into the scenes of broader com- edy by some of the principal performers. One would suppose that there was enough of liquorish humor in Sir Toby Belch as he appears upon the printed page to supply the needs of any comic actor. Moreover, he is, as Shakespeare drew him, not only comic, but richly and en- tirely human. But with the accumula- tions of stage "business" centring upon him, in the course of years, he has been converted into a grossly impossible fig- ure only fit for the circus. And in recent times there has not been a more violent expositor of him than Mr. Sidney Green- street, who played the part with all the license of burlesque, bellowing through- out like a bull of Bashan and indulging in all the old and some new extrava- gances. Of course, he provoked careless laughter and applause, but he hopelessly vulgarized and denaturalized the whole character. Wallace Widdecombe was more nearly human as Aguecheek, and therefore less open to criticism, but he also sometimes forced eccentricity to the boundaries of burlesque. Max Montesole played the Clown with welcome modera- tion and a clear if not highly developed appreciation of the Shakespearean humor. The delightful episode of the beguile- ment of Malvolio was nearly spoiled by the excessive zeal of Miss Lillian Thur- gate, who converted Maria — that delight- ful creation, instinct with Puckish mis- chief— into a shrill servant girl, whose artificial cachinnations caused exaspera- tion, not merriment. But the Malvolio of Fuller Mellish was a delightfully ripe and artistic performance, sound in concep- tion and finished in execution. Comic, it yet had the right quality of self-respect in its fantastic dignity, with a capacity for pathos and passion. It was a fine bit of Shakspearean interpretation, if not re- markable for brilliancy or inventiveness. Miss Anglin, though not physically well qualified for Viola, played the part with evident appreciation, and succeeded ad- mirably in the scenes with Orsino and Olivia, but she followed a bad precedent in burlesquing the duel scene, which prop- erly, of course, should be given in the vein of comedy. A word of praise is due to the Orsino of Pedro de Cordoba and the Olivia of Ruth Holt Boucicault. The scenery and costumes were of high artis- tic- quality. J- R- T. "A PAIR OF SIXES." The new play by Edward Peple, which opened at Frazee's Longacre Theatre last week, has suffered perhaps from the en- thusiastic encomiums of the daily press. It is an amusing farce, but it does not arouse the side-splitting merriment that we were led to expect by some of the critiques published after its premifere. The play cannot, however, be held responsible if it fails to match exactly the promise held out by critics who, after a succes- sion of disastrous failures, were perhaps inclined to be over-indulgent in the pres- ence of an undeniable success. Mr. Peple has conceived of an excel- lent idea, the innate absurdity of which only commends it for farcical purposes. The two partners of a successful pill in- dustry, failing to agree on any subject, rail in the assistance of their lawyer. The partnership cannot be dissolved, for neither one will buy out the other; so the lawyer, in order that the farce may proceed to its appointed conclusion, hits on the device of deciding by a single hand of poker which partner shall con- tinue to conduct the business for a year, and which shall serve the winner in a menial capacity during that period. A pair of sixes in the hand of George B. Nettleton gives him the advantage, and enables the author in the second act to present to us T. Boggs John in the ca- pacity of his partner's butler. The possibilities of the situation are obvious, and Mr. Peple has on the whole made good use of them. The play has one conspicuous merit in that the in- terest increases throughout and the last act is the best of the three. There are moments of dulness, notably in those scenes in which Nettleton's wife pre- dominates, but there are a number of laughable situations and many good lines, and the climax, in which the sub- tle Boggs John, under the inspiration of his astute fiancee (well played by Miss Ann Murdock), delivers himself from servitude by his attentions to his mas- ter's wife, is ingenious. The play is well cast throughout, and George Parsons and Hale Hamilton are excellent as the two partners, while an individual success is made by Miss Maude Eburne as Coddles, the English maid-of-all-work. If we are prepared to grant that the natural des- tiny of our native farce is to be develop- ed through a crescendo of noise, "A Pair of Sixes" thoroughly deserves the suc- cess that it promises to enjoy. We may, however, make the mental reservation that a certain amount of subtlety is not incompatible with the true spirit of farce. S. W. "MARRYING MONEY." As an experiment on definite lines, "Marrying Money," by Washington Pezet and Bertram Marburgh, which opened at the Princess Theatre on Wednesday of last week, is not without interest. For it is evident that the authors have stud- ied French domestic comedy, and have attempted to discover an American equiv- alent for what has long served in France to centre drama of this class — jealousy. If in developing the American's love of money — the theme hit upon — and the position which it brings, the writers have resorted to marked exaggeration, that is no great sin in itself. Even such a strong piece as "Divorgons" is the essence of the improbable. But if extravagant, a domestic comedy, to please, must have compensations, such as sheer charm or subtle satire. It is the absence of these which makes "Marrying Money" an in- significant work. There are, besides, plenty of marks of the amateur. Im- portant confessions are repeatedly fore- stalled by fortuitous arrivals, and, in gen- eral, the exits and entrances are clumsy. It is not necessary to recount the plot, which hinges on the mistake made by a girl and a young man who are marrying each other for the money which each supposes that the other possesses, though the element of fascination is not entirely lacking. The climax is reached, after an elopement abetted by the girl's mother and by the youth's chum, when the time comes to pay the hotel bill. A Wall Street broker, who is also a baseball fan, a French count who is in love with the heroine and who, as it turns out, has money of his own, add to the rough sa- tire. As yet another product, at least in- directly, of Professor Baker's course in dramatic composition, the play indicates that instructive experiments are going on at Cambridge. F. NOTES. Dr. Karl Holl, of the University of Liverpool, in his little book, "Gerhart Hauptmann: His Life and His Works" (McClurg), has given a succinct and fairly readable account of the most prom- inent of contemporary German drama- tists. Dr. Holl in his preface hints al possible traces of foreign idioms In his style, which, indeed, he has not wholly avoided. He twice uses the word "novel" when he means Novelle, speaks in one place of "naturalistism," and on page 32 is guilty of a sentence which is simply not English at all. Tho most valuable thing about the book is the in- formation concerning the many points of contact between Haupttnann's life and his works. Tho author has gone care- fully into this matter and has brought tc light a number of facts which even students of Hauptmann may not have known before. A short summary is given of the contents of the plays, which are divided for sake of convenience into social dramas, family dramas, and fairy dramas, though the classification is not quite consistently carried out. On ques- tions of general criticism Dr. Holl is less satisfactory. He says that plastic im- agination is the essential feature of nann's mind, which is doubtless true. He also adds that ho is a dramatic genius, which is certainly false. Mo f:> ! ; to comment effectively on Hauptmann s great weakness — his lack of motivo pow- er, of true dramatic nerve. Nor does he have anything to say about Hauptmann's failure to improvo upon his own eariy successes. It is just this failure to de- velop which has made him, on tho whole, ipointing figure. Most people will agree with the author in ranking "l>io Weber" as the best of tho social dramas and, indeed, of all the plays. Whether
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342 T Jt e N a lion [Vol. 98, No. 2543 "Der Biberpelz" Is "the best modern com- edy in German literature" is more doubt- ful. There are several plays of Anzen- I ■[ hi ler to be considered. The book is furnished with a very serviceable biblio- graphy. "The Fugitive" (Scribner), by John Galsworthy, is written, of course, with definite purpose, much literary skill, and evident sincerity; but, in spite of its cleverness and vigor, it is an unsatisfac- tory work. The chief object of it, appar- ently, is to demonstrate the iniquitous effect of the English marriage and di- vorce law in holding a discontented wife to an irksome contract; but the argu- ment, in effect, if not in intention, seems to favor experimental wedlock or free love. The heroine, bred in a poor coun- try vicarage, is the wife of a prosperous business man. She is aspiring and imaginative; he completely conventional. Soon, without having any positive cause of complaint, she comes to regard him with contempt and physical aversion. One of her friends, a Bohemian socialistic journalist, preaches liberty to her, and urges her to break her bond. Finally, she deserts her husband with the view to making her own living, refusing abso- lutely to accept a separate maintenance, on the ground that she will not take money for which she makes no return. Unable to support herself, she seeks out the journalist and offers to become his mistress. With him she lives until her husband sues for divorce and damages. Realizing that this means ruin to her lover, and being assured that the suit will be withdrawn if she parts from him, she again takes up the battle of life, only to meet with renewed defeat, until, in despair, she resolves to sell her- self to the first comer. On the race- course she finds ready admirers, but at the last moment she commits suicide be- fore taking the fatal plunge. It is a sor- did and painful tale, most vividly related, with many strokes of descriptive and dramatic genius, but the effect of it is unsympathetic, because the fate of the unfortunate woman is plainly not the inevitable result of law or circumstance, but of her own defective will or char- acter. It is tolerably clear that she would have fretted under the restrictions of any form of matrimonial relationship in which the partner fell short of her fancy. As an illustration of the danger and folly of improvident marriage, and the unfitness of a girl of no specific education to fight the world single handed, it has its moral, but not one of much originality or value. The English Elizabethan Literary So- ciety is about to try the experiment of producing a series of classical English plays which have not been publicly pre- sented during the present generation. The programme for the first season will consist of Greene and Lodge's "Looking Glass for London and England," Addi- son's "Drummer," and Dryden's "All For Love." "The Mob," by John Galsworthy, is to be produced by Miss Horniman at the London Gaiety next month. Its hero is a "pro-Boer," who is mobbed in the clos- ing scene by a "mafficking" crowd. The production of such a play is a remark- able sign of changed popular feeling. Nol many years ago Mr. Galsworthy and Miss Horniman themselves would have been mobbed if thei' had attempted any such thing. Another London playhouse, the Little Theatre, is relieving the monotony of dramatic representations by a series of lectures or causeries. "Olympus in Lon- don," "Arcadia in London," "Athens in London," and "Parnassus in London," are the titles of lectures by Prof. Pat- rick Geddes so far arranged for. Lectur- ers of European reputation will after- wards be invited, with the object of link- ing the theatre with intellectual move- ments on the Continent. Marie Jansen, the operetta singer, who died on March 20, was born in Boston, and made her debut there in 1881, at the Park Theatre. She was the original Iolanthe in the Gilbert and Sullivan oper- etta in this country, and later played for several years with the McCaull Opera Company in "The Black Hussar," "The Beggar Student," and other operettas. One of her greatest successes was in "The Oolah" with Francis Wilson, and in "Erminie." Miss Jansen also created the title role of "Featherbrain" in London with Sir Charles Wyndham. Music PADEREWSKI IN AMERICA. Paderewski's ninth American tour is nearing its end. His first appearance in New York was made on November 17, 1891. He had previously won favor in Paris and London, and while some of the New York critics qualified their first praise with ifs and buts, the public was conquered at once. After two con- certs with orchestra in Carnegie Hall he began a series of recitals in the Madison Square Garden concert hall; but this was soon found to be too small, and he had to return to the largest hall in the city. In less than six months he gave 117 recitals throughout the country. The following season he re- turned for a shorter tour, embracing 67 recitals, which was a record-break- ing financial as well as artistic success. Some have estimated that he has earned nearly a million and a half of American dollars. These figures are of interest not only as showing that a pianist may be as great and as prosperous a popular idol as any prima donna or tenor, but as indicating that the genius of the great- est of living pianists is thoroughly appreciated here. "PaderewskI audi- ence" has long been a synonym for ca- pacity audience, and the enthusiasm at his recitals exceeds that to be witnessed even in the opera house. There is some- thing exciting, even thrilling, in the shouts of joy that often go up, not only from a miscellaneous audience attract- ed by the glamour of his name, but from a staid and dignified Boston Symphony audience, which would resent any ex- hibition of charlatanry or sensational- ism. Of such things Paderewski shows not a trace, and that is one of the mar- vels of his sensational success, main- tained throughout a quarter of a cen- tury. Many professional musicians wish he would stop playing. He has establish- ed such a lofty standard that others must despair of reaching it. Joseffy once remarked to his class in the National Conservatory of New York that Pader- ewski differs from other pianists in be- ing a genius. Like the only two other men who have reached his heights — • Liszt and Rubinstein — he is a creator as well as an interpreter, which explains the difference — a difference not only in degree but in kind. He has composed a symphony and a number of piano pieces and songs equal to the best writ- ten by his contemporaries; also an opera which is the most inspired dra- matic work composed since "Carmen," with the exception of "Parsifal." His concerto, which he has just been play- ing with the Boston Symphony Orches- tra in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, created everywhere a sensation — a delight min- gled with astonishment that this superb work should be neglected by other pian- ists. Why should rivals add to his laurels? one might ask; but the rivals and colleagues of the greatest of violin- ists, Fritz Kreisler, often play his pieces. The eminent English pianist, Kathar- ine Goodson, is an exception among pianists. She played the Paderewski concerto in New York a few weeks De- fore he played it, and she did it well, though it is needless to say that she did not bring out all the details with the stereoscopic vividness he himself gave them. Schopenhauer and Lombroso have commented on the conspiracies of medi- ocrity against genius. From such con- spiracies Paderewski also has suffered, for musical success hath charms to rouse the savage breast. Fifteen years ago the small fry of musicians began to cry: "He has lost his grip." He did lose his grippe, fortunately, but this season he returned with neuritis, which nearly frustrated his tour. For two weeks its beginning was delayed. At his first recital of the season in Aeolian Hall, he played like one inspired from above — but not at the beginning. He was forty minutes late, had been an- noyed, and showed it by hitting at the piano like an irate athlete. It did not last long, but the enemy next day rais- ed a great clamor, crying: "Paderew- ski does not play any more; ho pounds." It was useless to point out thai Beethoven, when in a stormy mood, was accused of pounding; that Liszt some- linns broke two or three strings; that
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March 26, 1 9 14] Tli e 1ST a t i o n 34,3 Rubinstein, when in a tragic, leonine, orchestral mood, would fret and fume b be bad twenty pianos to play on; that it is to these moods that we owe the sonorous pianos of our time, as they compelled the manufacturers to live up to them. Beside this farce there was enacted a serious melodrama which might have had serious consequences. Paderewski used of having contributed $20,- 000 to a Polish newspaper which has been making war on Jews. In conse- quence of this, hand-bills were distrib- uted in various cities, signed by Jew- ish a sociations, urging music lovers not to help him to send more money to aid a cause which led to the slaugh- ter of Jews. Threats were made, also, of bodily injury or death, and in sever- al cities the halls were watched by de- tectives during Paderewski's recitals. He finally put an end to this annoying situation by taking oath before a Cali- fornia notary public that he had never contributed any money to the paper in question. Educated Jews, it is needless to say, were not deterred by these ac- cusations from attending his recitals any more than they were, a generation ago, from crowding to the operas of Wagner because of his two foolish anti- Semitic pamphlets. Most of them doubtless felt like the banker who had in his library a bust of Wagner with a rope round the neck — the bust to attest his devotion to the musician, the rope to indicate what he thought of his opin- ions. While Paderewski has added no new pieces to his programmes, he has play- ed the compositions he loves most — those of Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, and Liszt — more elo- quently than ever. Already he has play- ed six times in New York, and each performance seemed greater than its predecessors. He usually looks pale, and often suffers from the neuritis which compelled him to spend a fort- night in the baths in California. How, under the circumstances, he can add nearly an hour of extras to a two-hour programme, as he did at his fourth re- cital, is a mystery. Henry T. Finck. The Oxford University Musical Club recently held its one thousandth meeting. Its programme contained one unique item, the playing of a Mozart sonata, arranged as a duet for two pianofortes by Dean Strong, the present Vice-Chan- cellor, and Dr. Hebcrden, his predeces- sor in office. A five days' Beethoven festival is to be held in the Queen's Hall next month, at which all the Beethoven symphonies and pianoforte concertos are to be per- formed. Henri Verbrugghen is to con- duct. A scheme is under way for an Arthur- ian festival at Glastonbury — the Avalon of tradition — in August. Three perform- ances will be given of "The Birth of Ar- thur, " the first of a cycle of Arthurian dramas written by Reginald R. Buckley and composed by Rutland Boughton. The Beecham orchestra will cooperate. A temporary theatre will be built, to serve for four or five years. Art THE ACADEMY EXHIBITION. The eighty-ninth exhibition of the Na- tional Academy of Design shows in the main the same distinguishing features that for some years past have character- ized it. There is, however, nothing sur- prising or disheartening in this fact, since the artists concerned are maintain- ing their standards and meanwhile are posing neither as revolutionists nor as prestidigitators in paint. Even the fact that a wanderer fresh from the Paris salons, taking in the Exhibition as a whole, might think it tight in handling, somewhat old-fashioned in aspect, and not exciting, need not be regarded as final or decisive, in view of the chaotic and overwrought condition of French art at the present time. In truth — despite cramped quarters that have not grown to suit its needs, and despite the merry jests that are flung at it — we may as well acknowledge that the Academy is a conservative force of importance among artists and in the community. For the artists it signifies a sort of inner circle of their kind, in which they are glad to be included and from which they are gratified to receive recognition. For the public it means the opportunity to note the progress of artists with whom it is already familiar, and to make the acquaintance of new- comers as they appear. The intelligent visitor also realizes that by keeping in toueh with this organization he now and again enjoys the pleasure of seeing the early efforts of exceptional talent. Then, too, such fortunate occasional experi- ences as this last have a tendency to create on the part of the observer a sort of buoyant, subconscious expectation of some day encountering on the Academy walls the great American genius who is to overshadow all past artistic efforts and thereby enlighten all those that are to come. Apparently, as I have said, this is not the year for any such remarkable manifestation; yet there is more than one indication in this hanging that the artists are fully alive to the existence of the professional problems of the hour, and that they are independently con- sidering them according to their best judgment. The result is good, honest work, which for a number of reasons is of varying degrees of interest and ex- cellence. That there may be excellence with- out great interest is sometimes due to the proneness of some artists to con- fine themselves, wholly or for the most part, to the variations of their past suc- cesses. Granted that a congenial sud- ject, with a fortunate mode of express- ing it, offers temptations, the artist with but one picture to put on his can- vas speedily becomes as monotonous as the writer with but one story to tell. To cite an instance of this exhibition, there is Couse's Indian picture, The Beaded Bag. It may be called a good Couse, to be sure, but, speaking from memory, I can scarcely see that it has changed this year from the pose, the firelight, the pottery of other such pic- tures by him; even the shape and size of the canvas seem the same. Other examples of the kind are Richard Mil- ler's lady pouring tea, with sunlight and foliage accompaniments, and Shurt- leff's wood interiors— beautiful though they unquestionably are. On the other hand, when a painting of a certain kind makes but a minor part of the artist's equipment and is preeminently well done, then a new example of the old subject is quite welcome; for example, Chase's still-life of fish and the big cop- per kettle. Near by hangs his excellent portrait of Professor Taylor, to dem- onstrate conclusively his ability in an entirely different direction. Probably the charm of the unexpect- ed has helped to centre continued atten- tion upon the work of George Bellows, who is given to seeking new fields for his art. On this occasion he has achiev- ed a notable success and has received the Isaac N. Maynard prize for his full- length portrait of Dr. William Oxley Thompson. The doctor is of the class, now appearing often in portraiture, that is entitled to the dignity of the aca- demic gown; but he wears his with a difference, for. thanks to Mr. Bellows's skill, the robe, despite its voluminous folds and the richness of its purple bands, is made of subordinate impor- tance to the man who wears it. The pose is well taken to express self-confi- dence, which is further emphasized by the rugged strength of the ably painted head, and the grays and blacks that pre- dominate throughout are managed with easy freedom; yet, though possessed of so much excellence, the portrait does not escape a crudity that distinguishes it from great work. The zone of prizes, which lies chiefly in the neighborhood of this portrait, holds a number of pictures worthy of attention. The Inness prize has been given to Robert Spencer, an artist who has attracted commendation of late by his ability to give artistic interest to the native ugliness of factory buildings and their drear surroundings. The prize- winning picture is of the factory style of architecture, though called The White Tenement. Oddly enough, the tumble- down, shiftless shanties that cling about
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344, T li e Natio n [Vol. 98, No. 2543 the orderly, box-like building in the cen- tre of the canvas, seem the least for- lorn and most habitable part of the scene. The composition of the picture, its calm, decided grays and clear reflec- tions in the water of the foreground, and, above all, the precision and shape of the paint stroke, make a style not unlike that of Sisley of early Impres- sionist fame. Just next to this cool, gray-toned pic- ture hangs Jonas Lie's Afterglow, which received the first Hallgarten prize, and on the other side the Portrait, by Ce- cilia Beaux, which received the Saltus medal. The first-mentioned picture is a view of the lighted city from the river just before twilight. It is beautiful in col- or and most interesting in pattern, with perhaps a trifle too insistent a feeling of lingering hurly-burly, bred of spots and smoke; which is to say that Mr. Lie's vigorous painting suits the rush of the morning hours rather better than eve- ning. Miss Beaux has painted convinc- ingly the portrait of a woman steadfast and true; there are excellent qualities in the work beyond question, but just why another medal should be added to her already long list, for a painting in which the light so distracts, is hard to understand. Sloan Bredin's Midsum- mer is another prize-winner — a quiet decorative, tapestry-like landscape, no- ticeable because of the rendering of the warm, over-cast aspect of summer heat. Near by hangs J. Alden Weir's portrait of Miss L., a fine example of his style, which puts within the limits of a nar- row range of color both refinement and strength. In another room is the Oda- lisque, by Beatrice Whitney, to whom has been given the Shaw Memorial prize. The name of the artist is a new one to me, but she has the painter's eye and touch. There are personality and character in the rendering of her Orien- tal model, but going with these saving qualities is an unnecessary dinginess in the shadows of the dusky flesh. In landscape there are several pic- tures that from their subjects might be regarded as a modern reincarnation of the grand style of Church and Bierstadt of the early Hudson River School. In those old days they put on canvas The Heart of the Andes, the Yosemite Val- ley, and the Falls of Niagara; to-day William Wendt has painted Mountain Infinity; Dewitt Parshall, the Grand Canon; Edward Potthast, Illecilewaet Glacier, and Carl Rungius, the Canadian Rockies. The likeness, however, is but seeming; the difference between the old style and the new is evident. These lat- er artists do not take their grand sub- jects with the idea that the more awe- inspiring the subject, the more noble the picture, but simply with the quite legiti- mate desire to express their understand- ing of nature's great moods by the artis- tic means of line and color. The result is interesting, not topographical, but, after all, touches only superficially the mysterious, forceful characteristics that make the mountains and the canon tremendous aspects of nature. It is a curious fact that the sea, which can be in nature no less awe-inspiring than the mountains, does not hold itself so aloof from satisfactory pictorial interpreta- tion. Paul Dougherty's Foam on the Rocks gives expression to the force and movement of the waves; Howard But- ler's marine reveals the beauty of the play of sunlight; or, by way of contrast, there is the quiet, gently lapping sea about Louise Brumnack's Green Boat and Hayley Lever's St. Ives Harbor, with rich, strong color in water and shore. For restful calm Gardner Symons's Winter Evening is attractive. Here con- fused shadows seem unnecessary. There are simple masses of color, a wintry sky with a gleam of yellow that is cold as steel, and a stream where the water is coldly clear and moving slowly — only a few well-marked reflections; it seems simple, but with such means he has em- bodied the very spirit of the close of a clear, cold winter day. This year for the first time, I believe, the Exhibition includes two cases of miniatures containing the work of mem- bers of the American Society of Minia- ture Painters. The catalogue list shows this Society much feminized, which fact confirms the popular belief of long stand- ing that this branch of art is especially suited to women. And, though it may be reactionary, let it be said in passing that Miss Cockroft's over-large nudes and staring pillow arrangements in the Vanderbilt Room do not convincingly re- fute that old idea. Time was, however, when artists as strong and masculine as Holbein did not disdain to busy them- selves with this delicate work. The min- iatures shown are for the most part portraits; among the many, those by Helen Turner and Gertrude Bushnell are noticeable for the excellence of the drawing and the method of using color. Cecil Jay's more elaborate Le Billet Doux is dainty and Frenchy in style, with an air of Watteau's time, despite the stiffness of the composition. As for sculpture, one would say the sculptors had all betaken themselves to San Francisco to work for the approach- ing Fair, there is so little shown to mark their existence — twenty-six pieces all told, and those small and not of un- usual significance. Babyhood seems a good deal in evidence among these; Abastenia Eberle's Big Wave, with mother and child at play on the sea- shore; Evelyn James's Baby Faun Book Ends — too slight for their task, were it not for the joyous glee with which they undertake it; and Manship's Renais- sance Baby Portrait, shown already in Philadelphia, but changed now from plaster to bronze, and rendered even more charming by the change. L. S. The "Year-Book of Canadian Art, 1913" (Toronto: J. M. Dent & Son), re- flects credit both on those who contrib- uted its well-informed and discriminat- ing- articles, and also on the Arts and Letters Club of Toronto, which is respon- sible for its compilation. The "Year-Book of Canadian Art," with the annual "He- view of Historical Publications Relating to Canada," offers a satisfactory survey of Canadian achievement in arts and let- ters. The latter review is, of course, con- fined to historical work, although history is broadly interpreted. The new year- book reviews the year's output in five sections: literature, music, painting, sculpture, and architecture. This vol- ume contains, in addition to a number of general articles, well-considered reviews of the work of Goldwin Smith, Sir George Ross, Stephen Leacock, in literature; of Augustus Stephen Vogt in music; of A. Suzar-Cote' in painting; of Walter All- ward in sculpture, and of John A. Pear- son in architecture. The Arts and Let- ters Club has been fortunate in enlist- ing the services as reviewers of men each of whom has a national reputation in his own field. The illustrations include not only portraits of men and women who have contributed to art and literature during the past year, but also reproduc- tions of some of the more notable works of art, including the fine King Edward Memorial designed by Walter Allward for the national capital. Wilton Lockwood, portrait painter, who died on March 20, was born in Wilton, Conn., September 12, 1861. After study- ing in New York under John La Farge, he spent ten years in Paris and a year in Munich. On his return to this country he settled in Boston. Examples of Mr. Lockwood's work hang' in the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh; the Corcoran Gal- lery, Washington; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Worcester. Finance THE NEXT CHAPTER. Briefly summed up, the existing situa- tion, on both home and foreign financial markets, is this: Trade revival has not appeared, as had been hoped when the vigorous Stock Exchange revival came in January. On the contrary, there has occurred a slow relapse into the hesita- tion and uncertainty of three or four months ago. A feeling of despondency has seized upon the financial and busi ness communities, in which every un pleasant event or possibility is magni fled, while every agreeable and reassur ing incident Is ignored. Yet, with al this existing condition of the financia mind, the stock exchanges, having set in ingly comp'eted, for the time at any rate, their reactionary movement of the past six weeks, are cautiously advanc-
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March 26, 1914] The Nation 34=5 ing. The New York market has moved up, in entire absence of any definite news which should stimulate enthusi- asm. At London, the price of British consols has risen nearly one full point, on the very heels of last Sunday's ex- traordinary developments in Ulster and the British army. All this suggests some reexamination of the financial sit- uation. To this extent, the present mood of the financial markets is a psychological matter — that it follows a demonstration on the stock exchanges, last January, which at the time convinced the entire financial community that an early and positive change for the better was in store, but which was followed by what seemed to be complete dissipation of such hopes. Taken in conjunction with the present attitude of financial and bus- iness markets, the occurrences of Janu- ary now assume, in the eyes of the finan- cial community, the aspect of something like an unsolved mystery. Not often in the experience of finance has the forecast of the stock exchanges and money markets been more positive- ly pronounced than it was then. The meaning of the phenomena which were witnessed, on a'l the principal markets of the world, was unmistakable, if judg- ed by the usual criteria. The changes for the better dealt with the fundamen- tals. They altered the situation in pre- cisely those quarters of which it had been repeatedly declared, in 1913, that it was from such directions that the first trustworthy sign of return to better mar- kets must be looked for. Furthermore, they were world-wide in their manifes- tation. Observers who became hopeful at that time are therefore naturally asking now, What did the events of Jan- uary really mean? Or did they mean nothing at all? It is still full early to attempt an an- swer to these questions. What is evi- dent is that the influences which seem to be operating against revival in out- side trade are precisely the influences which prevailed last year. The famil- iar arguments of last autumn are still in the forefront of all financial discus- sion; but that is only part of the situa- tion. Such counter-arguments as were accepted by Wall Street in December and January — that the Administration was laboring for a peaceful adjustment of governmental disputes with Big Busi- ness; that Congress was acting in a conservative and not in a reckless way on current legislation, and that the cur- rency bill's enactment promised much for future stability in finance — have since January been almost wholly aban- doned. Now there are three possible explana- tions, and only three, as to this curious sequel of events. The markets may have been drawing mistaken inferences as to those events, three months ago. The good influence of those events may have been superseded by other develop- ments of the day. Or Wall Street may have been right at the opening of the year, but may have abandoned its in- ferences of that period, because their correctness had not been instantly dem- onstrated by the movement of prosper- ity. One of these three explanations will in the end be found to carry the solution of the present perplexities. In view of the well-known principle that the financial year begins in the early spring, when the new governing influences of a period usually develop, and not with the opening of January, when the general influences of preced- ing months are usually continued, a fur- ther point of interesting conjecture is, what are the new influences that will arise when the new period begins, and how will they bear on the general sit- uation? Briefly summed up, those which are certain to cut a figure in the next few months are the progress of the crops, the decision on railway rates, the arrangements for introducing the new banking system, the conclusion of the legislation of this Congressional session, and, later on, the campaign and vote for the autumn Congressional elections. In these various and important mat- ters, there are obviously numerous and diverse developments which may be wit- nessed between now and the year's later months. It is not easy to reason out, on the basis of present evidences, a series of further unfavorable influences in these directions. In the judgment of the grain trade, the present promise of the early wheat crop is exceptionally high; we shall have very definite infor- mation on it a month or six weeks hence. The Interstate Commerce Com- mission's action on the advance in East- ern railway rates may be taken as early as May; it is promised definitely before July. Like all such matters, its proba- ble purport will be in doubt until the decision is handed down. In railway circles, and in a degree at Washington, the trend of opinion seems at the mo- ment to be that part, if not all, of the advance applied for will be approved. As for the inauguration of the new banking system, much will no doubt de- pend on the nature of the President's appointments, which should be made within the next few weeks. Much will also depend on the manner in which the banks take a hand in constructing the new reserve institutions. As to this, however, it is to be observed that, since practically all the national banks of the country have committed themselves to the system, and will have 6 per cent, of their capital and surplus invested in the shares of the new regional reserve banks, it will be to their vital interest to make the experiment a quick success. There will remain, aside from the per- fectly inscrutable Mexican complication. the conclusion of the session's legisla- tion at Washington, and the autumn po- litical campaign. The probabilities as to the one are fairly in view already; the sober and conservative action of the Congressional committees, on the has- tily and imperfectly drawn-up "Trust bills," tells the story. As to the other, even the political prophets have not yet begun to conjecture. Wall Street is rare- ly in the habit of "discounting" matters of that sort, until the preliminary devel- opments are in sight, and election con- tests in the United States are like the old-fashioned military campaigns in Eu- rope: they do not begin until the tradi- tionally proper moment. BOOKS OF THE WEEK. Allen, A. L. The Message of New Thought. Crowell. $1.25 net. Anderson, F. I. Adventures of the In- fallible Godahl. Crowell. $1 net. Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson. Ed. by P. L. Ford. Putnam. $1.50. Baker, Ernest A. Guide to Historical Fiction. London: Routledge. $6 net. Baker, G. K. Haliefa. Neale. $1 net. Baker, T. Yard and Garden. Indianapo- lis: Bobbs-Merrill. $1.50 net. Black, M. R. and M. B. Elementary Theory of Music. Boston: Homeyer. 50 cents net. Brooks, A. M. Architecture and the Al- lied Arts. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. $3.50 net. Bruce and Wiener. The Education of Karl Witte. Crowell. $1.50 net. Clodd, Edward. The Childhood of the World. Macmillan. $1.25 net. Cook, H. T. The Borough of the Bronx. Pub. by Author. Cooper, E. My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard. Stokes. $1.50 net. Cornelius, O. S. The Persian Tassel. Neale. $1.20 net. Dawson, Grace. How to Rest. Crowell. 50 cents net. Dinwiddie, W. Essentials of Logic. Neale. Doling, A. M. Brilla. Neale. $1.20 net Dorchester, O. The Sovereign People. Eaton & Mains. $1 net. Echegaray, J. Mariana. Boni. 75 cents net. Emerson. Autobiographic Trans, into French by R. Michaud. Paris: Colin. Enriquez, R. de Zayas. The Case of Mex- ico. Trans, by A. Tridon. Boni. $1.3 J net. Faguet, Emile. Initiation into Philoso- phy. Trans, by Sir Home Gordon. Putnam. $1.25 net. French, W. The Devil's Discharge. Neale. $1 net. Gettell, R. G. Problems in Politic; lution. Ginn. $2 net. Greely, A. W., Major-Gen. Handbook of Alaska. Scribner. $2 net. Gulick, S. L. The American Japanese Problem. Scribner. $1.7.". net. Haldane of Cloan, Viscount. High tionality. Dutton. 60 cents net. Handel -Mazzetti. Stephana Schwertner. Stechert. Harland, Marion. Looking Westward. Scribner. 50 cents net. Hay, J. Macdougal. Gillespie. Doran. $1.40 net. Hayward, W. B. The Commuter's Gar- don. Crowell. $1 not. Hazelton, G. C. and Benrimo. The Yel- low .Tackot. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Mer- rill. $1 net. Henley, W. E. Views and Reviews. Lon- don: Nutt. Hurd, A. Our Navy. London: Warne, 50 cents not. Johnson. Rohort W. Pooms. Indianapo- lis: Bobbs-Merrill. $1.r,0 not. Johnson. S. C. A History of Emigration from the United Kingdom to North America. 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346 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2543 Kaines Smith, S. C. Greek Art and Na- tional Life. Scribner. Keller, G. A Village Romeo and Juliet. Trans, by A. C. Bahlmann. Scribner. $1 net. Kleene, A. C. Kirstin., Boston: Sher- man, French. $1 net. Ledoux, L. V. The Shadow of JEtna. Putnam. Lewis, T. A Glossary of Medieval Welsh Law. Manchester: University Press, $5 net. Locke, W, J. The Fortunate Youth. Lane. $1.35 net. Low, Sidney. Egypt in Transition. Mac- millan. $2.50 net. MacGrath, Harold. Pidgin Island. In- dianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. $1.25 net Maclean, J. K. Heroes of the Farthest North and Farthest South. Adapted from Heroes of the Polar Seas. Crowell. 50 cents net. Manchester University "Verses. Manches- chester: University Press. $1.50 net. Marshal, Francis. The Battle of Gettys- burg. Neale. $2 net. Morgan, B. S. The Backward Child. Put- nam. $1.25 net. Mundy, T. Rung Ho! Scribner. $1.35 net Oxford French Series: Francois le Champi, by George Sand. 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The author'» most Important work so far published. 12mo, cloth, $1.50 net; by mail, $1.60 B.W.Huebsch.Publisber. 225 Fifth avenue, NewYork Read WHAT MEN LIVE BY Uy Dr. RICHARD C. CABOT $1.50 net. Postage extra. HOUQHTON MIFFLIN CO., 4 Park St., BOSTON ESSAYS ON FAITH AND IMMORTALITY By GEORGE TYRRELL. Arrang- ed by M. D. PETRE. Crown 8vo. $1.40 net. (Weight 17 oz.) This volume comprises, for the most part, matter hitherto unpub- lished, which existed in the form of notes and essays amongst the MSS. which Father Tyrrell left be- hind him. To this have been add- ed a few articles already published, either in England or abroad, in various periodicals, but which are not now easily obtainable, and which possess a certain importance. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. Foreign Books and Magazines Correspondence Solicited E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 681 Fifth Avenue, near 54th Street NEW YORK inn 11 ii? WUSINFSS l*W in told. 2000 payc Bays Miniature Law Library. Only complete work on Com- mercial law. 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Weilesley, Mass, The Nation '*> VOL. XCVIII— NO. 2544 THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 1914 &?;&& PRICE TEN CENTS The Fundamental Basis of Nutrition. By Graham Lusk, M.D., Scientific Director of the Russell Sage Institute of Pathology. This book contains a clear discussion of a topic of vital Interest by an authority in that field. Written for the correct information of educat- ed people, it is constructive in its criticism, describing the requisites of normal nutrition and outlining a rational meth- od of general education upon this subject. 12mo. Cloth binding. 65 pages. Price, 50 cents; carriage 6 cents extra Popular Govern- ment, Its Essence, Its Permanence, and Its Perils. By William Howard Taft, LL.D., D.C.L. "Mr. Taft has 'a way with him' which makes his argu- ment delightful reading, and a power of cogent analysis and compression which is masterly. . . . Mr. Taft's is no inhuman philosophy. To tell such an excellent story in a law lecture is a triumph even for an ex- Presidential professor." — West- minster Gazette. (Second printing.) 12mo. Cloth "binding. Gilt top. 28S pages. Price, $1.15 net; carriage 10 cents extra The Department of State of the United States, Its History and Functions. By Gaillard Hunt. The work is unique, the first and only history of the Department of State to be written by an expert. Through his career in the Governmental Service, Mr. Hunt has had a notably fine opportunity to fa- miliarize himself with the workings as well as the his- tory. 8vo. Cloth binding. S00 pages. Price, $2.00 net; carriage extra University Sermons. By Rev. Henry Sloane Coffin. Rev. Henry Sloane Coffin has come to hold a preeminent position among the young min- isters of America. Perhaps his largest sphere of influence is in university congregations, where the appeal of his direct, simple, clean-cut thought is so thoroughly appreciated. Each sermon abounds in compari- sons which might readily be extended into whole sermons, and each page adds new force to his challenge to the best in men. 12mo. Cloth binding. 280 pages. Price, $1.50 net; carriage extra YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS New Haven 225 Filth Ave. Connecticut New York City Christianity Old and New. Proposed Reconstructions Viewed in the Light of Historic Development. By Benjamin Wisner Bacon, D.D., LL.D. Professor Bacon champions Christianity, offering a suffi- cient answer to its recent crit- ics. That Christianity has al- ready met and dealt with many of the phases of the "new" criticism while it was still only one of many rival religions aspiring to control in the civil- ization of the Roman Empire is, in part, the author's conten- tion. 12mo. Cloth binding. 1SS pages. Price, $1.00 net; carriage extra The Mental Health of the School Child. The Psycho- Educational Clinic in Relation to Child Welfare. By Dr. J. E. Wallace Wallin, Director of the Psycho-Educational Clinic School of Education, University of Pittsburg. In nineteen chapters of point- ed discussion and original sta- tistical and experimental con- tributions the author presents information dealing with the scientific study, conservation, and improvement of backward, feeble-minded, precocious, or mentally unusual children. 12mo. Cloth binding. Gilt top. S00 pages. Price, $1.75 net; carriage extra Trade Morals, Their Origin, Growth and Province. An Interpretation. By Ed- ward D. Page (Page Lec- tures). The author has painted the evolution and structure of so- ciety, and of its Influence upon the origin of moral principle; with especial application to the business problems of the pres- ent day. The book makes its especial appeal to the business man who is a student of ideas as he is of affairs. 8yo. Cloth binding. Gilt top. 200 pages. Price, $1.50 net; carriage extra The Monroe Doc- trine, An Obsolete Shibboleth. By Hiram Bingham, Ph.D., F.R.G.S. "His little book Is not a sys- tematic treatise, but a readable, rather discursive argument for the abandonment of the Mon- roe Doctrine by the United States. "As a popular statement of the problems which the Monroe Doctrine raises, Mr. Bingham's book is commended especially to those who still believe that the doctrine Is the foundation stone of our foreign policy." — Japan Daily Mail. (.Second printing.) IZmo. Cloth binding. Gilt top. 15i page*. Price, $1.15; carriage extra
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11 The Nation [Vol. 98. No. 2544 A WEEKLY JOURNAL [Entered at the New York City Post Office as teooni-olasi mail matter.] The Nation is published and owned by the New York Evening' Post Co. Oswald Garrison Villard, President; John Palmer Gavit, Sec. and Treas. Three dollars per year in advance, post- paid, in any part of the United States or Mexico; to Canada $3.50, and to foreign countries comprised in the Postal Union, $4.00. Address THE NATION, Box 794, New York. Publication Office, 20 Vescy Street. HAROLD de WOLF FULLER. Editor. STANLEY WENT, Assistant (Editor. PAUL ELMER MORE, Advisory Editor. EMIL M. SCHOLZ, Business Manager. CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER. SUMMARY OF THE NEWS 347 THE WEEK 348 EDITORIAL ARTICLES: Harrying the Railways 351 The English Army Mutiny 351 Tendencies in Control of Public Utilities.. 352 Senator Hollis and Harvard 353 The Lesser Literatures 354 The Complete Anthropologist 355 FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE : France's Foreign Policies 355 The Wealth of Germany 356 BOOKS AND MEN .- 357 POETRY : The Acestian 357 NEWS FOR BIBLIOPHILES 358 CORRESPONDENCE 358 FISH AND FISHERS 361 LITERATURE : The Philippines, Past and Present 361 The Honey-Star 363 The Lodger 363 Shallow Soil 363 The Hour of Conflict 364 Men and Matters 364 The Religion of the Samurai 365 Lieutenant Josbna Hewes 366 NOTES 366 SCIENCE : The Unconscious 369 DRAMA : Recent German Plays 370 "Panthea" 372 "Lady Windermere's Fan" 372 "Change" 372 Shaw's "Pygmalion" in German 373 MUSIC : Wolf-Ferrari's New Opera 373 ART: The New Agitation for a Minister of Fine Arts 374 FINANCE : London's Markets and the "Army Crisis".. 375 BOOKS OF THE WEEK 376 JUST PUBLISHED The Care and Feeding of Children HARVARD HEALTH TALKS, VOL. I. By JOHN LOVETT MORSE, A.M., M.D., Professor of Pediatrics in the Harvard Medical School. 16mo. Cloth. 53 pages. 50 cents. A sound and consistent discussion of the ways In which parents can affect the health of their children through life. Dr. Morse Ik exceptionally well fitted to offer the most authoritative and practical advice on ques- tions of Diet, in health and in sickness. Clothing, Exercise, and Education. A read- able nml constructive treatment. HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
The truth of the mechanistic principle is here unreservedly acknowledged in this little book, without any equivocation or limitation, and it Is pointed out that the laws of me- chanics apply without exception to all mo- tions ; but they do not apply to things that are not motions. Ideas and sentiments as such are not motions. The physiological func- tions of thinking, willing, and feeling present uninterrupted channels of cerebral motions. Thus, while thinking is unquestionably a me- chanical process, there Is an element In our life that is not mechanical, and In this do- main there would be no sense in expecting a mechanical explanation. How, for instance, can the meaning of a word, of thoughts or symbols of logical syllogisms be mechanically explained? The essential feature of all higher organic life is the appearance of purpose, and the task which the author sets himself Is a careful investigation of the problem how pur- pose is possible in a mechanically regulated world. A considerable portion is devoted to the mechanistic views of Mark Twain and La Mettrie. The philosophy of the former, here presented in copious extracts, is otherwise quite inaccessible to the reading public; and La Mettrie, the pioneer of this theory, ap- pears rather one-sided in ignoring the factor of the non-mechanical. Yet these non-mechanical elements play an important part in the mechanism of the brain. Among the opponents of the mechanistic theory, the views of Dr. William Benjamin Smith and of Dr. James Thompson Bixby are discussed in detail. 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April 2, 1914] The Nation 111 Foreign Dealers in Rare Books, Prints, Etc. JUST PUBLISHED: A CATALOGUE SECOND-HAND BOOKS ENGLISH AND FOREIGN INCLUDING ALPINE LITERATURE, SPORTING SUBJECTS IRELAND, SCOTLAND and WALES Post free, on application, from HENRY SOTHERAN & CO. 43 PICCADILLY, W. or, 140 STRAND, W.O. LONDON, ENGLAND BARGAIN BOOKS PAUL MASSON, book dealer, Mon- tauban, Tarn-et-Garonne, France, will mail his catalogue free of charge to any one sending him name and ad- dress. Ask for catalogue No. 23, which contains several old maps of America, as well as rare and curious books. RARE BOOKS We cud supply the rare books and prints you want. l.*>3 classified catalogues Issued. When In Europe, call and see us In Munich. Over a million books and prints In stock. Always send your wants to The Ludwig Rosenthal Antiquarian Book Store Hildegardstr 14,Munich,Lenbachplatz 6, Germany Founded 1850 Cables: Ltjdbos, Munich BOOKS — All out-of-print books supplied, no matter on what subject; write me, stating books wanted : I can get you any book ever published : when in England, call and inspect mv stork of 50.000 rare books. BAKER'S GREAT BOOK- SHOP. John Bright St., Birmingham, England. BOOKS! For Study, Recreation, on every conceivable Subject and tor all Examinations. The largest stock of Second-hand Books In the world. Second-hand Pt Half Price. Over 1,000.000 volumes in strictly classified order. New Books 25% Discount. Cat- alogue No. 946 Free. State wants. Books bougjit. W. & G. FOYLE, 121 CHARING CROSS ROAD LONDON, ENGLAND Do You Want to Know T. The weaknesses of American education? 2. The relative value of lecture and recitation in college? 3. The leading false assumptions in education? if. The ideals in present-day edu- cation? 5. The education for power and responsibility? YOU NEED THE EDUCATIONAL REVIEW The leading educational month- ly devoted to all subjects of vi- tal interest in the educational field. It is not an educational news- paper ; it is not a journal for the presentation of schoolroom methods ; it is not an organ of any special educational interest or any one type of educational doctrine. It is the organ of representa- tive students of education ; it is national and international in scope and catholic in sympathy ; its field of interest includes edu- cational work of every form and grade. "The broadest and most able of American periodicals devoted to education." — N. Y. Times. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE $3.00 A YEAR Trial subscription ( for new subscribers only) four months $t.oo. Single copies 35c. EDUCATIONAL REVIEW COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY NEW YORK FRENCH GERMAN fiction, Literature, Guides, Dictionaries, Conversational Books, etc. Send for catalogue of any language SCHOENHOF BOOK CO. 128 TKEMONT STREET, BOSTON, MASS. SPANISH ITALIAN lays Miniature Law Library, nly complete work on Com- mercial law. Contains Legal Forms of all kinds. Should be in every Library. Fitsthepock- et. 9 volumes S12.00. Safe counsellor. Worth its weight in gold. 2000 pages. Order Now. Sent on approval. CALLAGHAN & CO., Law Publishers, CHICAGO OUR COMPLETE CATALOGUE of publications in science, philosophy, and litera- ture will be sent to any address on request. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. SORRENTO, MAINE, TO LET Three attractive summer cottages singly or to- gether. Piazzas, fireplaces, modern conveniences, fully furnished, rent moderate. Magnificent views, ideal climate. Apply to M. T. JACKSON 14 Shepard Street, Cambridge, Mas*. ZShe Spring *BooK JNumber Ration Will be published April 9th It will be a veri- table treasure-house or information con- cerning the spring output of American and English publish- ers in every depart- ment of literature. Look it over Carefully
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IV The Nation [Vol, 98, No. 2544 IMPORTANT NEW MACMILLAN PUBLICATIONS RELIGION. PHILOSOPHY THE STORY OF PHAEDRUS: How We Got the Greatest Book in the World. By Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis. a beautiful idealistic story of the devoted life work of a liter- ary slave. $1.50 net THE FAITH OF JAPAN. By Tasuku Har- ada (Pres. Doshisha Univ.). An admirable inter- pretation of Japanese ethical religious beliefs and their relation to Christianity. $1.50 net THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY. By Prof. Henry C. Vedder. a vivid, accurate narrative of the great religious struggle of the 16th Century from the economic standpoint. $3.00 net THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL. By Dr. Moses Buttenwieser. a luminous study of the great literary Hebrew prophets and their warning to the present age. $2.00 net THE ASSURANCE OF IMMORTALITY. By Harry Emerson Fosdick, D.D. a con- vincing, readable, rational work on this exalted theme. $1.00 net POETRY. DRAMA CHITRA. By Rabindranath Tagore. An idealistic lyrical drama by the spiritual Bengali poet-philosopher. $1.00 net THE TRAGEDY OF POMPEY. By John Masefield. The latest work of this powerful poet. $1.25 net THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS. By Dr. George Edward Woodberry. Mature verse of one of America's foremost poets. $1.25 net THE FOOTHILLS OF PARNASSUS. By John Kendrick Bangs, a delightful selection of this entertaining poet's best verse. $1.25 net POLITICS, SOCIOLOGY PROGRESSIVISM AND AFTER. By William English Walling, a forceful survey of radical political progress from the practical, economic standpoint. $1.50 net SOCIALISM: Promise or Menace. By Morris Hillquit and Rev. J. A. Ryan, D.D. The famous debate between these well-known au- thors. Ready April 15 VIOLENCE AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT. By Robert Hunter, a dramatic, historical nar- rative of the labor conflicts of the last half century. $1.50 net THE INSTINCT OF WORKMANSHIP. By Thorstein Veble n (Univ. of Missouri). An interesting analysis of the effect of labor upon the human mind. $1.50 net. TRA VEL. DESCRIP TION THE PHILIPPINES: Past and Present. By Dean C. Worcester (Secretary of the Interior, Philippines, 1901-13). A timely, accurate work on conditions in the Philippines by "the one man on earth who knows most about the subject." Two VOlS. Richly illustrated. $6.00 net EGYPT IN TRANSITION. By Sidney Low. Introduction by the Earl of Cromer. A faithful ac- count of the great modern progress in Egypt, and its growing importance. illustrated. $2.50 net SOUTH AMERICA: Observations and Im- pressions. By Viscount Bryce. a new, re- vised edition of "the most important work ever published on the South American republics." Colored maps. $2.50 net MEXICO: The Wonderland of the South. By W. E. Carson. A new, revised, enlarged edition, with additional chapters on present con- ditions, bringing this standard work up to date. Illustrated. $2.50 net HORTICULTURE THE NEW STANDARD CYCLOPEDIA OF HORTICULTURE. Edited by L. H. Bailey. The fullest and most authoritative work on horticulture, entirely new and superseding the old Cyclopedia of American Horticulture issued fourteen years ago. S x vo um?s. Ricly illustrated. Ready Volume One. $3.00 net Published at 64-66 Fifth Ave, N. Y. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY On Sale Wherever Books Are Sold
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The Nation. wu YORK, llllltSDAY, APRIL 2, 1814. Summary of the News The split in the ranks of the Demo- crats in Congress on account of the re- peal of the exemption clause in the Pan- ama Canal Tolls bill, became more pro- nounced on Thursday of last week, when Speaker Clark issued a statement defi- ni t , ly aligning himself with those op- posed to the repeal. On the following- day, however, the supporters of the Ad- ministration won a victory on two test votes arising out of the application of the rule to limit debate. The vote order- ing the previous question was 207 to 176, and the rule to limit debate was passed by 200 to 172. President Wilson has characterized as "insulting" the canard that there has been anything in the nature of a bargain between this country and Great Britain, calling for British support of the Administration's policy in Mexico in return for the repeal of the exemption clause. Sir Edward Grey also issued a specific denial of the report in the House of Commons on Monday. The vote on the Sims Repeal bill was taken in the House on Tues- day evening, the result being 248 to 162 in favor of the repeal. suit brought by the present Administra- tion to be settled by agreement, the other two having been that against the American Telephone & Telegraph Com- pany in its relations with the Western Union, and that in connection with the New Haven dissolution. The announcement was made from Washington on Saturday that Ambassa- dor Gerard had been instructed to make representations to the German Govern- ment on behalf of the Standard Oil in- terests, if in his judgment the terms of the Oil Monopoly bill now pending in Par- liament seemed to render the Standard Oil Company liable to injustice in re- spect to the taking over of its properties in Germany, which is contemplated in the bill. President Wilson has since ex- plained that the instructions to Mr. Ge- rard called for an investigation and a re- port only and for nothing in the nature of a protest to the German Government. one year after the commission had made its report the matter should automatically be referred to arbitration. The most conflicting reports have come from Mexico during the past week re- garding the fighting around Torreon. Gomez Palacio, which was taken by "Vil- la on March 24, was apparently recap- tured by the Federals on the following day, and again retaken by Villa on March 26. This view would seem to co- incide with the account of the fighting given out from El Paso on Monday by a war correspondent, who had left the front on Saturday. According to this account, the rebels were twice defeated at Gomez Palacio, but the Federal troops failed to follow up their advan- tage and Villa was able to recover his position and advance to Torreon proper. Reports from rebel sources, which, on that account, must be accept- ed with reserve, indicated on Tuesday that the Federal forces were reduced in numbers to some 3,000 men, but were still strongly intrenched and offering a stubborn resistance. There has been des- perate street fighting in Torreon, and the losses on both sides, estimates of which vary according to their source, must have been heavy. From Mexico City the state- ment was given out on Tuesday that the capture of Torreon by Villa was not an- ticipated. Extensive retrenchments have been made by" some of the important railways of the East. The Pennsylvania, the New York Central, the New Haven, the Cen- tral of New Jersey, and the Lehigh Val- ley have all made reductions in their passenger and freight service, and large numbers of employees have been laid off altogether or are working on half time. The action of the railways is attributed to adverse State legislation and to un- certainty concerning the Federal Govern- ment's policy with regard to increased rates. Particular complaint is made b\ railway officials of the full train crew laws of New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. While the Eastern railways have suffered most severely, the lines of the West are also affected. Figures pub- lished by the New York Sun on Saturday show that the gross earnings of twenty- seven systems for February of this year were $6,465,140 less than for February, 1913. Other events in the political crisis in England have been overshadowed by Mr. Asquith's dramatic announcement in the House of Commons on Monday that he himself would assume the portfolio of Secretary of State for War. At the same time the Prime Minister announced that Col. Seely had felt compelled to resign from the War Office, and that the mem- bers of the Army Council, Field-Marshal Sir John French, and Adjt.-Gen. Sir John Ewart, who had joined with him in sign- ing the "guarantee" to Brig.-Gen. Gough, insisted that their resignations be ac- cepted. Mr. Asquith's acceptance of "an office of profit under the Crown" in- volves his resignation of his seat in Par- liament and his returning to his constit- uency of East Fife for reelection. The Premier will thus be absent from the House of Commons for at any rate two weeks. On Tuesday, Sir Edward Grey, in charge of the debate on the Home Rule bill, declared that the Government was not prepared to make further conces- sions beyond the six years' exclusion of the Ulster counties. In case of sporadic outbreaks in the province, he added, force must be employed. A strike which threatens to become serious was declared on Monday by the coal miners in Yorkshire, England. The strike involves 170,000 men, and the de- mands made are for the introduction of a minimum scale of wages. The Miners' Federation of Great Britain has given its support to the strike. The suit brought by the Government under the Anti-Trust law against the Pa- cific Telephone & Telegraph Company was settled out of court on Thursday of last week. The Bell companies are or- dered to dispose of their holdings in the Northwestern and Interstate companies and are prohibited from acquiring here- after any interest in those companies. This is the third important anti-Trust Announcement was made on March 26 that a settlement had been reached in the long dispute between the Eastman Kodak Company and the Ansco Company regarding the "Goodwin patent" on pli- able films. The claims for infringement of the patent made by the Ansco Com- pany involved millions of dollars. The de- tails of the settlement have not been given out, but it is stated that it was for a "substantial amount." Some of the appointments sent by Gov. Glynn of New York to the State Senate on Saturday bear the unmis- takable stamp of Tammany influence and have served to accentuate the cleavage in the Democratic party in New York State. The Swedish elections for the Riksdag began on March 27 and will be concluded on April 7. Unusual interest attaches to these elections, as they are expected to turn on the position of the King as a constitutional sovereign. King Gustav's assertion of his right to address the Swedish people directly on the question of military expansion led to the resigna- tion of the Liberal Cabinet and to an ap- peal being made to the country. The arbitration treaty with Denmark proposed by Secretary of State Bryan has failed to obtain the ratification of the Danish Senate. The treaty provided that all matters of dispute between the two Governments should be referred to an impartial commission for investigation and report, and stipulated further that in ease the dispute was not settled within The political situation in Japan has remained uncertain since the resignation of the Cabinet on March 24. Prince Iye- sato Tokugawa, President of the House of Peers, having declined the req the F^mperor that he undertake the for- mation of a Cabinet, the Elder Statesmen on Monday submitted the name of Vis- count Keigo k'iyoura for the Premier- ship. On the same day Vice-Admiral Matsumoto, who was involved in the na- val graft scandals, was committed to prison alter a prolonged examination. :, Tuesdaj it was announced that Vis- count K'iyoura had accepted the Pre- miership. The (baths of the week include: Fre- deric Mistral. Hairy Maule ( 'rooksbank, March IT,; Benjamin P. Keith, .March 26; Tit.. Mattel, George w. inn, Dr. Egbert Le Pevre, March SO; Timothy I). Sullivan. Sir Hubert von Herkomer. March 31.
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348 The 1ST a t i o ii [Vol. 98, No. 2544 The Week For the number of men engaged and the obstinate character of the fighting, the battle at Torreon stands out pre- eminent in the history of Mexican civil warfare. Large bodies of men have been in collision on Mexican soil, but only when Mexicans have fought against a foreign enemy. Gen. Taylor had about 4,700 men at Buena Vista, but Santa Anna's defeated army numbered some 20,000, giving a larger total of combat- ants than has been engaged at Torreon. Gen. Winfield Scott landed at Vera Cruz with about 12,000 men. In 1863 the French invested Puebla with 20,000 men, and the garrison that surrendered was 15,000 strong. Four years later Puebla was retaken by Porflrio Diaz in a battle engaging about 25,000 men. In all, the fortunes of the Mexican people at vari- ous times have been decided by limited bodies of troops for a nation of fif- teen millions. In view of this fact, it is somewhat out of place to sneer at Villa as a common bandit. He may be that by certain traits of character; he is more than that by his talents as a soldier. To have brought together one of the largest native armies that have ever fought in Mexico and to have led it with such military skill is a notable achievement. intimate connection between free-trade and pauperism. "With less than half our population," he informed us, Great Britain has "twenty paupers to our one," and we are "moving in the same direction by this legislation." As the statement of the imminent ruin of the New England textile industry was put forward as the first — and so presum- ably tBe most terrifying — of the facts bearing out this melancholy forecast, we trust that Mr. Smoot and the rest of the high-tariff prophets will now pluck up heart and indulge the fond hope that a fair proportion of the American peo- ple will remain outside the poorhouse even under the present tariff. By the way, what has become of the great ex- odus of manufacturers to Canada, the prediction of which was Gov. Foss's special contribution to the enlighten- ment of the public? "Shares in the textile mills in New England," said Senator Smoot in his big speech on the tariff last summer, 'have declined greatly as a result of this proposed law. ... It is esti- mated that only 50 per cent, of the mill capacity in the woollen and worsted mills is now employed, and that will be reduced 25 per cent, by the time this bill takes effect." Well, the bill has tak- en effect; indeed, it has been in opera- tion half a year; and this is what we hear now: Boston, March 25. — The quick recov- ery in the American Woollen Company's preferred stock to $79 a share is, of course, a direct reflection of the main- tenance of the regular 7 per cent, divi- dend late, some doubts as to the status of which, on account of last year's un- satisfactory showing', had beer, express- ed, it is said that the company is doing twice as much business to-day as at this time last year. Just preceding the quotation we have made from Senator Smoot's speech are some profoundly gloomy remarks on the too, sincerely trust that a fast line from New York to Valparaiso may speed- ily be found to be commercially profit- able. Senator Weeks's proposal that the five fast scout cruisers of the navy should be used by the Government to carry mail, freight, and passengers via New Orleans and the Panama Canal to the west coast of South America, until such time as a private line can be establish- ed, is a novel but not a practical sug- gestion. A few years ago it would have been resented as extremely paternalis- tic; but now that the Government owns a railway in Panama, and is about to expend many millions for another in Alaska, there is not likely to be opposi- tion on this ground. But, as Senator Weeks must know, these ships are little fitted for such traffic; the largest ones, the triple-screw cruisers Minneapolis and Columbia, are twenty years old, and have always been extremely expensive to run, and, like the other three, they would necessitate heavy outlays if they should be equipped to carry numbers of cabin passengers. They have often been used to carry troops and marines, but there is a vast difference between trans- port and passenger service. The Salem, Chester, and Birmingham are more mod- ern, having been authorized in 1904, and are about the size of many of the vessels in West Indian service. But they, too, were never built for cargo- carrying. If the idea is to find more useful employment for these boats, Mr. Weeks is justified; yet the amount of money they would lose in such traffic would, we fancy, be staggering. Still we, The long-awaited decision of the Ore- gon Supreme Court upholding the con- stitutionality of the minimum-wage and ten-hour law has been rendered with a positiveness that will reassure the seven other States that passed such acts in 1913. This first complete test followed the prescription by the Industrial Wel- fare Commission of a nine-hour day for women at a minimum weekly wage of $8.64, and was instituted by a Portland paper manufacturer. Its ground was, of course, that the law exceeded the police powers of the State; and, more specifical- ly, that it interfered with freedom of contract, while, by giving the Welfare Commission arbitrary decision upon matters of fact, it "took the property of the employer without due process of law." Justice Eakin's decision affirms that all "provisions enacted by. the State under its police power that have for their purpose the protection or better- ment of the public health, morals, peace, and welfare, and reasonably tend to that end, are within the power of the State"; and rules likewise that none of the law's provisions are subject to Stat* constitutional inhibition. The radical and highly comprehensive nature of the Oregon law makes the decision impor- tant to those other States, from Cali- fornia to Wisconsin, whose enactments went into force at about the same time. Massachusetts's minimum-wage law was the only one passed earlier than 1913; her 56-hour provision for women has just been upheld by the United States Supreme Court. It has been said that the decision of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, last week, holding that the Methodist Church has no visitorial rights over Vanderbilt University, dealt a power- ful blow to a "bigoted ecclesiasticism" in education. This may be, but only as a remote inference from the Court's de- cision. The case was decided on strict- ly legal grounds. It turned largely on the terms of the foundation of Vander- bilt University and on the powers of the Board of Trust. The issue was rais- ed in consequence of successively great- er claims, on the part of the authorities Of Hi.' Methodist Church, to control the
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April 2, 1914I T li e N" a t i o 11 349 affairs and shape the destinies of the university. Appeal was taken by the trustee* to the Supreme Court, and the long opinion of Judge Turner, re- viewing the entire history of the insti- tution, decided merely, as we read it, that this particular ecclesiastical en- croachment, in the case of this partic- ular university, was in violation of law. In this there is nothing to pre- vent bigoted ecclesiastics from control- ling universities, if their right to ad- minister the property is legally clear. At the same time, the friends of Van- derbilt University are justified in con- gratulating the faculty and trustees upon this satisfactory outcome of the litigation. In the consideration of such renewed complaints of the wholesale delivery of the Philippine Government to the na- tives as Dean C. Worcester's letter to the New York Times and Dr. Luther An- derson's dispatch to the Chicago Daily News, it is to be remembered that the public hears only one side. That of the Administration and of the Filipinos is not yet stated. And as the real ques- tion at stake is the efficiency of the service, it is significant that the whole attack is being shifted from the changes in the major departments to those in the great body of subordinate offices. It was Mr. Worcester's heated claim two months ago that the promotion of Filipinos in the Health and other de- partments was sending everything to the dogs. Is it possible these men are playing their roles too well for further criticism? It is obvious that nothing can be said about the competency or in- competency of men in the hundreds of minor posts, whether retained or new; and it is therefore easy to allege that their resignation "in flocks" proves the ruination of everything. As a matter of fact, Mr. Worcester's own figures show the steady growth of Filipino of- ficeholders: 1903, 49 per cent; 1905, 55 per cent.; 1907, 60 per cent.; 1910, 64 per cent; 1913, 71 per cent. This growth should be continued, if not accelerated. It has further been made plain that many recent dismissals resulted from a new and praiseworthy policy of econ- omy. The critics will have to show defi- nite inefficiency; and to do this more is required than evidence that the Filipino bands are playing, not the "Star Span- gled Banner," but " Aguinaldo's March ! " While Congress has been discussing levee projects, the lower Mississippi Valley States are becoming more out- spoken about the duties of their North- ern neighbors. Their suggestions as to flood prevention look to the distant fu- ture, but receive plausibility from the closeness with which they parallel the work actually under way on the Ohio. Thus the New Orleans Item calls atten- tion to an averted flood disaster high up on the Missouri, where a January deluge, reaching proportions that once would have meant wholesale loss, was checked and diffused by reservoirs. "There are locations for thousands of similar reser- voirs in the Alleghanies, the Rockies, the hills of Minnesota, the Ozarks, the Appalachian foothills of Tennessee and Kentucky — some to be built at great expense, some at very small expense, many, like that of Truckee-Carson, to pay for themselves." It Is precisely such reservoirs that are now being con- structed along the Miami and other Ohio tributaries. Supposing the matter left to State action, it will be many years before the growth of population and public improvements over the whole watershed is likely to achieve a marked diminution in the risk of sud- den floods southward. But what will some day have to be understood is that combined local action may not merely solve local flood problems, but provide the surest way out of the Mississippi flood problem as a whole. come hopelessly tainted? We know that the course of the Progressive party is paralleling that of the Republican party in the early and noble days of its history, because we have so often been assured that it is; this makes the Jour- nal's change of policy very puzzling, for in those early and noble days Republi- can newspapers were everywhere spring- ing up, not retreating from the heights of Republicanism to the bog of non-par- tisanship. Non-partisanship, if we apprehend the matter rightly, is little better than membership in any other party than the Progressive. This axiom of the new politics makes the change in policy of the Boston Journal a catastrophe, if not a crime. For more than twelve months the Journal has refought the battle of Armageddon, and pointed the way to a triumph that should be more satisfying than the "moral" victory of 1912. But the Chairman of the Massachusetts Pro- gressives has now decided that he can- not work for the paper and for the par- ty, too, as the double job takes more than twenty-four hours a day. And so he gives up the paper, allowing it, de- spite his financial interest in it, to be- come non-partisan. This seems an un- necessarily lame and impotent conclu- sion. If non-partisanship should lead the paper to oppose the Progressive tick- et, would not Mr. Hale's investment be- The defeat in the Milwaukee primar- ies, last week, of David S. Rose, five times Mayor, leaves the decks cleared for a straight-out action between Social- ists and the present regime. The former made no secret of their hope that Rose, not Bading, would win the primary. "If Seidel is to win," as the Sentinel sum- marized their position, "it must be against Rose. No non-Socialist could have the scintilla of a reason to vote against Bading; and if the Socialists win at all, it must be, as it was before, by non-Socialist votes." But if Bading's renomination strengthens the prospect of Socialist defeat, there were other rea- sons also why the reform element so strongly supported him. His adminis- tration has combined efficiency with economy, and put a stop to the heavy bond issues that made the public im- provements of his predecessors so false- ly glorious. His stand for public order was in contradistinction to Rose's prom- ise of "the good old times," which im- plied, as another newspaper remarked, "a continuous carnival, bands on Grand Avenue playing 'A Hot Time,' and sim- ilar shop-worn attractions." Representative Burke's defeat of Sen- ator Crawford for the Republican nom- ination for Senator from South Dakota is a cruel thrust at the Progressive dog- ma that the G. O. P. is dead and buried. South Dakota was not only for Roose- velt in 1912, but so strongly for him that it gave Taft and La Follette com- bined far fewer votes than it cast for the Colonel, and in November there were no Taft electors at all. The Roosevelt electors pledged themselves to vote for Taft if it came to a struggle between Taft and Wilson. Now Representative Burke, a Taft supporter, carries the State, although laboring under the dis- advantage of being designated on the ticket as the "minority" candidate. We
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350 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2544 wonder how he dared run, or even face his constituents, after being on the wrong side at Armageddon. Is it possi- ble that South Dakota voters choose their officers upon some other basis than that of allegiance to the Progressive standard? The result makes one feel that there may be something symptom- atic in the California registration fig- ures of 145,000 Republicans and only 92,000 Progressives. If the Colonel, when he gets back, fears that the people are not ruling di- rectly as they should, let him look at Seattle. Its Charter Commission has included a division of the city into thir- ty-six councilmanic wards, "each ward to have the right of recall for its par- ticular Councilman." The possibilities thus opened should satisfy a very glut- ton for direct democracy and political excitement. Does one block get a side- walk and another none? Recall the Councilman! Do you dislike the po- liceman who patrols your corner? Is the city growing in the wrong direc- tion, and your property values falling? The remedy is plain. As little transient gusts of irritation blow about over the city which has just seen a recalled May- or inducted again into office, Seattle should be treated to a fairly continuous splutter of petitions and elections. In the face of this delightful prospect, it is disheartening to find the Post-Intelli- gencer raking up city history to prove that "it is clear by this time that a hair- trigger recall law is not advisable." Not merely are the members of the service asked to refrain from the use of liquor tliemselves, but they are re- minded that the law cannot be enforc- ed unless they themselves obey it. The violations that have been most flagrant, as pointed out by the last report of the Indian Rights Association, have been those on the part of employees. It spe- cifically notes one, left unpunished, as evidence that in 1912 there was a certain laxity in the Indian Bureau as regards the prosecution of members. There can- not be one law in Indian country for In- dians and a different law for whites. It is an ancient tradition, to which Commissioner Sells has just subscribed, that "the greatest menace to the Ameri- can Indian is whiskey." Yet liquor con- tinues to reach the reservations. The Commissioner has issued a letter to the 6,000 employees in the Indian Service emphasizing the importance of each man bearing himself as a personal ob- ject-lesson: As a matter of good faith to our treaty relationships, to legislative enactments, to the Congress which appropriates $100 000 a year for the suppression of the liquor traffic among the Indians, wc should do everything reasonably within our power to justify this appropriation, and insure the best results obtainable This accomplished, we have laid a sub- stantial foundation for all of our work in solving; the Indian problem, and made a step forward toward their equip- rrn I'l for the responsibilities of citizen ship Oberlin College's systematic study of college efficiency, published, after four years' labor, not merely for the benefit of Oberlin, but as "a guide for a search- ing investigation by any other institu- tion of its own efficiency," has brought to the surface one notable conclusion. It is that for the college to render its full service to society it must contem- plate a limitation of the numbers in its main or academic department. The growth of that department has been from 405 students in 1900, through 977 in 1910, to slightly more than 1,000 to- day. Notwithstanding a doubling of the resources of the institution, this growth has prevented the average size of classes from falling below 26.5 — mani- festly too large; it has decreased the proportion of full professors to students from one to 27 in 1900 to one to 44.4 in 1910; it has resulted in a deterioration of faculty supervision of student life and work; and it has made inadequacies in equipment more painfully apparent. "Whether the enlargement ... of the quantity of the service rendered, in view of the quality, has been an unmix- ed blessing," the report concludes, is very seriously to be questioned. The significance of the recommended restric- tion is in its novelty; of 35 institutions of a status similar to Oberlin's, only two — and they women's colleges — could re- port a limitation. The position of many or all, as regards endowment, may be more fortunate; and one wonders if several would not arrive at the same decision as Oberlin if they should con- duct an investigation of the same char- acter and thoroughness. reference to a proclamation, or "Impor- tant Notice," as he called it, issued by Sir Edward Carson. It was to the ef- fect that the Ulster Volunteers must not think they were armed to kill "those of our fellow-countrymen in Ulster" who are Catholics. "Our quarrel is with the Government alone, and we desire that the religious and political views of our opponents should be everywhere respect- ed." This must have fallen like a wet blanket upon the fighting Orangemen of Belfast. For a hundred years they have been throwing cobble-stones and breaking heads over religious differ- ences; and many of them must have felt that they were about to have the chance of their lives to cry "Down with the Pope!" and to smite the Papists hip and thigh. Indeed, it is highly prob- able that this feeling had become so manifest and threatening that Sir Ed- ward Carson took alarm at it, and gave out his warning, lest the "holy war" should prove to be one purely of relig- ious hostilities. In none of the dispatches from the seat of "war" in Ulster have wc seen The fall of the Japanese Cabinet was undoubtedly hastened by the recent dis- closures of corruption among officials connected with the Navy Department. But, after all, the naval scandals simply furnished the democratic Opposition in the Diet with a special opportunity in its campaign for a reconstruction of par- liamentary institutions on a true rep- resentative basis. The influence of the Elder Statesmen has latterly been on the wane, but clan politics have still largely dominated Government policy. Such politics have taken the form of fa- voring the army or the navy according as members of the Choshu or the Sat- suma clan have been in power. Prince Katsura was beaten last year on the issue of large army increases. Last week the Yamamoto Cabinet fell be- cause of the drastic cut in naval appro- priations made by the upper house of Parliament. The radical faction in Par- liament, opposed to clan rule, is appar ontly ready to join issue with the army faction or navy faction as occasion of- fers, with the ultimate purpose of dis- crediting both. Even In Japan it is ap- parent that Imperialism is not based en- tirely on lofty patriotic sentiment, bul that patriotism is apt to take the torn of a larger army or a larger navy, ac- cording to the interests of the men In power.
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April 2, 1914] The Nation 351 HARRYING THE RAILWAYS. It is an unusual day that does not bring news of fresh pin-pricking of the railways. Last week a suit was filed in Liberty, Texas, against the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad to recover $1,252,000 for the crime of operating one locomotive not equipped with the brake appliances required under the laws of Texas. A few days earlier the Missouri, Kansas & Texas and the Beau- mont & Great Northern Railroads were sued by the same State for the modest sum of $8,400,000 for violation of the laws regarding safety appliances. Texas has evidently high hopes of replenish- ing her treasury at corporation expense, as well as highly fastidious tastes in the matter of railway equipment. Thus she requires electric headlights on all locomotives, entailing hundreds of thousands of dollars of needless ex- pense. All this is particularly annoying to interstate lines, which often find themselves in danger of being punished in one State for conditions which mere- ly conform to the law in another. Lest any one think we exaggerate, we may point out that when the Kansas City Southern enters Arkansas it is com- pelled by law to place fly screens in the windows of its cars to protect its passen- gers from the malarial mosquito. When the train enters Oklahoma its crew is in duty bound to remove all these screens, since they are forbidden by law in that State. As the railway winds in and out of both States, the crews, if they would obey the law, find plenty to do. For all they know, State detectives may be- In each passenger coach piling up evi- dence for a ten-million-dollar suit against the road. Now, we should be the last to defend the railways for de- liberate and wilful failure to obey the laws of any State, but, as we pointed out last week, thoughtful people must sympathize with the unanswerable con- tention of the railways that, whatever their past sins, they are now constantly being punished by conflicting orders and laws from Legislatures and Commis- sions, State and national. The cost of these orders is never counted by the officials issuing them; that is not their concern, but that of the harassed mana- gers. In New York State, the Federal labor law prescribes eight hours as a work- ing day, and the State nine. The State boiler inspection rules differ from tho orders of the Federal inspectors. New York requires the washing out of boil- ers every thirty days, when everybody knows that some boilers need it every week, and others not in six weeks. Each washing must be attested before a notary, and his certificate must be framed in the cab. The Federal inspec- tor may lay off any engine which does not please him. An interstate railway which starts from St. Louis finds its rates for hauling coal fixed by Mis- souri; on reaching Kansas it is com- pelled by State law to carry all passen- gers for two cents a mile; as soon as its trains arrive in Oklahoma they must stop at a station on the State boundary, whether there is even a hamlet there or not. Wherever a railway enters this State, it must maintain a State-line sta- tion. In Arkansas the law requires this same railway to carry an absolutely needless third brakeman on each freight train — only to drop him when Texas i& reached and the electric headlight is turned on. This is merely a sample of what State control means, and on top of it all are the orders and regulations not only of the Interstate Commerce Commission, but sometimes of other Federal departments — the Treasury, it is reported, recently issued an order to the railways in regard to the use of drinking-water on trains. Naturally, we repeat, the honest rail- way manager who is willing to recog- nize the changed conditions of to-day finds himself absolutely at a loss. How can he make a budget, when he may be suddenly ordered, like the Pennsylvania, to waste $850,000 under the needless full-crew law? He is between the devil of no dividends for stockholders and the very deep sea of Federal and State reg- ulation. Is he to receive no chart and no compass by which he may steer a true course fair to all concerned? One of the most serious aspects of it all is that regulation by commission is at stake; this, as every one knows, has been heralded as the middle road be- tween Government ownership and the old haphazard legislative control. It is of vital interest to the country that our railway commissions should be put on the highest possible plane. Some of the questions which are now before them are of enormous importance to the gen- eral business interests of the country. Naturally, their authority is under- mined if Legislatures like our own con- tinue to meddle in matters which have been definitely allotted to a commission for control. To override it is to lower the commission in the eyes of the pub- lic and to breed contempt for it among those whom it is supposed to regulate, while leaving the railway manager ut- terly at a loss to know where he may ob- tain a ruling which shall be lasting — at least, for a few months — and shall not conflict with three or four others. It is a situation which calls for statesman- ship, not for prejudice and partisanship. THE ENGLISH ARMY MUTINY. Publication of the official correspon- dence relating to the mutiny of English army officers in Ireland furnishes amaz- ing and painful reading. That the Gov- ernment was incredibly weak in fac- ing the crisis was the first inference drawn. The great principle of civil con- trol of the army was at hazard, yet the Ministry seemed to fumble as if it were merely a question affecting Little Peddlington. Army discipline was im- perilled, but the War Office and the Crown went all lengths to soothe the mutineers. Now that all the facts are known, and prove to be even worse than the rumors that have been flying about, it is certain that there will be a blaze of indignation among English Liber- als and Radicals. We should say, too, that thoughtful Conservatives, who care less for a party success than for the honor and stanchness of the array, and for the firm establishment of the doc- trine of military subordination, must be staggered at the spectacle of a brig- adier-general and fifty other officers im- pudently telling the Government what orders they would and what they would not obey. No wonder that these officers, coddled and almost apologized to, went back to the soldiers and gloried in the victory they have won over the Govern- ment. But it at once appeared that the War Office had acted without Cabinet authority. Hence the resignation of the Secretary for War. It seemed impossible that any British Government, least of all a Liberal Gov- ernment, could so have faltered and cringed. Mr. Asquith's policy has ob- viously been one of conciliation. For a long time he has sought in every way possible to arrive at a reasonable com- promise on the Ulster question. This was entirely right, provided it was all
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352 r 1 1 The Nation (Vol. 98, No. 2544 the time understood that no sacrifice of a fundamental principle would be per- mitted. It is wise to seek to come to an agreement with political opponents, but throughout the negotiations it must be made plain that a final challenge of the supremacy of Parliament will not be tolerated. For statesmen to be pa- tient is well, but for an English states- man to permit army officers to dictate to him what policies he shall be allowed to carry out, with all the forces of the Crown if necessary, is unheard of since the days of the Long Parliament. Every one of those officers should have been instantly court-martialled and broken. Whether one be by conviction militar- ist or anti-militarist, there can be no difference of opinion about the duty of an army, if we have an army at all. It must, in the first place, be implicitly and at all times subject to the civil pow- er. The moment you begin to permit army officers to protest against the or- ders coming to them from the duly con- stituted authorities, that moment you prepare the way for the destruction of civil liberties, and for the setting up of a Pretorian Guard to decide who the authorities shall be. It is this aspect of the matter which fills English Liberals with shame and rage, and led to extra- ordinary demonstrations in the House of Commons. The question of Home Rule was temporarily lost sight of in the larger question of the supremacy of Parliament. It cannot be that the Eng- lish democracy, which has at last got rid of the veto of the House of Lords, will lie down under the assumption of the veto power by the army. And as for the effect of the mutiny on the army itself, how can it be other than disastrous? For years the military au- thorities in England have been agitat- ing schemes to make the army larger and more effective. But if soldiers will not obey orders, the more you have of them the worse you are off. The muti- neers have struck a deadly blow at the army, both at home and abroad. Eng- lishmen have been saying hard things of German military autocracy. Here- after their mouths will be closed. Noth- ing that happened at Zabern is so bad as what took place at Curragh. After all, there is small danger that Gen. Gough will succeed in the role of Col. Pride. Mr. Asquith has boldly met the challenge. Himself taking charge of the War Office, he will be in a position both to enforce discipline and to make the issue plain. The democratic and radical spirit has not risen in Eng- land to such heights as we have seen, to be beaten back by the waving of a brigadier's sword. The particular occasion chosen for the dis- play of army insubordination will be seized upon, justly or otherwise, as proving that the privileged classes are ready to go to any extreme, even to tam- pering with the loyalty of soldiers, in order to repress the aspirations of the masses of Englishmen. If a political struggle shapes itself along those lines, there can be no doubt of its outcome. If the English Tories will not submit to the mild rule of Asquith, they may exchange for his whips the scorpions of Lloyd George. However that may be, it is certain that their readiness to throw the army into politics will return to plague them, if they come into office, and will, in any case, be used as a jus- tification for excesses of lawlessness such as we had supposed had become forever impossible in England. It is al- ready evident that the Unionists are wraking up to the fact that they have made a great political blunder in fo- menting army insubordination. TENDENCIES IN CONTROL OF PUB- LIC UTILITIES. Upon the control of public-service cor- porations early centred the whole fight for cleaner and more efficient govern- ment. Chicago's contest of 1903 against Yerkes and the franchises he sought was carried through the Stewart-Harri- son Mayoralty campaign, and culminat- ed in a riot in the State Legislature that drove the Speaker from his chair. The days of Martin and Quay in Philadel- phia, Folk's struggle in St. Louis, Bruce's in Pittsburgh against the Ma- gee-Flinn spoliations, remind us how recently men began to realize that the old way of administering public utilities was outgrown. A vignette in Whitlock's "Forty Years of It" shows vividly this awakening consciousness: a mass-meet- ing gathering outside the City Hall, the leader reading the Constitutional guar- antee of freedom of speech, and the crowd thundering "Let the franchise alone!" But if those were the days when public utilities corporations were guilty of excesses, they were also the days when political rascality made bad conditions inevitable. C. N. Fay tells in "Big Business and Government" how in the '80's Legislature after Legislature in Illinois drafted blackmailing mea- sures which the leaders killed for a suit- able consideration. The flood of regulative legislation of the last three years has vested control in the State. The cities have raised the cry of "home rule" without much ef- fect. Even the weighty Chicago delega- tion of last July was unable to defeat the establishment of a State Commis- sion in Illinois with large powers, and the League of Nebraska Municipalities has proved similarly helpless. These State bodies represent development from the era when experimental State acts restricted by maximum and minimum rates, through the period when separate Commissions controlled separate public services. The Massachusetts Gas Com- mission of 1885 was the first of these, and was merged with its fellows only last summer. But in 1907 Wisconsin and New York had already placed all their utilities under centralized control, and before 1911 they were followed by ten other States. Last year, Missouri, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Maine, West Vir- ginia, Illinois, Idaho, Montana, and Col- orado established State Commissions. All told, twenty-four of the richest and most populous commonwealths have this definite form of regulation. Despite the protest of cities like Denver, St. Louis, Los Angeles, and Kansas City against State absorption, California alone pro- vides for local option between municipal and State Commissions. The obvious advantages of State con- trol explain its easy triumph. City Commissions were too close to the seat of contention; they were open to pub- lic clamor, newspaper attacks, and pri- vate grievances. They manifested a ten- dency to meddle with operating details, and to become manager rather than reg- ulator. The efficiency of commission- ers depends upon continuity of term, and of subordinates upon a State-guard- ed merit system, while their work often requires expert service and equipment, such as is seldom at a city's command. Breadth of view is a further considera- tion, for the Commission should have authority to authorize or forbid the en- trance of a new or the expansion of an old utility corporation. One of the most salient recomiiit ndations of Stair r6gU-
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April 2, 1914J The Nation 353 lation is the complete control afforded over the issuing of securities. That the large cities may render indispensable aid to the State Commission, especially in keeping watch over the quality of the "output" of any public service com- pany, goes without saying. Peculiar lo- cal conditions, calling for peculiar ser- vice, are also to be emphasized by local officials. In Chicago the Board of Super- vising Engineers has received certain of the functions of a municipal Commis- sion, and New York's division of her Commission into two branches was a desirable step. Credit for the fair temper of most of the regulation must be given to the Commissioners, who, as a rule, have been men of training, intelligence, and character. Public Service has charged them, in the main, with nothing worse than practical inexperience. An engi- neering journal recently showed that 48 per cent, of the appointees of the last two years were lawyers not in politics, and 24 per cent, engineers, with econo- mists and journalists represented among the others. The chief count is that too few of the laws have been framed to give the Commission the same power to protect the corporation as to protect the public. Whereas such a body should be a court of the utilities as well as the people, in most States complaints and hearings are exclusive- ly on one side. It was the complaint of the Illinois public utilities that the re- cent law 'surrounded the power of con- trol with protective measures which made regulation easy, and objection to the acts of the inexperienced commis- sioners hard." Only two or three States have followed Wisconsin in giving their Commissions power over municipally- owned utilities. It is unjust for the private plant to face comparison with those which may have transferred ac- counts, forgotten bond issues, with no allowance made for overhead charges or depreciation. The sharpest injustices have been those wrought by varying and uncertain standards of valuation and rate-fixing. Sometimes the rates allowed have left a profit of 8 or 10 per cent.; often they have been cut to a barely non-confisca- tory basis. When investors look to the immediate past, in some sections they have a certain ground for fear lest mon- ey spent now may in the future be legis- lated out of existence. The problem of valuation is a vexed one, and a thou- sand plans have been suggested. But there have been circumstances in which undervaluation of property is traceable either to plain stupidity or to a deliber- ate overlooking of the fact that public services are commonly built up at great risk, through many changes of admin- istration and method. If they are to continue their amazing development, they must be made fruitful fields for enterprise. But it must be admitted that the future of State regulation seems bright. SENATOR HOLLIS AND HARVARD. Senator Hollis is the latest radical to fall foul of Harvard conservatism. In an address before the Harvard Union last week he voiced an old plaint in extreme language. He is quite sure that his alma mater "is not representa- tive of the United States, nor of New England. She is too conservative, too hidebound. She lags behind the times. She does not lead; she follows." He believed, he said, that he was the first Harvard man of radical ideas to occupy a seat in the Senate; he was graduated a snob, from which unhappy condition he was saved in 1900 when he first heard William Jennings Bryan, to become at once his "ardent admirer and disciple." And then he polished off the entire American university world in these words, Harvard being, of course, the horrible example: The result is that our colleges repre- sent a very thin upper crust of our great American life. They are always respect- able, always conservative, always reac- tionary- That is why rich men, who find things rigged about right for their money-making operations, are glad to contribute to the colleges. The colleges are the greatest dead-weight the capital- ists can fasten upon the necks of the American people. The standpatter is conservative, wealth is conservative, the college is conservative. They are all in the same boat. Mr. Hollis is particularly angry be- cause the bond between Harvard and our political life is not closer. He con- trasts it with Western State universi- ties, like Wisconsin, to whose faculty the Legislature submits important ques- tions. He asks: "Imagine, if you please, the Legislature of Massachusetts re- questing an opinion from the faculty of Harvard College. Imagine the recep- tion it would get on Beacon Hill if It should find Its way there." And then the money side! He finds the belief prevalent among public men in Wash- ington that "every Eastern college is eating from the hand that has robbed the pockets of the people. Until this belief is dissipated, Congress will have little faith in our colleges or in college men." As for our students themselves, he thinks they should have their pock- et-money limited, be compelled to use the Australian ballot in choosing class officers, who should be men of highest scholarship only — athletes barred — and be forbidden to use automobiles. Final- ly, and "most important of all": College men should be taught what is wrong with the world, and the way to set it right; what poverty is, and where it exists, what makes it, and what will prevent it; what injustice is, its causes and its remedies; the reasons for high cost of living, and the way to bring it down; the problems of immigration, and how to make country life worth living. They should be taught human interest, the brotherhood of man, the glory of self- sacrifice, the passion of service to man- kind. Now, it would be very easy to poke fun at all this, and to point out how wrong Mr. Hollis is in some utterances and how inconsistent in numerous places. He utters, perhaps, no worse indictment of Harvard than is warrant- ed by the fact that he, a graduate, ap- parently has never heard of Charles Sumner, also a radical, a graduate, and a Senator, who cut quite a dash in the political world and ruffled it not a lit- tle about the time that Mr. Hollis was born, and for a long time before. He has not heard that President Lowell was summoned Defore a committee of the Legislature on Beacon Hill a week or so ago, as President Eliot often was; that Harvard has placed much of its machinery at the service of Cambridge and freely loaned its professors to aid it and the State wherever possible; that about the most useful State official for years past has been a Harvard Fel- low. He has not heard the vigorous protests arising in the West because the State universities, notably Wiscon- sin, are too much in politics for their own good. It would be cruel to ask him whether he knows what is really wrong with the world and just what the remedy is; or if he knows how col- lege professors regard Senators given to worshipping men who advocate national financial dishonesty, and Congressmen who speak with such looseness of state- ment as his.
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354 The ]ST a t i o ii [Vol. 98, No. 2544 We prefer to-day to pass over this un- happy side of Senator Hollis's speech in order to recognize it as the utterance of a man who is honestly striving for genuine democracy, both in the college and in the political world, and to point out that it has a considerable basis of truth. The agitation for greater un dergraduate democracy at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale speaks for him; Harvard was and is divided into two camps, so far as its undergraduate life is concerned. It has always been too slow in taking part in reforms and for- ward movements — witness the Abolition agitation; Wendell Phillips obtained virtually no hearing at Harvard, and laid many of his Harvard friendships as a sacrifice on the altar of human lib- erty. Harvard needs in many ways to influence its students to live the simple and democratic life — -as it seeks to through the new freshman dormitories; and it should do more than it has done to keep the undergraduates in touch with modern social and political condi- tions, and to promote the feeling of hu- man brotherhood. But to dwell on this aspect alone, to condemn Harvard and other Eastern colleges solely on Mr. Hollis's statement of the case, is a gross injustice. There is self-sacrifice in them, there is passion for human brotherhood; in a hundred classrooms and laboratories there is a selfless searching for the absolute, the scientific, truth, that finds little or no parallel in House or Senate. This de- votion to the supreme scholastic aim may lead teacher and student far afield from political life, yet it is a search for that which, above all else, sets men free. To say, moreover, that this great body of teachers is palsied by the dead hand of gifts from men of great wealth is to shut one's eyes to facts; certainly it is to ignore the fact that the malefactors of great wealth who made it by statu- tory favoritism owed these statutes not to the colleges, but to the Senate and House of the United States during a long series of years. Mr. Hollis was in Harvard during the days of some great and free and noble spirits — such as Charles Eliot Norton, Nathaniel Shaler, Adams S. Hill, William James. What a pity he did not know them and profit by their liberty of speech, their intellectual freedom, their shining patriotism, their devotion to our democratic Ideals! What a pity he is so out of touch with Har- vard as not to know what public ser- vice his college renders in a hundred ways, and that it is graduating radicals, of all types, in abundance! To criticise usefully — as we know Mr. Hollis desires to — one must paint the whole picture, and not a part, and be one's self fair and just. THE LESSER LITERATURES. Frederic Mistral was an excellent il- lustration of the truth that in the field of literature the spirit of modern im- perialism is far from carrying every- thing before it. The future by no means belongs to the great nations. A people need not be powerful in a political or military or economic sense in order to produce great writers. The list of No- bel prize winners in literature is con- clusive on this point. Of the fourteen men who have been honored since the institution of the prize in 1901, we may exclude two winners, Mommsen and Pro- fessor Eucken, on the ground that their work does not lie in the field of pure lit- erature. Of the dozen survivors just half are the representatives of minor nationalities. The Scandinavian coun- tries have contributed two in the per- sons of Bjornson and Selma Lagerlof. Belgium claims Maeterlinck by nativity and the spirit of his work. Mistral for Provence, Sienkiewicz for Poland, and Tagore for Bengal are the representa- tives of an historical past, and possibly of an historical future, but surely not of a present of first-rate political signifi- cance. It should be possible to develop a tenable argument against the preva- lent contention which connects national greatness in a general sense with na- tional preeminence in literature. It may be that the triumph of the Greeks over the Persians would account for the splendid outburst of Athenian genius, and that Sir Francis Drake and the Ar- mada were one form of national expres- sion of which Shakespeare was the oth- er. But one can cite instances to the contrary from Isaiah to Goethe. About such national revivals as Mis- tral represents there is a curious com- pound of the artificial and the natural. When an individual or a group of indi- viduals set themselves consciously to re- create a language and a literature, we cannot help being reminded of what the philologians teach regarding the com- plex and hidden forces that condition the rise and fall of languages, irrespec- tive of the will of man. Even when the organized attempt is successful, as it was in the case of Mistral and the Pro- vencal tongue, the result still impresses one as something of a tour de force. The movement initiated by Roumamlle, and carried on by the "seven" poets of the Felibrige, produced, after all, only one outstanding figure. Mistral leaves no successor of anything like his stat- ure (even allowing for Felix Gras of the charming "Reds of the Midi"), and it may be that his death is the be- ginning of the end of the new Provencal movement. To that extent revivals of this sort are artificial. But they are nat- ural to the extent that they do send their roots down into the soil. They are not movements made out of whole cloth. They are a return to a past that was real and splendid. Behind Mistral was the language and literature of the troubadours. Behind a Tagore is a literary and national tradition that stretches back through the centuries. Behind a Sienkiewicz is a tradition that ended but the other day in a political sense and is still vividly alive in the hearts of a conquered people. One can understand how the hack- neyed phrase, "literature and life," has a very real meaning to the nations that have fallen from a great estate or to nations whose dreams of greatness lie in the future. The philologian and the writer, upon whom the soldier and the man of action are accustomed to look down as at best a rather desirable na- tional ornament, become in a very real sense the architects of a nation's repute among the nations. In the great com- petition of numbers and brute force, what chance do a mere ten million Scan- dinavians stand against the forward march of the great empires? But a peo- ple that has produced an Ibsen, a Bjorn- son, and a Brandes need not bow the head before any one. To most of us, Scandinavia is precisely the native land of Ibsen, Bjornson, Strindberg, Brandes. Their value to their countrymen might be almost translated into commercial terms. Their value in prestige of a more enduring nature cannot be cal- culated. This must be one of the rea- sons that explain the passionate strug- gle of Europe's minor and submerged nationalities for the preservation of their historic tongues. There Is no peo- ple, however small, which does not cher-
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April 2, 1914] T li e Nation 355 ish dreams of conquest and empire. But until these dreams come true the little peoples know that their safety depends largely on the maintenance of their his- toric speech and traditions, and that their present prestige can be enhanced by the output of men of literature whose appearance is not dependent on mere strength of numbers. THE COMPLETE ANTHROPOLOGIST. As usual the last word on the subject has come from Germany. In his epoch- making book on "Modern Woman and Marriage by Capture," Professor Junker of the University of Zabern has demon- strated in masterly fashion how every physical and mental trait of the woman of to-day may be traced back to the time when the primitive male, whenever he wanted a wife, went out and caught one. Why, for example, is long hair com- mon among women and not among men? The explanation is simple enough. The primitive wife-hunter would naturally seize his victim and future wife by the hair, especially if he were on horseback and going at full speed. The short-hair- ed women escaped capture and died un- related. The long-haired women perpetu- ated their kind. Thus, says Professor Junker, although in the course of time women have got out of the habit of look- ing upon their long-streaming locks Uanr/wcUlende Locken) as a badge of servitude and have even learned to take pride in them, ladies will occasionally speak quite sharply to their maids who are engaged in brushing their hair for the theatre. This is undoubtedly an ata- vistic remembrance of primitive times. Incidentally, Professor Junker points out that the same explanation will ac- count for the evolution of a short-haired male race. Primitive woman, taken cap- tive and thrown over the male's shoul- der, would naturally struggle to escape. Burying her fingers in the man's hair, she would pull with all her might, tear- ing out large handfuls. This is why men, as a rule, are short-haired, with a ten- dency to baldness; the only exception be- ing poets and musicians, who knew how to win women without capturing them and so were seldom in danger of depila- tion. The age-old habit of struggling to get away from her future husband and of looking back with tears to the paternal home from which she was being abduct- ed, undoubtedly, according to Professor Junker, accounts for woman's present, habit of facing backwards when she is getting off a street-car. The writer does not allude to a second peculiarity closely connected with the first, from which in fact it seems to have been derived. We refer to woman's difficulty in finding the proper change when paying her fare to the conductor, or, better still, when she is purchasing her ticket at the ticket- seller's window with fifteen men in a line behind her and the train just pulling in. Under marriage by capture, woman never travelled of her own accord, but was always hauled or carried. Hence the queer survivals of inexperience in the matter of rapid transit. As between a primitive maiden who went in for tight sandals and one who wore loose footgear or, better still, went barefoot, which would be most likely to escape the clutches of the wife-hunter? Obviously the free-shod maiden, says Professor Junker (die freifiissige Jung- frau), would go free, whereas her frivo- lous companion could only hobble and so fall a victim to marriage. This is why women of to-day still habitually suffer from tight footgear. And again, the primitive maiden who sought the refuge of the family tent with nightfall remained safe, but the girl addicted to loitering outside after dark was inevitably cap- tured and married, and passed on to her descendants the faculty for getting to the theatre fifteen minutes late. Foreign Correspondence FRANCE'S FOREIGN POLICIES— M. DOUMERGUE'S STATEMENT. Paris, March 14. A brief analysis of the text of M. Dou- mergue's statement before the Chamber on French foreign relations and policy should be interesting in these troublous days. The Prime Minister followed, in his discourse, the order dictated by the interests of the French Parliament. It is better here to take out the different items in the order which should seem most in- teresting to Americans generally — and to Congress in particular. After the usual overture of "undying memories connected with the epoch of the liberation of the United States and, for us, mingled with the dawn of our own revolution," M. Doumergue noted: "At the request of the President of the American Federation, the Government of the republic has studied — with the care such a proposition merits — a treaty project to prevent conflicts of every kind between the two countries. I have just sent instructions on this point to our Ambassador at Washington, and I have no doubt that shortly a new treaty will cement the relations of confiding friend- ship between the two republics. "On the occasion of the coming open- ing of the Panama Canal — an undertak- ing marked by the stamp of French genius and brought to a good end by stubborn American effort — such relations of confiding friendship cannot but be strengthened further." It is already known in America that the Government's proposition of a Par- liamentary appropriation for the official participation of France in the Panama Exhibition at San Francisco is held up, pending the previous settling of certain customs difficulties which have arisen between the two Governments. These chiefly concern certain conflicts of the Tariff law — and of local laws of separate States — with existing treaties between France and the United States. Of the new Tariff law in general, M. Doumergue said: "A new American customs tariff is in force. In the course of its preparation, French diplomacy often intervened to throw light on the interests of our na- tional commerce and to have clauses of a nature to harm it eliminated. It should be acknowledged that, on the whole, this new tariff brings with it a reduction of customs duties, by which our exporters will certainly be able to profit." The Prime Minister explained the damage done by the civil war in Mexico to "the numerous and laborious French colony established there for so many years," and to "French capital so largely invested there in great business under- takings of textile factories, mines, rail- ways and banks." He recounted meas-r ures already taken, and once more pro- claimed French policy: "Like other Eu- ropean Powers, the Government of the French republic has refrained from all intervention in the domestic affairs of Mexico — thus giving credit to the policy of the Cabinet of Washington, which is more particularly interested in the re- establishment of order on its southern frontier. It will not, however, fail when the favorable moment comes to demand for French interests, which have been compromised or lost, equitable satisfac- tion." The Balkan wars, which have left so many and complicated dangers for the Governments of Europe and for the finances of all the world, were taken up by M. Doumergue, in the order of French policy. Its general principle on which President Poincar<§ acted so efficiently when he was Foreign Minister, at the beginning of the troubles, was repeated with emphasis: "As in all the incidents of this long crisis, the Government of the republic will do its utmost to keep all the Powers in touch with one another and to secure, by permanent and trust- ful cooperation with the Cabinets of St. Petersburg and London, continuity of European action in the sense of peace." It is significant of the present foreign relations of France that the Prime Min- ister should have given an entire para- graph to praise of Rumania, "whose in- tervention prevented the struggle [the second Balkan War] going on endless- ly," while "she remains an important factor of peace — a powerful element of stability in the Balkan peninsula." Perhaps more significant still was the tribute to the aged Emperor of Austria; for it is Austria that the new, sudden, and portentous campaign of the German press against Russia is supposed to aim at chiefly — to enforce an increase of armaments there also. Turkey, while settling down to its new estate, is universally considered a storm breeder between Triple Alliance and Triple Entente. Three times the Prime Minister of France must have weighed his words before speaking here; and what he left unsaid was as noteworthy as what he said. Regarding the univer- sally recognized predominance of I financial interests alre;i.i | in the Ottoman Empire, he contented himself with announcing the near reunion in Paris of the International Commission whose work was interrupted by the sec- ond Balkan War. Its business is "to seek the solutions which are to be given
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356 The ^STation [Vol. 98, No. 2544 lo financial and economic problems raised by the war." As between Germany and France, the Signature of their agreement for a divi- sion of labor in opening up Turkey in Asia has been announced as immediate. This relieves possible tension in that quarter, but M. Doumergue passed it over without explicit mention: "Points of friction have been removed in the equal desire of coming' to an under- standing- and with care to do no harm either to the integrity or the necessary independence of the Ottoman Govern- ment." With a like allusion, he passed over #the solution of the never-ending ques- tion of Armenia, which, ever since the Prime Minister spoke, has been thought to be setting- Germany and Russia by the ears. "We have constantly support- ed, in strict accord with England, the efforts made by the Russian Govern- ment. . . . The Government of the republic will continue this support for the good completion of the work, being assured that the cooperation of all the Powers has been obtained for it." Italy was reminded of the helpful at- titude of France during her conquest of Tripoli: "I doubt not, Italy will show a like spirit of frank friendship in the questions which this new neighborhood may start up." For here, too, between French Tunis, rich and with a large number of Italian colonists, and Italian Tripoli, sterile and undeveloped, there is a danger-point in storms sure to come. With the obligate hymn to the Triple Entente, this important declaration — in the name of the French republic, no mat- ter what Government is uppermost — con- cluded: "France is resolved to keep in the world the place to which her past, her culture, and the labor of her citizens give her a right — and which her military and naval power guarantees — with menace to none." S. D. THE WEALTH OF GERMANY. Berlin, March 19. Germany ten years ago was among the three foremost industrial and commercial nations of the world. The United States and Great Britain, the other two mem- bers of the triumvirate, have done ex- ceedingly well during the prosperous dec- ade that is past, but probably neither of them would assert that the national for- tune has doubled in that time. The claim is made for Germany, however, and made with plausibility. In 1904, Gustav Schmoller, the great economist of the Berlin University, esti- mated the wealth of the German people at fifty billions of dollars. The estimate, which was based on study of the returns of taxation, erred probably on the side of conservatism. The national income Schmoller put at six and a quarter bil- lions, over two-thirds of which repre- sented wages to workers. The next few years brought huge increases of taxa- tion, which the people bore with such ease that Professor Schmoller's figures clearly required revision. Imperial taxa- tion has been increased since 1904 by $172,000,000. State and local taxation, especially the latter, has kept pace with the increase in the demands of the em- pire. Yet the spending capacities of the people expand from year to year in a way that makes the tax-gatherer's mouth water. Germany must be a great deal richer than Schmoller calculated. According to Arnold Steinmann-Bucher, the German fortune should be placed at between $94,- 000,000,000 and $99,000,000,000, or about $1,478 per head of the population. This amount is increasing annually by between $2,375,000,000 and $3,000,000,000. The na- tional income in the estimates of the econ- omists has likewise been increasing rapidly for years. Dr. Helfferich, of the Deutsche Bank, the last authority to speak posi- tively, puts it at $10,000,000,000 and Stein- mann-Bucher rates it higher. Helfferich's figure would give an annual income per head of the 67,000,000 of Germans of about $148. These figures, according to Stein- mann-Bucher, in his newly published work, "Das reiche Deutschland," make Germany the richest country in Europe. France, with a national fortune of fifty- six and a quarter billions and an average fortune of about $1,406 per capita, is behind Germany in the absolute amount as well as in the amount per head, al- though, as the French population does not increase and its income does, there is always more money in France than in Germany. To England this patriotic economist allows a fortune of seventy- five billions, which would make the aver- age Briton, with $1,622, slightly richer than his German cousin; but the differ- ence will be wiped out in a few years if German wealth is really expanding at the rate asserted by Steinmann-Bucher. The United States he leaves alone, partly because the huge statistical apparatus of the European tax collector does not exist there, and partly because the American figures would not help his main thesis, which seems to be that there is no coun- try so good to live in and so easy to get rich in as Germany. The totals for Germany are arrived at in the following way. The value of pri- vate property insured against fire in 1912 was fifty billion dollars. It increases at the rate of over two billions a year, and is now reckoned by Steinmann-Bucher at fifty-five billions. The argument that there is a great deal of over-insurance is met by the argument that there ia a great deal of under-insurance and much insurable property that is not insured at all. So that the gross amount insured is as likely to be too little as to be too large. Municipal ground values without buildings account for twelve and one-half billions. Berlin alone accounts for over $1,250,000,000, more than 200 times as much as was officially calculated in 1830. In 1850 the value of the ground on which Berlin stands was $20,000,000. It swelled to $1,250,000,000 in sixty years. Nor are these figures exceptional. Berlin has trebled her population since 1871, but many of the large cities have done the same. Hamburg has quadrupled, and Leipzig quintupled hers; Diisseldorf has grown from 69,000 inhabitants to 558,000. What the development Of industry lias done for the towns, the high tariff on foodstuffs has done; for the country. The country population, it is true, has drifted into towns at an alarming rate, but it has been replaced by Imported labor from Russia and Austria (which is not allow- ed to settle in the country), and the own- ers of rural land have as yet no cause to complain. Here the yield of the Prus- sian crown lands furnishes a clue which enables Steinmann to calculate the value of the 150,000,000 acres of German arable and forest land at twelve and one-half billion dollars. This was the figure which, when first published some years ago, led to the attack on the agrarian land-own- ers as tax-dodgers by Prof. Hans Del- briick, and inspired the movement for wringing death duties out of the Junkers, which only last year found indirect reali- sation in the imposition of the incre- ment value tax. Fully a tenth of the national fortune belongs to the state. The state rail- ways are valued at over six billions; state-owned mines, buildings, factories, canals, etc., at four and three-quarter billions; private capital invested abroad at over six billions; privately owned mines at between one and one and one-half bil- lions; goods in transit on ships and rail- roads, and money in circulation make to- gether one and one-half billions, and bring the total up to the amount men- tioned at the beginning of this article. Steinmann-Bucher is an optimist in fig- ures, and there are critics who accuse him of adding 10 per cent, out of pure patriotism to all his totals. But it is not easy to catch him tripping. If he rounds his figures upwards, he is justified by the trend of the times. A sign thereof is the way in which Germany is bearing the billion war levy, for which the taxpayers are now preparing-, and the increase of forty million dollars of taxation with which they have to reckon in perpetuity. The people seem to have more money to spend than ever, and there are well- founded rumors that the billion levy will yield considerably more than that amount. It is characteristic, too, of the trend of things in Germany at this moment that Steinmann-Bucher is an enthusiastic friend of all war taxes. "Be of good cheer," he calls to his countrymen, "you can afford it. The more we develop our means of war through scientific tax- ation and finance, the stronger guaran- tees of peace we create. The deeper we look into the factors of power within our own economic life, the greater be- comes our obligation not only to insure peace for ourselves, but to force it upon the nations among which we have so great a preponderance." Certain it is that Germany is destined to become with every decade a more formidable opponent in war and peace, At present all that hampers her is lack of capital. She has no savings. In a recent case, France obtained huge orders for her industries from Servia by lend ing her the money with which to pay for them at a safe rate of Interest. At the moment, France is the only country in Europe which can do business In this way, but Germany In less than another generation will have savings, too, pro- vided they are not spent on wars. Li, T, II I.
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April 2, 1 914] The Nation 35? Books and Men "FIRST BOOKS." "The Passionate Friends," by H. G. Wells, brings the number of his com- plete novels to a point somewhere be- tween twenty and twenty-five. I do not intend to comment upon the newest one, for the simple reason that I have not read it. But if there were the slight- est chance that it is as good a tale as his first, everything else should wait until I had finished it. "The Time Machine," only preceded by "Select Conversations With an Uncle," appeared in 1895. Mr. Wells be- came famous through "The War of the Worlds," published three years later. With the appearance of "Tono Bungay" In 1909 he seems to have deserted the Jules Verne type of romance for the sociological novels, which, in the eyes of the critics to whom fiction is a mighty serious affair, give him a dignified place in contemporary English literature, and one worthy of their most learned re- views. Even for those who prefer their nov- els undiluted with sociology, there is a great amount of entertainment in "Tono Bungay," in "Ann Veronica," in "The New Machiavelli," and in "Marriage." The uncle in "Tono Bungay," the love affair with the Hon. Beatrice Normanby in the same book, the Labrador experi- ence in "Marriage" — these are exam- ples of the humor, the romance, and the spirit of adventure which constant- ly interrupt Mr. Wells's more serious purposes. But "The Time Machine" is almost pure narrative. A "lesson" or a "mor- al," or an allegory, or whatever you may choose to ca'l it, underlies the tale, to be sure. It is a fanciful picture of the world when warfare, preventable dis- eases, noxious animals and insects, and hardships of every kind have been abol- ished. A great quiet has ensued — and with distressing results. The allegory is well hidden, however — the story, on the face of it, is merely one of strange adventure. It promises thrills to any reader at all susceptible to them. Mr. Wells is a master of the horrible — wit- ness certain passages in this book, and in "The Island of Dr. Moreau." Only by producing the long and wearisome novel of psychology, of political economy, of sociology, could he expect to be recog- nized by the reviewers of this decade as really "significant." Its author thinks ill of "The Time Machine." In recording a conversation he had with Mr. Roosevelt, he refers to the book as immature and trifling. Cer- tainly, he might have continued to write such books all his life, and the usual critic would have dismissed him as a new kind of Jules Verne. One of his readers, at any rate, enjoys the first books the most. He will read "Tono Bungay," "Marriage," "The Pas- sionate Friends," and the rest, with en- joyment— once. But he returns to read, and re-read, "The Time Machine," "The Island of Doctor Moreau," "The War of the Worlds," "The First Men in the Moon," and "The War in the Air." The last of these, by the way, contains some of the most quietly humorous and de- lightful chapters Mr. Wells ever wrote— the incident of the forcible abduction of Bert Smallways by the runaway bal- loon. The first book of an author forms an interesting topic. Many readers of fic- tion will recall a volume called "My First Book," which appeared twenty years ago. The papers composing it had been printed earlier in the Idler. Mr. J. K. Jerome edited it, as he did the Idler at that time, and there were con- tributions by twenty-one English novel- ists, and one American — Bret Harte. The English included Walter Besant, James Payn, Clark Russell, Hall Caine, Rudyard Kipling, Conan Doyle, Rider Haggard, "Q," and R. L. Stevenson. Stevenson thought it no end of fun. He wrote, only a month or two before his death, to Conan Doyle: "It is a rat- tling good series; even people whom you would not expect came in quite the proper tone — Miss Braddon, for instance, who was really one of the best where all are good — or all but one! ... In short, I fell in love with the 'First Book' series, and determined that it should be all our first books, and that I could not hold back where the white plume of Conan Doyle waved gallantly in the front." But — in Stevenson's account of his first book, as it appeared in the Idler, there were two pictures. One was a full-length portrait of the author; the other was called "Stevenson Telling 'Yarns.' " "I hope they will republish them," he continues in his letter to Doyle, re- ferring not to the pictures, but to the articles, "though it's a griev- ous thought to me that that effigy in the German cap — likewise the other effigy of the noisome old man with the long hair, telling indelicate stories to a couple of deformed negresses in a rancid shanty full of wreckage — should be per- petuated. I may seem to speak in plea- santry— it is only a seeming — that Ger- man cap, sir, would be found, when I come to die, imprinted on my heart. Enough — my heart is too full. Adieu — Yours very truly, "Robert Louis Stevenson (in a German cap, damn 'em!)" first, as the favorites with any reader? How many would be named as the writ- er's "best," or as one of his best? "The Wreck of the 'Grosvenor,' " by Clark Russell? Without doubt that would be named by many persons. The "Depart- mental Ditties" of Kipling? Hardly. "Treasure Island"? Probably. Many of the others are almost unknown titles. Exceptions may be made for "A Shad- ow of a Crime" by Hall Caine, "A Ro- mance of Two Worlds" by Miss Corelli — which, as the most characteristic thing she ever did, ought to please her admir- ers best — and "Dead Man's Rock," by Quiller-Couch — a crude but "rattling good" story. Many of the leading writers of to-day do not appear, naturally enough, in that collection of the early 1890's. Messrs. Shaw, Chesterton, Bennett, Galsworthy — these are all absent. Mr. Chesterton was then a youth of twenty. A few years later he published, not his first, but what seems to have been his second book, the volume of essays called "The Defendant." It is little read to-day, and seldom is any reference made to it. The Chestertonian form of humor, the para- dox, and the grave assumption of the absurd, appear in it in all their glory, fresh and amusing. He has played many a different tune since then, but usually on the same fiddle. Edmund Lester Pearson. Poetry Of the other "first books" mentioned therein, how many would be chosen, as I have ventured to choose Mr. Wells's THE ACESTIAN. The wi':ik and the weary, and all wno are fear- ful of peril, these set apart and let them have their walls in this land. They shall call their city after the name of the hero Acestes. — Aenetd, Book V, lines 71ii-7ls. Safety is mine, and comfort, and the peace Of broad, still streets, and the trim countryside About the city walls, and docile-eyed Respect of prosperous fellow-citizens, release From straining toward the morrow and surcease Alike of generous shame and gener- ous pride — One day but as another, multiplied Still on and on while the dull years in- crease. Only in blessed dreams my eyes are met By far horizons of fair morning sky; Only in dreams I hear the pleading voice Of that great friend who led my youth, ere yet He braved the last seas of his faith, and I Entered the mean ways of my recreant choice. Auorsn s Mk.mion Ix>rd.
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35S Tlie Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2544 News for Bibliophiles WOK I >SWORTl IS REV I SIONS. A set of proof-sheets in my possession, withdrawn from Wordsworth's (prob- ablj ) m\t -to-final review of his "An Evening Walk" for the six-volume Mox- 011 1836 Edition, yields many variants for lines of this poem. That at least one further revision must be understood to intercept the definitive form of the poem for this Edition will be seen from a com- parison of texts; cf. also a note in Wordsworth's hand on the back of p. 63 (63 as well in the Edition— finis of the piece) : "Please to send a Revise. Mr. W. hopes this will be last revise required." First is a completely excised couplet. Line 13 of the poem as finished was pre- ceded in proof by Fair scenes, with other eyes, than once, I gaze Upon the varied charm your round displays, "Fair scenes" being retained to preface it. The participle of line 20 has been shifted from the preceding line in the page, "Was heard, or woodcocks" displac- ing "Or the first woodcocks." For then, even then, the little heart would beat becomes For then, the inexperienced heart would beat (line 23) ; while "Impatience, pointing upward" (line 23) has been evolved from "Impatience, panting upward"— perhaps a less happy change. The next line is wholly recast: Through passes yet unreached, a brighter road taking the place of Where, tipped with gold, the mountain summits glowed. A quotation in three states emerges from comparative study of lines 41-4, which run in the published text: When crowding cattle, checked by rails that make A fence far stretched into the shallow lake, Lashed the cool water with their restless tails, Or from high points of rock looked out for fanning gales. The proof -page before corrections: When, at the barren wall's unsheltered end. Where long rails far into the lake extend, Crowded the shortened herds, and beat the tides With their quick tails, and lashed their speckled eides. The quotation with Wordsworth's (first) corrections: When, cheek t and baffled at the bare wall's end, By rails that far into the lake extend, The cattle lashed the water with quick tails Or from high points of rock looked out for cooling gales. The evolution of the Alexandrine is in- teresting here; also the dubious judgment involved in sacrificing "quick." "Humming elm" gives way to "broad- spread oak" in line 47, and In the brown park, in herds, the troubled deer to In the rough fern-elad park, the herded deer for line 48. "Where the huddling rill" for "up the huddling rill" in line 54, and "Brightens" for the present participle of the verb in line 55 are minor changes. Line 161 shows the next correction: Bome (hear yon not their chisels' clinking sound?) for Some (hardly beard their chisels' clinking sound) and lino 166 has in airy baskets hanging, work and sing for the proof-page original Glad from their airy baskets hang and sing. One feels that a third phase of this line, whether synthetic or not, might have been devised with advantage. Beginning the next stanza (line 167) the poet supplants Hung o'er a cloud, above the steep that rears with Just where a cloud above the mountain rears and towards its end (line 187) The druld-stoues their lighted fane unfold with (first) a perfect ring . and (in the final text) a burnished ring . . .* "Gazer's sight" in line 194 has become "shepherd's sight" and Anon, in order mounts a gorgeous show (line 199), Anon, appears a brave a gorgeous show while "Shadows winding to and fro" in the next line is dismissed for "shadows moving." The concluding verses of this stanza are a very pother of inkish im- patience. As they run in final form (lines 204-10): While silent stands the admiring crowd below, Silent the visionary warriors go, Winding in ordered pomp their upward way Till the last banner of the t long array , Has disappeared, and every trace is fled Of splendour — save the beacon's spiry head Tipt with eve's latest gleam of burning red. And on the proof-page: Lost gradual, o'er the heights In pomp they go While silent stands the admiring vale below; Till the last banner of thet long array That tips with eve's last gleam his spiry head. No mere extra foot here as a concession to the poet's cumulative rage, but three full lines — grist for the autograph hunt- er's mill, if not grist. "Slowly-waving pinions" supersedes "red slow-waving pinions" in line 212; and then the poet fairly bursts upon his earlier muse (line 215 et seq.). Lines are quite lost in this skelter; clauses dodge about quaintly; "swan" and "road" wind interchangeably. The final text: 'Tis pleasant near the tranquil lake to stray Where, winding on along some secret bay, The swan uplifts his chest, and backward flings His neck, a varying arch, between his towering wings : The eye that marks the gliding creature sees How graceful, pride can be, und how majestic, case. The proof-page: How pleasant near the tranquil lake to stray Where winds the road along a secret bay [Where the swan winds along some secret bay] By riiis thai tumble down the woody steeps, And run In transport to the dimpling deeps ; Along the 'wild meandering shore' to view Obsequious grace the winding swan pursue. He swells his lifted chest, and backward flings Ills bridling neck between his towering wings [HI« neck a varying arch between his towering wings] In all the majesty of ease divides And, glorying, looks around the Bllent tides; On as he floats the silvered waters glow Proud of the varying arch and moveless form of snow. Note the craftsman's reluctance to lose so good a phrase as "varying arch," also how compact the revamped picture. •Knight, istifl Edition: "a brightened ring.' I Knight, 1606 Edition! "their" cl. 1846. "These floods" in line 233 becomes "this flood" in the final text, "whose leafy shades" (line 235) "Where leafy shades," "Where breathes" (line 236) "And breathes," "cottage bower" (line 239) "hutlike bower." Line 240, originally Fresh water rashes strew the verdant floor reads Green water-rushes overspread the floor. Line 244 With broad black feet they crash their flowery walk transposes subject-verb and the first clause. The while upon sunie sultry summer's day She dragged [bore] her babes along this weary way (lines 253-4) is changed to When with her infants, from some shady seat By the lake's edge, she rose — to face the noontide heat. A hyphen is required of "mountain steeps" in line 323; "steaming" in line 333 shrinks to "steamy" and "boding note" (line 335) becomes "gladsome note." Frosting with hoary light the pearly ground (line 336) is corrected to read While with a hoary light she frosts the ground, "pouring" (line 337) to read "pours a," and "And pleased her solemn pomp" (line 339) to read "Pleased as she moves her pomp." "Mountain streams" in line 374 is hyphenated; "timid hare" replaces "feeding hare" in line 383: The tremulous sob of the complaining owl (line 384) becomes The sportive outcry of the mocking owl; and — "Mr. W. hopes this will be last re- vise required." Stanley Kidder Wilson. Correspondence THE NEW "NATION." To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: As one who has followed the suc- cessive changes in the editorial manage- ment of the Nation with the keenest in- terest, and has frequent occasion to consult the early volumes, I am glad to confess that the first two num- bers of the "new'.' Nation have al- layed the apprehensions which the an- nouncement of your recent programme aroused in me. Together with many of your readers, I felt that the Nation of C'.odkin and Garrison, of Lamont and More, was good enough for me, and that the new editor could have no higher aim than to follow in the footsteps of his predecessors. Like so many others to whom the traditions of the Nation are precious, I feared that there was some risk of sacrificing quality to quantity in the effort to broaden its scope, but it is evident thai you are merely endeavoring to revert to certain features of the Nation, which, In the course of time, have either been obliterated or grown some- what dimmer. To one who remembers the essays and reviews of .lelTiies Wy- man, Asa Gray, and Simon Newcomb, it i.-i pleasant to see science restored to a more prominent place Is the Nation, and if you can succeed In having weight}
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April 2, 1914] The Nation 359 scientific matters discussed by great au- thorltles, fou will doubtless attract many new readers. Similarly, it is a laudable purpose to devote more space to im- portant foreign correspondence. It will doubtless be your aim to obtain letters ill compare In subject-matter and treatment with those which, In a for- iy, James Bryce, Auguste Laugel, rich Kapp, Karl JHillebrand, Gryza- nowski, and many other writers of simi- Uii rank sent to the Nation. Your able Summary of the weekly news and the 1 of your poem are also pleasantly ■ stive of the older days. A journal like the Nation can never, it it will, appeal to the enormous audiences of our popular monthlies, but it can attract thousands of intelligent nd women throughout the coun- try, who believe that nothing is needed BO much at the present day as a periodi- cal that stands for learned and philo- sophic treatment of the important mat- ters in literature, science, and political life, Fortunately, with all the changes in taste and standards there are still enough readers in the land to give a new Ration that shall be old in the best fea- tures the warm support to which it is entitled. GUSTAV POLLAK. New York, March 30. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: Allow an old reader (since God- kin's time) to say that he likes the new Nation. The enlargements are, I think, all for the better — news summary and all. This last I was sorry to have dis- continued years ago. The newspapers in general are bad. The newspaper habit is bad. The more ground you cover, the more you do to tell people what they want to know (or what they ought to know), or what is being thought and done in the world, other things being equal, the better. It is a good change. You can make yourself more popular without popularizing, why not? Make yourself simply as cleanly and as sound- ly humane as possible — reach as many as you can of those who have a good in- terest in good things. Reach the very highest; of course, abate no jot any- where of strictest principle; but see to it that the blood is not allowed to run too thin, too pale, too blue. You will pardon the freedom of an old friend, but I had lost a little of my faith in the oracle of so many years, a little of my old-time hearty liking for everything provided. I. Kendrick Kinney. East Andover, N. H., March 24. THE LAW'S DELAYS. To the Editor of the Nation: Sir: With the cordial approval of many members of the bar, the St. Louis Republic has recently begun a campaign of education on the subject of reforming judicial procedure in Missouri. This campaign is remarkable in two respects. In the first place, the Republic recognizes, what so few newspapers heretofore have recognized, that the question of judicial reform is not a matter simply of profes- sional interest, but is a social and na- tional problem in the broadest possible sense. In the second place, the Republic is emphasizing a factor in the problem which — so far as I am aware— has never been emphasized or even mentioned by any other American newspaper. What is the most important class of lawsuits from the standpoint of the av- erage citizen? It is the class typified by the ordinary suit to collect money. Put- ting aside criminal cases and divorce suits, one will find that the average law- suit is simply an effort on the part of a person who claims to be a creditor to col- lect money from an alleged debtor. In probably 90 per cent, of the suits of this nature, the person claiming to be the creditor is really a creditor and ought to win the suit. This does not mean that in 90 per cent, of the suits that are ac- tually tried the alleged creditor ought to win, because the majority of suits filed are never tried, but are disposed of in other ways — sometimes by default, some- times by settlement, sometimes by dis- missal because the creditor becomes con- vinced that the debtor is judgment proof. Most lawsuits are brought by creditors. Delay of justice operates to the disad- vantage of creditors and to the advantage of debtors. In England they recognize these facts of human experience, and in England every lawsuit starts with what in effect is simply an order on the de- fendant to show cause why judgment should not go against him. An elastic system of penal costs (very different from our American court costs) discour- ages and for practical purposes prevents the assertion of frivolous claims or dila- tory defences. Why do we have delay of justice In America? Who are responsible? The judges? Partly. The legislators? Part- ly. The lawyers? Partly. The Ameri- can people? Partly, and also chiefly. As a nation we Americans love debtors. We worship them. We adjust our laws and conduct our courts to suit their conve- nience. An Irishman once said to me: "In my country It Is a disgrace for a man not to pay his debts, but in your country it is a sign of honor and dis- tinction." We have delay of justice In this country because debtors want delay of justice. Debtors are the spoiled chil- dren of America. They get whatever they desire. We lawyers are perfectly willing that debtors should enjoy exemp- tion laws and bankruptcy laws. But as a class we lawyers are unwilling that debtors should enjoy delay of justice. We are trying to take delay of justice away from them. We cannot succeed unless we have the support of the gen- eral public. The apotheosis of debtors In America began about a hundred years ago and has continued to the present time. In its origin the movement was humanita- rian and praiseworthy. Imprisonment for debt was a reality in those days. But has not the movement gone too far and become ridiculous? The traditional debt- or is a hard-working farmer or mechanic struggling to keep the wolf from the door. Is that a true picture of the twen- tieth-century debtor who glories in de- lay of justice? Most certainly not. The typical debtor of the twentieth century is a corporation organized along the lines that were so popular in New Jersey be- fore Woodrow Wilson was elected Gov- ernor. The transportation and other public-service corporations are the cham- pion debtors of America. They have been very clever. They have capitalized the ordinary American's sentimental affection for debtors. These corporate debtors are the chief beneficiaries of delay of justice in America, and they know it. That is why directly and indirectly they oppose all serious efforts to reform judicial pro- cedure, and why they employ attorneys who are experts at "filling the record full of error." Their attorneys know which side their bread is buttered on. With my own ears I have heard two of the most prominent railway attorneys of Missouri make public speeches against judicial reform. Another one of them opposed judicial reform at Jefferson City in 1911. These were direct and honorable methods of opposing judicial reform. Business men engaged in competitive trades and vocations do not ordinarily resort to delay of justice. It would hurt their business. It would be a bad adver- tisement. It is different with monopolized institutions such as the railways and public-service corporations. These latter institutions cannot be hurt, at least to the same extent, by the psychic attitude of their customers. They resort to delay of justice when it pays, or when the men in charge think that it pays. It does not pay a railway to ignore, or fight des- perately, the meritorious claim of a large shipper who employs a traffic manager. It does pay a railway to ignore, or fight des- perately, the meritorious claim of a small and occasional shipper; and, as a rule, all railways will ignore or fight such a claim. This conduct tends to discourage the assertion of such claims. The most dramatic examples of capi- talizing delay of justice exist in connec- tion with reorganization schemes. No lawyer in St. Louis will deny this state- ment. Delay of justice, when combined with the tripartite agreement of 1904, has been worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to the United Railways Com- pany of St. Louis. The tripartite agree- ment is explained in Barrie vs. United Railways Company, 138 Mo. App., 557, and in Johnson vs. United Railways Company, 247 Mo., 326. In form the tri- partite agreement was a legitimate con- tract among a corporation lessor, a corporate lessee, and a syndicate of stockholders. In effect it was a trick to cast a doubt upon the validity of judg- ments and claims for personal injuries aggregating an enormous sum. With- out delay of justice the trick would not have been worth very much. With delay of justice the trick was worth — nobody knows how much, but certainly n considerable amount of money. The claim agents were able to compromise meritorious claims and judgments for ten or twenty cents on the dollar. Until many of our fellow-citizens are constrained to abandon the alchemy of making gold out of the law's delay — until that time comes, we lawyers are going to have difficulty in reforming ju- dicial procedure. Reformers who attack property are always at a disadvantage. Tyrrell Williams. blngton University Law School, St. I/"ils, March 1:..
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;;oo rJJ li e N" a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2544 FREDERIC MISTRAL. To THE Editor of The Nation: Sir: The death of Mistral, at the age of eighty-three, removes from Provence its most significant and picturesque lig- ure. As a poet and leader of the F61i- brige movement, as personality and host, he was to all comers as well as all readers the embodiment of his country. The unity of his endeavor, the secret of his force, is that he remained faith- ful to Maillane, his Provencal Abbots- ford. During three generations, he re- sisted the lure of Paris and labored at home for his one mission: the establish- ment of a modern Provengal literary speech, the development of local patriot- ism and traditions among the Southrons, and the writing of poems that should ar- ixtkally further and crown these ends. How he and the other Felibres have worked and written in this cause is now a matter of history. The semi-centennial of the society was celebrated in 1904. During that period the chiefs of the new Pleiade — Aubanel, Roumanille, who was Mistral's teacher and inspirer, Felix Gras, known here as author of "The Reds of the Midi" — had sealed and delivered their work. For forty years the Armaria prou- vengaUj organ of the movement, had incorporated everything pertaining to the region, from cooking recipes to masterly lyrics. Repeated festivals of the band emphasized the gayety of their savoir, and their invasion of Catalonia was fol- lowed by renewed alliances with France — for they did not lose the larger patriot- ism. Mistral himself contributed to the cause his monumental Provencal diction- ary. And from the publication of his truly epoch-making "Mireille," in 1859, until his latter-day Memoirs, he never ceased to glorify the South in song and story. The beauty and appeal of "Mireille" are gained chiefly through the intimate feeling with which Mistral presents the life and labors of his home-people. The characters are not studied with pene- tration, though they are drawn with strong, simple strokes. The story is of the slightest— merely a tale of young love thwarted. But it is told in an epic setting and for the most part with epic force. Especially is this true of the earlier cantos. When the situation is once posed, the author takes less in- terest in his protagonists than in the scenes through which they move and the legends connected with these scenes. That is indeed characteristic of Mistral's whole method, and is less of a blemish in "Mireille" than elsewhere. Here the descriptions are generally interfused with the very life and being of the peo- ple. The loves of Mireio and Vincen pass naturally from the farm and the gathering of mulberry-leaves, through the scenes with the herders, even to the waste of the Crau. The homely picturesqueness of the many similes, the lilt of the pretty stanzas, are in harmony and proportion. Not so the episodes, however well told. A particular discrepancy, in the midst of very human affairs, is the introduc- tion of the supernatural. The fantas- here, as well as his folkloristic desire to dwell on his compatriots' supersti- tion. 1 refer to the Walpurgis-Nacht with the sorceress and the final mystic death of little Mireio — a nun-like exit for the simple farmer's daughter, as a German critic indignantly declares. "Mireille" is Provence. One can easily Imagine that, as Daudet says, Mistral composed his poems singing beneath the evergreens. The varying rudeness and softness of the landscape is reflected in his language. We see again the dusty olive-trees, the hard-baked soil, and the red hillside; we feel his stinging ances- tral wind over Avignon, together with the blinding sun that struck the girl; we hear the cool ripple of the Rhone, and then shift suddenly to the fields "clothed in universal harvest." The Doric strain is persistent; Lamartine, whose "Joeelyn" may have partly in- spired the poem, compared its author to Homer, and the real Mistral is sure- ly Greek. He is autochthonous, objec- tive, plastic, simple. Add to that a verve and enthusiasm, an eloquence peculiar tc his own soil. He sings of fields and the man, but most of the fields. None of his other poems has such a wide appeal and excellence. If "Cal- endau" (1867) seems from one point of view an epic of a vaster and sterner inspiration, if it speaks even more di- rectly to the heart of the Felibres, the fact remains that it has scarcely touched the world's imagination. The landscape here has shifted to the mountains and the Mediterranean. The story is that of an eighteenth-century princess, who is somehow identified with a fairy seek- ing refuge in the Esterel mountains. Calendau is her knight-errant, and the book largely recounts his exploits. These are not without their glamour, but so many episodes and descriptions, apart from the main action, are finally weary- ing. Much of it takes the form of an Apologia for Provence. The characters are scarcely realized and embodied. Many passages are nevertheless of a forceful beauty. If "Calendau" is a chanson de geste, "Nerto" (1884) is a romance of chivalry. In jingling octosyllabic couplets we are told a fantastic tale of a fleeing maiden and an amorous prince, the last Pope of Avignon and a not very diabolical devil. The sprightliness and sweetness of this poem are again incrusted with Provengal antiquities and traditions. These have a better, because a separate, setting in "Les lies d'Or ("Lis Isclo d'Or," 1875), a volume of lyrics which seem to consti- tute Mistral's best title to fame after "Mireille." A great variety of pieces, oc- casional, hymnal, romantic, are arrayed in an almost equal variety of rhythms. There are indubitable masterpieces here, among the best of which, for a foreign taste, are the ballads. Finally, brief mention only can be given to the "Poeme du Rh6ne" (1897) and the "tragedy" call- ed "La Reine Jeanne" (1890). The latter is by no means dramatic; Dr. Downer, in his really readable thesis on Mistral, styles it a pageant rather than a play. It is Inappropriately written in Alexan- drines, and except for its resuscitation of has no great interest. The "Poeme du Rhone" is more realistic and modern than anything else by Mistral, and yet he has mingled with this picture of river- side life a singular sprite-like little maid who gives the desired touch of diablerie. All these fantastic creations seem quite his own. His Memoirs ("Mes Origines,"1906) tell in buoyant, gossiping fashion the early important years of his life. That life has reached its honored close just ten years after he shared the Nobel prize with Echegaray and two years after the final jubilee held in his praise. Throughout he has maintained that directness and sim- plicity of existence so striking in these bewildered days. E. Preston Dargan. University of Chicago, March 27. SOURCES OF 'THE ANCIENT MARI- NER." tic side of Mistral's genius is evinced the Provencal queen par excellence, it Drbana, To the Editor of The Nation : Sir: Here is another grain of dust to be cast into the balance which, accord- ing to the editor of the Globe Coleridge, weighs the influences that went to round out "The Ancient Mariner." Even more convincing than any passage in Shel- vocke's "Voyages," which Wordsworth had been reading; even more attractive to a poet's eye (if it ever saw it) than any entry in the log of Capt. Thomas James's "Strange and Dangerous Voy- age," is the following sea-description out of the "Travels of Sir Richard Hawkins Knight," printed now in the Publications of the Hakluyt Society: All the sea became so replenished with forms of serpents, adders, and snakes, as seemed wonderful: some greene, some blacke, some yellow, some white, some of divers colours; and many of them had life. This recalls irresistibly the stanzas: Beyond the shadow of the ship, I watched the water-snakes: They moved in tracks of shining white, And when they reared, the elfish light Fell off iu hoary flakes. Within the shadow of the ship I watched their green attire: Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, They colled and swam ; and every track Was .1 flash of gotden Are. The verse, one is tempted to believe, is only the prose glamoured by Coleridge's high instinct in matters of omission and amplification. Might not the poet have seen the Hawkins, as well as the Jamef, In the City Library at Bristol? One is emboldened on this evidence to pound out one more link with which to connect "the glorious old romanticism of Elizabeth" (to use the words of your re- viewer of Mr. Noyes's poems) with "that Of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and even Shel- ley," which last, as your reviewer says, seems, beside the older rebellion, "tame and refrigerated." If such a link is incapable of estab- lishment, the incorrigible romanticist must yet be content to reflect that even the ship captains of that "great age of romantic barbarism," when the geograph- ical Imagination Of Europe was awaken- ing, and men seemed born to discover, were a poetic lot. O. 111., Mtucli IB,
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April 2, 1914I The Nation 361 Fish and Fishers. THE HUMANE ANGLER. The misguided moralist may disap- prove, the majority may remain blank- ly indifferent, but there is still a good- ly remnant to whom the chirp of the robin and the flash of the bluebird's wing tell no cheerier tale than that the Streams are again ready for the rod and the fly. The fish made its appeal to the palate of primitive man before the dawn of recorded history. The flint "gorge" with which he jerked his prey from the water in lieu of the far later hook is among the most ingenious tools of the early stone age, and thus has its place in the very foundation of that career of mechanical invention which has given mankind his hold upon the forces of na- ture. The art had gone much further when Homer could picture the monster Scylla, plucking the hapless comrades of Ulysses from the deck of his ship, under the simile of a fisherman dangling his bait into the sea from the end of a long rod and tossing the gasping fish out upon the shore. Homer's simile does not suggest the gentler side, however, and whether the ancients ever made the transition from the attitude of the mere fisherman to that of the angler has been questioned. The angler is perforce a lover of na- ture, and there is a certain unwilling- ness to admit that the present-day feel- ing for nature had any close counterpart in the mental make-up of antiquity. But here we may call as witness the spade of the archaeologist. A bit of early art has been unearthed at Kuyunjik which depicts a man floating down stream astride an inflated skin, dangling a very modern-looking hook into the water with his right hand, while swinging behind his left shoulder is a wide-meshed net containing two or three two-pounders already taken. He has no reel or rod and his bait is but the humble worm, but the artist has put into his kindly face the unmistakable imprint of the real angler. His little net speaks of his own frying-pan and not of the market. He will handle tenderly all that comes to his hook; nor is he a man who could witness without instinctive aver- sion the loading of haddock into carts with pitchforks along the wharves of Atlantic Avenue in Boston. "Can the fish love the fisherman?" the Roman epigrammatist asked. Perhaps not, if the query be restricted to the individual fish and its captor. Some reed-patch philosopher, however, wont to endow the lower forms of life with a human psychological outfit, might read- ily imagine a conference of game fishes seriously arriving at the conclusion that in spite of the hook and the frying-pan there is no better friend to their race after all than the angler. And yet the genuinely humane spirit in angling, remote though its origin may be, has been only too rare an ex- ception until within very recent times. The kindly spirit that breathes in every paragraph of Izaak Walton is notably absent from many a book which tosses out a few quotations from his pages as a lure for the reader's favor. The day is not far gone when the literature of angling, as of fowling and hunting, reek- ed with boastful records of the number and size of the catch. Many a man can recall the time when he would proudly have stood for his photograph with a catch of trout or bass which, because of the very number in which he then ex- ulted, he would be ashamed to have any one see in his possession to-day. "Con- servation" is now the watchword with every genuine angler, and a promising plan for improving the food supply of the fish, exterminating their parasitic enemies, or preserving the streams from contamination, will attract his attention even more than a new improvement in the bearings of a reel or the bend of a hook. But little has been said of large catches in respectable angling literature of recent date, and there will be still less in the future. Against those who refused to fall into step with the new movement effective appeal has been made to legislative restraint, and in many States a rigid limit is now placed upon the number of game fish that a single sportsman may take within a giv- en time. We might feel prouder of this pro- tective movement if it had had its origin in high ethical motives rather than in the stern realization that ang- ling as a sport was about to come to an end through the reckless extinction of all the most attractive game fishes. But the ethical motive has now been effectively enlisted, and nowhere more actively than among anglers themselves. As the present season opens, then, one may rub up his tackle with the com- fortable feeling that he belongs to a fraternity which has taken the proper steps to clear itself of the charge of careless cruelty alleged against it in the past with too much plausibility. What- ever may have been true in Martial's day, if the fish does not love the fisher- man now, the reason is simply its lim- ited power to appreciate legitimate grounds for gratitude. The old story of the lunatic, peering over the wall of his asylum and invit- ing the angler who had fished for four hours and caught nothing to come in- side, is a good enough jest, as newspa- per wit goes, and yet the number of anglers is increasing with whom the ac- tual making of a catch is no absolute prerequisite to the success of a day by the stream. It is, of course, true that a stroll in the fields without bait or tackle, summer or winter, is always a delightful possibility to one who can find the time. Yet to many a man worn by the friction of business or profes- sional life there is nothing like the ap- peal of the rod and stream to rouse the courage to break away for a day and seek renewed strength where it is to be found. Walton and his forerunners and successors have followed no false scent. To one rightly attuned there is no finer form of recreation imaginable. I can readily believe with Sir Izaak that Dean Nowel, who died at ninety-five with senses all alert and no mental faculty weak or useless, owed his healthy lon- gevity in no slight measure to his per- sistent exercise with the rod. And, thanks to the spread of intelligent ideas of conservation, we need no longer fear the extinction of so commendable a sport. For, after all, whether the fish be actually caught in any given case or no, the feeling that it is really there is essential. W. H. Johnson. Literature THE PROBLEM OF THE PHILIP- PINES. The Philippines, Past and Present. By Dean C. Worcester. Two volumes. New York: The Macmillan Company. $6 net. While still a college student, Mr. Worcester went to the Philippines in 1886, with an expedition headed by the professor of zoology of his college, and spent a year there in zoological re- search. The scientific results were, on the whole, so satisfactory that in 1890 another similar expedition in the isl- ands was started, which lasted for two years and a half, Mr. Worcester on this occasion being the leader. The party penetrated into regions still more re- mote than those attained on the first expedition and accumulated much valu- able information concerning the fauna and flora of parts inhabited by primi- tive tribes which had never seen, or been seen by, a Spaniard. Returning in 1892 to his work as an instructor of zoology at his alma mater, Mr. Worcester finally got out a book on "The Philippine Islands and Their Peo- ple"; it appeared about the time of the outbreak of the Spanish War. An American who had visited the Philip- pines was then a very exceptional in- dividual, and Mr. Worcester, being not only the author of the book mentioned, but otherwise a man of high scientific attainments, President McKinley sent him to Manila early in 1899 as a mem- ber of what has since been known as the First Philippine Commission, in the earnest hope that diplomatic interven- tion might avert bloodshed between the American forces under Gen. Otis and the Filipino forces under Aguinaldo.
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The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2544 But this Commission did not reach Ma- nila until March 4, 1899, and hostilities between the American troops and the Filipinos had already broken out on February 4. The First Philippine Commission was succeeded in the spring of 1900 by the Tat't Philippine Commission, Mr. Worcester "being the only member of the first Commission retained on the second. There was no break in the continuity of his service. On July 4, 1901, civil government was organized in the Philippines, with Mr. Taft as the first Civil Governor, while the four other members ol' the Taft Philippine Com- mission constituted a sort of cabinet. There was a portfolio of Commerce and Police, another of Finance and Justice, another of Public Instruction, and an- other of the Interior. Mr. Worcester was appointed Secretary of the Interior, and he served continuously in that of- fice from July 4, 1901, until September 15, 1913, when he resigned and came home. It goes without saying that what he has to tell about the Philippines is highly interesting; also that he is en- tirely in sympathy with the policy which has been pursued in the islands during his long service there, and en- tirely out of sympathy with the policy of the present Administration. His work is partly historical and partly de- scriptive and informative. On this lat- ter scientific side the author is perhaps better qualified to speak than any other living man. After the battle of Manila Bay of May 1, 1898, while waiting for the Ameri- can troops to arrive, Admiral Dewey had been prevailed upon to bring Agui- naldo and some of his followers down from Hongkong to Manila, with a view of letting him start an insurrec- tion against the Spaniards ashore, the function of such insurrection to be, presumably, identical with the one Gar- cia was maintaining contemporaneously in Cuba, under the friendly auspices of the blockading squadron under Ad- miral Sampson. Dewey probably sup- posed that the United States was go- ing to do with the Philippines what we had announced in the declaration of war against Spain we were going to do with Cuba, and Aguinaldo probably supposed so, too. But Dewey made Aguinaldo no promises other than such as may have been implied in bringing him down from Hongkong to Manila, landing him at Cavite, May 17, 1898, supplying him with guns and ammuni- tion to begin the work which our sol- diers were on the way out to complete, turning over to him from time to time as they surrendered Spanish troops whom the navy had no way to keep, etc. Aguinaldo constantly conferred with the Admiral also — "was most obedient," the Admiral is quoted as saying. Before our troops arrived Aguinaldo had proclaimed himself head of a Pro- visional Government and, in its name, had issued a declaration that the Fili- pino people desired and intended to be tree and independent. Also he had sent copies of all these documents to Ad- miral Dewey. On June 30, 1898, Gen- eral Anderson, commanding the first batch of arrivals, told Admiral Dewey, to the latter's surprise, that when he left San Francisco, there was already much talk in the United States about retaining the Philippines, though the Senate resolution of April 21, 1898, de- claring war against Spain in order to free Cuba had concluded: "The United States hereby disclaims any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control, over said island except for the pacification thereof, and asserts its determination when that is accomplished to leave the Govern- ment and control of the island to its people." Mr. Worcester quotes at length from many official documents and records to prove that neither Mr. Pratt, then Con- sul at Singapore, nor Mr. Wildman, ur Consul at Hongkong, nor Mr. Wil- liams, our Consul at Manila, nor Ad- miral Dewey, nor General Anderson, nor any one else connected with the American Government in the Far East at that time, either said or did any- thing to give Aguinaldo the least ground for expecting independence at our hands. Yet Mr. Worcester's presenta- tion of the case wholly ignores the causes of our war against Spain. Cuba is not even mentioned in his book. Nat- urally, the Filipinos were justified in confidently trusting that if they helped us drive out Spain, as the Cubans were doing, we would not give them a mere change of masters. Aguinaldo knew as well as any American Consul that what such consul might say to him was mere- ly the expression of personal opinion, hopes, and good will. Mr. Worcester devotes too much space to what Pratt, Williams, and Wildman may have said, and too little to what our Admiral in fact did, and what our generals subse- quently did in confirmation of Dewey's policy. We are persuaded that the final ver- dict of history will be something like this: When the Spanish war broke out, all our representatives then in he Far Bast, consular, military, naval, etc., as well as all American citizens out there, took it for granted that our policy in the Philippines would agree with that proposed for Cuba. A little later the McKinley Administration be- gan to think that it would pay to keep the Philippines, and as soon as our representatives in the East became aware of this, they had to trim their sails accordingly. Mr. Worcester de- votes more than 100 pages of his book to proving that nobody connected with our Government ever held out false hopes to Aguinaldo. What he proves for us is merely his hatred of every Filipino who desires to see the inde- pendence of his country. All such per- sons he denounces as "politicos" — mean- ing demagogues. He resigned his con- nection with the Government of the Philippines last autumn, undoubtedly because he was not in sympathy with the Philippine policy of the Wilson Ad- ministration. That he had also become persona non grata to the Filipino people is not open to doubt. The present work breathes a spirit of animosity not often equalled in a work intended to be a permanent contribution to the annals of men's struggles for free in- stitutions. In one place, for instance, in referring to one of his subordinates who died in the discharge of his duty during a cholera epidemic which the Health Department was trying to sup- press, he speaks quite bitterly of this man's having laid down his life while endeavoring to do good to "an alien and hostile people." For the peons and the wild mountain tribes alone, Mr. Worces- ter seems to entertain a genuinely kind- ly regard. If the author is correct, no American official in the Philippines in the critical early days did anything he ought not to have done. Mr. Worcester is at great pains to prove that the Fili- pinos, and not the Americans, were the aggressors in the war. To us it does not seem necessary to determine who fired the first shot in order to decide who were the aggressors in that war. We coveted their country, and the Fili- pinos did not wish us to have it. It makes no difference that we really de- sired to make them happy. They did not care for our brand of happiness, pre- ferring to undertake "the pursuit of happiness" in their own way. Here was an issue, and the issue was finally submitted to the arbitrament of war. There are several chapters relating to the state of public order in the islands between the date of the battle of Manila Bay, May 1, 1898, and the out- break of February 4, 1899. These chap- ters culminate in one entitled, Did We Destroy a Republic? All of them are by way of negative reply to that question. Two young naval officers made a trip through the interior of Luzon by au- thority of Admiral Dewey in the latter part of 1898, and on their return re- ported quite favorably as to the state of public order under the Aguinaldo Government. Professor Worcester says these young gentlemen were mistaken. He quotes copiously from captured in- surgent documents to support his view. These show more or less abnormal oon dil ions, brigandage, etc., in some of Hie provinces, but they also show two other things, viz.: (l) that every Blgner of Insurgent document making anj
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April 2, 1 9 1 4] The ZSTation 363 reference to Aguinaldo at all, recog- nized him quite loyally as the head of the Government; (2) the state of public order in each province depended largely upon the personal equation of the mili- tary commander representing the Agui- naldo Government in that province. For instance, in order to prove the exist- ence of turmoil, he cites a communica- tion from Gen. Juan Cailles to Agui- naldo in which the former says that con- ditions were much disturbed in the province to which he was assigned be- fore he took hold. Then he goes on to tell how he promptly captured and forthwith shot a few of the principal brigands who were terrorizing the prov- ince, and took other steps dictated by common-sense, and that since then things have been reasonably tranquil. In dea'ing with conditions in the Caga- yan Valley under the Aguinaldo Govern- ment, the author grows angry with Judge James H. Blount, author of "The American Occupation of the Philippines, 1898-1912," for having said that the cruelties practiced upon the Spanish friars in that valley at that time were "ebullitions of revenge for three cen- turies of tyranny, and do not disprove capacity for self-government." In order to make these cruelties rival, in horror, those of the Spanish Inquisition, Mr. Worcester accepts at face value descrip- tions subsequently made in writing by various of the friars who escaped. Of course, when the Filipinos turned the tables on the friars in 1898, they put into practice some of the lessons in cruelty which they had learned from their Spanish masters, but when you subtract from the friars' testimony all but first-hand knowledge, the residuum appears just about as Judge Blount summed it up. Judge Blount made the additional point that many of our offi- cers during the Philippine insurrection winked at torture practiced to extract information from insurgents as to the whereabouts of the enemy and of hid- den guns. Mr. Worcester frantically denounces all these statements, in the face of the numerous courts-martial of officials for such offences, as not only, according to his belief, untrue, but also, in his opinion, "despicable" attacks upon the fair name of the army. This criti- cism of an officer who served honorably in the Philippine War is also interesting when we notice that in the second edition of Blount's volume there is printed a letter wherein Gen. Funston characterizes this hook as "a remark- ably accurate and fair history of the Philippine adventure to date." The difference between the attitude of the two men is clear. Judge Blount's book was a brief for what may now be called the Wilson-Bryan Philippine pol- icy; Mr. Worcester's book is a brief for the McKinley-Taft Philippine policy. Judge Blount took Mr. Worcester to task on the ground that his activities with, and wide advertisement of, the wild tribes of the remote interior tend- ed to make the American people sup- pose that the Filipinos were mostly wild tribes instead of, as they are, a substantially homogeneous Christian people, whose distinguishing character- istics are respect for authority, love of family, home, and country, and consid- eration for one another, and that he dwelt upon the bitter hatred between Mr. Worcester and the people whose taxes for so many years paid his sal- ary. We are quite clear that valuable and striking as Mr. Worcester's book is, it will never stand as the final word about our occupation of the islands any more than will Mr. Blount's. Both are par- tisan, but, to our minds, Mr. Blount has the nobler and juster point of view, and we are the more reinforced in this by Mr. Worcester's present activities. He has allied himself with a company for the commercial exploitation of the Phil- ippines which seeks money from the public in a sanctimonious, philanthrop- ic-religious garb for the purpose of ex- ploiting the Philippines — of course, en- tirely in their interests. Similar be- nevolent intentions have marked the his- tory of all exploitation of the world's subject races, and a similar disregard of what the natives themselves would prefer or what is best for them, has made a sorry chapter in the world's commercial history. CURRENT FICTION. The Honey-Star. By Ticknor Edwardes. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. Critics nowadays are likely to do less than justice to this idyl type of ro- mance. Our training, under Hardy and the realists, is in danger of making us forget that in "As You Like It" and "The Winter's Tale" the setting is mere- ly decorative and the peasant characters furnish a picturesque background for the delightfully impossible central fig- ures. The right question to ask is, "Does the author invest this setting and his characters with the Imaginative charm which makes us accept them in spite of our sense of fact?" On the whole, Mr. Edwardes succeeds in doing this. We do not care whether Elisabel March, the bee-master's daugh- ter, who has gained her education in a draper's shop, could have developed in her surroundings or not; there she is, a charming and gracious princess in dis- guise. When Claud Laughton first sees her he is on his way to propose to a rich and beautiful girl for whom he cares little. Instantly he falls in love with Elisabel; what else could he do? And it would not be easy to find in recent fiction a better account of a man's fall- ing in love at first sight. Laughton, too, is a bee-master, who has succeeded through modern methods where her father has failed; this fact, and the oth- er girl and Claud's own past life, are barriers between them. But to summar- ize the plot would be an injustice to the story. Much of its attractiveness is due to the delicate finish and suggestiveness of the style; take that away, and the unreality of plot and character at once become overemphasized. The Lodger. By Mrs. Belloc Lowndes. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. "In the long history of crime it has very, very seldom happened that a wo- man has betrayed one who has taken refuge with her." This is the text which Mrs. Lowndes has chosen to illustrate. Mr. and Mrs. Bunting are highly re- spectable people, formerly servants, who take lodgers. Their house is empty and they are in pecuniary straits, when the lodger appears, without luggage except for a small handbag, and takes their four rooms. He is a quiet, eccentric gen- tleman, with a fondness for reading the Bible aloud to himself and a habit of walking out at night. A series of ter- rible murders throws London into a panic. Gradually Mrs. Bunting comes to suspect, finally to be almost certain, that the lodger is the murderer. Her one instinct is to protect him. The nerves of wife and husband are kept on edge by the murders recurring every ten days, and by the frequent visits of Joe Chandler, a young detective, who is in love with Daisy Bunting. The book is not a detective story: the reader from the first recognizes the criminal. Mrs. Lowndes is interested merely in study- ing the mental contortions of poor Ellen Bunting, suffering under her terrible secret. She writes in the spirit of im- partial curiosity, without a trace of sym- pathy. The book is a clever monograph in the form of fiction, a job hardly worth while, and well done. Shallow Soil. By Knut Hamsun. Au- thorized Translation from the Nor- wegian by Carl Christian Hyllested. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. The author of this story has been fa- mous in Norway for a quarter of a cen- tury, and well-known throughout Europe for many years. "In Russia," says the translator, "his popularity exceeds that of many of its own inimitable writers." German criticism has dealt seriously with him. Yet he is now first introduc- ed to the English-reading public. Out of his thirty volumes — novels, plays, book of travel, essays, poems — "Shal- low Soil" seems to have been chosen with some care as an entering wedge, being "in some respects the most con- tained of Hamsun's works." The author has a special claim upon the interest of American readers because he underwent an important part of his
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3(34 T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2544 apprenticeship in this country. He was brought up on one of the Lofoten Isl- ands, became a cobbler's apprentice, and While still in his 'teens wrote a long poem and a novel, and contrived some- how to get them printed. They attract- ed no attention. He worked his way to Christiania and into the university, but his independence and improvidence soon disqualified him as a student, and he sailed for America as a steerage passen- ger. "He had intended to become a Unitarian minister. Instead of doing so he had to work as a farm-hand on the prairie, street-car conductor in Chicago, dairyman in Dakota; and he varied these pursuits by giving a series of lectures on French literature in Min- neapolis." He returned to Christiania and made another luckless attempt to gain recognition as a writer; but it was after three years on a Newfoundland fishing smack that he made his third and successful effort to reach " an audi- ence. "Shallow Soil" gives a picture of Chris- tiania towards the end of the century: a community lacking in political or so- cial force; commercially strong but de- spising its "peddlers" and "hucksters," and strangely adoring a group of pre- tentious young poets. One of these con- temptible fellows, Irgens, is the villain of the story. Into his nerveless hands fall the two women, Hanka and Aagot, who are so much alive in these pages. Hanka is the rebellious young wife painted by Ibsen, Aagot the innocent, characterless maiden whose sweetness and charm are at the service of any sufficiently insistent male. Hanka's eyes are opened, and she becomes a woman; Aagot we must believe lost beyond hope. But it is Aagot whom the strong man of the story, Coldevin, the poor tutor, is doomed to worship. He stands for what is sturdiest and most loyal, as well as most intelligent, in the Norwegian char- acter. His presence redeems the book from mere satire, with a touch of true creative imagination. But it is clear that, more or less dimly, he identifies Aagot with his beloved Norway, and we leave him, convinced of the girl's shame, in the act of destroying the little bow of Norwegian colors she has given him. The Hour of Conflict. By Hamilton Gibbs. New York: George H. Doran Co. This is a story of happiness tempo- rarily frustrated by social prejudice and maleducation. Everard Leyden is ex- pelled from Oxford after sowing a full measure of wild oats. He meets Toinette Guerchard, an unsophisticated French village maiden. The eternal passion en- gulfs the pair, and the usual momen- tary indiscretion follows. Everard, who sought the affair merely as a pleasant diversion, finds himself changed from "a mere philanderer to a passionate lover." All might yet go well, could he but marry the girl. But his parents, to whom the young aristocrat is beholden lor his support, could not be expected to consent. Toinette, ignorant of the ways of the world, insists on accompanying young Everard to his home. His repeat- ed objections rouse her suspicion, and she flings herself into the sea. Everard returns to England, but the thought that he has murdered Toinette eats into his mind. He even attempts suicide. Final- ly, half-crazed, he returns to the little French village to join his Toinette at the bottom of the sea. He is saved from drowning, however, and learns that Toinette is not dead. The two are re- united, to live — we are left to infer — happily ever after. Despite this decidedly romantic end- ing, the story is quite convincing, and has a number of intensely dramatic sit- uations. The characters are well drawn. Especially noteworthy are the corpulent Hippolyte Guerchard, Toinette's father; the venerable abbe, her uncle; and Rud- dy Laleham, the Bohemian artist, per- haps the most original character in the book. Indeed, the episode in which the last one figures makes a delightful lit- tle story in itself. WILFRID WARD'S VIVID PORTRAI- TURE. Men and Matters. By Wilfrid Ward. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. $3.50 net. Those who are familiar with Mr. Ward's biographical writings need not be told what kind of style and what range of ideas to expect in this book of essays. If anything, his work gains in precision and persuasiveness from the greater condensation of the essay form, and it is possible to say of the present volume that no one can afford to miss it who is interested in vivid portraiture and in the more solid thought of the day. The reader's pleasure in the pa- pers on Cardinals Vaughan and New- man, on Thomas Aquinas and other more frankly Catholic topics, will nat- urally depend somewhat on his own re- ligious position; but to no great ex- tent, for Mr. Ward is never bigoted or blind, and in general he brings to the questions of the Church the same judi- cious temper and broad outlook as to the problems of secular philosophy and government. One of the religious essays, that on "The Conservative Genius of the Church," is devoted to a logical analy- sis of what he regards as the true of- l!lC8 of conservatism in progress, and gives the key to his position through- out the book. "The first process, of re- sistance," he says, "is the work of au- thority, of Rome itself; the second, of assimilation, is the work of individuals, authority only tolerating and not neces- sarily helping it, until it is so far test- ed that authority can more or less rati- fy what individuals have initiated." As an example of this double process he cites the complete adaptation of theology to Aristotelian philosophy by St. Thom- as Aquinas. A century earlier St. Ber- nard, as the champion of orthodoxy, had bitterly opposed Abelard's attempt to introduce the Aristotelian method which had recently been brought into notice by the Arabs — and rightly, from the Catholic point of view, for its acceptance then, before it had been properly di- gested, would have meant the disrup- tion of the church. The feat of ortho- dox acceptance remained for a saintly theologian, who was impregnated by both the new dialectic and the tradition of the fathers. His work was thus "a gigantic scheme of conservative reform, a signal protest against the 'fossilism,' which calls itself conservative, the lines of the new system being mainly deter- mined by the intellectual conditions of the time." Such a conservatism implies, of course, that the central structure, or tradition, is essentially sound and should not be swept away, but should be al- lowed to develop by the natural means of inclusion and assimilation; it can be imposed on those of radical tempera- ment only by showing in each case that the slow process of growth is actually more progressive than a complete up- rooting and new planting, and Mr. Ward's presentation of modern relig- ious conditions is largely directed to just this end. Probably most of Mr. Ward's readers will find more to interest them in his ap- plication of this rational conservatism to the problems of politics and secular life than in his specifically religious studies, though it must be a very un- thoughtful man who is not made to pause by the discussion of "Reduced Christianity," in which the "Orthodoxy" of G. K. Chesterton and "The Gospel and Human Needs" of Dr. Neville Figgis are thrown into contrast with the sen- timental maunderings of Mrs. Humphry Ward's "Richard Meynell." The first two essays of the book, dealing with Disraeli, are based on the new biogra- phy and on Lord Cromer's severe ar- raignment of the man; they form to- gether a notable piece of political analy- sis and psychological portraiture. In the inevitable contrast between Disraeli and Gladstone our essayist naturally takes the side of the former and quotes with secret satisfaction his de- scription of his rival as a "sophisticat- ed rhetorician inebriated by the exuber- ance of his own verbosity." He thinks that the common opinion of Disraeli as an alien to the British aristocracy to the end is not correct, anil in support of his view quotes the words of Lord rOmly: "In 1X78 the impossible had hap- pened. He had won not only power, hut general reverence. Our aristocracy not
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April 2, 1914] The Nation 365 only accepted him, but treated him with the utmost respect." In the famous matter of Disraeli's denial that he had ever asked Peel for office, Mr. Mony- penny, we know, does not venture to acquit him of sheer untruthfulness. Mr. Ward leans rather to mercy in his view. He argues that it may have been a mere lapse of memory on Disraeli's part, and cites a curiously parallel case in which Cardinal Newman, whose word could not be doubted, fell into the same sort of error. His apology is minute and specious, but we fear that most read- ers will stand with Mr. Monypenny. Mr. Ward is, however, by no means a thiek- and-thin admirer of Disraeli, nor does he attempt to slur over the shallow and fantastic aspects of his character. "Dis- raeli's sincerity then was real, but with a touch of underlying cynicism, and this undoubtedly told against scrupulous con- scientiousness. There were certain great ideals which he meant to realize. If anything was worth while, they were worth while, and, to some extent, the end justified the means." Even better on the whole is Mr. Ward's study of John Stuart Mill — a masterly piece of writing. He takes as texts Gladstone's characterization of Mill as the "saint of Rationalism," and Dis- reali's opinion, expressed with a shrug of the shoulders, "a political finishing governess." Between this Scylla and Charybdis, he sails with marvellous dex- terity, and it is not often that one will find a character more touched to the quick or a philosophy more finely dis- sected. He does not deny the "thin lucidity" which Mr. Balfour disliked in Mill, but he has two points of sympathet- ic contact with him. In politics Mill grew towards the "speculative Toryism" of Wordsworth and Coleridge (Mr. Ward would no doubt add Disraeli's name), which he called "tout bonnement a rev- erence for government in the abstract"; and in his "Essays on Religion," pub- lished posthumously in 1874, he gave the shrewdest blow to atheistical ration- alism which it had received in the cen- tury. The effect of this half-recantation Mr. Ward describes vividly: Many of us still remember the shock which this essay created. Mr. Leslie Stephen was reported to have paced the room in indignation which could not be contained, while his wife yet further an- gered him by the poor consolation of "I told you so. I always said John Mill was orthodox." Mr. John Morley, in the Fort- nightly, did not disguise his profound disappointment. This was not the Mill whose henchman he had been, and whose praises he had sung- so enthusiastically only a year earlier, on the occasion of his death. Mr. W. L. Courtney testifies to the "consternation" caused "among those of Mill's disciples who had fed them- selves on his earlier work" by an essay which seemed to recommend the renun- ciation of reason in favor of the twilight of faith. The religious press was, of course, jubilant. And the religious party scored heavily in a long-standing com- bat. That is the very atmosphere of an age we are already beginning to forget; and always Mr. Ward has this apt and hu man way of illustrating the philosophi- cal point he is discussing. He carries one along with him whether one agrees with him or not — and your reviewer heartily disagrees with him in at least one of his principal tenets. Others of his essays, as for instance those on Tenny- son and George Wyndham, are purely literary and biographical; all are nota- bly good. PHILOSOPHIES OF THE ORIENT. The Religion of the Samurai: A Study of Zen Philosophy and Discipline in china and Japan. By Kaiten Nuka- riya. London: Luzac & Co. If the title of this interesting trea- tise implies that the Zen form of Bud- dhism was in -an exclusive sense the faith of the Japanese Samurai, it is misleading, for the bulk of the war- rior class belonged to other Buddhist sects or were Shintoists. Indeed, the Restoration of 1868 was accomplished by men who dreamed of the reestablish- ment of pure Shinto, a difficult task, in- asmuch as the deeper-rooted faith from India had so modified the native cult as to alter its whole complexion. But these dreamers certainly did not call themselves adherents of Zenshu, and were cold or hostile to the Buddhist faith. If, however, the title signifies merely that among Buddhist sects, which numbered as many as seventy, the three forms which Zenshu took were the most characteristic of Samurai ideals, the ob- jection is partly or wholly met. One of the most exquisite and typical of Jap- anese landscape gardens, the Kinkakuji, or "Golden Pavilion," in Kyoto, belongs to a monastery of the Zen sect, whither one of the Ashikaga rulers retired and built himself a palace as a nominal retreat from the cares of the world. Indeed, when the Ashikaga shoguns were ruling Japan from Kamakura, most of the Samurai at their court were followers of Zenshu. And after the bitter struggle with Christianity three centuries ago, when the warring Buddhist sects band- ed together to oust the dangerous in- truding faith, Zenshu was the only one which had vitality enough to send forth another branch, the Obaku, although its teacher, Ingen, founder of the temple of Obaku-san, near Lake Biwa, was a Chinese. At all times Japanese Bud- dhism has reverted to China or India for fresh inspiration, for in religion, as in other intellectual fields, the Jap- anese mind modifies rather than orig- inates. The history of Zen has been an hon- orable one. The typical hero of medi- aeval Japan, Kusunoki Masashige, who died gloriously near Kobe after his army had been crushed by a superior foe, was a follower of Zen. What is lacking in this admirable study by Professor Nukariya is any adequate historic set- ting. From the first page to the last everything is from the Zenshu priest's standpoint, with an evident and lauda- ble desire to present a dignified and up- to-date confession of faith. Much, how- ever, is read into Zenshu that is recent and belongs to the post-Samurai pe- riod of Meiji. The book, unfortunately, has no index, a lack that is not com- pensated for by the careful table of con- tents and the clear paragraph headings. The Keiogijiku, where the author is pro- fessor, was founded a quarter of a cen- tury ago by Fukuzawa, one of the great thinkers and leaders of modern Japan, and was at the outset officered in part by American teachers from Harvard, Unitarians. The faith that the author expounds recalls in many of its particu- lars creeds that have come recently from under the shadow of Harvard Univer- sity. , The treatise is of interest as showing the intellectual activity that has begun to characterize Japanese Buddhists since the triumphant close of the Russo- Japanese War ten years ago. Under the long Tokugawa shogunate, when they enjoyed state favor, their church sank into moral lethargy and intellec- tual torpor. At the Restoration her clergy were ignored and despised, and they met the keen attacks of Christian missionaries with sullen silence or viru- lent abuse. Now they meet argument with argument, and dogma with dogma. Zenshu was a contemplative form of Buddhism, and its adherents rejected spells, prayers, incantations, or any elaborate ritual. The strongest of th« three sects, the Soto, was always hon- orably distinguished by learning and poverty. Its teaching emphasized tradi- tions of conduct and mental attitude handed down from master to pupil, from senior to junior, far above written doc- trine or stereotyped lesson. Its practice of abstraction, of cultivating superiority to petty distractions, produced a mood that was scholarly and heroic. Zen in- culcated austere discipline without asceticism. Later it was associated with culture and refinement, as in the tea ceremonial and the landscape garden. It was in the latter half of the seventeenth century, says the author, that Zen began to interest itself in the composition of the Japanese miniature ode, or uta. largely through the influence of Basho, one of the cult and a man of genius. "Again, it was made use of by the teach- ers of popular ethics, who did a great deal in the education of the lower class- es. In this way Zen and its peculiar taste gradually found its way into the arts of peace, such as literature, fine art, tea-ceremony, cookery, gardening,
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366 Tlie ^STation [Vol. 98, No. 2544 architecture, and at last it has permeat- ed through every fibre of Japanese life." While the author quotes familiar pas- sages from Shakespeare, Milton, Whit- tier, and Longfellow when germane to his argument, we miss Tennyson's "Flower in the Crannied Wall," where it might come in very appositely. But as lie argues keenly against individual immortality, a belief that is at the core of Tennyson's creed and message, the lack of sympathy is explained. The Eng- lish poet had no liking for the "vague, unsweet" faith that teaches a general Soul, into which separate souls are fused. Zen, on the other hand, "gives no countenance to the superstition of Immortality, nor does it hold that the world is the best of all possible worlds, nor conceive life simply as blessing. It is in this world, imperfect, changing, and moving, that Zen finds the divine light it worships." To the follower of Zenshu, Nirvana "means the extinction of pain and the annihilation of sin." The volume is to be welcomed as a distinct contribution to thought in a field of mental activity which needs ploughing just at present. If the fol- lowers of Jodo and Shinshu, both of which sects are represented by missions under the American flag, could give us like expositions of their creeds, they would meet a genuine want. A NEW ENGLAND PIONEER. Lieutenant Joshua Hewes: A New Eng- land Pioneer aad Some of His De- scendants. With Materials for a Genealogical History of Other Fam- ilies of the Same Name; and a sketch of Joseph Hewes, the Signer. Edited and chiefly compiled by Eben Putnam. Privately printed. New York: J. F. Tapley Co. The pioneer ancestor of the Hewes family was Joshua Hewes, who was born in Royston, Herts, and came to New England in 1633. Settling in Rox- Dury, Mass., and soon becoming a free- man, he married the next year Mary Goldstone, of Watertown. He was a member and sergeant of the "Military Company of the Massachusetts," a dep- uty to the General Court, selectman and constable of Roxbury, and feoffee of the grammar school. Generally speaking, he was a merchant whose consignments between 1646 and 1650 seem to have Deen the largest in New England. He was also interested in the early Under- taking of the Iron Works, the failure of which brought trouble on the ironmon- ger, Joshua Foote, the uncle for whom Hewes was named, and ultimately con- tributed to the misfortune of Hewes himself. In 1656-7 he married again, this time Alice, widow of John Crab- tree. On the death of Foote he had con- Blderable difficulty in disentangling him- self from the confusion into wliiHi his um Irs death had brought both their estates, and the closing years of his life did not fulfil the promise of his earlier activities. Jle was, however, a good citizen, and on his return from a more or less unsuccessful venture in Rhode Island did not lose the respect of his tormer associates. In telling this modest story of a man of the first generation, Mr. Putnam has introduced a not inconsiderable portion of New England history of that period. The poor lieutenant is quite concealed in a maze of circumstantial detail, and his personality, for doubtless he had one, is lost sight of. Then follow the de- scendants of this Joshua Hewes, John Hewes, of Lynnfield; Joseph Hewes, the North Carolina "Signer"; George Hewes, of Salisbury, Mass., and Abel Huse, of Newbury. Other families nam- ed Hewes, Huse, and Hughes in New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Vir- ginia, the Carolinas, Alabama, and Georgia are also described. Brief gene- alogies of the Tapley, Putnam, Norden- Copp, Johnson, Smith, Wellman, and Cogswell families, and a sturdy list of the Hewes pensioners of the War of 1812, find a place here. But most im- portant of all is a sketch of David Hewes, a genuine '49er, still living, a graduate of Phillips Andover, of Yale, in 1852, "the most distinguished of any class graduated at Yale." While in col- lege he invested $3,000 in Peter Naylor's Iron Houses, obtained leave of absence from college, went to San Fran- cisco by way of the Isthmus, erected his buildings profitably in Sacramento, and built a Congregational church, to which he gave a library brought with him. Later he went back to San Francisco and began the business of grading with a plant of one shovel, one wheelbarrow, and a Chinaman. In 1858 he bought out his partner for $42,- 500, and graded Market and other streets and removed sandhills. Through these ex- tensive operations he came to be called the "Maker of San Francisco." In 1873 he sold his cars, engines, and other machinery to Henry Villard. He kept on buying city lots, and meanwhile constructed the first home-built locomo- tive in California. After the disaster of 1906 he put up at once a fourteen-story building, which was voted by the Trades Union to be the best erected since the earthquake. "Destroyed to-day, build to-morrow" was his laconic order. In 1869 he gave the golden spike and laurel tie that connected the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railways. He was the father-in-law of the late Leland Stanford, and a man of numer- ous activities which knew no bounds. Even on a wedding trip with his second wife his enthusiasm led him to purchase three mummies. On the whole, it is a brisk, American story, this life of a man who was part of an era in which the Central Pacific, towards the end of its Ioiik task, laid ten miles of track be- l vi < 11 sunrise and sunset, at the rate of 144 feet a minute. The record of such a family, of no exalted eminence, of no depth of poverty, illustrates well the es- sential stuff out of which the best of this country is made. The early strength of family character gave prom- ise of continuous growth and not de- cline. The first pioneer and the latest, Joshua and David, were not the only worthies bearing the name of Hewes. From George Hewes came George Rob- ert Twelve Hewes, who was one of the Boston Tea Party, and his son of even stranger name, George Robert Twelve Fifteen Hewes. A manuscript diary of James Hewes, of Lynnfield, Mass., an- other '49er, here printed for the first time (pp. 166-179), describes a journey overland to the west coast of Mexico, then up to Sacramento. There seems to have been a scarcity of food, but of sefioritas "very plenty." Possibly it was this Hewes who founded the first library at Lynnfield by inducing the newly chos- en selectmen on election day to start a library fund with the money customar- ily spent in treating the free and en- lightened voters at Deacon Parsons's bar. Although Mr. Putnam put the book together and built it, rather too lavish- ly, as we have said, in parts, it is wor- thy of note that Mr. David Hewes spent thirty years in collecting the materials. Conjectural genealogy is never satisfac- tory, and for this reason It must be said that the words "possibly" and "proba- bly" occur far too often. The plates are good, and the portraits show an uncom- monly vigorous breed of wholesome men and women. .Notes The Century Company will publish this month: "Idle Wives," by James Op- penheim; "Bedesman 4," by Mary Skrine; "The Rise of the American Peo- ple," by Rowland G. Usher. Henry Holt & Company announce that they will publish towards the end of April "The Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists," by the late "Sister Nivedita" (Miss Noble), completed by Dr. Ananda Coomaraswamy. Little Brown & Co. announce the forthcoming publication of: "Ariadne of Allan Water," by Sidney McCall; "North of Fifty-three," by Bertrand W. Sinclair; ■'The T;one Wolf," by Louis Joseph Vance; "Felicidad," by Rowland Thomas. McBride, Nast & Co. announce thai they have In preparation for early pub- lication Btrlndberg'a "The Growth of a Soul." A Pageant of English literature Is to be given in Oxford from April 28 to 30. The scenes will represent episodes In the history of English literature from Ceed- roori to Addison and Steele. Dr. T, H. Warron, the professor of poetry, has writ- ten Cted n'e ode tor the Orel 1 1]
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April 2, 1914] The Nation 367 E. P. Dutton announces for publication at the beginning of May the following ad- ditional volumes of Everyman's Library: Biography: "The Oxford Reformers," by Frederic Seebohm; "The Life of : min Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfleld,*' by James Anthony Froude; "Pioneer Work for Women," by Elizabeth Blackwell; "Cplley Cibber: An Apology for His Life," with an appreciation by William Ha/lilt. — Classical: "Livy'a History of Rome." \ ols, it and III, translated by ('anon W. L. Roberts; "The Muses' Pageant," Vol. Ill, by W. M. L. Hutchinson. — Essays and Criticism: "Essays in the Study of Folk- Bongs," by Countess Martin engo "Letters from Dorothy Osborne to Si 1 William Temple," edited by Judge I 'airy; "An Anthology of English Prose," edited by S. L. Edwards. — Fiction: W'ilkins, or the Flying Indians," by Her- bert Palftock; Turgeniev's "Lisa," trans- by W. R. S. Ralston; George Mac- Donald's "Sir Gibbie"; Morier's "Hajji Baba"; Mrs. Gask ell's "North and South"; Dostoievsky's "The Idiot"; "Pamela," by Samuel Richardson. The Selden Society announces that the volume of its publications for the current year will be the "Bills in Eyre," edited by Mr. William C. Holland, and that it has also in preparation for publication a volume of the Year Books of Edward II., edited by Mr. Turner and Professor Gel- dart. Volume 26 for 1911, the sixth vol- ume of the Year Book series, edited by Mr. G. J. Turner, is still delayed, but is expected soon. Owing to the death of Mr. I. S. Leadam, who was engaged on a volume of Select Cases before the King's Council, the completion of that volume will he entrusted to Professor James T. Baldwin, of Vassar College. A' MBASSADOR PAGE was prevented by throat troubles, following an at- tack of influenza, from addressing the annual meeting of the Booksellers' Provi- dent Institution the other day. John Murray expressed special regrets at this misfortune, as he had hoped to welcome in Mr. Page the first member of the pub- lishing craft to rise to the position of Ambassador to England. A similar institution for the benefit of authors is to have Mr. Page's assistance on May 5, for he has promised to preside on that date at the annual dinner of the Royal Literary Fund. During the last year the fund has made grants, reaching a total of $20,600, to 52 applicants; three for archaeology and topography, nine for his- tory and biography, three for art, five for poetry and the drama, sixteen for novels and tales, three for education and scien- tific work, and thirteen miscellaneous. LITTLE by little English universities are coming into closer touch with the State. There was a stiff fight at Cam- bridge recently over a proposal to apply for a Government grant for the Medical School. It was argued against it that the acceptance of Government money must in the long run mean some measure of Government control, and that, however necessary such subventions might be for the new universities which have no large body of alumni on whom to depend for help, they were not really needed for Ox- ford and Cambridge, and would, indeed, tend to discourage the generosity of pri- vate donors. On the other side, it was pointed out that the principle had already been conceded, as both the School of Agri- culture and the Department of Astro- physics were in receipt of State assist- ance. The proposal was carried in the University Senate by 268 votes to 235. IN pursuance of the action taken at the conference of professors, held at Bal- timore last November, the chairman, Professor Bloomrield, was authorized to appoint a committee representing the principal subjects of study and the prin- cipal universities. After some unavoida- ble delays, the chairman of the confer- ence has announced the composition of the committee as follows: Astronomy, George C. Comstock (Wisconsin) ; biolo- gical science, E. G. Conklin (Princeton), R. G. Harrison (Yale), and Theodore Hough (Virginia) ; classical philology, E. Capps (Princeton) ; chemistry, Julius Stieglitz (Chicago) ; economics, M. A. Aid- rich (Tulane) and Alvin S. Johnson (Cor- nell) ; education and psychology, John Dewey (Columbia) ; engineering, Guido H. Marx (Stanford); English, J. W. Bright (Johns Hopkins) and C. M. Gayley (Cal- ifornia) ; geology, W. H. Hobbs (Michi- gan) ; Germanic philology, M. D. Learned (Pennsylvania) ; history, W. E. Dodd (Chicago); law, Roscoe Pound (Har- vard) ; mathematics, C. J. Keyser (Colum- bia) and Henry Taber (Clark) ; medicine, C. S. Minot (Harvard) ; Oriental lan- guages, Morris Jastrow (Pennsylvania); philosophy, A. O. Lovejoy (Johns Hop- kins) and Frank Thilly (Cornell) ; phys- ics, C. E. Mendenhall (Wisconsin) ; po- litical science, Isidor Loeb (Missouri) ; romance philology, F. M. Warren (Yale). Professor Dewey has consented to act as chairman. The committee may be ex- pected to begin at once the consideration of the questions submitted to it; and it will doubtless be able to announce the date of the contemplated meeting, and its general proposals with respect to the association, within a few months. NO more interesting American autobi- ography has appeared in a good while . than Brand Whitlock's "Forty Years of It" (Appleton). It is not merely that he has the knack of telling a story — he has an unusu- ally intersting story to tell. He strikes the keynote at the very be- ginning in the episode of the surreptitious release of a negro prisoner, restrained by ball and chain, and paying the penalty for some misdemeanor by aimlessly wielding a broom on the hot and deserted main street of the town of Urbana, O. Whitlock's grandfather was the Mayor of Urbana, and, calling the negro into his office, he unlocked his fetters and told him to get away without arousing atten- tion. This putting of the human side first is the centre of Brand Whitlock's philosophy. It leads him into folly now and then, as when he decides never to prosecute another person, and leaves one to infer that we should be better off without courts than with them. But in general he is so sane as well as sympa- 11 forgive him even this great error. He is a hater as well as a dreamer, and the objects of his hatred are two: reformers and Puritanism. Per- haps these are really but one. At all events, he hates them as fiercely as if he had been anything but the very ad- vanced Mayor whose ambition was to follow in the footsteps of "Golden Rule" Jones. What distinguishes him, and dis- tinguished Jones, from the kind of re- former that he scorns is his utter skep- ticism of panaceas. "The great emanci- pation will not come," he writes, "through the formulae of Independents, Socialists, or single-taxers, nor through Law and Order Leagues, nor Civic Associations." This does not prevent him from being a single-taxer or from fighting his ut- most for a three-cent fare. His lack of faith in these devices as final does not keep him from laying hold on such weap- ons as the times provide. IT is necessary to speak of Mr. Whitlock's philosophy at some length because it more and more becomes his story, sub- merging incident in reflection. Yet he relates many events of fascinating inter- est. It was he who at Gov. Altgeld's di- rection drew up the famous pardon for the Chicago anarchists who had escaped the gallows and were serving sentences in the penitentiary. His work as a re- porter in Chicago brought him into asso- ciation with such different personages as James G. Blaine and Eugene V. Debs. But his heroes are "Golden Rule" Jones and Tom Johnson, and he makes them live again in his pages. No picture of this man, who was Jones's successor as Mayor of Toledo, serving four succes- sive terms, would be complete that omit- ted his estimate of the relative values of politics and literature. He may be best known to the country as one of the new type of municipal executive, but his as- pirations are all literary. Emerson and Whitman bulk larger in his eyes than a host of even honest and capable men in the troubled field of politics. These seem to him to be merely going through the motions of doing something, while one who writes works for eternity. Here again he will appear to many readers too sweeping, but this also is part of the man who has so well revealed him- self and his time in this book. THOSE whose appetite for the delicate lyric of India has already been whetted by the translations b^ Mr. Paul Elmer More and Mr. Arthur Ryder will be glad to know that the whole collection of the three centuries of Bhartrihari ("The Satakas of Bhartrihari," with an Intro- duction, by J. M. Kennedy) has now ap- peared in handy form in the Oriental Philosophy series (Boston: John W.Luce & Co.). The reason why Bhartrihari is thus linked with philosophy is that one cen- tury of his verses is of philosophical or at least of religious content. Mr. Kennedy is well known as a competent scholar, but we confess that we prefer his trans- lations to his history. It is not at all certain that the first philosophers of In- dia wire martial aristocrats; nor is it even probable that the priests almost annihilated the warrior caste. Nor is the Gita in the epic as strange as would be the Gospel of St. John In the Iliad. Finally, although it is said that some scholars assign Bhartrihari to the
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368 The 1ST a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2544 second century, Mr. Kennedy strangely sets his date as "about the eighth or ninth century." Surely, 650 A.D. is a much more probable terminus ad, if only because [tslng mentions Bbartribari, and that pilgrim died in 703. WE are enabled by Volumes IV and V of "The German Classics" (The German Publication Society, New York) to recognize the aim of the editors more clearly than was hith- erto possible. There is a far larg- er proportion of original transla- tions, the introductions, by uniform- ly competent American hands, tell some- thing like a consecutive story of the development of the various epochs of German literature, and the authors se- lected are thoroughly representative. We have in the volumes before us extracts from Jean Paul, Wilhelm von Hum- boldt, the two Schlegels, Novalis, Holder- lin, Tieck, Heinrich von Kleist, Schleier- macher, Fichte, Schelling, Achim von Arnim, and Clemens Brentano, the Grimms, Arndt, Korner, Schenkendorf, Uhland, Eichendorff, Chamisso, E. T. A Hoffmann, Fouque, Hauff, Riickert, and Platen. The poetic translations, on the whole, are spirited and give more of the atmosphere of the original than do the prose renderings. These sometimes, as in the case of Frances H. King's excerpt from Wilhelm von Humboldt's essay on Schiller, intensify the original heaviness. The same translator, however, is inspired by "The Opening of the Will," from Jean Paul's "Flegeljahre" and by Kleist's class- ic story of "Michael Kohlhaas," to a far more graceful and idiomatic treatment. A conspicuously successful piece of trans- lation is Professor Coleman's version of Riickert's "Parable." It is a literal ren- dering, which preserves, with the metre, all the ease and impressiveness of the original. Among the other translators of verse, who have grappled, not unsuccess- fully, with difficult themes, Margaret Miinsterberg holds first place. But none can compare with older translators (whom it is not always easy to distin- guish from the actual contributors to these volumes) like Longfellow and Ice- land. The poets among the living who appear here as translators do not show to the greatest advantage. Hermann Hagedorn's rendering- of Kleist's "Prinz von Homburg" has not a few harsh lines and doubtful colloquialisms, such as (p. 488, Vol. IV): You whimsical old gentleman, with you I get nowhere! You bribe me with your tongue — ■ Me, with your craftily framed sophistries. Well, now, by heaven, I call that nerve! NEITHER has Percy MacKaye achiev- ed great success in dealing with his German fellow-craftsmen. As was, perhaps, inevitable in volumes so largely concerned with the period of German Romanticism, there broods over what is offered here to the American reader a strange air of unreality, which occasion- ally makes one wish for things more robust, and not so far removed from what remains eternally young and appeals to universal taste. The <dit or. s have certainly dipped into a long-forgotten past in resuscitating Prledricb Schlegel's "Lucinde," that lasci- vious production of his turbulent youth, of which the author himself grew to be so ashamed that he never wanted it in- cluded in the complete edition of his works. The illustrations are, in part, in- tended to run "parallel to the literary development" of which these volumes treat, but the charm of Schwind's roman- tic fancy has wholly vanished in most of the reproductions. WILLARD GROSVENOR BLEYER'S "Newspaper Writing and Edit- ing" (Houghton Mifflin) is distinguished from previous books on the same subject by its free use of facsimile newspaper headlines, its emphasis upon the impor- tance of the "lead," the abundance of exercises for practice, and its attractive physical qualities of convenient size, thin- ner paper than is often used, and beau- tiful typography. The text is also better written than that of most of its rivals. The volume contains little that is new, but it carries the analysis of various kinds of "stories" further than is usual, and does this in a way to illustrate rath- er than to make more obscure the mys- teries with which it deals. It does not make the common mistake of furnishing a "Don't" list. THE latest addition to American Nietzsche literature is a book of 150 pages by Dr. Paul Carus, en- titled "Nietzsche and Other Expo- nents of Individualism" (Open Court Publishing Co.). The author assures us many times that Nietzsche is not to be taken seriously as a philosopher, yet he has given a pains- taking if somewhat unsystematic refu- tation of his theories. Dr. Carus believes that the old nominalistic school is the parent of Nietzsche's philosophy, and that, unwisdom is justified of her child. The logical outcome of nominalism is philo- sophic anarchism. The book may be read with profit as a sort of corrective to the writings of Mencken and of other recent Nietzsche enthusiasts. On page 14 the date 1907 is given instead of 1887 for the visit of Deussen to Nietzsche. There are several interesting illustrations of statues and portraits of the German philos- opher. THE other exponents of individualism discussed in the book are Max Stir- ner and Mr. George Moore. The latter's "Confessions of a Young Man" is shown to contain many interesting parallels to Nietzsche's ideas, though Dr. Carus adds that Mr. Moore is "scarcely familiar with the writings of his German double." That may have been true in 1888, when the "Confessions" appeared, but it is assured- ly not the case now. At the conclusion of his "Memoirs of My Dead Self," for example, there is an eloquent statement of the doctrine of Eternal Recurrence, as if it were a personal conviction. J A. R. MARRIOTT'S "England Since • Waterloo" (Putnam) completes the excellent seven-volume "History of Eng- land" which has been appearing under the editorship of Charles Oman. The ear- lier volumes by Oman, H. W. C. Davis, Vickers, Innes, Trevelyan, and Grant Robertson have already passed beyond the first edition and won a deserved recog- nition from scholars and general read- ers. Mr. Marriott had a more difficult task than his predecessors. To treat ad- equately the domestic as well as the for- eign affairs of England during the last century is no easy task. Though the multiplicity of unconnected facts which he compresses within 500 pages some- times smacks of the "Annual Register," he has made, on the whole, a readable, trustworthy, and unprejudiced statement of the most important facts of England's development since the Napoleonic period. While his volume does not have the sus- tained interest and the personal atmo- sphere which gives such charm to the histories of Justin McCarthy, Spencer Walpole, and Herbert Paul, it is, never- theless, more satisfactory to the student in being more compact with fact, more free from partisanship, and drawn with a better perspective. The author frequent- ly gives vivacity to his narrative by quot- ing brief characteristic phrases which sum up a movement or a man. He gives almost as much attention to England's foreign affairs as he gives to her devel- opment at home, threading his way with a sure foot through the intricacies of Europei'.n diplomatic affairs. His account of Palmerston, though brief, is a good example of his excellent way of charac- terizing the leaduig statesmen; it is fair both to the Queen and to Palmerston. Palmerston's foreign policy was so ener- getic that he was thoroughly hated on the Continent, and Germans used to de- clare, Hat (ler Teufel einen Sohn, So ist er sicher Palmerston. Mr. Marriott has a good brief bibliog- raphy at the close of his volume, but his maps are altogether inferior to the text, being neither artistic nor accurate, nor as clear as one has a right to expect when so much detail has been omitted. OEMS by Sir John Salusbury and Robert Chester" (Bryn Mawr Monographs: Monogranh Series, XIV), with an introduction by Carleton Brown, is interesting mainly on ac- count of its connection with the problem of "The Phoenix and the Tur- tle," the least known and the most enig- matical of all the productions of Shake- speare's pen. The pieces contained in the volume are now edited for the first time from Christ Church MS. 184 and from the unique copy of poems dedicated to Sir John Salusbury by a certain Robert Parry and printed in 1597, which is preserved in the library of S. R. Christie-Miller at Brit- well Court. The above-mentioned poem of Shakespeare's first appeared In a sort of appendix to Robert Chester's "Love's Martyr; or, Rosalin's Complaint, allegor- ically shadowing the truth of Love In the constant Fate of the Phoenix and Turtle" (1601). In the excessively long title-page the poem is said to be a translation from the Italian of "Torquato Caeliano." Pro- fessor Brown does not mention this cir- cumstance, and his whole discussion Is evidently based on the assumption that Chester's allegory is entirely of his own invention. This is probably true, but the Elizabethans did not hesitate to plunder the Italian poets even for occasional poems, for instance, elegies on tlie death of a friend or a patron, so that the state- "P
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April 2, 1914J The Nation 369 ment of the title-page, though it looks like a mystification, deserves some considera- tion. The appendix to "Love's Martyr," or "Poeticall Essaies," as the title-page calls it, contains, besides Shakespeare's poenl, still other contributions on this allegorical theme of the Phoenix and the Turtle from Marston, Chapman, Jonson, and "Ignoto." THE poems which Professor Brown now publishes for the first time have little intrinsic value, but they throw light on the literary tenden- cies of Salusbury and Chester and on their relations with one another, were both devotees to acrostic and the number and warmth of the pieces of this kind which Sir John addresses to his sister-in-law, Dorothy Halsall, arouse unpleasant suspicions. From the biographical sketch of Salus- bury, which Professor lirown has worked out with great diligence on the basis of unpublished records at Hatfield House and elsewhere, it seems that in 1595 he was appointed one of the esquires of the body to the Queen and that he was knighted by her in 1601. It was on his visits to London during the intervening years, no doubt, that he was drawn into an intimacy with the great Elizabethan poets who contributed to the above-men- tioned "Poeticall Essaies" in his honor. Professor Brown's researches in regard to 1 Chester have not been quite so conclusive, but he has proved at least that Dr. Grosart erred in identifying him with Robert Chester of Royston, and he has made it clear that the author of "Love's Martyr" and the poems here printed must have been closely connected with Sir John Salisbury's household — very likely as chaplain. His interpretation of the alle- gory in "Love's Martyr" is that the Tur- tle-dove represents Salusbury and the Phoenix his wife, Ursula Stanley, who was an illegitimate daughter of the Earl of Derby, and, furthermore, that the poem was written in commemoration of their marriage (1586) and a short time after the event. It could not have been very long after, for the Phoenix concerned was soon giving to the world a numerous off- spring, instead of the traditional one which the legend required. The choice of allegory, it must be confessed, was not a very happy one for the celebration of a marriage, but Professor Brown's solution seems to us, after all, the most plausible that has been offered, and it explains sat- isfactorily also the "Poeticall Essaies," with the all-important exception of Shakespeare's poem. That remains as much of an enigma as ever. In this poem stress is laid on the childlessness of the couple. What business has such a poem in a volume which was manifestly com- piled in honor of Sir John Salusbury? IN conclusion, two details recorded here are worth mentioning. First, Sir John Salusbury was the lineal ancestor of Mrs. Thrale. This constitutes really his great- est service to the world. Secondly, the Christ Church MS. includes a holograph copy of a poem by Ben Jonson. The man- uscript originated in the Salusbury family, and the above item furnishes additional evidence of the close ties that united Sir John to the giants of the Elizabethan age. Ml : S. FRANCES B O A R D M A N SQUIRE POTTER, professor of English literature at the Univer- sity of Minnesota, died at Minne- apolis on March 25. Mrs. Potter was born at Elmira, N. Y., in 1867. She was graduated from Elmira College in 1887, and took an A.M. degree there in 1889. She be- came a member of the Minnesota faculty in 1900. Mrs. Potter was well known as a lecturer on woman's suffrage, and wrote a number of stories and articles for magazine publication, a novel, and two plays. Science PSYCHIC ACTIVITY. The 1 nconacious. By Morton Prince. New York: The Macmillan Co. $2. Dr. Prince is well known to many who care little for neurology or psychology as the talented author of "The Dissocia- tion of a Personality," in which he pic- tured in so fascinating a manner what he looks upon as the multiple individual- ities of Miss Beauchamp. In the volume before us we miss as little of the vi- vacity and charm of this earlier work as one could expect in consideration of the fact that the several chapters consist of lectures, which of necessity lose much in transcription; in this case mainly because of numerous repetitions which, while valuable in the classroom, tend to obscure the course of the writer's thought. Notwithstanding this, the book is a contribution to the subject consid- ered that is valuable alike to the physi- cian and to the psychologist: to the physician for its suggestiveness of meth- od in treating those unfortunates who are troubled with what are roughly clas- sified as nervous diseases; and to the psychologist for the accumulation, and more or less orderly consideration, of a great mass of facts that are signifi- cant for him as well as for neurologists. This accumulation of facts emphasizes again the importance of the study of that realm of our mental life that is be- yond the field of awareness, and which is usually called the sub-conscious; a term which our author quite properly uses as little as possible because of its vague meaning. Thus he divides (p. 352) the whole psychic field into A, atten- tion, and the focus of awareness; B, fringe of awareness; C, co-conscious states (sub-conscious); beyond which he holds that there are D, unconscious processes, into which states C shade off, and which may develop any one of the states described under classes A, B, or C. In terms of these three classes he would explain a broad array of phe- nomena, and whether or not one agrees that these distinctions have the validity he claims for them, it must be acknow- ledged that they serve well to marshal the facts presented to us. After a brief chapter on the Theory of Memory as a process, and three chap- ters devoted to the study of the extent to which life's experiences are conserv- ed, he turns to the question (p. 109), "How, and in what form, manner, or way, are they conserved? In other words, what is the nature of the resid- uum? Is it psychical or physical?" and in a chapter entitled Neurograms he at- tempts the explanation of the puzzling problem as to the modus operandi of the retentive process which leads us to ask where the ideas that are recovered remain in the interval between their original existence and their recall. He concludes that they cannot be supposed to lie dormant as psychic existences, but that their corresponding "neurograms" may be conceived to remain dormant, and upon occasion to be aroused to such renewed activity as is necessary to the production of the recovered idea. This conception, which is novel only in its mode of presentation, has to meet the difficulty that it assumes that the neural activity under certain conditions, and only under certain conditions, pro- duces the idea; a view which contradicts the hypothesis of psycho-physical par- rallelism which he upholds. Further- more, the notion of a dormant neuro- gram itself is far from satisfactory. In- deed, our author practically resusci- tates the "store-house" theory of reten- tiveness, the inadequacy of which is now so generally appreciated. Nevertheless, as has been noted, he himself acknow- ledges (p. 352) that the "co-conscious" states shade off into the "unconscious processes," and beyond that holds (p. 534) that these latter ". . . may un- dergo sub-conscious incubation and elab- oration"; and the facts which lead to these statements certainly indicate that we are unwarranted in holding that the experiences of life are filed away, as it were, for future possible use, lying "dor- mant" until called for. If we carry out consistently so thoroughgoing a paral- lelism between neural activities and con- scious states as he would defend, it would seem to be but logical to hold that there must exist some "psychological dispositions" to correspond with the "physiological dispositions" which he calls neurograms. In truth, one of the most cogent arguments in favor of the hypothesis of the thoroughgoing corre- spondence between changes of neural activity and changes in consciousness lies in the fact that it enables us to ex- press the phenomena of retentiveness in terms of readjustments of efficiencies, both physiological and mental; which are not entities that are dead or dor- mant when not evidenced, but which, being given In one moment, are perma- nent readjustments, which in a future moment may appear in familiar form, or as subjected to subsequent readjust- ments, according as the neural patterns
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87G T li e 1ST a t i o ii [Vol. 98, No. 2544 and their corresponding mental pat- terns of the future moment do, or do not, emphasize these efficiencies. The remaining eleven chapters of the book are given mainly to the illustra- tion of the thesis just referred to, and to the explanation of the varied ways in which the sub-attentive conscious pro- cesses affect the life of clear awareness. And here it may be noted that it will be a great relief to those who have of late been steeped in the Freudian literature to find an author whose grasp of the facts is so complete, and who employs the method of "psycho-analysis" with- out stint, making little of Freud's imag- inative hypotheses, and rejecting his far- fetched erotic interpretations; and writ- ing without such dogmatism or special pleading as Freud's works display. In fact, Dr. Prince goes far to refute the claims of the Freudians by showing that the facts presented hy them in support of their theses are equally well explica- ble on other grounds. The book is so admirable in many ways that it is a thankless task to dwell upon its shortcomings; but it is impos- sible to overlook them if for no other reason than that the author is so im- portant a leader. Such a task is the less distasteful, however, because these weaknesses may all be summed up in one indictment, which is aimed, not so much at the author, or even at neurol- ogists in general, hut at psychologists as a class. For these latter in the past have practically closed their eyes to the facts relative to the "unconscious" upon which Dr. Prince fixes our attention; with the result that these facts have been brought into the light of day largely by neurologists who in the be- ginning have not been students of psy- chology, and who, when they have turn- ed to the works of psychological ex- perts, have found little reference to the subjects of their special interest. The neurologists have thus been led to think that they must work out a new psychol- ogy of their own; and this in a mea- sure they actually have done, but not unnaturally without a mastery of the work of their predecessors in the psy- chological field taken as a whole. Un- der such conditions it is not surprising to find evidences of narrowness of read- ing, of crudities of thought, and of im- patience with fundamental considera- tions which have become commonplaces among the psychologists of the older schools. Thus our author (p. 446) evi- dently thinks that McDougall was the first to maintain that our emotions are instinctive phenomena; overlooking the fact that Darwin in his "Expression of the Emotions," and James in his Psy- chology, emphasized this view; and that it has long since been generally conced- ed that the emotions are merely a spe- cial type of "instinct feelings." Thus, again, we find him casting aside almost with contempt (p. 312) what he calls "the conventional conception of percep- tion as usually expounded in the text- books"; and again giving vent (p. 538) to somewhat violent denunciation in de- scribing, in ignorance of the real im- port of the conception, the "unity of con- sciousness ... as a cant expres- sion uttered by some unsophisticated ancient philosopher and repeated like an article of faith by each successive gen- eration without stopping to think of its meaning or to test it by reference to facts." We must also lay upon the psychol- ogists a large part of the blame for our author's unfortunate application of the term memory to facts of retentiveness; for not a few of those who lean towards the "new psychology" have been guilty of this iniquity. Nevertheless, we can- not acquit Dr. Prince altogether, for he need not have read farther than James Ward's article on Psychology in the En- cyclopaedia Britannica to have seen that it is retentiveness and not memory that is a common characteristic of our physi- ological and psychic life. Memory is, of course, based upon retentiveness; but memory involves the recognition of at- tachment to the individual's experience, and is the coordinate of expectation, as is not the case with retentiveness. The failure to distinguish the one from the other is a matter of importance in such investigations as our author is conduct- ing. But as has been already remarked, the philosophers and psychologists of the past have themselves to blame for all this. They have persistently over- looked what are now seen to be some of the most significant facts in relation to our mental life, and they must not be surprised if those who have had these facts forced upon them in therapeutic practice build a new psychological science, which is crude and incomplete in some directions, and in others incon- sistent with the formulations of that long array of masters who have devot- ed themselves to the study of our men- tal life. Dr. Egbert Le Fevre, dean of the New York University Medical School, who died on March 29, was born in Raritan, N. J., October 29, 1858. He graduated from Rutgers College in 1880, took his A.M. degree from the same institution in 1884, his M.D. from the New York University Medical College in 1883, and was an in- terne at Bellevue Hospital from 1883 un- til 1885. He received the honorary de- gree of Sc.D. from Rutgers in 1910, and the degree of LL.D. from New York Uni- versity in the same year. Dr. Le Fevre was clinical lecturer on the practice of tnedi< of clinical 1 1 and dean of New York University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College since 1898. He was a fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, and a member of various other medical associations, and was the author of "Physical Diagnosis," published in 1902. Drama RECENT GERMAN PLAYS. The plays published or performed in Germany during the year just ended sug- gest some reflections on the curiosities of individual development. The "Fest- spiel in deutschen Reimen," by Gerhart Hauptmann (S. Fischer, Berlin), pre- destined by the name of the author, as well as by the time, place, and occasion of its production to be the event of the season, became by its suppression at least the greatest sensation. An un- usually interesting work it is, for the recent reading of which New York owes gratitude to Rudolf Christians, the di- rector of the German Theatre. For the poet who had the courage of his con- victions at a time when a rather archaic note of patriotism was forced upon the literary production of the year and gave rise to plays, novels, and lyrics celebrat- ing the military glory of 1813, must have endeared himself even to those in- different to his works by the dignified manner in which he avoided joining the choir of singers. The removal of the actors of his drama into the "Welt des Scheins" was a stroke of real genius. To whatever cause his recent dramatic failures are due, if one surveys his work from "Vor Sonnenaufgang" to the "Fest- spiel," this dramatic poem means a high-water mark in his development. The same cannot be said of Hermann Sudermann's "Der gute Ruf" (J. C. Cotta, Stuttgart). It is a society play of Berlin W., with the apparently in- evitable theme of marital infidelity, wives neglected by husbands absorbed in business, and consoling themselves by illicit attachments, yet zealously guarding appearances. There is a sub- ordinate theme: a man at the head of a great industrial enterprise has been cor- nered by rivals and forced to take a position in the rivals' establishment. Here is an economic motive which might have given the play a wider meaning; but Sudermann employs it only to com- plicate the personal relations between the two families whose good name Is jeopardized by the love game of the ladies. So in the end the play is noth- ing but a new variation upon his old and cherished honor motive. From Frank Wedekind one must al- ways expect the unexpected. After sore- ly trying the patience even of his ad mini's by his "Pranziaka," which he chose to call a "Myaterium," he lias 1 ome out with a drama In \ erae, "Sim-
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April 2, 1914] The ]STation 371 son" (Georg Miiller, Munich), firmly and logically built upon the theme of jealousy. Delilah plays with Samson while the princes of the Philistines are courting her. To make him harmless, she has his hair shorn, and in a fit ot jealousy orders him to be blinded. But when he is forced to work the tread- mill, she visits him in his sordid exile and, in a streak of perversity which seems inseparable from the heroines of Wedekind, makes the Philistines witness the caresses she bestows upon Samson. When she finally chooses Og to become her royal spouse, the prisoner is sum- moned to dance before the royal party at dinner. Samson implores God to give him strength for his task, and dances. Og sees the eyes of Delilah fascinated by the spectacle, and cuts her throat. Then Samson throws the weight of his body against the columns supporting the dais; as they break, tearing down the balustrade of the gallery, the whole building seems to collapse, and the cur- tain descends upon a scene of ruin. Vio- lent as the action appears, there is noth- ing forced or objectionable about it, the characters are well defined, the Oriental atmosphere admirably suggested, and the whole work is singularly free from the touch of burlesque which the au- thor is wont to give his most serious works. Max Halbe, who with Georg Hirsch- feld has experienced nothing but fail- ures on the stage of late, has paid trib- ute to the centenary of 1813 by a play, the scene of which is laid in Danzig and its environs, and the plot whereof deals with the fluctuating fortunes and wavering convictions of the people un- der the sway of the Corsican's magnetic power. "Freiheit" (Albert Langen, Munich) is a play that reads well, pal- pably conveying the turbulent spirit of the times and reflecting the unsettled condition of the country, political and social. There is plenty of thrilling ac- tion, but the main interest centres in the influence brought to bear by the rapidly following events upon the char- acters of two young men who have been drifting with the current of popular sentiment. Herbert Eulenberg is untiring in his efforts to court dramatic success. He has had three or four premieres within the year, and his latest play, "Zeit- wende" (Kurt Wolff, Leipzig), has also had its initial production. The work has many elements of strong dramatic interest, with an array of striking char- acters and a well constructed plot. There is an old manufacturer who rep- resents the social and business ideals of the past; his two sons, one of them a hopeless invalid, the other a fanciful dreamer; a daughter who is married to a slave of duty likely to be the old man's efficient successor, and an unmar- ried one who is courted by an unscrupu- lous adventurer who has been the sweet- heart of the older sister and is deter- mined by fair means or foul to get the old man's money. The most fascinat- ing figure in the play is Sebald, the ro- mantic, who goes through it in the way of a fool of mediaeval drama or the chorus of antique tragedy, commenting in his erratic way upon the actions of the others. That the girl heroine, who has given her love to the villain, should come to a tragic end, seems a foregone conclusion. Otherwise, there is not a commonplace feature or line in the work, and though some years have pass- ed since the author made his debut as dramatist, there is hope that he will in the end produce a drama which will play as well as his work usually reads. Ludwig Thoma has in his latest work, "Die Sippe" (Albert Langen, Munich), left the Bavarian village milieu which is so dear to him and has chosen for his scene a small town in North Ger- many, and for his theme the irreconcil- able conflict between the narrowness of the old patrician stock and the broader conception of life which an artistic ca- reer gives. The heroine is an artist whose father has gone to America and has not been heard from for years. She has married the scion of a wealthy old family, and is contented as long as her husband stands by her against his fault- finding, prejudiced family. Then the long lost father suddenly turns up, a man who has knocked about the world without getting any wealthier or wiser, and, imprudent and unpractical as ever, shocks the staid and prosperous rela- tives hy his unconventional frankness. Otto Soyka's "Geldzauber" (Albert Langen, Munich) is based upon the pop- ular conception of "Americanism" as identical with a commercialism which makes of everything — pleasure, charity, love— a business proposition and a mar- ketable commodity. The play is meant to demonstrate the omnipotence of mon- ey. The hero is a young American mil- lionaire, who has founded public li- braries, had intended to serve mankind by becoming a physician, but found that the founding of hospitals would be more effective; wanted to devote his life to science, but established a fund which enabled twelve exceptionally gifted and efficient scholars to engage in that work, and is upheld in the growing conviction that he can obtain anything by money by the fact that he finds a young man willing to be his friend for five hun- dred dollars a month. They have ar- gued the subject of woman's love and come to the conclusion that, though it may not be had for cold cash, it can be bought by gifts and favors. The plot of the play deals with the hero's ef- forts at storming the heart of a high- spirited young woman, an artist and daughter of an old pianist. Everything else failing, he engages the services of an agency, which procures for the hero- ine a purchaser for her pictures and ar- ranges for the father a concert, foster- ing their illusion that they are indepen- dent of the American's money. In the end he wins her, because the girl has loved him before she knew that he was a millionaire. Lily Braun, who has given us her con- fession of creed in the "Memoiren einer Sozialistin," and a year ago entered upon a new field of literary endeavor with her delightful "Liebesbriefe der Marquise," makes her debut as dram- atist in "Mutter Maria" (Albert Langen,. Munich). The scene of her play is Flor- ence and its environs in 1513. The hero- ine is a woman who in her girlhood had been loved by Julian the Medicean, and after the fall of the Medici had been married by Giuseppe the carpenter, who gave her and her boy his name and pro- tection. Angelo is vowed by her to the church, and she is worried by the evi- dences of his talent for art, for during the time of her trouble she had been among those that were profoundly stir- red by the words of Savonarola. The return of Julian with his mistress Lu- crezia, who was one of Maria's girlhood friends, brings a revival of the pagan spirit. Julian discovers Angelo before the statue of the Medicean Venus, and learns that he is his son. He wishes to acknowledge him as such, and distin- guishes him by marks of favor at a feast during which the statue is crown- ed and made the object of worship. A fanatical priest rushes at it with a hatchet, but Angelo lashes him across the face with a whip. Since he is under the jurisdiction of the convent, church and state clash over him, and when Julian's real character is revealed to him, Angelo secedes from both and stirs the populace by a sermon, for which he is seized and condemned to die at the stake. The mother appears at the crit- ical moments of the story, exhorting, en- treating, and consoling her son, whom she pities as a victim to the evil charm of the statue. The play is avowedly in- spired by Botticelli's Magnificat, and contains a scene which conveys th< sentiment of Michelangelo's Pieta. Oskar Kokoschka, the poet-painter ot Vienna, is the subject of as much vio- lent controversy as Arnold Schbnberg, the composer. He had previously pub- lished a work illustrated by himself, "Die traumenden Knaben," but the vol- ume of dramatic scenes, supplemented by reproductions of his paintings, and published under the title, "Dramen und Bilder" (Kurt Wolff. Leipzig), contains recent products of his pen. Barely twen- ty-eight, Kokoschka has years of ma- terial hardships and mental tortures be- hind him which in a large measure in- fluence his vision and reading of life. There is in his writings, as in his paint- ings, something of the savage chafing
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373 T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2544 against the restraint of civilization, de- fying conventions, and a primitive sim- plicity which is touching. Personally quiet and modest, Kokoschka must have deeply resented the honor bestowed upon him by the press, which some months ago made copy of the fact that he had broken his engagement to the widow of Gustav Mahler because she enjoyed an income from her late hus- band's works. The biographer of Mah- ler, Dr. Paul Stefan, has written an in- troduction to the book, which furnishes a sympathetic interpretation of the au- thor's puzzling personality. A. vox Ende. 'PANTHEA." It is difficult not to compare "Panthea," a play in four acts, by Monckton Hoffe, which was produced by the Shu- berts on Saturday evening at the Booth Theatre, with certain strong- er plays which the combination of its title and theme inevitably sug- gests. It has in common with "Zaza" and "Camille" a dominating female char- acter, whom consuming love leads to great deeds of self-sacrifice. There, how- ever, the comparison ends. The play has not the compelling intensity of the other two. Lacking this, if it had presented a varied psychological study, or had beauti- fied by sheer imaginative force the world in which its lovers move, it might still have appeared justified. But such anal- ysis and imagination as it possesses are of an obvious order. The talk, to be sure, is of high ideals throughout, and for these the lovers are prepared to fight. Yet there are no sidelights which reveal great souls at work. The characters rise to the height which they reach by the lifting power of the rough situations; one never feels that the situations grow out of the characters. This is a very differ- ent work from Mr. Hoffe's slight but pretty play, "The Little Damozel." Gerald Mordaunt, a young composer, has been living a conventional, shut-in existence with his wife and her people in Northumberland. The break between husband and wife has almost come, when there arrives through a shipwreck on the shore (note the symbolism which seems to declare that the long arm of coinci- dence is glorified when it is a case of the chance meeting of two perfectly con- genial souls) the one being who can bring out Gerald's genius. Panthea, a felon escaped from Russia, requires but one glance at the assembled company to realize Gerald's present state and his supreme need of her. When it is learn- ed that the Russian police are on her track, Gerald not only helps her to es- cape, but runs off in the night with her. In this scene the author betrays his slight grasp of characterization, which is re- sponsible for that shallowness in the lat- er scenes already referred to. Differences in minor personages ate brought out by the elaborate sort of humor which over-patriotic Americans are apt to term "typically English"; and in the case of the central characters too much is left by the author to the individual acting. In the second act, after a lapse of two blissful years, the two are seen living together in a European capital. Out of his great happiness Gerald has created an opera, successful in every respect save only this, that he cannot get it produced. At the moment despair has brought him to the verge of a breakdown, and he has been ordered by his physician to take a month off in the country. Here is Pan- thea's chance, and she accepts it with complete self-effacement. In order to obtain a hearing for the piece, she agrees to give herself for that month to the di- rector of the Royal Opera, Baron de Duisitort. The third act pictures a set- ting not unlike the reception in "Camille," a dinner at the Baron's, at which Gerald is toasted as hero. Panthea, though pres- ent, is, of course, in no mood to par- ticipate in the jollity. It is evident that a revelation of her deed is approaching. Gerald, hearing all, smashes dishes, re- nounces his love, and leaves. Panthea continues the breaking, and kills, or ap- parently kills, the Baron, though later the old device of apoplexy is lugged in to save her from murder. In the final act Panthea extracts forgiveness from her lover by a rather bald statement of the motive of her offence. Here enter the Russian police to drag the lady off to Siberia, whereupon Gerald insists upon marrying her, that he may thus gain the privilege of accompanying her. A story of violence assuredly is this, though its kernel possesses supreme pos- sibilities. As the play stands, even great actors could not quite have redeemed it, and the acting on the opening night was not great. Olga Petrova, who hitherto had been seen in vaudeville, showed mo- ments of real power as Panthea, espe- cially in the scene of bartering with the Baron, and in the busy third act she was clever, if not profound. But in the main her work seemed imitative of at least two other actresses. She might better be content to develop her own striking per- sonality. George Nash, as the old, profli- gate Baron, gave a competent perform- ance, and Milton Sills was effective as Gerald, though his voice lacked that va- ried modulation by which great scenes can often be rendered without explosive- ness and violent gesture. F. "LADY WINDERMERE'S FAN." "Lady Windermere's Fan," which Miss Margaret Anglin revived in the Hudson Theatre on Monday evening, is perhaps the best of Oscar Wilde's comedies. In spite of the improbability and artificial- ity of its plot — with its long array of co- incidence and convenient suppressions — it tells a good story and offers a series of situations which are exceedingly In- genious, if not particularly convincing, and of indisputable theatrical value. The dialogue, of course, although savoring very strongly of the lamp, is almost con- stantly amusing, being closely packed with epigram and paradox, in which much cheap and easy humor is Illumined by frequent flashes of genuine wit. The outstanding feature of the repre- sentation was the Mrs. Erlynne of Miss Anglin, who won a triumph in the third act, where the adventuress, by the sacri- fice of herself, enables her imperilled daughter to escape from the rooms of the seductive Lord Darlington. Her per- formance in this critical scene — as, in- deed, throughout the play — was notable for its complete comprehension of the assumed character, its artistic restraint, and its admirable finish. Miss Anglin, upon proper occasion, can be an emo- tional actress of great eloquence. But here, rightly mindful of the character of Mrs. Erlynne — a woman tried in the fur- nace of experience — she kept her emo- tions under strict control — suggesting by many subtle signs the inner anguish caused by the cruel taunts of her daugh- ter— all ignorant of the relationship — but preserving an undaunted front, and pre- vailing in the end by force of dominant will. She was especially impressive in the passionate appeal which she made to the maternal instinct of the impul- sive young wife, filling it with a fine sincerity. Her whole impersonation was a notable artistic achievement and fully justified a revival which in other re- spects was not brilliant. Miss Margery Maude played Lady Win- dermere with intelligence and refinement and Pedro de Cordoba was an excellent Windermere, playing with distinction and spirit. Mrs. Le Moyne was curious- ly inefficient as the Duchess, and Arthur Byron was an exceedingly prosaic Dar- lington. It was distinction of diction and manner that the representation chiefly lacked. J. R. T. "CHANGE." The Drama League of America could not have illustrated better its possibili- ties of usefulness than by lending its support to another New York produc- tion of "Change" at the Park Theatre at popular prices. "Change" is the drama by J. O. Francis which gained Lord How- ard de Walden's prize offered for a Welsh play. It was produced some weeks ago with an admirable cast at the Booth Theatre, and by its premature decease at the end of two weeks illus- trated the fact that the first-night critic still retains his power, if not to make, then to mar a production. For some reason a certain number of the critics decided that "Change" was not calculated to please the Broadway taste, and pro- ceeded to cover it with ridicule. Had the play been able to survive the unfa- vorable impression created by some of the criticisms published in the daily press on the day succeeding its premiere it would very possibly have had a success- ful run, but by the time the more se- rious and responsible critics had pub- lished their appreciations of the strength and sincerity of the play the damage had been done. The theme of the piece, the antagon- ism between the ideals of two genera- tions, as reflected in the attitude of a family in a Welsh mining village to- wards the principles of syndicalism, is developed with great power and rare dramatic skill. Galsworthy has never done better work. The production ami the acting, which were the points par- ticularly seized upon for adverse com- ment, •'"' '" i'"'"' "r lnrl '•" «niP«rtor to what is nsnallv, seen on r.road\\a.\ The cast lacks a high-salaried "slai" and the play a star part, and poMlblj
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April 2, 1914I Tlie Nation 373 ioi this very re&aon the general level of the acting roaches a high standard. S. W. SHAW'S "PYGMALION" IN GERMAN. On Tuesday, March 23, the German Theatre of New York presented for the Bnt time in America Shaw's "Pygma- lion," and now has made it a regular part of the repertory. This play had its first performance last October at the Burg- theater in Vienna. The translation used is that of Siegfried Trebitsch, a well- known Viennese journalist, who has translated several other plays by Shaw. "Pygmalion" describes the experiment which an ambitious professor of pho- netics performs with a loud-mouth- ed flower-girl whom he happens to 1 in . Ileaillain. Chairman of Committee, London Shakespeare League. Benjamin Franklin Keith, founder and owner of the string of vaudeville the- atres under his name, who died on March 26, at the age of sixty-seven, was born at Hillsboro, N. H. His first enter- prise was a miniature dime museum in Boston in 1882, with a single attraction, a midget. In 1885 he became part own- ner of the Gaiety Theatre, Boston, and there initiated the characteristically American idea of the "continuous per- formance." He gradually acquired more theatres, the Gaiety Museum in Provi- dence, the Bijou Theatro in Philadelphia, the I'nion Square Theatre in New York, until in 1906 he formed the Keith & Proctor Amusement Company, control- ling a number of theatres throughout the country. Music WOLF-FERRARI'S NEW OPERA. Operatic managers are usually most generous in their promises of novel- ties, but it is not often that these are entirely fulfilled. This year the mana- ger of the Metropolitan has redeemed all his pledges. Five operas were prom- ised; five have been produced. The cos- mopolitanism of that great institution is indicated by the fact that of these operas two were sung in Italian, one in German, one in English, one in French. The first of the novelties, Richard Strauss's "Rosenkavalier," has proved more of a success than its reception by the public and the press at the outset promised; yet the number of perform- ances it has received falls short by about fifty of the number called for in Berlin the first season of its existence. Montemezzi's "L'Amore dei tre Re" also has made a considerable appeal to the opera goers, thanks largely, if not chiefly, to the revelation it made of Lucrezia Bori's winsome art as an ac- tress as well as a singer. Victor Her- bert's "Madeleine," though also well re- ceived, can hardly be placed on a level with his "Natoma," because in it he subordinated his rare gift of creating melodies to the parlando or conversa- tional style which has come into vogue since Verdi's "Falstaff." The least suc- cessful of the new productions was Char- pentier's "Julien," which even the com- bined art and popularity of Geraldine Farrar and Caruso could not save. The last of the new operas to discuss is "L'Amore Medico." Its composer, Wolf-Ferrari, is the most conspicuous victim of the "Falstaff" delusion. When Verdi wrote that opera he was nearly eighty — too old to create new melodies. To atone for that senile shortcoming, he lavished on his opera an amazing skill in part-writing, in adapting the music to the words, in weaving an or- chestral score with rare contrapuntal ingenuity. These things naturally inter- ested trained musicians, but the public lusted for the melodic fleshpots of the Egyptian "Aida," and after tasting "Fal- staff" would have no more of It. While the style of Wolf-Ferrari's first two operas, "La Sulamita" and "Ceneren- tola," is not known here, they were fol- lowed by two operas, "Le Donne Curi- ose" and "II Segreto di Susanna," which pursue the "Falstaff" method of hiding poverty of melodic invention beneath a veil of technical ingenuity and refine- ment. For this ingenuity and subtlety of craftsmanship he received from the critics a great deal of praise, but the public, because of the dearth of melo- dies, kept aloof. Now, a composer can- not live on critical praise, so Wolf-Fer- rari wrote his next work. "The Jewels of the Madonna," in the style of the neo-
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374= The 1ST a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2544 Italian blood-and-th under operas, the re- sult being that, while the critics abused him, the public became interested, be- cause, with all its vulgarity, the "Jew- els" is, at any rate, not Anaemic; there are real melodies in it. Immediately there was a demand for another opera from his pen, the result being "L'Amore Medico." Everybody who knew the story of his career wondered whether the new work would be in the style of "I Gioielli della Madonna" or in that of "Le Donne Curiose." The choice of a libretto in- dicated that it would be the latter, for "L'Amore Medico" is based on Moliere's "L'Amour Medecin," a comedietta in which the French playwright satirized the medical men of his time. Five of them (in the operatic version four) are called in to cure Lucinda, the daughter of Arnolfo, the owner of a villa near Paris. He has selfishly made up his mind to keep her always, and has shut his doors to suitors; yet she is pale and melancholy, the victim of love-sickness. Her maid, Lisetta, brings on a crisis by crying that Lucinda is dying, where- upon the four doctors are sent for. While they are quarrelling as' to the diagnosis of the girl's malady, Lisetta brings in Lucinda's lover, Clitandro, disguised as a doctor. After talking with the girl he informs the father that her illness is purely mental, a foolish notion that she must get married. To cure this malady — which may become fatal if not attended to — he advises a sham marriage by a sham notary, he himself posing as the bridegroom. Ar- nolfo is pleased with the plan; the cere- mony is performed, but by a real no- tary, and the selfish father discovers too late that he has been duped. A play like this, to be effective, must be acted with lightning speed. Music in- evitably retards the action, and unless it has great charm of its own it can only harm a play. Wolf-Ferrari's music has considerable charm, but not enough to counteract the disadvantage of un- duly expanding a joke. In "Le Donne Curiose" a similar trifle is tiresomely spread out over three hours. "L'Amore Medico" is shorter by an hour, but still one feels the retarding action of the music unpleasantly; all the more so because Wolf-Ferrari really lacks the gift of musical humor. Most disappoint- ing in this respect is the altercation of the four doctors, which might have been made most amusing. In the opera it is tame and tiresome — a great opportu- nity wasted. On listening to the overture one gets the impression that the "Meistersinger," to which there are some distinct allu- sions, would play an important part in the opera; but this is not the case. Hav- ing paid his respects to Wagner, Wolf- Ferrari calls up memories of Rossini, Mozart, Charpentier, and others. His own contributions are not Important from the point of view of invention. His workmanship is even more ingenious than in his other operas, and the or- chestration is rich and varied; but these things do not suffice to make an opera successful. The reception of "L'Amore Medico" was not enthusiastic. Henky T. Finck. The new season of grand opera at Covent Garden will extend from April 20 to July 27. The programme will contain only two items hitherto unknown in Lon- don— Montemezzi's "L'Amore dei tre Re" and Zandonai's "Francesca da Ri- mini." Art THE NEW AGITATION FOR A MIN- ISTER OF FINE ARTS. London, March 20. From time to time an outcry is heard in England — mainly in London — that art is in a sad way, and that nothing can relieve it save the immediate ap- pointment of a Minister of Fine Arts. Perhaps it is because of the present ten- dency in English politics to create for every new evil a new department, until the multiplication of officials is looked upon as the universal panacea, that the periodical demand for the new Minis- ter is now louder and more persistent than it has ever been before, and that the artists who are making it have got so far as to appoint a committee, call meetings, draw up a scheme, and go through the inevitable British formula of agitation. Altogether, there has been a good deal of talk, if less thought, though the subject is one that, if raised at all, calls for careful thinking in Eng- land, and in America, too, for that mat- ter, since America has begun to turn its fancy in the same direction. As usual, when the question is dis- cussed, France is pointed to as an ex- ample and a precedent. It does not seem to occur to anybody to ask if a measure that may serve the French is as well adapted to English needs. The French have had their Ministry of Fine Arts, or its equivalent, for a period to be reckoned in centuries. It has be- come an established and essential insti- tution of the country like the Academie or the Theatre Francais. One feels it would he as shocking a piece of vandal- ism to do away with it as to pull down the Louvre or Notre Dame. That it has proved an unmixed blessing Is open to doubt. Those who know the cathedrals and churches and castles of France, and have seen in them the traces of the passing of Viollct-le-Duc and Abadle, may well wonder if the gain has com- pensated for the loss, since they were turned into historical monuments un- der the charge of the Government. To go the rounds of the year's several salons is to wish the Government a trifle less liberal in its provision of gal- leries for current exhibitions. Nor is the Luxembourg collection a convincing proof of the Government's wisdom in its- purchase of the works of living artists. The Ministry of Fine Arts has done and still does much good, but it is not infallible, and as a rule it is for its least admirable features that it is most ad- mired by the Englishman who would have his country imitate it. This is evident in the English scheme now proposed, and in the discussions, both public and private, that have fol- lowed in its support. For the constitu- tion of the Ministry it is proposed that there should he a Minister, with a per- manent secretary and a standing ad- visory council of about eighteen, its members to serve in rotation and to be chosen from "recognized authorities" in. architecture, painting, sculpture, indus- trial art, and museums, while, curiously, one literary man, antiquary, dramatist, and musician are also to be included. For duties, the Ministry would have the care of all aesthetic matters of public interest, of the national museums and galleries, of town-designing and public monuments and "amenities," and of the acquisition and preservation of national art treasures. It is an admirable scheme on paper, but it is not difficult to fore- see what it would be in practice. Indeed, it might seem as if the members of the preparatory committee had been select- ed with a view to making this quite clear, for they are mostly the Academ- icians and representatives of the oth- er most conservative bodies in the coun- try who already have a finger in every artistic pie, and who recognize none but official art. London, in its street sculptures, in the decoration of many of its public buildings, in its approved architectural plans, already groans un- der their tyranny. The British section of almost every international exhibition is in their hands. The Chantrey collec- tion at the Tate Gallery sets their standard of modern art. There is no special reason to believe that Academicians would advise a Min- ister of Fine Arts to better purpose than their president, or that they would be more disinterested in conducting the affairs of a State Department than those of their own Academy. It is amusing to see how large a part the future Min- ister's purchase of modern works of art plays In the public discussion and pri- vate gossip on the subject. At an offi- cial function the other evening applause was lavished upon the French Govern- ment for buying and exhibiting the works of young artists, who were thus enabled to obtain commissions, a form of encouragement, it was decided, much needed in England though I ba\e an Idea thai the French Minister of Fine
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April 2, 1914I The 1ST a t i o 11 375 Arts would be more astonished than anybody to hear that his high office was used as an advertising and employ- ment agency for the unemployed artist. Privately, I have been assured more than once of the advantage to the be- ginner could his work be bought by the state, for no matter how small a price, that the wolf might be kept from his door while he struggled to produce his masterpiece — though, if this sort of ar- gument were carried out logically, the state might as reasonably be expected to print the unsalable MSS. of the lit- erary novice, or give a concert for the unrecognized musical prodigy. But log- ic is not the strong point of many sup- porters of a scheme in which they see little beyond the prospect of public grants for modern art and the chance of their coming in for a share of the spoils. In this vision of a Time of Plenty to be inaugurated by a brand-new Govern- ment department, two important, if sim- ple, facts are forgotten. One is that all the officials in the world cannot create art; the other, that art patronage is more munificent in countries like Eng- land and America, where there is no Minister of Fine Arts, than in France, where there is. The French artist, who is offered by his Government the low- est price possible for his work, would gasp with astonishment at the sums often received by the English or Ameri- can artist from national or municipal or other public authorities. I do not have to be told that the price paid for it has nothing to do with art, but it is made so much of in the present discus- sion that I should like to point out just what it amounts to in France, which is accepted as a model in these matters. There, the honor of being represented in the national or municipal collection is supposed to be the highest rate of payment the artist could desire; and the artist himself is of the same opin- ion. In England, where there is no Minister to confer the honor, the artist can still estimate his work by pounds, shillings, and pence, and for a place in the Tate Gallery, sometimes called the English Luxembourg, he has been paid prices by the Chantrey bequest that at times have become a public scandal. Nor has he to complain when his work is purchased for the large municipal collec- tions. The gaPeries of towns like Liv- erpool and Manchester, Birmingham and Bradford, show that he has not lan- guished for want of art patronage while waiting for the art patron of his ambi- tion. As for the United States, there is no country in Europe where the artist rejoices in such important public com- missions, where he is so liberally patron- ized by national and State and munici- pal authorities. In other ways art in England is cared for, even if as yet there is no appoint- ed Minister to give the initiative. Ma- chinery in the Board of Works can be set going when it is a question of that preservation of ancient buildings which is one of the special duties of the Min- ister of Fine Arts in France. If the machinery sometimes bungles, who can say that the Minister so much vaunted does not make mistakes? America has not the same machinery, but manages nevertheless to extend a protecting hand to its historical sites and monu- ments. When, in England, it is a ques- tion of international exhibitions, the Board of Trade is no less well equipped, providing in its Exhibitions Branch the necessary office and the necessary offi- cials, who, if slow and narrow, proba- bly are no slower and narrower than they would be if the department to which they consecrate their services was called by another name. Criticise the Board of Trade as you may, here really is a branch of its work that might ad- vantageously be copied, but on broader lines, at Washington, where neither our American Federation of Arts nor our National Commission of Fine Arts has, as well as I can make out, got so far as to insist that American art shall be worthily represented abroad, and to invent the methods by which this can be accomplished: the explanation, no doubt, of the cheerfulness of American artists in resigning their representa- tions, when nothing better offers, to the care of the American millionaire. It is not to be wondered that American art is scarcely known in England or on the Continent. If there is to be a Department of Fine Arts in England, or America, it would be unwise to drift into it blindfold. Its advocates naturally dwell upon the good it could achieve, and to this good I admit there would be no limit were it certain that a Minister with the intel- ligence of the great patrons of art — of Charles I in England, Philip IV in Spain, the Medici in Florence — could always be found for the office. If it were certain, then art could be left without fear to his splendid tyranny. But the true patron of art has ever been in the minority, which is why the evil that may come from a Minister of mediocre intelligence and taste should likewise be considered. Art suffers from official- ism in France, where a Ministry of Fine Arts is in sympathy with the genius of a people who respect order above all the virtues. It can easily be imagined what might happen in England or America, where such a Ministry would be, at the best, a borrowed institution. To every question there are two sides, and the possible evil should be faced as well as the possible good, or, with the establishment of the new department, art might be more hidebound by con- vention and fixed by tradition than A few days ago, London was shock- ed by the news of the outrage at the National Gallery — the attack upon the Rokeby Venus by a suffragette. Be- fore the Government begins to consider the question of a Ministry of Fine Arts, it might devote some of its attention to the proper protection of the art trea- sures it already possesses, or eventually there may be little for the new Minister to care for. The possibility of such an outrage makes it a reason for gratitude that so many of England's paintings and other works of art are passing to Amer- ica. Had it occurred abroad, all Eng- land would have been virtuously in- censed at the incompetence of the for- eign official. But, since it happened in the heart of London, under the very eyes of the British Government and the British police, it is only an unfortunate accident. How inadequate the law is to meet such a crime is explained by the magistrate's regret, in passing sen- tence, that six months was the maxi- mum he could give for damaging works of art, though for smashing a window he might have made it eighteen — a curi- ous comment upon the country's appre- ciation of art. N. N. Finance LONDON'S MARKETS AND THE "ARMY CRISIS." Nothing about the extraordinary com- plications between the British Min- istry and the British army has been more remarkable than the absence of any visible sign of apprehension on the markets. The plain facts of the situa- tion seemed to be that the officers of the army regiments in Ireland had re- fused to obey orders to move their troops into Ulster, unless they were assured as to what they would be required to do there. The ultimatum, it is true, was framed in the alternative of resignation of such officers from the army; but the number of those who took this action amounted to serving notice that the army was laying down conditions before obeying orders, and was doing so, in advance of having been ordered to do anything at all, except to guard the Gov- ernment's military stores. In any other country than Eng'and, this would have meant such insubordi- nation as would have undermined the power of the state. Occurring in Franco or Germany, the incident would almost certainly have caused a convulsion in the financial markets. At London last week's successive announcements in the army imbroglio wore greeted by a rise of half a point in consols, Monday (after a day of terrifying rumors. Sunday), by a further advance of % on Tuesday, with reaction of less than % point in the next three days, and sharp recovery at
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87G The Natio n [Vol. 98, No. 2544 this week's opening. Meantime, the gen- eral London market, on the whole, held firm, and on some days was distinctly strong. There have been several explanations of this somewhat singular reception of the news. One, which is obvious enough, is that last week's markets had been led to expect an actual outbreak of civil war in Ulster, and showed their relief when that did not take place. But last month's London markets were only mildly unsettled, and that unsettlement was chiefly ascribed to other matters than Ulster. Since the London market, despite its reaction from the high Feb- ruary prices, still retains a great part of the vigorous forward movement of January and February, the more obvi- ous explanation of last week's recovery would seem to be that Lombard Street thinks that both the civil commotion in Ulster, which it feared, and the coer- cive Home Rule legislation, which it de- tested, have been averted or blockaded by the action of the army. Whether this is a short-sighted view or not, it remains for events to show. Outside observers have certainly drawn the inference that no situation could be much more obscure and dangerous than that which has suddenly arisen; the point being made that, even if the whole question is now thrown before the peo- ple in a general election, the campaign issues will not only be Home Rule, but the subverting of army discipline and the question, always effective on the hustings, of privilege versus democ- racy. Furthermore, it would seem that nothing could alter the fact of military insubordination. Why, then, should the London Stock Exchange have retained such unmistak- able composure? Perhaps the most sat- isfactory answer is that such an occur- rence in the army causes less apprehen- sion in England than it would cause in any other country. The loyalty of the army to the civil power is not question- ed at all, in its general functions. Not only so; but England has hereto- fore been confronted with a much more alarming crisis of the sort, which it sur- mounted with unexpected success. This happened more than a century ago, but it still remains as an instructive object- lesson. The circumstances then were of the most formidable sort; they appar- ently threatened the safety of the coun- try; yet even that episode ended in character with English traditions. It was in 1797, when, with Napoleon victorious over England s ally, Austria, with a French fleet threatening Ireland, and with the English Channel fleet blockading Holland, the sailors muti- nied. At Spithead they seized the ships; at Sheerness they captured and impris- oned their officers, and the mutiny ac- tually spread to English vessels in such remote quarters of the world as Porto Rico and Cape Colony. At one time, the admiral who was conducting operations against Holland had only two ships obeying orders, and was able to deceive tne enemy only by pretending to signal from those ships to the mutinous mem- bers of the fleet. London's financial markets took a very different view of the situation from what they took last week; at the crisis of the mutiny con- sols fell to 4Ty2, as against 70% the year before, and for a time the Bank of England suspended specie payments. Yet the sequel was as remarkable and unusual as the episode itself. The spir- it of mutiny was quickly exhausted. Sailors of one squadron, who had mu- tinied against hard treatment, sent bit- er denunciations to sailors of another squadron, who had been tampered with by revolutionists. There had been real uses; the Government promised to remove them. It went so far as to promise pardon to all except the ring- leaders in the mutiny. It offered in- creased pay, recaptured the ships, and brought them into action. Under the admiral who had sent the signals from his fleet of two ships, the united fleet attacked the Dutch flotilla and anni- hilated it. > Only a few years later, the same English navy, fighting under Nel- son, won the great victory of Trafalgar. The case of the fleet in 1797 and of the army in 1914 presents few points of actual analogy; the only clear re- semblance lies in the fact that the civil power lost control. There is one curi- ous parallel, however, in the fact that on each occasion the episode occurred at a time when established ideas of things in general were being subverted by new and unusual propaganda. The theories of the French Revolution per- vaded the whole political, social, and military world in 1797. What sort of theories are pervading the world to- day and upsetting old conceptions of precedent, authority, and conduct, is manifest to everybody. BOOKS OF THE WEEK. Alden, S. C. George Hamilton Perkins, Commodore U. S. N. Houghton .Mifflin. $1.50 net. Ayscough, J. 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April 2, 1914I The Nation 377 Pier, A. S. The Women We Marry. Houghton Mifllin. $1.35 net. Pillsbury, H. G. Figures Famed in Fic- tion. Rand McNally. $1.25 net. Richter, Louise A. Chantilly in History and Art. Scribner. Riverside Literature Series: Selected English Letters. Houghton Mifflin. 25 cents net. Rolfe, W. J. A Satchel Guide to Europe. Houghton Mifflin. 75 cents net. Seymour, St. John D. Irish Witchcraft and Demonology. Baltimore: Norman, Remington. $1.65 net. Sheehan, M. B. K. Parliamentary Law and Rules of Procedure. 6th edition. Chicago: Browne & Howell. 75 cents net. Sheldon, Charles M. Jesus Is Here. Do- ran. $1.25 net. Sinclair, B. W. North of Fifty-three. Little, Brown. $1.35 net. Smith, Sybil. The Tree of Knowledge. Oxford University Press. Soane, E. B. Grammar of the Kurdish Language. London : Luzac. Swedenborg. The Path of Life. Lippin- cott Taussig, F. W. The Tariff History of the United States. New edition. Put- nam. $1.75 net. 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April 9, 1914] The Nation 111 Appletons JVetv Hoofe of General Interest Forty Years of It By Brand Whitlock, Formerly Mayor of Toledo, Now Minister to Belgium. $1.50 net. Postage extra. This is the intimate personal account of Mr, Whitlock's experiences throughout his political career as one of the most progres- sive leaders of democracy in the Middle West. He has known intimately such men as Gov- ernor Altgeld, Tom Johnson, "Golden Rule" Jones. His reminiscences contain not only the important phases of their careers as po- litical leaders, but he brings out many new and interesting facts concerning their daily life, presenting a new picture of these unusual personalities. "A book to be read and re-read because of the human-ness of the biographer and the men he puts into it." — The N. T. Evening Sun. Hail and Farewell — Vale By George Moore, Author of "Evelyn Innes," etc. $1.75 net. Postage extra. Ready April 17. At, last the long-looked-for and final vol- ume in George Moore's autobiographical tril- ogy is ready. In it Mr. Moore reviews his entire life, beginning with incidents of child- hood, and continuing with characteristic com- ments upon Ireland In the seventies, remin- iscences of the London stage, of his life in Paris, of his relations with the prominent men and women of the time, of his love af- fairs, of his views on art, literature, the drama, and of his final return to the land of his birth. "The literature of autobiography," says The Dial, "can show nothing to match this trilogy of George Moore's." Beating Back By AL JENNINGS and WILL IRWIN. Illustrated ivith drawings by CHARLES M. RUSSELL, and with photographs. $1.50 net. Postage extra. For several years Al Jennings headed one of the most desperate gangs of train robbers that ever infested the Southwest. This is the account of his life as a train robber, hater of all law and order, his imprisonment and pardon; and the final determination to "beat it back and make good" of the man who is now a candidate for the nomination for Governor of Oklahoma. Within Prison Walls By THOMAS MOTT OSBORNE. $1.50 net. Postage extra. Ready in May. This book contains an absolutely faithful account of the experiences of the author as a voluntary exile in Auburn Prison. It states the reasons for making the experiment and studying prison conditions from within instead of without, and it Is a sympathetic document full of humor and pathos, unusual revelations, and sug- gestive of needed improvements. Love and the Soul Maker By MARY AUSTIN, Author of "The Land of Little Rain." $1.50 net. Postage extra. Ready in May. An able study of the rights, privileges, and relationships of men and women, and of marriage in its rela- tion to the problems of modern society. Norman Hapgood, editor of Harper's Weekly, says: "It seems to express with wonderful charm, insight, and clearness the very essence of the feminist movement." The Life of St. Augustin By LOUIS BERTRAND. Cloth, gilt top, uncut edges. $3.00 net. Postage extra. A brilliant account not only of the vital personality of St. Augustin, but also of the times in which he lived. The book is packed full of information so interesting as to make the life of St. Augustin seem more fascin- ating than fiction. Psychology in Daily Life By CARL EMIL SEASHORE, Professor of Psychology and Dean of the Graduate College, University of Iowa. $1.50 net. Postage extra. A clear, non-technical interpretation of the relation of psychology to everyday affairs. It offers an excellent method for cultivating a good memory and for obtaining the maximum mental and physical efficiency. "It may easily become as fascinating as a novel." — The Epworth Herald. Chemistry in America By EDGAR FAHS SMITH, Ph.D., Provost of the University of Pennsylvania. With illustrations. $2.50 net. Postage extra. The history of the progress and achievements In one of the most useful sciences In this country. Compiled, in response to an urgent demand, by one of the greatest chemists of the present day. The work includes many of the real treasures of the science which hitherto have not been accessible. D. APPLETON & COMPANY, Publishers 35 W. 32d Street New York
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IV The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2545 SPRING PUBLICATIONS HARPER & BROTHERS H. G. Wells's SOCIAL FORCES IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA Being a Series of Unrestrained Remarks upon Contemporary Matters This new book of essays by H. G. "Wells contains, as be says himself, "a fairly complete view of all my opinions. It is practically all my miscellaneous writings for tbe last four or five years, edited and drawn together into an effective whole." He discusses divorce, motherhood, schoolmasters, and doctors; diagnoses the political disease of our times; speculates upon the future of the American people; considers a possible setback to our civilization, which he finds menaced by panics and war. But neither does England escape his warnings. Crown, Hvo. $2.00 net. 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April 9, 1914] The Nation v Only Two Weeks Remain of Our Great Closing- Out Sale on account of discontinuance of 23d St. Store. Hereafter our retail business will be con- centrated in the Putnam Building, 45th St. just West of 5th Ave., where our Publishing Offices are established, and where for three years we have operated the new Retail Store. We aim at selling out the entire huge stock of this completely equipped book store. Never before in 78 years of retail bookselling have we offered books at such prices. Shrewd buyers have realized this wonderful opportunity, and we have been shipping orders to all parts of the country to book lovers who appreciate that such a chance may never occur again. From many correspondents come letters expressing delight and surprise at the great values they have received in their purchases. IW Readers of the Nation will find it worth while to give serious attention to this sale. Come to the store if you can. 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April 9, 1914] The Nation VJl 135 Elm Street New Haven, Conn. PARTIAL SPRING LIST YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 225 Fifth Avenue New York City THE HISTORY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE." By Caillard Hunt The work is unique, the first and only history of the department to be written by an expert. 8vo. Cloth binding. 300 pages. Price, $2.00 net; carriage extra. 'MEMORIALS OF EMINENT YALE MEN." By Amon Phelps Slopes, Secretary of Yale University A Biographical Study of Student Life during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. A storehouse of valuable and interesting biographical and historical facts. The vital influence of university environment on character is shown with unusual clearness. Library edition. Cloth binding. Cili top. Royal quarto. 2 volumes, about 350 pages each. Boxed, per set, $10.00 net; carriage extra. Particulars as to Limited Edition on request. "THE FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF NUTRITION." By Graham Lusk, M.D. This expert calculation of the food or fuel demanded by the human machine is a practical remedy for the high cost of living. \2mo. Cloth binding. 62 pages. Index. Price, 50 cents; postage, 4 cents extra. "THE MENTAL HEALTH OF THE SCHOOL CHILD: THE PSYCHO -EDUCATIONAL CLINIC IN RELATION TO CHILD WELFARE." By J. E. Wallace IVallin. Ph.D. Professor of Clinical Psychology and Director of Psycho-Educational Clinic School of Education, University of Pittsburgh. \2mo. Cloth binding. 300 pages. Price, $1.75 net; carriage extra. "UNIVERSITY SERMONS." By Henry Sloane Coffin, D.D. Sermons preached before thirteen of the leading college congregations of the Easl. l2mo. Cloth binding. 280 pages. Price, $1.50 net; carriage extra. "CHRISTIANITY OLD AND NEW." By Benjamin Wisner Bacon, D.D., LL.D. Proposed Reconstructions Viewed in the Light of Historic Development. An answer to recent critics of Christianity. \2mo. Cloth binding. 150 pages. Price, $1.00 net; carriage extra. "TRADE MORALS, THEIR ORIGIN, GROWTH AND PROVINCE." By Edward D. Page (Page Lectures) A study of the origin of moral principles with especial application to the business problems of to-day. 8vo. Cloth binding. Cilt top, 200 pages. Price, $1.50 net; carriage extra. "WRITINGS ON AMERICAN HISTORY, 1912." Compiled by Grace Gardner Griffin A bibliography prepared by an experienced and competent compiler. Imperial 8vo. Cloth binding. 180 pages. Index. Price, $2.00 net; carriage extra. "STUDIES IN TAXATION UNDER JOHN AND HENRY III." By Sidney K. Mitchell, Ph.D. Yale Historical Publications. Vol. II in Studies. 8vo. Cloth binding. 405 pages. Price, $2.00 net; carriage extra. "THE COLONISING ACTIVITIES OF THE ENGLISH PURITANS." By Arthur Percival Newton Yale Historical Publications. Vol. I in Miscellany. An interesting account of a Puritan Colony hitherto almost unknown. 8vo. Cloth binding. 343 pages. Price, $2.50 net; carriage extra. "VOYAGE AUX ETATS-UNIS, DE L'AMERIQUE, 1793-1798." By Moreau de Saint-Mery. Edited with an Introduction by Stewart L. Mims. Yale Historical Publications. Vol. II in Manuscripts and Edited Texts. The diary of a distinguished author who was one-time king of France during three days. 8vo. Board binding. 380 pages. Index. Price, $2.50 net; carriage extra. "LIFE AND LETTERS OF NATHAN SMITH." By Emily A. Smith The biography of a surgeon of genius, better known as the founder of three medical schools, one of them at Yale. Crotvn 8vo. Half Leather. Cilt top. In slip case. 179 pages. 26 Illustrations. Price, $2.25 net; postage, 18 cents extra. "A SELECTION OF LATIN VERSE." By the Latin Faculty of Williams College An anthology of the best in Latin verse chosen for college use. Cloth binding. 133 pages. Price, 75 cents net; carriage extra. "THE INFLUENCE OF ISOCRATES ON CICERO, DIONYSIUS AND ARISTIDES." By Harry M. Hubbell A background for Latin class-room study. 8vo. Board binding. 72 pages. Price, $1.25 net; carriage extra. "OUR MANY-SIDED NAVY." By Robert W. Neeser, author of "A Landsman's Log." A brilliant account of the multiform activity of a man-of-war crew afloat and ashore. 8vo. Cloth binding. Cilt top. 218 pages. 40 illustrations. Map. Index. Price, $2.50 net; carriage extra.
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Vlll The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2545 " The YALE REVIEW is not a Yale University review^.but an Ameri- can review. More even than an American review, it is a cosmopolitan review, and that of the highest order . . . ." — Westminster Gazette {London). Literature in the April Yale Review The New American Quarterly Edited by Wilbur L. Cross The Personality of Tagore, by Basanta Koomar Roy. An intimate appreciation by a fellow-countryman; new informa- tion on the career and aim of the most striking personality in Eastern literature and hitherto untranslated poems. Stephen Crane as I Knew Him, by Hamlin Garland. A vivid portrait of a great writer who died young. The German Theatre of To-day, by Julius Petersen. A survey of what Germany is doing on the stage by a German critic. The American Novel, by Robert Herrick. A continuation of the brilliant criticism of American fiction which has already attracted wide attention from critics and readers. "Within two years, the YALE REVIEW has proved a clear title to rank with The Atlantic Month- ly and The North American Re- view as one of the three leading American magazines which com- bine sound and serious qualities with breadth and variety of ap- peal."— Springfield Republican. "The YALE REVIEW has taken a place immediately among the magazines to be reckoned with. Already this review has acquired an individual tone, which may perhaps best be described as the result of an attempt to emphasize the relation between the 'human- ities' and the national life of to- day."— Philadelphia Press. Other Contributions for April: WOMAN AND SOCIALISM Vida D. Scudder THE FEDERAL RESERVE ACT OF 1913 0. M. W. Sprague ASH WEDNESDAY John Erskine THE HANDICAP OF THE TROPICS Ellsworth Huntington RURAL CO-OPERATION Edward M. Chapman AN ANATOLIAN JOURNEY Helen McAfee THE SERIOUS PEPYS Wilbur C. Abbott BOOK REVIEWS. 75 cents a copy at leading Book- sellers, or the Yale Publishing Association, New Haven, Conn. OR The April number free with a year's subscrip- tion, beginning with next issue
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April 9, 19 14] The Nation IX THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING CO.'S NEW BOOKS NIETZSCHE, and other Exponents of Individualism. By Paul Carus "A two-fold purpose is served by this book, — a study of philosophical anarchism and an interpretation of Nietzsche." — Brooklyn Eagle. "A brilliant refutation of the mad philosopher's doctrine." — Toronto Globe. "This exposition of Nietzsche's life and philosophy is probably both truthful and fair, and as nearly just as any that can be made." — Chicago Daily News. Cloth, 150 pages, $1.00 net. THE SYSTEM OF THE VEDANTA. By Dr. Paul Deussen. Authorized translation by Charles Johnston. There are two opposed views concerning the nature of the soul represented respectively by the Vedanta and Buddhism. Professor Deussen, who is both a phi- losopher and a most prominent Sanskrit scholar, has devoted his life to the affirmative phase, — the Vedanta — and in this great work he has collected all pertinent material. It will be important for psychologists, stu- dents of religion and philosophers. Cloth, gilt top, 514 pages, $3.00 net. ALGEBRA OF LOGIC. By Louis Couturat. Au- thorized translation by L. G. Robinson; with a preface by Philip E. B. Jourdain, of Cam- bridge. "Couturat's treatise is fitted to serve as an introduction to the study of mathematical logic. Mr. Jourdain's preface is of an historical character and gives a very thorough account of the development of the subject and the various phases of it especially emphasized by each of its different representatives." Cloth, 98 pages, $1.50. RADICAL VIEWS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. By Dr. G. A. von der Bergh van Eysinga. Translated from the Dutch by S. B. Slack, M.A. This concise work takes up the question of the histor- icity of the gospels without dogmatic bias, and states very sharply the difference between so-called liberal Christianity and thoroughgoing scientific method in dealing with historical values in the stories of the gospels. Cloth, $1.00 net. A HISTORY OF JAPANESE MATHEMATICS. By David Eugene Smith and Yoshio Mikami. The scientific attainments of Japan during the past four centuries is one of the marvels of history. This book will show to the West the nature of mathematics indig- enous to Japan and serve to strengthen the bonds that unite the scholars of the world. The book is full of very interesting material even for the non-mathematical reader. Illustrated, cloth, 300 pages, $3.00 net. THE PRINCIPLE OF RELATIVITY, in the Light of the Philosophy of Science. By Paul Carus. The author recognizes the correctness of the Principle of Relativity, but criticises the exaggerated statements which have done much to confuse students and to mys- tify the reading public. Cloth, 165 pages, $1.00. THE MECHANISTIC PRINCIPLE AND THE NON-MECHANICAL. By Paul Carus. The truth of the mechanistic principle is here unreserv- edly acknowledged in this little book, without any equivocation or limitation, and it is pointed out that the laws of mechanics apply without exception to all motions; but they do not apply to things that are not motions. The essential feature of all higher organic life is the appearance of purpose, and the task which the au- thor sets himself is a careful investigation of the prob- lem how purpose is possible in a mechanically regulated world. Cloth, 123 pages, $1.00. PROBLEMS OF SCIENCE. By Federigo En- riques. Authorized translation by Katharine Royce; with an introduction by Josiah Royce. The author is professor of projective geometry and geo- metric drawing in the University of Bologna, and one of the most conspicuous of contemporary Italian scientists. Cloth, 375 pages, $2.50 net. A NEW LOGIC. By Charles Mercier, Physician for Mental Diseases at Charing Cross Hospital, London; also Examiner in Psychology in the University of London. It was as an introduction to the study of insanity that the author was first moved to examine logic. He holds the doctrine that, in mental disorder, as in bodily dis- order, the study of order is an indispensable preliminary to the study of disorder; the study of the normal should always precede the study of the morbid. Cloth, 422 pages, $3.00. By Lawrence H. Mills, Professor of Zend OUR OWN RELIGION IN ANCIENT PERSIA. Philology, Oxford University, England. These lectures, delivered in Oxford, present the Zend A vesta as collated with the Pre-Christian exilic Pharisaism, advancing the Persian question to the foremost position in our Biblical research. "Dr. Mills is at home with the religious books of ancient Persia and India. He brings skill and learning to his task, and takes delight in revealing the treasures hidden so long to many about the relation of the Jews to Persia, and the influence of Zoroastrianism on the Jews and their faith."— Chicago Daily News. Cloth, 200 pages, $3.00 net. Our new complete Catalogue and samples of our magazines "The Monist" and "The Open Court" sent free on request The OPEN COURT PUBLISHING CO., 122 S.Michigan Ave., CHICAGO
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April 9, 1914] The Natio 11 XI HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1914 PUBLICATIONS IN PRESS The Works of Vitruvius Translated by the late M. H. MOR- <;\\, Professor of Classical Phil ologj In Harvard University, and edited by Professor A. A. HOW- ARD and Professor H. L. ■WARREN of Harvard Univer- sity An illustrated translation of a treatise Which bee exercised a great Influence mi t ] • « - classical tradition in architecture. The Evolution of the Eng- lish Corn Market from the Twelfth to the Eigh- teenth Century By N. S. B. GRAS, Assistant Pro- fessor of History in Clark Uni- versity. Harvard Economic Stud- ies, Vol. XI. An Investigation of the develop- ment of the market area. An Approach to Business Problems By A. W. SHAW, Lecturer on Commercial Organization in Har- vard University. A concise, comprehensive state- ment of a scientific way to ap- proach business problems by the edi- tor of "System." Scientific Management Edited by C. B. 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Xll The Nation (Vol. 98, No. 2545 Selections from Mr. HENRI BERGSON Dreams An Explanation of the Mechanism of Dreaming Authorized edition, with introduction by the translator, Edwin E. Slosson, Ph.D. From Joseph, in the Old Testament, to Freud, in Vienna, thinkers of all ages have interpreted dreams. It is not strange that Bergson, the most popular philosopher of the day, should give deep thought to the subject. In this brilliant essay on the causes and significance of dreams, he expresses the belief that the principal task of psychology in the twentieth century will be to explore the secret depths of the unconscious and predicts that wonderful discoveries — as important as those in the physical and natural sci- ences— will be made. Boards; boc. net; postage extra. HEINRICH HEINE Ana Troll Translated by Herman Scheffauer; introduction by Dr Oscar Levy; illustrations by Willy Pogdny Of this universally applicable satire Brunetiere wrote, "Lyric poetry in its most personal and subjective form and satire in its most mordant and ironical phase have never been more closely united nor more indissolubly and inde- structibly welded into an harmonious whole than in this work Atta Troll. Like Gulliver's Travels, it is unique of its class." Board sides, parchment back, $1.25, net; postage extra. Complete list B. W. Huebsch, Publisher, Huebsch's spring list GERHART HAUPTMANN Dramatic Works Edited by Ludwig Lewisohn Three of the seven plays contained in the volumes now presented have not hitherto been translated. The four that are already known alone would make these volumes equal in importance to any in the series. Special attention is directed to Henry of Au'e, a poetic drama worthy of the author of The Sunken Bell. 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Stillman. 950 copies, Fcap 8vo. 75 cents net Reprinted from the revised London edition of 1007 by kind permission of Mrs. W. J. Stillman. Ill Books and the Quiet Life: Being Some Pages from The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft By George Gissing. 950 copies, Fcap 8vo. 75 cents net Since the days of Lamb and Ilazlitt and Leigh Hunt, no more sympathetic aud fine- ly expressed thoughts of a devout book- lover have been set to paper than those now reprinted in this exquisite little vol- ume. All books sent postpaid on receipt of price net THOMAS B. PORTLAND MOSHER MAINE AUTOGRAPHS BOUGHT AND SOLD Catalogue of 4485 Titles Free GOODSPEED'S BOOK SHOP BOSTON IMPERIAL GERMANY Tim STORY. Hi'' its DBVBLOPMENT, By Prince BERNHARD von BULOW. I 1 lhancellor of n»' & CO., Publishers, m »v voiih.
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April 9, 1 914] The Nation IKlll Notable Issues on The Century Co.'s Spring List Coming April 11. THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE By ROLAND G. USHER, Ph.D., author of "Pan-Germanism," etc. a philosophical Interpretation of American rui life f unique Interest :>n0 net. EDUCATIONAL Character Development By Charles Kean Taylor, B.S., M.A. A manual for the use of parents, teachers, and all interested in education, by the director of the experiment in moral education in the Philadelphia public schools, containing detailed plans for the carrying out of a complete system of moral education. Mr. Taylor brings In thf entire moral field, considering the morality that should govern men as citizens, as workers, and as private Individuals. 12mo. Cloth. 242 pages. $1.00 net. Physical Examination and Training of Children r.i (Jharlet Ksom Taylor, B.8., MA. A handbook for me. Heal Inspectors, physical directors, teachers, and parents, trivin^ In min- ute detail the physical training work outlined In Character Itfvclopmint . It Is very much more than a book of exercises, and makes the whole subject of physical examination and training so simple that even the teacher without any pre- vious experience can follow It. ttmo. Cloth. Illustrated. $1.00 net. At all booksellers, or from the publishers Publishers THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY Philadelphia
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XIV The ]NT a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2545 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY'S IMPORTANT SPRING BOOKS Confederate Portraits By Gamaliel Bradford This new volume does for a group of the more important Confederate leaders what Mr. Bradford's "Lee the American" did for their great commander. The men studied are Johnston, Stuart, Longstreet, Beauregard, Benjamin, Stephens, Toombs, Semmes. Each is dealt with from the fullest study of documents and other records, but with a biographic imagination and human insight that make the resulting portraits thoroughly convincing. The volume ends with a fine chapter on Gettysburg, which draws into a single dramatic climax the lives of the men whose careers furnish the substance of the book. Illustrated. $2.50 net. Postage extra. Volunteer Help For Schools By Ella Lyman Cabot This monograph illustrates and classifies some typical examples of valuable volunteer service to our public schools. It will suggest to the amateur how to give help and to school authorities how to make the best use of this practical interest in the schools. 60 cents net. Postpaid. WHAT MEN LIVE BY By Dr. Richard C. Cabot "Such writing, because it sets be- fore the reader in a fresh and enter- taining way beliefs and truths hith- erto but vaguely held, must be rich- ly inspirational in its effect." — Bos- ton Transcript. $1.50 net. Postage extra. The Social Emergency By William T. Foster Assisted by Specialists A frank, sympathetic, and whole- some treatment of the serious prob- lem of training the youth of our land to think intelligently and act rightly in the complex social relations that confronts them. $1.35 net. The Americans in the Philippines By James A. LeRoy Hon. William H. Taft says: "Nowhere can a clearer and more judicial statement be found than in these chapters which Mr. LeRoy, who had really given up his life for the Philippines, was able to complete. There will be differences of opinion with Mr. LeRoy's conclusions, but what makes his work so valuable is that he states the evidence on both sides of controversial issues, and while he draws his own inferences, he ad- duces the sources of his information and states the evidence on both sides in such a way as to enable the reader to exercise his judgment, and affirm, or differ from, the conclusion of the author. I sincerely hope that the work may have the circulation that it deserves as a real contribution to the history of a people whose fate is now so much bound up with that of the people of the United States." 2 vols. $10.00 net. Carriage extra. The U. S. Internal Tax History from 1861-1871 By Harry Edwin Smith a study of the internal-revenue history of the United States during the Civil War period, including, under internal revenues, not only excise taxes, but also direct, income, and inheritance taxes. $1.00 net. Postage extra. Memoirs of Youth By Giovanni Visconti Venosta Translated by Rev. William Prall. With an Introduction by William Roscoe Thayer. These memoirs, now translated, represent the aristocratic attitude among the patriotic Italians, and give a personal and vivid ac- count of the abuses of Austrian and clerical rule; of the outbreaks of 1848-50, their fail- ure and cruel repressions. Illustrated. $4.00 net. Pottage extra. EMERSON'S JOURNALS NOW COMPLETE A Noteworthy Record of Fifty Years in the Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Edited by Edward W. Emerson and Waldo Emerson Forbes In 10 volumes. Illustrated. Each, $1.75 net. Postage extra. A Child of the Orient By Demetra Vaka A fascinating autobiographical story of the early life of a Greek girl in Constantinople. It has the exotic, Arabian Nights flavor of the same author's "Haremlik," with an even keener, more consecutive narra- tive interest. $1.25 net. Postage extra. Elizabeth and Mary Stuart By Frank A. Mumby Mr. Mumby, author of those very interesting and successful books, "The Girlhood of Queen Elizabeth" and "The Youth of Henry VIII," tells, in the actual correspondence of the chief characters, the story of that bitter and yet romantic feud between Queen Elizabeth and her rival Mary Queen of Scots. $3.00 net. Postage extra. South Africa By A. Wyatt Tilby This final volume in the English People Overseas series covers the history of the English immigration to the Cape, The Founding of Natal, The Great Trek, The Founding of Rhodesia, The South African War, and it concludes with an account of the Union of South Africa (1906-10). Large crown Bvo. $1.50 net Postage Extra. BOSTON HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY NEW YORK 'I
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The Nation. HEW YORK, THURSDAY, APRIL 9, 1914. Summary of the News The outstanding feature of the strug- gle in Mexico last week was the capture of 'I', ii i eon by the rebels. Gen. Villa and his army entered the city on the night Of April 2, after a battle which had last- ed almost without interruption for six days. Gen. Velasco and the remains of the Federal army retreated to the South, pursued by Villa. The exact extent and effect of the rebel victory even now is difficult to gauge. If it was as complete as Villa and Carranza protest, it gives the C ii utionalists control over the whole of the states of Northern Mexico. On the other hand, Huerta has continued to issue denials of the rebel victory, and on Tuesday it was reported that Gen. Velas- co had an army of 5,000 men with him when he evacuated Torreon, and was cal- culating on effecting a junction with 4,000 Federal troops who were dispatched as reinforcements from San Pedro de Las Colonias on Saturday. The two armies, It was said, would then combine in at- tempting the recapture of Torreon. Gen. Carranza's official explanation of the murder of Benton was made public on Monday. According to this explanation, Benton was not killed by Villa, but by a rebel major in whose charge he had been remanded as a prisoner, and the tale of the court-martial was a pure fabrication. The Mexican Congress, which had been adjourned since December 9, last year, reconvened on April 1. Gen. Huerta read a long and optimistic message, in which he alluded to "the strange attitude of a certain Power towards Mexico." The Sims bill to repeal the exemption clause in the Panama Canal Tolls bill went to the Senate on April 1. It is impossible to prophesy when the bill will come to a vote, and a closely contest- ed fight is expected. President Wilson, however, declares his confidence that the repeal will be passed. Secretary Daniels issued an order on Monday, to become effective on July 1, prohibiting the use or introduction of al- coholic liquor upon any vessel of the navy or within the confines of any navy yard or shore station. Commanding of- ficers are made personally responsible for the enforcement of the order, and its practical effect will be to impose to- tal abstinence on officers of the navy. The appointment of Major-Gen. Woth- erspoon to be Chief of Staff of the Army, succeeding Major-Gen. Leonard Wood, whose term expires on April 21, was an- nounced on April 1. Congressman Oscar W. Underwood was nominated on Tuesday for the long-term United States Senatorship in the Ala- bama State primaries. As the nomination at the primaries is tantamount to elec- tion, Mr. Underwood will commence his term as United States Senator on March 4, 1915. Indications are that Mr. Under- wood's place as leader of the Democratic party in the House will be taken by Rep- resentative Kitchin, of North Carolina. Senator Theodore E. Burton, of Ohio, announced on Monday that he should not seek reelection to the United States Sen- ate after the expiration of his term next March. Among the reasons that he gave for his decision was the possible embar- rassment of his candidature to the Re- publican party in Ohio, on account of his support of the repeal of the free tolls pro- vision in the Panama Canal Tolls act. The selection of the twelve Federal reserve cities, in accordance with the terms of the Banking and Currency law, enacted last December, was announced on April 2. A list of the cities named and comment on the selection will be found in our editorial pages. News came on April 1 of a disaster to the crew of the sealing ship Newfound- land. On March 31, 160 of her crew had been sent on the ice floes, in search of seals, and were prevented by a bliz- zard which lasted for forty-eight hours from reaching their ship again. Other ships in the neighborhood sent rescue parties on the floes as soon as the blizzard ceased, and took off the dead and the survivors. On Saturday the Bella- venture reached St. John's, N. F., bring- ing seventy-seven bodies and 112 sur- vivors. Another sealing-ship, the South- ern Cross, with a crew of 173, has also been missing since the blizzard, and hope that she may have survived has almost been abandoned. It is understood that the Newfoundland herself is safe. Mr. Asquith's vigorous action in as- suming charge of the War Office and of- fering himself for reelection from his constituency of East Fife seems to have had a marked effect in restoring the prestige of the Government and the unity of the coalition. The suggestion of a federal system for the entire United Kingdom, outlined last week by Sir Ed- ward Grey, has been on the whole re- ceived favorably, although it can, of course, offer no solution of the imme- diate problem of Irish Home Rule. On April 1 Mr. McKenna made a statement in the House of Commons showing that Gen. Paget was instructed only to find out from commanding officers in Ireland whether they were prepared to perform their duties, and that there was no inten- tion that subordinate officers should be consulted. On the same day the appoint- ment of Gen. Sir Charles Douglas as Chief of Staff, in succession to Field- Marshal Sir John French, was an- nounced. On Monday the second read- ing of the Home Rule bill was passed for the third time in the House of Com- mons by a majority of eighty. In the course of the debate Mr. Bonar Law reiterated the Unionist request for a gen- eral election, guaranteeing that, if the Home Rule bill was approved by the country, the House of Lords would pass it without amendment The Parliamentary commission appoint- ed after the murder of M. Calmette to investigate the circumstances attending the postponement of the trial of Henri Rochette issued its report on April 1. The commission holds that pressure brought to bear by M. Monis, who was Premier at the time, at the request of M. Caillaux, was responsible for the post- ponement of the trial, and, while acquit- ting both M. Monis and M. Caillaux of any charge of corruption, adds the com- ment that "their actions constitute a de- plorable abuse of influence." The report was adopted in the Chamber on April 3, with a declaration of regret that finances as well as politics should be in- termingled with the administration of justice. The legislative programme announced last week by Signor Salandra, the new Italian Premier, was approved on Sat- urday in the Chamber of Deputies, not- withstanding the combined opposition of Socialists and Radicals, by a vote of 302 to 122. The Chamber then adjourned until May 6. Signor Salandra's pro- gramme includes the introduction of financial measures to meet the expenses of the recent war in Tripoli, and calls for a further amount of $40,000,000 neces- sitated by raising the peace footing of the Italian army to 275,000 men, in ad- dition to colonial troops. Italy's foreign policy, the Premier announced, would re- main unchanged. Early in his reign, King William of Albania is faced with trouble in his king- dom. Greek irregulars last week attack- ed the town of Koritza, in Epirus, and there has been severe fighting. The of- ficial explanation given out from Athens is that the trouble is due to the "insur- gent" Greeks of Epirus, who are revolt- ing against the decision of the Powers to include Koritza in the Albanian kingdom. A levy has been ordered in Albania for the suppression of the revolt. Viscount Kiyoura, who accepted the Japanese Premiership last week, has found the task of forming a Cabinet im- possible. On account of the naval scan- dals which brought about the fall of the Yamamoto Ministry, disinclination was exhibited to accept the portfolio of Min- ister of Marine, and the question was complicated by the demand that the new Minister should be a sailor. Vice-Admlral Kato was offered the portfolio, but de- clined it. The Premier was also in dif- ficulties on account of the failure of the last Ministry to pass the naval budget, and the consequent demand that he au- thorize the advance of credits for the construction of warships, relying on Parliament to endorse them later. The failure of Viscount Kiyoura has produced an acute crisis. The deaths of the week include: Paul Heyse, Robert Elrschfeld, Commo- dore George L. Dyer, April 2; Susanna Ibsen, April 3; Frederick Weyerhaeuser, April 4; Thomas Ryan, April 5; Cy War- man, April 7.
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880 T li e Natio n [Vol. 98, No. 2545 The Week [f President Wilson, In this matter oi Panama tolls, has scuttled the Mon- roe Doctrine and sold out to a foreign Power, he is not the only contemporary American statesman of high rank who has laid himself open to the charge of high treason. Here, for instance, is a book by no less a personage than the President of the Argentine Republic, in which the Monroe Doctrine is described as absurd and capricious and sneered at as the "guttapercha Doctrine." The Ar- gentine President is welcome, of course, to his opinion, but can we overlook the fact that about the time the book was probably written Col. Roosevelt was in Buenos Ayres openly lending aid and comfort to the idea that the Monroe Doctrine is not all that it is cracked up to be? When the degree of doctor of laws was conferred on Col. Roosevelt at Buenos Ayres last November, an ex-For- eign Minister of Argentina delivered an address, in the course of which he as- serted that Argentina did not accept the protection of the Monroe Doctrine, and Col. Roosevelt in his reply admitted that Argentina did not need it. Doesn't that come pretty close to high treason, as Mr. Champ Clark sees it? And will Mr. Hearst, when he moves the impeach- ment of Mr. Wilson, include the Colonel as an accessory of some kind or other? Friends of the President who are in- censed by the cheap criticism to which he has been subjected in Congress are making a mistake in talking hastily about rules and procedures for safe- guarding Mr. Wilson against insult. There are presiding officers in both Houses of Congress to keep debate with- in the bounds of decency. No set rule will prevent a Congressman who is driven by the irresistible impulse of his own nature to make an ass of himself, from satisfying that longing. Such ex- hibitions defeat themselves. Between the manly opposition of an Underwood and the wild-eyed accusations of a Knowland, the average citizen is quite able to draw the distinction. Irritating it may be for the President's friends, and possibly for Mr. Wilson himself, to have his personal motives aspersed by lurid orators, but they do little harm. Usually, such rough-and-tumble exhibi- tions deserve no notice. When a reply is called for, we feel sure that Mr. Wil- son is fully able to supply it. We are not sure but that something worth while would have gone from our political life if the time-honored war-dance on the floor of Congress were to be suppressed. A drop of eleven million dollars in the expenditure for war pensions is no small saving, and it might be supposed that it would be highly appreciated; and yet we fail to see any marked expres- sion of satisfaction with it on the part of those who are in the habit of com- plaining of the swollen pension figures. But the reason is that, as the New York World puts it, "so far as Congress can prevent it, the country need expect lit- tle relief." The Spanish War list is getting ready to fill the gap made by the dying off of the Civil War veterans, so far as possible; the process of pro- gressive loosening of the purse-strings in that direction has already begun. But the story of our war pensions is inter- esting nowadays as a "pointer" in a wider field. Some thirty-five years ago, when the Civil War pensions footed up about $30,000,000, Gen. Garfield stated that they might from that time forth be expected to go down; as a matter of fact, they have kept steadily swelling, almost without interruption, and have for years been at about five times the figure which Gen. Garfield thought was the apex from which there was bound to be a steady descent. Now, the question that naturally suggests itself is this: if the war veterans and their friends have been able to impose this sort or* policy upon Congress, what would be the prob- able course of events under a general system of old-age pensions, in the mag- nifying of which a large part of the whole population would have a keen pe- cuniary interest? Mr. Underwood's success in the Ala- bama Senatorial primary on Monday is to be hailed for more than personal or party reasons. It is a welcome sign of the times. It carries with it a certain reassurance in regard to the whole ex- periment of electing Senators directly by popular vote, to which this country is now committed. Of course, Senatorial primaries have for some time been the rule in most of the Southern States. There have been some notable contests, not all of which — as, for example, the one in which Vardaman triumphed in Mississippi — have given unmixed com- fort to those who like to believe that the peop'e never make mistakes. But no previous struggle of the sort has so filled and fixed the gaze of the nation as this one between Underwood and Hobson. If Hobson had won, every wordy and empty demagogue in the land would have thanked God and taken cour- age; while those who have been appre- hensive lest the direct election of Sen- ators degrade the Senate would have seen their worst fears verified. And no one should think that Hob- son's defeat was foregone. He has been making a dead set at the Senatorship for full two years. From his duties in the House he has almost constantly absented himself in order to nurse the Alabama voters. In campaigning he has been indefatigable, and was really a formidable opponent for Mr. Under- wood to face. He had a large personal following, many qualities that take with the crowd, and a glittering programme. But Mr. Underwood never stooped to meet Hobson on his own ground. He went before the people simply for what he was — a Representative who had made a national reputation for himself as a steady and sagacious leader of his party in the House; not a showy man; not a clamorous speaker; but a man of tried character and solid qualities. And the people preferred him to his reckless and flighty opponent. It is a result hearten- ing all round. Those who would charge Congress with extravagance will have to look else- where than to the legislative, executive, and judicial appropriation bill just re- ported to the House. The sacred pen- sion office is made a target for the economists: 175 employees are dropped, including 10 principal and 45 special ex- aminers, and a reorganization of cer- tain departments of the office recom- mended with a view to eliminating use- less work. Other offices suffer a less drastic pruning, so that, even with a proposed addition of 77 employees to the new Washington post office and 22 to the Department of Labor, there is a net saving of 141 salaries. Republican at- tack upon a few positions created by the bill, such as four messengers for the Committee on Post Offices, is encouraged by the reappearance of the provision
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April 9, 1 9 14] The Nation 881 substituting actual travelling expenses for the historic twenty cents a mile, which Congressmen now enjoy. There is no telling what may happen to the bill in its course through the House, but what stands out is evidence of a new kind of care in preparing an appropria- tion bill, so that it shall be comprehen- sive and self-explanatory. The number of Congressmen put into the same box of self-contradiction as Senator O'Gorman on the question of party platform integrity was greatly in- creased by the vote on Saturday on the "mileage grab." The proposal of the Committee on Appropriations to econo- mize was defeated 2 to 1. What was more, the united parties added insult to injury, from the standpoint of those who hoped for retrenchment, by voting them- selves an extra provision of $132,000 a year for secretarial salaries. Is it pos- sible that a Congress which has grown so heated in discussion of the binding nature of a party pledge could forget the Republican pledge last June "to secure greater economy and increased efficien- cy in the conduct of Government busi- ness"; the Democratic demand for "a return to that simplicity and economy which befits a Democratic Government," and the Progressive promise of a "read- justment of the business methods of the national Government . . . which will increase the economy and eniciency of the Government service"? Many would have had party planks override every consideration of conscience. Yet the high question of conscience here per- tained to the maintenance of the 20-cent mileage rate which dates from the out- worn days of the stage-coach, and con- stitutes a virtual inequality in the sala- ries of near and distant members. the loss from animal diseases should interest students of the cost of living. They include items of $75,000,000 from hog cholera, $85,000,000 from Texas fever, tuberculosis, and contagious abor- tion in cattle; nearly $10,000,000 from diseases of sheep, and $8,750,000 from poultry disease; and reach a total of $212,850,000. The total loss is obvious- ly not represented by these figures, inas- much as the various epidemics have plainly discouraged farmers and stock- men from prosecuting so precarious a business. The fund shouid not merely help the administration of known spe- cifics and preventives, but in the case of diseases not fully understood command a more expert and thoroughly scientific investigation than agricultural officials and the State universities can carry on. Comments on Mr. Rockefeller's gift of $1,000,000 for the war against ani- mal disease have properly emphasized its humanitarian aspect, but on tne eco- nomic side it is no less significant as the first great private contribution to such a work. Congress has of necessity paid annual attention to the subject, and it is only a few weeks since $500,000 was appropriated for the eradication of hog cholera, with lesser sums for other diseases. In view of the outcry over the decrease in food production, the fig- ures of the Agricultural Department on A magnificent prospect is opened up to the vision of New Yorkers by the an- nouncement of a plan for the erection in that city of a group of museums de- voted to the various arts of peace. An Association for that purpose has been incorporated, and the list of the direc- tors and incorporators includes a num- ber of leading citizens. Their purpose appears to be twofold. One object is to furnish opportunities for direct ac- quaintance with the various develop- ments of the industrial, commercial, and other useful arts, to those specifically interested in one or another of them. The other is to stimulate popular inter- est and enlightenment in all these fields and also to supply a great and attrac- tive centre of public resort. From this last standpoint the idea that has been put forward, of grouping the buildings around one centre, "preferably around a stadium that will include a great en- closure for public meetings," is of the utmost interest. Over and above all the special benefits that might flow from the use of the particular museums, a score of dignified public buildings, grouped around a space of this kind, would exercise an immeasurable elevat- ing influence on the civic spirit of the community. The scheme is an ambi- tious one, and we do not know what the probabilities are of the raising of the requisite funds; but it is one which, if properly carried out, would abundantly justify the cost, and which must make a peculiar appeal to those men of wealth who have also civic imagination and high public spirit. Another theatrical manager has come out against indecent plays, and the whole mess of sexual sensationalism on the stage, against which, he declares, a reaction is already in full swing. This is merely confirmatory of other similar signs of the wholesome change of view. The thing was certain to provoke re- volt, if only through sheer satiety. It is all very well, as a curiosity, to take a theatre-full of people on a trip through the sewers, but to ask them to stay there indefinitely! It is an experiment which has been tried over and over again, in literature and in the drama, but has always failed. The public ap- pears to want many strange things for a time, but one thing which it will in- sist upon getting, in the end, is a breath of pure air. To look for an immediate reformation or elevation of the Ameri- can stage would be foolish, but it is at least a satisfaction to know that we are in a fair way to get rid, as the Eliza- bethan stage did, of "foul and unwashed bawdry." The women's clubs of Arkansas are to be called upon to take a leading part in obtaining, by means of the initiative, an advanced child-labor law for that State. The bill is based upon the uni- form child-labor law which was drafted four years ago by the American Bar As- sociation, and its adoption will, accord- ing to H. H. Jones, special agent of the National Child Labor Committee, put Arkansas "in high rank with the States in the Union having the best child-la- bor laws." If we may judge from the tone of an article on the subject in the Arkansas Gazette, the prospects of the legislation ought to be good. "The pres- ent child-law in Arkansas is nothing," says the writer of this article. "Every bit of vitality in it is destroyed by ex- emptions. For all practical purposes it is as bad as the laws in Carolina, Georgia, or Alabama, which are a dis- grace to the nation." Nor is this by any means an unwonted expression; we are continually encountering just such lan- guage on the subject in the newspapers of the States that are backward in the matter of child-labor laws and their en- forcement. The progress actually made in the past few years, and the signs of genuine awakening which forecast pro- gress in the near future, are alike en- couraging. Certainly no such condition exists as would justify a great extension
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3S2 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2545 of Federal power, of a sort full of tlio menace of indefinite extension In other directions, In order to cope with it. A marked increase in Canadian crime during several years past rouses the Dominion press to comments, both puz- zled and Indignant. In 1912, out of every 100,000 Canadians, 208 were con- victed of indictable offences; and the total convictions for all offences, indict- able or petty, rose from 113,260 in 1911 to 146,527, an increase of 29 per cent Yet it is denied that laws are more strict, while to the Montreal Gazette "it does not seem that the greater activity of the police can be given as a reason." It concludes that "the general result has to be ascribed to a falling away from rectitude by so considerable a part of the population that the standard is in danger of being lowered." The great increase in arrests for drunkenness, from 41,000 to 53,000, is to be noted both in itself and as helping explain the total of 15,567 found guilty of really serious offences. But the whole show- ing is not so damaging but that it is ex- plicable by immigration and the ill-de- veloped character of the country. The alien-born figure to an undue extent, as do the newly settled regions, east and west. "Many of the newcomers," the Gazette remarks, "come to do rough work in rough places, and under rough treatment develop rough ways. This is to be remembered, both tor the sake of the foreigner and of the native-born." But to trace crime to rough conditions is only to push the problem one step back. At the Ottawa Social Service Con- gress the other day appeared the foun- der of a system of rural credit societies which now numbers 120 organizations in Quebec and 19 in Ontario. They are, of course, cooperative, and, like the Raif- feisen and Schulze-Delitzsch credit unions of Europe, provide short-time loans on personal credit. Each branch "is an association of individuals who put their savings in a common fund, and who can borrow from that fund, with the approval of the officers, upon relia- ble securities, material and moral. The vote is by member, not by share; the area of operation must be small, a town- ship or parish, so that the members are mutually known; and the capital must be withdrawable, for the individual can- not afford to immobilize his small sav- ings." The parent society, typical of all, has assets of $270,000, of which $240,000 are on loan, and completely cares for the financial needs of its own commu- nity. Though it has made 6,650 loans in its fourteen years' history, it has not lost a cent. Despite beginnings in Wis- consin and the Northwest, America can show nothing like this; although, as the Yale Review has just remarked, the student cannot cease to wonder at our tardiness. Though the Unionists in the House of Commons cheered on Monday when the majority on the second reading of the Home Rule bill fell to 80, it is evident that they were as men thankful for small mercies. The drop in the vote is explicable, and the coalition Govern- ment stands in virtually its full strength. And it is plain, too, that the events of the past few days, with the steady march of the Home Rule bill towards the statute book, have taken a good deal of hope and fight out of the Conservatives. Their speeches on Mon- day— even that of Sir Edward Carson — were much less bellicose. Bonar Law went so far as to say that he should be glad to reopen negotiations with Mr. Asquith for a' settlement of the Irish question by consent. All this is in a very different tone from the one held by the Unionists two weeks ago. Then they were triumphantly talking of hav- ing wrecked the Home Rule bill and the Government at one stroke. The Tory Morning Post was so indiscreet as to say: "The Army has killed the Home Rule bill." It was Mr. Asquith's prompt meeting of that issue, together with the signs of immense popular revolt against the assumption of the Unionists that the Army was their private property, which brought about the revulsion of feeling and the present dispirited con- dition of the Conservative party. The French general elections which take place next month can hardly fail to be affected by the disclosures atten- dant upon the murder of the editor of Figaro. Thus we have the report of the parliamentary commission which has been Investigating the question of Min- isterial responsibility for the delay of justice in the Rochette case. The re- port asserts that M. Monis, head of the Cabinet at the time the case against Rochette was prosecuted, was mainly responsible for the suspension of pro- ceedings against the notorious swindler. M. Monis is supposed to have acted un- der pressure from M. Caillaux, making two former Prime Ministers under sus- picion, and a third ex-Prime Minister, Briand, is now censured for his reluc- tance to further justice in an earlier investigation of the Rochette affair. The most that the investigating commis- sion can say in defence of these states- men is that their intervention did not bring about an absolute quashing of the case against Rochette; but inasmuch as the latter Is now a fugitive, this is small consolation. "A deplorable abuse of in- fluence"— in these terms the report char- acterizes the action of the Ministers in- volved. What the motives were, the country is left to decide for itself. In next month's elections these motives are pretty sure to be brought to the fore by anti-Governmental candidates. Within South Africa there is intense resentment at the high-handed measures of the Government during the recent strike, culminating in the deportation of the labor leaders. Anti-Government sen- timent in the Transvaal spoke out dur- ing the recent elections of members of the Provincial Council, when the Labor party swept the Rand by extraordinary majorities. Out of twenty-five seats In the Johannesburg and Pretoria districts the Laborites carried twenty-three, thus obtaining an absolute majority in the Provincial Council with control of the provincial executive. Under the Com- monwealth Constitution the local legis- latures in the former colonies have been abolished, but the Provincial Councils set up in their place exercise consider- able powers in the field of local finance, education, agriculture, municipal gov- ernment, and public works. Thus the Labor party in the Transvaal Is now in a position to retaliate upon the Fed- eral Ministry and the rural population, whose intervention In behalf of the Government brought about the speedy collapse of the railway strike. Should the Transvaal Government come into sharp conflict with the Commonwealth authorities, the abolition of the Pro- vincial Councils, already discussed, may become a live issue.
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April 9, 1914] The Nation THE FEDER LL RESERVE DISTRICTS When Congress, in enacting the new Banking and Currency law last Septem- ber, provided that "as soon as practi- cable, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Agriculture, and the Con- troller of the Currency, acting as the Reserve Bank Organization Committee, shall designate not less than eight nor more than twelve cities to be known as Federal reserve cities" — each to con- tain the regional central bank for its own allotted district — it was recognized that probabilities favored selection of the larger number. When the bill was first discussed, an even more numerous body of independent institutions of the sort was contemplated. The House bill, as proposed and passed, named twelve. The Democratic report of the Senate Banking Committee cut the number down to eight; the Republican report to four; but as the bill passed the Senate, it provided for a maximum of twelve and a minimum of eight, and in that form passed the Conference Committee. The plan for the more numerous dis- tricts seemed to be favored, mainly on the ground that predominance of any single district would thereby be avoided. The rather obvious fallacy in this argu- ment lay in the fact that the smaller the average area and banking resources of the districts as a whole, the greater would inevitably be the predominance of such districts as included in their ter- ritory the great business cities. This has apparently been felt by the organ- ization committee, and has led to some arbitrary division of territory on lines hardly warranted by actual financial and commercial affiliations. This will inevitably subject their arrangements to much criticism. The twelve reserve cities, announced last week by the organization commit- tee, are Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Richmond, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Dallas (Texas), and San Francisco. The committee say that their choice was based on the ability of banks in a given district to subscribe the necessary capi- tal for their regional central hank; on the "mercantile, industrial, and finan- cial connections existing in each dis- trict"; on the probable usefulness of a regional bank to serve such district; on the "fair and equitable division" of the banking capital available in the several districts; on their "general geographical situation," and on the "population, area, and prevalent business activities of the district." To such a programme there can be little theoretical objection. The danger was that the various purposes thus assigned might be found to be mutually incompatible, and this difficul- ty, it seems to us, the organization board has failed rather signally to avert. The selection of Richmond, for exam- ple, as a reserve bank centre, is diffi- cult to explain on any of the grounds of selection set forth by the organizers; in order to make sure of the requisite banking resources, it has been necessary to include in its district such parts of the adjacent territory as Maryland and South Carolina, which will scarcely be described as normally in the Virginian capital's sphere of influence. The desig- nation of Cleveland as the financial cen- tre of Ohio, western Pennsylvania, and eastern Kentucky is perplexing in view of the commercial affiliations of Cincin- nati. There were forcible arguments in behalf of regional banks at Boston and Philadelphia, and it was generally ex- pected that the district to be served by the New York Federal reserve bank would not include all of what is now this city's actual field of commercial affiliations, since that would have given a quite overshadowing power of bank- ing resources to the district. But that cities so intimately bound up with New York banking connections as Jersey City and Newark should have been placed in another district certainly does not con- form to the committee's rule for recog- nition of "mercantile, industrial, and financial connections existing in each district and the relations between the various portions of the district and the city selected for the location of the Fed- eral reserve bank." There may be good reason why Dallas, Texas, was selected in place of Galveston or New Orleans as the banking centre of the Southwest- ern cotton belt, but it is difficult to dis- cover it at a glance. We shall await some more definite explanation by the committee of these particular policies; merely expressing, for the present, our regret that the se- lections should not have been such as to bring out the cordial approval of the business community as the best that could have been done, under the assump- tion that twelve districts were to be the basis of the system. Meantime, it should always be remembered that, even when an arrangement of this sort is not what practical experience would have sug- gested, it does not follow that it will threaten the usefulness of the system itself. That the machinery for redis- count will not work as effectively under the proposed plan of districts as might have been expected if the natural busi- ness affiliations of all the cities of the United States had been considered, can- not well be doubted. There will never- theless remain the fact that the banks and the banking resources of each dis- trict will still be combined for co- operation and mutual protection. So long as this end is cordially and disin- terestedly pursued by all banks of a dis- trict, the regional bank should be able to do its service, irrespective of loca- tion. Nor, on the other hand, must it be forgotten that the new banking sys- tem, while it supplements the existing relations of banks in one city or section with the business of another, does not either abolish or supersede those rela- tions. COASTWISE-TRAFFIC INSINCERI- TIES. Opponents of the repeal of the tolls- exemption clause of the Panama act have several arrows in their quiver. Their main argument is simplicity it- self. The Canal is American and Amer- icans can do with it whatever they please. If you don't agree to that you are a traitor. Thus the eminent Bourke Cockran asserted in Boston the other night that President Wilson had "ap- proached the domain of treason." If you timidly ask these shouting patriots about the agreement we made in the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, they will tell you, first, that they have their own in- terpretation of that, and that, anyhow, it was a bad bargain and is therefore "voidable." Besides, the treaty does not apply to American coastwise vessels. This is their main tower of strength, in which they make their stand when driv- en from other positions. And they have two chief contentions — they are present- ed so clamorously thai it is hard to call them arguments. The first is that the exemption of coastwise traffic from tolls at Panama was designed to be a blow at the rail- ways, and that, consequently, anybody who seeks to repeal it must be in the
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384 T h e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2545 pay of tho railways. Dire pictures are drawn of the transcontinental roads, with oppressive freight 'charges, seeing the threat of a formidable competition from free ships via the Canal, and plot- ting to undo the work of Congress. So the cry is that every dollar you compel coastwise vessels to pay in tolls is, in effect, handed over to the railways. Ap- parently, none of these excited gentle- men stop to ask who owns the coast- wise vessels. What will they say when informed that most of these ships are owned and operated by railways? The facts are of record. A report recently made by Congressman Alexander, Chair- man of the Committee on Merchant Ma- rine and Fisheries, said that 94 per cent, of all our coastwise shipping, on the At- lantic and in the Gulf, is owned by rail- ways or by combinations in alliance •with railways. How it is on the Pa- cific, we do not know, but everybody knows that the Southern Pacific has a fleet there. And other striking evidence was brought forward in the debate last week. Under the Panama act, railways owning ships are required to make a re- turn to the Interstate Commerce Com- mission showing what boats they have and whether these compete with their transportation on land. Congressman Sims obtained the whole docket and had it printed in the Congressional Record. The exhibit was such as to warrant him in asserting that the chief "beneficiar- ies" of the coastwise traffic exemption would be "largely the railroads on both coasts." The other side did not chal- lenge these figures. So much for the outcry about President Wilson and all who favor repeal being secretly in the pay of the railways! In addition to this clap-trap, those opposed to repeal have one argument, as bearing on coastwise traffic, of really •serious tenor. It consists of the state- ment that Great Britain has yielded the point. Senator O'Gorman has sev- eral times referred to the fact that the British Embassy at Washington admit- ted to the Department of State that the exemption of our coastwise traffic from tolls would not be a violation of the treaty. Let us ask what the facts are. It is true that in the British protest made in 1912 it was stated that there might not be objection to exempting coastwise traffic, provided — and this was ■the point — that it was bona-fide. Now, the slightest examination of what it is proposed to do, and what would infalli- bly be done, under the tolls-exemption clause, shows that the coastwise traffic would be converted into what is, for all intents and purposes, foreign traffic. President Wilson's antagonists concede that we have not the right, under the treaty, to exempt our ships engaged in foreign commerce. Yet they are ready to exempt nominally coastwise vessels that would actually be engaged in for- eign commerce. How this would be is shown in the April North American Review by the chief expert on Canal transportation, Prof. Emory R. Johnson. He sets forth the case with great directness and con- creteness. Our coastwise ships would take from New York to San Francisco goods destined for the Oriental mar- ket. They would pay no tolls at Pan- ama. A ship bringing similar goods from Liverpool or Bremen or Havre, with a similar destination, would have to pay tolls. Is this not a plain case of that "discrimination" which the na- tion solemnly bound itself never to per- mit? The reverse sailing is just as sig- nificant. Vessels from Seattle, laden with goods brought from the Orient, could carry to New York free of tolls goods brought from the Orient, though ships carrying such goods direct from the Orient or Australia would have to pay for transit through the Canal. The discrimination is glaring, and serves to show what the British note meant when it spoke of "bona-fide" coastwise traffic. Professor Johnson proves that much of ours through the Canal would not be of this character. His general conclu- sion is: The coastwise tolls-exemption clause of the Panama Canal act grants an unjus- tifiable subsidy. The taxpayers of the country who have paid for the Panama Canal are entitled to receive reasonable tolls from the individuals and corpora- tions who use the canal and derive profit therefrom. When the general public clearly understands what is involved in exempting the owners and charterers of coastwise ships from toll payments, it seems certain that the Canal act of Au- gust 24, 1912, must be amended by strik- ing out the tolls-exemption clause. There is, happily, evidence that the general understanding of which Profes- sor Johnson speaks is being brought to bear upon the controversy. Washington dispatches report a marked rallying ot public opinion in support of the posi- tion which the President has taken. MR. A8QUITS. The rapidly shifting events of the past two weeks in England have thrust Mr. Asquith to the front of the stage. He has shown a somewhat unexpected ability to cope with an appalling politi- cal crisis, displaying both adroitness and high courage. It was with a good sense for the dramatic, too, as well as with great boldness, that he announced his decision to grasp the nettle firmly. There had been vacillation and weak- ness in the administration of the War Office. He would take it over himself. But as this step required him, under the statute of Anne, having accepted an of- fice of profit under the Crown, to seek reelection to Parliament, he would ab- sent himself until his constituents in Fife had passed upon his conduct. The Prime Minister would not take advan- tage, as Mr. Gladstone did in 1873, of the legal doubt whether he was com- pelled to resign. He would make a clean job of it. Not one taunt would he leave within the reach of his opponents. Cut- ting through the Cabinet difficulty with one masterly stroke, Mr. Asquith walked out of the House amid the frantic ap- plause of his own party and the visible consternation of the other. It was a crowded hour of glorious life for him. He seemed to have risen to a more heroic stature than ever before in his career. Whether this be drawing to a close or not, Mr. Asquith is to-day not only of- ficially, but by actual political power, the most influential man in England. It is a position to which he has risen slow- ly. His talents have never been of the showy kind. Nor is his an emotional nature. He has been thought a cold man, if not a trifle selfish; a formidable debater, a very instrument of precision in logic, but not a statesman of popular qualities. Sometimes, however, your slow and cool man breaks out in a kind of volcanic passion and glow. Mr. As- quith has done something of the kind more than once before. His opponents have found out that there was such a thing as goading the reserved and pa- tient man too far. But never until he rose to meet the present crisis had Mr. Asquith flamed before the country as a man in whom parliamentary skill was united with daring resolution. His earliest successes were won at the bar. After taking a first-class at
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April 9, 1914] The Nation 385 Oxford, he applied himself to the law, and rapidly rose to eminence. Before he was forty, he was associated with Sir Charles Russell In defence of Mr. Parnell. This recalls the opinion of him which Parnell expressed to Barry O'Brien in 1891. They were discussing various English statesmen as possible successors to Gladstone, with particular reference to Home Rule. The following dialogue took place: I said: "Well, there is Asquith. He is a coining man. Some people say he may be the Liberal leader of the future." Parnell: "Yes, Mr. Asquith is a com- ing man, a very clever man; but [look- ing me straight in the face] do you think Mr. Asquith is very keen about Home Rule? Do you think that he will risk anything for Home Rule? Mr. Asquith won't trouble about Home Rule, take my word for that." This may sound laughable, in view of the length to which Mr. Asquith has since gone in behalf of Ireland, but there was some truth in Parnell's judg- ment of him. He was not heart-whole with Mr. Gladstone on Home Rule. Similarly, during the Boer War, he was not willing to follow the Liberal lead- er, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. It was this detached and somewhat fas- tidious air which the Irish leader ac- curately noted in the Asquith of those days, and which made it seem impos- sible that he could long maintain him- self at the head of the Liberal party, after Bannerman's death. But Mr. As- quith has now been Prime Minister for six years. There have been many grum- blings against his leadership, but no one has risen within the party to con- test it. To have held together a coali- tion Government so long is no mean feat. And while Mr. Asquith has not been a man to stir up excitement un- necessarily, and prefers to go along with the humdrum work of government unemotionally, he has shown a latent capacity to rise high at critical hours. He did so when the Lords threw out the budget, and also in the stress of passing the Parliament Act to clip the veto power of the House of Lords, meet- ing defiance with cool demonstration, and opposing to threats the firm exer- cise of constitutional power. If It be said that he rose on the monumental blunders and follies of the Conserva- tives, the reply is that to seize the skirts of circumstance in that way is the mark of genius in politics as well as in war. One of Mr. Asquith's titles to distinc- tion is that, in an age of verbosity, he is sparing of speech. He is a master of lucid condensation. He seldom speaks over half an hour. Recently he made a speech on the land question, of which Lloyd George said that the Prime Minister had said more in three-quar- ters of an hour than he himself had been able to say in three speeches of two hours each. But it is with grim realities that Mr. Asquith now has to deal. It is a singular coincidence that in his case the circle has swung full, inasmuch as his first notable act as a member of the Cabinet, when Home Sec- retary under Mr. Gladstone in 1892, was to order the troops to fire on riotous strikers. This was said at the time, so opposed was it to English ideas of the use of the army, to make it impossible that he should ever be Prime Minister. Now that he is, and is confronted with disaffection in the army, as well as open defiance of the law in Ulster, it is to be expected that he will stand firmly for the supremacy of the civil power over the military, as well as for the use of all the resources of the Government in putting down disorder. THE NAVY AND DRINKING. If it were possible to add to Secre- tary Daniels's unpopularity in the navy, his amendment of the regulations so as to prohibit the use or introduction of alcoholic liquors upon any naval vessel or reservation would do the work. But in this instance the unpopularity would not be deserved, in our opinion. Mr. Dan- iels's action is taken on the advice of the Surgeon-General; more than that, we have never been able to see why, if it is proper to forbid the use of intoxi- cants by the enlisted men of the service, the officers, supposed to be their exem- plars, should be a privileged class. It is far more important from the point of view of navigating battleships that the officers should be sober than the men; and if railways and other large corporations are justified in dismissing men responsible for other people's lives because they use liquor, even though they do not abuse it, the Government certainly has the right to insist that its officers shall be abstainers when serv- ing on ships or at navy yards. Elsewhere they may, of course, do as they please, provided they do not disgrace them- selves and cause scandal. How far we have progressed from the earliest days of our own navy, and the period of which Marryat wrote, a casual retrospect will show. Once it was deem- ed absolutely essential for the British or American naval officer to become drunk, and this he was encouraged to do, provid- ed he got drunk in a "genteel" manner. As late as the fifties — indeed, down to the Civil War — grog was not only serv- ed to all the sailors, but all hands were expected to get drunk whenever shore leave was granted. In foreign ports, in the early part of the last century, im- morality was also encouraged by the custom of the service; gradually, how- ever, dissolute women were banished from our ships, and when, on Septem- ber 1, 1862, the spirit ration was discon- tinued by Secretary Welles, there was little complaint, particularly as the navy was then at war. Many a prom- ising naval officer's career was ruined by his turning to drink when on lonely stations. The late Commodore George H. Perkins made a three-year cruise to the West Coast of. Africa, which ended with the outbreak of the Rebellion. Of his three commanding officers, one died of delirium tremens, and one was court- martialled for being drunk all the time and sent home in disgrace. Rear-Ad- miral Franklin thus told in his memoirs of taking a ship to sea in 1860: The crew was hustled on board, and we were obliged to take care of them as best we could. Of course, Jackie was drunk — he always gets drunk on such occasions, or, I should rather say, he did in those days — and as we had no or- ganization whatever, Lieut. Somerville Nicholson and I were obliged to or- ganize ourselves into a police force. We were compelled to rush In amongst a crowd of drunken sailors and drag out until we succeeded finally in restoring order. It is impossible to conceive of a ship's putting to sea nowadays with so much as a fraction of her crew in this con- dition. Yet such designation was not confined to the sailors. On receiving a startling bill from a contractor for one of his monitors when the Civil War was half over, John Ericsson's secretary made the following inquiry: Capt Ericaaon directs me to ask you to inform him if, of your own knowle., 156 bottles of spirituous liquors were consumed by the guests invited to be present during said trial trip, if the above quantity of liquor was really con- sumed, the occasion looks more like a bacchanalian feast than a trial trip of a small gunboat. Capt Kricsson desires to be informed if the trial of the vessel
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38G ri i T li e N a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2545 was really made the occasion of such a disgraceful feast before settling the bill, course as does the man-of-war without grog and the cat-o'-nine-tails. Even when it was the custom to use liquors to excess, there were always some officers who attempted with more or less zeal to set an example of tem- perance. The late Rear-Admiral Am- men was fond of humorously describ- ing the downfall of a temperance so- ciety on board the Vandalia in 1838, which finally succumbed to the tempta- tions of bread pudding and whiskey sauce. But there were fine officers, like Commodore Matthew C. Perry, who did achieve some success. Thanks largely to him, the serving of the spirit ration to minors was abolished August 29, 1842. He hated the flogging of the men —a custom the navy gave up as re- luctantly as the wine messes of to-day will surrender to Secretary Daniels — because he found that in nearly every case it was due originally to the abuse of liquor by the poor wretch who was flogged. Because of his personal influ- ence, many of the sailors and officers of the Concord voluntarily gave up the grog ration when he commanded her in the Mediterranean in 1832. In the navy to-day, it will, we think, hardly be alleged that there is much intemperance. Dismissals for in- toxication do occur, one such is impend- ing now — not only for personal miscon- duct, hut for serving intoxicants to en- listed men as well; yet there is wide- spread belief that the reins of discipline could well be tighter in this respect. The trouble is that the navy officers are ex- pected to entertain freely, wherever they may be, particularly if in company with foreign men-of-war. It may hereafter be embarrassing to our officers when entertaining those of other services to be able to offer no wine. To our minds, this is far less vital than the removal from our young officers of the tempta- tion to excess. Moreover, foreigners, when they are told that the absence of wine is due to a governmental or- der, will not only understand, but will respect a nation that can take so bold a stand. If the German Emperor can deny himself all spirits and encourage his officers to abstain totally in a beer-drink- ing country like his, our Govern- ment can take the position it has. Twenty years hence, if upheld by suc- ceeding Secretaries, the wineless man- of-war will seem as much a matter of THE YACHTING OUTLOOK. The launching on Thursday of last week of Mr. Robert E. Tod's racing schooner, Katoura, is soon to be follow- ed by that of the three America's Cup defenders — and we shall then be at the beginning of what bids fair to be a memorable yacht-racing season. There are to be no less than twenty-five races between the defenders, exclusive of those in connection with the New York Yacht Club's cruise, the first races tak- ing place on June 2, 3, and 4, while the actual trials will occur in the mid- dle of August. This will make royal sport in itself, aside from the interna- tional contests, for not since 1893 have there been as many as three designers represented in the trials. Mr. Gardner, who has planned Vanitie — a charming name for what should be a powerful boat — and Mr. Herreshoff, with his Reso- lute, are to measure their known pow- ers against a newcomer in the field of large boats — Mr. George Owen, whose Defiance is his first big craft. Mr. Gard- ner's success with Atlantic, the cham- pion ocean-racing schooner, and with such sloops as Medora, Gardenia, and smaller boats like Windward and Iron- dequoit, makes him a natural competi- tor of Mr. Herreshoff. The phenomenal achievements of two small boats from Mr. Owen's board would seem to proph- esy a fine racer in Defiance. In one respect, Mr. Herreshoff will be at a disadvantage this year. Charles Barr will not be at the helm of his boat. Indeed, there are those who be- lieve that it was owing to Barr's rare skill alone that the older Columbia de- feated the Constitution for the honor of meeting Lipton's boat in 1901. This year an amateur, Charles Francis Adams, 2d, whose yachting standing is of the highest, will sail the Herreshoff boat, with Barr's veteran mate, Chris- tiansen, at his elbow. Mr. Cochran has selected a skilled American schooner- sailor, Dennie, to handle Vanitie, with Harry Haff as his assistant; and the captain of Defiance is also an experi- enced American, William Howell. The old charge that America has to import a Scotchman to retain the Cup will not. hold if a Yankee boat goes to the front this year. But what Is still more sig- nificant is that these new racers are, un- like their predecessors, something else than racing machines. Owing to the so-called uniform rule under which all racing boats of the Eastern seaboard have been constructed since 1905, they will be substantial craft, capable of be- ing raced at comparatively small ex- pense long after this coming season is over. It is true, of course, that their crews will not live on board of tnem; that they must have tenders to act as houseboats for the men, and that they are without bulkheads, doors, galley-fit- tings, or water-tanks. None the less, as compared with the Reliance and Inde- pendence type of craft, they are to be a remarkably sane and wholesome trio. This is what makes the promise of the coming season so great for the whole sport. Everybody knows that the Co- lumbia, Reliance, and Constitution were responsible for a multitude of freakish small vessels, from catboats up. A whole generation of yachtsmen sailed round in craft of a kind to make a real sailorman weep. It was only gradually that there was a recovery from this in the direction of solidly and soundly built boats that could be caught out and stay out in half a gale and survive with- out giving their crews heart disease. Last year there was a notable reaction from the auxiliary type towards purely sail-driven boats — there were actually more new sailing boats under construc- tion twelve months ago than to-day. This tendency will be still further stim- ulated by the big racers of 1914, for the uniform rule favors displacement while penalizing excessive sail area, which means better boats and better sailors. In other words, this year's defenders have sharp ends and deeper and fuller under-water bodies, as opposed to freak- ish fin keels and long overhangs. It is a healthy development for which the true yachtsman is devoutly thankful. Aside from the defenders, there should be good sport if there are to be brushes between Atlantic and the new Katoura. The indefatigable Mr. Cochran, not con- tent with Vanitie and a steam yacht, is also building a three-masted schooner, which suggests an ocean race for this class before long. That the regular Sound regattas will be even more crowd- ed than last year is obvious, while the proposed revival of the Mackinac race indicates that the Lake yachtsmen will not be behind their Eastern friends in
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April 9, 1914] The ]NT a t i o 11 387 making this a memorable year. What better proof could there be than all this, that, however useful the internal-com- bustion engine, the real "windjammer" is with us to stay? Or that there are regular cycles of enthusiasm for wind- driven boats, with almost fixed periods of waning and waxing? In the motor-boat world, also, it is interesting to note, there is a reaction against mere speed machines and an in- crease in popularity of stanch craft. Here, too, the desire is for a reliable and safe cruiser, one that does not roll itself almost over whenever there is a little sea, and compel the skipper to run for port at the beginning of a real storm. SPRING GOLF PHILOSOPHY. ers are well known to be among tost Incurable philosophers, wheth- er of the laughing or the weeping genus d( pends upon temperament — or the way • me has gone that day. Jaundiced critics, to be sure, allege that the end- less golf discussions which go on in the clubhouse, and which make some en- thusiasts a terror to their families and Mends, are merely the drivel of vacant minds. But this* is to do wrong to a deserving if not always appreciated (lass of men. They will tell you sin- cerely that they value golf almost less as a pleasure and beneficial recreation, than as a tonic to the moral nature and a stimulus to the reasoning faculties. No need to ask the inveterate golfer, "Hast any philosophy in thee, shep- herd?" He is full of it. No event of the round, no mischance, no lucky ac- cident, no dazzling success or over- whelming failure, but he can extract from it the sweet milk of philosophy. In doing what he wants he will see deep meaning; but a significance even more profound will he detect in not be- ing able to do it. This is what most strikes one about what may be called the spring philoso- phy of golf. In this latitude, the great majority of golfers are compelled to give up their game during two or three months of winter. A few struggle daunt- lessly over the bleak links, but even they have had to put their clubs away, hereabouts, since the middle of Febru- ary. A foot of snow and no greens made the attempt to play mere bravado. But does anybody imagine that this period of enforced rest makes the true golfing mind less active? Quite otherwise; it has furnished a new topic for debate. Is such a rest good for your game? High debate on this question has been held wherever golfers most do congregate. Abstract theory, experience, the inner consciousness, all have been searched in order to discover weighty reasons for and against. There are two great schools of thought on this important matter. One holds that it is an excellent thing to give up golf for three months in the year. Then you emerge in the spring with fresh zest and briskness. The game will never have seemed so enjoy- able. With eye glued to the ball and muscles working easily, you play better than ever, and come to understand for the first time what the political econo- mists mean by "the reward of abstin- ence." Thinkers of this school urge the powerful argument from nature. She comes out all the brighter and more in- spiring after the winter rest; why not the golfer? Moreover, there are wise saws and modern instances to be cited. Some tine players make a point of rest- ing on their clubs, so to speak, even when they are not compelled to by win- 1 and bad weather. In England, one tan usually play the entire year through, it so minded. Yet the two men who have most often won the amateur cham- pionship, Mr. John Ball and Mr. Harold Hilton, seldom play in the winter. If they find that they come out in the spring fit and eager for the fray, why should not Topper and Sheer do the same? The rival school of severe golf philoso- phers will tell you why. In the first place, the game is an exacting mistress, really demanding all of your time. When you cannot hope to reach your ideal of play without giving undivided attention, week in and week out, to every one of its minute details, why keep up the miserable pretence that a period of hi- bernation will do you good? As a mat- ter of fact, you know what happens tt> you in the first few rounds of spring. You are either muscle-bound or flabby as a rag. You can't keep your head down to save your life. All the faults which >ou had toiled painfully through the summer to eradicate come rushing back, with a lot of new ones in their train, to make your game one to fill even your caddie with despair. The truth is, ac- cording to the doctrine of this school of philosophy, that golf demands as many laborious days as can possibly be ap- plied to it. Every one lost is as hope- lessly gone as the snowfiake in the burn. Of course, the deprivation must be borne with as manful a spirit as may be sum- moned to meet this or any other calam- ity in life, but, for goodness sake, do not try to make people believe that you like it, or that it can possibly do you any good. Thus do these golf philoso- phers refuse to distil out the soul of goodness in those things evil, the three months of enforced absence from the links. With the doctors of the game thus dis- agreeing, it would be rash for a mere writer to attempt to decide. If the whole dispute is left in the twilight zone, no great harm will be done; for then the golfing ratiocinators will only discuss it the longer, in wanderingi mazes lost. And it is certain that, whatever their premises, and whatever their reasoning, they will make the praise and glory of golf come out in the conclusion. We note only one point. The controversy seems to be largely between the Intui- tionists and the Pragmatists. But it will be observed that Mr. Rockefeller, our greatest Pragmatist in golf as in some other things, promptly left the snow-submerged links at Pocantieo and took a special train to Florida. 0, si .sir innnra! Foreign Correspondence THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN ENG- LAND—THE KING AND THE ARMY. London, March 29. "This is a wonderful Government," says the sarcastic Mr. Bonar Law. In- deed it is. At three o'clock on the after- noon of March 25 it appeared sick unto death, and its best friends gave it only a few hours to live. By six o'clock the same evening it had regained a more robust health than it had known for years. The Prime Minister's repudiation of Cabinet responsibility for any bargain- ins with the Curragh mutineers revolu- tionized the whole situation. It saved his Ministry from immediate extinction, and the democratic cause from a long period of internal discord and resultant help- lessness. The blunders and confusions of the last few days can be traced in large measure to two or three causes. One is the lack of clear thinking on the Union- ist side — in Parliament and the press as well as in the army — as to what is meant by "the coercion of Ulster." There has been no coherent idea as to the nature of any possible coercion, or as to the means by which it would or could be brought about. The Ulster Volunteers have been organized to fight — against whom? Sir Edward Carson himself does not know. It has surely not been con- templated that, as soon as the Home Rule bill received the royal assent, a body of these volunteers should attack the Nationalist quarter of Belfast or lay military siege to Dublin. At the very earliest, the new act could not come into operation until the summer of next year. In the meantime, the Government of Ireland would continue, in every detail, precisely as at present. What would the volunteers be doing all this time? Noth- ing could occur that would call for the exercise of physical force on either side. The Ulstermen and many of their sup- porters on this side of St. George's Chan- nel seem really to entertain the mad idea that, as soon as the Home Rule bill was passed, the Government would send a large military force into Ulster to Compel every dissentient to change his mind! Every house, they suppose, would be vis- ited by a detachment of soldiers and the householder would be required t a document declaring his assent to Home Rule. If that is not what the Carsonites fear, what is it? They have been talking freely about "the invasion of Ulster" and "the conquest of Ulster." What ideas do they attach to the words? The two final paragraphs of the so- called "Gough treaty" represent precise- ly the position of the Government and of Hi'- Liberal party, "His Majesty's Gov- ernment must retain their right to use all the forces of the Crown in Ireland, or elsewhere, to maintain law and order and to support the civil power in the ordinary execution of its duty. Hut they have no intention whatever of taking advantage of this right to crush political opposition to the policy or principles of the Home Rule bill." These two sentences have
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388 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2545 been cancelled by the Prime Minister be- cause no Government can consent to bargain with troops as to the conditions of their obedience to orders in hypotheti- cal circumstances. But, as a declaration of the Government's intentions, this .statement is absolutely unexceptionable — so much so as to amount almost to a platitude. Nobody, either in Ireland or in England, who had given a moment's thought to the question, could expect the policy of a Government to be anything else. But Gen. Gough and his brother officers seem to have been obsessed by the idea of .some sort of imminent at- tempt to use the forces of the Crown to "invade Ulster" or "conquer Ulster." No wonder that the conference at the War Office led to the discovery that there had been a "misunderstanding." Another thing that has helped to com- plicate the situation has been the unfor- tunate fact that the Minister for War Is himself a military man. It was a blun- der of Mr. Asquith's to appoint a colonel as the Cabinet Minister in charge of the War Office. The usual practice has been to place this responsibility on a civilian. Col. Seely has the reputation of many high qualities, but his long association with the army has inevitably colored his views of the relation of the army to the civil government. Evidently, he had not the least conception of how the country would regard any suggestion of such compacts with officers as he has been trying to arrange. A civilian War Min- ister would not have looked at the ques- tion through "service" spectacles, nor would he have committed the blunder of letting Buckingham Palace play so active a part in the proceedings. And what of the King himself? It appears evident that the Unionists have hoped to use him, together with the army, as their tool in bringing the Gov- ernment to the ground. At the moment when their plot seemed to have succeed- ed, they openly boasted in the party press of the effect of his intervention. Then came John Ward's protest in Par- liament against "interference from King or army," and the response to his speech made it clear that the country did not approve of his Majesty's being an "active agent" in such matters. Now, of course. It is the cue of the Unionist press to be highly indignant with the "infamous" conduct of those Liberals who have "ban- died about" the name of the King. The carefully worded disclaimers by Mr. Asquith and Col. Seely have not weakened in the least the widespread conviction that the King has been doing things that he had better have left un- done. For months past some unseen but powerful influences have been at work, and if popular opinion associates them with Buckingham Palace, it is simply because no other hypothesis will fit the facts. Liberals especially resent his Ma- jesty's frequent conferences with the Opposition leaders and with Lord Rob- erts. Technically, these consultations may be defended as perfectly correct, for one of the privileges of Privy Councillors is the right of audience with the King. But It is by the advice of his Ministers that a constitutional King is expected to gov- ern. As to Lord Roberts, his visits to Buckingham Palace are certainly to be deprecated when one remembers that his was the first name appended to a cove- nant whose signatories declared that they should consider themselves justified "in taking or supporting any action" to pre- vent the Home Rule bill from being put into operation if passed under the Par- liament act. Lord Roberts is an old man, and the memory of his distinguished ser- vices makes the supporters of law and order unwilling to regard his recent course as they would regard the same weakness in others. But he is emphati- cally not the sort of man who is a safe adviser for Buckingham Palace in mat- ters affecting the relation of the army to the Parliament. H. W. H. THE ELECTIONS IN SPAIN— PROB- LEMS FOR THE NEW GOVERN- MENT. Madrid, March 28. The recent elections for the new Cortes, as was foreseen, resulted in a very large majority for the present Gov- ernment. The general system of choos- ing representatives has nothing in com- mon with our own, since it is purely a question of following a particular politi- cal leader. No platforms are proclaimed, no principles of economic reform are an- nounced, no promises are made. A can- didate for office justifies his claims by showing that he is ready for a wider field in which to display his oratorical tal- ents. If he is fortunate in his relatives and friends, some unsuspecting precinct may find his name posted in the public squares on the eve of an election; and if his party has control of the local ma- chinery, he is certain to be elected by the unanimous choice of his constitu- ents. The campaign was lifeless. In Madrid the streets were deserted, and although there was some shooting and stabbing in provincial towns, in most places the day was much like other days. The follow- ers of Sefior Maura were the only ones who attempted to stir up an interest in the cause of their deposed leader. They issued a little booklet called "Catechism on the Doctrine of Maura," consisting of a series of questions and answers prov- ing that Maura is the only person to save Spain from impending ruin, and that all of his opponents are enemies of the country and of the King. The Mauristas also held several meet- ings at various theatres, at which there was little or no disturbance, which al- ways groes to prove, here, that no one is interested in the cause; that is, suffi- ciently to break up the meeting. As there generally are entertaining sights at these gatherings, I went to one to get some information at first hand. The house was crowded, while the stage was occupied by about a score of men, party managers, speakers, and a few noted guests. Although many speakers display- ed real oratorical power, not one present- ed any principles or platform, or proposed any particular legislation. It was all a question of personalities, every speaker making it as clear as he could that there was but one man in Spain whose pa- triotism, justice, and loyalty mad' him fit to govern the country. The speak- ers were frequently interrupted by cries of "Viva Maura!" and in every case, af- ter closing his speech, the orator was ef- fusively embraced and patted on the back by all who were on the stage. He then withdrew to some rear seat in or- der to recover from his emotions and to rest his arms, which he had waved in- cessantly for half an hour. The result of the election has at least made clear one thing: Maura will not support Dato in the next Congress, and although the latter appears to have a very large majority over all of his oppo- nents, it must be remembered that, by a peculiar election law, any candidate who presents himself in a specific precinct without any opposing candidate to con- test the election with him becomes a Deputy to Congress without any struggle whatsoever. Thus about one-fourth of the membership of the New Chamber will consist of representatives whose real affiliations have never been publicly de- clared, and who cannot be counted on for a definite time to come. There seems to be some justification, therefore, in the frequently expressed view that the new Government, in spite of its seemingly large majority, cannot survive many sessions of the Cortes. The chief parties have never been so broken up, there have never been so many petty leaders, and no election has ever brought out more bitter expres- sions of personal hostility, than the one just held. One result of the elections is, however, that the Republicans have de- cidedly lost ground in their chief strong- holds, except in Madrid, where they elect- ed five out of eight candidates. Nor can there be any doubt that the King is gain- ing in popularity. The great mass of the people seems to remain indifferent, for on them has fallen the bitter effect of centuries of misrule, and they see no hope of improvement. But there is less hostile criticism uttered, and friendly manifestations when the King passes through the streets are far more common than they were a few years ago. This may be ascribed first to the personality of the King, who in recent years has gone through some trying ordeals with admirable courage. In the second place, the continual unrest in Portugal has brought home to many Spaniards more than any local inefficiency the fact that Spain is not yet ripe for a republic. The chief question for the new Cortes, one not once discussed during the last campaign, will be the budget. There have been many indications of increased national wealth in the last few years; economically Spain has improved. The revenues from customs receipts, for ex- ample, as well as the earnings of the railways, show a substantial increase. The latter item Is particularly significant in the case of a nation the mass of whose people has been averse to travelling or moving about. But, owing to unusual ex- penses, such as the unfortunato Moroc- can war, the balance sheet for the &Bi year of 1913 shows an unusually large deficit The first srave problem will therefore be the Increase of the revenue, ..Mil 1 in; possible reduction of the army in Morocco. K. S.
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April 9, 1914] The 1ST a t i o n 389 Books and Men ANOTHER "EDWIN DROOD" TRIAL. John Jasper, whose neck was saved from the English hangman through Mr. Bernard Shaw's desire to make an epi- gram, is again to be put in jeopardy of his life. This time it is in Philadel- phia, where a mock-trial of the alleged murderer of Edwin Drood will be held on April 29. It is a wonder they did not hang him In London. Foreman Shaw of the jury had his little joke about finding him guilty of manslaughter "in the spir- it of compromise." But it is possible that all the jurymen would have voted for a verdict of murder in the first de- gree if it had not been for the prosecut- ing attorney. Mr. Cuming Walters, who "led for the Crown," arose at eleven o'clock in the evening and delivered a long, very earnest, and rather dull address. In short, he bored the jury, the Court, and the audience, "full of holes." Mr. Walters has written one book, compiled another, and published any number of letters, articles, and ad- dresses to prove that Jasper's plot against Edwin Drood really succeeded. So he not only refused to be frivolous about the ease, but he almost declined to be interesting. A discussion about the make-believe characters in a novel had no room in it, he thought, for lightness. And so the jury revolted and Jasper got off with his life. The cards were stacked against Jas- per from the start. The choir-master walked into court a half-doomed man. The defence seems to have taken a rath- er academic interest in an acquittal. But Mr. Walters's thirst for a conviction was very real. For nine or ten years (since his publication of "Clues to the Mystery of Edwin Drood") he has pur- sued Jasper as relentlessly as fate. And the defence virtually gave their case away before the trial began. They agreed not to produce Edwin in court, and then tried to clear his uncle of the charge of murdering him. This was an egregious blunder. Jasper's lawyers should have insisted upon producing in court a person — Datchery, or another — who would insist that he was Edwin Drood. Then the jury could have de- cided the question of identity. If a writer who has recently describ- ed the approaching Philadelphia trial, in the Boston Transcript, is correctly informed, then the defence is going to make a worse blunder than that made in London. "It was proposed by the defence," he writes, "to call Drood him- self to the stand by proxy, but the prosecution, rather than be handicap- ped by such a proceeding, agreed to ad- mit that Drood was dead." That was good of them! It gives them their case half-won. In London, Helena Landless was permitted to go on the witness stand and testify that she was Mr. Datchery; that she, the Oriental tragedy queen, already in love with that properest of persons, the Rev. Dr. Cri- sparkle, had been careering about Clois- terham in trousers and wig, eating fried sole, veal cutlet, and a pint of sherry for her dinner! It is true that she said she did not drink the sherry, but poured it away. This is an invention of the exponents of the Helena-Datchery theory — Dickens says nothing about it. It is also true that the defence called Bazzard, who, in turn, testified that he was Datchery. Mr. Walters, in cross-examination, was far less successful in destroying his evi- dence than Mr. Cecil Chesterton, for the defence, had been in shaking Helena's story. The identity of Datchery is, of course, a separate problem from the question of Jasper's guilt. It is, unless Datchery was Edwin Drood himself. And if the defence be not permitted to make this contention any argument about Datch- ery merely prolongs the trial — though it may add some humor to it. At the English trial Mr. "Justice" Gilbert K. Chesterton had to remind the prosecu- tor that his lengthy cross-examination of Bazzard was dragging a little. They must get on, for "we are all in high hopes of hanging somebody." They say that the Philadelphia trial will be eminently fair because of the lawyers who are to take part in it. A Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court will be on the bench, and the pros- ecution will be conducted by Attorney- General Bell and Judge Patterson, of the Court of Common Pleas. Really, nothing could look worse for Jasper. Legally, the evidence against him is tremendous. It is because Mr. Walters and Sir Robertson Nicoll have looked at the problem in such a cold, legal light that they are sure of Jas- per's legal as well as moral guilt. But imagine the choir-master's attorneys try- ing to present it as an artistic problem, as a study of the human equation! Those judges and lawyers would simply dance on the idea. There is one ray of hope for Jasper. Among the talesmen are George Ade and "Mr. Dooley." The lawyers for the de- fence ought to see to it that these two humorists get Into the box. They may find a way out for the prisoner. The "legal" case for Jasper's guilt is very strong. Certainly, Dickens told Forster that his story was to concern an uncle who should murder his neph- ew. Certainly, the novelist's son and daughter believed that their father died still intending the murder to succeed. Certainly, Dickens told Fildes, the illus- trator, that Jasper must have a black scarf — for with that "Jasper strangles Edwin Drood." Certainly, eighteen out of the thirty-two principal commenta- tors on the problem have believed that the plot did not miscarry, and that Ed- win's dead body was actually placed in the quick-lime after that sinister Christ- mas Eve dinner. But — it is not a legal problem, in the narrow sense. It is a human problem — a question of the workings of a novel- ist's mind. Another novelist or liter- ary man is a better judge in the case than any lawyer who looks at it in a purely professional light. That Jasper tried to murder Edwin is denied by no one; the question is whether he is legal- ly as well as morally guilty. The list of literary folk, especially imaginative writers, who believe that Edwin escaped is rather impressive: "Orpheus C. Kerr," "Gillan Vase," Andrew Lang, Wil- liam Archer, Comyns Carr, M. R. James, Clement Shorter, and Cecil Chesterton. Forster and the Dickenses heard from the novelist that Edwin was murdered,, but there is no proof that the plan was not changed afterwards. Charles Dick- ens was apparently in trouble with his plot towards the last days of his life. The statement to Fildes about the black scarf is not conclusive — an unsuccess- ful attempt might have been made with the scarf. (Fildes never seems to have drawn it, by the way.) Finally, and it is a point seldom emphasized, the ma- chinery of the opium, Jasper's drug- ged trances, seem utterly unnecessary unless they were to prevent the mur- der. They would explain how the at- tempt failed, and do it beautifully. What other purpose have they? Edmund Lester Pearson. Poetry ON TWO POEMS IN THE "NATION. Arcades ambo, Et cantare pares et respondere paratl. Two shepherds on their oaten reeds Took up the pastoral song (Poor Tityrus the while proceeds To drive their flocks along). Menalcas wished it were his lot Beneath the beechen tree, The turmoil of the town forgot. To whistle quietly. Damcetas loudlier swept the string, "How dull is life," sang he, "When every day it fails to bring Perils by land and sea." Just then Palaemon chanced along; Requested, he decides: "The Muses love alternate song, They like to hear both sides." H. M. A.
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39Q The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2545 News for Bibliophiles ORIGIN OK THE CLOSED COUPLET IN ENGLISH. Who first cultivated the closed ten- syllable couplet in series, the chief ve- hicle of English poetry from the seven- teenth century to the nineteenth? Who first, not by occasional chance, but by frequent design, achieved its self-con- tained unity and those traits of style which favor unity — restraint, neatness, balance, antithesis? Mr. Saintsbury, in his "History of English Prosody," thinks it was Sir John Beaumont, or George Sandys, during' the reign of James I; Mr. Schelling, in the thirteenth volume of the Modern Language Publications, that it was Ben Jonson. If any one deserves to be called the father of English "clas- sicism" in general, one must agree with Mr. Schelling- that it was Jonson. But as to versification, Thomas Heywood, the dramatist, anticipated both him and the others, in the skilful translations of Epis- tles XVI and XVII of Ovid's "Heroides" which form 1,100 lines of his "Britaines Troy." This long narrative poem, mostly in the ottava rima, was published in 1609, probably antedating Beaumont's and Sandys's significant work, and certainly most of Jonson's. But, further, Heywood esteemed these translations so highly that he had woven many extracts from them into acts i and ii of his "Iron Age," Part I, which on good grounds is to be dated about 1596, though not published till 1632. Therefore, the translations date almost certainly from the sixteenth cen- tury, and probably from the early 1590's. As to technique, Heywood uses the "run- on" couplet only half as often as Ben Jonson does, somewhat oftener than Sir John Beaumont, much less often than Sandys, Denham, and even Waller, other pioneers. We do not find in him, or in them, the finish and austerity of Pope, or even Dryden, as to rhymes and as to pauses within or after the couplet; yet he clearly strove, especially in the sec- ond of the translations, for the terse ef- fect given by the final pause and by par- allelism and antithesis, of which we find many cases not in his original. The epistles abound in such passages as these: Fulnesse of wealth In all my ITleete I Bee, I am rich in all things, save in wanting thee Theseus repented, so should Paris doe, le In Love, and i" repentance, to. You are more earnest to pursue your game, I villi you Dot more knowledge, bul lesse shame. Heywood's originality has been the less recognized, perhaps, because these trans- lations are not well known or easily ac- cessible; the only copy of "Britaines Troy" known to me came from George Ill's library to the British Museum. But by a curious fortune they are to be found elsewhere. Jaggard, the unscrupu- lous printer of that poem, in 1612 put them in the third edition of "The Pas- te,n;.te Pilgrime," attributing them to Shakespeare. In spite of Shakespeare's and Heywood's indignation, express- ed in the same year at the end of the latter's "Apologie for Actors," they remained among Shakespeare's poems In the first collected edition, 1640 (as well as in such later editions as those of 1710 — Gildon's, 1725— Sewell's, 1775 and 1804). As a result of this dissemination and of Shakespeare's name, they may even have helped a little to promote a taste for the stricter sort of verse. If we were only shifting a rather dusty laurel from one head to another, the matter would be of little interest. But there is a plain indication here from what this verse-form originated. Mr. Saints- bury suggests the influence of the suc- cinct couplet-close of the English son- net and ottava rima; and later, no doubt, the example of Malherbe and his follow- ers helped, as did also the deep and wide trend towards a more severe poetic man- ner. But what started and doubtless always nourished the taste is suggested by the title and versification of another work, which appeared in 1597, probably some years after Heywood's poems were composed. "England's Heroical Epis- tles," by Drayton, Mr. Schelling rejects on no very clear ground as a forerunner of Jonson's closed couplets; yet they show a far higher proportion of such couplets than either Jonson or Heywood does, as well as much use of antithesis and the like. The title of the poem, as well as its contents, a feigned verse-corre- spondence between various romantic lov- ers in history, clearly shows that Dray- ton was imitating what Heywood was translating, Ovid's "Heroides," as Pope did in "Eloisa to Abelard" over a cen- tury later. The elegiac distich, in which the "Heroides" are written, is kept as strictly complete in itself as the couplet of Pope, and is as neat and antithetical in style; of all naturalized English metres, its unequal hexameter and pen- tameter go best into the ten-syllable couplet. In the Latin elegiac distich, more than anywhere else, we find the origin of our most "classic" style of verse. John S. P. Tatlock. University f Michigan. Correspondence THE NEW "NATION." To the Editor op The Nation: Sir: I have studied your recent pros- pectus and read the succeeding number! of the Nation pretty carefully, and so far I see no reason to fear that you are headed for any dangerous reefs. I am no less anxious than Professor Reeves, or any other, that the Nation shall stand in the future for the same ideals as have characterized it in the past, but in enter- ing a broader field it need leave no val- uable trait behind, nor take up anything inconsistent with its record. Born and brought up on the farm, I received my first knowledge of the Na- tion and the Evening Post from the col- lege reading-room. I do not hesitate to say that this was the most im- portant single event of my under- graduate life. I have acquired in the years following a fairly wide ac- quaintance with periodical literature, and know thai I am within bounds in savin;; that through no other agency could I have been brought into contact with so many of the really important men and ideas of this and other ages as t li- the pages of the Nation and the Evening Post. It is rarely that I read any book which is not more easily understood, which does not mean more to me and suggest more to me, because of what I have gleaned from your pages since the beginning of my college days. The stronghold of the Nation with those who know it is their conviction that its pages record the sincere opinions of its writers, and that there are certain fundamental principles for which it can be depended upon to stand in the future as in the past and present. Hold it rigidly to that standard, and you can enlarge its range of interest with entire safety. Whenever that is forsaken, the Nation will be dead, even though it may "have a name to live," as certain other periodicals of once high standing which have gone after strange gods. I have faith to believe that the thought of its apostasy from the ideals of Godkin and Garrison could be more repugnant to no one than to those by whom it is owned and edited. W. H. Johnson. Denison University, Granville, O., April 3. •CONSTITUTIONAL" GOVERNMENT IN MEXICO. To the Editor of The Nation : Sir: The prevailing amount of mis- conception in this country regarding Mexico, in spite of the countless books and articles which have recently been devoted to that unhappy land, is proof that words and phrases which sound alike may be capable of the most widely di- vergent shades of interpretation under different conditions. What we understand by "constitution- al" government is one thing; what Mex- icans mean by it is another. We have a constitutional government to-day and have had one since the foundation of our republic. Mexico has none now, and has never had one in the whole course of her turbulent and disorderly career as a separate nation. The average Amer- ican when thinking and talking about Mexico usually has in mind a picture of a country with ideals and a political existence like our own, although, it may be, somewhat more imperfect. He says regretfully how sad it is that our neigh- bor is now so distracted by civil war- fare and how much it is to be hoped that "normal" conditions will soon be re- stored. As a matter of fact, conditions in Mexico to-day are perfectly normal and are merely reproducing the ordinary stale of existence there, if we except the really abnormal years of outward calm under the dictatorship (it is absurd to call it a presidency) of Porflrlb Diaz. Nothing more is needed to prove this contention than a casual perusal of the history of Mexico since its separation from Spain. The long list of Presidents and revolutionary uprisings becomes mo- notonous; administrations have changed almost daily. And, in tact, nothing else is to be expected of Mexico III this i It was Colonized by a worthless sel of pirates, criminals, and soldiers, in .on
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April 9, I9H] The Nation 391 trasl «itli the Anglo-Saxon settlements in the United States, where the colonists came for the most part from worthy motives and under the influence of cen- turies of development tending towards self-control and political freedom, accom- in many cases by their wives and families, the Spaniards descended upon lutiful but unhealthy tropics of our continent, not from worthy motives, but almost solely as adventurers desirous of making a speedy fortune in the mines or by Indian slavery and of returning at the earliest moment to enjoy their wealth in Europe. They did not bring women with them, the result being the mixture of I 1 negro, and Indian blood which now comprises at least 95 it. of the Mexican population, ex,- of the purely Indigenous race still surviving in Mexico, like the Mayas in is in the northern states, and others who have never yet acknowl- he authority of the Government Ico. Ask an Inhabitant of Yuca- tan if he Is a Mexican and you will al- ways hear: "No, I am a Yucatecan." Perhaps 5 per cent, of the total popula- tion of the country to-day has a smat- tering of education ; all the rest are I in an ignorance and superstition as dense as any of the Middle Ages. The great need of Mexico to-day is a rarian reform — a system of revised land tenure enabling the "peon," the nie of the country, worthless, ig- norant, cruel, and innately lazy as he is, to obtain and hold agricultural lands to cultivate for himself and his family, in order that the feudal holdings of the great landed proprietors may be broken up and forced into immediate and much-needed cultivation by peasant proprietors. Such a system would displace the conditions of peonage, or slavery, which really, al- though secretly, exist all over the coun- try. Although illegal, the peonage is in many respects the counterpart of the slavery of our South before the Civil War. Elections have always been the veriest farces in Mexico, the idea of an honest or "untrammelled" election being a high- ly humorous conception to any Mexican. The candidate to be elected is decided upon in advance, and orders are issued to declare so and so elected to such and such an office. Not three men in a hun- dred, even of those entitled to a vote, will venture to go near a polling place, and those who do are bold, indeed, if they should venture to oppose the chosen can- didate. The natural result of centuries of mis- government, both colonial and repub- lican, has been that patriotism, respect for the Constitution, and political honor, as we understand the terms, do not exist in Mexico. The Federal Government is expected to do everything; individual in- itiative is frowned upon and scarcely ex- ists. The theory sometimes held that Mexi- cans would unite against a foreign inva- sion is another misconception in Ameri- can minds. The Mexican can and does fight like a wildcat when cornered, as he expects torture and death to follow surrender; but to expect any volunteer resistance to invasion would be to ask too much in a land where criminals at the point of a bayonet are forced into the tanks of the army to fight for the Gov- ernment against revolutionaries. To understand the situation in Mexico as it confronts us, we must abandon all our own ideas of a government by the people, for the people, and once for all realize that although in theory Mexico is a sovereign state with an advanced republican form of self-government, in reality it is and has always been gov- erned by a system of despotism which, however repugnant to our feelings of the rights of a people, is, unfortunately, the only form of control which can hope to succeed in that country now for genera- tions to come. Until the moment to which Madero looked forward, years in advance of his countrymen, shall come v. lien education and practice in political freedom shall have made the Mexican ble of self-government by law and order, until that time must Mexico be ruled by a strong hand, a despotic military autocracy. Constitutional gov- ernment in that land is a theory never 1 t realized; anarchy and revolution, sup- posedly in behalf of some principle, in reality to act as a cloak for deeds of shameless brigandage, are the realities which confront the Mexican people and, what is worse, confront the American people. Montgomery Schuyler, Jr. New York, April .'!. THE DUTCH NAVY. To the Editor of The Nation : Sir: The pessimistic letter of your Dutch correspondent about the sad con- dition of Holland's fleet is perfectly cor- rect. But suppose that we should pay fifty guilders for every man, woman, and child in the country to build one or two dreadnoughts, what, in the name of com- mon-sense, are we going to do with them? England has twenty-nine, France sev- enteen, Germany nineteen of those big ships. Our one dreadnought might be gloriously blown to kingdom-come, but from a military point of view it would mean an absolute waste of men and money. The truth of the matter is that the small countries cannot possibly com- pete under a system which threatens to ruin the largest and most opulent na- tions. Building a modern fleet is not a question of patriotism, self-sacrifice, or courage. It depends entirely upon the size of the respective national bank ac- counts. But here is another side of the matter to which I wish to draw your attention: From a legal and ethical point of view, ought the kingdom of the Netherlands to be allowed to enter the modern rivalry for big ships, and by so doing run the risk of war? It has pleased the civilized world to make our national residence the centre of the movement for international peace. The edifice of the highest tribunal is sit- uated a mile from the shore. Any re- spectable dreadnought, sailing peacefully in the North Sea, can shoot the Peace Palace into pieces in less than ten min- utes. With our few ships and our neces- sarily limited means, we cannot possibly hope to defend the coast of the country, which in the general interest of the cause of peace ought to stay neutral during all future wars. The only sensible solution of the diffi- culty seems to be this — let all nations agree to declare this territory an inter- national sanctuary. H. W. van Loon. Washington, D. C. March 29. PAUL HEYSE. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: Paul Heyse, who died on April 2, was born in Berlin in 1830. From his father, the celebrated philologist, Prof. Karl Heyse, he early learned to know thoroughly and love deeply his native tongue. No German poet, not even Goe- the, has had a more perfect command of language. From his mother, a Jewess, came his artistic nature. At the age of seventeen when entering the University at Berlin, he was introduced by the poet Gei'oel into the house of the art-his- torian Kugler. Here the later so-called Munich school of poetry really arose. Heyse began his literary career with a volume of fairy-tales, "Jungbrunnen" (1849), in the style of the romanticists Brentano and Eichendorff; this was soon followed by a tragedy, "Francesca da Rimini," which shows unmistakably the influence of Shakespeare. After making a thorough study of Romance languages under the renowned Prof. Diez in Bonn, the young poet went to Italy to study Italian renaissance literature, and while there made fine translations of Leo- pardi and Giusti. On his return to Berlin in 1854 he married a daughter of Kugler, and went to Munich to live, having been called there by Konig Max at the suggestion of Geibel. In the mean- time, he had published another tragedy, "Meleager," and several epic poems with the collective title, "Hermen." In Munich, where he became the King's constant companion and the acknowledged ruler of German letters, Heyse entered upon a period of very prolific production. He wrote a number of short epic poems, two of which, at least, "Die Braut von Cy- pern" and "Thekla," are excellent, and several dramas, one of which, "Die Sa- binerinnen," took the Munich prize in 1858, but was not well received on the stage. Heyse has never been highly es- teemed as a dramatist in Ccrmany; he Is by nature and preference an epic, not a dramatic, poet, and it is just in those dramas where broad epic rather than in- tense dramatic treatment is required that he is most successful. Of his twenty or more dramas the best are "Alcibiades," "Die schlimmen Briider." "Ludwig der Bayer," and "Hans Lange." His essays in the modern realistic drama were sig- nal failures. Heyse found his true forte in the prose Novelle, of which he published several hundred. It was one of the first, "I.'Ar- rabiata" (1855), which established his fame, and which still remains his best, as it is perhaps the most perfect short story ever written. Among his other Novellen the best are, by popular con- sent, "Zwei Gefangene," "Unvergessliche Worte," "Das M:id( hen von Treppi," "Andrea Delfin." "Die Sticker in von Tre- viso," "Der Weinhiiter von Meran," "Die
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39^ & The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2545 Dichterin von Carcassone," and "Grenzen der Menschheit." Heyso has drawn his stories from near- ly every nation and class of continental Europe and from almost all epochs. Never, however, has he written as so many Germans have, simply to depict a class or epoch for its value in the his- tory of culture; with him class or epoch Is always merely the background for a vital problem. He alone of all German story-writers is never pedantic or tedi- ous. Just on account of his wide range of scene and intentional suppression of descriptive detail he has been accused of superficial observation and characteriza- tion. The accusation is utterly unjust. Heyse really gives by a few deft lines a picture of epoch and people more vivid than the average German writer does in as many pages. Only in his very latest stories, where most unfortunately he has been unable to escape the almost univer- sal influence of so-called naturalism, has Heyse sacrificed eternal truth for ephe- meral and fortuitous reality. He has been throughout a romanticist in his philosophy of life and art, but with a classic calm and restraint. He has held himself somewhat aloof, has thought per- haps too much of art and too little of life, has laid too much stress upon ele- gance of form and expression, but he has never degraded himself or his work by mero actuality. About 1870 Heyse unfortunately turned from the Novelle, of which he was mas- ter, to the novel, in which he has done but mediocre work. "Die Kinder der Welt" (1873) is an attempt at a long novel of the revolution of German thought in the early '70's. It is a strange mixture of the philosophy of atheism and art, of Strauss and Schopenhauer. The main story, the struggle of Dr. Edwin be- tween wife and mistress, is well enough done, but there is no unity to the book. Like all of Heyse's long novels it is a mere string of loosely connected stories with little or no development of plot and character. "Im Paradies" is a tale of Munich art-life, in which the doctrine of free love is openly preached. The only good feature of the book is the fine char- acter of the artist Jansen, evidently drawn directly from life. In "Der neue Merlin" (1892) Heyse has sought to por- tray the fate of an idealistic poet in our realistic times. There can be no doubt as to who the poet is. Unhappily the au- thor enters into long tirades against the new school of literature growing up in Ger- many and its adherents. It is regrettable that he attempted in a work of art to answer their scurrilous attacks upon him and his conservative attitude. Heyse's last novel, "Ueber alien Gipfeln," is an- other most unfortunate attack upon mod- ern thought, upon Nietzsche and his Uebermensch idea. Here the author loses all control of himself — whatever Nietz- sche's and his followers' philosophy may be, it certainly is not "the hideous noc- turnal caterwauling of drunken, maud- lin students." As a lyric poet Heyse also attained eminence. His lyrics are always finished In form, often deep in thought and beau- tiful in sentiment; but they lack the aneity of 'Joethe's songs and have but seldom been set to music. Conse- quently he has never been a favorite with the German people in general. Forty years ago, among the literati, Heyse bore the proud and undisputed title of "Goethe's heir." Fifteen years later, when the great wave of naturalism had almost submerged German literature, he was ignored — even ridiculed as an "anti- quated stylist." The naturalistic critics and propagandists had dethroned him, had, in fact, driven him from his native land. He went to live a retired life in his lovely villa near Gardone, on the beauti- ful Lago di Garda. Here I had the priv- ilege of visiting him several years ago. Edward Stockton Meter. Cleyelana, April 4. THE ROMAN LIBERALS TO LINCOLN. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: To my letter in the Nation of March 5 I have received interesting re- plies from Mr. Hugh McLellan, of New York, and from Mr. E. S. Johnson, cura- tor of the Lincoln Monument at Spring- field, 111. It is certain that the stone from the wall of Servius Tullius with an inscription in honor of Lincoln has been since 1870 in Springfield, and since 1871 in the eastern interior wall of Memorial Hall. Mr. McLellan has sent me the "History and Description of the Lincoln Monument," by J. C. Power (Spring- field, 1872), which contains a photograph- ic reproduction of the stone and what is known of its history in America. The stone was found in the basement of the White House in 1866; thence it was transferred to the crypt of the Capitol. In the Congressional Globe of April 11, 1870, I find a motion of Congressman Pe- ters, of Maine, to warrant its transfer- ence to the Botanical Gardens in Wash- ington. It was on June 17 that Congress- man Cullom, of Illinois, amended this resolution, requesting its delivery to the Lincoln Monument Association, which was done the following month. Cullom's speech on that occasion appears in the Globe under that date. Between the documents that Gerardi unearthed in Rome and those cited by Power there is considerable discrepancy. The Address published in Rome in 1865 (July) specifically states that the stone was sent in commemoration of Lincoln's death. In this case, the theory of ship- ment on the unfortunate Uhla sounds plausible enough. It is clear in any case that the stone must have been addressed to the President of the United States, which fact explains its presence in the White House. It is quite incredible that the stone could have so been deliv- ered to the private residence of President Johnson, entirely without his knowledge, or that his efforts, as described by Power, to find out something about the stone in 1866 should have been wholly in vain. The inscription on the stone reads: Abra- hamo IAncolnio Region. Foederat. Americ. Praesidi. II, etc.: "To Abraham Lincoln President of the United States for the second time. . . ." In view of this, it would seem that the stone must have ar- rived during April or May in Washing ton addressed to Lincoln, and during (he confusion attendant in the White House on his assassination and the subsequent illness of Mrs. Lincoln, was overlooked for the moment and then finally forgot- ten. The Roman Address must simply have utilized the emotion aroused by Lincoln's death to give an actual news value to the announcement of the earlier action of the Liberals, really taken on a different occasion. The essential point, in any event, is that even if the stone was aboard the Uhla, it was ultimately able to record its message of affection and es- teem from the Roman patriots above the tomb of Abraham Lincoln. Arthur Livingston. Columbia University, April 1. CATALOGUES. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: I read with amazement (Nation, March 12, p. 277) : "It is only in Germany that one has the light to assume the existence of well-made catalogues." Now, confining my appreciation to the cata- logues of picture galleries only, I ven- ture to assert that no German gallery possesses a catalogue as complete and thorough as those of Turin (Bandi di Vesme), Nantes (Nicole), and Louvre (Italian and Spanish schools, by Sey- mour de Ricci). The two latter cata- logues are hitherto, as far as I know, the only ones which give the whole bib- liography of every work described. I will add that I know several catalogues of minor galleries in England (Glasgow, for instance), which are superior to the catalogues you may get of Darmstadt, Carlsruhe, Stuttgart, etc. Salomon Reinach. Paris, March 20. [Our reviewer somewhat exaggerated the primacy of Germany in art catalogu- ing, yet M. Reinach misconceives the intent of the phrase to which he objects. The question is not what are the best gallery catalogues, and where; but where are good gallery handbooks com- mon enough to be the rule? The review itself was based on what is hardly more than a good gallery guide. M. Reinach's letter justly points out the notable pro- gress made of recent years by England, France, and Italy. Germany holds her supremacy by a narrow and diminishing tenure.- — Ed. The Nation.] PUBLISHING JUVENILIA. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: With the spirit of your editorial in the Nation of March 5 on the fureur de I'inedit I am quite in accord. Yet I submit that the publication of youthful productions is often of real service to the literary historian, if not always to the great reading public. The publica- tion by Louis Conard in 1910 of the CEuvres de jeunesse iru'ditcs of Flaubert is a case in point. Two of the three volumes contain some real literature be- sides furnishing valuable material to the student of the author's artistic develop- ment. The third, containing "his lucubra tions from his thirteenth to the end of MS seventeenth year" also makes acoeaslble 1 i'ii of what became tie
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April 9, 1914] The Nation 393 ••Tentation de Saint Antoine," a subject that haunted Flaubert for forty years. This is certainly of interest. Further- more, although few of these tales are of value in themselves, they prove as almost nothing else could do the intensely ro- mantic nature of their author and what a Ions: road he had to travel to attain the method of "Madame Bovary." A. Coleman. Marcb 26 History in Australasia. Sydney, March 1. Australia has completed the first quar- ter of the second century of its exist- a community. In that compara- tively brief space of a nation's growth, rdance with the law that a col- ony repeats the development of the 'and, it has retraversed a large portion of the history of England. Its settlement, with some differences, was the settlement of Britain over again. It witnessed the Heptarchy and its "bat- tles of kites and crows," though in a bloodless form. Its political evolution and the acquisition of responsible gov- ernment curiously reiterate the politi- cal development of England. Its strug- gles with the aborigines were not unlike the Teutonic conquest of the British natives. Its industrial progress, begin- ning with the pastoral stage, its primi- tive and tardy agriculture, and its late manufacture recapitulate the indus- trial progress of the mother-country. Its literature, science, and art have had like origins. We shall better under- stand the annals of the motherland, if we are thoroughly acquainted with the story of the daughter-colony. Dr. W. H. Fitchett* is therefore right in saying that the history of Australia is the evolution of a nation, seen under a lens. But he does not trace the par- allelism between the two histories — he does not even imply it, and still less does he describe the unconscious nisus of the immigrants towards the pastoral occu- pation of the country and the forma- tion of a free community, in opposition to the submerging conviction of the set- tlement and its governmental Social- ism. These are the two keys to the his- tory of Australia, but the author vir- tually confines himself to its more pic- turesque aspects. He brilliantly narrates the strange story of the old maps, which show that Australia was discovered in the dreams of geographers centuries before the first ship touched its shores. These and a long line of literary allusions, running back almost to Aristotle, reveal a ghostly continent that stretched up to the Equator or shrank down to the South Pole, while a succession of myth- •The Sew World of the South; or, Australia Making. By W. n. Fitchett, i.L.D. Q Bell aiif) Sons. ical discoveries kept up an intermittent dance all around it. The real discoverer of Australia, Dr. Fitchett holds, was not Torres or Dal- rymple, but Capt. James Cook, and his portrait of the great navigator, orig- inally published in a magazine, is al- ready a classic which figures in the new anthology of Australian prose. Is it partly imaginary, as when he finds that Cook's eyes "seem to be searching some far-off sea-horizon"? He naturally miss- es the fighting quality in Cook's face, and he is disappointed. A Methodist minister who has a true vocation for letters, and perhaps a more imperious vocation for battle, expects something more in history than the works of peace. The doctor's best books, where his dic- tion rises to its highest point, are tales of the battlefield, and the present vol- ume doubtless suffers by its having no 'drums" and very few "tramplings" to record. It has, indeed, the disposses- sion of the blacks, and that he relates briefly, just'y condemning it as "the tragedy of a vanished race" — a sac- rifice to "human stupidity," he thinks it, when it was really a sacrifice to lust, folly, and greed. With equal brilliancy he tells the story of the early explora- tion of Australia, and there he leaves it. The as yet untold remainder will rise to the heroic. Evidently, though published as an independent work, the book is but the first of a series of vol- umes on the history of Australia. They will have high literary and ethical value. Clearing a century at a bound, we pass from the beginnings of New South Wales to the beginnings of the young Australian Commonwealth. That could have had no more fitting historian than the eminent counsel, of Australian origin, but an English barrister, who has told the story of its embryonic life and its birth with a personal authority and a native distinction that few could rival and no other surpass.* As the loyal follower of the first great Feder- ationist in New South Wales, the elo- quent statesman, Sir Henry Parkes, he was behind all the scenes that accom- panied the inception and early stages of the movement, and, when Parkes passed away, Mr. Wise became himself one of the leaders. Henceforth he took part in all its battles, and he is there- fore fitted to describe "the policy and the passions of contending parties." He was in daily intercourse with its public men, and he sketches "the personalities of the rival leaders." He, a democrat by acquired conviction, not by training, who startled the Oxford Union of his time by his advanced liberalism, and who became the author of the indus- trial arbitration system of New South Wales, dramatically portrays "the ebb 'The Making of the Commonwealth. By n. R. Wise. Longmans. and flow of popular sentiment," recog- nizing that this was the decisive fac- tor. Mr. Wise puzzles over the attitude of a leader for whom the famous phrase, "Yes — No," was coined, without ever ob- serving that, such was the overwhelm- ing force of the movement, federation was brought about by one who did not believe in the wisdom of it. It is one of the ironies of history- It is another of those ironies that the results of federa- tion have been diametrically the oppo- site of those expected by both its friends and its foes. We desire a fuller account of the in- fluence of the United States on the for- mation of the Constitution of the Com- monwealth, but are grateful for what we receive in its place. Mr. Wise tells of Mr. Justice Inglis Clark, then Attor- ney-General of Tasmania, who was 'more American than the Americans," and had a large acquaintance with the Constitutional history of the United States. In his speech at the Melbourne Conference of 1890 he deposited the germs of the ideas that afterwards dom- inated the convention which framed the Constitution. As one of the two drafts- men of the Constitution his influence was great, and it was exerted in favor of the United States Constitution, which he avowedly preferred to that of Canada. The book is not, as it has been absurd- ly styled, an "ideal history" of the Fed- eral movement in Australia; it Is, as it professes to be, "a record by an eye- witness," and as such it has great value and authority. A third volume* carries us back to the discovery of New Zealand. Mr. Robert McNab, once Minister of Lands there, worthily consoles himself for the re- peated loss of his seat and consequent exclusion from political office by dedicat- ing his energies to the pre-history of his colony. Like the discoverers of the Accadians and the Hittites, he has had the rare good-fortune to strike an ab- solutely virgin tract in its annals. Who, before him, knew that in older days than the earliest colonists dreamed of ships had come thither from north and south, east and west, to carry on the once-important sealing and whaling in- dustries? It is the southern parallel to the early fisheries that led the way to the settlement of North America. Two previous treatises had broken ground where no foot had trodden, and since they were published Mr. McNab has made another tour of the globe, visiting old and tapping fresh sources of infor- mation. After the old newspapers, where interviews with the sea captains were reported, the best were the logs of the American whalers preserved in the libraries of the historical societies on the east coast, from Salom to Washing- •fild Whnlino Days. Melbourne: Wblb Tombs.
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394 T li e ]ST a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2545 ton. Unique among these is the log of the Mary Mitchell, which he found at Nan- tucket, and this he prints in full. He visited the descendants of the old whal- ers of New Bedford and other Eastern ports, and found them proud of their ancestors, as also communicative of old documents. He ransacked the MS. re- ports sent to England by the Governors of New South Wales, French official re- ports, custom-house entries, and still other materials. He aimed always at producing "abso- lutely the earliest attainable version of the incidents chronicled." His method is that of the strictest historian, and he ignores all statements where the au- thorities are not named. This is admir- able; but with what results? What is the outcome of so prodigal an expendi- ture of time, labor, and money? He pro- fesses to cover the history of New Zea- land from its discovery by Tasman in 1642 till it was ceded to Great Britain in 1840, but between these two dates no British community existed. A chapter on American Whalers and Scientists sounds promising, and the information it contains is new; but it belongs rather to the history of marine industry and exploration than to the history of New Zealand. J. C. Personality of Species. THE DOMESTICATION OF WILD BIRDS. The squat dak bungalow fades into the dusk as I leave it at early dawn and walk quietly into the heart of the Bur- mese jungle. The sounds of the night are dying away and the morning chorus has not yet begun. It is the first of the only two intervals of stillness which the tropical wilderness ever knows; the second being the breathless heat-silence of blistering high noon. A sombre, slug- gish stream slips noiselessly through the ferns and I wait by its edge for what the wilderness may offer. The first sound of diurnal life points my paragraph; a sudden, shrill crow — brok- en but unmistakable. Junglefowl are afoot and drinking. The bird crows again, the sound cutting through the silent dawn. A distant band of mon- keys, already warmed by the sunlight in the tree-tops, bursts into Zoroastrian chorus. Close at hand comes a sharp tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk/iuk! and I know that a junglehen is watching me and is sus- picious, not yet alarmed. There is no more startling sound than the sudden crowing or clucking of these birds in the heart of the jungle. It is as if one of the flock of parrakeets swinging past should scream down "Hel- lo, Polly!" It seems wholly out of tune with all the wilderness sounds, and un- consciously one looks for native houses where one knows no man has ever lived. No wilder bird exists than the red jun- glefowl which has not come into contact with mankind. Yet no living organism ever becomes so completely human-or- dered, such a commercially reproductive machine, as this same jungle bird after a few generations of captivity. Around the native villages there is constant crossing with the red jungle- fowl, but far from mankind, along the back reaches of Burmese and Malayan rivers, we find these forest fowl as wild as any pheasant. Trap them, and for a time they beat against their cage. Then quiet settles over them. They feed and crow and fight and court and breed. But their congeners, the other junglefowl, are altogether feral. They half-heart- edly consent at times to lay eggs, but their offspring are always true to their savage inheritance. The chicks of the captured red junglefowl represent a considerable advance towards the in- mates of the barnyard, and in' the ensu- ing generations white feathers may ap- pear and the high casie of courtship and normal nesting begin to break down. They soon show signs of that marvellous unnatural fecundity which renders them of such untold value to man. The rock pigeon — ancestor of all our squabs and cote inmates — goes even farther in voluntary association with man. Of its own accord it will take up its abode in villages and cities, and I have seen scores roosting amid the noise and smoke of a Punjab railway station. We know how thoroughly domestic are the ordinary breeds of pigeons. The nearest related species of wild birds suf- fer death before they admit such in- timacy. It has escaped general notice that there are some phases of mental phe- nomena which can be carried up from the individual to the species. These are not dependent on physical environment or similarity of habits, but are inherent qualities. They are as rare as they are striking, and as yet we find no point of attack for explanation. This species personality presents an outlook upon life, an acceptance of changed condi- tions, which is like the spirit of the flock, of the herd, or common to widely scattered, wholly isolated individuals. Take, for example, a pair of wild mal- lard ducks and a pair of teal. Feeding together on the water of the bay, they present no mental distinctions. Both are equally on the alert, both ready to take to flight when still beyond the range of gunshot. They ask nothing of man but to be let alone. They nest as far as possible from his presence. On migration they approach his haunts as little as need be. Their lives are virile, competent, independent. If every mor- tal should be swept from the earth to- morrow, the races of mallards and teal would suffer no change. Thousands of years before tree-men let themselves gingerly down from the lowest branches and began unsteadily to stagger about upright on firm ground, mallards and teal fed together on the waters of the bay, no different in form, in feather, in alertness. But once in captivity, the teal and the mallards show an extraordinary differ- ence of behavior. Years pass and the teal will still scurry away like fright- ened mice at our approach. If the teal have a pond and plenty of companions, they tolerate captivity. They are content so long as they are undisturbed, but they never cease to suspect, to be on the lookout for sudden attack. Their life in captivity is filled almost as con- stantly with apprehension as is their wild existence. As a species, they live and they die untamed. The wild mallard for a short time re- sents confinement, but abundant food soon absorbs his interest. He ceases to look for danger when day after day the appearance of man coincides with a shower of manna. In a month he has accepted captivity and lives his new life to the full. Having tried his clipped wings and found them useless, he turns at once to the other joys of duck life, of sleeping, of swimming, of up-ending in the water, and dining on the es- sence of pond mud. Memory claims him only for a day or two at migrations when, compass-like, he wanders restless- ly to north or south. His offspring are in very truth puddle ducks, overplump to do more than fly heavily around their natal landscape. The females of this generation hatch their own ducklings, but often leave them to the care of one bird, who vainly tries to cover forty or fifty at once. The ducks then make other nests and rear other broods. This is against all avian law and order as found in the wilderness, and reflects the degenerating influence of domestication. Whether from excessive appreciation of the advantages of the new regime, or from some mental state akin to fatalis- tic acceptance of kismet, or from sheer .stupidity, we cannot say, but at all events, in the brain of the mallard there are latent possibilities which do not exist in his nearest of kin. Physically, the black duck differs in the case of the drake, which has retained some- what of the plumage of the females of both species. Mentally, the two are as wide apart as the poles. We are only just beginning to learn something about the strange birds of South America, but already we recog- nize in some of them si ill another phase of mentality — super-specific, almost con- tinental. The screamers, the serlamas, the trumpeters, the curassows, and guans, all are mentally related, All sub- mit gracefully to captivity and become so tame that even with Liberty Bind lull
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April 9, 1914] The Nation 395 wings they refuse to return to the jun- gle. But they also refuse to breed, and with a few isolated exceptions we may say almost that they never reproduce in captivity. Between the two groups in point of mentality comes the peacock. He is neither a barnyard fixture nor a com- mercial servant of mankind. He keeps his caste. His courtship, breeding, plum- age, remain undefiled. He walks alone, he condescends, he allows no feeling of complete possession. William Beebe. Joseph Conrad. Conrad's place among current English writers is peculiar. It is detached, and a little aloof. It represents a literary career virtually contemporary with that of the group of brilliant irresponsibles which, during the past decade, has so joyously and consciously dominated the scene. Shaw is not Chesterton, and Chesterton is not Bennett; but they and their comrades in brilliancy are con- fessedly all of a piece in their attitude towards the public. Amuse the brute: if it wants a variety show, see that it gets its shilling's worth. Why be a bomely slighted shepherd when one knows how to be a head-liner? Never mind dignity, never mind reserves — watch 'em sit up! Thus, to the amaze- ment and consternation of a responsi- ble America, has frivolous Britain con- ducted her recent experiments in what we have been bred to revere as English literature. The method has its penal- ties. "Have you seen Chesterton's lat- est?" or "Oh, Bernard Shaw, of course!" Contrast these social casualties, and the smile of easy patronage appertain- ing, with the expressions, verbal and other, of respect and esteem greeting the name Conrad. "Esteem" is an old-fashioned word, but there is none which, after reaching middle age, an artist in any sort is like- ly to hold in higher regard. It means something solid, something stable and well-rounded in his make-up and achievement; something human, too, in a quieter and less spectacular sense, of that patient old word. People who have not read Conrad have this sort of feel- ing for him. It is in the air. Fame, in- deed, is determined neither by a spe- cial constituency nor by a vast com- prehensive public. It is less a matter of consensus than of general impres- sion. And Joseph Conrad is a name which, by the general impression, stands for fine and strong work, and for an un- commonly interesting personality. Men- tion him in any company and you find him cheerfully conceded a place at or near "the head" in contemporary liter- ature. Even persons who do not great- ly relish his quality admit that it is there to be relished. There is a kind of glamour about him. I. This is due in part, no doubt, to the touch of exoticism in the man and in his work. His personal genesis has something to do with it. It is even more gratifying than surprising to Eng- lish readers that a foreigner should have chosen our tongue for his loftiest uses, and have become a master of it. But such mastery could hardly be achieved of sheer deliberation. The slow and (for him) sure means by which Conrad made his way towards it involve an ex- perience which is a romance in itself. The substance and meaning of this ex- perience he has set forth in "Some Reminiscences," a volume that, by one of those unaccountable mischances which overtake English books on their way to America, came to us under the more pretentious title, "A Personal Record." Joseph Conrad Korzeniowski was born in 1857, of a distinguished Polish fam- ily. A grand-uncle was a Chevalier of Napoleon's Legion of Honor, and took part in the disastrous Russian cam- paign. A family legend to the effect that in the course of the retreat from Moscow he ate dog — a dog — long ob- sessed the fancy of a young grand- nephew. Conrad's father was a man of uncommon ability, an accomplished writer of prose and verse; and translat- ed a numtoer of English books into Pol- ish. For his part in the luckless re- volt of '63 he was condemned to exile. His wife had been seriously ill, but the Russian authorities gave her no time for recovery, and she left Poland only to die. In this instance exile did not mean destitution; Conrad was carefully educated, with a view to such a career as might still be fit and possible for a Polish gentleman. But his boyish ambi- tion led in a very different direction. It was common enough in itself; multi- tudes of land-bound infants have dream- ed of the sea. But with most of them the dream is brief or easily broken. The phantom of the sea-hero passes of itself, with those kindred ghosts of cowboy and detective, or is dissipated rudely enough by a taste of real salt water. With this boy neither thing happened; the dream persisted in making itself a reality, and the reality justified the dream. Conrad's family could not foresee this, of course. Not only was it im- probable in a general sense — there was no ghost of family precedent for the im- pulse. The boy himself could only as- sert it, not justify it: "Why should I, the son of a land which such men have turned up with their ploughshares and bedewed with their blood, undertake the pursuit of fantastic meals of salt junk and hardtack upon the wide seas?" There was no more explaining the im- pulse than gainsaying it; and the gal- linaceous uncle who was then his guar- dian could only cluck remonstrably as, in due season, he put forth upon his strange element. He became a British seaman, and a British master mariner. II. If the sea had been his only passion, or if it had been able to absorb all his energies, we should have had no "Al- mayer," no "Lord Jim." But the faith- ful and able seaman had a spark of genius as well as a taste for books. Dur- ing his later years in the merchant ser- vice— perhaps it would be more just to say during all of them — he was serving quietly and even secretly his appren- ticeship in craft more difficult than that of the sea. It is amusing (if idle) to speculate upon what certain of his con- temporaries might have achieved in similar conditions. Most of them have come into literature by way of the hard drudgery of journalism — and boast of it. What sort of first book should we have had from Mr. Shaw or Mr. Bennett as the result of twenty years' silence and self-discipline in a lonely cabin, on the high seas or elsewhere? A different world of "Truth About an Author" here! It was the right way for Conrad, who has never sufficiently grasped the mod- ern English fashion, to profess contempt for his art. By what slow and labor- ious degrees the dim figure of Almayer took on form and color in his imagina- tion, and at last found expression in printed words, his creator has described in "A Personal Record." "Almayer 's Folly" was indeed the focal object of those reminiscences. It is a book for which, as his first-born, the author has a particular fondness; and for the reader no later book Is more typical of him. It was a product of experience and of sore labor. Conrad's human fig- ures are drawn, not from life, but out of life. Almayer had a real prototype whom Conrad had once glimpsed, dingy and stranded, in a Bornean backwater. The figure had its haunting significance for him, and came by degrees to embody in his fancy a type too familiar in the tropics, that of the decadent European, struggling vainly against the stifling and enervating influences of his unnat- ural environment. Kipling has recog- nized it, but unwillingly, and only as a disgraceful antitype of his conquering White Man — a squalid supernumerary in his drama of a triumpnant (and Brit- ish) civilization. It could not have oc- curred to Conrad, for his part, to at- tempt the role of spokesman for any race or set of conditions. He has seen much of the world, but he has mused and brooded upon the mystery of it in- stead of trying to reduce it to a formula. The doctrinaire is as strong in Kipling as the artist: in Conrad he does not exist.
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396 The Natio n [Vol. 98, No. 2545 Mr. Galsworthy has asserted that Con- rad is singular among novelists in pos- sessing the "cosmic spirit," in realizing that "the little part called man is al- ways smaller than the whole," that "na- ture is first, man is second." To this generalization an American commenta- tor, Mr. F. T. Cooper, has rightly taken exception. The power of Conrad's stories lies, he says, in "their vital and tremen- dous human interest. It is quite true that he deals with titanic forces. . . . But everywhere and always his unit of measurement is man: man measuring his puny strength against the universe, and foredoomed to defeat; yet in his de- feat remaining always the focal point of interest." This is excellent as far as it goes. The conquering hero of domes- tic or imperial romance plays a small part upon Conrad's stage, and plays it with indifferent success. It is the hap- less struggle of man with the universe which lifts his imagination — lifts it clear of the mere unpleasantness of pathos, fairly to the plane of tragedy. III. But it is not a merely physical uni- verse with which he sees man haplessly and tragically at odds. He does not choose to belittle nature with a capital letter. No one has more wonderfully painted the ruthlessness of seas and winds; for there he has seen nature at her tragic task. But these perils are not for the mass of men; to the deeper imagination they are graphic symbols of infinitely varied forces of destruction. On land also Nature in her tragic mood works towards her ends of pity and ter- ror, by slow pressure of inescapable cir- cumstance, by trivial turns of chance, by searching out the minute and hidden flaws in the hearts of men. A little examination of Conrad's work as a whole shows how small a part in the essential action of the stories is played by physical nature. In "Typhoon," to be sure, the storm bas something like a malignant personality, against which no human strength or skill is of avail. The vessel crowded with its helpless mortals is of no more significance than a chip covered with ants in a spring freshet. In "Amy Fos- ter" the sea plays a crueller trick upon the sole survivor of its latest wreck than casting him upon a desert island. He is tossed up on the English coast — a young Slav with no speech but his own, unable to find out where he is, or to explain whence he has come, terri- fied, hunted, and finally starved: the sea is responsible for this. But in the greater number of these stories actual sea-disaster is of little account. To "Lord Jim" the bitter irony of his case lies in the fact that there has been no disaster, but only the fear of it. Here is a situation so typical, a theme so characteristic, as to be worth re- hearsing, despite its familiarity to many readers who know little else of Con- rad's work. Here, at the outset, is a young Briton such as Kipling is fond of portraying, a healthy, charming, ap- parently normal boy. He is secretly of romantic temper, and has fed his youth on dreams of heroism. He is fond of imagining perilous crises, with himself at the fore, leaping into the gap, rescu- ing the helpless, going down with the ship. "He confronted savages on trop- ical shores, quelled mutinies on the high seas, and in a small boat on the ocean kept up the hearts of despairing men — always an example of devotion to duty, and as unflinching as a hero in a book." His first years at sea were a disen- chantment, for after many voyages he had found much routine, and no open- ings for heroic achievement. Then a minor chance landed him in the post of mate in a decrepit old steamer in East- ern waters, laden with hundreds of Arab pilgrims. One night they scrape along a submerged derelict, there is a breach forward, and only a rotten bulkhead keeps the old ship afloat. Only the offi- cers know what has happened. It seems a question of minutes; there are only boats enough to hold a handful of the passengers: Lord Jim finds himself, he hardly knows how, in a boat with the other recreants, leaving the doomed ship, with its sleeping freight. He is a ruined man. That the ship does not go down, so that his shame is brought home to him, is not the main fact. He has been false to his ideals; and the punishment which follows him relent- lessly through the years is rooted in his own breast. So is that of Falk, who can- not win back to peace from the mem- ory of a revolting crime. Akin, too, is the tale of "Nostromo," the adventurer who in a strange land makes himself honored and trusted, whose whole satis- faction in life lies in his sense that he is worthy to be trusted, and who is finally warped by circumstance and the single temptation to which he is liable, into a thief. In another series of tales the tragedy lies in man's unequal struggle with un- natural conditions of climate and en- vironment. "Lord Jim" itself belongs in a sense to this class, since the man was not really fit for the sea, never lov- ed it for its own sake. So Almayer, by no means a weakling, is doomed to de- generacy under the influences of his Malay life. The poignant element in his tragedy lies in the failure of his stubborn attempts to marry his half- caste daughter to a white man, and so, in some dim but to him essential fash- ion, to make terms with fate. Again, in "The Heart of Darkness" we find, with the depths of an African jungle as the scene of his mortal struggle, a white man losing, one by one, the qualities which make life worth living for him. IV. If there is one element In human life upon which, more than upon any other, Mr. Conrad's fancy habitually plays, it is the element of pure chance. His own career, he tells us, was assured at the start by a bit of chance. His tutor had been at him for two years to give up his hopes of the sea, and had almost pre- vailed, during a memorable argument on top of the Furca Pass; when the grin of a passing Englishman brought sud- den and decisive reinforcement to the weaker side: "His glance, his smile, the unextinguishable and comic ardor of his striving forward appearance, help- ed me to pull myself together." The ar- gument went on, but the cause was lost forever. In the novels, chance — seldom coincidence in the vulgar sense, but pure casual occurrence — is continually asserting its power. If the weak heart of the Patna's donkey-man had not giv- en out at a particular moment, Lord Jim would never have taken the fatal jump to ruin. If the bomb-thrower in "Under Western Eyes" had not chanced to possess a keen eye for the "easiness" of a fellow-student, he would have sought another asylum— and there would have been no story. It is not surprising that we should now find "Chance" taken as the title of his latest story. It is decidedly the best of the Conrad stories which are not exclusively stories of the sea. But though part of the ac- tion takes place on land, and on Eng- lish land, the whole performance has the right sea-flavor. One fact, to begin with, will endear it to a multitude of readers: it is told for the most part by the in- imitable Marlow, the well-remembered chronicler of "Lord Jim." He winds into his subject with all his old sub- tlety and exhaustiveness, his gruff pre- tences of cynicism and his underlying passion of sympathy. Nowhere has Conrad achieved finer character-study than in this portraiture of the good and solemn "little Fyne," his excellent and ridiculous wife, and their unhappy "girl- friend," Flora de Barral. Young Flora is daughter of a swindler whose huge and complacent frauds have finally left him behind bars. The shock of his ex- posure, and other shocks which follow, are almost too much for the girl's mind; and she is rescued just In time by a Captain Anthony, who marries her and takes her off to sea. A misunder- standing keeps them for a long time "married in name only." Its ending is a happy one in all senses. For if, on a certain dark night, Anthony's mate, young Powell, had not happened to stoop for a rope three inches from the skylight of the captain's cabin — if that skylight had not chanced to be patched with a bit of clear glass — he would never have seen — what he did see; and
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April 9, 1 91 4] The ISTation 397 the lives of a number of people would have been different. V. Winding into his subject, building his story as if at haphazard out of scenes and incidents rarely presented in con- secutive order, is, of course, Conrad's method before it Is Marlow's. Persons who insist on "a straight story," and who do not respond to subtleties of feel- ing or atmosphere, will make very little out of such a tale as "Lord Jim" or "Chance." But it is surprising what a large range of readers, some of whom would presumably be impatient of this writer's methods, yield to his charm. One may be impatient, but it Is hard to put down such a story, once begun. The story-teller somehow manages to keep an even strain upon the slender line at the end of which the reader's attention may be straining or sulking. And in the upshot one feels how in- evitable it has all been, how naturally, for this practitioner, the thing has been done. The subject, whatever Its nature, appears then to have been not so much exhausted as illuminated from every angle. We feel always the dignity and restraint of the operator — his wise In- stinct to keep, even at the end, some- thing up his sleeve. But it Is Impossible to judge the sub- stance of his work as apart from Its style. Conrad was in his twentieth year before he knew a word of English. Less than twenty years later, he published his first book, and it was hailed at »nce as a masterpiece, In English. He has always been an artist, he has never put forth work representing less than a maximum of effort. Some seventeen years ago he expressed what has re- mained his creed as an artist, an utter- ance worth quoting for those who wish to understand the man and his work: It is only through complete, un- swerving devotion to the perfect blend- ing of form and substance; it is only through an unremitting, never discour- aged care for the shape and ring of sen- tences, that an approach can be made to plasticity, to ' color, and the light of magic suggestiveness may be brought to play for an evanescent instant over the commonplace surface of words; of the old, old words, worn thin, defaced by ages of careless usage. The sincere en- deavour to accomplish that creative task, to go as far on that road as his strength will carry him, to go undeterred by fal- tering, weariness, or reproach, is the only valid justification for the worker in prose. . . . My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel — it is before all, to make you see. That — and no more, and it is everything. If I succeed, you shall find there, according to your deserts, encouragement, conso- lation, fear, charm — all you demand; and, perhaps, also that glimpse of truth for ■which you have forgotten to ask. H. W. Boyntox. Literature VILLON AND OTHER FRENCH POETS "Francois Villon — sa Vie et son Temps" (H. Champion), by Pierre Champion, is a book about a poet much loved for his few verses that have sur- vived and known scarcely at all as a person save for a few very human ac- tions and passions. Thanks to the stubborn effort of eru- dite contemporaries of our own, we know of Franqois Villon's life as much as might be held entire in one page. His work is made up of one scholar's poem, the "Lays," and the "Testament," which counts only for 2,032 lines. . . . How can we help agreeing with Clement Marot's wise policy of ignor- ance in so uncertain and parlous a mat- ter: "As to the industry of lays which he makes in his testament, to know it sufficiently and understand we should need to have been of his time in Paris and have known the places and things and men of which he speaks." ... In spite of the seeming paradox, we who are four centuries away know more of him than Clement Marot did, though he came scarce two generations later. . . And so I have tried to walk with the reader through the Paris where Villon wandered, and point out the houses and particulars of streets and life which the poet mentions — that which a scholar of his own time would have seen in the great town. A journey of the imagina- tion, if you will, but justified in whole and in part by documents. The Preface details scrupulously the names and "effort" of students of ar- chives like Gaston Paris, and Longnon, and Marcel Schwob, who labored to bring Villon out of the past so that "the only (French) poet of the Middle Ages read nowadays" might live for us as something more than a voice. Pierre Champion has already exercised his own hand at bringing back Charles of Or- leans, whose singing is known to read- ers of Longfellow, and, of course, to all that cultivate the rondeau or the bal- lade, by his book, published in 1911, that received the Prix Gobert from the French Academy. For a dozen years, ever since the preparation of his thesis at the Ecole des Chartes, our author has thus lived in the time which he recon- stitutes for us here. The first chapter goes back to the uncle who was chaplain in the very Pa- risian church, dependent on Notre Dame, of Saint-Benoit le Bgtourne" (St. Bene- dict-awry, or ill oriented); and in its cloister, where he had a house, he brought up by hand his graceless but not ungrateful nephew Francois, who wrote his thanks long after: Item, et a mon plus que pere Maltre Guillaume de Villon. Childhood passes round these churches with their illuminating symbolism, with Bible and saints' legends and morali- ties. Next come the schools for his uni- versity degrees, what he studied being known from traces in his verses; uni- versity troubles, in which he was sure to bear his part; taverns, and games, and night-walkers; serenades, and wrangles, and the watch in chase; cler- ics, and men seeking filthy lucre, and prisons — roundabout the greater Paris, with all it had for a poet to see, and do, and suffer. This is matter for the first volume. The second volume goes on to Villon in loves and murders, in the singing of lays and robberies, leading straight to a life of forced wandering far away amid brigand bands of Coquillards — spurious pilgrim "companions of the Cockle Shell." All ends with the "Testa- ment" of the last years and repentance, if only there were time for respectable living — and, after death, the inevitable legend. Besides continual footnotes and references, there are 110 pages of multi- ple appendix with genealogies and doc- uments; and the fine inset plates are themselves documentary. Each volume has its analytical table of contents; and, at the end of the second, there are forty-three triple-column pages of al- phabetical index of names and things and old French words — a complete ap- paratus for the modern student who wishes to go deeper than the mere read- er of delightful text: Though he was no "Master of Theol- , ogy," Villon felt need to tell us he should be saved. A preacher of those other days like Michel Menot (a page from this Cordelier's simple sermon on the Prodigal Son closes the last chapter) would have thought so too. Without sharing their faith, it is impossible to appraise our poet's upsoaring and down- falling — our judgment is too rigid, our heart too dry. For us Villon remains an enigma. Better, perhaps, than the author knows, his book establishes a canon of crit- icism for those, of other days and our own days, who, like Villon, "laugh In tears" and buy remords de conscience. "La Poesie Franchise du Moyen Age" (Mercure de France), by Charles Oul- mont, is a collection of original texts, with modern version and competent no- tices, of Old French poems from the eleventh to the fifteenth century, and thirty pages of literary introduction. It forms the opening volume, complete In itself, of an "anthology of French poetry from its beginnings to our day." It stops short before the coming of Charles of Orleans and Francois Villon, who will be taken up in the next volume on the poets of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries — from the ending of the Mid- dle Ages to the French Renaissance. The passages chosen for the text have an interest of their own. Each is prefaced by a list of manuscript sources— for we are not yet at the age of printing— and
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80S The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2.S45 the successive printed editions and com- mentaries. The first is "La Cantilene de Sainte Eulalie," the most ancient mon- ument of the French language, and properly a sequence, that is, a short rhythmic poem sung at mass before the Gospel, between Gradual and Alleluia: Buona pulcella fut Eulalia, Bel avret corps, bellezour anima. Narrative poetry has 100 pages, with twenty-five instances, such as the known "Chanson de Roland," the "Roman de Brut" of Wace, the "Death of Tristan and Yseult," "Aucassin and Nicolette," the "Roman de Renart," "Roman de la Rose," and several Fabliaux. Lyric poetry, apparently developing later, has also nearly 100 pages of Romances and Pastourelles, Bertrand de Born, Rute- beuf's "Complainte," and even Froissart, loved for his prose. There are twenty- five pages of dramatic' poetry, with a Mystery of Adam and a Miracle of Notre Dame. Sarcey poked fun at French examina- tion papers in English schools demand- ing the feminine of the participle resous, which, he said, no Frenchman knows or would use if he did know — he him- self did not know that it has still a technical use in pharmacy; but this rather adds point to his criticism. Our author frankly presents archaic French, but in morsels of good poetry which is always new; and it shows, moreover, how a people's life grows with its lan- guage and literature: Main se leva la bien faite Aeliz; Bel se para et plus bel se vesti: Si prist de l'aigue en un dore bacin, Lave sa bouche et ses oex et son vis; Si s'en entra la bele en un gardin. (Early in the morning, buxom Alice rises; Fair her looks and fairer still her dress: Pours out water in a gilded basin, Washes mouth and eyes and face; So the belle into the garden goes.) "Comment il faut lire les Auteurs Classiques Francais ' (A. Colin), by An- toine Albalat, is a useful work for the methodical reader of French literature; and its methods might profitably be ap- plied to English authors. It is not a book of extracts, but the work of a practical critic who has published books on "the formation of style by the assim- ilation of authors," on "the enemies of the art of writing,' and another, one crowned by the French Academy, on "the labor of style taught by manu- script corrections of great writers." His present motto is from Montesquieu's "Persian Letters" and runs counter to anti-Humanist pretensions of our day: "It seems to me that till a man has read the old books he has no reason to prefer the new." This book is neither a History nor B Manual of Literature. ... I have fried, most of all, to study the workman- ship and processes and originality of Classic authors ... I have avoided as much as possible the discussion of general ideas and philosophic consid- erations. ... I try to explain in what the .meat talent of writers con- sists and how we can come to love those who have the reputation of be- ing somewhal hard reading-. Another thing is too neglected and I have thought it my duty to insist on it — the filiation, origin, and descendance of authors. . . . I wish to teach the love of literature — no ordinary thing. . . . Classic au- thors will always be the basis of all solid instruction, because they are the basis of all observation and human truth, and because it is they who reveal to us our own originality and teach us even to do that which is contemporary and modern. The work reaches from Villon to Victor Hugo, taking those authors whose writ- ings, in a language cultivated like the French, are literally "classic" because used in the classes. "En lisant Corneille" (Hachette), by Emile Faguet, is a typical book of that full and exact and ready Academician: I purpose, while reading the author chosen for the day along with my read- er, to situate him in his time and in the particular world in which he lived; to make acquaintance with his temper and character, especially with what he has said about himself or let clearly appear; to grasp the particular nature of his genius and do this from the text itself; to avoid as much as possible general ideas and arrive at intimacy with the author and live, as far as may be, with him. Intrepid M. Faguet announces eleven other authors, down to Victor Hugo, for future application of the same process —which gives pause for thought, re- membering the immensely longer list of books, all readable and many impor- tant, already produced by this relent- less reader and teacher and writer. Cor- neille should have a particular good word, for he has always been esteemed more conformable to English thought, and present currents seem setting back towards him. "Alfred de Vigny" (Mercure de France), by Leon Seche, is a character- istic book of this indefatigable writer of anecdotal studies, from unpublished documents, of the history of the Ro- mantics. This is his sixteenth work of the kind, all revolving round Sainte- Beuve, Lamartine, Alfred de Musset. Victor Hugo, and the Cenacles, with many side-lights — and now this revived half-favorite of our capricious genera- tion, Alfred de Vigny. The first vol- ume deals with his literary, political, and religious life; and the second with what is labelled "la vie amoureuse," but Including chapters on his mother and friendships as well. It is really a greatly enlarged rewriting of the first of all this author's researches in con- temporary letters and gossip of the Ro- mantic period; and he may well recall that, at the time, it was predicted his- torians would cut wood in his forest. Even so, he has had to reserve quanti- ties of historical and critical notes on the separate works of Alfred de Vigny for the complete edition of them which he is now publishing: How often, while writing this or that chapter, have I not said to myself: If Sainte-Beuve had known this letter and this document, what use he would have made of it! Surely, there was only he to understand how to uncover people and show their soul nEtked! Those who seek understanding in such historical remains will find great value in the fifteen two-column pages of index of proper names. CURRENT FICTION. The Masks of Love. By Margarita Spald- ing Gerry. New York: Harper & Bros. The lady-errant was to have been ex- pected in this age of feminism. Why should not Dulcinea, as well as her lov- er, set forth in quest of adventure? But, of course, it is not romance that she seeks. Dulcinea is a college graduate, serious-minded, and thirsts for a know- ledge of "real life." Be it life or death, as Thoreau says, we crave only reality. Marjorie Spofford is an orphan; her fiance is studying abroad; she has a small income and can do as she likes. Without consulting her fiance, or even notifying him, she decides to spend the year before her marriage in a search for feal experience; and, of course, she seeks it on the stage. It is clear that such a story is intended chiefly for young persons who have an ambition like Marjorie's, but who are not so for- tunately placed as to be able to realize it. In other words, here is what pur- ports to be a slice of that ancient yet tempting apple which made so much trouble in the Garden. It must be admitted in favor of the Serpent that he "delivered the goods." Not so much can be said for the author of "The Masks of Love." The story has about as much relation to reality as the old-fashioned Sunday-school book had. It is, however, readable, and calculated to give the young person the illusion that she is being enlightened. As usual, tue method is a somewhat discreet ex- posure of the physical side of love. With what satisfaction will the ingenuous reader peruse such sapient absurdity as this: Dimly she remembered words that some modern woman writer had writ- ten. . . . Tim idea was 1 hat i"\ e was a road lying between "physical passion and spirit u.-.l emotion. A woman enter- ed it by the gale of ner spirit, and only sometimeri travelled the whole road. With a man, it was passion which he kne.W first and he did QOl always com- plete- the Journey, To-day this occurred
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April 9, 19 14] The Nation 399 to her as lying at the heart of her rid- d "How true that is!" the gentle reader will say to herself. Anthony the Absolute. By Samuel Mer- win. New York: The Century Co. When the musical scientist whose phenomenally delicate ear can distin- guish eighty-one tonal intervals to an octave meets the woman gifted with a corresponding nicety of vocal pitch, there would seem to be a sufficiently novel story ready-made. Mr. Merwin, with whom the presentation of familiar American types against Oriental back- grounds is something of a specialty, has sent his pedant on a search for speci- mens of primitive Japanese and Chinese music with which to prove his theory, and for good measure has likewise set a bibulous and bloodthirsty husband to scour the China coast for the truant singer. He has even added, by way of an up-to-date garnish, a feminist pro- blem and its solution. For Anthony, whose moral perceptions are no less re- fined than his aural sense, is the most enlightened feminist imaginable. To his ultra-sensitive conscience "to stop a wo- man's growth" by limiting her to the usual wife's sphere, is fully as abhorrent as a caveman's wooing would be to the average citizen. Is this the chivalry of the future wherewith shall be won the heart of the New Woman that Mr. Mer- win, in the diary of his accurate, self-ob- servant Anthony, has undertaken to de- clare unto us, slyly appending that the question of curtailing women's liberties can with perfect safety be left to the women themselves? Not that theories matter much in a bit of comedy lightly spiced with melodrama. The Business of a Gentleman. By H. N. Dickinson. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. A thoroughgoing British detestation of all the new-fangled notions that make the England of to-day so discouraging- ly unlike the good old England of sev- eral centuries ago speaks eloquently from these pages. Conflicting points of view on the social problem are shrewdly personified and made to serve as dramatis personw. Right triumphs in the person of Bobby Wilton, Baronet, who summarily settles a strike, as he does all other questions of his life, by the fearless application of feudal prin- ciples. With Bobby's help the author demonstrates that what the malcontent workingman really feels the need of is the hand of a genuine, true-blue aristo- crat to feed him and make him work and give him a beating on occasion. Consider the passionate servility of which the laboring class is capable. It is the point for which his race has been bred. Does not the presence of this quality postulate a ruling class — by natu- ral law if not by divine right? bua. so-called labor leaders and crack-brained theorists deprive the helpless masses of their natural protectors? Shall female agitators and organizers and meddling supervisors of private morals and pub- lic affairs be permitted to achieve celeb- rity at the expense of the defenceless poor? Not while there are energetic gods in Olympus — like Bobby — and sweet, imperturbable goddesses like his lady wife, and mercurial imps of good family like his young friend, Eddie Dur- wold. That part of the reading public that still thinks it worth while to regard G. B. S. as a menace to society will find in this book a rare treat, for, common as this kind of dogged prejudice is, it does not often find a spokesman who has the gift of wit and skilful persuasion. Most amusing to an American is the dis- play of anti-feminist ardor. Mr. Dick- inson includes a masterly study of one of the "deadly females" — a creature of really Satanic bloom. She is altogeth- er the most significant contemporary specimen he has succeeded in catching, and he is far too clever a student of humankind not to make the most of her. A GALLANT NAVAL OFFICER. George Hamilton Perkins, Commodore U. S. N.: His Life and Letters. By Carroll Storrs Alden. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. $1.50 net. Commodore Perkins was without doubt one of the most gallant and effi- cient of the younger officers of the navy who suddenly found themselves called by the outbreak of the rebellion in 1861 to positions of danger and of impor- tance. One of the early graduates of Annapolis — at the foot of his class — he was a striking illustration of the ability of that school to take a raw country boy, who had never even seen the ocean, and to turn him out as capable a naval officer as any afloat. In many respects Perkins's early career was a close paral- lel to George Dewey's, but Perkins was the more distinguished when hostilities ceased. Both came of simple but sturdy New England stock, both were home- loving and of the stuff that yielded not at all to the temptations which wrecked so many capable men in the days of long and lonely cruises off the coasts of Africa, of Central America, or of other remote regions. Thanks to his Initiative and daring and partly owing to deserved luck, Per- kins took a prominent part in three not- able happenings of the war. As execu- tive and pilot of the Cayuga he led Far- ragut's fleet past Forts Jackson and St. Philip and up to New Orleans, captur- ing at one time three of the enemy's gunboats and being the first target of the entire hostile flotilla. Next it fell to Perkins's lot to be one of the two offi- cers who were the first Federals to land and demand the surrender of New Or- leans, Capt. Theodorus Bailey being the other. There is no more thrilling epi- sode in the history of the navy than the story of the appearance of these two unarmed men in the captured city. It has been often told, but never better than by an eye-witness, George W. Cable: About one or two o'clock In the after- noon (as I remember) I being again in the store with but one door a.iar, there came a roar of shoutings and impreca- tions and crowding feet down Commons Street. "Hurrah for Jeff Davis! Hurrah for Jeff Davis! Shoot them! Kill them! Hang them!" I locked the door on the outside and ran to the front of the mob, calling with the rest, "Hurrah for Jeff Davis!" About every third man had a weapon out. Two officers of the United States navy were walking abreast, un- guarded and alone, looking not to right or left, never frowning, never flinching, while the mob screamed in their ears, shook cocked pistols in their faces, curs- ed and crowded, and gnashed upon them. So through the gates of death those two men walked to the City Hall to demand the town's surrender. After a long and weary service on the blockade of Texas, where three weeks might pass without the sighting of a sail — "it seemed," Perkins wrote, "like a living death to be on the blockade" — there came again a glorious opportunity, for the young commander, then but twenty-eight, was chosen by Farragut himself to captain the Chickasaw, one of the large double-turreted monitors, in the attack on Mobile. Here he ac- quitted himself with great gallantry to the entire satisfaction of his heroic chieftain. It was the Chickasaw, her captain fighting his ship from the top of the turret, which compelled the sur- render of Fort Morgan and of the Con- federate ram Tennessee, as attested by Farragut himself in these words: "Per- kins was young and handsome, and . . . no braver man ever trod a ship's deck; . . . his work in the Chicka- saw did more to capture the Tennessee than all the guns of the fleet put to- gether." After the war Commodore Perkins's career was as uninteresting as it had been eventful during the great conflict, and he was compelled to retire in 1891 because of failing health. Dr. Alden has drawn for his volume largely upon Com- modore Perkins's home letters, of which most are excellent reading, direct and clear of style, and giving a pleasant pic- ture of an honest and gallant gentle- man. The author has on the whole done well with this memoir, but the last two chapters, bearing plain evidence of hav- ing been written to order, mar the book and should. If printed at all, have been
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400 Tlie Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2545 preserved for family consumption only. A pleasing picture of Commodore Per- kins as a twenty-three-year-old officer serves as frontispiece. THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION. The King's Council in England During the Middle Ages. By J. P. Baldwin. New York: The Oxford University Press. $5.75 net. It is now just forty years since the first appearance of Bishop Stubbs's "Con- stitutional History of England during the Middle Ages," This still is, and prob- ably will long remain, the best general account for the whole period; but the accumulation of printed sources in re- cent years and the increased and more easily accessible mass of manuscript ma- terial in the Public Record Office and in the British Museum have made pos- sible, if not indeed necessary, a recast- ing of large portions of this monumen- tal work. The present volume by Pro- fessor Baldwin, of Vassar College, is a distinct contribution to the history of the English Constitution in its forma- tive period. While not departing in the main from the broad general outlines of the growth of the King's Council given by Stubbs, the author has presented a more detailed and intelligible account of that institution, and has shown in a clearer manner its relation to the entire system. He has corrected many mis- leading statements made by Stubbs and other writers and has elucidated many obscure points. The work supersedes the earlier treatises by Hale, Palgrave, and Dicey. Mr. Baldwin dismisses the theory of origin during the reign of Henry III by the assertion that the King's Council "never had a point of beginning or in- itial organization. Its origin is found in the prevailing theory and practice of the feudal world, according to which the king, like any other lord, was accustom- ed to receive the aid and counsel of his vassals." The King's Council was not an offshoot, but the direct continuation, of the Norman Curia Regis, the vague, undefined, shifting body of counsellors, now contracting to a mere handful of household officials, now expanding into a general assembly of several hundred tenants-in-chief; a single, undifferentiat- ed body, which, together with the king, exercised all the functions of the cen- tral government. This parent stem of the modern highly organized state was the product of the spirit of the Middle Ages, "its lack of confidence in individ- ual initiative, and its distrust of indi- vidual authority." Much of the confu- sion and perplexity which characterize modern accounts of the origin of the English Constitution is due, in the au- thor's opinion, not to the records them- selves, but to a certain rigidity of mod- ern thought concerning political institu- tions and a failure to appreciate fully the fact that the organization and func- tions of mediaeval governmental bodies were in their very nature vague and un- defined. Other writers have, indeed, ob- served these characteristics, but none have borne them in mind more consis- tently in their treatment of mediaeval institutions. Beginning with the single organ of the Norman state, the Curia Regis, Mr. Baldwin traces in an admirable and sug- gestive manner the gradual modifica- tions of that body under the persistent assertion of royal prerogative against the disruptive tendencies of feudalism, in which it threw off department after department, and yet remained itself the formless, unrestrained King's Council. He abandons the well-known theory that these modifications were occasioned by classification of business, and advocates the theory that the changes were brought about by the introduction of new methods of transacting business. Thus the Exchequer was for a long time merely the Curia Regis, or King's Coun- cil, dealing with royal revenue accord- ing to a fixed routine; the Common Pleas was the same body trying certain classes of cases under the formulary system of the common law. In the course of time those portions of the Council, dealing with certain matters according to fixed rules, separated from the older unrestrained body, which might still and, in fact, often did attend to these affairs in its discretionary man- ner. From the first there were two diver- gent elements in the King's Council: an inner, more or less permanent, group of royal officials, trained experts; and a larger, constantly shifting body of mag- nates, prelates, and feudal barons. The one tended towards bureaucracy and ab- solutism, the other towards limited mon- archy. During the reign of Henry III the struggle was primarily between these two classes, rather than between Englishmen and foreigners. The strug- gle continued through the Middle Ages and resulted in a tendency to make more definite the organization of the Council and its functions. The barons were prevented, however, from realizing their purpose by their inability to pro- vide a permanent body of magnates who were willing to sacrifice their personal interests and remain with the king or at Westminster. A particularly good chapter is the one in which the author discusses the large variety of adjectives applied to the Coun- cil in the fourteenth and fifteenth cen- turies. He rejects the theory that those terms point to a series of concentric Councils with distinct powers, and con- cludes that they were employed by the writers of the age to express varying phases and to emphasize different quali- the only vital distinction that had been drawn at the close of the Middle Ages was the one between Parliament and the King's Council; that the "great," the "wise," the "continual," the "full," and the "secret" Council were one and the same body, contracting and expanding as accident and the nature of business occasioned. Under Edward I, Parliament was merely the Council increased by mem- bers of the three estates. Much of the constructive legislation of that reign was the work of the inner group of offi- cials, approved by the estates whenever greater sanction was deemed advisable. The remark of a justice in a case in 1305, in which the interpretation of the Statute of Westminster II was involved, is significant: "Do not gloss the statute: we understand it better than you, for we made it." In the fourteenth century, when Parliament, the occasional meet- ing of the estates, had become a dis- tinct branch of the government, the barons saw in the Council the chief men- ace to the limited monarchy, and made strenuous but only partially successful efforts to control the personnel and func- tions of that body. After the War of the Roses, the old barons were displaced by a new nobility, an aristocracy of ser- vice, willing to hold office and remain in attendance upon the king or at West- minster. The rehabilitated King's Coun- cil then became in a large measure an instrument of the royal will. Mr. Baldwin has advanced many new views. While some of them will no doubt challenge criticism, it must be ac- knowledged that they are well support- ed, for the text, the footnotes, and a long appendix contain a large amount of source material, which for the most part has never before appeared in print. He sees in the Coram Rege of the thir- teenth century the old shifting Curia Regis, or King's Council, acting with discretionary powers, and holds that it became the separate Court of King's Bench only at the close of the century, when it adopted the formulary system of the Common Law. He rejects the view of Madox, which has been general- ly accepted, that the Chancellor became the second man in the state during the reign of Henry III upon the disappear- ance of the Justiciar. He shows that under Edward I the Treasurer as fre- quently as the Chancellor was the act- ing head of the Council. It was only in the fourteenth century, through a struggle between the Chancellor and his clerks and the Treasurer and barons of the Exchequer, that the Exchequer he- came a separate body, one of the Com- mon Law courts, with limited jurisdic- tion and fixed procedure. Many of the forms later employed by the Court of Chancery were used by the Exchequer while it was still in essence the old Curia Regis. The assumption that the ties of the same body. He holds that | ear]y reCords of the King's Council be-
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April 9, 1 91 4] The Nation 4=01 gan during the reign of Richard II i,s, ilntains, due to a misunderstand- ing of the nature of the Council and the character of the early sources. But he minimizes what has long been considered an irreparable loss to the historian, the supposed destruction of the Council records, 1460 to 1540. While admitting that some were lost, he shows that there are many still extant, and at- tributes the dearth of records at the time of Edward IV to a pronounced de- cline in the importance of the Council during those years. Mr. Baldwin finds nothing new in the Court of Star Cham- ber under Henry VII except vigor and purpose. With its summary procedure and wide scope of authority it was the institutional continuation of the old Curia Regis, which ceased to exist ex- cept in its offshoots after the abolition of that court in 1641. The volume closes with the reorganization of the Council in 1540, when, according to Mr. Bald- win, the King's Council as a single in- stitution properly came to an end. AN OCTOGENARIAN IN HIS STUDY. Goldwin Smith: His Life and Opinions. ly Arnold Haultain. New York: Duffield & Co. $3.75 net. This volume by Goldwin Smith's lit- erary executor is supplementary to "Goldwin Smith's Correspondence" which Mr. Haultain published a few months ago. The "Correspondence" reached over the whole period of Gold- win Smith's life from his student days at Oxford until his death at Toronto; it supplies the best possible account, from his own careful hand, of his public life as professor, author, and journal- ist, and it also reveals the extraordi- nary vigor and keenness of his private opinions at a period when he was at the height of his powers, battling for unpopular causes which he ardently championed. The present volume de- picts the octogenarian in his study at "The Grange" at Toronto. We see him reading, dictating, revising proof, and revising revisions with a meticu- lous care for commas which was the despair of his assistants. We hear his reminiscences before the fireside and the comments which his faithful Boswell, Mr. Haultain, jotted down from day to day between the years 1898 and 1910. There is the same down- rightness of opinion and the same vigor of expression as in the "Correspon- dence"; but there is also an added note of bitterness. The policies which he advocated did not prevail. He did not devote himself to any one field of his- tory long enough to write the greatest work on the subject. His largest suc- cess was as a journalist — a Bystander as he called himself — but even as a jour- nalist his influence was too often ephe- meral. The mention of Disraeli always roused a stream of bitter thoughts; for in "Lothair" Disraeli had made a thin- ly veiled sneer at Goldwin Smith as a "social parasite," "an Oxford professor who was clever and extremely well-in- formed so far as books can make a man knowing, but unable to profit even by that limited experience of life from a restless vanity and overflowing conceit, which prevented him from ever observ- ing or thinking of anything but him- self." This unfair slander Goldwin Smith never forgave, but it was not, as has often been imagined, in any way the cause of his leaving Oxford and England. Mr. Haultain shows clearly enough that Goldwin Smith resigned his Oxford professorship simply be- cause he felt it his duty to care for his father, who had met with an accident which resulted in insanity. After his father's death, when his Oxford pro- fessorship was gone and he had no im- mediate occupation, he quite naturally accepted President White's invitation to come and assist in the building up of a new university at Ithaca. Boswell did not always endorse the opinions of his chief. When Goldwin Smith reiterated his diatribes against the Boer War, popular democracy, or old-fashioned religion, Mr. Haultain jot- ted in his diary: "It is with difficulty that I maintain a frigid silence." Mr. Haultain is often given to moralizing- in his diary himself when we would fain have heard more from Goldwin Smith. Nor is he always quite accu- rate. The eminent German theologian appears half a dozen times as "Har- nac." But these are petty matters which should not obscure the devotion with which the secretary served his chief for years. In addition to the jottings from his own diary which comprise the greater part of the present volume, Mr. Haul- tain has printed a few of Goldwin Smith's letters to C. E. Norton, and also a series of "U. S. Notes," which he found in Goldwin Smith's own hand- writing among the papers after his death. They are the brief notes of a tour which he made in the United States in the latter part of 1864, and are full of interesting observations like the following: [Boston] Mr. Norton came. Went with him to Shady Hill. Mr. Lowell joined us in the evening. Long talk about Ameri- can and English politics, American man- ners, etc. American servants, restless desire to better themselves. Compare the English. Ladies inclined to complain. Mr. N. not. The effect of climate on the race. Mr. Lowell thought the race did not deterio- rate. Large men in New Hampshire and Vermont, as well as in the West. [New York] Want of highly trained statesmen. There are a thousand men as fit to be Governors of a State as the man who has the post. No Sansculottes except the Irish in New York. [Washington] Saw the President. His stories — The three pigeons. The manu- facturing population. They would an- nex Hell as a market for their cottons. BACONIAN CONTROVERSIES. Studies in the Bi-literal Cipher of Fran- cis Bacon. By Gertrude Horsford Fiske. Boston: John W. Luce & Co. This book is one more attempt to find Bacon's name as author in the Folios of Shakespeare's plays. The cipher which the author pretends to trace in those volumes was actually understood by Ba- con, and is explained by him in his "De Augmentis." When the real Bacon wrote a genuine bi-literal cipher mes- sage, he used in his writing (or print- ing) two alphabets, the letters of the first being distinct from the correspond- ing letters of the second. In a printed message the characters of the first alpha- bet may be conveniently named those of the a-font, the letters of the second alphabet those of the b-font. The de- cipherer of Bacon's genuine message wrote an a under each a-font letter, a 0 under each b-font letter, and divided the long succession of a's and b's thus form- ed into groups of five. For instance, oabba stood for G; abaab for K. The letters thus derived spelled the hidden message. If the a-font were Roman and the b-font italic, an example of Ba- con's method would be the following, line (1) being what the sender wrote, line (2) what the decipherer wrote, and line (3) the hidden message: (1) I am tired of alZ this war (2) a ab ababa ba aab aaaa baa (3) F L E E In certain parts of the Shakespearean First and Second Folios, the author dis- covers differences in the printer's let- ters (no surprising phenomenon in those days of crude printing machinery) ; and pretending to decipher by the above method, reads statements from Bacon and his friends. We find four sharp dis- tinctions between Bacon's genuine cipher in the "De Augmentis" and the author's, which in our opinion render the latter worthless. To begin with, the a-font letters in Bacon's "De Augmentis" are so clearly differentiated from the corresponding b- font ones that a child can distinguish between them. In the examples of our Baconian friend these differences are seldom striking, and frequently, in our opinion, do not exist. The author her- self says: "Were it not that the slight differences are consistent whenever the letter is used in the text, one might be tempted to say that they were imagin- ary." We are tempted to say that a dif- ference which is imaginary In one case can be consistent in a dozen cases only by being consistently imaginary.
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^zO^ T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2545 The peculiar nature of the bi-literal cipher renders it untrustworthy unless the difference between the two fonts is clear in all cases. Since there are five letters in the document for every letter in the hidden message, a change of one of the five letters in the first will com- pletely change the one character in the second. If the first four letters are clearly of the a-font, and the fifth is doubtful, the "decipherer" can begin his supposed hidden message either with A (aaaaa) or with B (aaaab). In other words, if one-fifth of the printed letters are doubtful, virtually every letter in the "concealed statement" can be chang- ed at the decipherer's wish. If one- tenth of the letters are doubtful, the decipherer can arbitrarily change, on an average, every second letter in his deciphered sentence. If one letter among thirty in the text can be assigned to either font at will, the decipherer may be able in his derived statement to change a nonsense combination like prknce into such a significant mono- syllable as prince (I being abaaa, and K being abaab). Yet our present author admits that in occasional cases the font is doubtful and is decided in the light of the context, and admits that many let- ters seem doubtful to all eyes except those of a Baconian. In the second place, the writer's de- ciphered revelations, unlike the Latin of Bacon's real cipher, exhibit a great latitude in the matter of orthography. This may be in accordance with Eliza- bethan usage; but it enormously in- creases the possibility of finding English words as the mere result of chance. If we cannot make our cipher work with one spelling, we can always try another. In a single deciphered message (pp. 31-32) seven words appear in two differ- ent forms (so we, sow; onely, only; penn, pen; be, bee; far, farre; gybe, gibe; Amy, Amie) ; and nearly thirty more which in modern English would end in y close at will with y, ie, or ye. Almost half of the words in the passage would allow of two or more spellings. In the third place, the author gets around uncounted snags by a most astounding use of apostrophes. Upo' for upon, invention for invention, sla'drous for slanderous, answeri'g for answering, writi'gs for writings— such are a few specimens. Then we have repeated ab- breviations, such as F. or Fr. for Fran- cis, L. or Lo. for Lord, Qu. for Queen, which are legitimate linguistically, but which, like the wide freedom of Eliza- bethan spelling, help one inestimably in making sense where no cipher was in- tended. We must remember that the apostrophes, periods, and capitals in the above are put in arbitrarily by the de- cipherer and represent nothing in the original. Lastly, Bacon would certainly have given us clear and succinct English, not such grammatical anarchy as the fol- lowing, which is a fair sample of the revelations throughout the book: "many old poems 0' Sp. an' Sh. at a due time shew, mayhap, w'ch MSS. F. hid. But such nere won great praise — look'd, men now say, so faire, a subverti'g surrende' vainely should intrude. More pens did shine I find upon a veritable ," etc. Stripped of the capitals, periods, and ab- breviations supplied by the modern Ba- conian, the first sentence of the above would read: "many old poems osp ansh at a due time shew, mayhap, wchmssf hid." The tireless industry of so many Ba- conians has pointed out phenomena which seem to us merely chance com- binations ingeniously juggled. ESSAYS EX CATHEDRA. The Lawyer in Literature. By John Marshall Gest. The Boston Book Co. $2.50 net. The addresses and essays reprinted in this volume possess interest enough to warrant their reproduction in book form without the voucher of a third person, however distinguished. The Introduc- tion, however, in which Dean Wigmore expresses his good opinion of the au- thor, and discourses learnedly of the ad- vantages to the practicing lawyer of a wide acquaintance with "the literature of the novelists," does the book no harm, and may win for it some readers who might otherwise pass it by. At any rate, we rejoice that neither author nor introducer has called the voucher a "Foreword." Of course, the law and lawyers of Charles Dickens receive much attention. Judge Gest takes genuine delight in re- counting the great novelist's experiences as a law student, and his many thrusts at the legal profession. At the same time, he is careful to call attention to the fact that Dickens was above all a caricaturist; and that his pictures of courts and lawyers are in the main sheer burlesques. He also points out that many of the evils of chancery, which were held up to a nation's scorn in Bleak House, had been abolished by Act of Parliament, before the novel was pub- lished. "Dickens, therefore," declares Judge Gest, "did not kill the chancery snake but only jumped on it after it was dead." Sir Walter Scott and Balzac fare much better at the hands of our author than does Dickens. Both, he says, were well-read lawyers and were impartial in their treatment of the profession. They could separate the evil from the good, and could contrast the upright and learned judge and lawyer with the trickster and the incompetent. The methods of Scott and of Dickens are contrasted in the following passage: There la a vast difference between Dickens's treatment of law and lawyers and Sir Walter's. Dickens saw nothing good in either, and caricatured both. Scott, on the other hand, was an artist; he knew a thousand times as much about the subject as Dickens, and in his fair- minded manner, endeavored to give a just picture of it. But, naturally, the scamps of the law play a larger part in literature than their betters, for a good, well-behaved lawyer is in sooth a very prosaic individual. But a bad lawyer is such a picturesque villain that he is the stock character of every novelist and playwright. Balzac is described as a "stand-patter" in law and politics, who believed in a constitutional monarchy and an intel- lectual aristocracy as the only fit law- makers. He derided the Code Napoleon, for he deemed it the leveller of all class distinctions. Although his father was a lawyer and he studied law for a time, the dry details of practice were revolt- ing to him, and he declined to follow his father's profession. However, he put his legal knowledge to frequent use in his novels, as Judge Gest takes great pains to establish in his instructive paper on this subject. The author reserves his highest praise for Sir Edward Coke, whom he acclaims not only as a great lawyer, but as a learned classical schol- ar, and as a writer of rare literary taste. No one can dispute Coke's marvellous mastery of the common law, though the use to which he put his knowledge was not always above criticism. Nevertheless, many readers of this volume will rise from its perusal unconvinced, we feel sure, of Coke's right to a seat among literary immortals. They will readily admit that his "writings abound with quaint, axiomatic, idiomatic, and pithy expressions." But they will not hesitate to question both the literary merit and the legal soundness of some of the quaint sayings selected by Judge Gest — for example, the following about a hbg- sty as a nuisance: "One ought not to have so delicate a nose that he cannot bear the smell of a hog." EDWARD THE SEVENTH. More About King Edward. By Edward Legge. Boston: Small, Maynard & Co. $4 net. When Edward VII ascended the throne he was so intent upon pleasing in every Imaginable way the beautiful woman who had shared his joys and sorrows for near- ly half a century that, much to her satis- faction, he placed her in the position of an actual Queen-Regnant instead of a mere Queen-Consort. It was a charming man- ner of atoning for any pdchds mignons which he may or may not have perpe- trated during their long and happy mar- ried life. Queen Alexandra is endowed with such a beautiful, loving, and forgh Ing character that it took, and still takes, a great deal to ruffle It, and It Is conceiv- able, to employ a homely phrase, thai .she has had more to put up with since her beloved consort's untimely death than
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April 9, 1 914] T h. e IN" a t i o n 403 during his life. Thia is the opinion of some who are not altogether ignorant of existence within royal palaces. The above passage, taken almost at random, will serve to suggest the qual- ity of this book. It is a sort of rider to the "King Edward in His True Colours" which was reviewed in the Nation about a year ago (April 17, 1913). That was bad enough. It gained a little dignity from its inclusion of extended tributes to the late King by men like M. Poin- care, Comte d Haussonville, and the scholarly Vamb6ry. In itself, as the original work of Mr. Legge, it was an absurd performance. Its chief source was in a pious wrath at the handling of King Edward by Sir Sidney Lee in the Dictionary of National Biography. Sir Sidney did not tell the truth to begin with (cried our champion), and in the second place, if it had been the truth he ought to have been ashamed of tell- ing it. King Edward was not only a dead man, but a dead King, and "the legends woven by the people round their sovereigns ought not to be destroyed." We supposed that Mr. Legge had, in his own opinion, polished off poor Sir Sidney pretty thoroughly, but he here returns to his bone. We will say bone. He acknowledges that, in spite of his disapproval, the Dictionary which has lent itself to the malicious purposes of the ignorant Lee may still be read — "continue to be patronized by club fos- sils and dipped into by the privileged persons who pass their lives in the Brit- ish Museum." But "a museum is a fit- ting receptacle for it." One of the Lee canards which particularly enrages Mr. Legge is that Edward "was no reader of books," and "could not concentrate his mind upon them." Mr. Legge's refuta- tion of this consists in the statements that the King was proud of his library at Windsor and would have visited it oftener if it had not been a mile away from his apartments; and that he was anxious to make his library at San- dringham "a feature of the house." To a very recent assertion in the Times that "it is well known that King Ed- ward was no very devoted student of poetry," counsel for the defence devotes a chapter full of counter-assertions. The King — "Edward the Great" between these covers — "greatly admired and ful- ly appreciated certain classes of verse." Mr. Legge is sure that he must have heard "We Are Seven" in the nursery; and obligingly offers to eat his hat if any one will prove that King Edward "had never read and re-read the 'Idyls,' 'Enoch Arden,' the 'Ode on the Death of Wellington,' 'The Brook,' 'The Prin- cess,' 'Maud,' 'Crossing the Bar,' and many other Tennysonian gems." No doubt some venturesome spirit may be found to undertake the same feat if Mr. Legge can prove that the King did any- thing of the sort. The advocate's sum- mary of evidence is too good not to quote : It would be a reflection on his memory and his capacity for enjoying the death- less imagery of the great poets to sup- pose that he had not a fair acquaintance with the poems of Goldsmith, Cowper, Thomson, Pope, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, Burns, Moore, Macaulay, Swin- burne, Mrs. Hemans, and a score be- sides, not forgetting Dibdin, Tom Hood, Longfellow, Kipling, Praed, and Henley. Notes John \V. Luce & Company include in their April list of announcements: "A Hand Book of Brieux's Plays," by P. V. Thomas; "Katya," by M. de Jessen; "Letters from La-Bas," by Rachel How- ard. "A Free Hand," by Helen C. Roberts, and "The Sheep Track," by Nesta H. Webster, are among the novels an- nounced by Duttons for publication this month. Longmans, Green & Company will pub- lish shortly "Plight without Formulae," by Commander Duchene, translated from the French of John H. Ledeboer. "The Influence of the Bible upon Civ- ilization," by Ernest von Dobschutz, and "Life Histories of African Game Ani- mals," by Theodore Roosevelt, will be published by Scribners this month. Houghton Mifflin Company announces for publication on April 11: "Confederate Portraits," by Gamaliel Bradford; "Eliza- beth and Mary Stuart," by Frank A. Mumby; "A Life of Tolstoy," by Edward Garnett, THE National Geographic Magazine for March opens with an account of vil- lage life in Palestine, by John D. Whiting. Its peculiar merit lies in the light which it throws on the life of the people of Old Testament times. Many of the manners and customs which prevailed there then are still unchanged. How to attract birds to the vicinity of the house is graphical- ly described by Mr. Frederick H. Ken- nard, with many interesting illustrations showing proper nesting sites. Mr. Wil- liam J. Showalter tells what the "pa- tient man of the microscope" has wrought in humanity's behalf in overcoming the tropical diseases. NEW matter in "Bradshaw's Through Routes to the Chief Cities, Bath- ing and Health Resorts of the World" (London: Blacklock) includes mention of the latest archaeological discoveries in Egypt of interest to tourists, details of the political and economic changes in South Africa, following the formation of the Union, and of the progress of the Cape to Cairo railway. Considerable space is given to the railway expansion of the last few years. The present edition is as remarkable as its predecessors for the multitude and the accuracy of its items, and the work is still without a rival as a single volume for the round-the-world traveller. ttF^SSAYS, Letters, and Addresses on \—t Physical and Social Vision" is the sub-title of Helen Keller's little book, "Out of the Dark" (Doubleday, Page), which contains hitherto uncollected mag- azine articles and addresses. These range from personal topics, such as "Christmas in the Dark," to so impersonal a theme as "The Message of Swedenborg." If Miss Keller is occasionally tempted to take up subjects a bit beyond her, she but falls into a common trap for writers, although one regrets the oracular tone that now and then creeps into her utterances. a A T the age of seventy-seven, I be- ■*V gin to make some memoranda and state some recollections of dates & facts concerning myself, for my own more ready reference & for the information of my family." So begins, under date "1821, Jan. 6," the autobiography of Tho- mas Jefferson, destined to extend only to the year 1790. A reissue of this fragment (Putnam) contains the introduction pre- pared by the late Paul Leicester Ford for the Federal Edition of Jefferson's works and Ford's notes, a table of the chief events in Jefferson's life, and an engrav- ing of Stuart's portrait, painted in 1805. AN interesting chapter in the history of Boston is to be found in the Bos- tonian Society Publications, Vol. X. It is an account by Mr. Fitz-Henry Smith, jr., of the coming of the French fleets under Count D'Estaing and the Marquis de Vaudreuil to Boston during the Revo- lution, and the work done by the French- men in the construction of fortifications at Hull and in the harbor. The des- potic government of our ancestors is shown by Mr. F. E. Bradbury in his ac- count of the laws and courts of the Mas- sachusetts Bay Colony. In 1634, for in- stance, "John Lee was whipped and fined forty pounds for saying that the Gov- ernor was but a lawyer's clerk, and what understanding had he more than himself. . . . Roger Scott was whip- ped for sleeping in church." Laws were also enacted relative to the style of wo- men's hats and the width of the female sleeve. In 1646 it was enacted that "a stubborn or rebellious son, of sufficient years and understanding, viz., sixteen . . . shall be put to death." As au- thority for this legislation, they relied on the Mosaic laws. THE third volume of Mr. P. S. Allen's "Opus Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Koterodami" (Oxford University Press) includes the letters from July, 1517, to June, 1519, all of which, with a few ex- ceptions, were written by or to Erasmus at Louvain during one of his quieter pe- riods. "Totus, hoc est cum bibliotheca" (how beautiful the phrase!), he writes to George Halewin, one of his English friends, in August of 1517, "Louanium commigravi. Cum theologis altissima pax atque adeo necessitudo." The peace, however, was not quite perfect, and, in- deed, Erasmus would scarcely have known how to adapt himself to so un- wonted a state. His dear friend, James Faber, for one, had drawn him into an odiosa disputatio, in the course of which he had written to Faber himself, calling Christ to abandon him if he did not equally hate both the necessity of qunr-
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404 T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2545 rolling and his own victory, "which all with one mouth attribute to inc." To- wards the end of this period, also, we see the beginning of the rift between him and Luther, in 1516 Luther had to obtain, through Palatums, some infor- mation in regard to Erasmus's views on theology, and had expressed the fear that human things prevailed in him over di- vine; but the first direct communication between the two representatives of the radical and the conservative reformation is a letter dated from Wittenberg-, March 28, 1519. Here Erasmus is "decus nos- trum et spes nostra," and Luther is a fool to approach him so familiarly — he an unknown man, with his unwashed hands; but it was not to be always thus. THE most interesting feature of these letters, as in the earlier volumes, is the spirit running through them, which was in due time to create the school of the literary wits; indeed, it would not be amiss to call Erasmus himself the first of that school. It is the spirit expressed in a letter to Brixius, telling- him that they ought to aid in "syncretizing" those who have been initiated into the mystery of literature, since the "muse-haters" conspire together so odiously. It speaks again in a letter from Richard Pace, scolding Erasmus for wasting so much breath "ad istos asinos ad lyram pla- candos." It helps, also, to explain why Erasmus took no pleasure in the heavier humor and direct persiflage of the "Lit- terae Obscurorum Virorum." Mr. Allen's work as editor shows the same enormous erudition and inexhaustible patience as in the preceding volumes; his notes and in- troductions are a treasure-house for all future scholars in this field. He might, we think, as an interlude in his more arduous task, or as an aftermath, per- form a very great service to the literary world by issuing a fairly comprehensive selection of the letters with biographi- cal intercalations. And if the connecting matter were written in a Latin approach- ing Erasmus's own marvellously fluid style (which Mr. Allen's long intimacy with Erasmus should render easy for him), the result might be a volume, or pair of volumes, of extraordinary value and unique interest. IN Edward Hungerford's "The Person- ality of American Cities" (McBride, Nast), the reader will find a series of clever "stories" prepared according to the current recipe of magazine journal- ism. They are written fluently, jauntily, knowingly: we suspect that they have "the punch." There is not a little ma- terial in them, but any appearance of care in employing it has been successful- ly avoided. In case of doubt, they use the hackneyed phrase. A split infin- itive is a mild liberty with this writer, he has an evident disdain for syntax in general; and when he lapses into furrin tongues, he produces such italics as via nacre, table d'hotes, and restauranteur. I'.ut he has, no doubt, a hearty contempt for purism: the effect's the thing, and you can't "put it over" by writing like a book. These are not, and do not pro- fess to be, studies of a philosophical or literary sort. They are excellent stories in the newspaper sense, and according to the newspaper standard — which is also the standard of our popular magazines. A good deal of pains has been gi\ a t" retting them up, if not to setting them 'town, and the author has been success- ful in catching and conveying certain pic- turesque or salient features of some twenty-five American cities, including Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec. T' O undermine the tower of ivory and blow up the last great hereditary prince of the dilettantes emerges as the ultimate purpose of an exhaustive psy- chological study of Anatole France by G. Michaut, maitre de conferences at the Sorbonne (Paris: Pontemoing). M. Michaut performs his task with the in- timate knowledge and the half-regretful severity of a disillusioned lover, explain- ing and atoning for an infatuation of many years. Acknowledging the fascina- tion of that intellect so fine, alert, supple, and curious, he pitilessly exposes its lim- itations: its discontinuity of intention, its lack of constructive force, its specta- torial detachment, its egoism and subjec- tivity, its subjection to the tyrannic des souvenirs. Turning, then, to the ques- tion of imaginative faculty, he declares that M. France's preoccupation with him- self is highly unfavorable to invention; almost incomparably conversant with the arts and sciences of all times and places, Anatole France appears, when compared with Balzac or Dickens or Hugo, nearly destitute of "creative imagination"; in- vestigation of his sources, his repetitions, and his recombinations proves his work to be a kind of superlatively brilliant pastiche — a triumph of learning and pa- tient industry, rather than a fresh crea- tion of a spontaneous and fecund genius. As for his taste, it is the expression of a temperament fundamentally sensual: of his art, his religious views, his loves, and his animosities, the tap-root is sensuality. In pursuing this theme M. Michaut dis- plays at once his enchantment with the fairer flowers and his disenchantment with the root and the fruit. In the fall of the year he finds a rankness in the air and an odor of decay in the garden of Epicurus. At the end of a chapter il- lustrated by quotations of an exquisite and seductive grace, he puts the slug- horn to his lips for this valedictory blast: "From the beginning to the end, with nuances, here more delicate, there more cynical, here more subdued, there more aggressive, his work is devoted au Desir et a la Volupte." M. France, then, has a faith, such as it is; he has betrayed again and again the untenability of the skeptical dilettantism which he inherited from Itenan. He struck the dilettante attitude, and deceived himself and the world for a long time. But, in accord- ance with a mysterious law of human na- ture, missing felicity because he sought it, he has lost his composure, and has been put out of his part; in the wrath and bitterness of disillusion, he has given way to raillery and derision and hatred, and has violently taken sides. In a sec- ond volume M. Michaut will exhibit M. France's "evolution." Meanwhile, he as- sures us that the experiment is conclu- sive: if M. France is one of the great men of dilettantism, he should be the last, and it should die with him. IN "The Haskalah Movement in Rus- sia" (Philadelphia: The Jewish Pub- lication Society), Dr. J. S. Raisin de- scribes the rise and development of what may be called the Husso-Jewish renais- sance of the past fifty years. This pe- riod, which in its entirety is practically unexplored, seems to furnish a paradox in the history of culture. That under the pressure of social and political os- tracism, so active and varied an intel- lectual movement could thrive, is at any rate a rare occurrence. The chap- ters which summarize the lives and chief tendencies of leading writers and scholars are told with sober discrimina- tion and scholarly thoroughness. There is a refreshing absence of a certain ex- aggeration of which authors in this field are often guilty. The rapid growth of Russian literature doubtless had its in- fluence on the Jew's intellectual life, de- spite his hapless position in the Empire. His exceptional treatment, however, in- stead of crippling his energies and pro- ducing torpor, aroused more keenly his mental powers. The volume is of inter- est to the thoughtful few who realize the importance of Russia in art, music, science, and literature; to the author's own special community it is an authori- tative and attractive book. A YOUNG American scholar, Dr. Ju- lius Klein, of the University of California, and Harvard, recently discov- ered in Spain the long-lost archives of the famous Mesta, the ancient Spanish guild of sheep-owners, which bore many strik- ing resemblances to our modern Ameri- can industrial combinations. The Mesta was established about 1273, and was dis- solved in 1836. Its archives had long been lost, until the American Historical Review, in its number for April, 1913, announced that, after many months of study and several weeks of research in different parts of Spain, Dr. Klein had found them in a room in Madrid, buried under years of dust. Since then Dr. Klein has been studying this hitherto un- used source of material bearing on Span- ish economic history, and his investiga- tions reveal the presence of much valu- able information concerning the owner- ship of land, the public domain, com- mons, forests, etc. The complete files of the minutes of the organization from 1499 and of its accounts from 1510 down to the nineteenth century, together with briefs and decisions of some 3,500 law suits in which it was a party from 1390 to 1790, form perhaps a unique collec- tion of matter on the economic develop- ment of a country during the later mid- dle ages and the early modern period. Dr. Klein has given an account of his find in the February number of the Boletin of the Real Academia de His- toria of Madrid, where two of the oldest charters of the Mesta, with notes, are published, and others are to appeal shortly in the Bulletin Hispanique of Paris. Dr. Klein is returning to the United States this spring, bringing with him some 350 photographs of the most important of these documents and a mass of other data and notes, when a complete history of the Mesta will be brought out, probably under the auspices of Harvard University, the preliminary work In Spain
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April 9, 191 4] The ]ST a t i o 11 4:05 having been carried on by Dr. Klein as Woodbury Lowery and Sheldon fellow in economic history of that institution. "A (ivi' Servant in Burma" (Long- /"* mans) is the modest title of Sir Herbert T. White's record bf his thirty- odd years of labor in Burma, which saw him rise from a minor posi- tion to become Lieutenant-Governor of a province larger than France or Germany. Such a life is bound to be interesting, and Sir Herbert has the seeing eye and ability to describe personal adventures as well as political changes. He writes history as he saw it in the making, and his life-story has become a part of the history of the "fairest and brightest of Eastern lands." lip IdentaUy, there are charming pictures of the philosophical, happy-go-lucky na- tive, who will not mend his roof when it rains, because then he cannot, nor when it is clear, because then it does not need repair; who is reputed lazy, and yet works better than a coolie; who is called a coward, and yet chases a tiger and 1 'cats it after he has driven it off with a knife — or does this prove only that it is the Burmese tiger that is a coward? Some charming photographs illustrate country and town scenes, but the best picture in this attractive book is that of the broad-minded and tolerant Englishman sympathetically fathering his adopted country. We doubt whether any German or Frenchman could have written such a book, and wonder why any Hindu is eager to throw off so gentle a yoke.. DO you count on prowling about Rome and making the trip from Arezzo to the Eternal City in an effort to identify all the scenes in "The Ring and the Book"? You needn't. It has already been done by Sir Frederick Treves in "The Country of The Ring and the Book" (Cassell). A completer companion for the topographical student of that unique poem, or indeed for those who are not uncompromising Browning enthusiasts, it would be difficult to produce. The open- ing section gives the record of fact as it may be gathered from the various documents of that now celebrated case bound up in the Old Yellow Book. This is not the bare recital one might expect from its dry-as-dust source, but one col- ored by flickering lights of humor and variegated by an occasional quotation from the poem. There is also a closing- section furnishing a strictly unim- aginative commentary on the various actors in that bygone tragedy "as they appear in the poem." But the purpose and justification of the book are to be found in part two, which describes with admirable minuteness and thoroughness all the places associated with that oft- repeated story of crime. We learn of the church where Pompilia worshipped as a child, of the kind of house, though not of the actual palazzo, where she spent her brief yet too long married life. We even learn why she and her friend the priest left Arezzo by the San Clemente Gate rather than the Porta San Spirito, and see the very section of the city wall over which the two climbed. On account of Browning's fidelity to fact in his ver- sions such painstaking identifications are not only interesting, but lend the char- acters a new and distinct reality. This contribution is enhanced by a hundred and six illustrations, nearly all of which are photographs "taken by the author for the most part at or about the actual date in the calendar on which occurred the episode with which the scene is as- sociated." SURELY, no poetry has been subject- ed to such matter-of-fact and in- deed intensely prosaic verification and identification. For all of it the lov- er of poetry, except in his idler, more curious moments, will have little occasion or yearning. He will follow the spiritual histories of the va- rious personages who were bound to- gether by the crime in the Via Vittoria on January 2, 1698, without troubling himself to discover whether the murder- ers first set foot in Rome in the Piazza del Popolo, or whether the moon was full on December 30 preceding. The play of motive and the changes of soul in the maleficent Guido or the guileless Pom- pilia will engage his attention. It is only when he has ceased to regard them as artistic creations, and begins to consider the figures in the sordid trial of the sev- enteenth century that the reader will turn to this exhaustive guide to the coun- try of "The Ring and the Book." NOTES FROM ABROAD. SIMULTANEOUSLY with its reduction in price, the London Times has made another great change. Its printing office has become a trade union estab- lishment, thus leaving the Globe alone in the London daily press as a non-union paper. LONDONERS have been assured re- cently by Sir Laurence Gomme, per- haps the highest living authority on the history of London government, that their city is steadily improving. Largely owing to the work of Norman Shaw, its general architecture is more artistic than it used to be. Nor will Sir Laurence allow the common indictment that Londoners are not public-spirited. Their public spirit, he thinks, takes so many forms that one is apt to lose sight of it. He notes a special advance in the recognition of health and disease as pub- lic matters. "No one is now entitled to have smallpox to himself." A FEW years ago one could pick up for sixpence a "remainder" entitled "The Truth about an Author." It was a reprint — still anonymous — of a scries of brisk and candid autobiographi- cal articles that had appeared in the Lon- don Academy. Its author, Arnold Ben- nett, has now issued a revised edition of the book under his own name. Writing plays is probably much more profitable, for "The Great Adventure" has now ex- ceeded its 400th consecutive performance at the Kingsway Theatre. Only twelve plays produced in London during the present century have equalled this record. One of them was "Milestones," which ran to 608 performances. ENGLISH actors, however, are con- fronted with an economic difficulty on account of the adoption by so many theatres — especially the small theatres of large cities and the large theatres of small cities — of the music-hall system of "two houses a night." Dramas have to be shortened in order to fit twice into the space of time between 7 and 11 P. M., and the curtailment is mainly done at the expense of the small parts in the cast, a much greater strain thus being thrown on those who play the large parts, to say nothing of the physical tax of more frequent changes of costume. For twelve or thirteen performances a week under this system, the actor receives no more than was formerly paid for six or seven. A "Pay for Play League" has been formed in order to seek remedies, and an attempt will be made to formulate the demands of the profession in view of expected in- tervention by Parliament. The Home Of- fice is reported to be already consider- ing the whole question of theatrical em- ployment. THE plain-spoken Bishop of Chalons- sur-Marne has delivered against worldly dinners and parties a Lenten charge which tallies closely with some recent French novels. "While the com- mon people sap their vitality by intem- perance in alcohol, which is worse for the race than war, the rich too often seek in combinations of sauces and viands that excitement of incendiary gastronomy which corrupts the blood and awakens all sorts of fevers. . . . When the clergy are gone, the best-kept houses transform themselves into very free theatres. Light pieces composed expressly are played, with double mean- ing which indeed may escape young irujenues, but whose words are so many stimulants to the sophisticated. Gay songs alternate with talk of pleasure. And all ends with dances often most familiar, to which young people give all their legs and hearts into improper hours. . . . On the ruins of society in which religion ails and fails, Chris- tians might have something better to do than that!" AMONG the hundreds of Paris chari- ties, one of picturesque name has just had a week's sale at its single counter in the Bazar de la Charite' which replaces that burned with so great loss of rich women's lives in 1897. It is the "Ray of Sunlight for Young Girls." In the ten years since its foundation, this good work has paid the expenses of wholesome vacations for 2,500 working girls. In the same week there was a benefit night in favor of the good work of "Aid for the Maimed Poor." The Lyceum — a woman's club with a sepa- rate branch for Paris Americans — under the patronage of the dowager Duchesse d'Uzes gave an entertainment for the "Labor works of all the Dioceses of France." ANOTHER art has been admitted of late to the annual exhibition of the Soci£t6 Nationale des Beaux-Arts, which was once known as the "Now Salon" of Paris. It is Music — and it means that young or unrecognized composers have the opportunity of presenting their work to a jury and obtaining its public hear- ing, without expense to themselves. This Ion of the Salon is under the direc- tion of Paul Viardot, who is the son of
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4G6 T li e N a t i o ii [Vol. 98, No. 2545 the great Malibran's sister and rival singer, He has a jury such as exists for painting and .sculpture and the other arts. This year more than 200 musical works have been submitted to the jury, which lias accepted 122 for execution by a chosen orchestra at the Tuesday and Friday concerts during the ten weeks' exhibition from mid-April to the end of June. A 'I' the meeting' of the Academie des Sciences Morales in the first week of March, a notice was read of the phi- lanthropic work of the late B. Altman of New York. It included a description of the art collection he bequeathed to the Metropolitan Museum — and an analyti- cal account of his profit-sharing- foun- dation for his employees, with its novel reimbursement premium. THE Soci6t6 Nationale was founded in 1890 by Meissonnier, Puvis de Cha- vannes, Carolus-Duran, Besnard, Rodin, and others, who professed to open wide doors to youth and New Art. It has hardly gone beyond the brilliant close circle of its foundation in painting and sculpture; but the success of its section of Decorative Arts has forced a similar charitable opening of space to struggling artists on the official "Old Salon." The two exhibitions for some years have competed directly, as they take place at the same time at opposite ends of the Grand Palais. THE Paris Municipal Council has al- ways been open to new ideas, not only for the city's sake, but to encourage artists who give its character to Paris. A decorative experiment, which may be of great interest in the illumination of the modern city, is being tried in the Place de la Concorde, the largest open space in any European capital. There, as in the Champs-Elysees and the Grands Boule- vards, a great part of the lighting is by "intense" gas lamps, which produce shad- ows as crude and unfavorable to archi- tectural lines as the electric arc. At the entrance of the Place from the Rue Royale, the light falls on the two palaces which form the entire northern side. They were built with long colonnades by Gabriel before the Revolution; and one is now the Naval Office, while the other is divided between a fashionable club, the Automobile Club of France, and the Hotel Crillon. At the entrance corners of the Place great candelabra have had their lamps fitted with ground-glass globes, giving a diffused, but still brilliant, light varying from opal to pearl. As a mere matter of convenience, the autobus stops in the long triple avenue up to the Arc de Triomphe had already been flanked with green lights. Paris may end with Athen- ian taste in lighting instead of the mod- ern Babylonish glare. WHAT the average man and woman think of the world around them is shown by the voting contest recently held among the readers of the Matin news- paper. Prizes to the amount of $130,000 were offered, ranging from $10,000 to a bicycle. There were forty of these prizes, to be distributed according to accuracy in guessing the seven wonders of the world to-day as decided by the majority of votes. First place was taken by the aeroplane, with 150,188 votes. The other wonders receiving a majority of votes for enrolment in the seven were, in order — wireless telegraph, radium, locomotive, human grafts (an echo of the interest stirred by Dr. Carrel's lectures in Fiance last summer), an ti -diphtheritic serum, the dynamo. Science ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE SPECTRO SCOPE. Stellar Motions. By William Wallace Campbell, Director of the Lick Ob- servatory. New Haven: Yale Uni- versity Press. $4 net. The stars to the ancients were all at the same distance from us, and all set immovably in a huge transparent hollow sphere of crystal, like jewels in a crown. Perforce they could not move: they were prevented from so doing by the solid continuity of Itheir environment; so they were "fixed stars" palpably enough, and as such were passed along from one age to the next, till it was universally believed that any such thing as a stellar motion was absurd. Obviously, too, all this vastness of the celestial architec- ture was regarded as centred about the earth; and its stately progress through the night meant that the gods had so decreed it for human edification. Except for the inconceivably great distances of the stars, every postulate of the ancient view of the stellar universe was totally wrong. Giordano Bruno, martyred by the Inquisition in 1600 for original scientific views, among them his doubt of the absolute fixity of the fixed stars; Hooke towards the end of the same century; Bradley, thiiM Astron- omer Royal; Lalande, and the elder Herschel — all held the firm opinion that, as the last said, "there is not, in strict- ness of speaking, one fixed star in the heavens; . . . there can hardly re- main a doubt of the general motion of all the starry systems, and consequently of the solar one amongst the rest." Nev- ertheless, Halley early in the eighteenth century appears to have been the first to adduce positive evidence that a few stars, at least, do not remain motion- less with reference to their neighbors; that they have, in fact, what he termed proper motions, small in amount, to be sure, but nevertheless detectable, even by the instrumental means of his day. The attempts had been many to ascer- tain the distance of a star, but none had succeeded till Bessel, nearly a century ago, had found an appreciable parallax of Cygni; and Sir W. Herschel's earli- er inference that the stars must be scattered through space at widely dif- fering distances, led up to Maedler's er- roneous hypothesis of a central sun, Alcyone, round which the stars, our sun among them, majestically wheeled, as the earth and other planets of the solar system are known to travel round the sun. Herschel, too, found many stars with attendant suns, binary systems, that is, the bodies whirling slowly round each other, but nevertheless plainly in motion. No other stellar movements were recognized until a little less than half a century ago, when the advent of the spectroscope, under the deft han- dling of Huggins, and later of Vogel and Keeler, proved beyond a doubt the swift motion in space of all stars and nebulae, some advancing towards the sun, some receding from it; others puz- zlingly approaching for a time and then journeying away from us, and yet oth- ers whirling swiftly round each other, but so close together that no telescope could be built powerful enough to sep- arate them. Professor Campbell is not in the main concerned with stellar motions of this character, determined after the manner of precision of the older astronomy, al- though his comprehensive work shows him thoroughly adept in regard to it. He has devoted his pages rather to the achievement of the spectroscope, of which he lucidly says: "The ordinary [telescopic] point image of a star is as if all the books in the University library were thrown together in a disorderly but compact pile in the centre of the reading-room: we could say little con- cerning the contents and characteristics of that library. The spectrum of a star is as the same library when the books are arranged on the shelves In complete perfection and simplicity, so that he who looks may appraise its contents at any or all points." To carry the simile a step further, by letting the books in orderly arrangement represent the spec- tral lines, the slight shifting of a line to the right or left seems to have signi- fied little more to the early investigators than the misplacement of a book on the shelf. Doppler in Germany and Fizeau in France gave the first hint of this im- portance of the spectrum; Kirchhoff overlooked it; Clerk-Maxwell in Eng- land first presented it in definite form; and Huggins made the first attempt to measure these minute displacements of spectral lines. Professor Campbell pre- sents in outline the mathematical theory of these line-displacements, and shows how the careful measurement of them is translatable into the star's approach or recession. In other words, the star's radial velocity, or motion in the line of sight, is ascertained; and over a thou- sand stars have been submitted to this very critical and highly significant mea- surement. Professor Campbell presents briefly, though sufficiently, the history and de- velopment of the methods by which re- sults of this character are alone possi- ble: how the efforts of highly skilled observers In both Germany and England were baffled for a quarter of a century; how every effort of the pioneers was
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April 9, 19 14] The JSTation 4=07 Mieless an index to point the way of success to those who followed after; how Keeler, with the Lick telescope, gave us in 1890 the first trustworthy stellar velocity; how he followed it up with velocities of approach and reces- sion of the great nebula in Orion and many faint planetary nebulae besides; how Draper's stellar spectrograms of 1872 recorded spectral lines for the first time; how Pickering followed up the lead with vast amplifications at Har- vard; and, finally, how Vogel and Scheiner at Potsdam proved the new photographic method to be so advan- tageous that visual measures were no longer even thought of. About this time, while Potsdam was waiting for new and ampler facilities, Campbell embraced the unique opportunity of a huge telescope on a high mountain in a serene at- mosphere at an equable temperature, so to plan a spectrograph that it should yield a maximum efficiency in just one line of research. All tyros in spectro- scopy should read his story of unremit- ting effort towards this end; how his design, ultimately successful, was "a bundle of fortunate compromises be- tween a great number of conflicting in- terests." We have little space for comment on Professor Campbell's treatment of visual and spectroscopic binaries. Pickering found the first binary of this intimate character in 1889, the star Zeta Ursae Majoris, and Vogel the next one, Spica Virginis, which Baker has recently in- vestigated fully. So distant is Spica and so close are the component stars of its system that a telescope of at least thirty times the power of the Lick glass would be needed to separate them. Beta Cephi, discovered by Frost, has the short- est known period of revolution, only four and a half hours. Over three hun- dred spectroscopic binaries are now known, and Professor Campbell presents a most interesting discussion of them: There is a possibility that the stars at- tended by massive companions, rather than by small planets only, are in a de- cided majority; suggesting- at least that our solar system may prove to be an ex- treme type of system rather than of the prevailing or average type. This is not a casual and passing comment. We do not possess a shred of positive evidence that any other star than our own is attend- ed by small planets; we seem powerless at present to obtain any evidence in fa- vor of or against their existence; and the prevailing belief that planets exist in other systems rests upon analogy to the solar system. We have the evidence of visual and spectroscopic binary stars that other systems with two or more massive central bodies are extremely common. The variable stars, whether short-pe- riod or long-period, are also considered, Professor Campbell regarding them as affording promise of great utility in solving the problems of origin of visual and spectroscopic binaries. Of Bailey's remarkable cluster variables, Professor Campbell thinks that, as the light fluc- tuations repeat exactly in time, we must be observing binary systems whose members interact upon each other in such a way as to vary their radiation output. The wonderful novae are dealt with; but discussion is limited as far as possible to the bearing of radial velocity observations upon the interpretation of the phenomena of variables. Numerous hypotheses of the causes of variation are discussed. In the case of Cepheids and Geminids, for example, it is found that every star so far investigated attains its greatest brightness at or very near the time of greatest velocity of approach towards the solar system, and minimum brilliance at the time when the brighter star of the system has its maximum ve- locity of recession. Clearly, eclipses can have no part in the problem, and we can only be sure that the mysterious light variations are in some "way connected with orbital revolutions in the systems themselves. Perhaps no other class of variables is more worthy of spectroscop- ic study; but the faintness of most of the uninvestigated stars of this type calls for greater optical power, such as only the huge reflectors of the future, as at Ottawa, Mount Wilson, and in Ar- gentina, can be expected to supply. The wide range of problems within the reach of radial velocity is admirably illustrated by the fact that such mea- sures seem likely to provide an exceed- ingly accurate as well as simple and di- rect method of ascertaining the distance of the sun. Nearly a quarter century ago Professor Campbell wrote: By assuming the earth's mean dis- tance from the sun to be 92,500,000 miles, which corresponds to a solar parallax of 8".838, it is probable that the resulting orbital velocities (of the earth) will not be in error by more than 0.1 mile per second. There is reason to hope that the probable errors of spectroscopic ob- servations will soon reach this low limit, in which case the problem will be re- versed and the spectroscope will be used to measure the earth's orbital motion and thus to determine the solar parallax. No less than two such determinations have been made in recent years, and their agreement with the geometric and gravitational methods of the older astronomy is gratifying. In his chapters of studies of the stel- lar system, Campbell reaches many in- teresting conclusions. He finds that the scale of the universe of the brighter stars is a great deal larger than has been previously estimated; and more significant is his discovery that the pro- gression of average velocity with ad- vancing spectral type Is clear and un- mistakable: in other words, stellar ve- locities are functions of the effective ages of the stars. Our sun is, there- fore, seen to take place as one of the slower moving and hence younger of the stars. The solar motion as discov- ered frOm stellar proper motions; pref- erential motion as in star streams; the distribution of the brighter stars; the possible slow rotation of our stellar system, are all considered, and these questions lead up to the central inves- tigation of the volume, namely, the spec- trograph^ determination of the solar motion. Here is found a masterly analy- sis of one of the greatest problems that have engrossed the human mind since the elder Herschel's first solution of it. Campbell marshals his unique collection of data in excellent geometric form, and makes a number of least square solu- tions on different suppositions. Through the timely aid of the late Mr. D. O. Mills in providing for the establishment and maintenance of an accessory sta- tion to the Lick Observatory in San- tiago, Chili, Professor Campbell, with the able collaboration of Wright, Curtis, and Moore, was enabled to add the mo- tions of stars of the southern sky to those of the northern, thereby rounding out his research to full completion. He finds that the sun and his family of planets are journeying Lyra-ward, at two-thirds the orbital velocity of the earth; sufficient to carry the solar sys- tem 560,000,000 kilometres in a year's time, or nearly four times the distance separating earth and sun. Does this be- wildering inter-stellar motion of the sun take place in a regular curve, or in a straight line? Professor Campbell's judgment is that neither hypothesis fits the case; but that eventually the sun's path will be found to be composed of a succession of unrelated curves, owing to our journeying within the spheres of in- fluence of other great stars one after another. While Professor Campbell cannot be regarded as the Nestor of stellar spec- troscopy, he. is nevertheless a pioneer of the first order, and his book is a fairly complete summary of research on stel- lar motions, especially as determined by the spectrograph. His analytic de- velopment of the formulae and methods of this new research will be found par- ticularly welcome to students and inves- tigators, and as such his "Stellar Mo- tions" is certainly an epoch-making vol- ume for which all astronomers will heartily thank, first, the author, and second, the Yale trustees who were em- powered by the terms of the Silliman Foundation to engage Professor Camp- bell for that course of lectures which, delivered at the University early in 1910, formed the basis of this praisewor- thy treatise. The index is ample and the volume is fully illustrated with dia- grams, photographic spectra, and half- tones of the observatories and Instru- ments concerned, as well as with an ex- ceptional series of portraits from New- ton to Rutherfurd, and I forscliol to Keeler.
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4QH Tlio Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2545 I )rama THE HIGHER MORALITY. The Comedy of Manners. By John Palmer. New York: The Macmillan Co. $3.25. To the still-animated controversy be- tween the artists and the moralists Mr. Palmer contributes a quite readable chapter concerned with the so-called comedy of the Restoration as represent- ed by Etherege, Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar. In our opin- ion, these writers are the favorites of nature and of fortune. They were wit- ty themselves, and they have been the constant occasion of wit in others. They have been brilliantly praised and bril- liantly condemned. When they are not enjoying a succes d'estime, they are en- joying a succes de scandale. They keep up an enlivening sectarian buzzing in the Temple of Fame. While dust gath- ers in the niches of the unregarded classics, they with each revolution of taste are challenged, taken down, aired, dusted, and crowned with fresh bays. No one can approach them without a glimmer or sparkle of inner or reflected light. Mr. Palmer approaches them as gravely as possible, and with solemn aesthetic convictions. He holds that they have fared badly — have been grievous- ly, nay, even tragically, misunderstood. "That Leigh Hunt's edition of the comic dramatists fell to be reviewed by Ma- caulay," he says, "is one of the tragedies of literary history. Macaulay's review undid all that the best critical intellect of his time had achieved for the repu- tation of English comedy." Yet despite this lugubrious overture, Mr. Palmer's book fairly coruscates with the wit of Etherege and Congreve and Lamb and Hazlitt and Hunt and Meredith. And with a touch of the Restoration grace Mr. Palmer quotes on the title-page: "Your judge-wit or critic. . . . He rails at all the other classes of wits, and his wit lies in damning all but him- self: he is your true wit." Mr. Palmer "damns" all the wits who have considered moral judgment a part of literary criticism. For a some-time scholar of Balliol College he seems curi- ously informed as to the date at which critics began to apply the "moral test" to works of art. In 1698, as every one knows, Jeremy Collier published his cel- ebrated "Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage." He opened his attack with a traditional definition of the function of drama: ""The business of plays is to recommend virtue and discountenance vice. . . 'Tis to expose the singularities of pride and fancy, to make folly and falsehood contemptible, and to bring everything that is ill under infamy and neglect." From this definition, argues Mr. Palmer, everything that Collier urged against contemporary stage plays logically fol- lowed; and, he continues, the attempts of the dramatists to defend themselves were foredoomed to failure, because they accepted "Collier's moral test." The "inflamed Puritanism" of that misguid- ed clergyman, Mr. Palmer would have us believe, has vitiated English crit- icism to this day. Following Collier's lead, that inflamed Puritan Dick Steele also applied the moral test and condemn- ed the tone of the Restoration comedy. So, too, did those inflamed Puritans, Dean Swift, Sam Johnson, Coleridge, Macaulay, Thackeray, and George Mere- dith. Judge-wit Palmer, as we have said, damns the entire critical jury, dis- charging them on the ground that they have applied "precisely the test which no one before Collier had ever dreamed of applying." A rather stunning tribute to the influ- ence of that virulent non-juring clergy- man! But we must protest that he does not deserve it. Collier did not go about to make an innovation in the prin- ciples of dramatic criticism. Though his tactics in the actual conflict were faulty, his strategy in the preliminaries was admirable. In setting up the "mor- al test" he appealed to precedents which his bitterest adversaries acknowledged to be authoritative. His definition of the moral function of drama was not ac- cepted by Congreve and the rest because they had been hypnotized by Collier, but because it had been accepted by Boileau, Ben Jonson, Sidney, the critics of the Renaissance, and by those inflamed Puritans, Horace and Aristotle. They possibly remembered that not merely Prynne in his annihilatory fury, but also Sidney in his glowing defence of their art, had cried out on these "naughty play-makers and stage-keepers" who had justly made comedy odious, "even in that point of laughter, and forbidden plainly by Aristotle . . . that they stir laughter in sinful things, which are rather execrable than ridiculous." They could extenuate their offence by show- ing that Collier had overdriven his point; but they could not exonerate them- selves, what though the zeal of God's house had devoured some part of their prosecutor's good manners and civility. As Dryden admitted in his noble apol- ogy, "in many things he has taxed me justly." Mr. Palmer reopens the case in an at- tempt to exonerate Etherege, Wycher- ley, and Congreve — Vanbrugh and Far- quhar he allows were artistically and morally a little muddled. He wishes to restore to them the honors awarded by Lamb, Hazlitt, and Hunt, and ruthless- ly torn from them by Philistine Macau- lay. Now, Hunt was not very powerful as a theorist. Hazlitt confined himself pretty well to expressing his passion of delight in the perfection of literary craftsmanship — in the exquisite finish and flash of the comic dialogue and the sheer fineness of stroke in the charac- ter-drawing. And Lamb — well, Lamb had not Mr. Palmer's high seriousness. Poor Lamb, as Carlyle would say, had not heard of the "higher morality." Lamb, like "roguish" Pepys, indulged in Restoration comedy when he felt the need of taking "an airing beyond the diocese of the strict conscience." He ac- cordingly invented his playful paradox that Restoration comedy is fairyland; and the able-bodied Edinburgh reviewer promptly demolished it. Macaulay ar- gued that Wycherley's comedy, for exam- ple, was not fairyland, but did faithfully reflect the world he lived in; that the viciousness of this world passed the province of laughter; and that therefore Wycherley's laughter passed the province of comedy, and was bad artistically and morally. In other words, Macaulay con- fined himself rather closely to that part of literary criticism which discusses the subject of the artist, and he pronounced the subject unfit for art. Mr. Palmer denies the right of the critic to judge the subject. His argument, in a nut- shell, is that, since Wycherley's comedy is a faithful reflection of the world he lived in, it is sound artistically and sound morally: "There is a higher mor- ality than that of Jeremy Collier — a plane upon which Plato and S. Francis, Confucius and Elijah, may meet" — with Wycherley, presumably, and the other worthies of the Restoration. This argument effectively disposes of the Puritans from Aristotle down, and there are indications that it is gaining ground among us. It has the superla- tive merit of justifying everybody's point of view. It puts public opinion quite out of court, and makes each artist advocate and judge in his own cause. He may be an anarchist, a sun-worship- per, or an eternal philanderer, but if he sincerely reflects philandering, sun-wor- shipping, and anarchy, he has produced good art and good morality. This is just the principle for which our demo- cratic art has been seeking. One need never invoke it, to be sure, until one has transgressed the ancient common law of "honest civility." But it is very comfortable to fall back upon: in these days of naturalistic novels, slum-poetry, and medical dramas, one never knows when sincerity is going to call upon one to transgress. And it is not an entirely new principle, either. Robert Wolseley availed himself of it in 1685 in defend- ing from Puritan onslaught the obscene juvenilia of Lord Rochester. Yet Wolse- ley himself, in the palmy days of the comedy of manners, admits that "wit" which offends common decency should be strictly reserved for the artistically elect. For Lord Rochester, he says, did not design his obscenities "for the Cab- inets of Ladies, or the Closets of Di- vines, or for any publlck or common En-
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April 9, 1914] X b. e N" a t i o n 409 tertainment whatever, but for the pri- vate Diversion of those happy Few whom he us'd to charm with his Com- pany and honour with his Friendship." Fortunately, our democratic criticism is putting an end to that kind of artistic exclusiveness. We are at last beginning to recognize that what is good enough for the "happy few" should not be with- held from the masses. "THE BELIZE OF BOND STREET." We have travelled a long lane since "The Geisha" was regarded as the rather degenerate heir of "The Mikado," and Its contemporaneous musical comedies as the left-hand relatives of the Gilbert and Sul- livan comic opera. Legitimate comic op- era seems in these days an ideal so un- attainable that we have almost ceased to hope for it, and we would be content if only managers offered us productions that were really musical, and were really comedy. How far we have departed from the standards even of the musical comedy of earlier days was exhibited last week in New York at the Shubert Theatre, where was presented "an up-to-date ver- sion of 'The Girl from Kay's,' " with Sam Bernard and Gaby Deslys as the stars of the production. "The Girl from Kay's" was one of the earliest of the musical comedies that pro- fessed to deal lyrically with the adven- tures of a "girl" from somewhere or other. It possessed, of course, nothing of the wit and satire of the Gilbert operas, nor was it even comparable with "The Geisha," but it was bright and sparkling, with plenty of vivacity and movement, and it belonged to an era before musical productions of this order had succeeded in divesting themselves of all the tram- mels of plot. The up-to-date version has made laudable efforts to free itself from this latter reproach, and has further dem- onstrated its modertiity by eliminating from the score the two numbers which contributed most to the brightness of the original. To compensate for what has been lost in the modernizing process, we have a young Frenchwoman who is un- distinguished whether as actress, vo calist, or danseuse, but who wears a bewildering variety of millinery, and is known to receive an extravagant salary. "The Belle of Bond Street," which hap- pens to be the title selected for this pro- duction by its recording angel, is, in fact, typical of the present tendency of musi- cal comedies, in which everything is sub- ordinated to the purely physical features of the production. In an effort, apparent- ly, to emulate the spectacular features of the French revue, all idea of legitimate comedy, with a coherent plot, is aban- doned, and its place is not taken by the satire on contemporary events and per- sonages which redeems the revue from mere vulgarity. In favor of "The Belle of Bond Street" it must be said that the chorus is above the average in capacity and in training, and that Sam Bernard is more amusing than many comedians of his type. Furthermore, it is undenia- ble that just at present this is exactly the sort of thing that a considerable sec- tion of the public likes; but there is a ray of hope on the horizon — the depart- ment stores have also begun to display millinery to the accompaniment of music, and their productions are free. S. W. NOTES. "The Red Light of Mars" (Mitchell Kennerley), by George Bronson Howard, published in the modern drama series, It, an exceedingly clever skit, in which a number of old theatrical ideas are em- ployed with notable ingenuity. It is not only very amusing reading, but is ad- mirably adapted to effective dramatic rep- resentation. Although in the nature of extravaganza, it deals vigorously and satirically with many questions of pres- ent interest and tells a good human story. Into the details of this, as the piece is to be tried on the stage before very long, it is not necessary to go now, but it abounds in comical and emotional sit- uation. The good angel of it is our old friend the Devil, who now figures as a benevolent agent engaged in the work of preparing mankind for ultimate trans- lation to a loftier sphere of existence in Mars. The personages include a bril- liant young chemist, who believes him- self on the verge of the discovery of the secret of immortality; a multi-millionaire, who would bribe him to devote his sci- ence to mere money-making purposes; an anarchic Socialist who believes in bombs as the sole means of social re- generation; a cultivated widow who loves the millionaire, but will not marry him because she detests his business princi- ples and methods, and her daughter, a frivolous, selfish girl, who refuses to marry the chemist, who worships her, unless he will abandon philanthropic ex- periment to earn money to keep her in fashionable luxury. When the chemist calls upon the Devil for aid, the com- placent fiend — who is compelled on earth to occupy a human body — effects a general metempsychosis. He himself becomes the chemist, puts the chemist into the body of the anarchist, and the anarchist into that of the millionaire, whose disembodied spirit is condemned for a season to flutter disconsolately in space. The nature of the misunderstand- ings, consternations, and self-searchings arising from these transformations may be imagined. Mr. Howard weaves them most dexterously into the action of his plot, and freights his whimsical notion with a plentiful ballast of common-sense. All the sufferers profit by their startling experience. The millionaire realizes that labor has its rights, and capital its du- ties, and thus wins the hand of his widow; the anarchist is awakened to the iniquity and folly of his ways, and is rescued from the police, and the chemist ia made happy by the conversion of his charmer into a loving and devoted wo- man by the masterful conduct of the Devil while tenanting her lover's shape. Plen- tifully endowed by the repentant Crcesus, he is at liberty henceforth to work for the benefit bf his fellow creatures. As serious drama the piece necessarily suf- fers by the serio-comic use of the super- natural element, but this is employed only as a means to situations which otherwise would have been impossible, and is fully justified by the excellence, literary and constructive, of the workmanship. Prop- erly played the piece ought to attract much attention. Sudermann's latest plav, "Die Lob- gesange des Claudian" (Cotta; Lemcke and Buechner), reminds one in a general way of his "Teja." Germans in contact with Romans, and the moral triumph of German Treue supply the subject-mat- ter. It may be safely predicted, how- ever, that the new play will never be the success that its admirable little predecessor was. It is dull reading, and must be tiresome on the stage, for the author has not. even employed his cus- tomary theatrical devices to arouse a momentary interest. The devolopment of the motive is feeble, and attention is divided between the real hero, Stilicho and the titular hero, Claudianus, the last of the Roman poets. German crit- ics have perhaps in these later years been unduly harsh towards Sudermann, who, after all, has not himself changed so much as has the general standpoint. His reputation, which seemed to flare up a little on the production of "Der gute Ruf" a year ago, will now smoulder lower than ever. If he wishes to re- capture public favor, he should return to the writing of fiction. Even "Das- hohe Lied" was preferable to the present drama. Your reviewer on finishing the play was moved to turn to Gibbon, and read again chapters 29 and 30 of the "Decline and Fall," where the same events are narrated. He is grateful to Herr Sudermann for having given him at least that impulse. It is not often that pieces written by amateurs for amateurs contain any- thing worthy of publication or serious critical notice, but there is undeniable talent in the ten "Short Plays," by Mary MacMillan (Stewart & Kidd Co), written for the Cincinnati College and Cincin- nati College clubs. Some of them, though well enough adapted to their professed purpose, have no distinctive quality, but there are four or five which arrest atten- tion. They are somewhat crude and sketchy, but have variety, imagination, and descriptive facility. "The Shadowed Star" is a tenement-house study, with a picture of a woman, broken with years and suffering, cheered on Christmas Eve by hallucinations of a coming feast in the company of her long dead sons, while her daughter lies dying of want at her side. It is a striking bit of work in which real- ism and fancy are cleverly blended. With skilled actors, and a little judicious edit- ing, it might be made very effective. "The Rose," an Elizabethan story, In which a gallant young knight bids tem- porary farewell to his love, at the Ixhost of the virgin queen who is jealous of her, is prettily told in blank verse, always smooth and occasionally poetic. "The Ring," a farcical comedy of the same pe- riod, if not very happy in its imitation of the ancient speech, is full of action and simple fun. "Luck," a miniature four- act comedy, in which a materialistic young doctor offends his sweetheart by
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4:10 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2545 his disbelief in the virtue of the charm which she has bought tor him, and there- after encounters all sorts of misfortune until he is converted, is amusing- both in dialogue and Incident. In "A Modern Masque," Miss MacMillan, greatly daring, makes Poetry and Drama the champions of Shakespeare, when he is threatened with deposition by Bernard Shaw, and endows them with sharp weapons of sense and satire. In "The Gate of Wish- es," an episode on the afternoon of Hal- lowe'en, she shows imagination and met- rical grace. In all the pieces there is more of promise than of actual achieve- ment, but the natural gifts revealed are of a kind that merit recognition and en- couragement. The Abbey Theatre Company, of Dub- lin, will be at the Court Theatre, London, for their annual visit during June. The repertory of the company will include several new plays, besides old favorites. At present the "first" company is tour- ing in America, under the direction of S. Lennox Robinson. It has played in Chicago and the Middle West, and is to go thence to Canada, returning home in May, in time to keep engagements in Oxford and Cambridge. The "first" com- pany has with it most of the "second" company as understudies; but the Abbey Theatre is not on that account closed. Lady Gregory, with a third company, has produced a new play by a new writer, Mr. Edward McNulty's three-act comedy, "The Lord Mayor," besides St. John G. Ervine's one-act comedy, "The Orange- man," which was new to Dublin. Music A MUSICIANS' GUIDE. The World's Best Music. Edited by Arthur and Louis C. Elson. New York: The University Society. Volumes IX and X of "The World's Best Music" constitute an independent work, which bears the subtitle "The Musician's Guide." There are original articles by the editors and others, and reprints of a number of excellent pa- pers that had previously appeared in periodicals. The first seventy-fiVe" pages will interest all students of the piano who would like to go to Europe to study with the most eminent piano teacher of the time, Theodor Leschetiz- ky, but cannot afford to do so. These pages contain an excellent translation, by Arthur Elson, of the exposition of Leschetfzky's personal views made by his pupil, Malwine Bree, and approved by him. It is the only authorized treatise explaining his method — the method which helped Paderewski and nearly all other great pianists of our time to attain their eminence. There are many excellent things about Les- chetizky's method in a biography of this great teacher written by Annette Mullah and published by John Lane; but that is a purely literary treatise, while Mine. Bree's work includes many illustrations in musical type, together with forty-seven pictures of Leschetiz- ky's hand in various positions. Paderewski, the most eminent of Les- chetizky'a pupils, contributes a few pages of "Practical Hints on Piano Study." It is interesting to note that he still recommends Clementi's "Gradus ad Parnassum." Czerny is also in his list, as are, of course, Bach's "Well- Tempered Clavichord" and the etudes of Chopin. He cautions students against making their work too easy, "idling away hours in passing agreeably from one thing to another." T. P. Currier has an article on Paderewski, in which he says that that pianist practices with the keenest mental oversight of the smallest details. "He aims constantly to get the most out of every movement, every tone, and every minute spent in practicing." The question as to wheth- er Paderewski "pounds" is also con- sidered. Other famous pianists and their achievements are reviewed by Arthur Elson. To the violin similar attention is giv- en in a series of papers, and then come the singers, headed by Caruso, who talks about his voice and his singing. Anoth- er great favorite, Clara Butt, contributes a most readable paper, in which she warns against the folly, in which so many singers indulge, of having their tonsils cut. She gives some curious in- formation about her singing in full voice while under the influence of ether. On the subject of singing in English, she naturally has decided opinions. Her great success is due in large measure to the fact that she can use her native tongue as musically and Intelligibly as the great Italian, German, and French singers use theirs. One day the eminent teacher, Mme. Marchesi, said to her: "English is beautiful when sung like that." Talks with other singers — Olive Premstad, Marcella Sembrich, Schu- mann-Heink, Bonci, and Campanari — are contributed to this volume by Wil- liam Armstrong. Mme. Sembrich be- lieves that the opera of the future will unite the best of the earlier operatic fea- tures with the Wagnerian reforms. Schu- mann-Heink, who deserted the operatic stage some years ago for the concert hall, maintains that concert-singing is really much harder because the artist does not enjoy the advantage of all the operatic accessories that help to move an audience. Among the many more articles in these two useful volumes are "Making a Singer," "The Mandolin, Guitar, and Banjo" (which need not be sneered at, for they are taught in the leading music school of this country, the New England Conservatory); "Bands and Small Or- chestras"; "The Art of Conducting"; "Choir Training"; "Municipal Music"; "Programme Music"; "Contemporary Music"; "Edward MacDowell" (with a discussion of what constitutes Ameri- ■ canism in music); "The Art of Organ Playing," etc. In this last-named arti- cle the eminent English organist, Edwin H. Lemare, has some remarkably sensi- ble suggestions on the use of tempo rubato in playing Bach and other com- posers. The author also considers the subject of orchestral effects in organ playing. The last part of Vol. XII is taken up with concise dictionaries of musicians and musical terms. Heretofore the most remarkable feats of juvenile composition have been Men- delssohn's overture to the "Midsummer Night's Dream," written when he was seventeen, and Schubert's "Erlking," written when he was eighteen. If Erich Korngold's "Sinfonietta," recently con- ducted in Berlin by Nikisch, is really as remarkable as some of the critics declare, it is even more precocious, for Korngold was only sixteen last year when he com- posed it. It is likely to be found, how- ever, that, while Korngold surpassed both Mendelssohn and Schubert in the mas- tery of technical difficulties, he is far be- neath them as the creator of new melo- dies. The mastery of technical difficulties is a good thing up to a certain point, but just at present it has degenerated into a disease. Operatic managers in German cities are not allowed to get too rich, as may be in- ferred from the following information sent by August Spanuth from Berlin to the New York Stoat s-Zeitung : "News comes from all directions that the 'Parsi- fal' performances are profitable. At Halle the manager was forbidden by the city authorities to charge festival prices after the first three performances had put 20,- 000 marks profit into his pocket. That, the magistrate opined, was sufficient for him, and made it obligatory on him to let the citizens enjoy 'Parsifal' at the usual rates of admission." The founder of the Chassevant system of musical education, Marie Chassevant, died a few weeks ago at Geneva, Switz- erland. She had received medals of dis- tinction at exhibitions in France, Italy, Switzerland, and Belgium; her method was adopted by Royalty in Russia; while her books have been translated into Eng- lish by Miss Marian P. Gibb, of Edin- burgh. The aim of the Chassevant meth- od, says the London Times, is to teach not merely musical technique or musical theory, but also how to listen apprecia- tively and intelligently. First, ideas of time and rhythm are taught by means of a fairy-story, or rather a series of fairy-stories, which form the basis of a kind of game played by the children, and by which abstract musical notions are personified and materialized. In order to develop the child's activities Mile. Chas- sevant invented her "Musical Composi- tor," consisting of an ingenious system of movable signs by which the children are enabled to ••write" music and to make "pictures" of the musical sounds they heal'. Here again the constant desire of the child to be "doing something" is ca- tered for.
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April 9, 19 1 4] The Nation 411 Art THE JOHNSON COLLECTIONS. A Catalogue of a Collection of Paintings and Some Art Objects. Vol I, Ital- ian Paintings by Bernhard Berenson; Vol. II, Flemish and Dutch Painting; Vol. Ill, German, French, Spanish, and English Paintings. By W. R. Val- entiner. Published privately in 300 copies by John G. Johnson, Philadel- phia. Ordinarily, privately printed catalogues do not come within the scope of the Na- tion, but in the present case the collec- tion is so remarkable and the catalogue of such scholarly worth that an excep- tion should be made. This gallery of about a thousand old masters and two hundred modern represents more than thirty years of keenly individual selec- tion. Most of our great American col- lections have been assembled through a few dealers or advisers, Mr. John- son has done his own buying. For many years he located and landed his pictures in completest privacy. Then, some dozen years ago, rumor began to divulge the contents of the modest man- sion on South Broad Street. The collec- tion became a place of pilgrimage for critics and amateurs of all sorts, the owner dispensing an unflagging and gen- erous hospitality to all persons genuine- ly interested in his treasures. Natural- ly, the merry war of attributions began, and has continued briskly. The appear- ance of this catalogue should at least produce an armistice. Mr. Johnson has planned his cata- logue with the wisdom that has guided his collecting. The ample quarto form is sufficient to contain plates of good scale and offers under the care of the Gilliss Press a dignified and sightly page, but the volumes are practicable without the use of a lectern. Again, su- perfluous catalogue features have been sternly repressed. Obviously, where photographic facsimiles are at hand, the usual lengthy verbal descriptions serve no useful purpose. Moreover, in- dications of provenance are rarely giv- en, though reference to literature or to the opinions of critics is freely made. The work of cataloguing is in the hands of two experts of highest competence. Everything has been planned for use, and nothing for show. As regards liter- ary proportions, the catalogue is a kind of happy mean between the old cata- logue of the J. P. Morgan pictures and Dr. Richter's voluminous lucubrations on the Ludwig Mond collection. The editors treat their respective portions quite individually within the general scheme. Dr. Valentiner is more punc- tilious in giving material and biblio- graphical minutiae; Mr. Berenson is more personal and suggestive. Mr. Berenson has never written more happily than in this catalogue. His terse notes, often witty or ironical, give the right fillip to the imagination. They go far to suggest the mood in which each picture should be enjoyed. It is a difficult form of comment, but worthy of study and emulation. This is not the place to weigh the new attributions. Enough to say that Mr. Berenson has gone far beyond the wont of cataloguers. Such new lists for minor artists as are presented under Francesco di Gentile da Fabriano and the Master of the Castelle Nativity are very interesting. The identification of a very early Sebas- tiano del Piombo, which reveals his de- pendence on Cima, is very important. .Naturally, your reviewer dissents from a certain number of the new ascrip- tions, but is unwilling to be contentious except in the case of the remarkable Miracle of Christ ascribed to Masaccio. In this we can only see a ruined orig- inal from Masaccio's early time, the necessary prelude to the frescoes of the Carmine. Mr. Berenson's relegation of this important piece, which is described by Vasari, to the school, seems to be based on bad color, weak drawing, and shaky values, all of which are plainly chargeable, not to the artist, but to old and recent restorers. The architecture is drawn by some one closely associat- ed with Brunellesco about the year 1419, when he was designing the Florence dome. No mere helper or plagiarist of Masaccio is likely to have had such facilities. A few of the* more important Italian pictures in the Johnson collection should be enumerated. Besides a monu- mental Pietro Lorenzetti, there is a full representation of the fourteenth-century schools of Florence and Siena. In the fifteenth century are such names as Antonello da Messina, Fra Angelico, Giovanni Bellini, Cima, Montagna, Bot- ticelli (no less than five examples), Cosimo Tura, Crivelli, Matteo of Siena, Carpaccio — all represented by superior examples. In the sixteenth century tne finest pictures are by Fra Bartolom- meo, Lorenzo Lotto, Paolo Veronese, Palma Vecchio, Tintoretto, and Moretto of Brescia. Of such delightful after- comers as Tiepolo and Guard! there Is a sufficient display. The Italian pictures comprise some three hundred numbers, less than a third of the whole. But the strength of the collection lies in the Northern schools. Besides re- markable examples of Jan Van Eyck, Rogier de la Pasture, the Maitre de Flemalle, Thierry Bouts, Memlinc, Gerard David, Paliner, and Metsys, there are numerous school pieces even more al- luring to the expert. The German and French primitives are also well repre- sented by such masters as Schongauer Cranach, and the Maitre des Moulins. When we reach the later masters they come in groups. Old Bruegel, Adrian Ostade, Jan Steen, Adrian Brouwer, Rembrandt are thus exemplified in many phases. There is a magnificent group of those color sketches in which Rubens most fully reveals his genius. Of the brothers Camphuysen, unduly neglect- ed painters, there is a remarkable rep- resentation. That most exquisite of Dutch masters, Vermeer of Delft, is present in an engaging example. If one were to select the most attractive items from the Northern groups, a good choice might be the profoundly serious Van Eyck, St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata, the lovely Rembrandt, The Finding of Moses, and the Rubens stud- ies as a group. Dr. Valentiner's por- tions of the catalogue lack the pic- turesqueness of Mr. Berenson's, but atone somewhat in solidity. In many cases Dr. Friedlander has also passed on the pictures. In general in these Northern schools documents and signa- tures are common enough to give an objective basis for expert. Thus the attributions are surer, and possibly the game of attributing by so much less delectable. At any rate, all the advan- tages of zest remain with the Italian editor. We may note in passing an unusual bit of iconography that has escaped Dr. Valentiner's notice. The Virgin and Child of the South French school, No. 759, is not surrounded by angels, but by six of the seven Chris- tian and pagan Virtues, she herself with her Divine Son impersonating the high- est virtue, Love. Excellent Goyas and Grecos and a magnificent group of no less than twelve Chardins may be men- tioned in closing. There are in all near- ly 500 pictures of the early Northern schools. In any but the Johnson collection the modern pictures would loom large. To admirable examples of David, Ingres, Delacroix is added a very complete display of the masters of Barbizon. Corot is splendidly represented in ev- ery aspect. Manet, Puvis, Bastien: Dagnan, Monet, Degas, Sargent, and Whistler testify to the catholicity of the collector's taste, but there are no cubists or post-impressionists. From the point of view of art his- tory, this is the most complete and im- portant gallery in America, whether public or private. It is understood that on terms to be adjusted it will eventually be given to the city of Phila- delphia. That city would be shortsight- ed indeed which should boggle over the conditions of such a gift. It is consonant with the magnanimity with which Mr. Johnson has conducted his collecting that this fine catalogue, which brings constant surprises even to those who know the pictures well, has been freely distributed to such institutions and individuals as may make the best
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41° & T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2545 use of it. This offsets the usual regret that works of high scientilic worth should not to a certain extent be of- fered for sale, even when their auspices are private. Sir Hubert von Herkomer, who died on March 81, was born in Bavaria of humble parentage in 1849. He passed several years of his early boyhood in the United States, to which country his parents had immigrated, but in 1857 the family re- turned to Europe and settled in Eng- land. Sir Hubert received his early edu- cation in art at Munich and in the South Kensington art schools. His rise to ce- lebrity was rapid. He became a con- tributor to the Graphic in 1866, and his picture, After the Toil of the Day, was hung- in the Royal Academy in 1873. His best-known work, The Last Muster, was exhibited in 1875. It was possibly as a portrait painter that Sir Hubert achieved most distinction, but he was an artist of extraordinary versatility. He worked in oils, in water colors, in black and white, and in enamels; he was an etcher, an architect, a decorator, a designer of scen- ic effects for the theatre, the inventor of a process of engraving, a musician, and a composer. In 1883 he founded the school of art at Bushey. He was an honorary D.C.L. of Oxford and Fellow of All Souls, and for nine years, from 1885 to 1894, he held the Slade profes- sorship of fine arts at the same Univer- sity. Sir Hubert was the recipient of numerous decorations, was a member of various artistic societies, and was cre- ated a knight in 1907. Finance THE RAILWAY RATE CASE. The comment of the average careful reader of the news on recent devel opments in the Interstate Commerce Commission's hearing of the rate case would probably be that the subject had been plunged into impenetrable confu- sion. On Tuesday, April 2, the Com- mission announced that the order as to rate charges on short links to industrial plants, which had been a complicating consideration, had been suspended, with the hearings on it, until a date which carried the question over to next autumn. On the same day, immediate hearings were granted to the Eastern railway officers on the general question of their petition for a 5 per cent, in- crease in transportation rates. This seemed to mean an earlier date than had been expected for the decision, which lately was believed to have been put off until July. A few days before these announce- ments by the Commission it had be- come known that shop and track forces, on the Pennsylvania and New York Cen- tral, had been reduced respectively 35,- 000 and 25,000 men from the high mark of the autumn. The Commission's ac- tion was in part ascribed to the situa- tion thus presented. But at the opening of this week the chairman of the Iowa Railroad Commission, who was at Washington as a witness, gave out a statement plainly intimating his opin- ion that these reductions in working forces had been made for the purpose "of browbeating this [the Interstate] tribunal," and that they "simply proved the colossal power of a few men, that can throw 40,000 poor families out of the means of daily sustenance." On Wednesday, the same two rail- ways published their February state- ments, that of the Pennsylvania show- ing 12 per cent, decrease in gross receipts from 1913, with net earn- ings only one-fourth last year's, while the gross of the New York Central decreased 15 per cent., with net less than one-fifth of last year's figure. Unusual snow blockades accounted for much of the very bad comparison, though it followed other unfavorable monthly statements, and yet these very figures were in turn followed by an- nouncement that two United States Sen- ators were about to denounce, from the floor of the Senate, these tactics of the railways, and that one of them (natu- rally Senator La Follette) had in mind a bill making it a penal offence to exert pressure on the Interstate Commission. As if to make the confusion of the case complete, the president of the New York Central, when questioned on the stand before the Commission, testified that, ex- cept for 1910, last year's net corporate income over all fixed charges was the largest in his company's experience, whereas the president of the Pennsyl- vania, next day, showed that, while property investment in his railway dur- ing the three past years had increased $207,000,000, net operating income dur- ing the same period had decreased $11,- 00m, 000. Out of this strangely discordant body of views, opinion, and evidence, the In- terstate Commerce Commission has to render its decision. To unprejudiced ob- servers, the only plain facts appear to be, that working expenses of the rail- ways have been increased through award of higher wages by the arbitra- tion boards; that the margin of profit in a year of actual depression, or in a season of floods and snow blockades, has grown very narrow; that railway financ- ing has become more difficult because of the close margin constantly reached between earnings and expenses; and that, since rates are fixed on an even scale for all competing roads, the af- fairs of the most unfavorably situated road must be the basis for such decision. How the Commission itself is leaning, is naturally a matter of which no informa- tion whatever can be had. The persis- tent belief, both at Washington and in observant outside quarters, that an ad- vance in rates will be granted to the railways, is probably based on the con- siderations just set forth. Of the fact that the business public generally has become interested to an exceptional degree in the outcome of this appeal for higher railway rates, there can be no doubt whatever. Few trade reports and few forecasts of the industrial markets fail to contain some reference to the influence of uncertain- ty over the "rate decision." On the Stock Exchange, which sums up all such in- fluences, it has grown to be a common- place of belief that no "turn in the mar- ket" will occur until the case is decided. It is probable that the inferences, based on this view of the general situa- tion, are exaggerated. They have their most plausible ground in the case of the steel trade, where orders from the rail- ways make up a great portion of total consumption, where such orders have been extremely small since the begin- ning of the year, and where it is assum- ed that the railway buying will not be resumed until the rate case is decided. But there is another basis for the inter- est of the business community in the decision. The case at issue has been generally accepted as a test of the prac- tical operation of Government regula- tion of industry— a supervision whose constantly wider extension is at least a subject of debate in Congress. If the Interstate Commerce Commission's su- pervisory power over railway rates is exercised in such manner, or under such delay, as to cause serious embar- rassment to the enterprises, unfavorable inferences of broader application are sure to be drawn. With all these not wholly unreason- able misgivings as to the Interstate Commerce Commission, there is one fact always to be remembered. Unrestrict- ed rate-cutting, with the decimation of railway profits and the resultant disap- pearance of dividends, if not of solvency, was an almost invariable sequel in the half-dozen years which followed our old- er panics. It is at least in part the In- terstate Commerce law which has pre- vented such results on this occasion. BOOKS OP THE WEEK. Abbott, W. J. Panama and the Canal. 1 (odd, Mead. $2 net. Annates de la Societe J. J. Rousseau. Geneve: Jullien. Bailey, L. H. Standard Encyclopedia of Horticulture. Vol. I. Macmillan. $6 net. , . -„ Brady, C. T. The Sword Hand of Na- poleon. Dodd, Mead. $1.35 net Bridger, A. K. Minds In Distress, lies- ton: Luce. $1.35 net. Brininstool, B. a. Trail Oust ol b Mave- rick. Dodd, Mead. $1.25 mi Billow, B. won. imperial Germany. Dodd, Mead. $8 net. ■ Campbell, O. J. The r..m. ,1ms ,.l' Ib.lben:. Cambridge: Harvard Univei 11 Castle, Mr, and Mrs Vtffnon, Modern Dancing. Harper. $1.25 net,
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April 9, 1914] The Nation 413 Duncan, I". My Carden Doctor. Double- day, Page. $1 net. Prank, T. Roman Imperialism. Macmil- lan. $1.50 net. Frcnsson. Join Uhl. Ed. by W. Florer. Heath. 90 cents net. Qerman Classics, Volumes IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX. German Publication Society. h. U M. The Psychology of Man- unit. Sturyis & Walton. Giasing, WARD ROTH. EROM VOL. 101 TO VOL. ! 227. ADDRESS NATION. Address \\ . CLEMENT MOOKK, 1'iililisliinu Specialist, \i:\v EGYPT, MOW JKIISEV. THE STUDY OF SOCIETY To know the facts about our social organization is to be equipped to deal with it. No one who has not (riven time and effort to the acqvn such knowledge is prepared to engage in social work. For nineteen years The American Journal of Sociology has been pub- lishing articles of fundamental im- portance for the study of society. They are written by leading investi- gators. They are wholly non-parti- san. They cover the entire field of social science. They are clea easy to read, not buried in technical- ities. They are fascinatingly inter- esting. Try the Journal for a year. It will put you in touch with all that Is belt In the world of social study and work. In any case lih out ami send in the attached re- c|ucst for full Information. The American Journal of Sociology Subscription price, $2.oo a year; single copies, 50 cents; foreign postage, 43 cents; Canadian e, 25 cents. Issued bi- monthly. THE UNIVERSITY CHICAGO PRESS 5750-58 Ellis Ave. The I nlver- slt> "ft hl- r rago Press: OF / " Gentlemen Send me a sample copy of i ho American Jour- nal of Sociology.
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4:14= The 1ST a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2545 LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF Wendell Phillips Garrison Editor of The Nation. 1865-1906 In one col nine, crotcn 8vo, 300 pages, with photogravure portrait. During the forty-one years in which he edited the Nation, with a thoroughness, ability, aud conscientious devotion unsurpassed in the records of American journalism, Mr. Garrison was an indefatiga- ble correspondent, never em- ploying an amanuensis, but writing tens of thousands of letters with his own hand to his contributors, who em- braced practically all the leading American scholars and critics of the period. From a dozen groups of these, which have been kindly loaned by the recipients, a sufficient number of selections has been made to illustrate the relations between Mr. Garrison and his great corps of contributors, the frankness and tact which he exercised towards them, and the wide range of his interests, tastes, and sympathies. The volume also contains a brief sketch of liis life, a dozen of his best poems, and several of his characteristic editorials, re- views, and essays, besides a fine photogravure portrait. Price, $1.50 net postpaid. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN GO. BOSTON NEW YORK The North American Review Edited by GEORGE HARVEY FOR APRIL BY THE EDITOR WE APPEAL TO THE PRESIDENT To Save Mexico; To Save His Party; To Save Himself A Page of Diplomacy Tenniel and "Punch" Goldwin Smith: A Reminiscence - - - - JAMES BRYCE Completing the Anti-Trust Programme,SAMUEL UNTERMYER Coastwise Toll Exemption - - - - EMORY R. JOHNSON American Railways Justified by Results, SLASON THOMPSON The Treaty-Making Power, HENRY ST. GEORGE TUCKER Government Railroads in Alaska - CARRINGTON WEEMS What is Agricultural Credit? - - R. B. VAN CORTLANDT "Twentieth-Century Christianity," Rear-Admiral A. T. MAHAN, U. S. N. Spring Night SARA TEASDALE Paul Fot— Ballades Francaises J. K. ROOKER Travel LOUISE COLLIER WILLCOX Music and Drama LAWRENCE GILMAN The Book of the Mon h - ------- F.M.COLBY New Books Reviewed— Letters to the Editor For Safe at all Magazine Stands All That's Good In Printing THE NATION 20 Vesey Street PRESS New York
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April 9, 1914J The ISTation xv Jatt Published THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MANAGEMENT By L. M. Gilbreth This book seeks to interest and instruct manager and subordinate, em- ployer and employee, by showing them in a practical way how to achieve their object with the least waste possible. How to eliminate wrong meth- ods, how to standardize right ones, and the effect upon the mind of the various types of management, are the topics which it especially considers. The exceptional interest manifested in this volume on publication, suggests how wide are the possibilities of the subject treated. For the reaner who wishes a thorough initiation into Scientific Management, no more suggestive book has yet appeared. &vo. $2.00 net. SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL By Floyd J. Melvin, Ph.D. Instead of basing the principles of socialism on the formal and material- istic science of economics, a la Marx, this book deduces the social system ordered by the more general science of sociology. It thus approaches its subject from a point of vantage that Is altogether new. 12mo. $1.25 net. Ready in May. HENRI BERGSON: A Study in Radical Romanticism By Emil C. Wilm, Ph.IX To state the salient ideas of the great French philosopher in a digni- fied and scholarly manner intelligible to the educated layman, is the pur- pose of this book. It may be recom- mended as a work of genuine interest to the general reader and to all stu- dents of science and philosophy. 12wo. $1.25 net. Ready in May. EATON-IVES-STURGIS-WALTON-COMPANY 31 EAST 27TH STREET NEW YORK A NEW HERO IN FICTION Adventures of the Infallible GODAHL By Frederick Irving Anderson A lively, entertaining book, recounting the exploits of the most refreshing rascal in modern fiction and incidentally giving daringly intimate glimpses of New York life. Vivid, vivacious, dramatic, and of distinct literary quality. 8 Illustrations $1.00 net; postage extra THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY, New York Tbe Medieval Popular Ballad Translated from tbe Danish of Professor JOHANNES C. H. R. STEENSTRDP, by EDWARD GODFREY COX. In place of accepting all ballads at their face value, Professor Steenstrup endeavors to isolate the genuine medieval features, "to know the ballads as they Issued from the poet's mouth." The method used lays bare in great detail the original conditions of production — how ballads were sung to the accompaniment of dancing, — the nature and purpose of the refrain, and the structure of the rhyme, rhythm, and melody. It investi- gates the attitude of ballads toward ques- tions of moral import, their feeling for re- ligion, patriotism and historical truth, and their use of nature. The comparisons with the Norse sagas and the ballads of Germany, together with the plenteous use of extracts from the ballads of Denmark, all combine to set forth attractively tbe perplexing and fas cinating question of ballad origins and dis- tributions. 12mo. Cloth. S69 pages. $1.75 GINN AND COMPANY, Publisher* •oiton New York Cblcag* leaden Atlanta Dallai .— L'annee soo- lalre commencera le 9 novembre 1914 ot flnlra le 5 Juln 1915. On s'lnscrlra au Secretariat ft partlr du 2 novembre 1914. Inscription d'en- semble donnant entree ft tous les conrs et con- rc-ronces regullers et compiementalres et ft la bihllotheque (environs 25,000 volumes et 160 re- vues et Journanx frangals et etrangers) Par Awn : $70 Une Brochure speclale donne den renseignements ilrtaiUra fur I'oronnltntlnn de l'Ecole et tur lee rarriiree auxquelles elle prepare. 8'addremrr au Rirr/taire Hfinfiral de l'Ecole 27 Rue. Saint Oulllaumn. PARIS.
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XVI The IsTation [Vol. 98, No. 2545 Selected from the Spring List of PUBL.SHERS J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY PH.LADELPHIA FOR SALE AT ALL BOOKSTORES BUSINESS AND FINANCE OPERATION OF THE NEW BANK ACT By THOMAS CONWAY, Jr., Ph.D., and ERNEST MINOR PATTERSON, Pb.D., of the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce, University of Pennsylvania. 430 pages. 12mo. Cloth bound. $2.00 net. Postpaid, $2.14. NEW YORE JOURNAL OF COMMERCE: "A timely book which is certain to prove of very extensive usefulness. It will be of exceptional value to all business interests as well as bankers." CHICAGO INTER OCEAN: "The authors have every right to be well satisfied because their work is very sure indeed to aid the banker and inform the public at large. It is a work of unquestionable value." A CAREFUL INVESTOR By EDWARD SHERWOOD MEAD, PH.D., Professor of Finance, Univer- sity of Pennsylvania. 12mo. Cloth. $1.50 net. Postpaid, $1.65. WISCONSIN BANKER: "An interesting book for bankers. Every investor, however small or large his funds, will find this work valuable. A book of authoritative reference." PHILADELPHIA RECORD: "A work of the greatest importance and its study will save the public many a dollar." THE CAUSE OF BUSINESS DEPRESSION As Disclosed by an Analysis of the Basic Principles of Economics By HUGO BILGRAM, in collaboration with Louis Edward Levy. With 9 diagrams. About 500 pages. Octavo. Cloth. $2.00 net. Postpaid, $2.15. The authors have made a thorough investigation of economic conditions and in this eminently scientific yet popular work they show conclusively the cause of business depression and its cure. The business man should read and ponder over this book. NEW FICTION Ready April 30th FRANK DANBY'S Finest and Most Powerful Work FULL SWING A book in whose rushing current glow two love stories of heart-gripping interest, passion, and tears are mingled In Frank Danby's masterly work, "Full Swing." 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Illustrated In color. $1.25 net. Postage extra. PHILADELPHIA RECORD : "As always, Mr. Scott exudes modernity, his dialogue scin- tillate*. . . . His viewpoint la that of a man of the world. . His courage falters not even before Grundy, hence bin vogue among the pleasure lovers. That this Is his best book many declare." Anybody But Anne By CAROLYN WELLS. Illustrated In color. $1.25 net. Postage extra. BOSTON HERALD: "The character of Fleming Stone appears even more wonder- ful nnd plausible than In Miss Wells'B earlier stories. The tale Is a baffling one, and the suspense Is well sustained." FOR NATURE LOVERS The Practical Book of Garden Architecture Fountains, Gateways, Pergolas, Tennis Courts, Lakes and Baths, Arches, Cascades, Windmills, Tem- ples, Spring Houses, Bridges, Ter- races, Water Towers, etc., etc. By PHEBE WESTCOTT HUM- PHREYS. Frontispiece In color. 120 illustrations from actual ex- amples of Garden Architecture and House surroundings. Square octavo. Ornamental cloth, in a box, $5.00 net. Postpaid, $5.25. A volume for the owner develop- ing his property, large or small, for the amateur or professional garden architect, for the artist, student, and nature lover. The Flower-Finder By GEORGE LINCOLN WALTON, M.D. 599 illus. Limp leather. $2.00 net. Postage extra. CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER: "What's that flower over there in the field? You'll find out in 'The Flower-Finder.' Gives many color charts and sketches ; grouped so that you can easily find what you are look- ing for ; Is bound in leather that permits it to be slipped In the pocket." The Training of a Forester By GIFFORD PINCHOT. 8 illus. $1.00 net. Postage extra. Just the book to put in the hands of the young man who loves outdoor life. Mr. Plnchot has written an in- spiring volume on the profession which he has brought so forcibly to public attention. TRAVEL UNKNOWN MONGOLIA: A Record of Travel and Exploration on Russo-Chinese Borderlands By DOUGLAS CARRUTHERS. With 1G8 illustrations, three original colored maps, and three other maps. In two vol- umes. $7.00 net. Postage extra. This will undoubtedly be one of the biggest travel books of the year. Mr. Carruthers spent nearly two years in exploring Mongolia and this work is the only authoritative one in English. THROUGH JUBALAND TO THE LORIAN SWAMP By I. N. IJRAC0P0LI, F. R. G. S. 44 Illustrations and 2 maps. $3.50 net. An adventurous Journey of exploration and sport in the un- known African forests and deserts of Juhaland to the undiscovered Lorlan Swamp. IN FAR NEW GUINEA BY HENRY NEWTON, B. A. 47 illustrations and a map. $3.50 net. A stirring record of work and observations amongst the peo- ple of New Guinea, with a description of their manners, cus- toms and religions, etc. THE WAYS OF THE SOUTH SEA SAVAGE BY ROBERT W. WILLIAMSON, M. Sc. With 43 Illustra- tions and a map. $3.50 net. A record of travel and observation amongst the savages of the Solomon Islands and primitive coast and mountain peoples of New Guinea. AMONG THE PRIMITIVE BAKONGO By JOHN H. WEEKS. 40 illustration! and B map- $3.50 net. A record Of thirty years' close Intercourse with the Bakongo and other tribes Of Equatorial Africa, with s description of their habits, eiisiums ami religious beliefs. MISCELLANEOUS THE MEANING OF ART: Its Nature, Role and Value BY PAUL GAULTIER. With 86 Illustrations. I1.B0 ne1 This work was crowned by the French Academy of Mural and Political Science. Mr. Gaultler's work will delight all lovers Of the fine arts, and to many It will he the portal to a liner en- joyment of art and a deeper knowledge of Its Nature, Role, ami Value I TEN SEX TALKS TO GIRLS (Fourteen Years and Older) Illustrated. 11.00 net. Postage extra. TEN SEX TALKS TO BOYS (Fourteen Years and Older) By Dr. ikvini; DAVID BTHINHABDT. Illustrated, H.OO net. Postage extra. "Forewarned Is forearmed" Is the motto for these excellent books. They are the result of the great demand made upon the anther for simple Instructive talks on sex by a medical authority.
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Weilesle^, i^am* The Nat>n VOL. XCVIII— NO. 2546 ►£» THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 1914 ££&& PRICE TEN CENTS Emerson's Journals Edited by EDWARD W. EMERSON and WALDO EMERSON FORBES "NO MORE REMARKABLE HISTORY OF A HUMAN INTELLECT IN ITS UNTRAMMELED DEVELOPMENT HAS EVER BEEN WRITTEN." Early in life Emerson began the practice of keeping a journal as a depository for his thoughts and a daily record of his spiritual life. This journal was continued for more than fifty years, and all thai Emerson thought and felt went into the making of it. Never before has the growth ^\ a wonderful personality, the spiritual and intellectual development of a man of pure genius, been revealed as they are in these pages. The publication of this Journal is the most important literary event of years. It is unusual for even a small manuscript of a famous author to be published so long after his death, but here l- the complete Journal of America's greatest philosopher and thinker, occupying ten printed vol- umes, supplementing his previously published works without in any way duplicating them, and con- stituting a fresh and living autobiography of the man in his environment. EMERSON AS SEEN THROUGH HIS JOURNALS NO Life, no autobiography even, could give so fresh and vivid a picture of Emerson and his period as do these Journals. Through their pages we see him as a young apprentice, formulating his ideals and ambitions, learning the mastery of the written word, and turning at length from the pulpit to the lecture platform and to literature for the deliverance of his message. We see him attain a success beyond his dreams, gathering up the spiritual unrest of the times into a messa strength and inspiration for two continents. We see him in the sunny afternoon of his life, recognized as the foremost American writer and thinker, and reverenced as a seer by thousands of his country- men. The most memorable phases of contemporary life are mirrored in the Journals. His impres- sions of foreign lands and of nearly every part of his own country occupy many delightful pages. A Tost interesting of all, perhaps, are the glimpses we have of Emerson as the leader of Am< thought at the period of its greatest activity. Gentle and reticent in society, he reserved for the pages of the Journals his real opinions of his contemporaries, and often they are of extraordinary pungency. " UPON EVERY PAGE ARE THE OLD EMERSONIAN FELICI- TIES AND BENEDICTIONS, THE OLD FLASHES THAT GIVE INSIGHTS INTO THE NATURE OF MAN AND UNIVERSE." Lovers of Emerson will he amazed at the wealth of these pages. Lavishly as the great philosopher poured out the treasures of his mind in essays and in letters, the reader will rise from the Journals with the conviction that what he gave in his lifetime was only a tithe of what lie had to give. For not only do these ten volumes stand on a level with his published work in philosophic value and in unpremeditated felicity of expression, but, beyond this, they have a splendid vitality. a deep human interest in their wonderful revelation of intellectual and spiritual growth, to which his essays and letters seldom, if ever, attain. From every point of view, these volumes rank with the best of Emerson's writings, and without them his works are incomplete. EMERSON'S JOURNALS, a chronological record of his life from 1820 to 1876, published in a style uniform with the Centenary edi'ion of his Works and now a part of them. Completed by the publication of the tenth volume. Each volume, illustrated, $1.75 net. Postage extra. 4 Park Street Boston HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY "■'kSi^r"
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11 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2546 A WEEKLY JOURNAL [Entered at the Now York City Post Office as second-olase mail matter.] The Nation is published and owned by the New York Evening Post Co. Oswald Garrison Villard, President; John Palmer Gavit, Sec. and Treas. Three dollars per year in advance, post- paid, in any part of the United States or \l,,,,ri, to Canada .$3.50, and to foreign countries 00tnpri8ed in the Postal Union, $4.00. Address TEE NATION, Box 7U4, New York. Publication Office, 20 Vesey Street. HAROLD de WOLF FULLER, Editor. STANLEY WENT, Assistant Editor. PAUL ELMER MORE, Advisory Editor. EMIL M. SCHOLZ, Business Manager. CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER. SUMMARY OF THE NEWS 415 THE WEEK 416 EDITORIAL ARTICLES: Isolation Not All Splendid 419 The "Trust Bills" 419 New Hope for Protectionists 420 Is the Army Efficient? 421 American and English Novelists 422 FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE : A Unique Magazine 423 Effects of the Balkan War on Austria's Trade 424 The Naval Scandal in Japan 424 JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY, By John T. Morse, Jr 425 A Tribute from Holland 427 BOOKS AND MEN -. 428 POETRY : The Bloom-Colored Coat 429 NEWS FOR BIBLIOPHILES : Sergeant Ordway'6 Note-Book 429 CORRESPONDENCE 429 LITERATURE : Mlrabeau 432 Vandover and the Brute 432 The World Set Free 433 Anybody but Anne 433 The Green Graves of Balgowrle 433 Over the Hills 433 German Sea-Power 434 Violence and the Labor Movement 434 The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) . . 435 Landmarks of a Lawyer's Lifetime 435 NOTES 436 SCIENCE: Notes 439 DRAMA: A Review of the London Season. By Wil- liam Archer 440 "The Truth" 441 "Pinafore" at the Hippodrome 441 Notes 442 MUSIC: The Russian Dancers 442 Notes 442 ART: Old Paintings Re-dlscovered 443 Notes 443 FINANCE: One Hundred Years Ago 444 BOOKS OF THE WEEK 444 THE APRIL HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW CONTAINS THE FOLLOWING ARTICLES SOCIAL PROGRESS AND RELIGIOUS FAITH Eugene W. Lyman MARK RUTHERFORD Willard h. Sperry A PROTESTANT AND SOCIAL VIEW OF THE CHURCH Thomas O. Hall MARTIN LUTHER IN THE LIGHT OF RECENT CRITICISM . . Ephraim Emerton A CRISIS IN THE CHURCH OF ENG- LAND Frederic Palmer RECENT TRANSLATIONS OF BUDDniST WRITINGS Albert J. Edmunds For Sale at the Newsstands. $'J.OO a Tear no rent* a Cnriy HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS Foreign Dealers in Rare Books, Prints, Etc. Foreign Dealers in Rare Books, Prints, Etc. BOOKS AND AUTOGRAPHS First Editions and Rare Books Write for new Catalogues Finest Show-room for Bound Books in London J. & E. BUMPUS, Ltd., Booksellers (by appointment) to His Majesty the King 350 OXFORD STREET, LONDON, W. JUST PUBLISHED: AN ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE OF BEAUTIFUL OLD ENGRAVINGS OF THE English and French Schools DRAWINGS OF ST. PETERSBURG BY MALTON, FINE DRAWINGS AFTER MARTIN SCHONGAUER, Etc. ALSO Autographs of Queen Elizabeth, Queen Victoria, Martin Frobisher, Robert Louis Stevenson, etc. The above will be sent post free on application. HENRY SOTHERAN & CO. 43, PICCADILLY, LONDON, W., ENGLAND RARE BOOKS We can supply the rare books and prints you want. 153 classified catalogues issued. When In Europe, call and see us in Munich. Over a million books and prints in stock. Always send your wants to The Ludwig Rosenthal Antiquarian Book Store Hildegardstr 14,Munich,Lenbachplatz 6, Germany Founded 1850 Cables: Lpdros, Munich BOOKS! 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JUST PUBLISHED. 40 Cents HP HIS edition of "Andromaque" empna- J. sizes the literary excellences of the play as the first of those tragedies of pathos that depict the struggles and weaknesses of the human heart in the stress of human passions. The Introduction explains the circum- stances of the play's composition and pro- duction, offers a brief discussion of Racine's dramatic method, and presents enough of the sources from which he took his material to enable the student to observe how he put that method into practice. The frontispiece Is notable as presenting for the first time to American students the recently identified portrait of Racine in the Museum at Langres. This portrait shows Racine at the age of thirty-six, at the height of his dramatic success, and Is therefore much more characteristic than the later and iK'ller-known portrait of the dramatist. FRENCH GERMAN Fiction, Literature, Guides, Dictionaries, Conversational Books, etc. Band for catalogue of *ny lunging* SCHOENHOF BOOK CO. 128 TREMONT STREET, BOSTON, MASS. SPANISH ITALIAN THE SYSTEM OF THE VEDANTA. By Dr. Paul Deussen. Authorized translation by Charles Johnston. There are two opposed views concern- ing the nature of the soul represented respectively by the Vedanta and Budd- hism. Professor Deussen, who Is both a philosopher and a most prominent Sanskrit scholar, has devoted his life to the affirmative phase, — the Vedanta — and in this great work he has col- lected all pertinent material. It will be important for psychologists, stu- dents of religion and philosophers. Cloth, gilt top, 514 pages, $3.00 net. Our new c pleta Catalogue and lamplM of our Magazines "The Open Oourt" ami "The MonlNt" sent free on request. 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April 16, 1914) The Nation 111 Educational THE DROPSIE COLLEGE FOR HEBREW AND COGNATE LEARNING PHILADELPHIA Four Fellowships yielding Five Hun- dred Dollars annually may be awarded at a meeting of the Board of Gover- nors in the month of June, two in the Biblical Department, one in the De- partment of Cognate Languages, and one in the Historical Department. Ap- plications with full information as to the previous studies of the candidate should be made prior to May 20 and addressed to Doctor Cyrus Adler, Pres- ident of the Dropsie College, Broad and York Streets, Philadelphia. Camp Algonquin "WStfS&F A camp where boys are busy all the time Where they learn something worth while From which they return strong physically and strong in character. Send for booklet Edwin De Meritte, Principal De Merltt' School. 815 Boylston Street, Boston, Mas* The Misses Kirk's College Preparatory School Offers unique opportunities for Individual work Is all college preparatory subjects, combined with the advantages of school life. Prepares especially for Bryn Mawr. Twelve boarders. Faculty of eight teachers. Outdoor gymnastics. P. O. Box 804. Bryn Mawr, Pa. The W0LC0TT SCHOOL, DENVER.COL Superior climate. Accredited with Eastern Colleges fir girls. Fine music advantages. Gymnasium. y HE FISK TEACHERS' AGENCIES, £ Evekitt O. Fiske & Co., Proprietors. Boston, 2i Park St. Denver. 317 Mas. Tem -New Yoik,1.->6FiftliAv. Portland. 318 Journal Bd Washington, 1847 V St. Berkeley, 21fil Shatt'k Av lasR,i. Send to any address above for Agency Manual. Harlan P. French, Pres. Vincent B. Fisk, See\v THE ALBANY TEACHERS' AGENCY know* bow. Twenty-two years of successful ex- perience in bringing together good schools and good teachers. Send for Bulletin, 81 Chanel St Albany, N. Y. PROVIDENT TEACHERS' AGENCY 120 TREMONT ST., BOSTON. MASS TEACHERS AND OFFICERS WANTED FOR COLLEGES AND SCHOOLS Director, JAMES LEE LOVE, formerly of Harvard. ■"^Teachers Exchange of Boston, 120 Siouhton St. RECOMMENDS TEACHERS. TUTORS AND SCHOOLS Tl/ANTED-A POSITION, BY A C0MPE- tJr, «i?U?ilc,h4?r of ENGLISH LITERATURE AND RHETORIC, in College or Normal School Excellent references. Address The Nation. THE UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL FACULTY OF ARTS Rathbone Chair of Ancient History « Tbe Co2™" inJlte applications for thla Chair. ?«,!!ry ^00?; Du«es to commence 1 October, 1J14. Applications, together with the names of three persons to whom reference may be made and twelve copies of testimonials, should be for- warded to the undersigned on or before 11 May, I U *. Furthel\ Particulars regarding conditions and duties may be had on application. Assistance will be provided. Women are eligible for any office In the University. EDWARD CAREY. Registrar SORRENTO, MAINE, TO LET Three attractive summer cottages singly or to- gether. Piazzas, fireplaces, modern conveniences fully furnished, rent moderate. Magnificent views Ideal climate. Apply to M. T. JACKSON 14 Shepard Street, Cambridge, Hill. The Education of Karl Witte Translated by Prof. LEO WIENER and edited by H. ADDINGTON BRUCE The first edition in English of the remarkable story of the early train- ing of the German boy who at fourteen took his degree of Ph.D., and at six- teen was made a Doctor of Laws and appointed to the teaching staff of the University of Berlin! An important book for parents and educators. Svo. $1.50 net. By mail, $165. "A remarkable account." — Buffalo Commercial. "I am reading it with great interest; there are wholesome suggestions scattered all along through the book." — Wm. DeWitt Hyde, Pres. Boivdoin College. "Useful as offsetting the prejudiced idea that a child of extraordinary attainments in formal culture is on the highroad to mental and physical ruin."— New York Evening Post. "Whatever the opinion of the reader in regard to the advisability or desirability of such a system of education, the case of Karl Witte is of vital interest. His long life and good health add value to the exposition." — Boston Evening Transcript. THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY - NEW YORK McClurg's New Catalogue of Rare & Fine Imported BOOKS Selections from the finest collection in the country Copy sent free on request A. C. McCLURG & CO. Dept. P. 218-24 S. Wabash Avenue CHICAGO ffifOBjOM Edited by DIXIE HINES and HARRY P. HANAF0RO Now Ready for Delivery The most complete and reliable of all com- pendiums of biographical and reference fn- formation relating to the stage. . . Has been in compilation for three years. A com- plete theatrical and musical reference library in itself. . . Handsomely illustrated and revised to date. Cloth Bound, Gold Stamped. $5 per Volume. Carriage Free. H.P.HANflFORP.Pub., ff^orgdcw,S LIBRARY RESEARCH Researches made In Boston and Harvard Libra- ries. Ancient and modern languages. Translation, revision of manuscripts, etc. MISS M. H. BUCKINGHAM, 96 Chestnut Street, Boston, Mass. NOW READY GREATJURISTSOF THE WORLD Fran PAPINIAN to VON IHERING BY VARIOUS AUTHORS With 20 portraits. Edited by Ed- ward Manson, Co-editor of the Journal of the Society of Compar- ative Legislation, and with Intro- ductions by Sir John Macdonnbll, Professor of Comparative Law In University College, London, and by Van Vbchten Vbkdkr, Judge of the United States District Court, New York. 8vo. Cloth, $6.00 net. The aim of this volume in the Con- tinental Legal History Series is to ■et forth the life, work, methods, and Influence of the great jurists who have had more than a merely nation- al importance in the development of European Law. This work is a sort of Plutarch's Lives for the History of Continental Law. Paplnian, Alclat, Bartolus, Vlco, Bacon, Leibnitz, Sel- den, Montesquieu, Cujas, Vattel, Sav- Igny Bentham, Beccaria, Von Iher- Ing, Mlttermaier — these and a few other names stand out as land- marks for all European Law. CTBend for descriptive pamphlet of the Continental Legal History Series. LITTLE, BROWN & CO., Publisher., Boston NEW MAGAZINE ON EGYPT An Illustrated quarterly magazine, beaut ifullv Illustrated, with news of late discoveries, edited by PROF. PETRI E, began with thf .lanuiirv ntim iiii embellished with frontispiece of jewelry In colors. Price %2 a year. The discoveries by Petrie end "ihers for the Egyptian RESEARCH ACCOUNT (Society) relate to the art* of Aodenl Egypt and to Its nredynastie ace. An annual quarto volume, profusely illustrated, end the magazine should lie in all public and ninnv private libraries. Circulars "f these pobltcatloaa freely furnished. Address REV. 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IV The Nation (Vol. 98, No. 2546 IMPORTANT NEW MACMILLAN BOOKS RELIGION. PHILOSOPHY THE STORY OF PHAEDRUS: How We Got the Greatest Book in the World. By Dr. NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS. A beautiful idealistic story of the life work of a literary slave devoted to the preservation of the early Christian chronicles. $1.25 net THE ASSURANCE OF IMMORTALITY. By HARRY EMERSON FOSDICK, D.D. A convincing, readable, rational work on this exalted theme which makes a direct appeal to the man who has grown indifferent as to whether or not immortality is true. $1.00 net CAN WE STILL BE CHRISTIANS? By RUDOLF EUCKEN, Ph.D. Nobel Prize- man, 1908. The views of the learned Ger- man philosopher on what constitutes the essence of Christianity. $1.25 net THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY. By Prof. HENRY C. VEDDER. A vivid, ac- curate narrative of the great religious strug- gle of the 1 6th Century from the economic standpoint. .93.00 net POETRY. DRAMA CHITRA. By RABINDRANATH TA- GORE. A powerful lyrical drama by the spiritual Bengali poet-philosopher. .$1.00 net Also by Rabindranath Tagore THE POST OFFICE. An idealistic drama of child-life. 91.00 net THE TRAGEDY of POMPEY. By JOHN MASEFIELD. The latest work of this powerful poet, "one of the best expressions of his genius." 91.2s net THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS. By Dr. GEORGE EDWARD WOOD- BERRY. Mature verse of one of America's foremost poets. 91.2a net TRAVEL. DESCRIPTION MEXICO: The Wonderland of the South By W. E. CARSON. A new, revised, en- larged edition, with additional chapters on present conditions, bringing this standard WOrk Up tO date. Illustrated. 92.50 nel THE PHILIPPINES: Past and Present. By DEAN C. WORCESTER (Secretary of the Interior, Philippines, 1901-13). A timely, accurate work on conditions in the Philippines by "the one man on earth who knows most about the subject." Ttvo vols. Richly illustrated. 96.00 net EGYPT IN TRANSITION. By SIDNEY LOW. Introduction by the Earl of Cromer. A faithful account of the great modern pro- gress in Egypt and its growing importance. Illustrated. 92.50 net SOUTH AMERICA. Observations and Impressions. By VISCOUNT BRYCE. A new, revised edition of "the most im- portant work ever written on the South American republics." colored maps. 92.50 net POLITICS. SOCIOLOGY PROGRESSIVA AND AFTER. By WILLIAM ENGLISH WALLING. A force ful survey of radical political progress from the practical, economic standpoint. 91.50 net DEMOCRACY AND RACE FRICTION: A Study in Social Ethics. By JOHN MOF- FATT MECKLIN, Ph.D. A clear analysis of democracy in regard to the race problem. 91.25 net VIOLENCE AND THE LABOR MOVE- MENT. By ROBERT HUNTER. A dra matic, historical narrative of the labor con- flicts of the last half century. 91.50 net THE INSTINCT OF WORKMANSHIP. By THORSTEIN VEBLEN (Univ. of Mis- souri). An interesting analysis of the effect of labor upon the human mind. 91.50 net Published at 64-66 Fifth Ave, N. Y. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY On Sale Wherever Books Are Sold
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The Nation. SEW YORK, THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 10H Summary of the News Various complications have occurred during the past week to add to the dif- ficulties of the Administration in dealing with the Mexican situation. Villa's action in expelling all Spaniards from Torreon was the occasion of an appeal by the Spanish Minister at Washington to the State Department, and representations have been made to Villa and Carranza protesting against the deportations. So far, however, the protest has been with- out effect. A serious incident took place on Thursday, at Tampico, where some American marines who had landed to obtain a supply of gasolene were arrest- ed by orders of a Federal colonel. Rear- Admiral Mayo took prompt measures to have the men released, and demanded of Gen. Zaragoza, commander of the gar- rison, that his troops should parade and salute the American flag before six o'clock on Friday evening in token of apology. Subsequentlv the matter was taken up by the State Department with Gen. Huerta. The latter expressed regret for the incident, but declared that suf- ficient compensation had been made by the apology tendered by Gen. Zaragoza, and that it would be derogatory to na- tional dignity to comply with Admiral Mayo's demand. On Tuesday, after a prolonged meeting of the Cabinet, Secre- tary Daniels ordered the concentration of the Atlantic fleet at Tampico, in readi- ness to enforce an ultimatum if neces- sary. The Administration has declared its determination to insist on the de- mand that the Mexican authorities at Tampico fire a salute to the Ameri- can flag. The fighting during the past week at Tampico, in the course of which extensive damage was done to oil ware- houses owned by foreigners, appears to have resulted slightly in favor of the Federals. There have been rumors, also, of rebel reverses at Torreon. The Senate Committee on Interoceanic Canals began its formal consideration of the repeal of the exemption clause in the Panama Canal Tolls bill on Monday. The only important development of the situa- tion has been Mr. Bryan's statement, made through the Commoner, that the free-tolls plank in the Baltimore plat- form was not rightly understood by the great majority of the delegates, and that in any case the Democratic party's tra- ditional opposition to the principle of sub- sidies should govern the situation. The agreement with Colombia, signed at Bogota on April 8, should settle a ten, years' dispute between that country and the United States. The treaty calls for the payment by the United States of $25,000,000, for recognition of the ancient boundary line of the province of Pana- ma, and for the good offices of this coun- try in the settlement of any dispute be- tween the republics of Panama and Co- 1 lombia. In ieturn Colombia abandons her demand for arbitration of the ques- tion, and recognizes the independence of Panama as an accomplished fact. Dis- satisfaction with the terms of the treaty has been expressed in both countries, ond its ratification is not absolutely as- sured. Here the opposition has raised the familiar cry that the treaty is "hu- miliating," and in Colombia it is assert- ed by an extreme element that $25,000,- 000 is too low a sum to accept in settle- ment of its claim for damages. The Co- lombian Senate has been convoked for an extra session on May 1 to consider the ratification of the treaty. Prospects of Congress enjoying a respite from its labors in the near future appear remote. Indications are that the President will not relax his pressure un- til the question of rural credit and the Trust bills are disposed of. The Diplomatic and Consular Appro- priation bill was reported to the House on April 11. Besides the authorized pur- chase of embassy buildings at Mexico City, Berne, and Tokio, the measure in- creases the State Department contingent fund by $33,000, so as to increase the rental allowance for the embassies at London, Paris, Berlin, and St. Peters- burg to $15,000, and at Rome, Madrid, and Vienna to $10,000. Only a light vote was recorded in the special election held in New York State last week, which decided in favor of a convention for the revision of the Con- stitution. The voting in the State was opposed to the project, but it was car- ried by the overwhelming majority in New York city. In consequence of the failure of the Legislature to pass appro- priation bills in the last session, Gov. Glynn has issued a proclamation conven- ing the Legislature in extraordinary ses- sion on May 4, in which he will recom- mend nothing for consideration except financial legislation. The question of France's participation in the Panama Exposition is still being- agitated. An article last Saturday in the Government Petit Parisien, according to the Paris correspondent of the New York Sun, quoted the President of the Paris Chamber of Commerce as declaring that "France must abstain from participation until the United States adopts less rig- orous measures in the Customs Depart- ment, ceases the examination of French business accounts, and revises the laws against the importation of plumage." The article urges the Government to main- tain a firm attitude on the question. The situation in Britain on the Home Rule question has remained unchanged, Parliament having adjourned over the Easter recess. Mr. Asquith was returned from his constituency of East Fife to the House of Commons unopposed on April 9, taking his seat when Parliament reassembled on Tuesday. Lieut-Gen. Sir Henry Sclater has been appointed adju- tant-general to the forces in succession to Lieut.-Gen. Sir John Ewart, who re- signed the post as a result of the Gov- ernment's disavowal of the "guarantee" to officers in Ireland. The proposed French loan to Turkey was ratified on April 10. The loan will be for $160,000,000, and in return France will obtain railway concessions in Asia Minor and at Jaffa and Jerusalem. The Italian Government has made elaborate arrangements to cope with the general strike of railway employees which threatened to commence yes- terday. Troops were posted at various depots, and, as it was feared that the seamen would join in the strike, war- ships were dispatched to Naples and Genoa to provide crews for steamers car- rying the mails. The demands of the employees of the Government-owned lines are for a minimum wage of sixty cents a day, for shorter hours, and for the provision of pensions. Signor Salan- dra, the Premier, in announcing his leg- islative programme on April 4, adopted a conciliatory attitude towards the men, but made no definite promises. To meet the demands of the men, it is said, would- increase the budget by $20,000,000, a strain which the country could ill afford at the present time, since provision has still to be made for the expenses of the war in Tripoli and for the increase in the army. Official announcement was made on April 11 that Italy would refuse to restore to Turkey the islands in the ^Egean that she still holds, except in return for rail- way and other concessions in Asia Minor. In pursuance of her policy of naval ex- pansion, announced by the Minister of Marine on March 19, Greece purchased last week for $1,200,000 the cruiser Fei- Hung, which was being built for China by the New York Shipbuilding Company at Camden, N. J. Simultaneously she or- dered from a French company a 24,000- ton battleship of the Lorraine type, to be delivered in 1916. The convention which has been hold in China for the revision of the Constitu- tion concluded its deliberations on Mon- day. According to the new Constitu- tion, almost absolute power is vested in the President, who will be assisted by an advisory board in financial matters. The Cabinet is abolished, and its members become merely heads of departments. Provision is also made for the establish- ment of a Department of State modelled on that of the United States. The deaths of the week include: George Bentham, Dr. Alexander F. Chamberlain, April 8; the Dowager Empress of Japan, Pierre Sales, Eben S. Draper, April 9; Lord Suffield, April 10; Col. Norwood Penrose Hallowell, Rear-Admiral Andrew Dunlap, April 11; the Right Rev. Charles I I ' I '•nick. April 13.
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4,16 rn The N" a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2546 The Week The general nature of the new treaty with Colombia seems to have been cor- rectly described In the dispatches from Bogota. A lump sum, $25,000,000, or something like that, is to be paid to Co- lombia by the United States. The latter is also to assent to the ancient bound- ary line of the province of Panama, and is to lend good offices to help bring about the settlement of the outstanding ques- tions between Colombia and the Repub- lic of Panama. In return for all this, Co- lombia will drop the claims against our Government which she has been urging for eleven years, and will consider that friendly relations between the two coun- tries are completely restored. It is hint- ed that the treaty is also to contain, or is to be accompanied by, an expression of regret for the course of our Govern- ment on the Isthmus in 1903. Should this prove to be the case, there will In- evitably be a furious outcry in this coun- try. What, apologize? Never! Let us pay and say nothing about it. This very statement of what, we suppose, will be the attitude of many, shows that a formal apology is really imma- terial. The probability is, we should say, that none will be made. It is not nec- essary. It is implied in the very act of handing over the money for the injuries done to Colombia. The latest straw at which the oppo- nents of the Panama tolls repeal are grasping is an alleged provision In the new treaty with Colombia. This is said to concede free passage through the Canal to Colombian public ships. And the cry is that here we have an admis- sion that there can be discrimination at Panama, that the ships of "all nations" are not to be treated exactly alike. But Senator O'Gorman and those who think as he does will burn their fingers if they seize upon this too hastily. They will discover, first of all, that a similar pro- vision covering public ships was made in the treaty with Panama. They will also find that a virtually identical pro- vision was in the treaty which Secre- tary Root, acting for President Roose- velt, negotiated with Colombia, but which was not ratified. And what is the unavoidable inference? Why, that all the talk about our having absolute sov- ereignty in the Zone and over the Canal is a mistake. As Senator Root put it, we took title to the Zone and the Canal from Panama "impressed with a solemn trust." It was avowedly subject to all the stipulations of our treaty with Great Britain. If we violate those, we not only break a contract but are guilty of a breach of trust. The case was put with great power by Representative Stevens, of Minnesota, whose speech was quite the ablest made in the House. He prov- ed conclusively that in the Canal we have "only a right of limited and quali- fied sovereignty in trust only for a spe- cific purpose." This is why we think that those who oppose repeal had better let the Colombian treaty severely alone. Their whole contention is that we have unlimited sovereignty at Panama, and can do whatever we please with the Canal. But the treaty with Panama shows, what the one with Colombia will presumably show, that to speak of our absolute sovereignty in the Panama Zone is absolute nonsense. The report by the House Committee on Insular Affairs of the bill "to pro- vide a civil government for Porto Rico" is unanimously favorable, and puts In the way of prompt passage one of the essential measures announced in Presi- dent Wilson's Inaugural programme. Conferring United States citizenship upon the islanders, it provides also for an elective Senate of 19 members, thus placing the whole legislative power in the hands of the people. "The legisla- tive branch of the Government should be entirely divorced from the execu- tive," Chairman Jones declares, "ex- cept in so far as the Governor is given the absolute veto power over all legis- lation. Experience has shown that the Porto Ricans may be entrusted with the power to elect the members of both branches." A similar bill passed the House in 1910, but failed In the Senate. How antiquated is the governing enact- ment of 1900 is shown in the paradoxi- cal fact that the Unionist party, the majority faction in the islands, is half- Inclined to oppose the new law. The demands of the radicals are advancing to absolute independence, and they rea- son that the satisfaction of the popular desire for comparative self-government will shake their position. Citizenship, however, is urged by conservative Unionists, the Republican party, and by organized labor. The fitness of the isl- anders is indicated by the fact that the suffrage literacy test of the new bill could be met "by all who desired to be- come voters," so rapidly has education progressed. The plan for a new basis of represen- tation in Republican National Conven- tions, which has been sent out by a spe- cial committee of the Republican Nation- al Committee, has much to recommend it. It is not so radical as some that have been discussed, but it has what will be regarded by many as the great advantage over them of not reducing the Southern Republican vote to a posi- tion of utter insignificance, and thus in a sense giving the Southern elimination of the negro vote the status of a fact de- liberately accepted by the Republican party. Under the plan proposed, every Congressional district will be specifical- ly represented in the Convention; but this representation will not always con- sist of two delegates. There will be one delegate at least, and "an additional delegate from each Congress district in which the vote of 1908 for any Repub- lican elector or the Republican nomi- nee for Congress in 1904 shall not have been less than 7,500." The net result of this, it is stated, will be to reduce the percentage of the Southern and Ter- ritorial representation from approxi- mately 35 per cent, of the Convention to less than 16 per cent. The measure would manifestly greatly increase the representative character of the Conven- tion, and is open to a minimum of ob- jection on abstract or general grounds. It now goes to the various State Con- ventions for approval. If ratified by States having a majority of the elec- toral vote, it will govern in the forma- tion of the National Convention of 1916. There is now and then a speech in Congress whose significance is at once apparent. In this class belong the re- marks of Chairman Fitzgerald, of the Appropriations Committee, who on Fri- day used very plain English in telling his colleagues what he thought of their conduct in voting for "improper and improvident appropriations." He struck a hard blow in recallinR how the Demo- crat! "for thirteen years of my service in the House" charged the Republican!
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April 16, 1914] The ISTation 4:17 with gross extravagance, only to grow lukewarm about the principle of econ- omy when the reins of government fell into their own hands. An especially good point, related to a deeper matter than mere extravagance, was touched upon in his appeal for support of the recom- mendations of the Appropriations Com- mittee by the majority. With our lack of a budget, it is highly desirable that anything approaching a budget should be altered only for important reasons, and if individual members of the House are to amend appropriation bills to suit their Individual wishes, there is an end of even the little that we have in the way of scientific financial management at Washington. The executions at Sing Sing of the four gunmen who were convicted of the murder of Rosenthal were repulsive in themselves, and were made more so by the minute exploiting of grewsome de- tails in the press. But we have at least the satisfaction of knowing that there was no miscarriage of justice. The law being what it is, the death penalty must be enforced in cases where guilt is un- doubted; and the last doubt that the convicted men were really guilty was removed by the confession of one of them. It would have been a terrible thing if the new Becker trial should have brought out evidence that the men put to death on Monday were not the actual murderers of Rosenthal. This is not possible now. No one who read the careful review by the Court of Appeals of the gunmen's trial could have felt much doubt that they were duly con- victed on sufficient evidence. Still, there was a bare possibility of mistake. But even that is now swept away. To Gov. Glynn the confession must have brought immense relief. He had been put under a great strain by urgent appeals for Executive clemency, but may now feel sure that he did his duty in denying them. Philadelphia's Chamber of Commerce has now aligned itself with similar bod- ies in New York, Cleveland, and else- where in support of the President's po- sition upon the repeal of the tolls-ex- emption clause. What makes this action notable is that it is a reversal, and by a unanimous vote, of the position pre- viously taken. This sets the example for the two Senators from Pennsylvania, an example they might the more readily follow since considerations of national honor were enforced with the argument that the repeal would be a good busi- ness stroke. All these resolutions of business organizations provide an in- structive comment upon the eagerness with which we were urged to exercise Yankee shrewdness and "get something' that our fellow-bargainer did not sup- pose was in the Instrument he was sign- ing. Chambers of Commerce are not composed of theorizers or Idealistic Pres- idents, but of more than ordinarily suc- cessful business men. Yet the most im- portant bodies of this sort in the coun- try are favoring the killing of the goose that was to lay golden eggs for Uncle Sam. It would seem not only that the goose was stolen, but that its laying powers were overrated. Gratifying news comes from North Carolina that the Supreme Court of that State has declared invalid the ordinance of the city of Winston-Salem establish- ing segregation of whites and blacks. Thus far, every time one of these ordi- nances has been tested in the courts it has been thrown out as unconstitution- al. Twice this result has been accom- plished in Baltimore, and now a third ordinance is on its way to a ruling. A second ordinance in Norfolk, Va., will be tested as promptly as possible. In the Winston-Salem case, the Court is re- ported to have held that the ordinance sanctioned the taking of property with- out due legal process, and that the estab- lishment of such a principle might re- sult in such restrictions as to "drive out Republicans, Roman Catholics, or Jews." The Court has here put its fin- ger on an ultimate danger from the establishment of this policy of segrega- tion which Southern men ought never to lose sight of. It would be an enter- ing wedge that might, and probably would, lead to other Intolerable abuses which no man can now foresee. The only refuge for those who would estab- lish the ghetto on American soil at any cost would seem to-day to be to follow the example of Clarence Poe, who Is leading the North Carolina agitation for segregation of negro farmers in certain sections of the State. He declares open- ly that if a Constitutional law cannot be drawn to accomplish this "the South will find a way to get around the Con- stitution," as, he adds, it has already found several ways of circumventing that instrument. The prompt action of the Rockefeller Foundation in appropriating $750,00«> to the relief of Wellesley College, is a reminder of the care and discrimination with which the resources of this fund are managed, making its usefulness far greater than its mere size would guar- antee. The trustees of Wellesley an- nounce that they are going to start a campaign at once for the raising of a fund of $2,000,000, and they will un- doubtedly enter upon the task with the greater heartiness and confidence be- cause of the encouragement which this gift provides, and because of the relief from immediate perplexities which it affords. During its forty years of use- fulness and success, Wellesley has estab- lished claims of affection and respect upon many thousands of women and of men, and we have no doubt that the ef- forts of the trustees will be heartily sec- onded in many parts of the country. In preparing its "White List" of plays, the Catholic Theatre Movement is guid- ed by rules as sensible as they are sim- ple. In order that it be included in the list "there should be a general agree- ment that a play is clean and whole- some," and "the play should be fit for theatregoers of all ages and suited to varied tastes." For the purposes of a black list, these rules, or rather their converse, might be too exigent; but there is good work to be done by a white list, and the number of persons interested in it is far greater than is usually recognized. There are plays which fall outside the description cited, and which nevertheless have good rea- son for being; but there are thousands of persons, old and young, who wish to go to the theatre solely for recrea- tion or edification, and who would most gladly pay the price of losing now and then a "problem" play they might have cared for, for the great gain and com- fort of being protected against the whole brood of plays that offend either their taste or their sense of morality or de- cency. In providing the "average" man and woman, throughout the country, with a list of plays to which he can go, and take his young people, without
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418 T li e Nation (Vol. 98, No. 2546 being confronted either with outrageous offensiveness or with performances that perilously skirt the border of it, the Catholic Theatre Movement is doing a good servie'e. Of Clyde Fitch's play, "The Truth," which has been put on for a revival, one commentator remarks that, to the great credit of the play, "it wears well and very few of its lines have grown stale in the interval." The play was orig- inally produced in the dim past of seven and a half years ago. Considering the pace of life to-day, this must be accepted as a record that will easily hold its own against the three hundred odd years through which "Hamlet" and "The Mer- chant of Venice" have managed to keep their heads above water. Seven years of contemporary evolution are easily equal to a cycle or two of life in the pre- maxixe days. Yet sometimes one is in- clined to wonder whether the Eliza- bethan dramatist and the dramatists of the age of Louis XIV, and other stuffy classics whom a modern age very prop- erly sniffs at, did not succeed in putting something into their lines and some- thing into their men and women which wears better than the up-to-date play of throbbing actuality produced piping hot off the griddle. Plays written twenty or twenty-five years ago need only to be half-rewritten to hold a present-day au- dience, say, for a two or three weeks' run. There are advanced young women in London who find Bernard Shaw pain- fully "Edwardian." How true to life those plays palpitating with the actuali- ties of to-day must be! No one can say that English men of letters are letting the legions thunder by while they are plunged in thought. The Ulster and army crisis has brought a number of critics and novelists and poets out of their ivory towers. Prof. George Saintsbury came up from his favorite haunt down among the dead men, long enough to explode in a letter to the London Times on "The Plot." His theory of it was that the Liberal plot- ters counted upon the failure of their scheme to provoke the Ulstermen to begin firing, in the asute conviction that this would give them a new "cry" — namely, "against the Army and per- haps against Some One Else." This, ac- cording to Professor Saintsbury, who in this matter is too clever by half, was the real "plot." But upon him Mr. G. Lowes Dickinson fell rather savagely in the Westminster Gazette; and in the same newspaper Mr. Maurice Hewlett declar- ed, with a fine adaptation of his anti- quarian studies to present conditions, that "the Feudal Party, the Norman party [meaning, of course, the Conserv- ative], by its incredible levity and hot- headed panic has ruined itself." Finally Henry Newbolt makes an appeal to all moderate men, asserting as a good Lib- eral that "we cannot resign ourselves to the use of force until our opponents have rejected not only our reasoning but our courtesy." Far be it from an American, after "The Girl of the Golden West," to ques- tion the glory of Puccini; but one won- ders what will be the emotions of Seat- tle, San Francisco, and Denver, as they read in the Mondo Artistico of the "ir- radiation of the composer's works." This Italian journal is not content with Puccini's European triumphs, or with the fact that London companies have carried his operas into the Transvaal, India, and Australia; and that they may be heard in Turkey and in Japan. It goes even beyond New York for a cli- max. "In the Far West, where musi- cal work has never before been heard, the miners bid for their seats with gold- dust; and a pair of scales, placed in the rude box-office window, weighs out the price of a ticket." It is comforting, in this conception of the opera-going pub- lic beyond the Platte, that the writer still thinks it so hungry for culture. But the Mondo Artistico should consider a single clipping from the Seattle Post-In- telligencer. That paper has been com- plaining that the trouble with Western opera is that the managers insist on $10,000 performances, with the result that the audiences are exclusively the silk and broadcloth class, glittering with jewels. The Italian journal could re- vise its picture of a Western Senator- millionaire, setting his pick in one cor- ner as he draws from his overalls a bag of gold-dust. News that Gald6s, for year's the fore- most man of letters in Spain, is in such want in his old age that a popular sub- scription is resorted to in order to re- lieve him from actual penury, has pa- thetic bearings. These are public as well as personal. If any man in Spain could live by his pen, and lay up some- thing for his later years, it would seern that Gald6s could. With a literary ca- reer covering about forty years, fecund, popular, a really great writer — that such a man should be in need brings out afresh the meagre rewards which Spain can offer to even her most successful novelists and playwrights. Galdos has a long row of admired novels to his credit, not counting the many volumes or his "Episodios Nacionales," in which he put into fiction the most dramatic events of modern Spanish history. He also wrote several dramas, at least some of which provoked much controversy and had, for Spain, long runs. But now in declining vigor — his age is sixty-five — he has nothing. Private resources are, indeed, almost indispensable to the Spanish writer. Valera had inde- pendent means, and so had Pereda; while the now venerable dramatist, Echegaray, recently the recipient of the Nobel prize, was for years an active en- gineer. It is hard not to read something of a public purpose into the approaching visit of Queen Eleonore of Bulgaria, of- ficially undertaken for the purpose of making a study of hospital methods in this country. As an aftermath of the second Balkan war there has been ac- tive competition, especially as between Bulgaria and Greece, for the support of public opinion throughout the world. Up to date the Greeks have apparently had much the better of it. From the first outbreak of fighting among the Balkan allies, it was Bulgaria's complaint that Greece had obtained complete control of the channels of news, with the result that Bulgaria was made responsible be- fore the world for the outbreak of the barbarous war among the allies and the unspeakable outrages visited upon the people of the territory conquered from the Turk. Investigation has by no means cleared the Bulgarian Govern- ment of responsibility in the matter. The Greek press campaign is still very active, and this country, with its large Balkan population, of whom, especially among the Greeks, many are prosperous, is by no means a negligible field for con- troversy. The visit of the Bulgarian Queen, for one thing, may well rous> the patriotism of her former subjects.
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April 16, 1914] The- 1ST at ion. 419 ISOLATION NOT AT ALL SPLENDID. One advantage of the happy-go-lucky rules of the Senate, permitting a speech on any subject at any time, is that at- tempts to delay bills by holding them in committee do not prevent their dis- cussion. They are not before the Sen- ate, but they can be debated just as if they were. Senator O'Gorman's commit- tee began hearings on the tolls-repeal bill, which are to continue for more than a week, but Senator after Senator is speaking on it. Several notable speech- es have already been made in the Senate, but none of them will attract more at- tention than the one delivered last Thursday by Senator Lodge. His support of President Wilson, in the matter of tolls-exemption, carries weight not merely because he has been a stern and unbending Republican, nor even because he is ranking minority member of the Foreign Affairs Commit- tee. He does not agree in all respects with Mr. Wilson's interpretation of tbe Hay-Pauncefote treaty, but he does fully agree with him in affirming that all the world is against us in that dispute. And Mr. Lodge went further, declaring that the United States has fallen under sus- picion in foreign countries. He traced the loss of "the commanding influence we held among the nations" back to 1909. It really traces to events long anterior to that year. But this does not now signify so much as the solemn warning which Mr. Lodge addressed to the Senate against supposing that we could safely go on even appearing to be a nation that held its treaty obligations light, that professed one thing and did another, that by its foreign policy im- planted fear among the weak and pro- voked dislike among the strong. Striking confirmation of Senator Lodge's belief that we have got our- selves looked upon with a mixture of dread and ill-will, at least in South America, has come to hand in the full text of the address of the President of the Museo Social of Buenos Ayres, at its banquet in honor of Col. Roosevelt, last November. The occasion was one of great cordiality, yet the President of the Museo, Dr. Emilio Frers, felt com- pelled in honesty to inform the guest of honor concerning the true feeling of South Americans about the United States. In words evidently weighed with care, he said: Gentlemen — There is a dominating fact in all Spanish America. It is a manifest and undeniable fact, and it would be a great error, to my mind, to attempt to silence or even to disguise it. This fact, gentlemen, is that there ex- ists a deep sentiment of apprehension, which disturbs Spanish America and in- spires it with precautions, causing it to withdraw itself instinctively, and to its own hurt, from the grand centre of civ- ilizing light and power established in the North of the Continent. The establish- ment of United States interests in Span- ish America is feared, because it is feared that they may incite and cause interven- tion, which no people can accept with good will. Such a fear holds it back from more open and friendly relationship with the great nation of the North. Col. Roosevelt, the nations of Latin America will not feel at their ease so long as they do not rest in the security that no master may arise for them, either from within or from without, and that no one, no matter where he may come from, may place in danger their integrity or their independence and sovereignty. Senator Lodge would seemingly at- tribute this South American disquietude to Secretary Knox's Pittsburgh touch. The thing plainly goes further back. No complete and candid account could leave out the effect of the war with Spain, our course in Cuba, our policy in Santo Domingo, and our seizure of Panama. These were the events which, with their immense reverberation throughout all Spanish America, were chiefly responsi- ble for causing our southern neighbors to feel that they must be on their guard in all dealings with the United States. We do not care, however, to labor this point at present. It is not with the cause of the unhappy condition that we need to concern ourselves so much as with the course which it is necessary for us to pursue in order to remove it. Senator Lodge is of one mind with Pres- ident Wilson in maintaining that true wisdom requires us to clear away every needless obstacle to the best of under- standings with other countries, and to strain a point, if need be, in order to establish beyond dispute the purpose of the United States to be both just and magnanimous in every matter having international bearings. What the other view is we know. Speaker Clark set it forth with the old-style swash-buckling and ignorance of the corner grocery. We are to confront a world in arms. We are to call upon the God of our fathers to be with us yet. It is not necessary to repeat more of the stuff, which might be called childish if that were not to insult the child. The chief quality of it, how- ever, is not its silliness, but its insin- cerity. None of these Furiosos have the slightest idea of fighting. Their rhodo- montade about facing a hostile world in war is of the hollowest kind. They are not even talking for Buncombe, for Bun- combe County itself has outgrown this kind of nonsense. They are really ap- pealing to beings who do not exist — a sort of tribe of Hearsts, whom they sup- pose to be mouthing and gibbering in the depths of the forest. But everybody with intelligence equal to that of Silurian man knows that the idea of rejoicing because the hand of this na- tion is against every other, and that we ought to be proudest when most distrust- ed, can find lodgment only in the brain of an idiot. A great industrial democ- racy, our first and absorbing thought must be, not of war, but of commerce. With our trade pushing into remotest seas, it is our plain interest to concili- ate the world, not to antagonize it. Our needs and our opportunity being what they are, a spirit of haughty self-suffi- ciency, much more a spirit of defiant iso- lation, would be pure folly. THE "TRUST BILLS." It has been intimated that Congres- sional leaders are seriously discussing whether the effort to enact the proposed or pending "Trust bills" should not be abandoned for the present session. What the Administration's precise policy on the question is has not been made whol- ly clear; but to most observers it has been evident, from the time when serious consideration of these measures began, in January, that the task was no such sim- ple matter as may originally have been supposed. Even in the case of measures whose general purpose was to abate ad- mitted evils — as with those aimed at holding companies and interlocking di- rectorates— the first examination of the problem, in committee, showed the very great difficulty of prohibiting abuses without interfering with legitimate and necessary arrangements. Sweeping prohibition would in the one case prevent the use of the holding- company device which laws of the sep- arate States made indispensable to cer- tain interstate corporations. Applied in the other case, it would prevent the proper selection of directorates for com- panies organized in hundreds of smaller towns. The Interstate Trade Commls-
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420 The Natio 11 [Vol. 98, No. 2546 sion, which the President seemed to have foreshadowed in his January mes- sage as a means of avoiding needlessly frequent prosecutions under the Anti- Trust law, was endowed with powers, in the original Clayton bill, which would have made it an engine of wholly super- fluous and inquisitorial annoyance to every corporation in the country. Even when modified, in deference to the unanimous disapproval with which its terms were received by conservative business men, the Trades Commission bill (the only one which has actually been drawn up and published) is ob- scure and vague in its terms and possi- bly unworkable in some of its details. As for the plan to construct a measure defining violations of the Anti-Trust law, so as to "limit the debatable ground," this was at once abandoned as impracticable. Congressmen who con- sidered the suggestion promptly recog- nized that such an act would, as the eminent author of the Anti-Trust law put it, be an attempt at a "definition of a definition." There would, therefore, be sufficient reason, in our judgment, for abandon- ing the programme from the simple fact that the discussion, up to date, has shown the entire unwisdom and imprac- ticability of hasty procedure. It is well known in Washington that the commit- tees which have in charge the various measures are in such disagreement over them as to be in a state of deadlock. Congress itself has shown little interest in the bills. It apparently recognizes both that no urgent public demand or public necessity exists for quick enact- ment of any such measures and that their prolonged consideration and dis- cussion would impede the proper delib- eration on other and more immediately important measures. This Congress has already been in practically continuous session for a much longer period than any previous Congress in the country's history; and its members naturally and properly wish to wind up the busi- ness at a date early enough to give them opportunity to prepare for the Congres- sional campaign. Nor do these considerations exhaust the legitimate arguments for abandon- ing at present plans for far-reaching "Trust legislation." It is undeniable that, in the present condition of the country's business, the effect of the more or less futile controversy over the new proposals has been exceedingly un- happy. The contrast between the feel- ing of the business community towards Washington, as displayed three months ago, when the banking bill had been enacted, and as displayed to-day, is most impressive. We do not say that all of this change, from cheerful enthusiasm (voiced on the Stock Exchange itself). to the existing perplexity and depres- sion, is a result of the intervening inci- dents in Congress. Other influences have doubtless been at work, and the tendency to place on "politics" all the blame for every trade reaction is a fa- miliar story. More than this, we are ready to express our own conviction that if these "Trust bills" were before us in response to an urgent and enlightened public demand — with a view to reform of corporate abuses which required im- mediate correction and which only such legislation would correct — then the plea that Congress was "disturbing business" could not properly be considered. But no such situation exists. Public demand for immediate action on the bills has signally failed to voice itself, in committee hearings or elsewhere. By common recognition, corporate abuses are at the moment being restrained, through the authority already in the hands of Government, as they have not been since the era of reckless High Fi- nance began in 1899. But meantime, with business depression noticeable, de- spite the fact that predictions of the "flood of competing foreign merchan- dise" under the lower tariff have not been fulfilled, it is not surprising that the feeling of hesitation should be em- phasized by the continuing great un- certainty as to this body of legislation. It is not unreasonable for business men to declare that the overhanging doubts about these bills are at least an obstacle to recovery. The last thing that the Administra- tion should desire just now is popular resentment over the irritating influence of the corporation legislation upon busi- ness sentiment. Though such resent- ment is apt to be based on extravagant, unjust inferences, it is very powerful in politics, and might cause a vote, next November, which would be hailed by the Opposition party as expression of dis- content with the really great legislative achievements of the session. NEW HOPE FOR PROTFCTIOXLSTS. The tariff question has so long seem- ed to have degenerated into a mere af- fair of particular rates and schedules, that we greet with joy a reminder of the good old times when antagonists joined issue on broader grounds. The Philadelphia Ledger, moved to stern condemnation of the Democrats by the showing of certain increased imports under the new tariff, is not content to rest its case on any mere details of this kind. It goes back to first principles; and for these it finds an all-sufficient text in this familiar "Lincoln" quota- tion: I do not know much about the tariff, but I know this much, when we buy manufactured goods abroad we get the goods and the foreigner gets the money When we buy manufactured goods at home we get both the goods and the money. We have never seen any reference to the place or time when Lincoln said this, often as we have seen it quoted: but possibly Lincoln did say it. Our Philadelphia contemporary accepts it as not only a Lincoln utterance, but as one of his greatest sayings. "His Get- tysburg speech is a classic," says the Ledger, "but he did not compress in it so much as he did" in this wonderful statement about the money and the goods. In thus not only recalling to life an old-time favorite of protectionism, but assigning to it a place alongside the most famous example of American elo- quence, the Ledger may be doing a greater service than it realizes. The Republican party, ever since the split at Chicago, has been sadly in need of a rallying-cry. The tariff issue it still has; but all the snap has gone out of it. "Difference in cost of production" was fatally lacking in inspiring quality from the beginning; and the little vir- tue it did have was soon rubbed out of it by the hardest kind of wear and tear. Why not wake the country up with the slogan of "Lincoln Americanism— both the goods and the money"?, That is something which the plain people could understand; and plain or not plain, everybody would rather have both the goods and the money than be content with the mere goods and let the money go. If this goods-and-money declaration however, had no other merit than Its vote-catching quality, wo should hesi- !
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April 16, 1914] T li e Nation 4=21 tate to recommend its adoption as the chief rallying-cry of a great party. What marks it out as particularly worthy of this distinction is that it not only harks back to the momentarily forgotten wis- dom of the past, but holds out the pos- sibility of new and beneficent develop- ments for the future. For when the mind of the nation, freed from the trivialities with which the economists have been confusing it, gets the "Lin- coln" doctrine firmly fixed m its grasp, we may confidently expect that doctrine to be applied not merely to foreign trade, but also to that vast trade within our own borders in comparison with which our foreign commerce is a mere baga- telle. Let the people once clearly un- derstand that by sternly refusing to buy goods from other nations they could have the goods all the same, and in addition the billion dollars or there- about which they now annually pay for them, and it will not take long for American shrewdness to discover that the game can be worked on a larger scale. Let the Middle West refuse to buy from New England, the Pacific Coast from the Middle West, the South from the North, and so on; it is clear that if each of these great sections holds on to the money it now sends out, while sacrificing nothing in the way of goods, the whole country will before long be blessed with riches beyond the dreams of avarice. Coxey himself could demand no more of his Government fiat- money printing-press than would thus be supplied to the American people, in the shape of good hard cash, by the nor- mal operations of ordinary business. It is true that in forming this pic- ture of overflowing prosperity, we are ignoring the stock objections of econom- ic theorists to the central principles of a simple and robust protectionism. But that is nothing to the purpose. As the Philadelphia paper says, Lincoln "did not have much use for theories of any kind; but he was gifted with enough horse-sense to understand what going abroad for goods meant." And all we ask is that while you are about it you should work your horse-sense for all it is worth. Don't be put into a position in which you may at any moment be asked to explain why it is not just as Toolish for Massachusetts to buy automo- biles in Michigan, or for Michigan to buy cotton and woollen goods in Massa- chusetts, as for our country to buy from Europe the manufactures we import every year. Have the courage of your convictions. The cure for protection- ism is more protectionism. The mis- take we have been making all along is to pay too much attention to the specious argumentation of theorists. If we had followed the dictates of horse-sense, we should have seen to it long ago that no section of the Union committed the folly of buying goods from any other when by making them itself it could have the goods and the money too. It is a little bewildering, to be sure, to think this doctrine out to its still further conse- quences; but few people will be so spec- ulative as to do that. There is such a thing as running even horse-sense into the ground. We would suggest, there- fore, as a first stage in the great scheme of the higher protectionism, the divi- sion of the country into twelve sections, coincident with the twelve areas tribu- tary to the new regional banks. After each of these great sections has succeed- ed in pulling itself up by the bootstraps by means of a protective tariff directed against the other eleven, there will be time enough to think about further de- velopments of the principle. IS THE ARMY EFFICIEXT.' Mr. Charles Johnson Post, whose se- vere criticisms of the army in Harper's Weekly have roused the enmity of the entire service, declares in a recent let- ter to the New York Evening Post that: The administration of the army is in- efficient, due to the fact of an archaic system under which stupidity, vicious- ness, and favoritism shuffle along side by side with efficiency in an indistinguishable mass, getting promotions and responsi- bilities mainly as a matter of longevity. He maintains that the laws and regu- lations under which the army is ad- ministered are largely obsolete, and can be turned about at will by those in power. He also affirms that "any or- ganization from which, as has occurred in the army, over 46,000 men desert in ten years, preferring to accept the sta- tus of the hunted criminal rather than remain, is not only inefficient in its own particular domain, but is inefficient and derelict in its duties to the com- monwealth." He adds that the plea that the army is at the mercy of politi- cians is a "pitiable shelter for officers to take refuge in" when excusing the derelictions of the service. Yet it would be grossly unfair to the army not to take account of the actions of the politicians and War Department administrators, in assessing the blame for the army's shortcomings. It is in many aspects an inefficient department of the Government; the roll of deser- tions proves that, for the Government loses money whenever a soldier deserts. Efficiency would require every man to serve out the exact term of his enlist- ment, and the oftener he could be in- duced to reenlist the more veteran, and therefore more efficient, would be the various regiments. For this reason the Xation has long urged that the num- ber of desertions from a company or a regiment should be entered on the rec- ord of each commanding officer. We venture again to assert that if this were done and officers were called strictly to account for desertions for other than unavoidable causes (such as the com- mission of crime by the deserter), there would be a marked decrease in the num- ber of offenders of this type. Plainly, the responsibility for this rests with the War Department and not with the corps of officers. The efforts which have been made to check desertion have been along entirely different lines, such as render- ing the service more attractive; but the bulldozing, overbearing officer, who ap- pears now and then, is never punished — not if he drives fifteen or twenty men out of the service by the maladminis- tration of his company. There has as yet been no system de- vised for dropping an officer who is really inefficient, as would be done in any private industrial organization which had a pay-roll comprising 85,000 men. If he behaves himself he can hold on until he reaches the age of retiring; the promotion examinations do not in- terfere with his rise unless he is gross- ly ignorant. But in this respect the army is no different from any other branch of the service, unless the excep- tion be the navy in later years. A Sec- retary of War once complained to us that the promotion boards did not pro mote properly or the retiring boards re- tire. The answer to this was that the War Department itself demoralized the integrity of such boards by constantly overruling them. We know of the case of a worthless coast artillery officer, son of a prominent Republican politician, who came before a promotion board in
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4:22 The Nation (Vol. 98, No. 2546 a state of intoxication. The board de- cllned to examine him, and so reported him to Washington. The answer was to go ahead with the examination. The board found this officer morally and professionally disqualified, yet it was overruled in each instance, and the of- ficer promoted, to disgrace the service until his death. Now, how could Mr. Post, or a Secretary of War, or any one else, expect the members of that board to take any interest in examining an officer thereafter? In any such organi- zation the tone is taken from the head. There are many such cases which could be cited — notably at the outbreak of the Spanish war, when medical boards were constantly overruled by the poli- ticians. Now, we do not altogether ex- cuse the officers who try comrades and are often too lenient with them, as Mr. Post proves. They know the injustice done the service by retaining men guilty of misbehavior, and they ought to have a sense of honor to lead them to over look the vested rights officers deem themselves to possess when once com- missioned, and they ought to do their duty regardless of War Department pol- itics. But we submit that present con- ditions of the War Department are s mething of an excuse — for past condi- tions; present conditions seem to be bet- ter than those for some years past. There is in all this a wonderful oppor- tunity for a great administrator with- in the War Department. For the in- efficiency extends to business methods as well as to the handling of the personnel. The waste and slothfulness of almost every Governmental department are here manifest; and there is red-tape for those to see who believe that the Government is better fitted to manage railways, telephones, and telegraphs than are private individuals. Even in military matters there is much ineffi- ciency. Has any plan been drawn for putting the militia in service if there should have to be intervention in Mex- ico? We are credibly informed that this has only recently been undertaken in the case of one division, and that for the rest of the country we should be no better off than in 1898. Mr. Post, too, is correct in saying that the army officer is hedged about by regulations more or loss archaic. The average officer has no such fear of future damnation as be lias of breaking some minor admin- istrative regulation, and of being re- buked because of a failure to dot an i oV cross a t. Therein the service's sense of responsibility is of the highest. Fi- nally, the question presents itself whe- ther the whole military idea does not at present render efficiency impossible or attainable only at the cost of such army domination as Germany suffers from. Are there more than two or three efficient armies in the world — the German, Japanese, and perhaps the French? AMERICAN AND ENGLISH NOVEL ISTS. Looking back over the output of fic- tion during the present year, one is driven to confess that the showing made by American writers against their Brit- ish competitors is nothing to be proud of. Out of the novels of the spring flight hardly a book of exceptional dis- tinction emerges. If we go back so as to include the novels of the autumn of 1913, the balance swings a bit more in our favor, with the advantage still great- ly on the other side. A mere comparison of names is convincing. Against Gals- worthy, Wells, Conrad, Hewlett, De Mor- gan, Chesterton, and a whole array of younger men — W. B. Maxwell, James Stephens, Compton Mackenzie, D. H. Lawrence, Gilbert Cannan, Hugh Wal- pole — we can cite, in the way of nov- els of more or less serious moment, Mrs. Wharton's "Custom of the Country," Mrs. Watts's "Van Cleve," and Mr. Daw- son's "The Garden Without Walls." By stretching a point, we may include amiable bits of work like the late Dr. Mitchell's "Westways" and Meredith Nicholson's "Otherwise Phyllis." On the other hand, it is a question whether Mr. Dawson should not be credited to England rather than to America. Names of respectable strength are obviously missing from the American list. Yet we may imagine such names inscribed on our side of the ledger and still see how strong the account would run against us. We have our moments of exultation when we assert our lit- erary independence of England — we do it more frequently in the theatre than in the novel, to be sure — and we have seasons like the present to administer a healthy and necessary dose of hu- mility. Often the reaction goes too far. There is still, without doubt, a very strong tendency towards Anglomania among us. If Mrs. Wharton were an Englishwoman there would be less hesi- tation in certain intellectual circles to do justice to her splendid talents. Mrs. Watts, writing in England, would be re- ceived as a "serious" writer by serious people in this country who are deceived by the simple, unforced quality of her truthfulness. On the other hand, we are apt to be awed into accepting everything from the pen of H. G. Wells as vitally true and significant, and to pay a little more than is due to the talents of a De Morgan, while we — at least the youngest of us — are rather patronizing to the noble artistry of the veteran W. D. Howells. Yet, with all exceptions taken, the case does run pretty heavily against us — a fact which thoughtful Americans regularly take to heart. Mr. Robert Herrick, in an article in the Yale Review, which has received extensive comment, is the latest to de- plore the sad estate of the American novel. He is not despondent about the future. The opportunities for the pro- duction of great fiction are so splendid that sooner or later they must enforce adequate treatment: No backwater this! No dead sea of a monotonous and fixed social surface. All is alive and striving for more life. Life seethes in America from ocean to ocean. . . . In the clash of wills that may ensue before we adjust ourselves to the relentless pressure of economic laws, the profoundest material for imaginative treatment will emerge. . . . The old urge of justice, the old cry of freedom from tyranny, . . . the desire of the individual man or woman to prove life under tolerable conditions — these are be- coming heard more loudly every day. . . . We shall hear less, let us hope, about the "captain of industry," and more about the American ideal, the American will, the American character. Let us hope that it is not over-condens- ing Mr. Herrick's argument to put it that as we grow older we shall grow more serious. As we grow older, as we are buffeted more by social forces, we shall think more deeply and write more honestly. Yet along with so much that is true in Mr. Herrick's summary of the problem, there is, in the manner of stat- ing it, a very real danger that his mes- sage may be misunderstood, may be turned to the encouragement of a ten- dency in our literature which is one of the prime causes of its obvious limita- tions. We refer to thoei wry "oppor-
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April 16, 1914] The Nation 423 tunities" which Mr. Herrick finds so abundant and so sadly neglected. Altogether too much emphasis has been laid upon the "opportunities" that exist here in America for the creation of a great literature; as if great litera- ture could not be produced and had not been produced under all opportunities and lack of opportunities, in the desert as well as in swarming cities, under despotisms and under political and so- cial freedom, in great military empires and among petty nationalities. The opportunities are here, of course: de- mocracy, vast populations, vast riches, racial complexity, magnificent geograph- ical distances, stupendous economic forces. But none of those things, nor all of those things, when put into a novel, will make it a great novel. What makes a great novel is the soul of man. One soul is enough if honestly observ- ed and honestly set down. That great opportunity is present everywhere. Cer- vantes found it in Spain and Turgenieff in Russia. We do not need the com- plexity of 100,000,000 people and two dozen strains of blood to foster great literature. Ibsen found plenty of op- portunities in his two-by-four Norwe- gian native land. Let us put into concrete terms the danger of misinterpretation which we discern in Mr. Herrick's remarks. What meaning will be read into them by the young American writer of talent who is ambitious to do serious work? Oppor- tunities, social conflicts, justice, tyranny —why, the thing apparently to do must be to tackle some "problem of the day." And our young writer will immediately start to find his problem, the very cap- tain of industry whom Mr. Herrick re- jects, or the decay of religious faith, or the working classes, or suffrage, or rights and wrongs of a more abstract nature, but problems for all that. And with his problem he is lost, especially since he has not the supreme talent which may transmute a problem into universality. No; the trouble with our writers is not that they neglect their opportunities, but that they neglect their opportunity; that they think they are serious when they busy themselves with problems of the day, when they should be busying themselves with men and women. Foreign Correspondence A UNIQUE MAGAZINE. (The Organ of the Liberal Party and Its Editor.) London, March 30. The name of Charles Geake is unknown to the general public. It is unknown even to the rank and file of Liberal workers in the constituencies. But it is held in the highest respect by the leaders of the Liberal party, and by Mr. Geake's fellow journalists on both sides. "How unselfish his labors, how disinterested his work," was Mr. Birrell's comment on his career at a recent dinner given in his honor. "We are now dragging into the daylight," said the same speaker, "this shy and elusive figure, and hailing, perhaps for the first time, the author of our speeches and the purveyor of such of our facts as bear investigating." As secretary of the Liberal Publication Department, Mr. Geake is especially busy at election times. But his activities are by no means limited to the periods when the two parties are contending at the polling-booths. He is responsible for get- ting out a shilling annual called "The Lib- eral Year-Book," and also the Literal Monthly, an organ of popular propa- ganda, in which an effective letter-press is diversified by reproductions of the car- toons of "F. C. G." His most valuable services to the party, however, are prob- ably those he renders as editor of the Liberal Magazine. That much overworked term "unique" might justly be applied to this publica- tion. If the Unionists have anything to match it, the existence of such a rival is an admirably kept secret. One may doubt whether its parallel is to be found in any other country. It might be com- pared in some respects to the campaign textbooks of the American parties, but there is the important difference that they are prepared for elections onlv whereas this is compiled and published regularly month by month all the year round. Like these textbooks, it does not attempt directly to win converts, but is for the help of workers within the party. It is primarily intended, so Mr. Geake himself puts it, "to assist Liberals with unassailable facts and figures, and water- tight arguments." In the first place, it supplies a diary of the political events of the previous month, including a record of the voting in the most important divisions in Parlia- ment. The speeches of the month re- ceive especially careful attention. They are rarely given in full, but extracts are made, with a precise note of place and date. "The right honorable gentleman is very eloquent to-day respecting the im- possibility of raising wages by act of Par- liament, but what did he say at Kidder- minster on the 11th of November, 1912?" This is the kind of retort that tells, wheth- er in a Parliamentary debate or before a popular audience, and Liberal speakers, as Mr. Birrell confessed at the dinner, owe to Mr. Geake much of their material for such rejoinders. "You may justly class yourself," said a Liberal M. P. to him the other day, "with the dentist who, as he complacently eyed a society beauty, said: 'Her smiles are mine.' " The re- markable thing is that Mr. Geake, in this capacity of a recording angel, seems to know not only what utterances are im- portant to-day, but which of them are going to be important in five years' time. There are usually also a few articles — closely packed with dates and quotations — tracing the recent developments of some particular question. If land re- form, for instance, comes to the front, one is likely to find in the Liberal Mag- azine a summary of the policies advocat- ed on the subject by the two parties re- spectively. Summaries are given of the most important bills introduced into Par- liament, and of Government blue-books and returns, whether concerned with matters of party politics or not. Lastly, a complete index makes the bound vol- umes of the magazine virtually an en- cyclopaedia of recent British politics. When the political worker hears of a publication of this kind, there is one thing more that he wants to know about it. It may be a very skilful piece of journalism, and its summaries and com- ments may be cleverly written, but is there any risk of his getting into trouble if he quotes its statements or figures without verifying them? The answer is that never, throughout these twenty years during which Mr. Geake has edit- ed it — so the Rt. Hon. Russell Rea, the chairman of the publication board, de- clares— has the magazine "been called up- on to make a correction of any errone- ous statement, or to make any excuse or apology for any misrepresentation of either the opinions or conduct of any political opponent." If Charles Geake has been toiling for two decades in comparative obscurity, it is not because he had not the ability to cut a dash in public life if he had wished to become a prominent figure. He is a Cambridge man of high distinction, hav- ing been eighth wrangler, and a scholar, and afterwards a fellow, of his college. His mathematical training helped him in no small degree to tackle Mr. Cham- berlain's elusive figures during the tar- iff controversy, besides giving him a pre- cision of method that has served him to good purpose through his whole ca- reer. While at Cambridge he became ed- itor of the Granta, a University maga- zine. One of his journalistic exploits is still joyfully remembered there. The hardest part of the mathematical tripos examination each year is the problems paper. It contains twenty-four problems, and a candidate acquits himself brilliant- ly if he can solve six of them. The pa- per is set on a Friday morning at nine o'clock, and half-past nine is the earliest moment at which an outsider can see a copy of it. One year Geake got three or four other expert mathematicians around him, and they set to work at 9:30 on the paper that had just been set in the Senate House. They kept hard at it all day long, and it was not until past midnight that the proofs of their day's work were passed. The subscribers to the Oranta (Including the examiners in the tripos), on opening their copies of the week's issue at breakfast on Satur- day morning, were astonished to find
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424 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2546 among the contents the examination pa- per of the previous day, together with a complete answer to every question. There was an editorial note, explaining that the office boy had amused himself during the previous day by working out the problems without interfering with his regular duties. Mr. Geake did not stay long at Cam- bridge after taking his degree, but came up to London and applied his talents to a journalism of wider influence than that of the Qranta. The Liberal Publication Department has not absorbed all his energies, for he has been for many years a member of the editorial staff of the Westminster Gazette, whose "Notes of the Day" offer good scope for his bril- liance and originality. "If I were a pol- itician with a past," said the Westmin- ster editor, Mr. Spender, at the recent dinner, "there is no man with whom I would less like to fall into a controversy than Geake." H. W. H. EFFECTS OF THE BALKAN WAR ON AUSTRIA'S TRADE — PROBLEMS OF EMIGRATION AND FINANCE— THE PEACE CONGRESS. Vienna, March 30. The Balkan War closed a very impor- tant door for Austria-Hungary. She no longer hopes to send any part of her surplus population to the Balkans, and since the war her trade with the coun- tries lying to the southeast has been much reduced. Turkey was an excellent customer; it was a maxim of the Aus- trian tradesman that "Turkey always paid," and this applied not merely to the national debt of the country, but also to small private accounts between Viennese firms and Turkish houses. Now that Turkey in Europe has been reduced to Constantinople and its small hinterland, Turkey in Asia must be re- garded as the most probable market for Austrian goods in the near future. With this fact in view Austria-Hungary has arranged to send an imposing fleet to cruise in the Mediterranean for the ex- press purpose of capturing trade. They will touch at Korfu, Malta, Alexandria, Beirut, Smyrna, Mytilene, Salonica, and the Piraeus. On the return journey they are to cruise near the shore of the newly created kingdom of Albania and will put in at Durazzo. The commercial progress of Italy and of Germany in the Balkans is causing considerable alarm in Austria-Hungary, and it is hoped that something can be done to regain the position which she formerly held. While taking means to obtain fresh markets, Austria-Hungary is losingothers by her policy of guarding the frontiers. The new regulations preventing men be- tween sixteen and thirty-four from leaving the country without showing sat- isfactory evidence that they have served their time as soldiers and afterwards as reservists, is beginning to press very hard upon commercial 'travellers and others, not only on the Galician frontier, where trouble was expected, but also towards Italy. The new Russian Am- bassador, Prince Schebeko, has already i'f Renter's Telegram Company in Tokio had obtained copies of the documents In possession of Carl Kichter, und was trv
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April 1 6, 1914] The Nation 4,25 Ing to obtain money for them from those in Tokio who feared their contents. Renter's agent, Andrew M. Pooley, who was arrested, is still in prison, but Mr. Herrmann, agent of the Siemens firm in KoW, who also was arrested, has been released on bail, at the instigation, it is alleged, of the German Ambassador. The British community is agitating for the release of Mr. Pooley on bail, but the authorities have so far refused the re- quest, on the ground that his examina- tion is not yet completed. Meanwhile in- vestigation continues, and daily proves more interesting. Several officers of the Imperial navy, including Admiral Mat- suo, have been arrested, their houses have been searched by the police, and important discoveries are alleged to have resulted. The manager and other leading offi- cials of the Mitsui Bussan Kaisha, one of the oldest and largest import firms in Japan, also have been arrested, as well as a number of minor officials connected In various ways with the Japanese and foreign firms named. The British firm of Vickers has been dragged into the affair, because, it is said, the Mitsui Com- pany did its foreign business for the navy chiefly through this firm. During the last few years the follow- ing ships for Japan were built by the Vickers Company: The Mikasa, 1898, price 12,615,042 yen: the Kashimi, 1904, price 15,092,179 yen; the Kongo, 1910, price 27,280,116 yen. The Japanese press declares it an open secret that on these ships commissions of 5 per cent, were paid. It is averred, for instance, that the actual price of the Kongo was only 25,- 000,000 yen, the balance being paid as com- missions which have mysteriously dis- appeared. It is no wonder that the popu- lace is greatly agitated over what is thought to be extravagant handling of money by a poor country, while the peo- ple are burdened with taxes. There is consequently an almost uni- versal outcry for the resignation of the Cabinet. Two attempts have been made to impeach the Government, but without success, owing to the action of the ma- jority party, the Seyukai. For the honor of the nation, so the Peers say, they have been trying to take a hand in the affair; and in order to show their disapproval of the Government the House of Peers has cut off the sum of 70,000,000 yen from the navy budget. The lower house has not agreed to this curtailment, and there is at present a deadlock between the two chambers, for the adjustment of which a joint conference of committees of the two houses has been arranged. It is a question with many whether the Cabinet will be able to pull through the present session of the Diet. The more patient of the population are awaiting the outcome of the naval court- martial with apprehensive interest, while the general populace continues to hold daily mass meetings to pass resolutions in condemnation of the Government. The investigation by the judicial authorities is so thorough and extensive that by the time it is finished Japan should be clean- ed of corruption for all time. J. E. B. John Lothrop Motley. CENTENARY OF THE HISTORIAN. By JOHN T. MORSE, Jr., Editor of tbe American Statesmen Series. It is not to be supposed that Nature pays regard to the artificial divisions of time arranged by man; yet with the approach of the year 1800 she seemed to take notice of the new century and to start then upon a fresh course where- in great writers and good books were to come by their own in this country, and to hold it for a period somewhat exceed- ing a generation. In 1783 Washington Irving was born, and in 1809 "Knick- erbocker's History of New York" "estab- lished his literary position"; in 1789 Cooper, the novelist, followed; William H. Prescott was born in 1796; George Bancroft, in 1800; Emerson, in 1803; Hawthorne, in 1804; Longfellow, in 1807; Holmes and Poe, in 1809; Motley, in 1814; Thoreau, in 1817; Lowell, in 1819; and Francis Parkman, in 1823. The last to die of this famous list was Holmes, in 1894. I. Dr. Holmes, separated from Motley in boyhood by the yawning chasm of five years of seniority, became in later life, when that great chasm appeared only an unnoticeable seam, his intimate friend, and ultimately wrote his biog- raphy. That Memoir is probab'v little read now — more's the pity; 1 r it is good work, and among other merits it perpetuates the impression made by Motley upon his contemporaries. The Doctor, with the experience of sixty- nine years passed in intercourse with mankind, was so fascinated by his sub- ject that he seems to have dipped his pen in warm, bright sunshine for these pages, which have the atmosphere of eulogy rather than of biography. His sketch of Motley's early years takes us into dreamland. Born April 15, 1814, of a father and mother who were "the handsomest pair the town of Boston should show," Motley car- ried through life a wonderful beau- ty. Lady Byron thought him more like her husband in feature than any one else she had ever met; and Wendell Phillips regarded him as "handsomer than any portrait of Byron represents the poet." Fortunately, he had not Byron's foolish vanity and he had a gen- tleman's conscience. He was an omniv- orous reader of poetry, romance, and drama; somewhat reserved, and chary of friendships; ardent, impulsive, imagin- ative; later playing the cynic, a litt'e after the fashion of young men of his type. He must have been clever, for he en- tered Harvard College soon after his thirteenth birthday, and during a part of his stay he stood very near the Dead of his class. At graduation, in 1831, be- ing just outside the sacred band entitled to enter the Phi Beta Kappa, he was ad- mitted thereto by a special vote. Then he passed two years in study in Gottin- gen and Berlin, forming a close friend- ship with Bismarck, which endured through later life. Returning home, he studied law for a while, but never un- dertook practice. The training, how- ever, was useful, for his mental tempera- ment was of the kind which usually has to be forced in order to acquire powers of sound research and accurate state- ments. A year in the Massachusetts Leg- islature extended his experience without stirring ambition for a political career. In March, 1837, came his marriage to Mary Benjamin, of Boston — a most hap- py alliance. II. Motley wasted little time in futile gropings, being led by a strong in- stinct to literature. Having fed full upon the old English chronicles and on ro- mantic novels and poetry, he turned to like work. In 1839, he published "Mor- ton's Hope." It was the crude work of a boy, and failed utterly. Not disheart- ened, he tried again with "Merrymount: A Romance of the Massachusetts Col- ony." This was better, but not good enough. In fact, he wrote only as one who, having read many books, would fain be a writer himself; not as one who had observed men and customs and had something to say. Novelists then ranged chiefly in his- torical fields, and from romance to his- tory was a short stride which Motley was already measuring even before "Merrymount" had failed. Some arti- cles by him, appearing in the North American Review, attracted notice, and, like his hero in "Morton's Hope," he set himself "violently to the study of his- tory." At that time history was not so much written as it is now, and he eas- ily found an unworn period. He would have it that the topic found him rather than he the topic. Either way it was the magnetism of reciprocal sympathy; his genius and his subject accorded per- fectly. For years he read and wrote in Bos- ton till volumes lay finished upon his table. In time, however, he came to ap- preciate that European history must be studied in Europe, and the family short- ly set forth for the Netherlands. Here the important question of his persisten- cy in wearisome labor was quickly put to the proof. Months passed into years and still he delved In the solitude of the store-closets of the State Archives, de- ciphering antique chirography, learning foreign languages, rummaging among dusty papers often to find nothing, un- ravelling complexities, sorting truth from false assertion — all with infinite patience. Inevitably he came thus to recognize the worthlessness of his long
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4=2 G T ii e N" a t i o 11 [Vol. 98, No. 2546 labors at Boston. "There is nothing for it," he wrote, "but to Penelopize, pull to pieces, and stitch away again." So he actually destroyed all that supposed- ly finished manuscript and began afresh. At last, after ten years of labor, the manuscript of the "Rise of the Dutch Republic" was in shape for the publish- er. But who would publish three solid octavo volumes by an untried writer? Murray, prince of English publishers, would not. Chapman agreed to, but only at Mr. Motley's expense. The publica- tion was made in 1856; and writer and publisher were not long held in sus- pense, for appreciation was prompt and cordial. The bulky work did not alarm the reader of those days, when leisure had not yet been so strangely filched from the world by devices for saving time. Moreover, it was with us a gen- eration almost unreasonably addicted to reading: a transitory condition, soon to be displaced by war, and later by mon- ey-getting. Furthermore, thanks prin- cipally to Macaulay and Prescott, the discovery was spreading that history is not a field of dry stubble tedious to traverse, but rather a garden alluring to linger in. American writers, with limited opportunity as yet at home, bus- ied themselves with the history of other countries than their own; and certain pe- riods, complete within their own boun- daries, have been definitively treated by Americans in books written with such thorough scholarship that they may well stand as permanently in their sev- eral domains as has Gibbon's "Decline and Fall." III. Motley's friends in Boston noted with interest his development. The exuber- ance of fancy and of language which had spoiled his romances had now been tem- pered by serious purpose, and by the sobering effect of years passed amid dusty manuscripts. Yet an ardent tem- perament and a dramatic genius had been only trained, not eliminated, and the vividness of his pages fired the enthusi- asm of his readers. Critics might sug- gest that he was too splendid to be ac- curate and might controvert some of his views. This was quite natural; was not Macaulay meeting the like treatment? But the reading world refused to re- lease itself from the fascinations of either Macaulay or Motley. His well- chosen method was to narrate events, with vivid portraiture of the actors, as Thucydides, Tacitus, Prescott, Macaulay had been content to do. The "philoso- phy of history," if there really be such a science, had happily not yet been dis- covered to injure its charm; and intel- ligent readers were assumed to be com- petent to do their own thinking. The only blemish in his writing involved, in a way, a compliment. He was prone to insert long extracts from the state pa- pers which were his authorities. For scholars these excerpts from original documents were reassuring and had value; but readers in general inclined to resent a habit, which certainly grew to excess in his "Barneveld." They would have demanded that he should assimilate this material and convey it to them in his own glowing and racy style, which they so much admired. Of course, the triumph of the "Rise of the Dutch Republic" insured the con- tinuance of the great task which Mr. Motley, fearless of labor, had blocked out. Without pause he next engaged himself with the "History of the Nether- lands," of which the first two volumes appeared in 1860, and the succeeding two in 1868. These fulfilled expectation and corroborated his fame. Some per- sons, measuring him against himself, would have it that there was less of movement and of fire in them, and found them somewhat clogged with de- tail; but it was a criticism rather of his material than of his treatment. He was dealing with less picturesque events. The pleasure of reading Mr. Motley's books was not confined to readers of English. They were at once translated into Dutch, edited and annotated by the Archivist-General, himself "a distinguish- ed scholar"; there was also the vexa- tious compliment of "piratical reprints." The French translation was under the auspices of M. Guizot; and there was a German translation, and even a Russian. A fame thus spread through European countries brought to him the honors of their universities and institutes of learning, so that the list of his more important distinctions fills nineteen lines in the Catalogue of the Harvard Alumni. IV. At home also Motley's distinction re- ceived unexpected and quasi-official rec- ognition. He was chosen for the Aus- trian mission. The story goes that President Lincoln, chancing to meet him, was fascinated by his appear- ance, manners, and talk. If this be so, the choice showed Lincoln's shrewd- ness in estimating men. It has been said that a good historian is half a statesman; it would be malicious to suggest that the statement is mathemat- ically accurate. Mr. Motley was more than half a diplomat, yet was not whol- ly one. Indeed, some of his most en- gaging qualities rather tended to unfit him for successful diplomacy. He was high-spirited and sensitive, ardent in his convictions, frank and outspoken, impulsive often to the point of im- prudence, with the unpractical con- science of a gentleman, little submissive to the law of expediency or the exigen- cies of astute policy. But there were also quite other qualities for Mr. Lin- coln to consider. There was about this very handsome gentleman a fine air of personal distinction and of good breed- ing; the aloofness of his youth had be- come a courteous dignity in middle age; he was a cultivated scholar and his countrymen could show no one of whom they had more reason to be proud. Mr. Lincoln was therefore wise in sending him to the Viennese Court, where the custom of ancestor-worship still flour- ishes, and where the relations with the United States were neither strained nor complex. About six years he passed very agree- ably in the Austrian capital, where he was not only the recipient of official courtesies, but was also accepted so- cially with cordial hospitality by a large circle of good friends. He was only once called upon to act in a matter of some delicacy, and then he acquitted himself with perfect success. During the Civil War he was restless at his remote post, because he could not personally contribute to the Northern cause. For all his long residences abroad, amid in- teresting pursuits and in congenial so- ciety, never in the slightest degree de- Americanized him; and in the years of stress and peril he even had to lay aside his literary work. Why write of a past struggle in a foreign land when his own was in mortal throes? The Viennese mission had a sharp ending. The McCrackin letter, famous and infamous, did it. This missive, vin- dictive and vulgar, signed by a name never to be traced, came laden with ignoble gossip against Mr. Motley, from Paris to our State Department. It should have been burned, or at best hidden in a private pigeon-hole. But Mr. Seward chose rather to gather from it sundry offensive quotations and to send them to Mr. Motley for explanation. According to common belief, President Johnson gave the order, and Seward, unfortunately without demur, obeyed his chief. In earlier life he might have been less submissive, but a long career in politics had been demoralizing. Talk at the time, probably correct enough, was to the effect that Mr. Motley had expressed with imprudent frankness his disapproval of Johnson's policies, and that Johnson, revengeful and careless of courtesies, had delivered his blow as opportunity offered. Mr. Motley took neither time nor reflection for resent- ing it; within an hour after he had read the letter he wrote his reply resigning his post. It was precipitate action, cer- tainly; but high-spirited and fine. V. A brief time only had elapsed after this unpleasant event, when Gen. Grant's election to the Presidency virtually as- sured to Mr. Motley such vindication, agreeable though not really needed, as lay in another foreign appointment. His friends naturally assumed that he would like, and would receive again, the Aus- trian mission. "And now you will go back to Vienna," said Sumner to him. in
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April 16, 1914J T h. e JST a t i o n 4,27 after-ainner chat at Motley's house one evening. "No," replied Mr. Motley, "1 want to go to London; and I want you to see to it for me." Sumner, surprised and perhaps not wholly approving, nev- ertheless did see to it for him; and in the spring of 1868 the nomination was made and unanimously confirmed. The auspices seemed good, for he was sure of a cordial welcome to the most agree- able circles in London; his fame was net less in England than in his own country; his eldest daughter was mar- ried there to Sir William Vernon-Har- court, the eminent statesman and Cab- inet Minister; finally, there was a re- cess in the irritating controversy of the Alabama claims, the understanding be- ing that when the discussion was re- newed it should be in Washington. Yet his acceptance was given with an inexplicable foreboding. Early in his mission a slight rebuke came from the State Department, bearing chiefly upon phraseology used by him in an inter- view with Lord Clarendon. The undip- lomatic mind finds the criticism captious and futile, and the trifling incident seem- ed to drop promptly into oblivion. Later months passed serenely with no symp- tom of brooding trouble, yet suddenly, on June 1, 1870, a letter from Secretary Fish requested Mr. Motley's resignation. Mr. Motley, astounded and indignant, would not resign, and in November he was recalled. Great excitement ensued and hot words were exchanged by an- gry partisans. The State Department harked back to the Clarendon incident; but that was absurd. The only explana- tion then or since accepted was that Mr. Motley was suffering vicarious chastise- ment. Senator Sumner, untactful by temperament and arrogant in his posi- tion as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, had almost reversed the proper relationship between himself and the State Department. By his speech advancing the theory of "indirect claims" in the Alabama matter, he had forced that difficult question into at least a temporary impasse. Yet the Gov- ernment, even while stayed in its ef- forts to arrange the disturbing quarrel, bore with extraordinary patience his assumptions of authority, actually con- sulting his wishes in drafting instruc- tions to Mr. Motley. It was not, how- ever, in human nature that President Grant and Secretary Fish should accept such a situation with cordial and gen- uine good will. Accordingly, when Sum- ner's influence defeated Grant's pet project for acquiring San Domingo, the explosion came. Now, if Mr. Motley had been more shrewd and selfish in matters political ne would long since have foreseen the hostility inevitably to be developed, and, with the fair ex- cuse of duty, he would have made him- self safe by comporting himself as the obedient subordinate of the State De- partment. But, unfortunately, his loyal impulses betrayed him to his undoing. He owed gratitude to the good friend in whom he heartily believed, and in his usual open fashion he allowed it to be plainly seen that he felt himself to be "Sumner's man" more than Secretary Fish's servant. When, therefore, the President and Secretary, especially the former, hotly incensed against Sumner, found him personally inaccessible to punishment by them, and knew that he would welcome rather than regret a conflict, they turned to the only obvious recourse for revenge. It was a mean and brutal recourse, certainly, to strike the friend when the principal could not be reached; and Grant was neither mean nor brutal; but just now he was in such a blind rage that he only "saw red," as the phrase goes, and delivered the blow promptly where he could. The letter of recall was dated on the day after a tie vote in the Senate had caused the San Domingo treaty to fail of ratification. The episode was worse for Mr. Motley than that of Vienna, since to be punish- ed by Grant was very different from be- ing victimized by Johnson. Moreover, the repetition seemed to in- dicate an inherent unfitness on Motley's part, whereas no such unfitness had de- veloped, and the two occurrences really constituted only a coincidence. Mr. Mot- ley, however, took his recall in a way to show that he was in one respect ill- adapted to public life, for he could not bring himself to regard it as a mere incident, as a politician might have done; for him it was an affront which no gentleman ought to forgive or could forget, and it remained an aching wound to the day of his death. VI. Despite his mental suffering from this incident, Mr. Motley returned reso- lutely to his literary work, and gain- ed relief in familiar toil on "The Life and Death of John of Barneveld." These two volumes, published in 1874, were, by the necessity of their subject, less generally popular than their predeces- sors had been. He had to deal with the bitter disputes of an era which recalled and exaggerated the theological savage- ry of New England herself. The ashes of those flames were still fiery hot, and Dutch scholars on the side opposed to that espoused by him published severe criticisms. But this was as it should have been; had his views not stirred just such antagonism he must have conclud- ed that they were regarded as of no ac- count. Moreover, he was defended as vig- orously as he was attacked. Dr. Holmes interestingly suggests the presence in these volumes of a personal element which might not have been discovered by any one else. He says: "In this, his last work, it is impossible not to read much of his own external and internal personal history, though under other names and with different accessories." "Barneveld" was the third great section of his original scheme; a fourth section should have been added. This, however, was not to be, for his life's work was done; he was a worn-out man. Gen. Grant and Mr. Fish had dealt him a staggering blow; a worse and final one came when, on December 31, 1874, his wife died. Al- ways a congenial couple, they had been especially thrown upon each other by their long years in foreign lands and among persons who, however friendly, were really strangers. A few months after her death Mr. Motley's own health began to fail; efforts to regain his vigor were futile, and on May 29, 1877, he died, near Dorchester, in Dorsetshire, and was buried in Kensal Green Ceme- tery, Dean Stanley performing the ser- vice. A TRIBUTE FROM HOLLAND. Leyden, Holland, April 4. The centenary of Motley's birth fur- nishes a fitting occasion for paying spe- cial tribute to this brilliant writer who did so much to spread the knowledge of Dutch history. His name is ranked in our country with the greatest of those who have treated the earlier periods of the nation's life, and especially its more splendid chapters. His large views, his brilliant style, his intense feeling for the most prominent features of our na- tional character, for our great men, our heroes in the struggle with Spain; his sincere love of truth, his passion for religious and political freedom, give him a place among the first historians of his time. Motley's "Rise of the Dutch Republic," "History of the United Netherlands," "John of Barneveld" — in the original language, as well as in the Dutch trans- lation, made with the supervision of our great historian Bakhuizen van den Brink and enriched by his annotations — still find a large number of admiring, readers in the Netherlands. They turn particularly to his glowing pages on the retirement of Charles V, on the sieges of Alkmaar, Haarlem, Leyden, and Antwerp, on the fate of the Ar- mada, on the most dramatic scenes They linger over his striking charac- terizations of Philip II, William of Or- ange, Leicester, Alva; of Don John of Austria and Maurice, the great general; and warmly respond to his brilliant de- scriptions of sites and occasions on land and sea. Since Motley's day numerous new documents relating to the Eighty Years' War have naturally been added to the store of information which he himself collected in the libraries and archives of London, Paris, The Hague, and Brus- sels, as well as a long series of mono-
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428 The Nation (Vol. 98, No. 2546 graphs. Many of his assertions have had, of course, to be corrected, nor was he always accurate in his larger views of men and things. Thus it has been shown that his modern ideas on politi- cal and religious freedom influenced un- duly his reconstruction of the times. But no one has doubted his motives as historian nor his constant endeavor to state the truth — nothing short of it— as he saw it. So on the centenary of his birth a Dutch historian desires, in the name of the Netherlands, to do homage to one who so greatly helped to make a bril- liant period of their history better known to the world— to the world-wide lovers of that religious and political free- dom which inspired him to his noble task. p. j. Blok. Professor of National History in the Uni- versity of Leyden. Books and Men HIGGINSON AND NE WBURYPORT. The life of Thomas Wentworth Hig- ginson, by Mary Thacher Higginson, published a week or two ago, contains a chapter called In and Out of the Pulpit. The pulpit, the first ever oc- cupied by Col. Higginson, was that of the First Religious Society of Newbury- port. Architecturally it is beautiful and imposing, but at that date— 1847— it proved too small for the enthusiastic young reformer. He was only about twenty-three, and he "preached himself out" of that pulpit in two years. He ventured to give his pro-slavery parish- ioners an abolition sermon once a fort- night, and they decided to accept his resignation. The incident was most curious and interesting. The young minister was called to one of the most conservative towns in New England. Salem and Bos- ton have the reputation of being a little staid, but it is probable that they might be regarded as hotbeds of radicalism be- side their less celebrated neighboring city, Newburyport. Mr. Higginson was not unprepared what to expect. An- other minister, he writes, in "Cheerful Yesterdays"— "Henry C. Wright, after- ward a prominent Abolitionist— had lost his parish, a few miles above Newbury- port, for the alleged indecorum of swim- ming across the Merrimack River." The wife of another minister, ten or more years after Mr. Higginson's departure, got herself into disfavor because she wore a hat on the Sabbath. This crime will seem a little mysterious to the present generation until it is understood that women of godly conversation, at that period, wore bonnets on Sunday. These things, however, were trifles compared with Mr. Higginson's devo- tion to the abolition of slavery. "The parish," he writes, "which at first wel- comed me, counted among its strongest supporters a group of retired sea cap- tains who had traded with Charleston and New Orleans, and more than one of whom had found himself obliged, af- ter sailing from a Southern port, to put back in order to eject some runaway slave from his lower hold. . . . One of them, perhaps the quietest, was the very Francis Todd who had caused the imprisonment of Garrison at Baltimore. It happened, besides, that the one po- litical hero and favorite son of New- buryport, Caleb Cushing — for of Garri- son himself they only felt ashamed — was at that moment fighting slavery's battles in the Mexican War." Things were misunderstood at that time — by some, perhaps, wilfully; by others, through a blind trust in the lead of the "best" people. It was a guide to respectability, hardly to righteousness. Caleb Cushing is still admired in New- buryport for his intellectual power; his other qualities are usually discreetly ig- nored. But the despised printer and abolitionist is now known as her great- est son. There were many lighter and pleasant- er aspects to Mr. Higginson's sojourn in Newburyport. No one, and he least of all, could remain insensitive to the charm of one of the most delightful of New England seaports. A native does not like to use even the qualifying phrase. Mr. Higginson's successor of to-day in the parish, Laurence Hayward, writes that Higginson took the children to the country and seashore, teaching them where and when they might ex- pect each flower and bird. "He organ- ized picnics, among them several to Plum Island, and I have seen a copy of a beautiful Evening Hymn of Aubrey De Vere's, made by him for a lady of the parish, which he sung to them at sunset on one such occasion." After he had severed his connection with the parish, Higginson stayed in Newburyport for two years. He even spoke of staying forever. In the last year of their residence, Mr. and Mrs. Higginson moved a mile or two out of the city, to a beautiful place called Cur- son's Mill, near the mouth of a little river, the Artichoke. The Avon is not half so lovely a stream. The new biog- raphy, by Mrs. Higginson, quotes from a letter of his: "The soft west wind blows into my window, rich with linger- ing apple blossoms and half-blown clo- ver . . . thrushes' and bobolinks' and robins' notes ... In these lovely spring days with the blue Merrimack waves dancing before me, the world seems very young, and all evil short- lived." He interested himself in many things in the city. Even after his resignation he continued to teach in night schools which he had organized; he served on the school committee. A group of young women helped in this work — the most brilliant group, he declared, he had met anywhere. One of them was Harriet Prescott, now Mrs. Spofford. The old town was rich in eccentric characters, as such towns always are. In another of Col. Higginson's books ("Contemporaries"), he speaks of a cer- tain "Doctor Hackett," who at the time of the author's pastorate acted as a sort of unofficial tithing-man in the church of the First Religious Society, keeping a number of boys in order. This old gen- tleman, as the minister found when go- ing to make a pastoral call, lived in a place "as weird in the approach as that of some enchanter in Spenser's poetry." He dwelt alone on a wide tract, then and now known as "Grasshopper Plains." His house was a small shanty, bought from some railway men — its small size caused the owner a little dis- tress from the fact that he could not in- sure it against fire, as the smallest risk accepted by the companies was ten dol- lars in value. It stood in the midst of a little grove of birches, through which small paths led to the door: "On all these paths he had made piles of small wayside treasures that had at- tracted his eye — horseshoes, padlocks. keys, hoops, bits of iron rod too small for junk, yet carefully classed and piled. Within the house the collection grew only more concentrated; pins, nails, rusty knives, bits of ribbon, bits of string were hung to the rafters, or ar- ranged on the floor, leaving scarcely room for his microscopic housekeeping. "As unmoved by his possessions as if it were a palace, he ushered you in, kept on talking, flung out flowery and long-winded words, and seemed a Bour- bon concealed in a junk-shop. On your exit, he escorted you through his small dominions, first pausing to screw upon his door a large iron plate covering sol- idly the keyhole, since it seemed that vagrant boys found a wicked delight in filling the latter with gravel and small stones in the owner's absence. " 'Such conduct,' he said in his Mi- cawber-llke way, 'I should call, sir — with no disrespect to the colored popula- tion— niggardly.' "While I wrestled in bewilderment with this unexpected use of language, as if John the Baptist had unguardedly slipped into a pun, he came back to the proposition — 'I intend, sir, no disrespect whatever to the colored population.' " 'Certainly not, Dr. Hackett,' I re- plied, *I should not suspect you of such a thing.' " Edmund Lester Pkarnon.
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April 16, 1914I The ISTation 4:29 Poetry THE BLOOM-COLORED COAT. •Will, let mi' ipii vii 11." ~aiii Goldamltb, "when the tailor brought bome my hloom colored coat. in' -Mill. 'Sir. 1 bare :■ favor to Ih'k of yon; when imiimiv aika who rnaiii' your clotbea, be pleased to mention John Fllbj at tbe Harrow, in Water Ijiih- Why. sir." fried Johnson, "thai was beoaoae be knew tbe strange color wonM attract crowds to l.':iz>- :ii it. and tbns they mi^hi bear of dim. ami see how well lie could make h coal of at aboard u color." — Boowell's Jobnson. And there it is in Kensington, Hung primly in its case of glass; A faded coat, so dusty, dun. So patched and mended, that, alas! The "bloom" is gone — -but can't you see (When Filby at the Harrow sent That coat, bloom-colored, just to be One glorious moment's monument) Can't you, I say, see Goldsmith there — So frankly vain, so quaintly shy — Advancing, peacock-wise, to where Th' immortal company may ply The little man with friendly jest. Till Johnson thunders, ending it; And Boswell, with untiring zest. Records his master's heavy wit? God's blessing on thee, Noll, thy fame Needs no such dim sartorial shine; But thou would'st smile to hear the name Which jesting Fate embalms with thine; — Would'st smile, and welcome Filby's shade To share thy glory through the years; And hover with thee, unafraid, Mingling the laurel and the shears. Edmund Kemper Broadus. News for Bibliophiles SERGEANT ORDWAY'S NOTE-BOOK. Dr. James K. Hosmer, in an admirable introduction to a reprint of Patrick Gass's "Journal of the Lewis and Clark Expedi- tion" (Chicago, 1904), says, in speaking of the long-lost note-book of John Ord- way: "His journal, which he eontentedly sold for $10 to his commanders, could it be recovered, would bring to-day literally its weight in gold." And now, ten years after writing these words, Dr. Hosmer may rejoice with many other scholars and students throughout the country over the recovery of this precious manuscript, kept for many months, if we may trust a family tradition, under the shirt of Sergeant Ordway, next his skin. For it was re- cently placed on deposit (having been dis- covered in the Biddle papers) with the American Philosophical Society of Phila- delphia by its present owner, who, so far as the public is concerned, must for the present remain nameless. The journal, however, is to be made accessible to his- torical investigators. Ordway's note-book, which is of consid- erable length and written on pages mea- suring 7% by Gl/t inches, is known to have been used by Nicholas Biddle in pre- paring his digest of the journals of Lewis and Clark for publication in 1814 (a not- able piece of work when one considers the time and circumstances of its produc- tion), but it was later lost sight of, and eluded even that experienced search- er for source materials, the late Dr. Reuben Gold Thwaites, for many years secretary of the Wisconsin Historical So- ciety, when he was editing a truly monu- mental edition of the original journals of this transcontinental expedition in eight volumes. (New York, 1904.) The note-book now reposing safely in the archives of the American Philo- sophical Society appears to be complete, and covers a period commencing May 14, 1804, and ending September 30, 1805. Whether the journal contains matter of importance not made use of by Biddle remains to be seen. In any event, it is perhaps safe to assume that it deserves publication and wide circulation as an intelligent record of a momentous under- taking by one of the subordinate officers. And when the time comes for editing the journal, it is to be hoped that the task will not fall to the lot of one who thinks it necessary to polish the English of Sergeant John Ordway, thus lessening the charm and value of an original docu- ment of unusual interest. Patrick Gass's journal unfortunately fell into the hands of a schoolmaster, with the result that, while we no doubt have the facts straight enough, we lost Patrick himself by the process; and as Gass was a rather racy individual, what would we not now give to have his shrewd comments in his own words! Besides the voluminous journals of the commanders of the expedition, possibly seven other members recorded the hap- pening's of that remarkable journey. Un- til the recent recovery of the Ordway journal only three were known to ha\ e been preserved — those of Gass (in printed form only), Floyd, and Whitehouse. The note-books of Pryor and Frazier are still missing, and it is not certain that VVil- lard kept a diary, although some of his descendants credit a tradition to that ef- fect. The discovery, after well-nigh a cen- tury, of John Ordway's note-book is an event calculated to warm the hearts of all who are interested in Western his- tory, and it is much to be desired that the owner of the manuscript will speed- ily give the American Philosophical So- ciety, or some competent scholar outside of that learned body, permission to edit and publish this worthy complement to what may still be regarded as Dr. Thwaites's definitive edition of the "Jour- nals" of the Lewis and ('lark Expedition. Sergeant Ordway's contribution, perhaps laboriously produced, should not l>o de- nied a place with the classic narratives of his superiors and companions of the rank and file. John Thomas r.aw, Correspondence IF HUERTA HAD WON AT TORKEON. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: In an editorial on "The Man with the Note-Book" in a recent issue, you state that the reporter recognizes that a beating is all in the day's work. Some such treatment is sorely needed for those who write on the Mexican situation. It is said that a crisis in Mexican affairs is reported in the papers whenever there is a lack of news. The other day, the American Club here in Mexico City was surrounded by soldiers, according to the account in one New York paper. One company of soldiers happened to ex- change salutes with another in front of the Club, hence the beginning of the story. Countless times, according to similar sources of information, Mexico has been cut off from Vera Cruz and was presently to be surrounded by the ene- my. Much has also been made of the anti-American feeling. Of this we have seen no sign whatsoever, nor have we been able to find the "circulars against Americans" which are distributed over the city. We left for Mexico in November of last year against the advice of the Wash- ington authorities and of almost every one who thought they knew the true state of affairs. We arrived in Vera Cruz and were strongly advised to turn back by Mr. John Lind. We kept on to Mexico City, however, and have been leading a peaceful existence here ever since. We had an impression before arriv- ing that we were doing something cour- ageous, but, conditions being as they are, we fear we cannot assume the role of heroes. We were here when Mexico was under the strong arm of Diaz, again under the vacillating, theosophical Madero, and now under Victoriano Huerta. There is no visible difference in the day life of the city now from that which existed under the two other regimes. Our work has been archaeological. We have been excavating in sites ten miles and more outside the city for over three months. There has been no interruption to our work nor any untoward circum- stance. To all appearances Mexico City is entirely normal. The parks are kept up in all their usual beauty, the band con- certs are as frequent, and the bull fi«hts as crowded as in former times. It can- not be denied that business men are hav- ing a very hard time on account of finan- cial conditions; the Oovernment is spend- ing so much money on the army th.it it is naturally hard pressed. Huerta is making a good fight and there are few Americans here who do not wish to see him win. Any American in Mexico whose money is at stake is in the eyes of our Government a capi- talist, and his opinion, therefore, is worth- less. Our Government, it seems to me. has nut taken the trouble to in\ •cstigate properlj the relative state of affairs in Mexico as between the rebels of the North and the Oovernment as organized by Huerta. President Wilson has from the start underestimated Huerta's strength,
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i;so T li e N ation [Vol. 98, No. 2546 ability, and tenacity, and his power to obtain money for the support of his poli- cies. The Mexican difficulties are in great pari due to Questions of topography. The country is divides into distinct and often Isolated areas. Yucatan is a country quite by itself, with its own ideas and its own industries. There is no way of get- ting- to the peninsula except by sea. Ta- basco and Chiapas, again, are marked off from Central Mexico by impassable for- ests. Here, too, is a people with its own methods of thought and its own industries. Even Oaxaca is in many ways quite apart from Central Mexico. North- ern Mexico is divided into distinct areas by large tracts of desert. There is little unity among these different sections. A common feeling would be born only in case of an invasion by a foreign force. Intervention would mean that a separate army would have to be sent into each of these districts with little or no opportu- nity for cooperation. The battle of Tor- reon is now (April 1) being fought. If the forces of Huerta win, it is time for Mr. Wilson to realize that his advisers have made a mistake and that recognition is better late than never. Alfred M. Tozzer. Mexico City, April 1. BALLADRY IN AMERICA. To the Editor of The Nation: Sin: On this continent there are sur- vivals and adaptations of Old World ballads to a marked degree, but still more significant is the persistence of the an- cient custom of ballad-making. This is a result of the vastness of the country and the conditions which induce men to lead isolated lives in small groups. In his book of "Cowboy Ballads," Professor Lomax has included "The Death of Jack Munroe," which is not a cowboy song at all, but a lumberjack poem. Lumberjack poetry has not yet been collected, so that an expedition into the woods of Michigan or British Columbia during the logging season would yield a rich harvest. Rail- way life also has many songs and ballads connected with it, and there is a vast amount of hobo poetry, which sometimes creeps into railway magazines, but al- most never into the general press. "The Dying Hobo" is as much a classic among tramps, and has as many variants, as "Jack Munroe," the favorite of the "shan- ty-boys." Many of the narrative poems pattern after the old Irish come-all-ye's, in hav- ing a few words of preface; for exam- ple, among lumbermen, one song begins: Come all ye shanty-boys and listen while I relate About a brave shanty-boy and his untimely fate, and "Casey Jones," a railway song, which has found its way upon the stage, and into the phonograph record, begins: Come all ye Founders if you want to hear A story abont a brave engineer, Owing to the persistence of conditions which cause original verse to arise and to be transmitted orally, America will probably nave its ballad-literature longer than Europe. Joseph F. Gould. 'I Mai April 10. PROBLEMS OP I MM MIRATION. To THK EDITOR of The Nation: Sin: May I be permitted to give ex- pression to my surprise on reading, in your editorial on "The Irish in Our Pub- lic Life," in the Nation for March 26, the following sentences: "For example he (Professor Ross) has previously given expression to the serious disquietude which many Americans feel to-day in connection with the new-comers from South European countries. But their grandfathers were just as acutely con- cerned over the Irish emigrants. These were, sixty and seventy years ago, as much disliked and even dreaded as are, by some, Slav and Italian to-day. . . . It may be asked, however, if the large immigration of to-day will not, half a century hence, look as harmless and even desirable as does now the Irish immigra- tion of 1845-55." The argument that it is wrong to ob- ject to the "new immigration" because our forefathers objected just as strongly to the "old immigration," which we now regard as innocuous or even desirable, has four distinct weaknesses, any one of which is sufficient to condemn it. The first is a question of fact. Often as we hear this statement repeated, it is not at all certain that our grandfathers dis- liked and dreaded the Irish as much as we fear the Slavs and Italians. I have had occasion to examine with great care the evidence on this point furnished by the contemporary writings and discus- sions, and I have failed to find any wide- spread sentiment against the Irish com- parable to the restrictionist agitation of to-day. In the second place, such objections to immigration as there were rested on wholly different grounds from those of the present. The antipathy felt in the middle of the nineteenth century was not against the Irish as such, nor was it against a degrading competition in the economic field. It was against paupers, criminals, diseased persons, and Roman Catholics. To treat the opposition to im- migration of the twentieth century as if it were analogous to that of this earlier period misses the point completely. An excellent illustration is furnished by the fact that whereas we fear that our pres- ent immigrants will not avail themselves of the blessings of American citizenship and will fail to become naturalized, our grandfathers feared that they would be- come naturalized too easily, and wanted to extend the period of residence re- quired for citizenship to twenty or twen- ty-five years, or to refuse naturalization altogether. In the third place, this argument al- ways assumes that none of the evils which our forebears dreaded in connec- tion with the Irish immigration has, in fact, materialized. This assumption is open to serious question. It is, of course, a difficult and hazardous undertaking to assign any of our present-day problems to any specific foreign race. But there is evidence thai the Irish are responsible tor more than their share of some of our troubles. On the same day in which I 1 ead s our editorial, mj al tention was at tracted by an editorial in the New York Times, which spoke thus of the Irish at- titude towards the repeal of the Tolls Exemption law: "The opposition of the Irish-American organizations is charac- teristically open and vociferous. The motive is far from creditable. . . . [They] have been prompted thereto by their hatred of England. They act on an American question from considera- tions wholly un-American, which is pret- ty bad citizenship." The fact that one of our great dailies can speak thus of the Irish after two-thirds of a century of Americanization is at least disquiet- ing. If we turn to more concrete mat- ters, we find that the number of Irish paupers in this country is out of all proportion to their percentage of the to- tal population — 46.4 per cent, of the total number of foreign-born paupers in the almshouses in 1903, over one-third (in- cluding native-born of Irish fathers) of the total number of charity cases of all nationalities in Bellevue and Allied Hospitals, etc. Among criminals, also, the Irish stand at the head of the foreign-born as regards the total num- ber of offences. Furthermore, it is most significant that in the one as- pect of life in which, as your editorial points out, the Irish have displayed the most marked ability, viz., public affairs, the record which they have made — as you also point out— has not been such as wholly to discredit the sagacity of our forefathers when they were uneasy as to the effect of the Irish on American poli- tics. The fact is that we have become ac- customed to those evils of American life which are traceable to the early immi- gration, and take them for granted. We even go so far as to use them as a means of forestalling unfavorable com- parisons between Southeastern Euro- peans and Americans. An excellent il- lustration of this is afforded by Dr. Peter Roberts in his book, "The New Immigra- tion," when, in an effort to extenuate the drunkenness and lawlessness of the new- comers, or at least to divide the respon- sibility, he points out that "with very rare exceptions the men on the bench, in the brewery business, and in politics," who help to create these conditions, "are native-born." He does not stop to con- sider how many of them are the sons of the Irish and German immigrants of the nineteenth century, whom Dr. Roberts, along with others, regards as so desir- able. Finally, the most significant fact of all is that the one reason why the evil ef- fects of the Irish and German immigra- tion of the forties and fifties are not much more widespread and prominent than they are, is that this very agitation of our forefathers, which we deride, had its effect. To be sure, some of it, particu- larly that based on religious prejudice, was misguided and unjustifiable accord- ing to our lights. But the great agita- tion against the indiscriminate dumping of foreign paupers and criminals on our shores, and against the horrible shipping conditions which landed swarms of mis- erable Wretches on our docks who had to he hauled ftwaj In earls to the hospilals and almshouses, rested on a solid founda- tion. For decades the wiser spiiil:. Oi the lime CoUgb.1 for laWS which would
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April 16, 1914] The USTatioii 431 protect the communities of this country against an intolerable burden of expense in the support of indigent foreigners. We of to-day are reaping the benefit of this agitation, and it ill becomes us to ridicule It from the vantage point of our secur- ity. It Is doubtful if a half or even a quarter of the Irish immigrants who made up the great migration of 1845-55 would be allowed even to embark from the shores of Ireland, to say nothing of being admitted to the United States, in the year 1914. If we were confronted with an immigration of the sort that our grandfathers had to deal with we should be much more vociferous in our protests than they were. The immigration problem of the twen- tieth century is in many ways a wholly new one. No arguments concerning it are more fallacious than those which compare it, without discrimination, with that of the middle of the nineteenth cen- tury, and draw conclusions from parallels. And there is no more complete justifica- tion for a sober and well-considered pro- test against the immigration of the pres- ent than that afforded by a contemplation of the debt we owe to the agitators of an earlier period. Henry P. Fairchild. Yale University, April ."">. other recent play that shows at once the relentless impatience of youth and the essential pathos of old age. The acting of the Welsh players is sin- cere and convincing. Every word is ut- tered with distinction (which includes dis- tinctness), and there is no exploitation of costume or individual. The actors seem to have grasped the fact that the part of the actor is simply to interpret the play. Hence the "team work" is perfection. Annie Nathan Meyer. New Yoik. April 4. IN PRAISE OF "CHANGE." To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: William Butler Yeats has said that the need of the moment was not so much new creative genius as an audi- ence sensitive to talent, trained and ready to recognize creative work. Last Janu- ary for ten days there was performed right here in New York a play which later generations will be envying us for having seen — when the problems it Illu- mines were alive and real, when the char- acters it portrays were contemporary. I like to think that New York was not wholly insensitive to its beauty, for its audiences were growing towards the last, but it was unfortunately financed by one "of little faith" and the battle was lost before it was begun. Even the most sen- sational play at this moment on the boards needed good fighters behind it before it became profitable. This play "Change," by a Welshman named Francis, has come again largely through the efforts and support of the Drama League. I wish to pay tribute here to the play first of all as a work of art — a piece of wholly satisfying and impressive dra- matic literature; secondly, a document of first-hand observation and conviction; thirdly, a revelation of signal breadth of vision, an unusual combination at once both impassioned and balanced. We usually resign ourselves with what patience we may command to either a work of art which escapes from life into the less exaggerating realism of fantasy or a piece of work — literature, drama, or plastic art — which may be life, but which certainly is not art. But here is a play which demands no compromise — it is Life and it is Art. Its theme has been used in other plays, the succession of ideas whereby genera- tions make progress, but I know of no THE OPIUM TRAFFIC. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: To free Asia from the vices of opium smoking and opium eating is a se- rious proposal for a reform that is per- fectly feasible. Those European nations ruling in Asia which have established complete monopolies in opium within their frontiers (beginning with England), have only to renounce their profits and close their "Government opium manu- factories," and the opium vice would be completely extinguished in the European possessions in Asia. China, with its four hundred millions, has already de- clared against the vice, and there would remain only the comparatively limited territories of the independent native states, many of which would, no doubt, yield to British influence. It would, of course, be necessary for the European nations indicated to continue their pres- ent stringent exclusion of all outside opium from their Asiatic possessions, and thus a regulation, originally intend- ed to protect the profits of their own monopolies, would be turned by them to a great and beneficent purpose. The European empires in Asia would have justified their existence by liberating the Asiatics from a vice which for centuries has paralyzed their energies. It is hardly necessary to call attention to England's opportunity. If England started the reform, it cannot be doubted that France and Holland would follow. A new conference on the opium question should be summoned. Bertrand Shadwell. Hongkong, March 11. Thus, the imagination is invoked in the service of smoke-reducers, clay-mixers, gas engines, and the agrarian arts, on the one hand, and in the service of econ- omy, sociology, the abolition of poverty, and "pass prosperity around," on the other. Utilitarian or humanitarian, one or both we are, and the love of man for the love of God is a substitution few de- spise. Protests more or less futile arise from several camps. The worshippers of beauty protest in the name of lyrics, music, nature, and the lust for the pretty. Another sect, opposed to the art for art's sake school, protests in the name of re- search without end, and here range cer- tain historians, philologists, grammar- ians, economists, bibliomaniacs, research- ing ever, and without end. The first — who kneel to beauty — should remember Plato, "To desire beauty above virtue, what is that but the utter dishonor of the soul?" and the second — who bow to the enclyclopaedic — should learn from the Germans the futility of possession with- out assimilation. Where, then, is virtue, and how can we escape the paralysis of the imagina- tion? Chief of studies that aid the imagi- nation are, I presume, philosophy, lit- erature, history, as major studies, with perhaps music, sculpture, painting, ar- chitecture, and scientific theories a more or less harmonic minor. These, especially the first three, if wisely used in the ser- vice of ideas, furnish severe mental dis- cipline, and incite the imagination to connect the present and the past. Bruce Weirick. Ames, Iowa. April 2. IMAGINATION IN COLLEGE. To the Editor of The Nation : Sir: If, as the Japanese tell us, imagi- nation is but the indwelling of the nast in the present, we may well measure modern education by observing its sense for the past. "Those who forget the past shall in their turn be forgotten," Mr. More has said, and Professor Babbitt ap- plies the rule home when he finds the shallowness of American life chiefly due to our having lost connection with the ages. The Presidential pronunciamento on imagination, recently printed in the Na- tion, reveals two gods, gods that are al- most if not quite the admitted deities of all American education to-day: the god of the practical — Christ called him Mam- mon— and the god of humanitarianism, so aptly spiritualized in the refrain Do something for somebody quick. JOHN ALDEN. To the Editor of The Nation : Sir: That personality and scholarship are still the qualities most prized in the public-school teacher is the fact shown by the striking tributes paid to the memory of Mr. John Alden, whose death, in the early forties, was recently reported. For the past fifteen years he had been a teacher of Greek in the Portland High School. A graduate of Harvard in the class of 1893, a thorough scholar who had studied in Greece and taught at his alma mater, Mr. Alden was by tem- perament and training entirely com- petent to fill a university post. To some of his acquaintances, indeed, it seemed strange that he should have chosen school work; yet so abundant was the fruit of his labors at the Port- land High School that he did more for sound learning and for the (lassies, at least in his native State, than any other man has done in the last twenty years, His department was Greek ; and in Maine, as elsewhere, Greek has for the past r<w years been declining in popu- larity. Yet Mr. Alden had often twenty or twenty-live students in his beginners' class, and trained many boys and girls so proficiently in Greek and Latin that col- lege teachers have wondered at their mastery of those subjects He sent his boys up to colleges and universities with a genuine love for the classics, and as one parent wrote, "College students fitted
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4:32 rn The Nation (Vol. 98, No. 2546 at the Portland High School have found to their disappointment and grief that sometimes their professors in the clas- sics have not measured up to the stature of John Alden." Much of Mr. Alden's success was due to bis rare personality; much also to his genuine love of learning. That high-school teaching does not necessa- rily interfere with the career of the scholar, his life abundantly proved. He was fully abreast of modern techni- cal scholarship; he showed that high- school teachers in certain instances can give as much to college and university men as they receive from them. When he visited Bowdoin College, for example, he left with the college teachers whom he met a desire for a deeper knowledge and for a clearer understanding of the writers and topics that he came to dis- cuss. A person of real erudition, of ex- act and cultured mind, of ideals as high and as far removed from what is vulgar and cheap as those of the Greeks whom he so ably interpreted, Mr. Alden showed what one man can do to uphold the best traditions of scholarship and culture in a public high school. And his career and influence are an effective answer to those who depreciate the value of disci- pline in the classics, and who assert that there is no room in the schools for the study of Greek, and for the pursuit of culture. Kenneth C. M. Sills. BowdoiD College, Brunswick, Me., April 10. Literature THE GREAT TRIBUNE. Mirabeau. By Louis Barthou. Illustrat- ed. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. $3 net. It is not surprising that a man whose private life was filled with almost in- credible family quarrels, love affairs, law-suits, debts, and imprisonments, and whose public life was such that Gam- betta used to call him "the most glori- ous political genius in France since the incomparable Richelieu," should not have suffered for lack of biographers. In English alone, aside from the ill-con- ceived biographies of Trowbridge, Wat- son, and Warwick, there are the solid studies of Stern and Von Hoist, the ex- cellent brief sketch of Willert, and the first volume of Fling's new work. Was it worth while to add to the list by the translation of a French Prime Minis- ter's biography of the great Tribune? Unhesitatingly, yes. For It is valuable in estimating the great political leader of the Revolutionary Constituent Assem- bly to know the opinion of a similar twentieth-century leader — of a man like M. Barthou, who has been in the thick of the legislative fight and knows the game of politics by experience in the Chamber, and not merely by study in the closet. He does not, however, make his study of Mirabeau a stalking-horse for political propaganda; he does not. as Frenchmen are too often inclined to do, make his book an occasion for eith- er justifying or condemning the Revolu- tion. Only rarely does he inject his own twentieth-century views, as when he 6ays: "The Marquis was right when he advocated the foundation of a large num- ber of institutions in which unmarried mothers might place their children and have them brought up." M. Barthou has been criticised by some of his reviewers for giving so much space— half the volume — to Mira- beau's family and early life before 1789, that is, before the beginning of his pub- lic life as the commanding figure in the Constituent Assembly. We are not in- clined so to criticise him. For, like the Adamses, the Pitts, and the Hohenzol- lerns, Mirabeau cannot be separated from his ancestry. He came from a race of immemorial antiquity, whose virtues and vices alike culminated in him. He cannot be understood without some knowledge of the sources from which he sprang. It is a family that should prove interesting to students of eugen- ics; the same tendencies which are found in the great Tribune — gallantry, wit, sensitiveness, amorousness, intellec- tual ability, love of polemics, and gen- eral "tempestuousness" — are also found running back for generations. With the genius of the family went also, as one might expect, a strain of insanity which was augmented from the maternal side. Mirabeau's grandmother, after an irre- proachable life, sank in her eightieth year into a horrible form of dementia characterized by outbursts of violently obscene talk. His mother had aberra- tions which had not the excuse of old age, and which were not limited to her conversation. In the chapters on Mirabeau's leader- ship in the Constituent Assembly, M. Barthou brings out more clearly than other writers the multiplicity of sub- jects on which Mirabeau spoke with flu- ency and authority, the complexity of his dealings with the Assembly and with the Court, and the wisdom with which he tried to pursue a moderating middle pol- icy. By reconciling the Monarchy and the Revolution, the authority of the King and the liberty of the nation, he would have spared France the Terror, Caesarism, and invasion. But he was handicapped by the King's lack of con- fidence, and by the shadow of the scan- dalous life of his own youth. "Oh!" he cried on his deathbed, "if I had brought to the Revolution a reputation equal to that of Malesherbes! What a mighty destiny I would have assured for my country! What glory I should have at- tached to my name!" He was not mis- taken in his presentiment. He left a great name which is lit up with a legen- dary glamour, but his destiny was in- ferior to his genius. M. Barthou has no footnotes, but it is evident that he has used the best printed material in French. He admires Mirabeau's genius, but he does not at- tempt to gloss over his vices and weak- nesses. One of the most interesting chapters is the last, in which he seeks to elucidate the doubt which always ex- ists as to the paternity of Mirabeau's books and speeches. He shows to what an extraordinary extent Mirabeau coax- ed other able men to look up material and write his speeches for him. The chief of these was a Swiss pastor, Rey- baz. Not only did Reybaz write some of the main speeches which Mirabeau hurled at the Assembly, but he was ex- pected to be ready with replies, for we find Mirabeau writing to him, "Follow the Moniteurs carefully, so that we can be ready for a reply." The unnamed translator has succeed- ed admirably in preserving something of the epigrammatic vigor, humor, and brilliancy of M. Barthou's French orig- inal. CURRENT FICTION. Vandover and the Brute. By Frank Norris. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co. The great attraction of Frank Norris is that, direct in method, he is finely imaginative in content; but here we have realism in immature roughness. Its intrinsic value is small beside its im- portance in filling the chief gap in our knowledge of Norris's development. His first completed novel, it was twin in conception with "McTeague," having been begun in 1894, Norris's senior year at the University of California, and finished in 1895 at Harvard. With neither "Vandover" nor "McTeague" was Norris satisfied. He laid the first away indefinitely, and in 1898 completed and published "Moran of the Lady Letty" before he had quite reworked the second. Ideas and ambitions were then crowding fast, and within a twelve- month after "McTeague" two more nov- els— "Blix" and "A Man's Woman" — were published; the conception of a tri- partite Epic of the Wheat seized him, and in 1901 came "The Octopus"; and in 1902 his death occurred a few months before the issue of "The Pit." Mr. Charles G. Norris tells how this first novel, which still awaited remodelling, was stored in a chest in San Francisco and was miraculously saved from earth- quake and fire. Vandover is a rich, motherless San Francisco youth who studies at Harvard and there explores life, cutivates a dilet- tantish talent for art, is left his own master by his father's death, sinks am- bition and integrity in slothful luxury, goes from stage to stage of riotous liv- ing until money and health are lost, and is discovered at the end a dazed, brutish day-laborer, subject to attacks
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April 1 6, 19 1 4) The Nation 4:33 of lycanthropy, cleaning a row of tene- ments belonging to a one-time friend who has cheated him of his property. The book begins with the full stage of characters, drawn in ultra-detail, which distinguished "The Pit." There is a girl, Turner Ravis, who is introduced with a care presaging an important part, and disappears in 100 pages; there are young men, friends of Vandover, who similarly drop away; his father is a mere sketch; by the middle of the vol- ume the author's powerful moral theme has run away with his pen, and Van- dover is centre of a kaleidoscopic yet fateful action in which the outside world figures hazily. Yet there is no monotony, and a deep- ening interest attaches to his course. He begins with self-indulgence, the sen- suous pleasures of the stomach and armchair; his great impulse towards evil comes with a surreptitious course in the lower world, and betrayal of one of his girl friends, whose suicide drives him to southern California to recuper- ate; a wreck is brought in for no reason but the description of brutality and hysteria; he takes a studio on his re- turn, is shunned by his friends, and plunges downward. But the unflinch- ing moral conviction of the book lifts it to a place not far below "McTeague" as a powerful private study. The World Set Free. By H. G. Wells. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. Mr. Wells is always interesting as a prophet, but his stories written in that vein are sharply distinguished from novels like "Mr. Polly," in which human beings move. What he paints here is a world set free from war, competition, government, and personality. And this enfranchisement comes about within our own century. The chief engine of change is a new weapon, the atomic bomb, deadly beyond parallel. Mr. Wells does not make this up out of his own head. Characteristically, he finds his materials among the most re- cent speculations of science. The book is inscribed to Frederick Soddy, or rather to his "Interpretation of Radi- um." Frederick Soddy, though still in his thirties, has been for ten years a lecturer on radio-activity in the Univer- sity of Glasgow. As early as 1904 he wrote a treatise on "Radio-activity, from the Standpoint of the Disintegra- tion Theory," and upon this theory his later studies have been based. The theory is, in a word, that radio-activity is a process of disintegration or decay. In radium the process is relatively rapid, hence the spectacular release of power involved; but it is probably go- ing on in all matter. Therefore, says the impassioned Edinburgh professor of Mr. Wells's story, all that we need to give us unlimited control of matter is to discover how to hasten the process of disintegration "in all the other ele- ments, where decay is still so slow as to escape our finest measurements. Every scrap of solid matter in the world would become an available reservoir of concen- trated force." Mr. Wells imagines a world in which this has happened. In 1933 a young scientist sets up atomic disintegration in a scrap of bismuth. It explodes, be- comes a powerful gas, and goes through a further series of disintegrations, still giving out energy, and resigning from active service, after a period of months, only to become a particle of gold! From this discovery a new civilization is born, by way of a devastating war to which the atomic bomb gives finality. A dozen of these bombs are enough for the destruction of London, Paris, Ber- lin, Chicago — most of the greatest cities of the world. They make these cities uninhabitable for a generation, since each bomb becomes a centre of very slowly decreasing activity, a small vol- cano remaining in eruption for years. So war dies; and, with war, nations and races become obsolete, a World- State is formed; nobody has to work and everybody prefers to; the labora- tories do not produce the whole food of the world because people still find it fun to potter about in gardens, and have a weakness for fresh vegetables; all atoms are kept under official observation so that there may be no malign use of them for explosive purposes; life is pro- longed and therefore sex loses some- thing of its necessary function; men and women cease to be important as males and females and exist "as parts of and contributions to the universal mind of the race": and nobody is nobody and everybody is everybody: and the world is a place that Mr. Wells, for one, would find it very dull to live in, we are sure. Heaven defend us from his Utopias! But we like his explosions. Anybody btit Anne. By Carolyn Wells. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co. A wealthy eccentric has conceived the plan — strongly opposed by his voung wife and the son and daughter of his first marriage — of putting the bulk of his fortune into a public library. He goes so far as to have the deed of gift drawn up ready for signing — and the next morning is found dead in his study. Apparently he has died by his own hands, for the room is too impregnably barred and bolted on the inside to per- mit any other explanation than suicide. Yet the ambiguous nature of the wound, the absence of any weapon to account for it, the fact that his wife's pearls are missing from his safe and the deed of gift from his desk, all point another way. The guests of the house suspect his housekeeper and valet, the neigh- bors his son and the servants his wife — by one of whose admirers the Investiga- tion or rne mystery is prosecuted in the spirit suggested by the title. There is a seemingly inexplicable tangle of incrim- inating evidence and only one apparent clue — the one that nobody is willing to follow. The quandary is quite enough to satisfy all lovers of this genre. When the time comes for the solution, this proves rather disappointing on the me- chanical side, the preparation in one im- portant particular having been most clumsy. On the psychological side, how- ever, the mystery has been more success- fully masked, and the fixing of the guilt comes as a genuine surprise. The Green Graves of Balgowrie. By Jane Helen Findlater. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. Over the Hills. By Mary Findlater. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. The plot of the first of these stories is a relic of the period when fiction was full of fair women possessed of a de- gree of sensibility and a delicacy of constitution impossible to realize in these days of lusty feminism. The green graves were those of two young sisters who departed this life during the last quarter of the eighteenth century. These two poor innocents were reared by a cruelly eccentric mother, in unnatural seclusion. So ill-prepared were they to cope with the problems of life that a single flirtation and a trip to Lon- don proved too much for Lucy's frail strength. What with the slight put upon her by fickle Captain Charteris, the mortification of having appeared, in the era of hoop-skirts, hoopless upon the London streets, and her fits of hysteri- cal terror at sight of a drawing-room full of strange faces, was it any won- der that Lucy soon developed a cough and a hectic flush? Henrietta, her book- ish sister, was of somewhat tougher fibre, and with the support of her elder- ly clergyman-lover might have weather- ed the storms of life with fair success had she not in nursing Lucy taken her malady. After this attempt to revive an obso- lete style of pathos, "Over the Hills" comes as something of a surprise. It is the story of a landless youth who loved a predestined daughter of joy and serv- ed a prison term for her theft. The plot is poor enough and smugly imagined in many details, but redeemed by passages here and there which Scotland's own muse must have inspired — a strain of loyalty peculiar to Scottish hearts in the character of Dinah Jernlngham and descriptions of places like this of the old house of Glarn: It stood solitary on the moor, without fence or garden: and sometimes th<' cut- tle straying down from the hills would stand so close to the little windows that their breath dimmed the panes as they huddled shoulder to shoulder gazing in at the fire. In summer too, when the
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4=34, The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2546 casements stood open, the sheep cropping the nut about the house would lift their noses to snuff at the window ledges, shy- ing off in alarm at any movement from within; and in the dawn of the morn- ing, before the household was astir, the feet of the beasts might be heard on the very threshold. We could be grateful for any book that contained a touch like this of artless magic. NEW BATTLESHIPS FOR OLD. German Sea-Power: Its Rise, Progress, and Economic Basis. By Archibald Hurd and Henry Castle. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. $3.50 net. Free from insular prejudice and without other motive than that of sim- ply telling the facts, these two English authors explain clearly and sympathet- ically the motives and manner of Ger- many's extraordinary naval expansion during the past fifteen years. In the appendices they give conveniently for reference numerous statistics compar- ing English and German seajpower, and also a translation of the more import- ant navy bills by which Admiral von Tirpitz has cleverly built up the Ger- man fleet. A couple of maps suggest the cardinal points of German naval strategy. The authors begin with two chapters on the naval activities of the Hanseatic League in the Middle Ages and of the Great Elector in the seventeenth cen- tury. These are well written, to be sure,, but it is rather stretching a point to at- tempt to show these early maritime enterprises as in any way closely re- lated to the present navy movement. These chapters also contain some minor inaccuracies and repeat the old error of the Elizabethan antiquary who derived "sterling" from the honest "Easter- ling." The central and most valuable part of the volume is that which describes the rapidity and cleverness with which Von Tirpitz has accomplished, since 1898, the remarkable transformation of the character and size of the navy. Popular imagination, stirred by Em- peror William's "Our future lies upon the sea" and by his other dramatic sayings and aquatic doings, has ascribed to William II himself the chief credit (or discredit) for the increase of the fleet. Not so these authors: The keen interest of the Emperor William would not have sufficed to bring aboul the change which has been 't during the past fifteen years. '' he decisive personal factors here have been the fixed purpose, the steady will, the unflagging energy, the inexhaustible patience, the profound political insight. and the rare diplomatic skill of Admiral Tirpitz, the nearest approach to a really great man that Germany has produced since Bismarck. He is the true creator of the German fleet that is and is to be. In the decade before 1898 the Min- ister of Marine who preceded Von Tir- pitz had not been able to increase the fleet at all. He was a military man who did not know how to deal with politicians; he tried to browbeat them and thumped the table in anger when the budget committee shaved down his estimates. Von Tirpitz had other meth- ods. He devoted himself to the educa- tion of the people by means of an elaborate Press Bureau and later by his support of the Navy League. He met opposition in the Reichstag with a smiling reasonableness, and set himself to win the support of opponents by good-natured argument. His trium- phant result was the Fleet law of 1898. This provided a naval programme of increased construction for a period of six years, and thereby removed in large part the yearly control which the Reichstag had previously exercised at the presentation of the annual budget. Long before the six years were up Eng- land went to war with the Boers and raised thereby in Germany a tremen- dous wave of Anglophobia. Von Tir- pitz at once seized the opportunity to throw overboard the law of 1898 and replace it by a new programme pro- viding a battle fleet of about twice the strength of that legalized. This 1900 programme was to have re- mained in force until 1917, but it also has been thrice modified, each time in the direction of greater naval expan- sion. Experience shows that German fleet laws are regarded as fixed and im- mutable when proposals are made for the limitation of armaments, but are as flexible as though no Fleet law exist- ed, when political circumstances are favorable for making a further effort towards an increase of the navy. In the wording of the laws, by skilfully using generic naval terms in the loose manner of those unfamiliar with their significance, Admiral Von Tirpitz still further restricted the Reichstag's pow- er of interference and gave complete freedom to the Marine Office in trans- forming the navy. By styling as a "battleship" every ship of slow speed but carrying an armored belt, and by providing that old battleships should be replaced in due course by new ones, he was soon able to replace dummy ships of 4,000 tons by Dreadnoughts of 25,000 tons. In this way the programme to which the Reichstag had given its consent was observed in letter, but by skilful conjuring small coast-defence ships were quietly converted into first- class sea-going battleships ranking with the most formidable ships in the Brit- ish fleet. One of the most valuable chapters is that in which the authors explain why Germans in authority want a big navy. It should be read by pacifists, not be- cause they will agree to any of the arguments, but because it sets forth sympathetically the state of mind of the German ruling classes. This state of mind is a fact which cannot be ig- nored by practical statesmen. In later chapters the authors analyze satisfac- torily the comparative resources of Eng- land and Germany in regard to naval expansion and equipment. They also give some account of the different po- litical parties in Germany and the at- titude of each towards the navy, but be- tray ignorance of agrarian conditions and of the development of Socialism in Germany. On the whole, however, their book is accurate and trustworthy. It ought to make people understand more clearly why Germany does not accept with open arms the English proposals for a "naval holiday." SOCIALISTS AND SYNDICALISM. Violence and the Labor Movement. By Robert Hunter. New York: The Mac- millan Co. $1-50. As an "orthodox" Socialist Mr. Hun- ter is a firm believer in "political ac- tion" as opposed to violence or "direct action" in any form. The first portion of his book is devoted to an historical survey and criticism of terrorism from the days of Bakounin up to the final triumph of Marx and the dissolution of the International. The remainder is de- voted to a description of Syndicalism, which Mr. Hunter takes to be the lineal descendant of the early anarchism, and of its inherent antagonism to modern Socialism. The sketch of Bakounin, his associ- ates, and his activities generally is in- teresting and instructive. Mr. Hunter leaves on the reader the impression that he is opposed to terrorism and the "prop- aganda of the deed" mainly because it is ineffective and tends to reaction. For this reason he considers it to be not even "revolutionary" (p. 120). He charges, moreover, that it has been care- fully fostered and encouraged by those in power in order to discredit the labor movement (chap. vi). "There can be no doubt," he says, "that the amazing growth of the modern socialistic move- ment has terrified the powers of indus- trial and political tyranny. To them it is an incomparable menace, and super- human efforts have been made to turn it from Its path. They have endeavored to divide it, to misinterpret it, to divert it, to corrupt It, and the greatest of all their efforts has been made towards forcing it to become a movement of ter- rorists in order ultimately to discredit and destroy it" (p. 122). There Is unquestionably a foundation
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No Socialist believes that the capitalist is individually to blame for our economic ills. The Syndicalist dissents from this view. To him the capitalist is an individual enemy. He must be fought and destroyed. . . . Every worker must be inspired with the aim of destruction" (pp. 238-9). "it is inevitable that Syndicalism and Social- ism should stand at opposite pol.es. They are exactly as far apart as Anarchism and Socialism" (p. 266). All this is doubtless quite true from the point of view of the "modern" So- cialist, who believes that the cause is "indissolubly united" with "political democracy" (p. 353), and that the "Co- operative Commonwealth" is to come via "State Socialism" as an intermedi- ate stage. This is the view taken by Mr. Walling in his "Socialism of To-day," and it consorts more or less with the facts as they are. But it is well to note that the Syndicalists of to-day pretty closely represent the "proletariat" as Marx expected it to be — the difference being that instead of the classes inter- mediate between the small group of swollen capitalists at the top and the labor army at the bottom having become "proletarianized" (if one may make such a word), there has been an increasing differentiation of the middle classes and a shrinking in relative numbers of the true "proletarians." Modern Socialism has become strictly "revisionist" as against Marx; the Syndicalists are more truly Marxian than are their Socialist critics. Mr. Hunter will do well to verify his references, if another edition of his book is required. It is not safe to rely upon Lombroso for historic facts. Pages 98- 100 are full of errors which might have been easily corrected. One would have thought that on writing the title of Mariana's book, "De Rege et Rege Con- stitutione" (which he does twice), the author would have suspected that there was something wrong somewhere! THE GREAT MOUNTAIN. The Ascent of Dcnali (Mount McKin- ley). By Hudson Stuck. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Illustrated. $1.75 net. From the explorer's point of view, the blizzard which drove Prof. Herschel C. Parker and Belmore Browne back clown the slopes of Mount McKinley when a few minutes more would have placed them on the summit, was a trag- edy. Obliged to admit that an absolute victory was not theirs, they had con- clusively demonstrated the possibility of such a victory and pointed out the pathway by which it was to be attained. The actual attainment fell to the lot of Archdeacon Hudson Stuck, and was only a year delayed. Favored by an in- terval of clear weather and a tempera- ture of seven degrees above zero, the party was able to stay on the summit a good part of one afternoon and to get a satisfactory impression of the topography of the surrounding terri- tory. Incidentally, what they saw does not tally well with the description given by Dr. Cook in his account of the al- leged ascent of 1906, and thus another blow is struck in the needless task of slaying the slain. At various points on the mountain were found striking evidences of the earthquake recorded by Parker and Browne two days after their descent. Masses of ice torn loose by the shock and piled in vast confusion constituted the chief obstacle to Archdeacon Stuck's ascent, and in his view Parker and Browne were really fortunate in their inability to remain on the mountain for a second attempt on the summit, since their lives would in all probability have been lost in the avalanches of ice and snow which the earthquake occasioned. An interesting feature of this volume is a clear and convincing account of the "sourdough" expedition of 1910, fea- tured in a very incorrect and mislead- ing way in a New York Sunday news- paper during the summer of the same year. A group of miners and pros- pectors, "sourdoughs," undertook to ac- complish with no special preparation that in which well-equipped "scientists" had failed, and actually did plant their flagstaff upon one of the two peaks into which the mountain divides towards the summit. They happened to select the wrong peak, though Dr. Stuck read- ily admits that they could have reach- ed the other had they realized in time that it was the higher. Dr. Stuck has obligingly compressed his relation within the limit of 190 pages, and has still found room for a great deal of interesting comment on subjects merely suggested by his as- cent rather than essential to it. His objection to the name "Mount McKin- ley" will appeal to many as well ground- ed. Denali, "the great one," has been and still is the name of the mountain to the great majority of the Indians from whose lands it is visible, and it is certainly a correct principle to re- tain the native Indian names for such features wherever possible. Denali is accurately descriptive in its meaning and at the same time brief and eu- phonic. Against this what have we as a basis for the name McKinley? We quote from Belmore Browne: "A few years ago I asked Mr. Dickey why he named the mountain McKinley, and he answered that while they were in the wilderness he and his partner fell in with two prospectors who were rabid champions of free silver, and that after listening to their arguments for many weary days, he retaliated by naming the mountain after the champion of the gold standard." The companion peak to the southwest, christened later on Mount Foraker through association of ideas, is known to the natives as "Denali's Wife." The Board of Geographic Names could do worse than to recognize the Indian title in both cases. FAMOUS LAWYERS AND JURISTS. Landmarks of a Lawyer's Lifetime. By Theron G. Strong. Dodd, Mead & Co. This is a work of a kind in which England is much richer than the Unit- ed States. The memoirs and recollec- tions of English lawyers and judges bulk large in comparison with our meagre production in that sort. Why this is so, there are some obvious reasons, but a few not so evident. It is no doubt true that the life of a British legal or judicial luminary is fuller and more varied than that of one in America. What is true of English public men, in general, as compared with ours, is true also of lawyers. Across the water they eem to get more easily into contact with things and people worth knowing. But we have not made as full literary use as we might of the material we possess. If William M. Evarts had lived in Eng- land, for example, we may be sure that a complete Life of him would have been published, which would have delighted with reminiscence and records or his wit. We Americans a little neglect this field. The more welcome, then, is this vol- ume by Mr. Strong, of the New York Bar. Rather more than half of the book is taken up with recollections of the most famous lawyers and the greatest jurists of his time — Charles O'Conor, David Dudley Field. Evarts, Carter, Por- ter, and many others; together with a large number of judges of the highest courts of New York as well as of the
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436 The Nation (Vol. 98, No. 2546 Supreme Court at Washington Mr. Strong writes in an easy and some- what discursive style, not pretending to make a complete or searching analysis of the men on whom he touches, but glancing pleasantly at one trait after an- other. Some of his anecdotes are new, and he re-tells the old ones with unfail- ing zest. His personal chapters are agree- able reading, even If they do not add much to our knowledge of the men with whom he deals. In a more sober vein, but also more instructively, Mr. Strong remarks upon the great changes which have taken place in the legal profession during his lifetime. He plainly does not find all of these desirable or ad- mirable. Some of the ways in which the modern corporation has bound law- yers to its chariot wheels, as well as the organized form of certain kinds of legal practice itself— not to speak of the emergence in the profession of new and not very inspiring types — Mr. Strong makes it evident that he dislikes. But the sustained note of his book is that of geniality; and passing from the sub- ject of fees to that of the lawyer's recre- ations, he leads the reader to the con- cluding chapter in excellent temper and with an air of being far as yet from having reached his last landmark. Notes Henry Holt & Company announce for publication on May 9 "Russia, the Coun- try of Extremes," by Madame Jarintzoff. "Whitehead's Conventions of Auction Bridge," by Wilbur C. Whitehead, will be published next month by Frederick A. Stokes Company. The John Lane Company announces for publication on Saturday: "On the Left of a Throne," by Mrs. Evan Ne- pean; "Red Wrath," by John Oxenham; "Oh, Mr. Bidgood," by Peter Blundell. COME years ago Mr. Bryce, now Vis- ►J count Bryce, published two large volumes entitled "Studies in History and Jurisprudence." They included two es- says, "The Ancient Roman Empire and the British Empire in India" and "The Diffusion of Roman and English Law Throughout the World," which he has now wisely re-issued in a more accessible volume (Oxford University Press), for those who may not care to procure the larger work. Both essays have been re- vised throughout and brought up to date by the insertion of the latest statistics and by references to recent legislation. In one essay he draws an instructive par- allel between the Roman and British sys- tems of imperial conquest and adminis- tration, and in the other a similar paral- lel between the steady extension of the Roman and British systems of law. Both essays are of value to students and ad- ministrators who want to see what light the experience of the English in India may throw upon the general question of the relation of the civilized nations to those less advanced races over whom they are assuming dominion; it is a question for the Americans in the Phil- ippines no less than for the Dutch In Java, the French and Germans in Af- rica, the Russians on the Amur, or the Japanese in Formosa. In view of the author's large grasp of civil and common law, of his unusual opportunities for ob- taining intimate personal opinions from scholars and from administrators in au- thority, and of his genius for the com- parative study of institutions, it would be superfluous to commend these two essays written at the height of his in- tellectual powers and experience. MOST of the brief essays in "Mono- logues," by Richard Middleton (Kennerley). have already seen the light in the Academy and Vanity Fair. In the first paper on The Decline of the Essay Mr. Middleton defines his task: "To me, essays are such leisurely expressions of a humane and agreeable personality as we find in the works of Charles Lamb." The agreeableness of Mr. Middleton's style may be granted — he is adroit, pun- gent, unexpected, but he gives the ap- pearance rather of desiring leisure than of possessing it, and his humanity is of a specialized type. In all the essays, whether on the New Sex, New Year's Eve, The Philosophy of Gambling, How to be a Poet, The Virtues of Getting Drunk — the Philistine or smug person is the butt. He has rarely been taken so seriously since "Yellow Book" days. Mr. Middleton indulges an apocalyptic vision of a moment when the Philistine shall overthrow his mentors and joyously in- dulge his own tastes. Then shall chromo- lithographs fill the galleries. The essay is one of the best. A rather old-fash- ioned romanticism is the staple of the thinking, but the little book is modern enough in its insistent cleverness and love of paradox. The best of the essays are literary journalism of a superior type, and occasionally, as in An Elec- tion-tide Dream, our author escapes from cleverness into realms of delight- ful phantasy. Those who like Mr. Belloc and Mr. Chesterton should read Mr. Mid- dleton also. THAT popular government in this country is suffering grievously from the multiplication of elective offices is the theme of Albert M. Kales's "Unpopu- lar (Government in the United States" (University of Chicago Press). This theme is developed with a reformer's zeal, and, it must be added, with a lawyer's prolixity. The multiplication of elective offices is due to decentralization of gov- ernmental powers, combined with the belief that democracy means a maximum of elected officers and a minimum of offi- cers appointed. Mr. Kales scores heav- ily in his analysis of our long ballots, and he has an impressive illustration of the enforced ignorance of the voter re- sulting from them in an experiment tried by President Judson, who, four weeks before a regular autumn election in Cook County, asked a graduate class to report at the time of the election such facts as they could ascertain about the candi- dates. Only a small percentage of even the mature men in the class were able to turn in a satisfactory report. The most original part of Mr. Kales's book is his examination of various proposed methods of dethroning the "politocrats." He holds that the initiative, the referendum, the recall, direct primaries, and the like tend to aggravate the evil by multiplying elec- tions, and thus making the services of party leaders as acceptable as ever. His remedy is the short ballot, a remedy which the Nation has long advocated. Mr. Kales, however, overstates the diffi- culty of getting rid of bosses without this reform. IN "A Vision and a Voice" (London: Robert Scott), Rev. R. G. Phillip has endeavored, he says, "to paint a picture of the times, with an interpretation." He has not been able to make anything so distinct as a picture, nor is there a perceptible element of timeliness in these pages. We have here rather a series of impressions as to the meaning of life and the needs of his fellow-creatures, as recorded upon a pious but not bril- liant mind. "The author writes frankly from the Christian standpoint," says the prefatory note, "but has made it his aim not to forget honest seekers after Truth." The inference is, we suppose, that per- sons who have achieved the Christian standpoint have found Truth beyond need of search. It is to be noted further that the Christian standpoint means the Evan- gelical. The gloom and absorption of the older Evangelicalism are, to be sure, disclaimed, and a doctrine of cheerful- ness and even laughter laid down. But the good cheer of the author appears to the lay mind a trifle laborious. The book is in effect a plea for a return to older practices, Sabbath-keeping, religious in- struction in the schools, family worship, and so on. It is earnest and devout rather than illuminating- or even sug- gestive. SOME thirty-six years ago Dr. Augus- tus Jessopp, head master of King Kdward the Sixth's School at Nor- wich, published in a very limited edition his study of "One Genera- tion of a Norfolk House." It at- tracted attention, and the next year (1879) it was brought out in regular form for the trade. Now a third edition has been issued, by Putnams, incorporat- ing the corrections and additions for which the author had long' been collect- ing material, but which failing health had prevented him from making for him- self. The editor, without much labor, might have carried the revision even further. Thus Dr. Jessopp's description of the condition of the Jesuit College at Tournal in 1875 is left without alteration, apparently, though it would have been perfectly easy to learn the present status of the school. As a whole, the book re- tains its vital interest and its value. It deals directly with the group of cousins of the Walpole family, stanch recusants. who. in the later years of Elizabeth's reign, possessed great estates in Norfolk and the adjacent counties. One of them in particular, Henry Walpole, of Antner, was a devoted Jesuit under the direction of the famous Parsons, and laid down his life as a missionary to save his countrj from heresy. He Is Dr. Jessopp's chief hero, but there Is a vast amount of III formation in the book about the religious byways of the age. The curious in such
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WOODBERRY'S volume of verse ("The Flight and Other Poems"; Macmillan) has two dis- tinct, even contrasted, appeals. It has an old-world and old-time quality, lapping, so to speak, both the classic and the barbaric shores of the Mediterranean, portraying the Italian vagabond, the boy of Mitylene, or the Tunisian dancer in concrete settings which might have al- ternately rejoiced Theocritus or inspired Robert Hichens. The poems exhibit not less distinctly the more poignant and elu- sive abstractions of contemporary philoso- phy, the vision which claims to comprise and transcend both good and evil, that affiliation of all religions which ap- proaches so perilously to the annihilation of them all, and, above everything else, the train of ghostly ancestors which at- tends and influences every human be- ing. The combination would suggest a happy equipoise between the antique and the modern, the concrete and the meta- physical, between Gautier— shall we say?— and Maeterlinck; and the chance of success would hardly be diminished by Mr. Woodberry's reliance on a rela- tively simple and old-fashioned prosody, aiming at color, body, and swiftness in the verse, and keeping itself sanely aloof from the fretfulness and fussiness of our worried latter-day technique. The re- sults hardly come up to these favorable presumptions; there is something vitre- ous in the lustre of the verse, something granular in its consistence — a want of plasticity referable no doubt to the absence of the heat of passion. The metaphysical themes are poetically conceived, but they are embodied in crepuscular, though stirring, alle- gories— narrations in which the pro- portion of meaning to picture is small and the meaning- itself is not always clearly elucidated. For instance, the phrase-title, "Beyond Good and Evil," might express a profound truth or mask a malignant sophism, and, whether from defect or excess of art, Mr. Woodberry's twelve caracoling stanzas leave his own attitude on the point in tantalizing am- biguity. We are confirmed in our im- pression that the desideratum in this work is emotional vitality by the fact that of four poems which stand out in the memory, "The Riding," "Calogero" (a new and happy version of "Le Chemi- neau" and "The Beloved Vagabond"), "Comrades," and "In Memoriam" (dedi- cated to Charles Eliot Norton), three exhibit feelings of exceptional vigor or sincerity. In the other poems we feel that the guns have been trained on the right objects and that their structure is creditable to the gunsmith; the fault lies in the inadequacy of the charge. CHARLES TENNYSON'S "Cambridge from Within" (Philadelphia: Jacobs) pleasantly supplements Dr. John Venn's recent volume on early Cambridge. Mr. Tennyson's graphic pen describes the col- legiate life of the present day in stately Trinity as well as in the smaller colleges, touches upon Newnham and Girton, and in a picturesque way introduces us to the Dons, the freshman, the college cook, the sports and grinds, and the odd characters in and about the old university town. If there is here and there a little too much elaboration of detail, and an exuberance of spirits which betrays the age of the writer, there is also many a felicitous epi- thet that goes well with the family name. The little book is thoroughly enjoyable, and the illustrations are in harmony with the subject and its treatment. ONE of the fascinating but perplexing problems in the interpretation of the New Testament is the purpose and the- ology of the Epistle to the Hebrews. In a recent study, entitled "The Epistle of Priesthood" (imported by Scribners), Prof. Alexander Nairne, of King's Col- lege, London, advances the hypothesis that the letter was written "when the Jewish revolt against Rome was begin- ning, to n small group of friends of like mind and education with the author, who were hesitating to break with their na- tion, and who felt themselves called in honour to forsake Christ, to adopt unchris- tian politics, and to take up arms for the old religion" (p. 207). The name of the writer is unknown, but his personality and purpose are evident. He is. in fact, a sacramentalist, that is, as our author in- terprets the term, a poet who "reaches truth by vision rather than by the sever- ity of logical thought" (p. 291) ; and he writes with a view to showing "that sub- limity only comes by limitation and that recognition of real manhood is the truest way to faith in real Godhead" (p. 229). Having established the date and purpose of the letter, and having exnlained the fundamental sacramental principle of the author, Mr. Nairne proceeds, in an inter- esting and readable manner, to interpret the leading ideas of the epistle, closing with an elaborate exposition of the same OUR Rhodes scholars are not wholly given over to the accumulation of athletic honors. Mr. Frank Aydelotte's "Elizabethan Rogues and Vagabonds," is- sued as volume one of "Oxford Histori- cal and Literary Studies" (Clarendon Press), is evidence of achievement of quite another kind. This interesting monograph concerns itself not merely with the rogue in literature, already the subject of extended study, but with the real Elizabethan rogue, with the chang- ing conditions of land tenure which fill- ed the country with sturdy beggars, with their , methods of getting a living, and with the growth of legislation which, in 1575, by the simple device of getting them to work, destroyed the freedom and ex- citement which gave zest to the life of "rufflers" and "upright men." Against cozeners of a higher order, however, card sharps, players with false dice, pick- pockets, and confidence men of all sorts, who came to be grouped under the name of "conny-catchers," each with his ap- propriate "law" or method of cheating, legislation accomplished very little be- yond devising systems of licensing. In a final chapter is discussed, one wishes at times more at length, the large debt which the writers of the rogue pamphlets (Dekker among them) owe to the first- hand observations of earlier writers like Harman and the author of "A Manifest Detection," and to Robert Greene, who was himself not altogether above re- proach in this matter of literary "prig- ging." LUCE & CO. are starting a series of translations of Oriental works to be issued in small volumes, and apparently for popular consumption. The first of these has already appeared, and contains a ver- sion of "The Satakas, or Wise Sayings of Bhartrihari," from the Sanskrit, by J. M. Kennedy. These centuries ("Satakas," to use Mr. Kennedy's transliteration) consist of three sections of epigrams, or brief lyric poems, dealing respectively with love, practical morality, and mysti- cal faith, and form one of the notable works of Sanskrit literature. They have been often translated into English and other Western languages. Mr. Kennedy's version is clear, but lacks lyrical or epi- grammatic nerve. His preface gives a brief survey of the principal Hindu phil- osophies. THE "Essays in Legal History," read before the International Congress of Historical Studies held in London last year, have been published by the Ox- ford University Press, under the editor- ship of Paul Vinogradoff. It is a poly- glot collection, for the papers are printed as they were read, in English, German, French, and Italian. Indeed, the Con- gress must have had a somewhat Pente- costal flavor, "because that every man heard them speak in his own language." Among the essays in foreign tongues, none will be read with greater interest than that by the late Professor Esmein on the maxim, Princepa Legibua Boiutu* Est. It is one of the last productions from the pen of this distinguished legal historian, and it marshals in an admir- able manner the evidence in support of his ((intention that the maxim exercised a profound influence on the development of the public law in (Trance. Among the English essays the most notable are those by Sir Frederick Pollock, on the Trans- formation of Equity; by w. Blake Odgers, a Sketch of the History of the Four Inns of Court, and by w. s. Holdsworth, on the Influence of Coke on the Develop- ment of English Law. The last of these should be examined i>\ every one who lias read Judge C.est's eulogy of Coke in "The Lawyer in Literature," lately no- ticed in these COlumna While Mr. Holds-
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438 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2546 worth claims tor Coke "a place among the great Jurists of the world," he con- cedes sir Edward's defects both of char- acter and learning. Whether as Attorney- General under Elizabeth or as Draftsman of the Petition of Right under Charles I, "he approached both law and history With the mind of a strenuous advocate." The result is that his history is often in- accurate, and his use of legal precedents is at times inconsistent. Moreover, his partisanship "led him to read into his au- thorities meanings which they never pos- sessed." Mr. Odgers discourses as en- tertainingly of the Inns of Court as he has been accustomed to treat of the law of defamation, and Sir Frederick Pollock deals with some recent discoveries in the history of English equity with his usual literary skill. The volume makes a valu- able addition to the scholarly side of legal literature. FOR those who desire a knowledge of the fundamental principles underly- ing the rate-making policy of railways, and who have not already steeped them- selves in the elementary principles of economic theory, there is no better guide than "Outlines of Railway Economics" (Macmillan), by Douglas Knoop. Al- though written with English conditions almost exclusively in mind, it is in no sense insular in its appeal. In a well- arranged discussion it develops from the simplest principles of demand and supply the more complicated relationships that apply to railway rates — the laws of de- creasing and increasing return, deter- mination of price under conditions of monopoly, differential charges, and the influence of cost upon price. What the author has to say concerning regulation and ownership is of special interest to American readers to-day. It appears that recent tendencies in rate regulation are strikingly alike in England and the Unit- ed States. The requirement in England that railways shall demonstrate the rea- sonableness of any increase in rates has made them reluctant to reduce rates ex- perimentally, for fear lest, in case the reduction proved unremunerative, they could not again raise them. In other words, inflexibility in rates is one result of more rigid regulation. Again, so far as the decisions of the Railway and Canal Commissioners are concerned, they tend to rest largely, if not entirely, on cost of service. As in this country, rates are established according to one set of prin- ciples, and revised according to another. THE author is doubtful whether State control can continue to develop along present lines. Either the hand of regulation must be lightened to give op- portunity for corporate initiative, or the State must go the whole way, and as- sume a real responsibility through own- ership and management. Many interests manding the latter alternative, and for many reasons, a number of which are wholly selfish. The author's position is that of a skeptic. He is open to convic- tion, but insists that without far more tormation than is available at i nationalization would be a leap in the dark. His attitude is that of Mr. Vsquith, who replied thus to a committee of 1 h< Tradi Union 1 longn ess, urging state purchase: "However great may be the advantages in the diminution of com- petition and the coordination of the rail- way system, 1 remain of the opinion which 1 expressed last year, that the bur- den of proof is upon the shoulders of those who are in favor of the proposal." ONE of the most popular of French authors of stories of romance and adventure, Pierre Sales, died in Paris on April 9. M. Sales, who was born on December 2, 1856, was originally a bank clerk and later turned his attention to journalism, but for some years he had devoted himself to the writing of novels with a peculiarly Parisian setting, many of which were translated into English, German, Italian, and Spanish. Besides his novels, among the best known of which may be mentioned "Mariage Manque," "Incendiaire," and "Vipere," M. Sales was the author of two histori- cal works, "Papistes et Parpaillots" and "La Pia dei Tolomei." NOTES FROM ABROAD. THE Vienna College of Medicine is dis- cussing various proposals calculated to reduce the number of students of med- icine and thus prevent undue competi- tion in the profession. It has already been decided to raise considerably the fees asked of students. They will now pay $1 per lesson, instead of 45 cents, as heretofore. Further, the number of poor students who are allowed to enter the University without paying any fees will be greatly restricted. Until now it was extremely easy for any student who had gone through the gymnasium to ob- tain permission to undergo a university course without making any payment whatever. The fact that he had passed through the eight years' course with moderately good marks and had obtained certificates of excellent conduct was suf- ficient to obtain the permission, little trouble being taken to ascertain whether he had talents sufficient to gain a posi- tion in a profession where family in- fluence and family wealth play an im- portant part. A STUDENT will not be accepted if there is a university with a faculty of medicine in the land from whence he comes; thus young men who would wish to benefit by the greater lustre lent by the Vienna diploma will be forced to study in Prague, if they are natives of Bo- hemia, and will not be permitted to over- crowd the Vienna class-rooms. Foreign- ers from the Balkans will be admitted as regular students, but the new regula- tion proposes to exclude all other non- German students of medicine from the regular course. It is proposed at the same time to raise the standard of study and to make the examinations more dif- ficult. THK Westminster Review, once the Influential monthly organ of the "philosophic Radicals," lias disappeared into the Ewigkelt. Founded in 1824, it gained distinction from its association with the two Mills, Sir William Moles- worth, Herbert Spencer, Francis New- man, George Eliot, and G. 11. Lewes. John Cha dltorehip of 1 in m view, George Eliot was for a time its sub-editor. Of that strange charac- ter, Chapman, something may be learned from the "Autobiography of Mark Ruth- erford." The magazine has retained until the end its peculiar flavor of religious and social heterodoxy, but for a long time it has ceased to be numbered among the influential publications. In recent years any reference to "the Westminster" has meant not the Westminster Review, but the Westminster Gazette, a daily evening paper that has had no connec- tion with it. A NOTABLE acquisition has been gained by the Rylands Library at Manchester in the MS. of the so-called "Odes of Solomon," discovered a few years ago by Dr. Rendel Harris. A com- plete photograph of the MS. is to appear shortly in the series of Rylands Library facsimiles. The exact nature of the book has been keenly debated among scholars. Some believe it to be of Jewish origin, but in Dr. Harris's own judgment it is a collection of early Christian hymns. It thus constitutes, as he puts it, "a key to early Christian experience," much as a discovery of the first Methodist hymns — supposing them to have been lost — would furnish a clue to the understanding of the Methodist revival. THE authorities of the British Museum are making constant and valuable additions to their cheap reproductions, on picture postcards, of some of its trea- sures. For the small sum of one shil- ling one can now purchase a set of fif- teen cards, with an explanatory leaflet by an expert, reproducing maps of earli- er date than the sixteenth century. Lau- rence Binyon has edited two similar se- ries of Japanese and Chinese works of graphic art, and A. W. Pollard a series of Florentine book illustrations. IN its new home at Stafford House the London Museum has been drawing large crowds of visitors. The collection itself is twice as large as that which was recently shown at Kensington Palace. It includes 180 pieces of jewellers' and goldsmiths' work, of the early seven- teenth century, dug up In a wooden chest in the City about a year ago — presum- ably the contents of a jeweller's shop hidden away in some emergency. So far as possible, the exhibits are now arranged in chronological order, from the relics of palaeolithic London downwards. THE Mental Deficiency act, passed by a non-party vote last year, has just come into operation in England. Its ob- ject is to make better provision for the care of mentally defective persons, who are separately classified as (a) idiots, (b) imbeciles, (c) feeble-minded persons, and (d) moral imbeciles. Hith- erto, such mentally defective persons as could not be certified as needing confine- ment in lunatic asylums have been un der insufficient control. The new act se- cures that they shall be sent to institu- tii ns of a suitable type, or othei <n Isi placed under efficient guardianship. The definition of "moral Imbeciles" Is of spe - da] intei 1 si In s lew of Its possible ap- plication to the 1 1 ' 1 1 1 ■ ■ . . imi irs This
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April 16, 1914] The Nation 439 class consists of "persons who from an early age display some permanent men- tal defect coupled with strong vicious or criminal propensities on which punish- ment has had little or no deterrent ef- fect." The latter part of the definition clearly fits the case of the arson squad. The likelihood of any perpetrator of the recent outrages being transferred from prison to a home for defectives will therefore depend on the possibility of proving that she has been mentally weak "from an early age." Science The first meeting of the International Surgical Association to be held in this country began its proceedings in New York on Monday. More than 250 dele- gates, among them representatives of almost every country in Europe, attend- ed the first meeting. In the absence of President Wilson, Dr. William C. Gorgas, surgeon-general of the United States army, welcomed the delegates. The Harris Lectures of Northwestern University were founded "to stimulate scientific research of the highest type and to bring the results of such research be- fore the students and friends of North- western University, and through them to the world." Lecture foundations of this kind are important, as through them we may hope to have clear and correct discus- sions in untechnical language of scientific Questions which will counteract the wrong statements frequently made in popular articles. No one is better qualified to state the problems and achievements of modern physics than Professor Ames, of Johns Hopkins, whose lectures for 1913 on the "Constitution of Matter" have now been published by Houghton Mifflin Co. Professor Ames combines with learn- ing the gift of clear exposition. As a result, those who wish to obtain a knowl- edge of the recent experiments and the- ories of the nature of matter and elec- tricity, especially those of Lorentz and Thomson, can be sure of finding them stated accurately and simply in this book. The presswork is good, although atten- tion may be called to two mistakes; on page 97, "non-atomic" is used for "mona- tomic," and "had" for "has" on page 148. Dr. Henry Smith Williams has pub- ished, through Harper's a continuation of his "History of Science," under the title of "Miracles of Science," in which he aims to bring his former work down to most recent times. Dr. Williams has the gift of discrimination and of picking out those scientific achievements which will interest the general reader. He has also the power of presenting the conquests of science in an entertaining fashion. Thus he gives us a picture which in its broad aspects is correct, in spite of the fact that he is frequently wrong in his de- tails. As this carelessness is likely to lessen respect for his work, it is worth while to point out the most obvious of his misstatements. On page 30, he speaks of an airman travelling through space to the planets and stars and being ham- pered by "the frigidity of empty space." Temperature is, of course, a property of matter. Thus his airman would be cold or hot according as he was far from or near a hot star. On page 37, the text roads as if a spherical mirror brought all rays to the same focus; what is meant is that a mirror has no chromatic aber- ration. Professor Lebedew confirmed by experiment the pressure of light before the work was undertaken by Professor Nichols (page 110). The alpha particles (page 114) are not helium; they combine to form helium. The impression is given on page 120 et seq. that the conclusions of Professor Ramsay on the transmuta- tions of matter are accepted facts; to say the least, they are open to question. Quartz fibres are, of course (page 64), not made from molten glass. On page 124 we have a misprint, "plantinum' for "platinum," and the elements neon and helium which are driven out of electrodes are generally supposed to exist there in an occluded state and not to be driven out of platinum or glass by the disrup- tion of their atoms. Prof. O. B. Richard- son is the correct form of the name (page 131). The plane of a swinging pendulum does not rotate through 90 degrees in six hours except at the poles of the earth; at the equator there is no shifting of the plane of the swing, and elsewhere on the earth it is a function of the latitude. More important than these errors is the undue assurance attributed to scientific experiments and hypotheses. Many of these, especially in biology and in medi- cine, which Dr. Williams relates as proved facts, are matters of controversy. Possibly we should grant considerable latitude of expression, when an author is presenting the achievements of science as miracles, and is trying to arouse wonder and awe in the public for matters which are calculated to increase the humility of scientists themselves, who stand baffled at the thought of the complexity of their problem, and who realize how little we really know about our surroundings. The macrocosm and the microcosm are won- derful, and we may well feel awed by the incomprehensible mystery of the uni- verse. But in spite of the intricate mo- tions of stars and atoms, they are simple in comparison to the mystery of human thought and human personality. And the earth, small in size, must still main- tain its dominating aspect in the uni- verse, until some other place be found which holds beings more intelligent than ourselves. In spite, however, of Dr. Wil- liams's overemphasis, and of his too- ready acceptance of scientific achieve- ments, this book is interesting and show? what science is accomplishing, whether one thinks of it as miraculous or not. "Glimpses of Indian Birds" (Lane) is the fifth book written by Mr, Douglas Dewar on Indian ornithology. Indian birds are blessed with pronounced individuality; the sombre, dishevelled "seven sisters" tumbling pellmell one after another across the road; the insistent, brain-fever cuckoo, the dy- namic dhyal bird, and the house crow — the superlative of impudence. The author presents about forty short sketch's r the more common species. Some of these are of interest only to Anglo-Indiana, none calls for special mention. In a rather querulous preface the writer says he has taken this opportunity of attack- ing "the prevalent theories of protec- tive coloration, because it is impossible for the naturalist who uses his eyes to accept these theories." He also attacks Darwinism and the "Wallaceians," mim- icry, natural selection, and several other- things, some of which we had thought were at least good working hypotheses. He unfortunately does not propose any more acceptable theories. When we read of the rose finch that "the actual coloring of the feathers becomes intensified as the spring approaches," we realize that Mr. Dewar is very human after all, and quite as susceptible to error as those whom he attacks. He has a deft pen, and some of his petites histoires are well worth read- ing, especially by those who have travel- led in India. We especially like his chap- ters on Vultures and Voices of the Night. Dr. Joseph D. Bryant, who died on April 7, was born on March 12, 1845. He received his degree from Bellevue Hos- pital Medical College in 1868, and after filling various positions on the faculty of that institution, became in 1883 professor of anatomy and clinical surgery and as- sociate professor of orthopaedic surgery, and in 1898 professor of the principles and practice of surgery. In addition to his professorial work, Dr. Bryant en- gaged in many public activities. He was sanitary inspector in the New York Health Department from 1873 to 1879, and was a Health Commissioner and member of the State Board of Health from 1887 to 1893. He was appointed Surgeon-General of the State in 1882, and held the office under two successive ad- ministrations. Dr. Bryant wrote many treatises on medicine and surgery for medical journals, and was the author of two notable works, "Operative Surgery," published in two volumes, and the eight- volume "American System of Surgery," in which he collaborated with Dr. Albert H. Buck. He was among the first of those chosen for fellowship in the recently formed American College of Surgeons, and was a member of various other med- ical and scientific associations. The de- gree of LL.D. was conferred on him by New York University in 1908. Dr. Alexander P. Chamberlain, pro- fessor of anthropology at Clark Univer- sity, who died on April 8, was born in England on January 12, 1865. He grad- uated from Toronto University in 1886, received his A.M. degree in 1889, and his Ph.D. from Clark University in 1892. In 1891 he made special investigations of the Kootenay Indians in British Co- lumbia, under the auspices of the Brit- ish Association. From 1900-8 he was editor of the Journal of American Folk- Lore and he was also department edi- tor of the American Anthropologist, ii" was a member of a Dumber f American and foreign anthropological and anti- quarian societies, was the author of numerous essays and papers on anthro- pological and kindred subjects, and had contributed to various encyclopaedias. Among his publications were: "Child and Childhood in Folk Thought.'' 1896; "The Child a study in the Evolution of Man." 1900; "Poems," 1904.
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440 The Nation (Vol. 98, No. 2546 Drama A REVIEW OF THE LONDON SEA- SON. I We have arranged with Mr. William Archer for a series of monthly articles on contemporary English drama of which the following' is the first. — Ed. The Na- tion.] London, March 25. By far the most interesting drama in London is at present being enacted at the Theatre Royal, Westminster, where a Ministry, self-convicted of hav- ing handled a difficult situation with astounding weakness, is fighting for its life. The issue of that fight will doubt- less be known to the world before these lines are in print. I mention the mat- ter only to give a historic background to the sketch I am about to offer of the theatrical world of London. Among many striking resemblances, there is, I think, one characteristic dif- ference between theatrical London and theatrical New York. We are — or I am much mistaken — far more acutely self- conscious than you. We are always feel- ing our own pulse and recording our own symptoms. We might even be ac- cused of chronic hypochondria, for the bulletins we issue as to the state and prospects of the British drama are al- most always despondent. There has been no time within the memory of man when the drama was not going to the dogs. Scarcely a season passes with- out a discussion in one newspaper or another as to the reasons why the pub- lic is deserting the theatre, and why there are no actors, or no actresses, or no authors. Various nostrums, too, are proposed for the remedy of these disas- trous conditions — such as a reduction of prices, an alteration in the hours of the- atregoing, the permission of smoking in the auditorium, and so forth. Mean- while, the drama goes its way, sublime- ly heedless of all these prognostications and prescriptions. Money is still invest- ed in theatres, and money, we cannot doubt, is still made out of them. There are, of course, fluctuations, both finan- cial and artistic. One season is fruit- ful of noteworthy plays, the next may be comparatively barren. But — though the drama has been going to the dogs all the time — the progress of the past twenty years has in truth been amaz- ing. It is measured by the fact that in, say, 1890 no contemporary English drama existed in readable form, except the plays miserably printed as sixpenny pamphlets for the use of amateurs. To- day we have a rich and flourishing dra- matic literature, quite comparable in merit, if not in volume, to that of France or Germany. In a large pro- vincial town, not long ago, I noticed one whole window of a leading book- store devoted to plays, English, Irish, and Scotch, and books about the the- atre. Surely a notable sign of the times! It must be admitted, however, that there are periods when The tired wave, vainly breaking, Seems here no painful inch to gain — — and perhaps this season may be reck- oned among them. It has certainly not •been fruitful of intellectual achieve- ment. It has given us one new play that may, at a pinch, be called intellec- tual, though scarcely intelligent — Mr. Chesterton's "Magic" — and, in "A Mid- surrmer Night's Dream," one extreme'y interesting Shakespearean production. For the rest, it was distinguished by Mr. Granville Barker's very spirited and suc- cessful repertory season at the St. James's, which, announced for three weeks, was continued for two months. But otherwise it has been barren of either productions or revivals of out- standing merit. It remains to be seen whether Mr. Shaw's "Pygmalion," to be produced on April 11, will redress the balance. Yet even such a season gives no rea- sonable cause for despondency. To re- pine because brainless vulgarity bulks large in the bills is simply to quarrel with human nature in its present phase of development. The astonishing thing is, not that the stupid public prepon- derates, but that the comparatively in- telligent public contrives to secure so respectable a minority representation. There are this evening some twenty- eight theatres open in the West End of London. Five of them (and doubtless the most successful) are devoted to mu- sical farce, which, I take it, does not here concern us. Four are occupied by melodramas without the smallest liter- ary or artistic pretension, appealing only to the most unsophisticated playgoers. They are cinematograph shows In which the text is spoken instead of being thrown on the screen. There remain nineteen playhouses at which, if the entertainment is despicable, it is so, as it were, by chance. The managers, I mean, have not deliberately renounced all effort to do good work, though in- firmity of judgment, or the thirst for success at any price, may for a time have led them astray. It is noteworthy that only three of these theatres are oc- cupied by plays from the French, one of them being that ingenious piece of clockwork, "Diplomacy," adapted forty years ago from Sardou, and now reviv- ed with even greater success than it en- joyed at first. This may seem a rather ominous symptom of public taste; but, after all, which of hs does not occasion- ally relish a neat detective story? Has not President Wilson recently confessed to sharing Prince Bismarck's foible for these harmless ingenuities? No fewer than six out of the nineteen theatres are occupied by plays either of American authorship or originally produced in America. First among them in point of success stands "With- in the Law," an amusing melodrama which has filled the Haymarket for near- ly a year. On the other side of the street, at His Majesty's, a revival of "Tke Darling of the Gods" has been but moderately attractive. Then we have "Broadway Jones," and "Kismet," and, on a higher level, "The Land of Prom- ise,'' by Mr. Somerset Maugham, and "The Melting-Pot," by Mr. Zangwill, with Mr. Walker Whiteside in his orig- inal part. This play has given rise to a good deal of discussion. Some people have been blinded by its high purpose and its intensity of feeling to its artistic defects; others have seen only the ar- tistic defects and not the spiritual beau- ties. For my part, I adhere to the for- mer party, but I understand the posi- tion of the latter. Of the remaining theatres, two are occupied by utterly negligible comedies of the peignoir-and-pyjama type, in which the attraction consists in the de- lectable spectacle of a lady preparing for bed, while her estranged but ador- ing husband is hidden in her wardrobe. The almost simultaneous appearance of two plays with the same central situa- tion was a curious coincidence, but noth- ing more. One of these pieces, "A Pair of Silk Stockings," by Mr. Cyril Har- court, is written with a certain facile smartness; the other, "Peggy and Her Husband," by Mr. Joseph Keatinge, has not even that merit. Then we have at the St. James's a pleasant, very slight comedy by Mr. Alfred Sutro, entitled "The Two Virtues." In this Sir George Alexander created no small sensation by appearing for the first time in history in a pair of trousers which positively bagged at the knees. Hitherto the for- tunes of the theatre have been thought to be indissolubly associated with the flawless crease down the front of these garments. I hope, without too much confidence, that the success of Mr. Su- tro's play may give the lie to this super- stition. Certainly Sir George's perform- ance of the quaintly ironic bookworm- hero shows that character-acting is well within his range. The name of Mr. Arnold Bennett is on two playbills. "The Great Adventure," at the Kingsway, is well past its 400th performance — a suc- cess which is no doubt largely due to tile Inimitable performance of Miss Wish Wynne as the heroine. At the Vaudeville, Mr. Bennett Is only partially responsible for "Helen with the High Hand," adapted by Mr. Richard Pryce from one of his early novels. It Is a curiously ill-made play, but contains a couple of clever character-studies. Passing over one or two sheer triviali- ties, we return to the one noteworthy novelty of the season, the dramatic first- fruits of the Chestertonian Muse, the much-discussed, much-be-puffed "Magic." Like so much of Mr. Chesterton's other
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April 16, 1914] The Nation 4:4:1 work, it Is a piece of genial, unblushing effrontery. Clever it is, undoubtedly — one might even call It a brilliant im- provisation. There is a woolly-headed, inconsequent old duke in it, who, being admirably acted by Mr. Pred Lewis, un- doubtedly makes the fortune of the play. He is a creation of real originality and humor. There is also a certain distinc- tion of touch in the dialogue: we feel that we have to do with no mere jour- neyman of the theatre, but a born writ- er. And a born thinker? Ah, that is the question! It sometimes seems as though "thought" were a misnomer in rtlatlon to Mr. Chesterton's mental pro- cesses— as though some new word ought to be invented for his freakish and vola- tile cerebration. His purpose, here as always, is evidently to cast scorn on ra- tionalism and to put in a plea for miracles. What he actually does is to assert the reality of black magic, and to show how one of its practitioners drives a rationalist mad by performing some puerile tricks with a family portrait and a doctor's red lamp. The rationalist is a ridiculous cub who is supposed to have acquired in America a shallow, dogmatic materialism, which Mr. Chesterton ap- parently imagines to be a characteris- tically American attitude of mind. There is a scene, which some people find un- cannily impressive, in which the stage is supposed to be crowded with invisi- ble spirits of evil; but I cannot say that its diabolism gave me the smallest physical or mental thrill. Altogether, the play is a piece of "fine confused thinking," helped out by good writing and some humor. In a speech after the fall of the curtain on the first night, Mr. Chesterton protested his sincere belief in the doctrines he had advanced; but what they were precisely, he omitted to say. Presented at a very small theatre and by a company innocent of stars, "Magic" had a fair success and was nearing its hundredth night when its withdrawal was announced. Then, for some appro- priately occult -reason, a morning paper, the Daily Chronicle, was seized with a violent enthusiasm for the play, declar- ed it a burning shame that such a mas- terpiece should not have a longer run, and devoted itself day by day for two or three weeks to puffing it into popu- larity. All sorts of advertising devices were adopted — among them an after- noon debate on miracles, held on the stage of the theatre, in which Mr. Ches- terton himself figured as protagonist. Mr. Bernard Shaw was present on the occasion, but did not speak: whereupon every one said that miracles evidently did happen. Then Mr. Shaw came to Mr. Chesterton's aid with a one-act ab- surdity named "The Music-Cure," which was played before "Magic." By these means the life of the play was prolonged some fifty nights: but as I write its sands are running out. The moral seems to be that for solid success something more is needed than brilliant improvisa- tion. William Archer. "THE TRUTH." New York is having an opportunity to mend its first impression of Clyde Fitch's domestic comedy, "The Truth," which has been revived by Winthrop Ames at the Little Theatre. Rejected by New York when it was first produced, it was warmly received in other parts of the country and had a run of more than a year in London, where Marie Tempest played the principal part. Broadway's initial offishness towards "The Truth" is significant, for Broadway is the home of "typical" American humor, and this play is neither strongly American in flavor nor humorous. It has the wit of French comedy, on which it was evidently pat- terned. And though several situations lend themselves to broad farce, on the whole it is the biting' dialogue which tells. "The Truth" is characteristic of Fitch's best, just as it reveals his limitations. He had an opportunity for a rewarding study of a person akin to Becky Sharp and Hedda Gabler, though placed in an airier, lighter sphere. Becky Warder is as prone to tell lies as are the other two to work more grievous evil. Their plight must lead to tragedy, hers at most will flirt with tragedy. She lacks their egotism and hardness, but, like them, lives on the admiration of men, which, of course, fur- thers her besetting sin. For she will lie rather than admit to her husband the pleasure which such excitement gives her. There need be no great improbabil- ity in this character. Only she requires the subtlety which comes from a high- strung temperament. Fitch's Becky, at least as played at the Little Theatre by Grace George, has the naivete of a child fibbing. This made for sweetness and charm, but destroyed the chance for depth. In part, the author was respon- sible, for Becky's particular weakness is asserted by him to be inherited, and to that extent she is a puppet. Yet Becky, even so conceived, is a very absorbing- figure, and undergoes at least the development of a naughty child, be- come repentant, with the added interest which a married woman's responsibility bestows. And in the last two acts, where she has been brought into distress by her folly, one forgets the puppet of the prem- ises, and enters wholeheartedly into the present situation. If he had lived, Clyde Fitch would undoubtedly have done more convincing work. But the promise which he here showed was enormous. We re- call no other recent American play which is so clean-cut in outline or so neat in respect to dialogue. For this revival Mr. Ames has made fortunate selections. Of the original cast only Zelda Sears, as Mrs. Crespigny, remains. But the performance was ex- cellent throughout. Besides Grace George, who replaces the late Clara Bloodgood, the persons in the play include: Isabel Irv- ing, as Eve Lindon; Conway Tearle, as Lindon; Sydney Booth, as Tom Warder; Fanny Hartz, as Laura Fraser; and Fer- dinand Gottschalk, as Roland, Becky's father. F. "PINAFORE" AT THE HIPPODROME. Four weeks ago the suggestion was made in an article in the Nation that an examination of the texts of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, conducted in the approved manner of German scholarship, might form an appropriate subject of a thesis for the Ph.D. degree. We can hardly flatter ourselves that our sugges- tion inspired the Shubert management to undertake the researches which have culminated in the production of "Pina- fore" at the New York Hippodrome, for so spectacular an affair must have re- quired considerably more than a month's elaboration; but it is obvious that pain- ful and laborious research must have been expended on the immediate and col- lateral branches of the family of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B., since the whole fabric of the production is based on the assumption that that ornament of Her Majesty's navy came of a prolific stock, being blessed with "sis- ters and cousins and aunts" running in quantity into three figures. Four hun- dred is the number of the chorus; so that if, for the sake of simple arithmetic, we grant equality to the sexes, a con- servative estimate of the female relatives of Sir Joseph Porter would put their number at two hundred. To accommodate two hundred fair vis- itors and a corresponding number of amorous sailormen naturally presupposes a considerable area of deck space on the good ship Pinafore. Happily the propor- tions of the Hippodrome arena and the ingenuity of the stage architects are adapted to meet the emergency; so we have a magnificent spectacle of an en- tire battleship of Her Majesty's fleet, solid and substantial, with masts, and spars, and ropes, and top-gallants, and bunting, and every other nautical ap- purtenance, all complete, floating, or at least sitting, in real water. If the small craft paddling alongside the battleship left any doubt about the reality of the water, it would be dispelled when the Dick Deadeye of the occasion tumbles in with a side-splitting splash. As a spectacle there can be nothing but praise for the Hippodrome production; there can be nothing but praise, too, for the management which has afforded a timely demonstration of the fact that over-elaboration of the spectacular can- not be accomplished without loss of qual- ities that may be of more importance. To build a big ship in a theatre and man real rigging with real sailors is an en- tirely praiseworthy feat, but why drag in Gilbert and Sullivan? The large cho- rus is admirably trained, and such en- sembles as "He is an Englishman" nat- urally go with a tremendous swing; but mere volume of sound plays a very un- important part In the Gilbert and Sul- livan operas; their wit and satire are delicate; their comedy is not of the broad variety. In the Hippodrome production the subtlety of Gilbert's lines is inevit- ably lost; the words of the lyrics, which are as important as the music, are often difficult to (fitch in the huge auditorium;
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4=4^2 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2546 the humor must be broadened out of all recognition to gain any effect whatever. s. w. NOTES. Justin Huntly McCarthy has written a romantic drama, "Charlemagne," with the Emperor's early life as its subject. His chief character is described as a blend ot Benedick and Petruchio. Another addition has been made to the list of long- runs by the anniversary per- formance in London of "Diplomacy," which is believed to have created a rec- ord for a revival. On its original pro- duction, in 1878, this play had the cred- itable run of 325 performances. It may be recalled that its title was selected by chance. Several suggested titles were put into a hat, and the first that was drawn was adopted. Edward Knoblauch has selected "My Lady's Dress" as the title of his new play, to be produced by Messrs. Vedrenne and Eadie, at the London Royalty, on April 21. Each of the three acts is di- vided into three scenes. Details of the cast are withheld, the assumption being that, as in the case of "Milestones," each character plays so many parts that to publish particulars beforehand would be to indicate the trend of the story. Sir Charles Wyndham, who has just entered his seventy-eighth year, is learn- ing a new part in "Nobody's Widow," which he has had in his possession for some years. He says that he has no present intention of retiring from the stage, but will give no warning when he makes up his mind to do so. Some progress has been made towards the establishment of a People's Theatre in London upon the plan advocated by Kosina Filippi. She has been able to obtain the old Victoria Theatre, which was opened on Monday for an experi- mental season of four weeks, during which performances will be given of "The Merchant of Venice," "The School for Scandal," "Romeo and Juliet," and "Candida." Seats will be sold for one penny or two pence. The costumes and scenery have been borrowed and so cost nothing. The Comedie Frangaise has brought an action against M. Le Bargy to recover damages from him for leaving the Na- tional Theatre to play elsewhere con- trary to the agreement signed by him when he became pensionnaire. The case is now before the First Chamber of the Civil Tribunal of the Seine. M. Le Bargry has turned the tables on the theatre by bringing a counter-action, in which he claims $20,000. The ground of his plaint is that the Comcidie Frangaise failed in the engagements entered into with him in 1887, and that therefore the contract is vitiated. Since leaving the Comedie Frangaise, M. Le Bargy has been en- gaged at the Porte St. Martin Theatre, where he has played, among other parts, that of Cyrano de Bergerac. The Come- die Frangaise now asks the Tribunal to prevent M. Le Bargy by injunction from continuing his engagement at the Porte St. Martin. The fine demanded is $400 iji each performance. Music THE RUSSIAN DANCERS. The theory of the Russian dancing is well set forth in a sumptuous volume re- cently published by Houghton Mifflin ("The Russian Ballet," by A. C. Johnson, illustrated by RenS Bull, $7.50). Its prac- tice has been exemplified during the past two weeks by the performances of Pav- lowa and her company at the Manhattan Opera House, New York. A new ballet, "Amarilla," was presented at the opening performance, a delicate little piece in one act, telling the love of a gypsy maid for a Count, the setting being of a fete champetre. The story is relatively easy to follow, and Mile. Pavlowa's represent- ation of the alternating despair and pas- sion of Amarilla is beautifully executed. M. Novikoff, premier danseur classique, meets with hardly less appreciation than Pavlowa herself. He is a magnificent figure of a man, and his technical skill is remarkable, but he lacks some of the joyous abandon that was characteristic of Mordkin's dancing. The supporting company is made up of finished dancers, only in degree inferior in skill to the principals. One of the most gracious items on the first night's programme, "Moment Musical," was contributed by Miles. Plaskowieczka, Butsova, and Crom- bova. Pavlowa herself, whether in the ballet or in her individual divertissements, re- mains the supreme exponent of her art. One need not institute comparisons with an artist, for instance, like Genee, su- preme in her own sphere, but Pavlowa adds to perfection of technique an im- pression of the joyfulness and fulness of life which is unmatched by any other dancer, even of the wonderful school in which she herself was trained. She brings to her art the expression of her own personality in the same way that Ellen Terry's own bubbling personality made her Portia so irresistible. S. W. "The Song Garland" (Macmillan) is a collection of songs for girls of high-school grade which has T>een made with taste and judgment by Jules S. Joannes. The topical index includes five divisions: Songs Patriotic, Miscellaneous, School, Folk, and Devotional. There are no four- part songs, because of the limited range of the high -school girl's voice. "Improv- ing Songs for Anxious Children" (Schir- mer), by John and Rue Carpenter, in- vokes the aid of colored pictures, partly comic, to get children interested in sim- ple tunes. "Thirty Songs," by Franklin Hopkins (Cecil Mackie), is an ambitious attempt to "foster a real school of Eng- lish song." Mr. Hopkins believes that the great English poets have been un- justly neglected by song writers, so he comes to the rescue with this "Goldon Treasury Set to Music." "Historical Mother Goose'' (Schirmer) contains lyrics by Ella Wheeler Wilcox set to music by Louis P. Gottschalk. They were written, we are Informed, because the children's songs of a former generation, such as "Hey, diddle, diddle," with their accom- panying vapid music, "no longer satisfy discriminating people." Too bad! "Ber- gerettes" (Ditson) is an interesting col- lection, by J. B, Wekerlin, of romances and songs of the eighteenth century. As librarian of the Paris Conservatoire, M. Wekerlin had unusual opportunities for selection, and his little volume, whicn has an introduction by Frederick Martens and English versions, as well as the origi- nal French words, may be commended ;o all who are interested in French music of the time of hoopskirts, powdered wigs, and gold snuff-boxes. "Songs of Britain" (Boosey) is a volume of one hundred English, Welsh, Scotch, and Irish national songs, selected and edited by Frank Kid- son and Martin Shaw. Some of the most familiar tunes are omitted, to make room for songs that have not received suf- ficient attention. "Elizabethan Love Songs," second set (Boosey), contains songs by Dowland, Morley, Bartlett, and other seventeenth-century composers. Albert Spalding is making a name for himself as a composer no less than as a player. The Schirmers have recently printed six of his "Compositions for Vio- lin and Piano" that may be favorably called to the notice of violinists. "Thirty Organ Pieces for Use in Christian Science Churches" (Ditson) contains preludes, offertories, and postludes, selected by Walter E. Young, with special reference to the needs of that church, which calls for music "conforming to the quiet dig- nity and simplicity of the service, free from display, undue elaboration, or con- spicuousness." Besides Guilmant, Dubois, and other organists, some of the greatest masters, including Bach, Saint-Saens, Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Tchaikov- sky, are laid under contribution. Tchai- kovsky's music, except at symphony con- certs, is not yet as well known as it de- serves to be. One welcomes, therefore, a collection of five of his best piano pieces and two songs: "Tchaikovsky" (Stokes). The music is prefaced by a short biogra- phic sketch by Landon Ronald. The great English tenor, Edward Lloyd, recently celebrated his sixty-ninth birthday. He is in excellent health, says the Westminster Gazette, adding that "since his retirement in 1900, an event signalized by a brilliant farewell concert in the Albert Hall, the scene of so many of his past triumphs, Mr. Lloyd has re- sided in Sussex, and now has his home in Worthing. He emerged from that re- tirement to sing the solo in Sir F. Bridge's Homage anthem at the King's Coronation, -^hen every one was amazed at the beauty of his singing. Mr. Lloyd has also made many 'records' for the Gramophone Comnany which will con- vey to future generations the fine quality of his voice. He is one more example of the healthiness of singing, for his friends, Madame Patti, Sir Charles Sant- ley, and Madame Albanl, have all pre- served their vocal powers far beyond tin- usual age for singing-. Mr. Lloyd attends concerts occasionally, and sings in pri- vate with most of his accustomed vigor." Stravinsky, reputed the naughtiest of the Russian — if not of all — cacopi has perpetrated an opera which Is t have iis lirst perfi anoe in London dur- ag summer. Two other Rus-
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April c6, 1914I The JST a t i o 11 4-43 sian Doveltlea to be produced by the in Opera Companj are Borodin's "Prince Igor" and Kimsky- Korsakoff's "Coq d'Or." The name Of Stravinsky's opera is "Le Ilossignol." A feature of the London season will be the appear- and.■ of Chaliaplne as Borla Godounoff. fourteen Russian ballets arc to be pre- sented; also Richard Strauss's new ballet, "The Legend of Joseph," which is to have its premiere in Paris on May 25. According to a writer in the London World, "quite the most impressive fea- ture of a very Impressive season has been the enormous queues, sometimes extending right round the corner of Floral Street, for the later performances oi 'Parsifal.' On the first night the gal- l.iv was barely full; by about the tenth performance tho gallery crowd would have filled the theatre. That is London's way." Art OLD PAINTINGS RE-DISCOVERED. Paris, April 2. New finds of old art are not ended, as may be seen from the experience of M. Adrien Mithouard, who is a man of letters and a Paris municipal coun- cillor. He decided at the beginning of .March that he would look conscientious- ly through the all but unknown store- house of fine art possessions of the city. When the Petit Palais, in the Champs- Elysees, was organized after 1900 as a museum of city collections, it was sup- posed that the storehouse had been thor- oughly explored. It seems now that numerous old paintings from demolish- ed or disaffected churches, stored away and forgotten and veiled by dust, were passed over. In a few hours, the in- quisitive Municipal Councillor brought to light five paintings which any collec- tor would be glad to possess: I. An Adoration of the Shepherds, which an old inventory of art posses- sions of the city of Paris shows was hanging in the former parish church of Auteuil, where the storehouse is situat- ed. It is set down as of the Venetian school, and M. Mithouard maintains against all comers that it is a genuine Tintoretto. This may not be true, but is quite possible. Curious art students who have looked into the many volumes of the inventory of national art trea- sures, printed many years ago by the French Government, have been able to make veritable discoveries in obscure chapels and dark corners of churches. Instances as late as Corot and Dela- croix have been found in Paris, and an Immaculate Conception of Millet in the French church at Rome. In the ancient churches, paintings of old masters like this new find have been hanging from the contemporary period. II. Jesus Driving the Money-Chang- ers from the Temple, from the old Church of Foreign Missions. This is a fine work which M. Mithouard attributes to one of the Restouts or to the elder Boulogne — in either case to a comrade of Poussin in Italy. III. Saint James, curious in style and known to come from the studio which Rubens, according to his wont, established for art production while he was himself turning out paintings for Henry IV. IV. Saint Isabelle, sister of St. Louis, King of France, and foundress of the celebrated Abbey of Longchamp, of which the mill remains at the Paris race- course in the Bois de Boulogne — ordi- nary as painting, though by Philippe de Champaigne, but of historical interest. V. A Flagellation, of interesting style, by an early German painter under Ital- ian influence. In the old inventory a work of similar style is assigned to the ancient Church of Notre Dame de Bonne Nouvelle, which has given its name to a portion of the Paris Boulevard; but that painting seems to be still hanging in the church. M. Mithouard says there are at least a dozen equally "honorable" paintings from schools of the old masters which he has not yet had time to extract from these neglected art stores of the city of Paris. One is a Saint Dominic and Pope Honorius, by Cardi, known as Cigoli, who occupies an important place in the genealogy of Italian art from Michelangelo to the School of Bologna. Like Rubens, he was engaged in Paris for the mafriage of Henry IV and Marie de Medicis. He is represented at the Louvre and in Brussels, Munich, and Rome, but apparently not in London. The latest thing they say — not, as in the song, at the Ambassadors' Cafe, but at the Paris Salon of the Independants — concerns the ultra-modern school of "Synthetists," for Cubists and their time belong to ancient history. Its am- bition is to create "biological painting," in which it has already made the fol- lowing discoveries: "color lines, colored zones, the orchestration of these zones and their nutrition, coloring propagukr, associative sensorial perceptions — and the unity of art phenomena." It insists on "the utility of the previous break- ing of forms, with an aim to better visual synthesis; on the narrowing of the field of consciousness among non-col- orists and the exciting of materialist philosophy among the near-sighted." As to those likely to oppose the new art, its creator and initiator, Alexis Merodack- Jeaneau, gives them due notice they shall not trouble him, for they are "pro- tozoa of art whom every new effort scares, who take their pleasure in muddy marshes contemplating rotting ruins." And he leaves them to their own "non-conscience." Those who love Old Paris and dream of some preservation of it, like parts of an historic collection, will be glad to hear that the twelfth-century Church of Saint Julien-le-Pauvre is to be cleared for an outlook across the river Seine to the Cathedral of Notre Dame, whose architecture it illustrates. The build- ings towards the river are already torn away and the new School of Decora- tive Arts is to be built along the Quai. This was the quarter known to Dante, who studied in an adjoining street that still keeps its name — rue du Fouarre — from the "forage" on which students sat and listened to — Sigier, Who, reading lectures in the Street of Straw, Did syllogize invidious verities. S. D. "The Studio Year Book of Decorative Art" for 1914 and "The Year Book of American Etchings" will be published on Saturday by the John Lane Company. Houghton Mifflin Company announces the publication of "The Ministry of Art," by Ralph Adams Cram. Emile Male's "L'Art Religieux en France" needs no introduction or praise. For a matter of ten years, it has been an indispensable aid to students and a valued resource for all cultured persons who deal with the Middle Ages. We have merely to note the appearance of a good English translation in large quarto form and fully illustrated (Dent-Dutton, $fi net). The translator, Dora Nussey, has used the third edition and has produced a translation that has the quality of an original piece of literature. It was the peculiar service of Male to show that the windows and portals of the great Gothic churches follow step by step ap- proved Latin authorities. Boethius, Ho- norius of Autun, the vast compilations of Vincent de Beauvais, the Golden Legend, are frequent sources. Thus Gothic art is profoundly systematic and orthodox, not a wildling- as Hugo and Viollet-Ie- Duc had romantically supposed. The skill of the sculptors and glass painters is put to the test to find clear forms for such abstractions as the vices and vir- tues, the psycho machia, the hierarchies of the angels, the months, the church, and the synagogue. What is remarkable about this French art is its persistent symbolism. Sacred history rarely ap- pears in its own right. The most fa- miliar Gospel theme must be flanked by antitypes and moral analogies. Every- thing means something else. Symbol- ism assumes a bewildering consistency. Mental meanings take form and sem-' blance of reality. The passion for analogy rules the cathedral builders, and the sculptors follow the theologians with humble skill. In comparison with the Gothic figure design of France, that of Byzantium and Italy seems singularly straightforward and epic. The Bible Is taken at its historic face value Men believe unfancifully. Symbolism yields to mere moral example. We ean only Indicate (bus briefly some of the broader Implications of this important and illu- minating book, a welcome may be con- fidently predicted for "Religious Ait in XIII Century," and many readers will await with real Impatience the trans-
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4:4:4; The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2546 lation of M. Male's second and concluding volume. George Bentham, who died on April 8, :it the age of sixty-four, was born in the North of Ireland, and came to this country some twenty-five years ago. Kor many years he was in the employ of the Century Magazine, and afterwards was for a long- time an artist on the Chicago Post. Mr. Bentham was well known as a collector of books, curios, and works of art. He was an authority on porcelains, and was considered the greatest silver-print artist in this coun- try. He was one of the first to recog- nize the genius of William Morris as a printer, and at one time he made a specialty of collecting the works of Sir Edward FitzGerald, of which he issued a definitive edition in seven volumes from the De Vinne Press. Finance ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO. Very generally overlooked, for a pe- riod when observances of "centennials" and "semi-centennials" are so generally the order of the day, there occurred last week the hundredth anniversary of an event of extraordinary interest, both to the course of history and to the great financial markets of that generation. It was on April 11, 1814, that Napoleon abdicated and assented to his own ban- ishment to Elba. When the present-day course of European politics is so strik- ingly reflected in the market for British consols (whose present price is 76, as against 71 last year and 113% in 1897), as well as in the "City senti- ment" of London, a glance at what hap- pened in those directions at that other date ought to be interesting. Consols had reached 79 after the Peace of Amiens with Napoleon, early in 1802 — a price higher than any touched in the eight preceding years. They fell to 50% when war with France was re- sumed in 1803, and, in the subsequent decade of perpetual fighting and gov- ernmental borrowing, ranged between that price and 70. In 1813, when Na- poleon, despite his disastrous retreat from Russia, turned on the allied armies and beat them at Dresden, consols got down again to 54%. His overwhelming defeat at Leipzig in the autumn of that year, and the advance of the Allies into Prance, sent them up to 67%. When news came of the capture of Paris and of Napoleon's abdication, they went with a rush to 72%. The London Times, which fairly re- flected "City sentiment" of the day, greeted that epoch-making event with a series of observations, in its leading • ditorials, which read to-day as strange- ly as the debates and newspaper editori- als on the "Ulster crisis" will possibly read a hundred years from now. Much was naturally said of "the heartfelt and universal joy which pervades this great metropolis" on what seemed to be the end of the ten successive years of war; much of the decoration of London, on the news of April 11, with "the most brilliant illumination ever witnessed." But the broader conclusions drawn from the state of mind which thereupon pre- vailed may be seen from the following excerpts, both from the Times's leading editorials of the period. Napoleon's proclamation of abdication was, the Times assured its readers, "un- doubtedly drawn up by the little dirty hypocritical villain himself"; a state- ment followed by this further reference to the defeated Emperor, in language not perhaps unnatural in view of Lon- don's long period of political and finan- cial agony, but highly interesting as an attempt to foreshadow the verdict of later generations: After all, this fellow has gone off the stage like a more decided coward than Robespierre himself, the only character in French history who will ever be cited as approaching a parallel with him. So much for London City opinion of 1814, as a forecast of the opinion of later history. As to its other views of the situation, one might have thought that London and its newspaper organs would have called for assurance of permanent and universal peace. Yet this further and highly interesting attempt at his- torical perspective is from a leading ar- ticle in the Times of a few days later: It is understood that part of our army in France will immediately be trans- ferred to America to finish the war there with the same glory as in Europe. . . . The American Government is in point of fact as much a tyranny (though we are far from saying it is so horrible a one), as was that of Buonaparte, and as we firmly urged the principle of No Peace with Buonaparte ; so, to be con- sistent with ourselves, we must in like manner maintain the doctrine of No Peace with Ja)ncs Madison. The Times was as accurate in its his- torical diagnosis as its readers occa- sionally find it to be to-day. That the editor had been "tipped off" by the For- eign Office as to its purposes in America is probable; for, in point of fact, Gen. Pakenham and 7,000 veterans of Wel- lington's Peninsular campaign were shortly sent to New Orleans, where the General lost his life and the troops were overwhelmed in Jackson's famous vic- tory. But the Government nevertheless so far disagreed with the Times's no- tions of consistency as to sign at Ghent, on December 24, 1814, the treaty of peace with the American commission- ers, which ended our so-called "War of 1812." Nor was this all. In February, 1815, the Times's "little dirty hypocriti- cal villain" left Elba, landed in France, reassembled his army, reoccupied Paris, and moved on Belgium to meet Welling- ton and Blucher. Even the Times began to speak of Napoleon with at least more respect for his abilities. French Gov- ernment 5 per cents fell from 81% to 55% in the first half of the Hundred Days which followed the return from Elba. In .June, on the eve of Waterloo, and on the news of Napoleon's victory at Ligny, British consols were down to 53%, as against the 72% on the news of his abdication, fourteen months be- fore. Waterloo was fought; Napoleon's army annihilated. The Restoration and his permanent imprisonment at St. Helena followed. One might suppose that consols would thereupon have soar- ed to a level higher than any reached in the dozen preceding years of almost unintermittent warfare. But this did not occur. Contrary to the popular be- lief which surrounds the legend of Rothschild's enormous Stock Exchange operations, based upon early and ex- clusive news of the result at Waterloo, consols rose scarcely 5 points on the authentic details of that famous contest, and it was two years more before they again touched the price to which they went on the news of April 11, 1814. Anywhere but in a Stock Exchange community, such absence of dramatical- ly appropriate response would seem ut- terly paradoxical. But Wall Street and Lombard Street have heard in modern times of such practices as "realizing on good news," and the very recent days of European discouragement over the mar- ket's behavior in the face of "new capi- tal issues" gives some clue to the action of the British market of that older pe- riod, when the English Government, on top of its prodigious borrowings in the earlier war with France, had to place £24, 000,000 new loans in 1814, £54,000,- 000 in 1815, and when it was 1816 before the enormous public debt reached its maximum of the period. A. D. Noyes. BOOKS OF THE WEEK. FICTION. Brooks, V. Little Lost Sister. Chicago: Gazzolo-Ricksen. $1.35 net. Conrad, .1. Chance. Doubleday, Page. J1.25 net. De .lesson, F. M. Katya. Boston: Luce. $1.40 net. Johnson, A. S. The Professor ami the Petticoat Dodd, Mead. $1.30 net. McLaren, A. Through Other Eyes. I'm nam. $1.2.r> net. Oppenbeim, J. Idle Wives. Centurj J1.80 net. Hives, Amelle. World's End. Stokes. $1.30 net. Skiine, Mary J. if. Bedesman 4. Century, $1 net. The "Goldfish." Anonymous. Century. 11.80 net. The World's Classics: koiinil (he Sola, bj Mrs. Gaskell. Oxford University Press. Waller, Mary I0. From an Island Out- post. Boston: Little, Brown.
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April 16, 1914I The Nation 4=4=5 Yeats, \V. B. Ited Hanrahan. Macmillan. $1.25 net. HISTORY AND BIOOKAIMIV. Bradford, G., jr. Confederate Portraits. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. $2.50 net. ettl, D. J. Hellas and the Balkan Wars. Dodd, Mead. $3 net. Essex Institute Historical Collections. Vol. L. Salem: Essex Institute. Garnett E. Tolstoy. London: Constable. 75 cents net. Gu6rard, A. L. French Civilization in the Nineteenth Century. Century. $3 net Major, A. F. Early Wars of Wessex. Cambridge: University Press. Mumby, F. A. Elizabeth and Mary Stu- art. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. $3 net. Bambaud, A. Histoire de la Russie. Paris: Hachette. Todd, C. B. The Washington's Crossing Sketch Book. New Jersey: The River School of Art. Usher, K. G. The Rise of the Ameri- can People. Century, $2 net. Waddington, M. K. My First Years as a Frenchwoman. Scribner. $2.50 net. Woolf, C. N. S. Bartolus of Sassoferrato. Cambridge: University Press. GOVERNMENT AND ECONOMICS. Dewing, A. S. 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44:6 The 1ST at ion (Vol. 98, No. 2546 ECOLE LIBRE DES SCIENCES POLITIQUES (Free School of Politico] Sciences). 27, Rue Saint-Guillaume, Paris 1 in< ir. I !i I I 11)13). FOUNDBB: i:\ii I, K HoUTMY. LATH DIRECTORS: B. l-.oirivi v (1871-1908); W'ATol.K I.KKiiY BEAULIEC (1906-1912). DIRECTOR:- Mr. BDGENB D'EIOHTHAL, Mem- ber of the Instltut. BODY OP PROFESSORS:— Messrs. LYON-CAEN, RENAUI/T, Oh. BENOIST. P. BBACRBGARD. OOLSON, Bene STOURM V1DAL de la BLACHK. J. FLACH, A. LIB8SE. A. ARNATJNE, R. (1. LEVY, of the Instltut ol Prance; D. BOURGEOIS, LEYY-BRTJHX, Pro- fessors at the Faculty of Letters; L. COTJRTIN President of a Chamber at the Court of Ac- counts; ROMIEC, Councillor of State: TAR- DUfO, TEISSIER. Hon. Masters of Petitions at tlie Council of State; G. PAULET. Director at the Ministry of Labor: Pierre LEROY-BEAU- LIEU, Deputy; Clir. SCHBFER, I). ZOLLA. Oh. DUPTJIS, M. cai'iu'.l, Rene henry, p. de BOU8IHRS; R. PINOH; D. 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The JNatim VOL. XCVIII— NO. 2547 THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 1914 ^llEmL PRICt^N CENTS IMPORTANT NEW MACMILLAN BOOKS Poetry- Belles Lettres- Drama New Books by Mr. TAGORE Nobel Prizeman, 1913 CHITRA. "A lyrical drama of mysterious beauty and power, an acute analysis and revelation of womanhood, translated by the spiritual poet-philosopher from his original Bengali version." $1.00 net THE POST-OFFICE. "An idealistic drama, beautified with Mr. Tagore's deep under- standing of child life." 91.00 net Other Works by Rabindranath Tagore GITANJALI (Song Offerings) 01.40 net SADHANA: The Realization of Life. A vol- ume of Essays. $1.95 net THE GARDENER (Soul Poems) $1.25 net THE CRESCENT MOON (Child Poems) •**■ New Book by Mr. HAGEDORN POEMS AND BALLADS. "Hermann Hage- dorn's work suggests a keynote for all future poetry."— Alfred Noyes. ' 91.00 net "He has seen most clearly the poetry in the new life. His song is full of the spirit of youth and hope. ... It is the song that the new Century needs." — Boston Transcript. New Book by Mr. YEATS STORIES OF RED HANRAHAN "Every library, public or private, will be sensibly enriched when in possession of this book of charming legends and curious fancies." — Philadelphia North-American. 91.95 net Other Works by William Butler Yeats POEMS AND PLAYS. ATwo Vols. I. Lyrics II. Dramatic Poems. New edition. THE HOUR GLASS and Other Plays. THE GREEN HELMET and Other Poems buss net THE CUTTING OF AN AGATE. 9i.so net 91.7S net 92.00 net 91.23 net New Book by Mr. MASEFIELD Polign'ic Prizeman, 1912 THE TRAGEDY OF POMPEY. "The latest work of this powerful poet, one of the best expressions of his genius. A play tense in situation, impressive in the age-universality of its poetry, such as only the author of 'Nan' can write." 91.9s net Other Works by John Masefield THE EVERLASTING MERCY and THE WIDOW IN THE BYE STREET $1.95 net THE DAFFODIL FIELDS 91.2s net THE STORY OF A ROUND HOUSE and Other Poems 91.30 net SALT WATER BALLADS 91.00 net A MAINSAIL HAUL 91.9s net New Book by Mr.WOODBERRY THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS. "Of spiritual, significant depth, there is no poem, no line in the entire book that is not bright with the penetrating ray of vision . . . rich with the glow of passion in which Mr. George Edward Woodberry's ideals and philosophies shine upon human experience." — Boston Transcript. 91.2s net New Book by Mr. PEARSON THE SECRET BOOK. A book of fascinating word pictures linked with cumulative interest around incidents of library life, dedicated to a librarian of national reputation — John Cotton Dana, Esq. — and full of charm, flu- ency, ease and elegance of style. 91.9s net Other Works by Edmund Lester Pearson THE BELIEVING YEARS 91.2s nrt THE VOYAGE OF THE HOPPERGRASS Illustrated 01.3s net New Book by Mr. STEPHENS, Polignac Prizeman, 1913 HERE ARE LADIES. "Abounds in clever character phrasing, original and bright bits of descrip- tion and philosophy . . . not a volume to be read hastily, but one to be read leisurely to extiact the very best . . . just the book to read aloud to friends who will appreciate its excellent literary quality." $1.25 net Other Works by James Stephens THE CROCK OF GOLD. "Glitters with imagination and whimsical humor." $1.»6 net THE HILL OF VISION. "A new voice — glorious verse." */•-'•> net INSURRECTIONS. "Daring subjects, and untrammeled expression." $0.40 net Published at 64-66 Fifth Ave., N. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY On Sale Wherever Books Are Sold
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11 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2547 A WEEKLY JOURNAL [Entered at the New York City Post Office as second-class mail matter.] The Nation is published and owned by the New York Evening Post Co. Oswald Garrison Villard, President; John Palmer Gavit, Sec. and Treas. Three dollars per year in advanoe, post- paid, in any part of the United States or Mexico; to Canada $3.50, and to foreign countries comprised in the Postal Union, $4.00. Address THE NATION, Box 794, New York. Publication Office, 20 Vcsey Street. HAROLD DE WOLF PULLER, Editor. STANLEY WENT, Assistant (Editor. PAUL ELMER MORE, Advisory Editor. EMIL M. SCHOLZ, Business Manager. CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER. SUMMARY OF THE NEWS 447 THE WEEK 448 EDITORIAL ARTICLES: The Changed Mexican Policy 451 Working of the Oregon System 451 The Monotony of the Machine 452 Prisoners and Good Roads 453 The Surgical Congress 454 Shakespeare at the Springtime 455 FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE : A Philosopher on the Hustings 456 The "French League" 456 EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 457 COUNTRY LIFE: On the Land 45S Country Homes and Gardens 460 Farming and Rural Life 461 Educational School Gardening 461 Country Architecture 462 BOOKS AND MEN 462 POETRY : "Le Byron de Nos Jours" 463 NEWS FOR BIBLIOPHILES 463 CORRESPONDENCE 464 LITERATURE : The Case of Mexico 467 Garden Oates 467 North of Fifty-three 468 Barnabetta 468 Monksbridge 468 Mrs. Brand 468 Our Friend John Burroughs 468 The Operation of the New Bank Act 469 Histoire de la Langue Franchise 471 NOTES : 471 SCIENCE : Milton's Astronomy 474 DRAMA : The New Spirit of French Drama 475 The True Ophelia and Other Studies of Shakespeare's Women 476 MUSIC: Wagner's Unpublished Letter 477 Real Music Teaching 478 ART: How History Is Not Repeated at the Brit- ish Artists' 479 FINANCE: "War Markets" 4S0 BOOKS OF THE WEEK 480 Vol. II. 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April 23, 1914] The 3sTation 111 The Rise of The American People By ROLAND G. USHER, Ph.D. Author of "Pan-Germanism," etc. A one-volume history of the United States that is different. A vivid, vigorous account of results, not of processes, which explains the meaning of the facts of national development. A philosophical interpretation of American history and life, of unique interest and value both to the general reader and the student. Price $2.00 net, postage 12 cents. French Civilization in The Nineteenth Century BY PROFESSOR A. L. GUERARD Author of "French Prophets of Yesterday" A finely comprehensive and philosophical survey of nineteenth- century France — political, social, and intellectual — supplemented by an interesting study of present-day conditions. Price $3.00 net, postage 12 cents. At your bookseller's. Published by THE CENTURY CO. 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IV The .Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2547 Longmans' Recent Publications Men and Matters $3.50 net. By WILFRID WARD. 8vo. Pp. xii+451. (Weight, 32 oz.) Contents: Disraeli — Lord Cromer on Disraeli — George Wyndham — Mr. Chesterton among the Prophets — John Stuart Mill — Cardinal Vaughan — Tennyson at Freshwater — Cardinal Newman's Sensitiveness — Union among Christians — The Conservative Genius of the Church — St. Thomas Aquinas and Mediaeval Thought — Cardinal Newman on Constructive Religious Thought — Reduced Christianity — Papers read before the Synthetic Society. Wayside Neighbours A~Companion Volume to "Wayside Lamps" By the Author of "Especially William, Bishop of Gibraltar, and Mary, His Wife." Fcap. 8vo. $0.90 net. (Weight, 10 oz.) Contents: The Callows — The Junction for the North — Rays from an Oxford Candle — Ellen — A Branch of Blossom — Leocardio — Rue with a Difference — Quite Well Meant— The Cup of Hot Tea— Workhouse Saints- Miracle or Mere Coincidence? The Wanderer's Necklace By SIR RIDER HAGGARD, Author of "Allan Quater- main," "King Solomon's Mines," etc. With Colored Frontispiece and 3 other Illustrations. Crown 8vo. Pp. x+341. $1.35 net. (Weight, 20 oz.) Essays on Faith and Immortality By GEORGE TYRRELL. Arranged by M. D. PETRE. Crown 8vo. $1.40 net. (Weight, 18 oz.) This volume comprises, for the most part, matter hitherto unpublished which existed in the form of notes and essays among the MSS. which Father Tyrrell left behind him. To this have been added a few articles already published, either in England or abroad, in vari- ous periodicals, but which are not now easily obtainable, and which possess a certain importance. The Origin of Attic Comedy By F. M. CORNFORD, Fellow and Lecturer of Trinity College, Cambridge; Author of "From Religion to Philosophy," "Thucydides Mythistoricus," etc. 8vo. $2.40 net. (Weight, 24 oz.) The book is intended not only for classical scholars, but for all readers interested in the origin and growth of the drama. Education and the New Utilitarianism, and Other Educational Addresses By ALEXANDER DARROCH, M.A., Professor of Educa- tion in the University of Edinburgh. Crown 8vo. $1.20 net. (Weight, 14 oz.) Published by Hongmans, Green, & Co. Fourth Ave. and 30th St. New York "A necessary part of the reference equipment of every writer in English." -BOSTON TRANSCRIPT ROGETS THESAURUS OF ENGLISH WORDS AND PHRASES New Large Type Edition Revised by C. O. S. MAWSON. "Our old reliable friend." — Chicago Record-Herald. "The editor deserves great credit for the improvement he has made in matter and form in this classic work of reference." — N. Y. Sun. "For well over half a century, Roget's Thesaurus' has been to countless literary workers a very present help, second only in usefulness to the diction- ary itself. Of the long series of reissues since its first appearance in 1852, the latest is a 'large type edition,' revised and brought down to date by Mr. C. O. S. Mawson. The large type is an actuality, and the revision is of a very sub- stantial sort — consisting in the judicious addition of numerous slang and cant expressions, Americanisms, and various new phrases and quotations. The use of thin paper reduces the 650 pages of the book to a thickness of less than an inch. Altogether, this seems to us the very best edition of the 'Thesaurus' now available." — The Dial. Price, $1.50 in Cloth. $2.50 in Leather THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY - NEW YORK Foreign Books and Magazines Correspondence Solicited E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 681 Fifth Avenue, near 54th Street NEW YORK A new book bv EDWARD HOWARD GRIGGS. THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART The meaning and relation of sculpture, painting, poetry and muHlc. The author's most Important work so far published. 12mo, cloth, $1.50 net: by mall, $1.60 B.W.Huebsch.Publishcr, 225 Fifth avenue, New York HOW'S BUSINESS ? « " . ■Bnt ™"n« rlgiht, let me help yon tone It up. I plan business building campaigns, write, plan, Illustrate, print and place ad. matter. Booklet free. W. CLEMENT MOORE, Business Specialist, New Egypt, N. J. w HOTEL POWHAIM WASHINGTON. D.C. itlOFAMERICAN The Hotel Powhatan Is the best, at the same time the new- est, hotel in Washington. Famous Pennsylvania Avenue, at the junction of 18th and H Streets, affords the site for this most luxurious and modern ha. ret Write for booklet with map. CLIFFORD M. LEWIS, Msnigw FRENCH GERMAN Fiction, Literature, Guides, Dictionaries, Conversational Books, etc. Send for catalogue of any language SCHOENHOF BOOK CO. 128 TREMONT STREET, BOSTON, MASS. SPANISH ITALIAN NOW READY THE AMERICAN YEAR BOOK FOR 1913 D. APPI.ETON & COMPANY, Publishers
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The Nation. NEW YORK, THUHSDAY, APRIL 23, 1914. Summary of the News The Mexican situation has assumed a new aspect during the past week, induc- ing a change in the policy of the Admin- istration. On April 10 it was assumed that the crisis was over on Gen. Huerta's agreeing to salute the American flag pro- vided the salute were returned. On the following day, however, Huerta recon- sidered his attitude and demanded that the salute should he gun for gun. An ultimatum was sent on Saturday, April is, giving him until 6 P. M. on Sunday to accede to the United States demand for an unconditional salute. Huerta's only reply to the ultimatum was to make a fresh demand for a written protocol guaranteeing that the salute should be returned, a request which was immedi- ately refused. A blockade of Mexican ports was thereupon ordered, and on Monday the President went before a joint session of Congress to ask for the authorization to take what measures were required by the needs of the situa- tion. President Wilson's message, in which he was careful to emphasize that the measures he has thought it neces- sary to adopt are directed not against the Mexican people, but against Gen. Huerta, is the subject of comment else- where. On Tuesday, while the Senate was still debating the terms of the reso- lution that should be adopted, a party in the Senate urging one so phrased as to cover the possibility of armed interven- tion, orders were issued by the Executive for the seizure of the custom house at Vera Cruz to prevent a large shipment of field guns and ammunition that was to be landed there from being transport- ed to Mexico City. fote treaty was presented to the Inter- oceanic Canals Committee of the Senate on April 16, when a letter from Joseph H. Choate, ex-Ambassador to Great Britain, was read into the record. Mr. Choate declared his conviction that the negotiations at the time excluded "the possibility of any exemption of any kind 01 vessels of the United States." The text of the treaty with Colombia has not yet been given to the Senate, but was published in Bogota and in Paris last week. Considerable opposition has de- veloped in the Senate to the clause in which the Government of the United States "expresses sincere regret for any- thing that may have interrupted or al- tered the relations of cordial friendship existing long between the two nations." A decision in the Kansas insurance- rate case was handed down by the Su- preme Court on Monday affirming the right of a State to regulate rates of in- surance. The Militia Reorganization bill, empow- ering the President, with the assent of Congress, to raise an additional volunteer force in case of war, was passed in the Senate on Monday. The Colorado mine strike resulted on Monday in a serious clash between the strikers and the State militia, in which several strikers, one soldier, and one non- combatant were killed. The operations of the rebels have meanwhile continued to be largely suc- cessful. According to dispatches received on Saturday, they had captured Salinas and Puente Morelos and had won another victory at Juarez. A dispatch from El Paso on Monday conveyed the informa- tion that the Constitutionalist army had begun its assault on Monterey and gave the text of a message from Gen. Gonzales reporting that on April 15 the town of Cadereyta had been captured after a fierce battle in which the Federal gar- rison of 2,000 was almost annihilated. The result of an informal poll of the delegates to the Democratic convention at Baltimore in 1912, undertaken by Senator Gore, is interesting as showing that nearly one-half of the delegates sup- port the position taken by the President on the Panama Canal tolls question. Of these who have written to Senator Gore, 504 are in favor of the repeal, 98 oppose it, and 23 are non-committal. Evidence that no exemption of tolls for American coastwise traffic using the Panama Canal was contemplated at the time of the framing of the Hay-Paunce- An attempt on the life of Mayor Mitch- el, of New York, was made on April 17, when an elderly man, who has since been found to be mentally irresponsible, fired at him as he was entering an auto- mobile in front of City Hall. The bullet missed the Mayor and struck Corpora- tion Counsel Frank Polk, who was beside him. Mr. Polk was wounded in the jaw, but the injury happily proved not to be dangerous. An important step towards municipal home rule has been taken in New York State. Gov. Glynn last week signed the Murtaugh-Sullivan Optional City Charter bill, giving to all cities of the second and third class the right to adopt a simplified form of charter. Seven optional forms of charter are offered to the cities, and each is privileged to choose the particular one which is approved by a majority of its voters. The debates in the House of Commons during the past week have been enlivened by the repetition of charges of a Lib- eral "conspiracy" to coerce Ulster. On Friday a statement was made public by Sir Edward Carson and other members of the Ulster Unionist Council, embody- ing charges that during the recent crisis Lieut-Gen. Sir Arthur Paget had been instructed to seize various strategic points and that Ulster was to be blockaded by land and sea, and on Monday the matter was taken up in the House of Commons, the demand being made from the Union- ist side for a judicial inquiry. So far as the details of the charges can be g at ti- ered from cable dispatches, they seem to have been sufficiently answered in Mr. Winston Churchill's statement in the House of Commons on March 30. The full returns of the elections in Sweden are not available as we write, but there appears to be no doubt that the Liberals have been defeated by a sub- stantial majority, having lost a number of seats both to the Conservatives and to the Socialists. The result of the elec- tions will, therefore, be to endorse the proposed increase in naval and military armaments and the direct intervention of the King in political controversy, which were the causes that brought about the resignation of the Liberal Ministry. The threatened strike of the employees of the Italian railways, to which we al- luded last week, and in anticipation of which the Government had made extraor- dinary preparations, was abandoned on Monday. The Parliamentary crisis in Japan, pro- duced by the resignation of the Yama- moto Ministry on account of the naval scandals and the failure of Viscount Kiyoura to form a Cabinet, was settled by the acceptance of the Premiership by Count Shigenobu Okuma, ex-Foreign Min- ister, who announced on April 15 that he had been able to complete his Cabinet. The Chinese brigand, White Wolf, who since last autumn has extended his depre- dations through three provinces, and has sacked a dozen cities, finally threatening the ancient city of Sian-fu, has apparent- ly met with reverses recently at the hands of the Government troops. It was reported on April 16 that he had been se- verely defeated with considerable loss at a point northwest of Sian-fu, but, follow- ing the seif-appointed destiny of bandits in countries troubled by civil strife, on Monday he issued a proclamation de- nouncing President Yuan Shi-Kai, and proposing himself as a saviour of the re- public who, after he had effected the cap- ture of Sian-fu, would inaugurate a reign of social justice. From dispatches from London publish- ed in Monday's papers it would appear that Montenegro is again bellicose. Ter- ritory on the Albanian side of the fron- tier occupied by the Hot! and Gryda tribes was awarded to Montenegro by the Ambassadors' conference, but the fron- tier line has not yet been definitely es- tablished. Montenegrins, however, seem to have anticipated the deliberations of the frontier commission by invading the territory, and fighting has been reported around Tuzi. The deaths of the week include: George Alfred Townsend, Aaron J. Za- briskie, April 15; Dr. George William Hill, April 16; Arthur McKee Rankin, April 17; Alfred Noble, April 19; Charles S. S. Peirce, S. H. Crockett, Brlg.-Gen. William H. Cotton. April 20; Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence, April 21.
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448 Tlie Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2547 The Week President Wilson's message did not clear up a confused situation. Rather, it introduced new elements of doubt and uncertainty. If Congress listened to the President expecting to be fired by glow- ing appeals, it was disappointed. If any- body thought that the country would be set aflame by the message, he must have been surprised by the actual re- sult. People are more puzzled than ever. They hear talk of war, and see prepara- tions for war going on, but can't tell for the life of them what it is all about. The President was to set their patriotic emo- tions ablaze, but somehow he did little more than give them new problems on which to exercise their minds. He was to make their hearts burn, but in real- ity only made their heads ache. The arrangement of Federal districts by the Organization Board, and the al- lotment of Federal reserve cities, have been made, with resultant criticism in many quarters, which was perhaps in- evitable under the general plan pursued. But the fact that there should be dis- satisfaction is regrettable, and its exist- ence greatly emphasizes the importance of a wise choice of the five members of the Federal Reserve Board who, along with the Secretary of the Treasury and the Controller of the Currency, are to con- stitute that important body. The law provides that at least two of these five appointees "shall be persons experienced in banking and finance," and that "one shall be designated by the President as governor and one as vice-governor of the Federal Reserve Board." It is not yet clear precisely how the relative spheres of authority and activity of the Federal Reserve Board and of the re- gional bank directorates will be defined in routine practice, and there is a mul- titude of details, in the working machin- ery of the system, on the introduction of which the national board will be nat- urally called upon to decide. The suc- cessful operation of the system, especial- ly in its early and experimental stages, will depend very largely on the selec- tion of men of sufficient practical ex- perience, mental balance, and capacity for sound judgment, to enable them so to deal with these immediate problems as at once to inspire confidence in the banking and business community. We should regard it as in the highest de gree unfortunate if the two "persons experienced in banking and finance" were not to be men widely and favor- ably known for their training and knowledge of the problem, alike in its practical and theoretica1 aspects. With the Government adopting post- office advertising and the sending of bul- letins to school heads to further the de- mand for public documents, it must be encouraging to find popular backing for the proposed measure to permit their distribution through book shops and publishing agencies. The change would seem to affect solely the individual. Yet one of the Western State universities has discovered that it would be more convenient to order through trade chan- nels, and to this public libraries all over the country agree. The present law prohibits the Superintendent of Docu- ments from selling more than one copy of a Government publication to a per- son or firm dealing in books for profit. The amendment should make possible a new advertisement of various docu- ments; their public exposure where they are of interest to special groups or com- munities; and facilitate the ordering of them by men who "never find time" to send a letter to Washington, with money- order or stamps enclosed. Those who object to any margin of profit would still have the opportunity of ordering direct; and while this may not cover all the opposition to permitting commercial disposal of documents, especially if there were a chance to speculate in those of which there is a limited supply, it leaves few dangers in the plan. In cutting down legislative appropri- ations for the purpose of making a good showing at the end of the year, the principle seems to be to cut, not where there is least need, but where there is least political resistance. There are al- ways patriots in Congress to rush to the defence of our harbors, our internal wa- terways, and our post offices; but what members would be sufficiently interest- ed to take up the cudgels for an insti- tution like the Children's Bureau, so remotely connected with the mainte- nance of political fences? Well, be it said to the credit of a majority in the House that it did rally last week to the defence of so eminently deserving a cause as that with which Miss Lathrop's name has been so long connected. By an amendment to the Appropriations Committee's report, the House increas- ed the item for the Children's Bureau from $25,000 to nearly seven times as much. Such national bodies as the Conserva- tion Congress may disagree about State vs. Federal control, but the Western Conference of Governors has always de- cidedly espoused the former principle. That it has made slow progress is trace- able to a public caution bred by the alliance of advocates of a "hurry-up" exploitation of natural resources with advocates of local regulation. Risks are not precipitately to be incurred. The Western Conference has just adjourned in Denver, with resolutions that have an unwontedly reassuring ring. "It is the duty of every State to adopt such laws as will make for true conservation of our resources, prevent monopoly, and render the greatest good to the great- est number; and as rapidly as the States prepare themselves to carry out such a policy the Federal Government should withdraw its supervision and turn the work over to the States." The generalities seem to glitter here, but those familiar with legislation like Pennsylvania's to conserve forests by taxation, irrigation legislation like that passed in virtually every semi-arid State and in Oregon and Washington in 1913, with such agreements as with Oregon for the joint investigation of development projects, and with the pow- ers recently vested in water and con- servation commissions everywhere, will understand the general legislative ten- dencies the Governors would encourage. For such other recommendations as the one specifying that 10 per cent, of unappropriated lands be given to the States to be sold for a reclamation fund, not so much can be said. But the whole tenor of the Conference looked to co- operation with Washington. The chairman of the Commission which administers the Wisconsin Work- men's Compensation law draws a strik- ing contrast between its working and that of the system which prevailed be- fore the law was passed. In 1910, he says, it cost "$450,000 to carry $150,000 to the injured workmen; in in I 1 |l!ie
Page 546
April 23, 1914] The Nation 44=9 estimate being based on the showing for January] the injured workmen will e $900,000, and the administration will cost less than $12,000." These fig- ures are startling; but, whether strictly accurate or not, they reflect the general nature of the beneficent change wrought by workmen's compensation laws. It is this manifest avoidance of the lamenta- ble waste involved in the litigation system which did as much, perhaps, as any one thing to recommend the idea of the automatic compensation plan to the general approval of public opinion in this country. Even in this aspect, the waste was but one part of the matter; for besides the deplorable waste there was the cruel uncertainty. When we add to this the other two great factors in the case — the hardship of having the workman bear the brunt of accidents which are part of the normal risks of the trade, and the incentive which a proper compensation law supplies to the prevention of accidents — there is no dif- ficulty in understanding the rapid head- way made by this kind of legislation in State after State. When the future historian comes to write of the forces which were operat- ing on April 14, 1914, to shape the des- tiny and the spirit of the American peo- ple, we wonder what relative impor- tance he will assign to President Wil- son's order for the concentration of our fleet at Tampico and to the opening of the major league baseball season. He will have to be a very skilful historian to keep his proportions correct. He will record the fact that in a year of busi- ness depression the automobile industry was thriving. He will take note of the fact that while bands of the unemploy- ed were creating unrest in the cities, equally numerous bands of citizens were flocking to the tango academies and the dancing teas. He will be telling only part of the story if he overlooks the fact that in a period of general hard times a new eight-club league has forced its way into organized baseball, at- tracted by the prospect of handsome profits. For a victim of the suppressive tac- tics of the Associated Press, the editor of the Masses seems to be somewhat of an adept at suppression himself. In the last number of that militant publica- tion, Mr. Eastman is at pains to show how a wrong caption under a character- istic cartoon printed in an earlier issue of the Masses wasn't so wrong after all. The picture in question — so we gather — dealt with the public banquet which brought to an end the recent Episcopal Convention on Morningside Heights. The reader was asked by the artist to contemplate the spectacle of the succes- sors of Jesus guzzling and swilling at a Broadway hotel at $20 a plate. To this some one in authority has replied that the cost per plate was not twenty dollars, but four dollars, and that the total expenditure on wines and tobacco was less than fifty cents per person. The obvious thing for Editor Eastman to do w'as to prove that a public dinner of clergymen and laity at four dollars a head was as bad as, if not really worse than, one at twenty dollars a head. Mr. Eastman accomplishes the task to his satisfaction, but, as the outsider sees it, only after severely suppressing several elementary laws of logic, together with his sense of humor and fair nlay. With all of our traditional practical sense, latterly dignified by terms like efficiency and scientific management, we are still subject to the appeal of the imagination. An instance in point is the starting of the "great Lincoln high- way" across the State of Illinois. Few are stirred by the mass of argument for good roads, but a Lincoln highway — that is altogether different. And so we have the Governor taking off his coat, rolling up his shirt-sleeves, mois- tening his hands, seizing a silver spade, and turning the first earth in the new thoroughfare. Yet the memorial ele- ment in the event is almost negligible. Lincoln's memory is used on behalf of a project that, without it, would be less promising of success. "Illinois is asham- ed of its roads," explained the Gover- nor, speaking from a motor truck after he had finished with the silver spade, "but we have awakened, and reproaches will not be our due much longer." Then the popular imagination was aroused again by the sight of the Governor pull- ing the lever and starting the huge mo- tor truck forward. What would our Yankee shrewdness amount to without our love for sentiment and spectacle? How to discover a great wave of pub- lic sentiment, or, if you can't find it, to invent it, the following telegram shows: Cincinnati, Ohio, April 10, 1914- Some Reliable Newspaper Man, Elkhart, Ind.: Please file early Friday evening 300 words showing unfavorable sentiment your section toward President Wilson's stand on Panama Canal tolls. Interview big business men and get them to say something hot. Enquirer. Unfortunately, this was delivered to a newspaper man in Elkhart not at all "reliable." He sent it on to Senator Kern, who read it in the Senate and had it inserted in the Congressional Record. It lights up instructively the tactics which the owner of the Cincinnati En- quirer and the Washington Post has been using in his campaign against the President. The Indiana Progressive Convention did not fail to perform the first task of all such conventions, namely, to prove that the organization is not a one-man party by greeting with enthusiasm the naming of Theodore Roosevelt as the Progressive Presidential candidate for 1916. Senator Poindexter was at pains to point out the availability of this gen- tleman for the nomination by remind- ing his hearers that the Colonel "has the prestige of his record in the Presi- dency." He has also the prestige of his record at Chicago, where he demonstrat- ed what it is to be a good loser and the only man who can win. Upon the tolls exemption matter, the Senator took a lofty position. "The Progressive party does not believe," he said, "in distorting the language of a treaty." The ears of those notorious treaty-distorters, Messrs. Choate and White, must have burned as these words were uttered. It has remain- ed for the Democratic party, according to the Senator, to propose to surrender the sovereignty of "this most costly of all the American possessions to the whims, caprice, and sordid interests of foreign countries and domestic railroad lines." In the face of such unassail- able logic, it is disheartening to read of four times as many Republicans as Pro- gressives going to primaries in Indiana in places that cast more votes for Roose- velt than for Taft in November, 1912. It is hard to believe that the lurid rhetoric of a Blease can long prevail against so plain a statement or the edu- cational condition of South Carolina as the Columbia xtatr ventures to make.
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450 The Nation (Vol. 98, No. 2547 Pointing out that South Carolina is one of but six States to be without a com- pulsory education law, while all foreign nations have such laws, the Slate asks whether it is only coincidence that in Massachusetts, with compulsory educa- tion extending over a period of two cen- turies, two out of three men, women, and children have savings-bank depos- its. But State pride should be enough to stir South Carolina to lift herself from a position so near the foot of the ladder as is shown by the fact that in percentage of children in school she ranks forty-third; in number of days the schools are open, forty-sixth; in value of public school property and in percentage of literacy, forty -seventh; and in yearly expenditure for each child of school age, forty-eighth. Thirty-five States have been admitted to the Union since South Carolina and her twelve sis- ter commonwealths formed it, and al- most every one of them is ahead of her in popular education, one of the pri- mary elements of self-government. In the early days of our occupation of the Philippines, Mr. Dooley found occa- sion to animadvert on the cocksureness of certain Americans who, a week or two before, were somewhat in doubt whether the Philippines were islands or canned goods. We are a long distance from that condition of mind now, and yet there is quite enough mistiness in prevalent notions concerning the Fili- pinos to make such an address as that of Commissioner Quezon, decidedly conducive to enlightenment. He ac- knowledges very fully the advance that has been made, in education and govern- ment, during the American occupation, but insists also on the fact that the people of the archipelago were in the main a civilized and a Christian people long before we went there, and that they had a widespread educational and governmental system. His plea for a speedy advance towards independence is based both on the degree of culture v/hich obtained before our arrival and on the great progress that has been made since. A cutting from a Filipino newspaper, which has just come to hand, is of special interest in connection with Mr. Quezon's statement. From this it appears that the Philippine Assembly has unanimously passed a bill prohibit- ing the taking of photographs of nude persons; the reason, as the newspaper puts it, being that "the practice of tak- ing, selling, publishing, exhibiting, and circulating the pictures of Igorots, Ne- gritos, and other non-Christian Filipinos has been a powerful engine of misrepre- sentation, a deadly instrument in the hands of those who wish to make it ap- pear before the American people that we are utterly unfit to manage our own af- fairs." There is no doubt that the vivid appeal to the eye which these pictures make goes far to put out of mind the fact, told only in the cold language of statistics, that the naked tribes form only a small fraction of the population of the archipelago. If Rome is as wise as her years ought to have made her, she will not plan the celebration of her two thousand six hun- dred and sixty-seventh birthday without finding out how St. Louis is going to mark her one hundred and fiftieth. For St. Louis, being much nearer the begin- ning of celebrations than the Eternal City, has a fresh stock of ideas, and also enthusiasm. "Into the melting pot of this great civic drama," we read, "will go all sections, all factions, all divi- sions, and all special interests. Out of it will come, well moulded, a great civic spirit that will galvanize us into aggres- sive boosters for St. Louis." We do not say that there is a hint here for the prisoner of the Vatican or his fellow-rul- er in the Qulrinal, but if they seized the celebration in Rome in order to have a melting pot of their own, out of which might come a great civic spirit that would galvanize them into aggressive boosters for Rome, would not the Mis- souri city give them generous applause? It is no small thing to have "all the world sitting up and taking notice of you" — as Rome herself was once the best of witnesses. At the time the English Uni6nists were holding their great meeting in Hyde Park, to protest against the "co- ercion" of Ulster, there was a large gathering of laboring men in Trafalgar Square. They, too, had their addresses and harangues, and it is rather amusing to find the Tory newspapers describing the proceedings as a "defiance of law and order," and the speeches made as "seditious." Yet the labor leaders sim- ply applied to their own purposes the good Unionist doctrine of the Army. The teaching of the Ulster crisis, affirmed Mr. Grayson, was that "the workers could arm themselves, and, better still, that the officer and the private soldier could refuse to shoot." In Ireland, as- serted Mr. Lansbury, the officers had mutinied, and all that the labor cause wanted was that "Tommy Atkins should do likewise." This is horrifying to the Conservatives, but what difference does it make whether the language is ut- tered by Bonar Law and Lord Hugh Cecil, or by labor agitators? On the main question of the duty of the Army to support the civil power, the "general orders" under which the troops acted in Ireland when the Unionists were in power and Mr. Balfour, as Irish Secre- tary, was sternly putting down Nation- alist disturbances, have lately been re- printed. In addition to requiring the military to be at the service of the Government in suppressing riot and dis- order, they specifically prescribed that troops might be used to "oppose armed insurrection," and to "disperse treason- able meetings." That was sound policy in Connaught in 1891, but is unconscion- able tyranny in Ulster in 1914. A Cabinet headed by Count Okuma was the logical way out of the impasse cre- ated by the fall of the Yamamoto Min- istry and the inability either of Conserv- atives or Radicals to rally a majority in the Diet. Count Okuma occupies a mid- dle position, and though his progres- sive followers are not the strongest fac- tion in Parliament, his personal pres- tige is such as to promise a fairly long tenure of office for the new Ministry. The new Premier is seventy-six, and his career as administrator dates back to the very beginning of the modern regime in Japan. His advanced ideas brought him repeatedly into conflict with the members of the Elder States- men group; but with the disappearance of the latter and the rise of a demo- cratic spirit inimical to so many of the traditions of the older Japan, Count Okuma, as a man seasoned by experi- ence and old age, may well appear wel- come to the conservative elements as a defence against the threatening forces of radicalism. Yet the postponement of the issue of representative government cannot be for long. As the veterans of the Melji pass from the stage, the cen- tre of parliamentary government must shift from a personal to a parly basis.
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April 23, 1914] The Nation 4.51 THE CHANGED MEXICAN POLICY. "Impatience on our part would be child- ish, and would be fraught with every risk of wrong and folly. We can afford to exercise the self-restraint of a really great nation which realizes its own strength and scorns to misuse it." "We shall triumph as Mexico's friends sooner than we could triumph as her enemies— and how much more handsomely, with how much higher and finer satisfactions of conscience and of honor!" These words from President Wilson's special message to Congress last Au- gust, on the Mexican trouble, are just as true to-day as they were then. If our Government is to depart from their spirit now, it will cause not only disap- pointment but surprise. What has hap- pened to break down the President's long forbearance? It would seem that he had borne the big grievances of thir- teen months, resolute against war, only in the end to lose patience over a very lit- tle one. For it is clear that, if the Ad- ministration had chosen so to represent it, the Tampico incident would have ap- peared a negligible trifle. A mistake had been made in arresting American bluejackets, but it had been promptly disavowed and an apology for it offered. And even if the President considered it necessary to back up the demand of Ad- miral Mayo for a salute, this was vir- tually granted. There was some char- acteristic fencing by the Mexican Gov- ernment over the details, but the final offer of Huerta was to fire the salute as demanded by us, with a return salute to the Mexican flag to be made by ua as agreed, on the sole condition that the undertaking on both sides be reduced to writing and signed in the form of a protocol. This last President Wilson re- fused. It is said that he feared it would mean formal recognition of Huerta. But it is difficult to see how it could be more of a recognition than is involved in sending him diplomatic notes. In any case, the final result is that, in conse- quence of this seeking to divide a hair 'twixt north and northwest side, Con- gress has been asked to authorize mea- sures of war against Mexico! In Mr. Wilson's message to Congress on Monday he disclaimed all intent of anything like a war of revenge or of conquest. He appealed for authority to use the armed forces of the United States, but denied that real war was intended. Nor did he fail to assert the benevolent motives of this Government, which, he declared, was still desirous of leaving the Mexicans free to work out their own destinies. But the crucial thing, the pitiful thing, would be that war should be begun on a mere punctilio, after all these months of resisting the pressure and clamor for war on the score of real- ly serious provocation. In standing for peace, as he has done through this period, President Wilson has made secure what even he could not now shatter at a stroke, if he were so foolish as to try. He has shown that the people are ready to follow a strong leader who is against war. Aside from a few small interested groups, there is in this country no desire for war with Mexico. This is due in good part to the firm attitude taken by President Taft and, after him, by President Wilson. Their patient but resolved course kept the war-spirit in restraint. What a ca- lamity now to loose it unnecessarily! Yet it is reassuring to note that there is nowhere any enthusiasm for the threat- ened war. Most of the people one meets, most of the newspapers, seem a bit ashamed that things have come to such a pass that the powerful United States should be setting out to chastise puny Mexico. There certainly can be no glory in that, and there may be much misery. It will be said, of course, that we are merely embarking upon a holiday punitive expedition. But sensible men know that the sword once grasped is not easily dropped; and that when the guns begin firing, it is harder and hard- er for the voice of reason to make it- self heard. As we write, no irrevocable decision has been made. Every one of right feel- ing will hope to the last moment that some way may be found of averting a war that could not help seeming unwor- thy and degrading, and in which few of us could see any warranting principle or inspiring cause. A paltry war is the most horrible of all. It necessarily pro- duces those forced and cheap and dis- gusting exhibitions of "patriotism" which we are now beginning to see — diners in restaurants, not one of whom could be dragged into the field, rising to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner," with other displays as tawdry. There will doubtless be others, like the Yale students, to think of war as a grand frolic. And the pity of it Is that such words of truth and soberness as ex- President Taft addressed to the New Haven collegians on Sunday will have no chance of a hearing, if war comes. Yet what Mr. Taft said is verity itself. War means not only the sacrifice of life and treasure; it means the piling up of taxes, with their burden crushing those least able to bear it; it means pecula- tion and dishonesty and fraud, with the brutalizing and corrupting of the whole conduct of public affairs; above all, it means the subordinating of every other public question, and the indefinite post- ponement, or entire sweeping away, of all programmes of civic betterment and social reform. That nothing of this lies in President Wilson's purpose is conced- ed; but he must know, and if he does not he will speedily ascertain, that a real war with Mexico would make his Inaugural, with all of its moving words about the need of broad policies of legis- lation in behalf of the victims of politi- cal and social injustice, so much waste paper. WORKING OF THE OREGON SYSTEM. Friends and opponents of direct legis- lation agree that it is too soon to at- tempt anything like final conclusions re- garding its working, even in the State where it has been tried most extensive- ly. But it is not unprofitable to take a look at the experiment from time to time, and scan its progress. Oregon has had the initiative and referendum since 1902, direct primaries since 1904, and the recall of elective officers, including judges, virtually direct election of Sen- ators, and constitutional authority for proportional representation and the preferential ballot since 1908. Only Portland has availed herself of this last provision. During the dozen years since the initiative and referendum were adopted, 107 measures have been sub- mitted to the voters, of which 47 have been accepted and 60 rejected. These have been of all degrees of importance, from a proposal to transfer the cus- tody of county prisoners from the coun- ty court to the sheriff, which was ac- cepted, and one requiring railways to carry State and county officials free, which was rejected, to woman's suf- frage, which, after three defeats, was adopted, abolition of the State Senate, and exemption of all improvements, tools, livestock, and furniture from tax-
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452 T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2547 ation — a single tax measure in disguise — which were defeated. One of the first things that strike one who examines the table of votes on mea- sures submitted to the people is the percentage of the vote for officials that was cast upon initiative and referen- dum proposals. Upon every occasion except one, submission of such mea- sures has been made at regular elec- tions. Only twice has the percentage of the vote for officials that was cast for or against the measures submitted fallen below 70, and then it was above 65. In the great majority of cases, it has been between 80 and 90. On three measures more persons voted than voted for of- ficials, these three being proposals sub- mitted in 1910 to regulate or prohibit the sale of liquor. In comparison with New York's recent fiasco of an election to de- cide whether or not to hold a constitu- tional convention, these figures are most creditable to the Oregon voter's sense of duty. Even in the one special elec- tion of last year, the vote upon the five not tremendously important measures submitted was 75 per cent, of the aver- age vote for President and other offi- cials in 1912. Yet a proposal to re- quire a majority of all electors voting, in order to carry a measure, was re- jected by a two-thirds vote in 1912, over 80 per cent, of the voters who marked ballots for officials expressing them- selves upon this revolutionary is- sue. This odd manifestation of politi- cal psychology is probably to be ex- plained upon the ground that the pro- posal was felt to be an attack upon the system of direct legislation. In general, the results of the vote upon the 107 measures which have been submitted are creditable to the citizen- ship of Oregon. It is interesting to note that the two proposals to increase the pay of officials were rejected by votes of three and five to one, and that there has been a marked tendency to reject pro- posals involving taxation, even to the extent of refusing permanent support to two of the three struggling State nor- mal schools. On the other hand, the single tax system has been defeated un- der every guise in which it has pre- sented itself, except in an act giving counties the power to adopt it, which was carried by a very small majority. But these are just the results which would be expected of a community which, if not rural, is not urban either. Oregon has buc one city of over 15,000 inhabitants, and its unincorporated or rural territory contains two-fifths of its people. If a community so composed is not fairly conservative, where should we look for one? It would not be pos- sible to draw any inferences whatever from these results, applicable to a com- munity like our own — not if direct leg- islation had been prevailing in Oregon for decades. Yet there have been one or two ex- periences in connection with the Oregon system that cannot be dismissed so eas- ily. The details that we have presented have been drawn from an article by Richard W. Montague in the National Municipal Review. Mr. Montague is in sympathy with the system of direct leg- islation, but is unable to say much for direct primaries as they have worked in Oregon. Why this piece of the ma- chinery should have failed, is difficult to discover. But its failure emphasizes the impossibility of generalizing at pres- ent about the working of direct govern- ment. A more serious matter is Mr. Montague's "negative evidence" upon the effect of the recall of judges. Two attempts have been made in Oregon to recall judges of the Circuit Court. Both occurred "under circumstances that writers on the subject of judicial recall have pointed to as constituting the greatest dangers to the independence of the judiciary, and consequently to free institutions; namely, an unpopular de- cision or the appearance of taking an unpopular position by the judge, on an issue in which the public has a lively interest, and a strong and unscrupulous party or faction ready to urge its cause against the judge." In the two instances mentioned, the promoters of the recall were unable to obtain the necessary number of signatures to set the recall machinery in motion, and Mr. Montague infers that "so far as the evidence Is in, it is perfectly safe to trust a normal American electorate" with this weapon. The test of the recall of judges, of course, comes, not when the voters are willing to accept an unpopular deci- sion, but when they are not willing to accept it, and a single instance of the latter sort may easily outweigh in its consequences ninety-nine of the former. It is this sinister possibility that makes one hesitate to give up a system which. with all its faults, has proved its ability to stand heavy strain. THE MONOTONY OF THE MACHINE. The issue between the labor unions and the advocates of "scientific manage- ment" resolves itself just as frequently into a human problem as into an eco- nomic problem. This point has been well brought out by the rival views on scientific management which have been discussed the past few days before the Industrial Relations Commission. The objections brought forward by the rep- resentatives of labor were of two kinds: fears lest "efficiency" mean only a speed- ing-up process of which the pecuniary advantages would fall only in small part to the worker; and resentment at the reduction of the worker to a standard- ized, smoothly-functioning, unquestion- ing, and, by implication, unhuman ma- chine. It is this phase of the problem which appeals most closely to the theo- retical friends of labor. The grinding monotony of industrialism against which Ruskin lashed out so violently is at present very much to the front. The argument is familiar enough. As con- trasted with the purposive and free play of intelligence in the old handicraft worker, as contrasted with the purpo- siveness which the business man and professional man of to-day still find in a succession of tasks, each complete in it- self, the factory worker, under division of labor, is the victim of a weary and endless process, with the wage, and not the work, as the only aim in view. It would be absurd to deny that a very fair measure of truth obtains in such pictures of the monotony of the machine. But it is just as plain that a vast deal of exaggerated psychologizing and sociologizing has piled up about the subject. There are two conflicting lines of argument which Socialist critics of the present system are in the habit of advancing, often simultaneously. One is the older argument which foresees revolution as produced by the increasing misery and degradation of the working classes. The other is the new argument which foresees revolution as produced by a working class advancing in physi- cal welfare, in knowledge, and in organ- ization, in consciousness of and con- fidence in their own strength. The hu- manitarian writer who cries out against the monotony of modern industrial life
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April 23, 1914] The Nation 4,53 belongs to the earlier school of thought. The theory of the steady degradation of the working class was developed by the early Socialist thinkers on a priori grounds. Because the facts to-day con- tradict them a revised philosophy has become necessary. The critic of mod- ern industrialism, on the whole, clings to the old a priori methods of reasoning. Here is the grinding, whirring rush of the factory, with its unvarying, monot- onous routine, its infinitesimal division of tasks, its total lack of the creative in- stinct of the artist; can there be any doubt that the life of the factory worker is more depressing than it ever has been? To which the answer is that it isn't so. The newer Socialist contention is conclusive on the point. If it be true that the worker Is growing in self-con- sciousness, in resourcefulness, in the sentiment of class solidarity, it must be pretty plain that the machine is not exercising a brutalizing effect on the worker. Even the distinction which crit- ics of the present system are beginning to draw between the so-called aristoc- racy of labor and the great mass of un- skilled or semi-skilled labor, fixing our attention entirely on the factory in its most discouraging aspects, as its fruits have shown themselves at Lawrence or at Paterson, only forces us to conclude that this growing capacity of the mill- hand, not merely to feel unrest, but to express his unrest, is a sign of growing intellectual power and freedom which, far from suppressing, the factory has brought into being. The phenomenon, so universally recognized, of the grow- ing tension of urban life offers proof in the same direction. What is it that draws the masses from the country to the cities, if not the greater facilities of human communication, the wider oppor- tunities of pleasure, of spiritual excite- ment and growth— even if growth some- times in the wrong direction— which the factory and the tenement offer? The fallacy is a double one. It con- sists, on the one hand, in exaggerating the stress of modern industrial life, by leaving out of account the steady short- ening of the hours of labor and the steady increase of opportunity for devel- opment that a shorter workday affords. It consists, on the other hand, in exag- gerating the happy conditions under which the vast mass of humanity car- ried on its toil in pre-industrial days — the old fallacy of the Golden Age, some- where back in the past. The classic pic- ture, of course, is of the mediaeval handi- craftsman taking joy in creating beau- tiful, entire, wholesome things. But the mediaeval world was not made up of cathedral builders singing hymns in stone and mortar. (Recent skeptics have pointed out some very wretched jerry- building in the mediaeval cathedrals.) For the great mass, life was one of crushing, brutalizing toil in which it would be difficult to find a higher pur- posiveness or a higher joyfulness than in the textile-works or rolling-mills of to-day. Monotonous enough life must be in the garment shops of New York. But the New York factory girl, as she reveal- ed herself during the garment strikes of recent years, alert, confident, capable of leadership, is certainly no witness to a debasing, colorless existence. PRISONERS AND GOOD ROADS. The twentieth century was well under way before we awoke to the advantages, not to say the necessity, of well-made highways; then, rather suddenly, we were struck with a double condition: the poor management of the roads was paralleled by the poor management of the men who, for their offences against the law, were confined in prison. This two-fold waste was too much for our sense of efficiency. The idea of curing, or at least alleviating, a pair of evils at a stroke captured the practical imag- ination, and, enforced by the sentimen- tality that the practical mind is always glad to welcome when it appears as an ally and not as a foe, gave the nation more and better roads than it had ever built before. We do not say that this is exactly what history will record, but the con- nection between prisoners and good roads, and roads and good prisoners, is increasingly emphasized by persons in- terested in the one or the other, or both. Gov. Glynn has recently signed a bill appropriating $75,000 for the addition of a brick-making plant to the resources of the State Reformatory at Elmira, N. Y. First let the prisoners make the bricks for the roads; then why should they not lay them? State convicts have never been put to work on highways in New York, but a few counties have tried the experiment, notably Onondaga, the county in which Syracuse is situated. One such piece of work, carried on for three months, employed about thirty- five men. They were sheltered in a farmhouse which they themselves re- paired, to make it habitable, and half a dozen of them did the housework, the cooking, and the laundry work. The guards were for supervision rather than discipline. Over a hundred different prisoners were employed in the work, but no attempt at escape occurred. The prisoners continued in good health, and were willing to work, although they were inexperienced and received no pay. So encouraging were the results that the county supervisors repeated the experiment the next year on a larger scale. Those who are informed on this sub- ject like to point to Rome, the great road-builder, and remind us that those wonderful highways were built by slaves. But this proves rather too much, and, besides, we are accumulating a fund of knowledge based upon our own conditions. The last number of the Proceedings of the Academy of Politi- cal Science is devoted to the employ- ment of convict labor on road construc- tion in the Northern States. The record is almost uniformly favorable to such employment. From New Mexico, new- est of States, but oldest in adopting the "honor system" and working prisoners on public highways in accordance with it, to New Jersey, whose first trial of convict labor on roads was made last December, the testimony is well-nigh unvarying that the combination is good for both the roads and the prisoners. Only Utah seems to have had an actual failure with the "honor system," and the solitariness of this exception sug- gests that the blame for it lies with the administration of the system rather than with the system itself. Everywhere else the reports are that the prisoners who are placed on their honor volun- tarily are scrupulous about observing their pledge. In Colorado, during four years, less than 1 per cent, of the con- victs concerned broke faith. In Oregon, after the recapture of an escaped pris- oner at Gov. West's personal expense the other prisoners asked to be allowed to pay all costs out of their "bonus money," on the ground that their un- trustworthy comrade had "double-cross- ed" them by throwing suspicion on the
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454 Tlie Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2547 system and on all the prisoners. There have been no wholesale attempts at es- cape whatever. How efficient are prisoners as road- workers? The exact ratio of their ef- ficiency to that of free laborers is not very important, since other considera- tions control here, such as the willing- ness of organized labor to allow con- victs to do this sort of work, the desira- bility of providing occupation for them, and the sad condition of our roads. But it is interesting to note that while in some cases they are reported as less efficient than free labor, being unskilled, in at least one State, Washington, they are credited with being a third more efficient, owing, not to compulsion, but to fear of being taken back to the peni- tentiary. The possibility of develop- ment for the more intelligent is also pointed out in the opportunities for blacksmith, mason, carpenter, and other work connected with road and bridge building. The relation of such oppor- tunities to subsequent employment is evident. One matter is insisted upon: the prisoners should be paid. The folly of keeping a man idle while his family depends upon charity, public or private, is apparent. Both economic and mor- al reasons urge paying him wages. He does his work better when he is paid, and, like the free laborer, he reaps the reward of self-respect. Road work, as it happens, shows large net earnings by prisoners, who can thus help in the support of their needy families, while the balance to the prisoner's credit on the prison book acts as a check upon the temptation to lapse into evil ways. THE SURGICAL CONGRESS. Our country has borne an honorable share in the development of modern sur- gery, and it is matter of special satis- faction that the two men to whom, by virtue of their offical position, it fell to greet the delegates to the Fourth Con- gress of the International Surgical As- sociation were so eminently representa- tive of distinguished achievement. Sur- geon-General Gorgas, who extended a welcome on behalf of the President of the United States, has won imperish- able fame by his work in converting the Panama Canal Zone from one of the most pestiferous into one of the most healthful spots in the world; and Dr. William J. Mayo, who welcomed the visitors as president of the American Surgical Association, has a unique dis- tinction in having elevated an isolated hospital in a small Minnesota town to the rank of one of the world's most famous institutes of surgery. An ad- ditional element of national satisfaction was supplied in the address of Profes- sor Depage, of Brussels, president of the Congress, who not only made ref- erence to the excellence of American surgery, and to the prompt helpfulness of the American Red Cross in such an emergency as that of the Balkan War, but paid a tribute to our country as personifying throughout the world the "ideas of peace and civilization" of whose ultimate triumph he declared that the International Surgical Asso- ciation feels confident. To the members of the Congress, the matters of chief interest are, of course, the latest developments in surgery, in- cluding those whose status is still prob- lematical. But to the outside world, such a gathering as this may well serve rath- er as a reminder of the wonderful prog- ress that has already been fully realiz- ed. To the younger generation, it may be startling to be reminded that anti- septic surgery, in the modern sense, is barely half a century old, Lister hav- ing begun his researches only in 1860; and the science of bacteriology, now of such enormous extent and manifold usefulness, was, as recently as thirty or thirty-five years ago, pursued by only a handful of men as a novel specialty. Much more recent still, of course, are the Rontgen rays, with all the aid they supply to the knowledge of individual cases; and even the electric light, which is laid under contribution for the ex- ploration of interior organs, is a me- chanical development of the last few decades. But these are only a few sa- lient elements in surgical progress which strike the attention of even the most remote and superficial observer; how vast has been the accumulation of knowledge and skill through the special labors of hundreds of gifted and de- voted men, we get but a faint inkling in the record of this or that wonderful operation which in former times would have been utterly impossible. One effect, of direct practical impor- tance, ought to be produced by the con- templation of this magnificent progress, not only of surgery, but of medical and sanitary science generally. When one tries to realize its immense sweep, the way it has silently entered into the lives of millions, averting or conquering dis- ease and staying the hand of death, one can but stand amazed at the pitiful want of imagination which alone can account for the misguided efforts of men and women, presumably normal and well- meaning, who, in the name of humani- tarianism, seek to put obstacles in the way of the laborers in this field. They rush in with their half-knowledge, filled with a senseless readiness to find wick- ed unscrupulousness or heartlessness in men whose lives are spent in the en- deavor to diminish our sufferings and eliminate the perils that beset us. With the desire of these people to pre- vent wanton cruelty, or to reduce to a minimum the sufferings of animals used as subjects of medical research, every right-minded person must sympathize. But in the pursuit of these objects they exhibit not only a lamentable want of the sense of proportion, but also a hope- less inability to weigh evidence. As a rule, they refuse to admit that any im- portant benefits have been gained by experiments upon animals; and they are able to pick up here and there an expression of some medical authority on their side, which they put up against the virtually unanimous judgment of the whole world of science. And when they find themselves compelled to aban- don this position, they take refuge in silence on this subject, and devote themselves to selecting, magnifying, and coloring with all the sensational epi- thets at their command whatever in the records of medical research has an ap- pearance of sustaining their general in- dictment of heartless and wanton cruelty. Neither the high character and lofty aim of the men who carry on these researches, nor their assurances that everything is done to reduce pain to a minimum, nor any contemplation of the physical agony and the spiritual anguish spared to countless thousands of human beings by the discoveries aris- ing from their labors, suffices for a mo- ment to stay the hand or the pen of the one-ideaed ant i-vi vised ionist. In contrast with the blind and narrow sentimentalism which inspires lliis kind of attack, the work that is being done by
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April 23, 1914I The ISTation 455 the great army of the world's physi- cians and surgeons, and the researches that are being carried on by medical in- vestigators the world over, strike one with a sense of grandeur and nobility. We take these things nowadays as a matter of course; we accept their fruits, and give little thought to the labors by which they are attained. But no one who has been in contact with the men who are in the van of this great work can fail to be struck with the fact that in them the strenuousness and ardor of the scientist is mated with the devotion and humaneness of the lover of man- kind. Along with the elevation of medi- cine and surgery to that high scientific plane which they now occupy has gone not a brutalization of the profession, but a more general prevalence of a high and broad humanity among its members. The sawboneses of whom we read In "Pickwick" were never, of course, rep- resentative of the profession, but there was a greater admixture of that sort of thing among medical students of past generations than it is easy for people of to-day to believe. The higher intellec- tual qualifications, and the more stren- uous intellectual exertion, that the pres- ent-day standards of medicine demand, have without question weeded out, in a very great measure, not only the more ignorant, but the more callous and the more coarse-grained candidates for a medical career. SHAKESPEARE AT THE SPRING- TIME. For those who are celebrating to-day the Shakespearean anniversary, the place and date of his birth may easily appear to have peculiar significance. Born at Stratford three hundred and fifty years ago, the poet came into the world "in the sweet o' the year." No one who has passed that season in a lovely English hamlet like Stratford can quite forget the experience; and the reawakenings which spring must have brought in boyhood to the sensitive spirit of Shakespeare may well have provided a permanent out- look on nature. Theorizing and the record of his works lead to the same conclusion. The out-of-doors furnishes a large portion of his settings, which he not infrequently enlarges upon in the dialogue, and by preference he turnt'' to its glorified scenes. There was, of course, a particular reason for seeing, through the eyes of Lear, only the rough and the rugged; just as he was bound to surround the idyllic Per- dita with Nature's store of beauty. But when not specially prescribed, the nat- ural background of his plays often sug- gests something of the elation which he himself may have felt in the airy freedom of Stratford. Even when serv- ing the purpose of elaborate banter, the setting is not allowed to lose its poetry: The moon shines bright: in such a night as this, When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees And they did make no noise, in such a night Troilus methinks mounted the Troyan walls And sigh'd his soul toward the Grecian tents Where Cressid lay that night. And the poet's sincerity in the line: How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! is only heightened by the simplicity. It is not enough to say that Shake- speare fell in with a custom of his day in scattering sunlight in the paths of his characters. There is ample evidence to prove that he looked at the scenes about him with a glowing appreciation of their beauty. His peering daffodils, and "violets dim" But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes Or Cytherea's breath; His glorious mornings that Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye; His little dive-dapper peering through a wave Who, being look'd on, ducks as quickly in; attest both the observant eye and the exultant heart. Whether we think of Shakespeare's Nature as being largely at the springtime or shortly thereafter, as one is apt to do, or as divided among the seasons, it offers a freshness and joy such as he himself could observe at Stratford in "proud-pied April." If the theory of the effect of environ- ment upon a writer had not been over- worked, we should be tempted to say that Shakespeare's out-of-doors was re- sponsible for his dramatic atmosphere. The buoyancy of his sparkling comedies is really typical, though in less degree, of his entire work. Even the sombre "Lear" scarcely furnishes an exception to the rule. We have only to compare it in this respect to certain tragedies of Ibsen to observe the different points of view of the two men. While winds rage and thunders crash, in the famous scene on the heath, there is never the shut-in feeling which is imposed by "Ghosts" or "Rosmersholm." The air will some time clear, if not for Lear, at least for the kingdom. There is breadth and sweep which catch up the protagonist and make him a part, but only a part, of Nature's convulsions; the wretched vic- tim in "Ghosts" is suffocated, along with the audience, by the narrowing and con- centration of natural forces. For the nonce it is as though Nature existed merely to teach this awful lesson. Partly, the difference noted is due no doubt to the newer requirements of the stage. The great number of scenes which Shakespeare could use help to give variety and large dimensions to his world. But this is not the whole story. Shakespeare stands out in al- most as marked contrast to his contem- poraries. Even so impressive a drama as "The Duchess of Malfi" introduces, along with other horrors, a "dance of eight madmen," not for sensational pur- poses, but to thicken and intensify the tragedy. The atmosphere, as might be expected, here becomes murky. Murky Shakespeare's atmosphere never is. A comparison of Marlowe's "Edward II" and Shakespeare's "Richard II," which have leading characters fundamentally similar, brings out the same point. Both Edward and Richard live in a world of their own imagining, being unfitted by temperament to attack the problems ot the actual world. One is surrounded by the atmosphere of his two or three pitiable faults, made monotonous by rep- etition; Richard, equally beset, builds an imaginative world that is as airy and diverse as it is impractical. Shakespeare saw life naturally, if by that is meant that the spirit of the out- of-doors is allowed to get in-doors. If his characters show a certain enlarge- ment, they partake of the same idealiza- tion which his Nature undergoe spring of life is never quite absent from them, whatever maj bi their age. They are caught at the high tide of ezj when the blood is urgent and impulses are generous, for good or evil. Some- times they are as precisely drawn as his little dive-dapper, and usually they have, like his "violets dim," divine aspira- tions.
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456 Tlie Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2547 Foreign. Correspondence A PHILOSOPHER ON THE HUST- INGS—MR. BALFOUR AND MR. BONAR LAW— SENATOR LODGE'S REPRIMANDS. London, April 11. The dramatic surprises of the last few weeks have schooled people to believe almost anything, but it was hard not to think that Mr. Balfour's appearance on a Hyde Park platform must be an opti- cal illusion. Or was it possible that Mrs. Thurston's fiction of John Chilcote was plagiarized by fact? Never before has any English states- man of Prime Ministerial rank conde- scended to enter the arena of Hyde Park. Mr. Balfour is one of the last men who might have been expected to establish the precedent. What would his uncle have thought if he had lived to hear of it? This escapade might have been much more easily credited even to Lord Rosebery, who at the period of his chair- manship of the London County Council showed considerable democratic sympa- thies. Gladstone might have done such a thing, for one of the most notable incidents in his career was an address at an immense open-air demonstration at Greenwich. But as to Arthur James Bal- four, one might even have doubted whether he was aware that Hyde Park was ever used for the purpose of a pub- lic meeting. At the time that his 1902 Education Bill was under discussion, some reference was made in the House to an enthusiastic popular rally — held, of course, on the usual ground — in pro- test against it. Mr. Balfour, turning to his colleagues on the Treasury Bench, re- marked, with his well-known air of polite bewilderment, "Let me see, where did this gathering take place?" The rumor that he had to ask a policeman his way to the park is an obvious invention, for Rotten Row during the season cannot have been a strange place to him. At any rate, the spectacle of Mr. Bal- four holding forth to a Hyde Park throng from the elevation of a wagon was more curious than any scene that has lately been presented on the stage. Little won- der that the sight of his deprecatory and academic figure in such surroundings made some observers think of an aris- tocrat on a tumbril during the French Revolution, or that others compared the sensation to that of a bank holiday crowd invited to listen to a classical concert. Liberals find it difficult to judge whether it would be more to the interest of the present Government for Bonar Law to continue in the Opposition leadership, or for It to go back into the hands of Arthur Balfour. Bonar Law helps his opponents by his reckless plunges. He has no consistent policy, but is the vic- tim of any rash impulse that promises some immediate advantage at the ex- pense of the other side. The situation was correctly hit off by Augustine Bir- rell, in explaining why the Government had not suffered more grievously from its own mistakes: "We never dig a pit for ourselves but Bonar Law steps Into It." More than once the present Unionist leader has had to withdraw within a few days or even hours from a position confi- dently but thoughtlessly taken up in the excitement of debate. The flaw in Mr. Balfour's leadership was of a very different kind. He is im- mune against spasms. No sensational turn in the course of events can disturb his equanimity. But he is no less se- riously handicapped by an astonishing inability to diagnose popular feeling. The debacle of his party at the general elec- tion of January, 1906, was largely due to his refusal to recognize the opposi- tion that had been aroused by the Chi- nese labor policy in South Africa. Even without this his Government would have been defeated, but it was the storm of indignation at this phase of his admin- istration that turned the defeat into a rout. Evidences of popular antagonism were visible everywhere to the naked eye, but Mr. Balfour was all the time serene- ly unconscious that he had offended pub- lic sentiment in the matter. Mr. Bal- four's daimon again failed to warn him how the country was likely to take the rejection of the 1909 budget by the Lords. He was not ostensibly a member of the die-hard group, but he did not interpose his authority to check the passionate counsels of the extremists. No other living statesman has the record of hav- ing led his party to defeat in three gen- eral elections in succession, and that Mr. Balfour has suffered this humiliation is to be attributed in no small degree to his astonishing blindness to the signs of the times. But he learns nothing and forgets nothing. He appears to be quite un- aware that the normal English attitude to Home Rule is at all different to-day from what it was when he went to the Chief Secretary's office in Dublin in 1887. In his speeches against the present Home Rule bill he has assumed in the English constituencies the same state of mind to which he appealed a quarter of a century ago. Students of the natural history of fossil remains have found a good deal to inter- est them lately in Senator Lodge's "One Hundred Years of Peace." It is not often possible to dig up a deposit which re- tains so perfectly the very atmosphere of a hundred years before. Perhaps the best-informed and most careful of the many English reviews of the book was that contributed by H. S. Perris to the Daily Chronicle. He wonders for what audience the book was intended. If for Americans it will hardly please the more balanced and scholarly, who expect something more than robust par- tisanship in historical work. If for Eng- lishmen, the Senator has mistaken his audience, for they will either smile or will resent being lectured by an Ameri- can politician for the sins of themselves and their fathers during these hundred years under the guise of an historical retrospect. Mr. Perris points out In de- tail several of Mr. Lodge's sins of omis- sion and commission, and concludes with the wholesome remark that It is equally unpleaslng to witness the British lion roaring and lashing his tail and to hear the American eagle screaming and flap- ping his wings. "The time has gone by," he suggests, "for statesmen to invoke these noises and grimaces of the Zoo. The world's peace must be made and kept by saner methods and more constructive toil." H. W. H. THE "FRENCH LEAGUE"— A MOVE- MENT TOWARDS UNITY. Paris, April 11. A movement was begun in Paris in the last days of March which may — and which may not — succeed in uniting the sorely divided French people, at least in those things which are necessary to their existence as a nation. It is really non- political, and its leaders are trying to keep it non-partisan; but it cannot help having an influence on the general elec- tions of Sunday, April 26, which will seat in Parliament for four years the Deputies who rule the French repub- lic. The interest which such a movement has for Americans consists in the uni- versally recognized high character of the Frenchmen who are organizing it. While it aims at a united France and includes representative men who are not poli- ticians from dozens of varying political groups, it has no cooperation, so far, from the Extreme Radicals, who, with the help of Socialists, now hold the Government of the republic. No sane prophet will risk his reputation by predicting the result of the coming elections; but no matter what Government is in power, the "French League," which embodies the movement, will maintain its essential work. It con- cludes its appeal for union with weighty words: This is a momentous hour. A conflict between European Powers is, to say the least, possible; and its chief danger will be for France. Yet our political and re- ligious discords are being exasperated and the disquiet of many all but reaches de- spair. The French League will abstain from all political or religious dispute, and will ignore all that divides. It will bring into light and force the feeling which, not- withstanding dissensions unavoidable in a free state, unites us in the love of our country. It wishes to persuade the French na- tion that France, united in patriotic faith, lias nothing to fear from whomsoever. It will preach confidence and hope. Words like these are not unexpected from the new League's presidents of honor — Prof. Ernest Lavisse and Gen. Pau. They are well authorized by their life and career to represent the two great non-political forces of France, the uni- versity and the army. Ernest Lavisse in the eighties and nineties was the one leader of the university youth of France. A "new spirit" of concord was timidly proclaimed by Minister Spuller, the friend of Gambetta, in Parliament in 1892; but it expired in the angry explo- sions of the Dreyfus affair and the re- ligious war which was made to issue from It. For fifteen years, majority rule in the French republic has meant the nagging of the minority — and of a mi- nority which, if it had been united, might have been the majority at perhaps all of the general elections. The Extreme Radical and Socialist Deputies, who have formed the ruling majority in Parliament, have not once been elected by more than 47 per cent, of
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April 23, 1914I Tlie Nation 4:57 the voting population of the country. The 20 to 25 per cent, of the voters who per- sist in not going to the polls would, for the most part, not have voted for them. It is these "abstentionists" and the in- curable divisions of the minority which have made the victory of cleverer poli- ticians possible. And this may nappen again now, unless the sense of impending danger to France as a nation should prove strong enough to prevent politi- cians from seizing once more on the gov- ernment of the republic for their own private and party interests. To an American there is no obvious reason why French Radicals, even, should not uphold the patriot rather than the politician. It is understood that Socialists enter Parliament to help on their cause; and more than once they 1 'argained with Conservatives. If they have been supporting Radical Gov- ernments, it is because it is easier to push them towards Socialist legislation. Professor Lavisse and many other members of the new League were noto- rious Radicals once. If they are joining with equally notorious Conservatives now, it must be because they believe the time has come for Frenchmen to stop fighting among themselves and to stand all together against the common danger from without. Paul DeYoulede, who was so long berated as a patriot Don Quixote, has died just before this rally to his stir- ring hymn: Fight for your Mother if you love her ! No one can suspect Ernest Lavisse of anti-Pacifism; and yet sitting with him as president of the French League is Gen. Pau, who did so much to get the three years' military service and increase of armaments through the French Par- liament. Among the vice-presidents are another general, an admiral, and a bish- op; a Moderate Republican Senator and a Deputy, Joseph Reinach, who did chief work for the exoneration of Dreyfus. Among significant names in the commit- tee are those of men like the Greek schol- ar Maurice Croiset, the successor of Re- nan as administrator of the College de France; Louis Havet, who in the Dreyfus affair was a founder of the League of the Rights of Man and, as professor of the College de France, led the opposition to bestowing a professorship in that nation- al college on Brunetiere, because the lat- ter was a Catholic; Maurice Barres, who leads the French youth of to-day in the national reaction; Lepine, Prefect of the Paris police through many Radical ad- ministrations, and Adolphe Carnot, broth- er of the President of the Republic, who was assassinated by an Anarchist and one of the first to call a halt in govern- ment of the republic for the majority in- stead of for the whole people. There are nine members of the French Academy, among whom, besides Lavisse and Barres, there are such world-wide representatives of French literature as Pierre Loti, Frederic Masson, Alfred Md- zieres, Marcel Prevost, Henry de Regnier, Jean Richepin, Edmond Rostand. There are world-famous men of science like Ar- sonval; Branly, of wireless telegraphy; Daniel Berthelot and Jean Becquerel — and fifty more with a right to say to the world that France shall be one. S. D. Education in the South. JOINT SESSION OF CONFERENCE FOR EDU- CATION IN THE .SOUTH AND SOUTHERN \ I'lON ASSOCIATION — LOUISVILLE KV., APRIL 7-11. At the Conference in Louisville large chapters of progress were recorded for the Southern States. It was a confer- ence of a variety of interests; a national mind brooded over it, and it was rein- forced by great governmental agencies. It showed economic and social changes in the making. With an estimated at- tendance of 2,500, not more than half were engaged directly in school work, the others included business men, preachers, men and women from the farm and from every walk of life, with a common patriotic interest of building up the rural life of the South. The Conference opened with a memor- ial service to its notable founder, Rob- ert C. Ogden. The address was deliv- ered by United States Commissioner of Education P. P. Claxton. He reviewed the history of the Conference from the time when two or three were gathered together, seeking to unite North and South in the great educational task at hand, to the present magnificent gath- ering, with its splendid achievements. Dr. Claxton showed that in ten years' time illiteracy in the Southern States had been reduced more than one-half. The conception of education had broad- ened from the ideal of the three R's and a little high-school work to include the agricultural high school, the con- solidated rural school ministering to the needs of country life, and a system of supervision and industrial training which reaches directly the homes and farms of the people. He pointed out that a radical change of spirit had tak- en place in the South with regard to education. The schools were no longer looked on as a necessary evil savoring of reconstruction days and carpet-bag rule, but the people believed in them and were beginning to support them properly. The figures from eight South- ern States showed an increase in the past year of funds raised by local taxa- tion of more than one and a half mil- lion dollars. He declared that the change of attitude and growth of edu- cation in the South during the past dec- ade was the most marvellous education- al progress the world has ever seen. It was universally conceded that the most eloquent address delivered at the Conference was the exhibit at the arm- ory. Here were gathered none of the ordinary odds and ends of school work, but actual scenes and demonstrations of work going on. From the fireside in- dustries of "our contemporary ances- tors" of the mountains, displayed by Berea College, to the moving pictures of the boys' and girls' corn and tomato clubs, shown by the Department of Ag- riculture, a panorama of social and eco- nomic changes was displayed that made vivid a wonderful period of Southern history. A water tank and gasolene engine, with complete equipment for supplying the country home with running water at an absurdly low cost, was the contri- bution of President Joe Cook, of the Hattiesburg Normal School, Mississippi. This was not theory, but practice. The tarm home displayed by Winthrop Col- lege, Rock Hill, S. C, Miss Mary E. Frayser in charge, was also a centre of attraction. The dining- and living- rooms were furnished simply and taste- fully. In the kitchen and laundry were running water and every convenience for the saving of steps and lessening of labor. The washboard had been ban- ished and was replaced by a washing- machine. And the tables were supplied with rollers to do away with the heavy lifting of dishes between dining-room and kitchen. Outside the kitchen win- dow was a beautiful row of red gera- niums, and a schedule showed a work- able plan for each day's round of du- ties, and provided time for rest, read- ing, and social recreation. The effect of this exhibit might be judged by the significant remarks of all that visited it. One farmer was heard to say: "I am going to spend $150 on my wife's kitch- en when I get home." Next was a practical demonstration of cooking, and a busy crowd gathered to hear the explanation of the teachers in charge. Further on were exhibits showing the eradication of hookworm and the busy field work of the agents of the Sanitary Commission. Adjoin- ing this was splendidly portrayed the day's work of a rural nurse, while near the entrance was a demonstration of the parcel post in operation, revealing how various kinds of produce from the farm might be cheaply and easily marketed by mail in near-by cities. This was in charge of the local post office. The conference was notable for the splendid group meetings. At every turn one found a small company of earnest men and women tugging away at the special problem in which they were in- terested. Prominent among these were the conference of rural school super- visors, the conference on the country church, the women's conferences, and the conference on the education of the negro. At noon these groups would come together to listen to addresses by such eminent men as Dr. Warren EL Wilson on the "Country Church," Dr. A. D. Wilson, of the University of Min- nesota, on "Cooperation," and Mr. Bradford Knapp on "Farm Demonstra- tion Work." The meeting of rural school super- visors was called by Dr. Claxton, rep-
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458 Tlie Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2547 reaentatlves of thirty-seven States being present. The informal discussions re- vealed an astonishing similarity of con- ditions in all parts of the country. No State, North, East, South, or West, seems to have a monopoly of bad roads and poor country schools, when one goes far enough from the railway. En- couraging progress is reported from all sections. The consolidated rural school has come to stay, and, moreover, this school is going to be so adjusted to the needs of the people in its community that it will be a clearing house of rural progress for young and old. It was pointed out by several that a city school of the traditional type set down in the country had done more harm than good, for it had weakened the neighborhood by sending off its strongest young peo- ple. Valuable discussions on improving rural schools through standardization, consolidation, supervision, practical in- dustrial training, and community ac- tivities were engaged in by all present. This group perfected an organization and elected Mr. J. H. Binford, of Vir- ginia, president; Mr. W. E. Larson, of Wisconsin, vice-president, and Mr. L. S. Ivins, of Ohio, secretary. Led by Dr. James H. Dillard, agent of the Jeanes and Slater Funds, as presi- dent, a very earnest group of county superintendents, State supervisors of rural schools, representative negro lead- ers, and interested men and women, listened to encouraging reports of the colored schools in all sections of the South. Supt. J. H. Culkin, of Warren County, Miss., told a striking story of the organization of boys' and girls' clubs among the negro schools. Warren County now has more than 2,500 negroes in these clubs. No girl is permitted to attend the county school unless she has at least five products growing in her garden. The boys are graded accord- ing to ages, and each must cultivate a stipulated amount of land, and the products grown must be such as will bring a substantial return. No boy or girl may remain in school unless this work is kept up, and every teacher is required to give at least fifteen min- utes a day to the club work. As a re- sult, there are in Warren County more than 20,000 acres of land under culti- vation by demonstration methods by negroes who are club members. Any one who has followed these con- ferences for the past four years, at Jacksonville in 1911, Nashville 1912, Richmond 1913, and Louisville in 1914, cannot fail to be impressed with the enormous change of sentiment and the growing determination on the part of the white people of the South to give their negro neighbors a better training for the life that they must live among them. Jaokson Davis. Country Life. ON THE LAND. The ingenuous reader may have found himself rather confused than enlight- ened by casual contact with the abun- dant farm-and-garden literature of the past few years. He has a vague notion that everything to do with the soil is somehow all of a piece, all one problem which ought to have an "answer"; yet the current miscellany of data and opin- ions, scientific theories and genial sen- timents, connected with the land does not make the answer easier to formu- late. The latest amiable chronicle of a David Grayson and the latest report of a state experiment station do not hang together notably well. The "back-to-the- land" theme is developed very different- ly in the sumptuous pages of the Coun- try Gentleman and the honest, unro- mantic columns of the Rural New Yorker. The truth is, all this writing is not about one thing, but about a number of perfectly distinct things. "Country life" is not farming, nor is pottering about in a suburban vegetable garden. As for going back to the land, that is a step which a large number of people now delight to take — in fancy; and it is undoubtedly as well for most of them that the experience should remain vi- carious— not because it is not the fin- est thing in the world for a man to do, but because it is a very difficult thing to do successfully; and the hopeful amateur is not likely to bring to his new acres the whole equipment necessary to wring both bliss and a living out of them. It is an extremely varied equip- ment, involving health, brains, indus- try, patience, and capital. And not the least of these is capital. You may buy your fifty abandoned acres for a song, but you cannot sing them into shape. Your investment has only begun. You must have stock, machines, fertiliz- ers (some of them cost $60 a ton) — ■ above all, labor. To put your fifty acres in commission, to get them into a con- dition of high "efficiency" (sacred word), will mean spending, say, thirty to fifty dollars an acre. Are you prepared to do this, oh, my brother? For some of these necessaries, it is true, you can get credit, but that is a poor way to begin for the amateur who has the professional game to learn. Crops do fail, or, succeeding, prove a drug in the market. The latter fact is among the bitterest disillusionings of the tyro. Diseases and vermin pests one is ready for; labor and forethought will take care of them. Even against frost and drought something may be done; they are in a way calculable, and a legitimate part of the game. But the market! Reader, did you ever look over an orchard heavy with peaches, or an acre of tomatoes in their prime, or a po- tato-field holding its dark green pride half through August, and realize that these gifts of a bountiful season are du- plicated in your neighbor's fields over the wall, and over a thousand walls be- yond; that the market is about to be glutted with perfection; and that your crops, twice as good as usual, it may be, will not fetch a dollar more than usual? This is one quaintness of the local mar- ket. Another is that it is never safe from sudden incursions by distant en- terprise. Six weeks of drought in June and July: the potato crop is poor here- abouts. You, with a field that knows how to hold its moisure, with liberal use of the most expensive fertilizers, with a clean but costly defeat of the po- tato-bug to your credit, with incessant cultivating, achieve a remarkable yield. In September potatoes are selling at a dollar a bushel, but you don't care to unload many at that price. They will bring a dollar and a half later. You store your thousand bushels, at some expense — and just as you are ready to part with them, along in March, at a fancy price, some genius sends down a thousand carloads of perfect tubers that have wintered in Maine — and you find your little crop worth half what it was in the autumn. It is unsafe for the beginner to go back to the land without a fair amount of capital to start him on his way and tide him over the bad moments. One factor in successful farming, perhaps the most indispensable of all, "help," is not to be obtained on credit. The man who gives you his ten or twelve hours of daily labor (in contrast with the fifteen or eighteen of the old-fash- ioned hired man, who is no more) must have his thirty or forty dollars a month, and must have it on time, or he will yield to his natural preference for "moving on." And he or his equiva- lent is indispensable. No man, wheth- er he works extensively or intensively, can get a decent living for himself and his family out of the land with his two hands. "But, my dear sir, I've grown all our garden stuff for years — winter vegeta- bles and all. Right out back. Done every stroke myself. Just fun for me." It is the voice of the suburban gardener, and it tells (perhaps) the truth. Here is one incontestable fact: any man of ordinary health and brains can grow his own vegetables in his own back- yard, and save a hundred or two a year, at the expense of his grocer — it is a pity we haven't the word greengrocer in America. He must do his own work, and if he is that kind of man he will find it "just fun." If he is not that kind of man, he had better let it alone. If you don't love making things grow, you may as well yield the grocer his 100 per cent, profit, and keep your hands
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April 23, 1914! The Nation 459 clean. You will either turn your garden over to a hireling and make a luxury of it, or neglect it, or make your paltry profit at undue cost. There is no more miserable spectacle to a true lover of the soil than a man who bates it and ■does not know enough to let it alone. But a great many people do have the instinct for making things grow. For them there is nothing to lose and much to gain in the vegetable garden. They are sure of their pleasure, and their profit, too. They are on the safe and sunny approach to the back-to-the-land trail. All they invest is their odd half- hours, all they make is "velvet." No wonder more and more people are learn- ing to give the instinct play, as is at- tested by the increasing number of pe- riodicals and handbooks addressed to home-gardeners as a class. This litera- ture, like that of the flower-garden, is of. two sorts, the sentimental and the practical. There are writers who are so intent upon conveying their deep emo- tion at the marvel of the new-born bean that they neglect to convey anything else about it. I have before me an amusing product of the intoxication which may be induced by contact with back-yard soil.* Each of the writer's somewhat infantile bits of instruction as to the planting and care of common vegetables is enlivened by a dash of verse, or worse. The literary note is struck in the motto of the title-page: 'Twas Byron who said "The ladies inspired the Muse." But to vegetables I'm wed, And dame nature choose. This is the second-best poem in the book; quite the best is the quatrain in- scribed to the lima bean. It is what Blake might have written if he had ever noticed a lima bean: This bean so shy, Under sunny sky, Loves the salt air, Cool nights and fair. Unluckily this seems to have been a fluke: the average of quality of these lyrics is more fairly suggested by We have Irish tubers and sweet, With river and valley Burbank, And raise more things to eat Than any State of our rank. Or, in a more philosophical vein, Work with the hands is physical, work with the brain divine. As we are animals in the likeness of God, We should labor with our hands and mind. Here, on the other hand.t is a book of the practical type. It is a compact but workmanlike and serviceable hand- book, without graces of style, but read- able, and with some good pictures. An uncommon feature is the listing of the •Thi Oargen Patch. By Edward DuRois Flint. New York: Joftn Lane Co. .".() cents net. *The llnmr v, getabU Qarien. I'.v Adolph Knilim. Kew Yin k . Orange Jndd Co, *l net. best varieties to be planted in the home garden; this should be of use to a great many amateurs who, for lack of experi- ence, have not known how to find their way to the most desirable seeds among the hundreds so enthusiastically com- mended in the catalogues. With the aid of such handbooks, free soil-analysis by the State, the best fer- tilizers and methods of cultivation, and a liking for work, the home gardener is sure of his reward. But let him heware of drawing a wrong inference from his success. Half his profit as a home- gardener is, as it were, negative. His basket of vegetables is worth a dollar to him because that is what he would have to pay the greengrocer for it. But he must eat his basketful to get his fine returns; and there is a limit to that sort of thing, even in the largest and greediest family of vegetarians. Every basketful beyond what he eats (unless he takes to peddling) must yield the dealer his 100 per cent, or more. A suc- cessful truck-farm must be very near its market, and involves a system of wholesale growing and retail market- ing. With plenty of capital and excep- tional skill and intelligence the thing can be made to pay; but it is neither here nor there in connection with the fifty worn-out and abandoned acres in Nowhere-in-particular which may stand for the lure of our hopeful commuter. Before he throws up his city job and chestily installs himself in his aban- doned farmhouse, on his own land, he should look himself coldly in the eye and ask himself these questions: Has this man enough thousands in store to back him in this new career? Can he pay for the initial repairs (repairs is the euphemistic term) on the farm- house; for the tools, stock, vehicles, ma- chines, fertilizers, labor, which are need- ed to put these acres in commission? Does he know what he is going to grow, and where he is going to sell it, and whether, when he has sold it, he will be richer or poorer? Some of these questions the author of "That Farm"* could have answered to his satisfaction, at the outset. Mr. Whit- tingham has written, or caused to be written, an instructive and often amus- ing account of his successful experience as a back-to-the-lander. The exhibit has little bearing upon the average case; for, in the first place, Mr. Whittingham has plenty of capital, in the second place he edged cautiously into the game in- stead of taking a sudden plunge, and in the third place he is evidently a man who could make a comfortable living selling shoelaces in Tahiti. He is the Yankee of fable, touchingly American, with a vein of sentiment which flows 'That Farm: Recount inj» the Adventure of ,1 Dry-Goods Merchant Who Went Rack to the Land By Harrison Whittingham. New York: tkmbleday. Page & Co. $1,30 Bet freely, out of business hours, and a strong sense of the whimsical, the clock around. He has a mission; listen to the call in the closing paragraph of his de- lightful book: When the music of the metropolis be- gins to grate on you, city brother,' and the glittering lights of the Avenue look like signals in a tunnel, do not think that hope has been scuttled, nor that life is a joke or a tragedy. Come where the sunshine will bleach despondency and cynicism out of your heart — come through the open gateway of That Farm into the promised land. When Mr. Whittingham approached the gateway of That Farm, he had an income of some $30,000 as head of a "going" dry-goods business, and "a bit laid by." He had been interested in the theory of farming, but his first tak- ing to the land was by way of settling "the annual annoyance of solving the summer problem." He found a 400- acre farm, with a dwelling house which had cost $50,000, and numerous tenant houses, barns, and outbuildings, includ- ing a mill. The owner was in difficul- ties, and after leasing the place for a year Mr. Whittingham pared down the "asking price" of $50,000 to some $20,000 and certain worthless securities. He gives a record of his first four years on the place. The first year, under an over- seer system, the profit was small — only a few hundred. Taking over the man- agement himself and applying his busi- ness energy and sense to the problem, the owner quickly increased the returns, his net profits for the fourth year be- ing over $22,000. This was done by sparing no necessary outlay and permit- ting no waste, by doing a retail deliv- ery business in milk and garden truck, by paying good wages and commissions to his head men, and by personal super- vision and attention to detail such as would be necessary in any other indus- try. He supplants the local milk mo- nopoly by establishing a more gener- ous monopoly of his own. It is all a fight, and a fight to be enjoyed by a man who is accustomed to win. Incidental- ly, he improves the standards of farm- ing in his neighborhood, and shares his good fortune wherever he can within his margin of profit. In short, he has been able not only to pick up a $100,000 farm for a fifth of its value, but to "swing" his purchase. We wonder if he really fancies that many of his broth- ers who are tired of the music of the metropolis and the lights of the avenue could have done anything like the same thing? He has made a fascinating story of it, at all events: his Harum-llke sketches of local types and incidents are worth having for their own sake. A book such as Mr. Whittingham, with his demand for the best methods, might have consulted in remodelling his farm building, is "Farm Structures,"
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460 rTlie Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2547 bj a professional "agricultural engl- aeer."* This is a work of severely tech- nical sort, covering the whole ground of building material, methods of construc- tion, beating, ventilating, and water supply, chiefly with reference to farm- ins on a large scale. Such books are of greater importance to the man who is thinking of going back to the land than libraries of sentiment. If he is worthy of the life at all, he is bound to get more out of it than a living: but his first bus- iness is to make sure that he does not get less. H. W. Boynton. COUNTRY HOMES AND GARDENS. A LITTLE book on gardening that com- bines a good many merits is "The Commuter's Garden" (Crowell; $1 net), ed- ited by W. B. Hayward. It is attractive as to page and binding, entertaining and sound in style, and it contains a large amount of information that will not mislead. De- signed altogether for the beginner and the perplexed soul who has not so much as begun, in about a score of brief chap- ters it touches upon the main questions that are sure to beset the novice, ques- tions relative to Planning the Garden, Your Lawn and its Care, Annuals for the Garden, How to Handle Bulbs, Vines that are Useful, The Gentle Art of Pruning. The concluding chap- ter, On Keeping a Cow, contains excel- lent advice. In general, the author con- fines himself to the simplest facts — which is the easier for him since he has the "dependable" views of the "old-fashioned gardener" — and avoids the danger of making his book a hybrid between a statement of first principles and a thor- ough gardening encyclopaedia. The ani- mated style in which it is written and which is seen a.t its best perhaps in the chapter on Useful Garden Tools, dis- tinguishes it pleasantly from many other books of its kind. The sixteen full-page half-tone illustrations are excellent. A LESS attractive and more compendi- ous book is Tarkington Baker's "Yard and Garden" (Bobbs-Merrill; $1.50 net), which has been issued in a revised edition. The paper is of a somewhat dismal gray that mars all the abundant illustrations and renders some of them worthless. The chapters, covering about the same ground as those of the foregoing book, contain explicit and unadorned informa- tion in considerable quantity, and there are very useful planting tables in the appendix which give the height, color, cultural suggestions, etc., of a number of bulbs and annuals. jj'THE Back Yard Farmer' (Chicago: 1 Forbes & Co.; $1), by J. Willard Bolte, is composed of a mass of miscel- laneous information, not so much for the gardener as for the person who keeps a cow and a horse and rabbits and bees and chickens. Owing to this extensive aim, no part receives as much attention as it deserves, and the book often sur- prises both by its inclusions and its ex- clusions. It is most detailed in its chap- ters on vegetables. *Farrn Structures. By K. K. J. T. Bkblaw. New York : The Mini :'m Co. $1.75 net. A BOOK full of garden wisdom, set down in a strong, simple style, is "Everyman's Garden Every Week," by Charles A. Selden (Dodd, Mead; $1.25). One need not be surprised at the style, tor Mr. Selden is an editor during the daytime, and, we presume, a farmer only before breakfast and after dinner. He bought a small farm a few years ago; and he has no reason to be ashamed of the flavor of State and Government agri- cultural bulletins that is detectable here and there in his book, for study of these bulletins, combined with considerable en- thusiasm and the help of a good hired man, made that farm a success and left Mr. Selden bursting with useful informa- tion. The most interesting thing about this book, the chapters of which were originally published in the Country Gen- tleman, is the arrangement. Save for a few introductory chapters and a few closing ones, each chapter confines it- self to one week of the gardening season, the weeks being taken chro- nologically. At the end is a brief cal- endar of suggestions month by month, and at the outset a clear table of con- tents. Two chapters touch on flowers, and one on making good lawns; but the others have to do with vegetable gar- dens— that includes the art and science of canning vegetables against the win- ter. There is an interesting chapter on raising mushrooms. While Mr. Selden's work is packed with interesting and val- uable information, and is provided with a good index to make that information accessible, it is obviously not intended to give a cyclopaedic answer to every ques- tion that may enter the puzzled horticul- turist's mind. Rather, it belongs to the realm of good reading. It is the sort ot book that George H. Ellwanger used to write, a book so delightfully and withal so earnestly done that it makes the read- er share much of the enthusiasm of the writer — and of Michaelangelo Frieri, the hired man. FOURTEEN years ago Prof. Liberty H. Bailey wrote the preface to the orig- inal "Cyclopaedia of American Horticul- ture." It was a monumental work in a field where there had been an almost absolute blank, and it was intended to gi/e a comprehensive view of the status of North American horticulture as it was at the close of the nineteenth cen- tury. Several editions have been printed since that time, but the changes have consisted largely of the correction of er- rors. The work has now been expanded from four volumes to six, of which the first has just appeared (Macmillan; $6), and Professor Bailey declares that it should be regarded as a distinct work, so great has been the extent of the revision. The first casual inspection reveals that many full-page pictures, including a number of colored plates, have been add- ed, and the number of drawings has been doubled; all of which is a decided improvement over the old equipment. A synopsis of the plant kingdom (78 pages), a key to the families and genera (69 pages), a glossary giving the English meanings of Latin names, and the usual glossary of botanical terms are other ad- ditions. IN the body of the work, the articles of lalista have been revised or re- written to keep up with the advance in horticulture and horticultural knowledge. The already excellent cultural advice has been still further improved; and many practical class-articles — on subjects such as Evergreens, Formal Gardening, Jap- anese Gardens, and Tree-Moving — have been added. Of course, no one who knows anything at all about the literature of gardening needs to be told that the Cy- clopaedia is unique so far as this country is concerned. It is the Bible and the Bri- tannica of the garden-folk, amateur and professional alike. And the remarkable thing is that, while it is fundamentally a work of reference, full of paralyzing Latin names and botanical descriptions, it also contains limitless quantities of good reading of the sort dear to the heart of the garden enthusiast. THE interpretation of tne rather cryp- tic title of Frances Duncan's "My Garden Doctor" (Doubleday, Page; $1 net), is that gardening is a cure for nerv- ous prostration. Two women, one of whom is ill, the other a nurse, retire to an old farmhouse on the side of a New Hampshire mountain, and live near to Nature. They also live next to a poetiz- ing painter person. The cure, the depar- ture for town, and the realization that the painter is necessary to existence all- come together. It is rather a mountain idyll than a gardening handbook, pleas- ant in style and excellent reading. To real garden -lovers, such passages as this will give joy: "Cutworms," she said — "cutworms; bit the stems right off." "But what can you do for them?" "Cuss," responded Mrs. Tarbox, briefly. "That's what folks does mostly." ONE of an extended series of concise and useful manuals, each of which aims to tell the builder of a country home how to render that home both a thing of beauty and a practical success, is "Mak- ing a Garden of Small Fruits," by F. F. Rockwell (McBride, Nast; 50 cents net). The author gives detailed in- structions as to the planting, culti- vating, pruning, and spraying of the cane fruits, bush fruits, strawber- ries, and grapes. One chapter treats of the culture of dwarf and trained fruits with remarks on the respective merits of each. There are two valuable tables, one giving a list of fruits that the home garden should furnish, with details as to the distance necessary between the plants, the number it is wise to set out, the varieties, and the price of each. The second table covers the subject of spray- ing fruits of trees as well as the small varieties, and in its completeness of de- tail and its concise form may prove a pocket guide to victory over the legion of insects and diseases that make the amateur fruit-grower's life a burden. Tl I E value of "Educational School Gar- dening and Handwork," by G. W. S. Brewer (Cambridge: University Press), lies chiefly in the spirit in which Its au- thor approaches his subject. Not the Im- mediate making of well-kept gardens, but the ultimate making of well-rounded men and women is the result desired from the training that he advocutea. A
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April 23, 1914I Tne Nation 4:61 line quoted at the opening of chapter iii is the keynote of the author's purpose: "In the 'I made this' or 'I made that' is the making of 1.' " The reader cannot but appreciate the good fortune of the b youngsters who were the garden pupils of so excellent a teacher. There is much of value in this unpretentious little English handbook for those who have to do with garden craft in American public schools. FARMING AND RURAL LIFE. HOW to increase our harvests so as to meet the needs of our rapidly growing population is the problem dis- cussed in "Intensive Farming" (Outing Publishing Co.; 70 cents net), by L. C. Corbett. The book itself is an example of its own theories, inasmuch as in a space of but little over one hun- niall pages of large type it tells a great deal about vegetable and fruit growing in general, and also much about forced special crops. In intensive writing the author covers the raising for market of onions, celery, fruits (small and large), citrus fruits, the breeding of plants, the growing of seeds, nursery growing, irri- j .it inn, the breeding of thoroughbred ani- mals, the economics of intensive indus- tries, and the cropping system as a unit. The material is presented entirely from the commercial and economic standpoint, and includes some interest- ing, even remarkable, sets of figures rela- tive to investments and returns; also several "labor charts" whose object is to show "that if it were possible to have labor charts for each of the standard crops grown in any crop zone it would be possible to take into consideration, in making up a crop rotation, not only the returns from the crop in forage and grain, the benefit to be derived from the maintenance of soil fertility, but also the economic features of crop production bearing upon the labor supply. The la- bor problem on the farm involves the economical distribution of labor, and as such becomes a vital factor in the crop rotation. Crop rotation assumes a new aspect when labor distribution is added to crop returns and the maintenance of pro- duction. The ideal farm system is one which permits the economic use of a constant labor supply, and until such a system is worked out the labor problem of the farm will continue to exist." A THOROUGH study of available ag- ricultural dressings, including ani- mal manures, is found in Prof. Homer J. Wheeler's "Manures and Fertilizers" (Macmillan: Rural Text-Book Series), a new volume designed for agricultural high schools and colleges. Its interest is scientific rather than practical and pop- ular. Facts about fertilizers, always based on chemical analysis, are freely given, but their special action must be inferred. The subjects of dressings for special crops, borne mixing, green ma- nuring, and methods of curing barnyard manure, are almost entirely omitted. For these reasons the book will not take the place of Voorhees's "Fertilizers" as a popular handbook; it will, however, prove valuable for the class-room and for refer- ence. Some excellent features are the studies of the agricultural value of sea- weeds, and of lime in many forms. The Introduction of calcium nitrate and cal- cium cyanamid, noted in these col- umns some four years ago, is here shown to be proceeding rapidly, though all the difficulties of manufacture and han- dling are not yet overcome. Such fer- tilizers, electrically made from the nitro- gen of the air, relieve us of the prophe- sied danger of a nitrogen famine. IN the same series, "The Corn Crops," by E. C. Montgomery, is a similarly scientific study of maize in its various forms. This book will prove more gen- erally useful than the preceding in giv- ing directions for the preparation of the land and for the cultivating and har- vesting of the crop. Sweet corn, so often ignored in treatises on corn, has here its proper place. Yet the amateur will dis- cover that the live interest of corn culture has somehow slipped away in Prof. Mont- gomery's handling of the subject, even Jerry Moore, the Southern boy, with his wonderful acre of corn, achieving but a place in a statistical table. ON the other hand, "Farm Arithme- tic," by Profs. C. W. Burkett and K. D. Swartzel (Orange Judd Company), is a book ingeniously planned to intro- duce to country children many facts of farm life which the ordinary arithme- tic ignores in favor of theoretical study. The general intention of this book is to make arithmetic a living instead of a dead subject, not only by bringing it near to every-day experience, but also by making that experience itself more vital. The illustrations, often remotely connected with mathematics, are clever- ly chosen to stimulate interest. The more important subjects of study are plant and animal feeding, profits from crops and animal husbandry, the cost of la- bor and building, and the benefits of good roads, drainage, spraying, and farm improvements. The problems are ar- ranged to bring out the advantage of scientific planning based on knowledge of facts. Only the chapter on Farm Ac- counting seems slight and inadequate. Modern farm accounting (for a good sys- tem see the Massachusetts Crop Report for August, 1913), with its careful classi- fication and close study of every depart- ment of expense, is the proper climax to such a book as this, and much more of the pupil's attention should be directed to it. Apart from this evident lack, which we hope to see remedied in a fu- ture edition, few recent textbooks seem better planned to make for a country child the dry facts of farming not mere- ly less repellent, but even attractive. AT the outset of her book, "Pigeon Raising" (Outing Publishing Co.), Miss Alice MacLeod shows that a real fondness for the birds and an interest in the welfare of each one is essential to success in the raising of squab. In the first chapter there is warning against inadequate housing, poor situation, and inferior stock. Then follow simple and clear-cut rules, the observance of which should insure many hatches and healthy birds. A diagram is given of the model pigeon establishment, with directions how to build it and the nests. The book also names the best breeds for mating, if mar- ket birds are desired, and tells which are most satisfactory for improving the stock. The method of feeding that is most like- ly to promote the health of the flock and its breeding is carefully explained. The writer finds preparing and marketing comparatively simple matters, and tells how a good trade may be acquired and kept by proper methods of killing and shipping. For one who is seriously in- terested in pigeon raising as a business, the concise advice in Miss MacLeod's book will be of practical value. IN the introduction to his book, "Practical Tree Repair" (McBride, Nast; $2 net), which he describes as "a pioneer in its field," Mr. Elbert Peets states explicit- ly that the volume deals "with one divi- sion of the science of arboriculture. It is devoted entirely to the prevention and re- pair of physical injuries to the frame- work of the tree." To the unscientific reader whose knowledge of arboriculture is limited to "Woodman, spare," 250-odd pages devoted entirely to the theme men- tioned may not sound attractive, but the fact is that "Practical Tree Repair" has not a dull page in it, even for the lay- man. It is a "conservation" propaganda worth reading and heeding. The tree's structure and manner of growth, its wounds and their treatment, the value and function of filling trees, and many other matters are clearly discussed. The author has also some straightforward criticisms on so-called "tree-surgery" and "tree surgeons," and with equal frank- ness does not hesitate to name the manu- facturers of products that he has tested and found valuable. A TIMELY treatise on the problem of rural recreation written by an au- thority whose expert knowledge and prac- tical training have made him master of the subject is "Play and Recreation for the Open Country," by Henry S. Curtis (Ginn & Co.; $1.16 net). There are suggestions as to ways and means of recreation in the home, the rural school, and the country communi- ty. The last five chapters deal es- pecially with the subject of the rural social centre. The book should be help- ful to mothers and teachers in farm dis- tricts, and also to the public-spirited mem- bers of rural communities who are work- ing through the grange or the church, or through extension classes or farmers' In- stitutes, to raise the social standard of their locality. An unfortunate dulness of treatment is the one marring feature. EDUCATIONAL SCHOOL GARDENING. ONE of the chief reasons for the economic pressure during the last few years is the fact that be- tween 1899 and 1909 agricultural pro- duction in the United States increased only 10 per cent., while the population increased 21 per cent., that the yield of wheat increased 3.8 per cent, of orchard fruits 1.8 per cent., and the production of corn decreased 4.3 per cent. In view of this, it is interesting to find Dr. Eggleston, president of the Virginia Ag- ricultural College, and Mr. Robert Bruere, of the University of Chicago, in their joint book, "Work of the Rural School" ^9
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4:32 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2547 Harper; $1), giving: the present high cost of necessities as the reason why the public is turning- to rural schools as the most Important instrument to-day in the control of the food supply. THE book deals with the essential sub- jects of buildings, sanitation, central- ization of schools, transportation, plans of instruction, amusements, and agricul- ture. The .great need for development in our rural communities is forcibly pointed out, and it is made plain that "the only effective way in which the rapidly grow- ing science of cultivation, farm manage- ment, and marketing can be brought to bear upon agriculture is through the public schools." When the crudeness of Inherited agricultural methods and the lack of knowledge among farmers are tak- en into consideration, the opportunities of the rural school-teacher seem momen- tous indeed; for too often the task of pi'oper preparation for effective citizen- ship is shifted from the home to the school, leaving the teacher to inculcate ispel of better farming- and the economic value of efficient production. SEVERAL cases are cited where the ru- ral school maintains a farm as an ob- ject-lesson for the surrounding jommuni- ty, and where new methods of ploughing, planting, and cultivating hr \ e been in- troduced. These experimei.t: in due course have encouraged project work at home, and with instructive results. One boy kept twenty-six chickens, using mod- «rn methods, and in six months showed his astonished father a net profit of $27. Another lad insisted upon feeding his father's cows with a balanced ration from November to June; and, by keeping strict account, found that the best cow netted a profit of $54, and the poorest a loss of ?2.39, much to the amazement of the in- credulous parent. Still another boy, be- coming- ambitious after his experience in the school garden, raised tomatoes, cel- ery, and cabbage plants in a hot-bed frame, and at the end of the season was able to show his father a net profit of $35. In this comprehensive and con- structive book rarious phases of the building-up, not only of the rural school, but of the rural community at large, are set forth in discriminating fashion. CA. STEBBINS'S book on the "Prin- • ciples of Agriculture through the School and Home Garden" (Macmillan; $1) is adapted for use in the country or in the larger centres of population, and for children from eleven to fifteen years of age. Many older children, however, whether in school or out, will find much of interest and enlightenment in this lit- tle volume, winch covers a wide rantje of subjects, including the beautifying of ri ultural clubs, con- 1 jural home:;, public heal! b and stock, etc. Each chapter closes with a list it questions and exer- cises, bringing out the value of what has gone before. Firs who have gone through the earlier grades in our rural schools "Soils and Crops," by T. l'\ Hunt and C. W. Burk« 11 (Orange Judd Co., fl.50), v.iii be found well filled to prepare them for the agricultural college courses, or for practical work al home on the farm. The authors are well-known writers on agricultural subjects, and this book is ii 'eresting and useful. The lessons, for- ty eight in number, carry the student from the food requirements of plants through various important steps to the kind of crops suited to various climatic conditions. At the end of every thred chapters a number of practical examples are given, from which the teacher may select at discretion. COUNTRY ARCHITECTURE. unUILDING by a Builder" (Double- D day, Page; $1.20 net), by Mr. Ben- jamin A. Howes, a well-known construct- ing engineer and consultant, is a work that will appeal to a very wide audience; for its author speaks with the authority given by broad experience and without a trace of bias in relation to matters that must interest all who are concerned with building operations, whether as owners of dwellings email or large, or as respon- sible members of building committees. The book is addressed primarily to the owner and deals largely with problems which he, or she, alone can meet; but the honest builder will be glad to have the public made acquainted with the pit- falls that beset him, and the architect will surely be grateful for the sympa- thetic picture given of the difficulties he is compelled to overcome. The author also does good service to owners, as well as to architects, by calling at- tention in detail to the misleading means adopted by manufacturers of special building materials to ' push their wares into use by the small investor who can ill afford the loss in- evitably resulting from inferiority of construction. He makes clear the differ- ences between sound and unsound meth- ods, and deals seriously with the con- ditions which at times make the "un- burnable house" a profitable and at other times an unprofitable investment. Apart from the expression of some rather op- timistic views as to methods of "floor heating," the author seems to suggest no modes of construction that are not proved to be of value by long experience. THE Park Department of a city that makes unlimited appropriations will find "The Practical Book of Garden Ar- chitecture" (Lippincott; $5 net), by Mrs. Phebe Westcott Humphreys, much more practical than will the individual owner. The writer explains that her prepara- tion for the authorship of the volume was obtained in college and in investi- gating the estates of other people. And then is an easy-going- optimism aboul lakes for gardens and outdoor swimming pools for the ordinary, every-day sort of place in the country that suggests that Mrs. Humphreys has no1 supple- arlj training by ma ing a country plat i of hei own Evei thing is on the grand scale. The back- stop of the tennis court is a combina- tion ica-room and pergola with Floren- tine pottery. To give the propel h to the wild or woods garden a \ oxen, attached to an old-fashioned 1 art, are recommended as almost essential Xhe oxen are shown In one of the lllus- Of the book Hanked l>> nate urn, no doubt imported. Bird houses become elaborate, and the dear old con- traption of boards that every boy used to build in the apple tree after reading his "Swiss Family Robinson" is now a two- story structure, with almost everything in it except a ballroom, according to this recent "practical guide." Yet it is an at- tractive book, thanks very largely to the hundred or more good photographs taken by the author's "husband-chum." Books and Men LITERARY FISTICUFFS. "From Samuel Johnson to George Ber- nard Shaw literary England has had a kindness for the pugilist." The sentence is from Clement K. Snorter's new life of Borrow, "George Borrow and His Circle." The author goes on to say that Borrow carried his enthusiasm further than any, and that no account of him which concentrates attention upon his accomplishment as a distributer of Bibles and ignores his delight in fisticuffs has any grasp of the real man who wrote "Lavengro." "In- deed, it may be said . . . that Bor- row entered upon Bible distribution in the spirit of a pugilist rather than that of an evangelist." Borrow's father was a fighter, and in- sisted that in open combat he beat the champion of the day, "Big Ben Brain." One of his son's semi-fictitious books de- clares that the old man died with Brain's name on his lips. Borrow himself' pre- tends to have put on the gloves with John Thurtell, the notorious murderer of Weare. And finally, of course, there are his accounts of his own fights with the Flaming Tinman and with Petulen- gro. The battle with the Tinman is some- times called the greatest fist-fight in English literature. I have heard it rec- ommended as such, and I have just re- read it to see if my first opinion had changed. It still seems a rather tame affair. Borrow admitted that his op- ponent half put himself out by hit- ting the tree, and this takes a good deal of spirit out of the fight. The pres- ence of Isopel Berners does much to redeem the chapter, however — just as the presence of a woman at another fight, about which I am going to speak, added piquancy to the scene in the ring. Bernard Shaw's contribution to the literature of pugilism is "Cashel By- ron's Profession." If it were not for the plays it would seldom be read to- day— perhaps it would never have been republished. Thai would have b( en ■ lor it is an entertaining story, though we see the pugilist mostly "In Citizen's Clothes," Some of his 1'riendn pent, it to Stevenson when be was at
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April 23, 1914] The ISTation 463 Saranac in 1887 or 1888. "It is all mad, mad and deliriously delightful," he writes. And again: "It is horrid fun. All I ask is more of it. Thank you for the pleasure you gave us, and tell me more of the inimitable author. (I say, Archer, my God, what women!)" Meredith's excursion into the "noble art" occurs in "The Amazing Marriage." Sir Conan Doyle has written one read- able book, "Rodney Stone," and a num- ber of short stories, including an excel- lent one called "The Croxley Master," all dealing with the ring. Fights in the schoolboy books are numerous, but they do not count as stories of pugilism. Jack London has "The Abysmal Brute," and he touches upon the subject in other books. There are also, to be sure, the histories of real battles — Henry Downes Miles's "Pugilistica" and the volumes of "Boxiana" and "Fistiana." These are but chronicles, the dry bones from which living literature might be made. They are comparable with the "Newgate Calendar," a work, by the way, which Borrow said taught him to write genuine English. If I were bound for that mysterious desert island whose inhabitant is al- ways restricted to one book, and if that one, for some reason, had to contain a prize-fight, I would leave all these, and plump for "The Virgin in Judgment," by Eden Phillpotts. There may be bet- ter fights than that fought in the bull- ring of Sheepstor by David Bowden and Bartley Crocker. It would be a pleasure to know about them. This one has all the elements which make such an en- counter of absorbing interest. The requirements are, first, that the reader should have some knowledge about, and regard for, both the princi- pals; and, secondly, that it should be a real Marquis of Queensberry affair — not a mere wayside rough-and-tumble. The latter may be amusing, as a score of novelists have proved, but unless very brief they put too great a strain upon our credulity. The average man, after he has passed his twelfth year, does not engage in casual fights that rise above the level of a passing "scrap." Almost the only realistic description of such an encounter, one that shows how ridic- ulous two gentlemen may look when they resort to blows, unexpectedly, is In a novel by Anthony Hope — either "Tristram of Blent" or "Quisante." The fight in Mr. Phillpotts's novel lives up to the requirements. David and Bartley are the chief male characters of the book. One is slow, solemn, dependa- ble; the other quicker and wittier, a better friend to others than to himself. They are excellent foils, without being artificially contrasted. Bartley has seri- ously offended David Bowden in a num- ber of ways — and at last, under circum- stances of considerable temptation, by kissing Rhoda Bowden, his sister. She is the virgin who sits in judgment, not only by acting as David's second during the fight, but at a later period and in more serious events. Her temperament, which is of a polar frigidity, makes common humanity incomprehensible to her, and brings about the final tragedy of the novel. These are the principals, and the cause of the fight. Both the men are, of course, amateurs, but they are a pair of vigorous young Devonshire men, and they go into training and practice for a number of weeks. The fight is held with a most scrupulous regard for all the rules of the prize ring, for it is under the charge, not only of the local publican, an ex-pugilist, but also of his friend and visitor, "Frosty-face Fogo." Mr. Fogo, a real personage, flits through other novels than this. He was the "Poet-Laureet of the Prize Ring," and was at every English ring-side halt a century ago — for the time of the novel is the 1860's. He assumes command of the battle, and it is due to his Satanic cunning that the clergyman of the par- ish and the police are balked in their attempt to break up the fight. He at- tends church on the preceding Sunday and hears the vicar announce his deter- mination to save the village from dis- grace. During the sermon the vicar gives his hearers a picture of a prize- fight, for it appears that he had wit- nessed one in his degenerate Oxford days. "One of the unhappy creatures who marred God's own image on that occa- sion was called Peter Crawley and known to his friends by the vulgar sobriquet of 'Young Rump Steak,' " said the clergyman, glaring at the congrega- tion as though daring them to smile. Mr. Fogo nodded: he remembered the fight. But he announces to the vicar that he has been won over. Such burn- ing words he has not heard since he "sat under a bishop in St. Paul's." He has seen a light; he will betray the ras- cals to the forces of law and order. So, early on the morning of the great day, he leads the clergyman and the consta- ble to a distant part of the moor, to watch a veritable ring, staked out and roped off, and to await the coming of the combatants and the spectators at eleven o'clock. Then he slips back to the village, and there, at nine o'clock, "on this winter morning, one of the last authenticated prize-fights ever fought in England was duly conducted with all right ritual, pomp, and circumstance, under direction of that high priest and poet of the P. R., 'Frosty-face' Fogo." All of which is very wrong and la- mentable, making capital reading, as you have found — or may find — by look- ing at the story. Ehmim) Lesteb Pkabsoh. Poetry "LE BYRON DE NOS JOURS." Thine was the gift, Apollo — or the curse — Of dream too golden for this greenback age. So — meant like Milton or the Tuscan sage To map anew for men God's universe — He balks — ah, pity!— at the empty purse, And stoops his talent to the times' sure wage: Gushes erotic slime; slops o'er the stage: Rhymes belles and Jezebels — God knows which worse; Or on a spavined Pegasus of prose — As mealy-mouthed as good Sir Hudi- bras's — Tilts at sex-bogies; or his trumpet blows, Astolfo-like, to bleed the monied classes; Or else, uncased, in gentler, uplift pose, Indites eugenic sermons for the masses. Apollo, thine the ass is. Oh, call unto thyself thy braying tribe, Or decommercialize again the scribe! Jefferson B. Fletcher. News for Bibliophiles. EARLY AMERICAN PROLOGUES AND EPILOGUES. An article printed in this column about a year ago (Vol. XCVI, p. 201) discussed several early American theatres, partic- ularly those of Charleston. Since writ- ing that article I have found some inter- esting data concerning the Charleston theatres in contemporary local news- papers. Limitations of space prevent the publication here of all this material, but it may be worth while to reprint some prologues and epilogues specially written for the Charleston performances. These poems deserve recognition in view of the claim made for the prologues to "The Merchant of Venice," spoken at Williamsburg in 1752, as "the first com- position written for and addressed to an American audience that was preserved" (Seilhamer, "History of the An Theatre," I, 41; cf. Tyler, "Williamsburg, the Old Colonial Capital," p. 229). Cer- tain lines from several Charleston pro- logues and epilogues are quoted, and, as I believe, slightly mialnterpn Dr. Cook's recent volume, "Literary In- fluences in Colonial Newspapers, 1704- 1750" (pp. 245-249); but in their entirety they have not to my knowled printed.* The earliest of these is taken from • Hi Carolina ■ I 'ebruary 8, 1734-5, and reads: Prologue spoken to the ORPHAN, itp- ; 1 ktarj (.:. Crawford's "1 ■ n : I.if i I.-. B : of which In given a modernized version of the first , But at la eral ottaen contain errori,
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4=34= The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2547 on it's being play'd at Charlestown, on Tuesday the 24th of Jan., 1734-5. When first Columbus toueh'd tills distant Shore. And vainly hop'd his Pearl and Dangers o'er, One boundless Wilderness in view appear'd ! No Champaln Plains or rising Cities chear'd Ills wearied Eye. — Monsters unknown travers'd the hideous Waste, And Men more Savage than the Beasts they chae'd. Bnt mark ! how soon those gloomy Prospects clear. And the new World's late horrors disappear. The Boll obedient to the industrious swains With happy Harvests crowns their honest Tains, And Peace and Plenty triumph o'er the Plains. What various Products float on every Tide? What numerous Navys In our Harbours ride? Tillage and Trade conjoin their Friendly Aid, T' enrich the thriving Boy and lovely Maid. Hispania, it's true, her precious Mines engross'd, And bore her shining Entrails to its Coast. Britannia more humane supplys her wants, The Brittish sense and Brittish Beauty plants. The Aged Sire beholds with sweet Surprize In foreign Climes a numerous Offspring rize, Sense, Virtue, worth, and Honour stand confest, In each brave Male, his prosp'rous hands have blest. While the Admiring Eye improv'd may trace The Mother's Charms in each cbast Virgin's Face. we presume to usher in those Arts Which oft have warm'd the best and bravest Hearts. Faints [sic] our endeavours, rude are our Essays ; We strive to please, but can't pretend at praise; Forgiving Smiles o'erpay the grateful Task; They're all we hope and all we humbly ;:sk. The spirit of these lines clearly im- plies that this performance of "The Or- phan" would "usher in" the dramatic art to Charleston, if not to America. In the absence of contrary evidence they justify us, I think, in looking upon Otway's trag- edy as the first drama offered to the Charleston public. While the author's name is not disclosed, the words "our Harbours" point to American author- ship. However that may be, these verses constitute for America the first "occa- sional prologue" now extant. In the same number of the Gazette from which these lines are taken ap- pears a second prologue to "The Orphan," "acted at Charleston, Febr. 7, 1734-5," which runs: Encouraged by your Smiles again we dare Approach the good, the wise, the great, the fair, Each gentle Look, each lovely Face betrays Kindness, beyond our Impotence to please, Who boast th' Intent alone. — But if to-night, While tender Pity forms severe Delight, Of real Spleen and formal Wisdom full Some count it Virtue to be stiff and dull, Much may be said in spight of the severe, For us who dare to speak, and you to hear. The wisest Mortal e'er beheld the Day Confess'd a Season to unbend and play. To our attempts such Wisdom must be kind, Where the Amusement tends to form the Mind ; For Worth distress'd the pitying Tear to drain, And challenge Grief from Woes which others feign. Besides, if Pleasures oft repeated cloy, And of Itself Variety's a Joy, I really can't discern th' Important 111, Tho' It relieve Backgammon or Quadrille ; Or when this Muse has wept, the comic Style Laughs off our Heats and Politicks a while: For spight of the Objections some produce, Ev'n merry Plays may have their serious Use: And if they're treated hard, their Fate Is such, 'Tis where they're little known, or — dreaded much. No carklng Miser of his Teeth afraid, His shilling sinks to see the Miser play'd; No wlther'd Fool to Bloom and Beauty wed, Admires the picture of his branching Bead : And If important Mortals, cramm'd with Thought, Condemn what Addison and Bhalcespear wrote. Fond of our Peace, averse to all Disputes, We straight submitt and ask — the Price of Boots, The good and wise may say "Abuse has been" ; But from th' Abuse ne'er argue to the Thing: Oft at the Tree do future Culprits spring, And Thefts Increase the more while Felons swing. Must Convicts therefore out of Goal [sic] be kick'd, And Bobbers 'scape lest Pockets should be plck'd? But howsoe'ro we fail, — these tender Scenes nave mov'd the fairest Nymphs and bravest Swains; The fair and brave shall here the scene persue, Pathetic, simple, and to many new. We hope your Favour much, yet scarcely f"ar. That one departs for what's recited here. With greater Risque the bitter Pangs to prove Of wild Desire or ill-conducted Love. The Gazette's heading to this prologue gives the date of the performance as February 7, 1734-5. There is reason to believe that the correct date is February 4, inasmuch as the play had been adver- tised for "Tuesday the 4th Inst." in the Gazette of January 25. February the fourth of that year fell on Tuesday, and it seems probable that the play was act- ed earlier in the week than Friday when we note that the prologue came out in Saturday's paper. The advertisement also announces that with "The Orphan" will be given "a new Pantomime Enter- tainment" of Harlequin and Scaramouch. In the South Carolina Gazette for Feb- ruary 22 of the same year is given an "Epilogue to the Orphan, spoken after the entertainment" — apparently allud- ing to the "pantomimic entertainment" mentioned in the advertisement for the evening of February 4. The lines fol- low: By various Arts we thus attempt to please, And your Delight persue by different Ways; Nor from our numerous Imports judge it fit To banish Pleasure and prohibit Wit. But while from Britain's wealthy Cities flow Much for Necessity and much for Show, From the old World in Miniature we shew Her choicest Pleasures to regale the new. Four your Delight and Use has Otway wrote, And pow'rful Music tunes her warbling Throat, While other Objects, entertain the Sight And we, you know, can die for your Delight. Warm'd with th' Applause your Favour now be- stows, It may inspire the Merit you suppose; If haply your contlnu'd Smiles produce The humble Faurick suited to the Use. Then from the doubling Arch the Notes shall bound, And Vaults responsive eccho to the sound : Thence from their Graves pale Ghosts arising slow Shall clear the injur'd and the guilty show. From nobler Themes 6hall loftier Scenes appear, And Cuto urge what Senators may hear; Or Congreve's Drama shake the laughing Dome, With Wit unmatch'd by Athens or by Rome. The little Term that Heaven to Mortals spares, Is daily clouded with prolonging Cares; Nor real Virtue blames the pleasing Strife. To blend Amusement with the Shades of Life; Wise, innocent, serene, she smiles at Ease, Nor hanging Witches, nor adjuring Plays. Dr. Cook is undoubtedly right in see- ing a slap at the New England Puritans in the last line, but that other lines Im- ply the frequent presentation in Charles- ton of "Hamlet," "Cato," and Con- greve's plays is an assertion not beyond cavil. Rather do they promise that such dramas will be offered, provided the Charleston patronage justifies the ven- ture. In time the promise was fulfilled. "The Orphan" seems to have retain- ed a strong hold on the affections of Charleston theatre-goers, for five times, at least, it was acted, and repeated al- most every season of which we have record. Dryden's "Spanish Friar" was acted March 25, 1735, "for the Benefit of Monimia," evidently the actress who played the title r61e in "The Orphan." The same actress in the beginning of 1736, when the first permanent theatre was opened in Charleston, took the part of Silvia in Farquhar's comedy "The Recruiting Officer." This fact is shown by an epilogue, which has been recently found by my colleague, Prof. E. H. Griffith, in the London Gentleman's Mag- azine, Vol. VI (1736), p. 288. The title runs: "EPILOGUE to the Recruiting Officer, written by THOMAS DALE, M.D., and spoken by Silvia in Man's Cloaths, at the Opening of the New Theatre, in Charles-Town in South Carolina, in 1734."* The author, Thomas Dale, was a Charlestonian, assistant justice of the province, and afterwards a member of the upper house in the South Carolina Assembly. He has hitherto been known to fame chiefly as the father of a more distinguished physician of the same name, whose life is related in the "Dic- tionary of National Biography." One may at least guess that Dale is the author of all these prologues and epilogues. Internal evidence points slightly in that direction. But at any rate, he deserves notice as one of the earliest American writers of verse. Robert Adger Law. Correspondence LIBRARY OF THE SURGEON-GENER- AL'S OFFICE. TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sik: I desire to direct your attention, and that of your readers, to what threat- ens to become a national calamity. As is well known to those versed in scientific matters, the Surgeon-General of the United States Army has had under his control a library commonly known as "The Library of the Surgeon-General's Office." This library is in many regards unique; its value is beyond cavil, its importance to scientific medicins is im- perative, its loss or abrogation would be an unspeakable calamity. The eminence to which it has attained is largely due to its control and detailed management by properly equipped scientists. It is highly improbable, if not actually im- possible, that such eminence could have been attained and maintained under a less rigid control. Through the Index Catalogue it renders a service to scien- tific medicine that is not paralleled by any other publication. By generous pro- vision of those in authority its accumu- lated literature is made readily accessi- ble to those in search of detailed knowl- edge. The existence of this library Is a priceless national asset. The autonomy of the Library of the Surgeon-General's Office Is threatened with early obliteration; and with tho an- cillary loss of scientific management, Its high international value and Its useful- ness to scientific medicine will doubtless •Evidently a mistake for 1735-0. Advertisements i„ the Gatette show dearly thai the New Theatre was opened with "The Recruiting Officer" OB February 12, 1788-fl. This epilogue was printed In the Gtntltman't Magazine for May, 1730.
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April 23, 1914] The Nation 4=Gd suffer irreparably. This threatened peril is found i" lie within the provisions of the Army Appropriation bill, which cmii mm awaits final action; by which the library is to be transferred from the control of the Surgeon-General and ! with the Congressional Library. The gravity of the situation warranted the St Louis Medical Society in adopting unanimously the following protest at its last meeting, on April 4, and in transmit- ting by wire a copy of said protest to each of the Missouri Representatives in Congress: The St. Louis Medical Society has learned with grave concern that the Army Appropriation bill just passed by nate of the United States con- tains a provision whereby the Surgeon- General's Library is to be transferred to, and become a part of, the Library of Congress. To make the largest, best-equipped, and best-conducted medical library in the world, which through the Index Catalogue furnishes bibliographical data for all the physicians, medical educational institu- tions, and scientific medical associations, and which is accessible to the medical men of all sections of this country, a subordinate department of a general li- brary is in the opinion of this Society a reactionary and unwise policy which would lower the scientific standing of the United States in the eyes of the civilized world. To rob the magnificent Surgeon-General's Library of its autono- my would prevent it from continuing its splendid work which can be done only if the library is in charge of carefully chosen scientific medical men; it would entail additional and unnecessary expense upon the people, and the usefulness of the library would be seriously impaired. The Secretary of this Society is hereby instructed to convey this expression of our disapproval of the proposed transfer to the Missouri members of the House of Representatives with the respectful request that they make every endeavor to prevent this unjustifiable and destruc- tive legislation. I request that you grant sufficient space in the Nation for this letter and the protest above noted, in the hope that scientists generally, but especially influ- ential bodies of medical men, will unite in a strong and prompt protest to avert, if may be, an issue which is but little short of a national crime. Norville Wallace Sharpe. St. Louis. April 13. THE LATE COLONEL HALLOWELL. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: The death of Col. Norwood Pen- rose Hallowell removes almost the last of the distinguished Massachusetts offi- cers of colored troops during the Civil War, and is a fresh reminder how rap- idly the remainder of the "Grand Army" is dwindling away. Of all who took ser- vice for the Union, none are entitled to greater credit than the men who vol- unteered with Robert Gould Shaw, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and the two Hallowells, for no one knew whether the colored troops would fight or not, and the Confederates early announced that there would be no quarter for the officers of "nigger regiments." As Col. Higginson put it, these men went to war "with halters around their necks," and the experiences of the colored sol- diers taken prisoners at Fort Wagner showed that this was not exaggerated. The South could not believe that the officers of these untried organizations were men of family, breeding, and even of scholarship, as in Col. Higginson's case. Yet this was the fact in many instances; the opportunity to ally them- selves with this new venture, which was really the first Government recognition of negro manhood, made an irresistible appeal to many young Harvard men, and even to a son of the non-resistant Gar- rison. All in all, no finer type of young- American manhood ever served our country in peace or war; Col. Shaw typifies it because of his shining per- sonality and his tragic death. But Nor- wood Hallowell and his brother Edward, who succeeded Shaw in the Fifty-fourth, and succumbed soon after the war to the results of his wounds and exposure, were of as fine clay. Curiously enough, in much Southern writing of the war the idea still prevails that all the Northern troops were merce- naries from Europe or the slums of the cities. Every Southern officer appears in the Southern novels of the strife as the personification of chivalry and every Yankee officer as a pot-house politician or a mannerless boor. There is still no realization of the fact that the best blood of the North was poured out free- ly, that the aristocratic families of New York and New England gave as readily of their sons as any in Southern States. Of this the death of Col. Hallowell is a proper reminder, just as it recalls his lifelong devotion to Harvard College and his helpful influence upon its athletics and the athletes in whom he became so deeply interested through the prowess of sons and nephews. G New York, April 18. "RELIGION WITH A PUNCH." To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: I write to commend most heartily your trenchant editorial entitled "Re- ligion with a Punch." As you so well said, "Noise and numbers! There it is, the old fallacy made to excuse such a treatment of religion as really tears up its deepest roots." And that ministers and other intelligent Christians can be caught in this fallacy seems well nigh incredible. It would be refreshing to read some- thing like this in the regular church papers. But the "noise and numbers" captivate us in religion as in other ac- tivities. You will be glad to know that the Cleveland churches recently have twice declined to have a Billy Sunday cam- paign in their midst. They feel just as you have written, that while a few might possibly be reformed, untold harm would come from the coarse and vulgar han- dling of holy things which is Sunday's chief asset. I wish your editorial might have a wide reading. It would stiffen the spine of many ministers who in heart loathe Sunday's methods, but because of pres- sure are obliged to invent apologies for him. E. C. Youno. Cleveland, April 10. THE CONSTITUTIONAL POWER OF THE COURTS. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: In a communication to the Nation of February 19 I find two quotations from our Federal Constitution offered as proof of the contention that the Con- stitution confers "upon the Supreme Court the power to declare acts of Con- gress unconstitutional." The quotations are as follows: The Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made . . . shall be the supreme law of the land. , . „ The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made. The assertion that these passages "con- fer upon the Supreme Court the power to declare acts of Congress unconstitu- tional" seems to me to beg the question. The passages say merely that the Con- stitution and the laws and treaties made in accordance with it shall be the su- preme law of the land and that the judi- cial power shall extend to all cases in law and equity arising under that law. They do not say that one part of our three-fold government, the judiciary, shall have the exclusive power to declare finally what that law is. What seems to be meant by those passages is that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land and as such is binding upon each and every department of our Govern- ment. When the Federal Supreme Court de- clares an act of the Federal Executive or an act of the Federal Legislature to be unconstitutional it exercises not a judicial power, but a political power; and it is well known that at common law the ju- diciary possesses no political power. No- where is such a power expressly given to the judiciary in the first Constitutions of the original States; nowhere is such a power expresslv given to the Federal ju- diciary in the Federal Constitution; and immediately upon the first exercise of this power by the Federal judiciary there was well-reasoned and well-supported op- position to it. It is argued that it would lead to dis- order, perhaps to disaster, were each of the three separate departments of our Federal Government permitted to judge for itself whether its acts were in har- mony with the Constitution. Such has not been the experience of the European countries, in every one of which the Legislature is free from control by the judiciary. And in our own country the control of the Legislature now exercised by the judiciary is one of the least pow- erful of all the checks to be found In our plan of government. It is a check that fails to reach many actions of the Legislature. Should the Legislature de- cline to act, even in a case where the Constitution orders it to act, the Fed- oral judiciary cannot compel it to act; and even when an act of the Legislature is, in the opinion of the Judiciary, con- trary to the Constitution, the judiciary is powerless to Intervene, even though the act continues in force for many years, until the matter Is placed before it in
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4:66 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2547 the form of a suit of which it is author- ized to take cognizance. But this whole question of the bene- ficial nature of the check now exercised by the Federal judiciary upon the Federal Legislature is, in the opinion of the pres- ent writer, beside the point. The sole question is: Did the framers of the Con- stitution Intend the judiciary to have that power? in view of the facts that such power is not expressly conferred upon the judiciary in the Constitution ar.d that nowhere at the time the Constitu- tion was framed was there a judiciary endowed with such power, the burden of proof would seem to rest rather heavily upon those who uphold the view that the Supreme Court did not arrogate that power to itself. E. M. H. Moscow, Malm, March 20. LKNJAMIN OSGOOD PEIRCE. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: In these days when our universi- ties are so frequently under criticism, when lamentations are so often heard of the waning influence of their profes- sors, it is a pleasure to contemplate the career of one who was not only a noted scholar and scientist, but also a warm- hearted, sympathetic man, endeared to all who came in contact with him, wheth- er students, colleagues, or acquaintances. Such a man was Benjamin Osgood Peirce, late professor of physics in Har- vard University, the bare facts in whose career were mentioned in the Nation of January 22, but whose many-sidedness deserves far more extended mention. Peirce was a Yankee of Yankees, born in Beverly, Mass., on February 11, 1K54. descended from a long- line of Massachu- setts ancestors, his great-grandfather, Benjamin Peirce, having been killed at Lexington. Together with the Puritan traits and the New England conscience which were his chief characteristics, he possessed a strong- sense of fun and a genial disposition, which were continual- ly in evidence. Beverly was in those days a great seafaring town, and at the age of nine Peirce took a voyage with his parents to the Cape of Good Hope, where his observation was so careful that fifty years afterwards lie was able to surprise South Africans by descriptions of what he had seen. He was educated in the public schools of Beverly, and after a couple of years, in which he learned the carpenter's trade, he decided to go to col- lege, and prepared himself for Harvard. The liking he had for the classics, shown by his conversing with his father in Latin on their daily walks, he retained throughout his life, and was able to quote long passages from the Latin and Greek poets. Many of us still believe that such a training makes the best possible foun- dation for a scientist. At Harvard he took a well-selected course, but showed so marked a talent for mathematics and physics that on his graduation in 1876 he received a travel- ling fellowship and proceeded to Ger- many, where he remained four years. In 1879 he obtained the degree of Ph.D. at Leipzig, where he had worked in Wiedemann's physical laboratory, and the next year he spent under the stimu- lating Influence of the great master llelm- holtz in Berlin. It was here that he became charmed with the beauty of mathematical physics, then hardly taught in this country, to which he devoted so much of his after-life. Keturning to the United States in 1880, after teaching a year at the Boston Latin School, Peirce was appointed instructor in mathematics at Harvard, and was promoted in 1884 to an assistant professorship. There is at Harvard no chair of mathematical physics, or Peirce would have held it; but in 1888 he received the appointment to the Hollis professorship of mathemat- ics and natural philosophy, which per- haps gave him a freer hand, and enabled him to distribute his time as he preferred in the laboratory and in mathematical physics. The courses in the latter sub- ject he worked up to a high degree of efficiency, the subject being-, as has been stated, entirely new in this country. In the laboratory, in a similarly painstaking manner, he developed an admirable course in electrical measurements. Here he came into close contact with his stu- dents, and became a sympathetic father- confessor to many of them. At the same time he threw himself enthusiastically into the prosecution of research, which he kept up with undiminished productiv- ity to the end of his life. This is not the place to analyze his work, which was characterized, whether experimental or theoretical, by prodigious painstaking and rare critical knowledge. It is of Professor Peirce as a man that I wish here to speak. He was rare among American scientists for the breadth of his interests and the catholic- ity of his sympathies. He was a vora- cious reader, particularly of biography ami history. He spoke French well, and German so well, including- the South Ger- man dialect, as to deceive the native. For music he, like many mathematicians, had a passion, and possessed a careful know- ledge of musical form and history. For several years he served on the commit- tee on honors in music. Whether or no a musical ear makes a good linguist Peirce possessed both gifts, and at nine years acquired the difficult Kaffir "clicks," as later he showed a nice sense for Latin metrics and for foreign accents. Paint- ing and architecture he keenly enjoyed, delighting in Gothic, and lamenting the lack of beauty in the Harvard buildings. Everything requiring skill of hand inter- ested Peirce. In any kind of boat he was thoroughly at home, and he had many warm friends among Gloucester captains and ship carpenters. He kept a font of type in the laboratory, and set up many of the complicated mathe- matical formulae in one of his books with his own hand, while his figures were always drawn by himself, and the curvet carefully made by templets tiled out in sheet metal. Thus his sympathy went out to all workers, whether with hand or brain. In 1900 too strict attention to work brought on nervous proStl ation, and Peirce was obliged to take two years' leave of absence. Even then health did not return, but with Spartan devotion Peirce never missed a lecture after re- turning to work. During the rest of his life he suffered greatly from insomnia, but he never complained. His cheerful- ness was irresistible. With his intimates he adopted a style of Yankee dialect, slang-, and humor that was inimitable,, but with the public, whether speaking or writing, his style was beyond criticism, and marked by clearness and elegance. The writer was one of hundreds of stu- dents who felt the charm of Peirce's in- fluence and sympathy, and to his col- leagues he was an inspiration. The crowded chapel at the funeral, the dozens of letters since his death, from col- leagues, pupils, and scientists, at home and abroad, and from those humble func- tionaries to whom Peirce's daily smiling greeting meant much, all attest the place that he had made in the hearts of men. In person as in heart, Peirce was a big man. Over six feet in height, heavy, and muscular in proportion, he was the pic- ture of a manly man. With it he had the sensitive heart of a woman, and in him modesty was developed to an almost impossible extent. At the time of the conferring of the well-merited degree of doctor of science, President Lowell made certainly one of the most truthful of his happy characterizations when he called him "a scientist ignorant only of his own deserts." Arthur Gordon Webster. Worcester. Mass.. April 10. PICTURESQUE LANGUAGE. To the: Editor of The Nation: Sir: In connection with an editorial in the Nation on picturesque language, I have thought that certain words and phrases culled from the vocabulary of a former cook, a negro woman from the mountains of Tennessee, might be of in- terest to some of your readers. "Turtle," by a slight change, becomes "turkle"; "catamount," "catamouse" — surely a most natural association of ideas. The singing of birds was de- scribed as a "sweet fuss." "Poke" for "bag" was an everyday word. Many of the expressions noted either concerned,, or were addressed directly to, a hand- some black cat, with which she con- versed constantly, apparently on terms of perfect equality. When this house- hold pet was cross, a not infrequent oc- currence, he was called "ill"; when on the contrary he showed signs of wishing to be petted, he was "pettish." Another cat. after an unsuccessful attack on outs, "shabbed [ran] away"; "he jest burned the air." "To burn the air" is certainly quite as \ivid as the French "bruler le paveV' After some misde- mea ■, the ca1 was "twiggled [beaten] good." Bul the pearl of the collect inn, a word as connotativc in its way as some o! those quoted in Miss Kurman's ad- mirable stories, was a veil) used to de- scribe a contemptuous refusal. "I gave Torm some milk," quoth the cook, "bul he jest snurled up his nose at it." Geo. N. HicNNiNo. WaililngtOD, 11 i'.. a pill :i.
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April 23, 1914] T li e ]ST a t i o n 4:67 Literature A MEXICAN ON HIS COUNTRY. The Case of Mexico. By Rafael de Zayas Enrique/.. Translated from the Span- ish by Andre Tridon. New York: Al- bert and Charles Boni. $1.35. The present work is interesting and typical only as an example of ordinary Latin-American political discussion; its value is that of an inspired campaign document. The author shows slight in- terest in literary style or structure. He opens with a long letter, covering twen- ty pages of the book, which he address- ed from New York to Francisco I. Ma- dero, on December 29, 1911. The incon- sistency of his words to President Ma- di id, compared with his expression 01 opinion in 1914, approaches closely to insincerity. Three years ago he wrote to the successful revolutionist: "You find yourself to-day at the head of the Government, to which position you were elected by a majority of the people to preside over their destinies." In this letter the author writes of Pino Suarez as a man "whom you first had elect- ed Governor of the State of Yuca- tan." Later, indeed, while treating Ma- dero's San Luis Manifesto, he asserts: "The Mexican nation never supported him personally at the polls nor during the revolution." Mr. Zayas Enriquez then compares Madero and Porfirio Diaz. Very inter- esting are the charges which he re- peats against the former: that his plans were mainly to stave off the ruin of his family, then heavily involved; and that by the activity of Zapata in the state of Morelos the Madero family were ena- bled to acquire valuable plantations at ridiculously low prices. In succeeding chapters he records the "bloody ten days," the decision taken by Gen. Huer- ta and the army, and the fall of Ma- dero. He attempts to prove that the de facto government became a govern- ment de jure according to the Mexican Constitution. In chapter vi the execu- tion of Gustavo Madero, the brother of the deposed President, is passed over without attention, and on the death of Madero and Pino Suarez he quotes Carlos Toro's "Fall of Madero" as say- ing: "Nobody cared to preserve the lives of those dangerous apostles of violence and anarchy, and their death was con- sidered by their friends and enemies alike as a national necessity. The bit- terness, the anger, the feuds so sedu- lously kept up by these two men ended with them; it was plain common-sense that demanded their extermination." Mr. Zayas Enriquez, however, agrees with the official account, on the ground that anonymous public opinion did not appear in court under a military dicta- tor to support its charges! In chapter vii the Mexican writer touches on President Wilson and the American point of view. He begins by saying that until recently he thought the President a pure idealist. His con- clusions now are, however, that "Machia- velli would have been clay in Wilson's hands, and what is more, that Machia- velli would never have known it." The policy of Gen. Huerta and his coup <l'i /at are next justified, and notwith- standing the testimony of history, Mr. Zayas Enriquez gravely affirms that "the Mexican people are not really revo- lutionary. Madero made them so, and they have remained so." The characteristic prominence of the army in Latin-American politics, and the fondness of the dictators for in- voking Napoleon Bonaparte are set forth in Gen. Huerta's address before his new Legislature, as here quoted, when he stated that "it will always be a high and noble duty, or at least a commenda- ble attitude, to save a nation at the cost of all principles"; and that "the ulti- mate truth is to be found in that say- ing of Bonaparte's: 'In saving the country one does not violate any law.' " Mr. Zayas Enriquez further charac- terizes President Wilson's attitude to- wards Huerta as a hostility which seems to be the consequence of a per- sonal dislike rather than a political policy. He examines the various state- ments and acts of President Wilson in regard to Mexico, and decides that if his desires were carried out by the Mexican Government, "Mexico would have be- come virtually an American colony." Hasty composition, at least, appears in this work, for in direct contradiction to statements on certain pages, the au- thor writes that the Mexican problem is "nothing more than a conflict between the Wilson Doctrine, successor to the Monroe Doctrine, and the indomitable attitude of Huerta, patterned after the attitude of our immortal patriot, Juarez." He agrees, in conclusion, with Col. George Harvey, who wrote that the sole alternative to a policy which leads only to war is the reversal of President Wilson's policy. The clearest state- ment of the whole work is that regard- ing "watchful waiting": The Honorable Mr. Wilson has only one alternative; either order an armed inter- vention, a course which he pretends he does not contemplate and which I con- tend he has neither the right nor the power to resort to; or rely entirely upon diplomatic action. An attitude of watch- ful waiting does not constitute a solu- tion. It constitutes a real danger; it is, in the last analysis, inaction due to ignorance of whatever action should be taken. In spite of the attempted impartial treatment of the situation by Mr. Zayas Enriquez, and his advocacy of a reversal of President Wilson's policy, there is material provided in his own book for a dissenting view. He condemns Madero thus: "Madero was not born to be a leader. Superficial in his judgments, stubborn in his capriciousness, fettered by many superstitions, he was not what is called a personality, he was merely an abnormal type." On the oth- er hand, he acknowledges of Gen. Diaz, who was a "personality" in his sense of the word, that he "sacrificed many vic- tims in order to establish and maintain a political system that would insure peace. A Warsovian peace it was called by many men of unbiassed mind; an educational peace, Diaz called it, for he acknowledged it as the only means of training his fellow-citizens for a life of order and labor." Nevertheless, the Mexicans were not so educated. Ma- dero without result appealed to the ideals of democracy, peace, and har- mony as enthusiastically as does Mr. Zayas Enriquez. There is no evidence which would lead one to suppose that, when these two personalities of oppo- site type have failed to govern the coun- try successfully by either method, an- other "strong man" will be any more capable of it. Huerta at his best is not likely to approach the strength and ef- ficiency of Porfirio Diaz. CURRENT FICTION. dunlin Oats. By Alice Herbert. New York: John Lane Co. This is the second novel of a writer who is, consciously, very modern and clever and sophisticated. "Emancipat- ed" is perhaps the best word available. The whole story is a concrete argument for the equal moral and emotional rights of men and women. Olive Latimer, who tells the story, is not hampered by old- fashioned delicacy in the telling of it. She loves a spade as an epicure loves an onion. "The most complex of us," she says, "may be also the most primitive — only we taste our own primitiveness, roll it, as it were, upon the tongue." And, she might have added, we are eager to share the morsel with others. What she chiefly complains of is the male code which sets women on "an intolerable pedestal of difference," exacts of the adored one a false modesty, a pretended continence. Adolescence in Olive Latimer involves an awakening of the senses which must be concealed. There are false dawns of passion, and then the real thing comes. But it does not set her free, her lover has a dream of her which she dares not. break. She longs to be his mate, and sees that, to be happy, he must worship her as a being above and apart. Mar- riage does not change their relation. She knows that she has the best part of love, but it does not satisfy her; nor does motherhood. It is "1'amonr" she thirsts for, the opportunity to let go, to throw herself away for the sake of one
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4G8 T li e 1ST a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2547 glorious hour of — the flesh. The oppor- tunity presents itself, and she is saved from yielding fully to it by mere chance. Her ryes are opened, the danger is past; she has an impulse to confess, to ex- pound herself, once for all, to her hus- band: "It's no good. He must have his pret- ty lie!" I said to Mollie. "Make it a lovely truth!" said Mollie. "Yes, you can." "I'll try- I swear I'll try; my wild oats are all sown." Mollie forestalled a twentieth-century wit: "Be thankful they were only garden oats," she said. The chief question is whether this kind of crop is worth exposing in the marketplace. The obsolescent male, with his clumsy ideals, turns a shamefaced eye upon it. And we believe that a good many women who are not fools or hypo- crites honestly feel, in reading this sort of feminine confession, what Celia felt more lightly when Rosalind's wit car- ried her beyond bounds: "You have sim- ply misused our sex in your love-prate." North of Fifty-three. By Bertrand W. Sinclair. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. This is a tale of the Canadian wilds where strength and endurance are life's requirements, where man battles against nature, and nature generously repays by teaching him and providing for him. Here his success does not entail the crushing of weaker men, and his plea- sures grow large, healthy, unspoiled by the pettiness of urban civilization. In Mr. Sinclair the cry of "Back to Nature" is distinctly more convincing than it usually sounds. His romance centres upon two people who have escaped to Canada from the wrongful slander of their neighbors. Hazel Weir is lost in the woods and comes to the camp-fire of "Roaring Bill" Wagstaff, notorious for miles around. He promises to take her home, but in the end determines to car- ry her away as his wife in modern cave- man style. Hazel must obey. Then be- gins the awakening of her nature in Bill's cabin in the woods filled with books and culture. She realizes the qual- ities of her cave-man's character, the true product of nature and the open. She loves him, yet she chafes for liberty. So Bill sets her free. But as she enters cities and civilization the woods and Bill call her back, and she returns to be his wife. Up to this point, it is familiar ro- mance. Mr. Sinclair removes it from that category by beginning his real story here. He compares the life of the woods and of civilization, by giving his couple one more full taste of the emptiness of conventional life before establishing them permanently in the wilds. Mr. Sinclair has a definite point that he states clearly. His two charac- ters are exceptionally well drawn and sympathetic. His style is robust and vigorous. His pictures of Canadian life are stimulating. Barnabetta. By Helen Martin. New York: The Century Co. Back-country misses, daughters of il- literate tinsmiths whose brothers drive the country-stage and who have them- selves been only drudges in the house, do not generally, upon being sent to col- lege, win their way at once into the heart of the college president, particu- larly when he happens to be of Bos- ton's bluest blood. Nor do they become paragons of learning and culture, with advanced ideas on Socialism and indus- trialism, in the brief space of little more than a year. Nor do such rustic damsels spurn an offer of marriage from their college president merely because his hesitation has indicated snobbery. Nor, in the end, do they receive a similar of- fer from the only other eligible man in the town, incidentally a millionaire. Yet Barnabetta, daughter of Barnaby and Etta Dreardy, of a family of Rein- hartz, Pa., "Dutchmen," disproves the general rule. Once her stepmother has sent her off to college, she develops the afore-mentioned attributes with extra- ordinary rapidity. It is not entirely the background of quaint characters that lends compensation to the story. These are picturesque enough, particularly the brusque, "close" father, who at fifty-five provides himself with a nosegay to win the fortune of an antiquated spinster. The appeal of the story lies in its straightforwardness. The style possesses a certain natural spontaneity, an inno- cence that gradually wins over the read- er and makes the adventures of Barna- betta seem pleasantly true. Monksoridge. By John .Ayscough. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. This is a quiet picture of English rural scenes and the life of gentlefolk infused with a rare humor. The time is not long after the Oxford movement, and the central incident is the conver- sion of a public-school lad, Perkin Au- beron, from the Church of England to Roman Catholicism. But it is far from constituting the whole story, which is of the ups and downs of the Auberon family — a widowed mother, Sylvia, Per- kin, and the narrator, a second daugh- ter, gifted with rare observation. The restrained characterization is admira- ble. Sylvia, who is beautiful, brilliant, and snobbish, rules domestic affairs with an iron hand and marries Lord Monksbridge, not for his new title and newer riches, but — as she carefully ex- plains— in order that her own Norman lineage may give the needed lustre to it. The mother Is a quiet, sensible person, and Perkin is drawn with the right ad- mixture of youthful fire and hardhead- ed logic. The unnamed narrator, as we are given to understand, is plain and in- significant beside her sister, but devel- ops wonderful charm. Part of it is cer- tainly exhibited in her ability to detect a subtle basis for irony in all that goes on about her, and to see in satiric light the lovers of Sylvia, the tutors of Per- kin, the doddering county families. Mrs. Brand. By H. A. Mitchell Keays. Boston: Small, Maynard & Co. "Mrs. Brand" is a clever novel full of the modern spirit. It has a sophisticat- ed, rich, and rather flippant heroine, a glorious opportunity for the reformer. It has a doctor-hero who devotes his life to ministering to the wretchedest sec- tion of the city ("if your hero has the bad luck not to have been born in the slums, he must at least have the wit to take up his habitation there as soon as he comes of age," a critic has said). It has a "fallen woman," who is introduc- ed to the heroine by the hero, and is re- generated by both of them. As a foil to the hero, there is another suitor, a worldly and selfish but brilliant minis- ter, whom the heroine seems for a time to prefer. To classify the novel thus is not to condemn it. In spite of its occa- sional sentimentality, it is well plan- ned and crisply written, and presents two or three characters drawn with un- usual skill. AN INFORMAL PICTURE OF BUR- ROUGHS. Our Friend John Burroughs. By Clara Barrus. Including Autobiographical Sketches by John Burroughs. Bos- ton: Houghton Mifflin Co. $2 net. For twelve years the literary assistant of John Burroughs has, as she tells us, enjoyed "exceptional opportunities . . . of observing him." The record of her observations falls into three parts: first, two chapters in which she rambles at ease; secondly, several chap- ters in which Mr. Burroughs writes of himself in an equally informal style, and, thirdly, five more chapters by the author in her most nonchalant vein. The result of the pkm of the book is that nothing has its proper place, and that many things are mentioned twice, with a limping "as has been said" by way of apology. In substance, most of the book is pret- ty close to the ordinary magazine arti- cle on "My visit to Slabsides"; that is, it shows faithful rather than penetrat- ing "observation," and Is always likely to slip from triviality to fatuous pro- fundity and back again. The triviality one is content to smile upon Indulgently — any one, at least, who is accustomed to recent biographical writing; but the fatuous profundity is too much. Here is a fair specimen:
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April 23, 1914] The Nation 4,69 We brought the good things from the hearth, hot and delicious, and sat down to a dinner that would have done credit to an Adirondack guide — and when one has said this, what more need one say? In helping myself to the celery, I took an outside piece. Mine host reached over, and, putting a big white centre of celery on my plate, said: "What's the use taking the outside of things when one can have the heart?" This is typical of John Burroughs's life as well as his art — he has let extraneous things, convention- alities, and non-essentials go; has gone to the heart of things. It is this that has made his work so vital. As we arose from the table, I began pit king up the dishes. Such is life at Slabsides. It is hard to find, amid the throbbing hero-wor- ship, the real John Burroughs; we are at the oracle whither come Vassar girls and Burroughs clubs, where "artists and sculptors paint and model him, and photographers carry away souvenirs of their pilgrimages"; but the oracle him- self is in danger vt being buried beneath so much praise and pillows and feminin- ity, as he was on his Alaskan trip: "Up in Alaska there were a dozen or two fol- lowing him around, tucking him up in steamer rugs, putting pillows to his head, running to him with a flower, or a description of a bird." A few of the countless incidents men- tioned by the writer are significant. But the value of the book resides mainly in the central section — Mr. Burroughs's "Autobiographical Sketches," which cover about one hundred pages. These sketches were written as letters to Miss Barrus at intervals between 1903 and 1912, to supply her with material In case she should some day undertake a life of Mr. Burroughs. Though not intended for publication in the original form, they are so published in order to pre- serve their "homely, unstudied value." This value they have; and they are, besides, full of apt description and characterization and incident — and, of course, they are heavily freighted with fact. Though put together helter-skel- ter, they are, therefore, a valuable — we might venture "precious," were it not for that vision of the ladies up in Alaska — addition to the writings by and about John Burroughs. It is impossible to re- view the contents, where so much is per- tinent and quotable and all is interest- ing. Suffice it to say that to his father, that red-haired, naive, emotional farmer who, we are told, probably never said "Thank you" in his life, Mr. Burroughs supposes that he owes nothing more ad- mirable than his foot; while to his mother, a busy, devoted mother of ten children, he owes "my temperament, my love of nature, my brooding introspec- tive habit of mind. ... In her line were dreamers and fishermen and hunt- ers," among them Mr. Burroughs's grandfather, who "went from the Book to the stream, and from the stream to the Book," and who even when eighty years old "would woo the trout-streams with great success, and between times would pore over the Book till his eyes were dim." Mr. Burroughs writes at length of his ancestry and of his men- tal and moral inheritance; the rest of these autobiographical pages he devotes to his life on the farm, to his love of nature (which, though innate, he tells us was evoked by Emerson), to his early writings and his experiences as a teacher, and to an analysis of his character and his outlook on life. What he tells regarding his early writings is supplemented by a chapter by Miss Bar- rus which contains a number of inter- esting quotations from his youthful Johnsonian and Emersonian produc- tions. THE NEW BANKING ACT. The Operation of the New Bank Act. By Thomas Conway, jr., and Ernest M. Patterson. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co. $2 net. Analysis of the operation of an im- portant new law within less than a month of its enactment is admitted by the authors of the present work to be "unusual." The book bears evidence of careful collection and compilation of the documents and discussions which marked the progress of the new bank- ing law through the House of Repre- sentatives and the Senate, and deals topically, but sometimes only super- ficially, with the different problems arising under each section and para- graph. It forms a convenient manual for those interested in the new law, whether as bankers, officials, or stu- dents; and its statements are generally accurate and temperate. From the standpoint of any one familiar with the subject, some of the discussions appear almost needlessly elementary in char- acter, but the work is avowedly intend- ed for the general reader. To the eco- nomic student its discussions will be suggestive, even if they are not always exhaustive. There are some statements which are subject to challenge. It will hardly be agreed in New York or in other im- partial circles that the crisis of 1907 "was almost entirely a bankers' panic," and that "there were no conditions which would cause a panic in Minne- sota, in the Middle West, in the South, in New England, or in any part of the country except New York city" (page 9). The great absorption of capital into fixed forms, carelessly encouraged per- haps in New York, but going on all over the country, is thus calmly ig- nored, and it is even declared that when the country banks suspended currency payments, it was because they found that they could not obtain the return of their deposited reserves, and that, "therefore, they were forced to follow the bad example of New York" (page 95). This saddling upon a single city of the entire responsibility for the mis- direction of capital and the general col- lapse of the banking system through- out the nation is going farther than even the most enthusiastic advocate of bank- ing reform is ordinarily disposed to go. Another statement which may be challenged, or which at least may lead to misconstruction, is the intimation that if the sum of $17,857,052, repre- senting one-sixth of the subscriptions to the capital stock of the Federal re- serve banks, "should be called for at any one time, there might be consider- able difficulty in making payments without injury to business" (page 49). Apparently, the authors have no great confidence in the strength of the ex- isting banking system if they believe that a transfer of this small amount, spread over 7,500 institutions, would have any serious effect upon the money market. They also reveal remarkable nai'vetS in the statement on the next page, that "the requirement that the payments must be in gold is a very valuable one, in that a considerable supply of it will thus be furnished to the reserve banks at the very start." It needs no more than an elementary knowledge of banking to show that whether the payments into the Federal reserve banks were in greenbacks, checks, or drafts, it would require only the simplest operations through the clearing house and the Sub-Treasuries to turn them into gold or gold cer- tificates, and that this must occur inevi- tably, except possibly in the case of greenbacks and silver certificates, be- cause the entire resources of the banks at the outset must consist of cash, and cannot include in any case redeposited reserves or credits. The demand that individual banks shall sort out gold and gold certificates for making their payments is an infantile device, having absolutely no banking value. Some surprise perhaps may be felt by Secretary McAdoo when he reads the declaration that through subdi- vision into districts "the country is, figuratively speaking, divided into com- partments that are expected to be al- most water-tight" (page 69). It was the intimation of the Secretary, during the hearings in New York, that the Federal Reserve Board would exercise a benevolent watchfulness over the vari- ous Federal reserve banks and would make such disposition of their resources and gold reserves that limiting New York to a bank of small capital would have little or no adverse effect. Water- tight compartments are not possible, even between nations — much less be-
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470 T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2547 tween sections arbitrarily marked off on the map of a single country. There is a curious misinterpretation Of the policy of the Treasury Depart ment in the description given of thu system of maintaining the gold reserve (page 19 5). It is set forth correctly that when legal-tender notes are pre- sented for redemption through the gold reserve fund, it is the practice at the Treasury Department to place them among the assets in the general fund, taking from this fund an amount of gold coin or gold certificates equal in amount to the legal-tender notes so transferred. The comment is made that "thus, the letter of the law is complied with, if not the spirit." The fact is that from the beginning of the creation of the gold-reserve fund, it was felt that so long as there was a con- siderable .amount of free gold in the general assets of the Treasury, it would be foolish to let the reserve fall below the legal limit of $150,000,000, or to is- sue bonds to replenish it. By promptly handing over notes which are redeemed in gold to the general fund of the Treasury in exchange for gold held there, the gold reserve has never, since the Act of March 14, 1900, appeared at a less figure in the daily balance than $150,000,000. The effect upon the pub- lic mind would have been much less favorable if the reserve had been al- lowed to sag below this amount to some uneven figure from day to day; and it would have been supremely foolish to em- employ the great resources placed at the command of the Secretary of the Trea- sury to replenish these small losses by the public sale of bonds. The policy in- augurated in 1900, and since steadily pursued, is quite as much in aceord with the spirit of the law as with its letter, and any other course would have excit- ed unfounded alarms and might have imposed needless charges upon the Gov- ernment. These shortcomings in the discussion, however, are of only minor importance and do not affect the general accuracy of the analysis of the scope and effect of the new law. The character of the note issue, and the weak points in the composite system which finally became law, are clearly pointed out. The pro- visions for the issue of notes by the Federal reserve banks, "issued under the same conditions and provisions of law as relate to the issue of circulating notes of national banks secured by bonds of the United States bearing the circulation privilege," are brought out more clearly than has been done in most discussions of the new law. These pro- visions are more or less of a hodge- podge, and were evidently Insisted upon in conference committee, after being re- duced from a much worse form, in or- der to guard against the contraction which might follow the retirement of the old national bank-notes. It would have been much better if the notes to be issued by the Federal reserve banks had been homogeneous in character — of one form and type — bearing the im- print of the Federal system, even if bonds had constituted a part of the gen- eral assets neld against them. The bond-secured circulation is, how- ever, restricted in several ways. First, the total amount of 2 per cent, bonds which may be bought by the Federal reserve hanks and employed for note issues is limited to $25,000,000 per year. Secondly, the bonds thus bought may be converted into 3 per cent, bonds which do not carry the circulation privi- lege; they may be converted into one- year Treasury notes, which are likely to prove a valuable liquid asset; or they may be held by Federal reserve banks without being made the basis of a note issue. The interesting question is raised whether the language assimilat- ing the notes based upon bonds to the notes issued by national banks carries with it the tax of one-half per cent, per annum upon notes issued by Federal reserve banks. There is a provision of the law (in sec. 7) which provides that "Federal reserve banks, including the capital stock and surplus therein, and the income derived therefrom shall be exempt from Federal, State, and local taxation, except taxes upon real estate"; but this can hardly be held to override the more specific definition of the con- ditions under which the banks may is- sue notes. It is probably in the power of the Federal reserve banks to confine their circulation to the form of Federal re- serve notes, if they are able to substi- tute them from time to time for gold received from the public and the Govern- ment, and thus to avoid entirely the issue of notes specifically secured by bonds, without contracting the currency any more than if bond-secured notes were issued. The obviously sound policy of the Federal reserve banks will be to put out a note whenever they can do so in exchange for gold, independently of the question of expansion or contraction, in order to pile up in their vaults a re- serve of several hundred millions of the yellow metal, which will give their combined reserves something of the im- pressiveness of those of the Bank of Russia or the Bank of France. The authors seem to have only an inadequate appreciation of the principle that interest should not be paid on com- l deposits. Attention is called to the fact that in the law as finally enacted Federal reserve banks are not forbidden to pay Interest, but the com- fortlng suggi stion is added that "it does not seem at all certain that they will do so" (page 61), It might have been added that if they should pay interest upon reserve deposits, they would fly deliberately in the face of the reasoned experience of the world. That experi- ence dictates the payment of interest upon those deposits only which are in the nature of investments. On such a point as the allocation of the tax to be paid upon the impairment of the reserve against notes, no light whatever is thrown, even in the way of conjecture, by the authors of the pres- ent work. They simply declare, follow- ing the language of the act itself, that the tax "is to be paid by the reserve bank, but it is required to add an equivalent amount to the rates of in- terest and discount fixed for it by the Federal Reserve Board" (page 149). Several questions naturally suggest themselves in regard to the allocation of this tax. Is the rate of interest to be added to all discounts made after the reserve falls below the legal mini- mum of 40 per . cent., or only upon those where the person desiring the re- discount asks directly for notes instead of deposit credit? Is the tax to cease when other paper is paid off and the impairment of the reserve comes to an end, or is the increased tax to be con- tinuous upon the loans upon which it is first imposed? In referring to the Federal Advisory Council, which the national banks are authorized to appoint to confer with the Federal Reserve Board, it is remarked that "a careful examination of this grant of powers makes it evident that the influence of this Council may mean much or little" (page 83). No one is likely to dispute this safe assertion. But it does not necessarily follow that differences of opinion between the two bodies— the Federal Reserve Board and the Advisory Council — are, as our authors think, "inevitable." They rare- ly occur between bodies of a similar character at the European banks of is- sue, and they should not occur in this country if the Federal Reserve Board consists of men with open minds, ready to compare their own views with those of the trained bankers who will prob- ably serve on the Advisory Council. The suggestion that the "only safe so- lution is for the Advisory Council to devote itself to the collection and pre- sentation of facts and the furnishing of information, but never advice, except when called for," will not bear criti- cism. The Council is distinctly directed by the law "to make recommendations in regard to discount rates, rediscount business, note issues, reserve conditions 1 im various districts, and the pur- chase and sale of gold or securities by reserve banks, open-markel operations by said banks, and the genera] affairs of the reserve banking system." Careful analysis is made of thi el
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April 23, 1914] The Nation 471 feet of the transfer of reserves upon the different classes of banks and of the proportion of country deposits which the New York banks now carry. There is also some discussion of the effect of the new law upon the loans made on the Stock Exchange; but natu- rally, this discussion is inconclusive, in view of the fact that the banks and the Stock Exchange itself have not yet been quite able to solve the problem. Upon the whole, the book is likely to prove timely for those interestea in the working out of the new law, although a more complete and conclusive treatise is likely to be produced at some future time, dealing with the questions of law involved as well as those of an econom- ic and banking character. A MONUMENTAL WORK. Histoire de la Langue Frangaise des origines A J900. By Ferdinand Brunot. Vol. IV: "La Langue Classique" (1660- 1715), Part I. Paris: Armand Colin. 18 francs. At intervals of years, the Nation has noticed the progressive publication of this giant work. The Academie des In- scriptions et Belles Lettres has bestow- ed on it the Premier Grand Prix Gobert (1912), the highest national honor. In erudition, in logical and easy ordering of the myriad examples patiently col- lected, in its successful taking over of the history of language to the human history of a nation which is one in race and civilization and has, by its lan- guage, influenced profoundly the lan- guages and literature and modes of thinking and feeling of other civilized countries, this work is, perhaps, with- out a rival. In particular, even the greatest works on the "classic lan- guages" of Greece and Rome do not fur- nish such indications of the habits of mind and morals at the given period of history as constantly appear in these pages. The author, who is himself a brilliant product of the older humani- ties, has been sharply attacked in his university career for the part he Is sup- posed to take in substituting modern for ancient and classical training. Save for reference, the present voluminous work may not enter the secondary cur- riculum; but for higher studies — and for the educated thinker who seeks an understanding of the evolution of hu- manity as well as of language — it is in- dispensable. Thus the present Part, with the few additions and corrections which it may call forth, supplements vitally all that has hitherto been writ- ten of the Golden Age of Louis the Fourteenth. The author modestly excuses himself as he girds himself anew to the long toil still needed to bring his task to an end: Some day, perhaps, I may be able to give the public a short synthesis. . . . To-day I wish to print the documents as I have them. And it is necessary, be- fore all else, that my book should appear. When the age of full maturity begins passing, it is imprudent to prolong too much a labor whose accomplishment still requires so many years. For the first time, there will be found in this volume two chapters almost en- tirely due to others than myself. . . . I have no intention of transforming the character of my book and giving hence- forward a collective work, of which I should be only the director. But, in spite of the counsel of several of my friends, I have sacrificed the vanity of doing the work alone to the hope of doing the work better. Indeed, that which is important and of general interest is not that the "History of the French Language" should be entirely my work, but that it should approximate as closely as possible to what it ought to be. Now, as may well be thought, my competence is not uni- versal. . . . Soon my readers will profit even more largely by the interest which various men of learning have been willing to show in this history. . . . I ought to add that if the numberless quotations of my text have been verified one by one in the originals whence they are taken, it is thanks to the unwearied patience of her whose devotedness no duty, however burdensome, can surfeit; to her who has been associated with a life wholly of science and labor, and has wished to be something more than the witness of it. At the beginning of the volume, Pro- fessor Brunot explains lucidly its aim and scope, and gives fifteen pages of abbreviations used in citing his texts. The citations themselves are not only apposite to the text as they occur, but are chosen with a skilful eye to gener- al interest; and the same is to be said of the copious footnotes. A first book is devoted to the existing theories of language at the classic period — gram- marians and the Academy, dictionaries and reasoning, writers and the public, with the general spirit of the time. The second book treats of orthography from Malherbe and Port Royal, through salons and a phonetic campaign (al- ready!), to the action of the Academy and schools, with entertaining exam- ples of men and of letters and court ladies. In the third book — on pronun- ciation— Professor Rosset of Grenoble, a pupil of M. Brunot, who has special- ized himself in phonetics, has given help; the chapters on good use, Pa- risian and provincial, and the resist- ance of popular instinct are illuminat- ing. The fourth book takes up vocabu- lary, in which the development of prud- ishness somewhat resembling Puritan English, is treated at length, with its curious transition from morality under Louis the Fourteenth to good taste un- der Louis the Fifteenth. The words used in each class of society are consid- ered fully, with the "fixation" of the lex- icon against neologism and in favor of that precision which is the glory of French literature. The three-column lexicological index of this Part alone comprises twenty-one pages — a single example of the satisfactory apparatus of all this learning. Notes Longmans, Green & Co. announce the forthcoming publication of "Modern In- dustry," by Florence Kelley. Frederick A. Stokes Company will pub- lish this month "The Cost of Wings," by Richard Dehan. Small, Maynard & Company announce for publication on Saturday "Sweetapple Cove," by George van Schaick. The Macmillan Company announced for publication yesterday "The Secret Book," by Edmund Lester Pearson. Other vol- umes which will be published shortly by the same company are: "The Letters of Richard Henry Lee," edited by James Curtis Ballagh; "A Lad of Kent," by Herbert Harrison; "The Enlarging Con- ception of God," by Herbert Alden Youtz. Houghton Mifflin Company's list of pub- lications for April includes: "The Heart's Country," by Mary Heaton Vorse; "The Misadventures of Three Good Boys," by Henry A. Shute; "The Owl and the Bobolink," by Emma C. Dowd; "Stories and Poems and Other Uncollected Writ- ings," by Bret Harte, compiled by Charles Meeker Kozlay; "Before Vassar Opened," by James Monroe Taylor; "Nurses for Our Neighbors," by Dr. Alfred Worces- ter; "The New Politics," by William Gar- rott Brown; "Religious Confessions and Confessants," by Anna Robeson Burr; "Social Justice Without Socialism," by John Bates Clark. John Lane Company announces for publication on May 1: "The Home of the Seven Devils," by Horace W. C. Newte; "The New Optimism," by H. de Vere Stacpole; "French Novelists of To-day," by Winifred Stephens; "The Love Affairs of Napoleon," by Joseph Turquan, trans- lated by J. Lewis May. The Rev. C. Silvester Home's Lyman Beecher Lectures for 1914 at the Yale Divinity School will be published in one volume by the Fleming H. Revell Com- pany. The synopsis of the lectures is as follows: Introductory — The Servant of the Spirit; The First of the Prophets; The Apostolic Age; The Royalty of the Pulpit; Athanasius and Chrysostom; The Rulers of Peoples; Savonarola, Calvin, and John Knox; The Founders of Free- dom; John Robinson and the Pilgrim Fathers; The Passion of Evangelism; Wesley and Whitefield; The Romance of Modern Preaching. WE have received from the Harvard University Press, at Cambridge, the Harvard University Directory. It is a handsomely printed catalogue of men now living who have been enrolled as students in the University, and includes officers of instruction and administration. In this second edition (the first was printed in 1910) the number of names
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4,72 Tli e 1ST a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2547 has been brought to more than 35,000, and addresses, corrected to September 15, 1913, have been found In the case of all but about a thousand. There is an alphabetical list, followed by a geograph- ical arrangement of the names. So sys- tematized, the book should fill a large need. The price is $2.50 postpaid. THE Phi Beta Kappa Society has del- egated to a committee consisting of Prof. Clark S. Northup, of Cornell Uni- versity; Mr. William C. Lane, librarian of the Harvard University Library, and Mr. John C. Schwab, librarian of the Yale University Library, the preparation of a volume of representative Phi Beta Kappa orations. Some scores of notable addresses have been delivered before the various chapters of the society since its organization in 1776. It is now proposed to publish fifteen or twenty of these in a volume of some five hundred pages, with a photogravure frontispiece, in a limited edition, through a house well known for the excellence of its special publications. As the committee must guarantee the publishers a sale of five hundred copies, it invites subscriptions, which may be sent to any of its mem- bers. The price of the book will not ex- ceed three dollars. THE correspondence of Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex, who was Lord Lieu- tenant of Ireland from 1672 to 1677, is contained in many bulky volumes of manuscript among the Stowe Pa- pers in the British Museum. Two ef- forts to edit them have been made in the past, but each has exhaust- ed the editor before the task has been much more than begun. Another effort has now been made by the Royal Historical Society, and a selection cover- ing the years 1675-1677 has recently ap- peared in the Camden Third Series, Volume XXIV (Office of the Society). The work is well done, though the preface is written in an amazingly poor style. The letters are of value for the constitutional history of the period, and contain a num- ber of items that may well find place in any general treatment of the subject. One of the letters recalls the important effect that the imprisonment in 1676 of Francis Jenks, a linen draper, had upon the passage of the Habeas Corpus act in 1679, and revives the memory of a man to whom the Englishman of to-day, and no less the American, owes some gratitude. The spelling "Gynks" throws light on con- temporary pronunciation. A remark made by Charles II, and here mentioned, to the effect that "women seldome under- stand theyre owne buissenesse," adds somewhat to our appreciation of the royal sense of humor, for probably the King knew whereof he spoke. THE author of "In the Old Paths: Memories of Literary Pilgrimages" (Houghton Mifflin) has fallen into neith- er of the traps which lie open for the writer of a book of this kind. Mr. Arthur Grant has not made a mere topographical and historical chronicle; nor has he pro- duced a series of sentimental maunder- ings amid old literary shrines. Instead, his book is one which could have been written only by a man who knew the old paths, the old villages, with their dwell- ings and churches, and knew them well. At the same time, he skilfully offers his reader a great deal of their charm. Some >f his subjects are: Hertfordshire Revisit- ed; Wheathampstead and Charles Lamb; England's Pennsylvania— Pcnn Village and Stoke Poges; The Homeland of the Disraelis; Memories of Lichfield; Oxford and the Cotswolds; Amid the Haunts of Cowper. The essay on Lichfield is in the right vein, and there are two on Shen- stone — From Arden to Arcady, and Shen- stone, a Poet of Arcady — which are both delightful. fjpARMARKS OF LITERATURE" J_j (McClurg), by Arthur E. Bostwick, the librarian of the St. Louis Public Li- brary, is based upon some lectures spok- en before the training classes of two or three large libraries. In eighteen brief chapters the author discusses such mat- ters as The Nature of Literature, Special Literary Forms, The Structure of Lit- erature, Some Formalities in Written Speech, and The Preservation of Litera- ture. All is in good sense; if there is a little obviousness the author's lively style saves it from banality. Dr. Bostwick says that the subjects are not treated in any other one place in a style to make them interesting to the general reader. This is doubtless true, and yet one feels that the book will be most used by the library student. One also feels that such a work from a man who knows the needs of aspiring librarians is in the nature of a confession that his colleagues of the future are not very securely grounded in some of the essentials of their profession. A TIMELY and interesting book of an historical nature is Percy F. Mar- tin's "Maximilian in Mexico" (Scribner). Unlike some recent works, it is more than its title indicates, for of its 480 pages, over 150 are given up to Maximil- ian's earlier career, and to the conditions in Europe and Mexico that led to French intervention. Mr. Martin has travelled widely throughout Latin -America, and written many books, besides countless ar- ticles in the newspapers and journals which he has represented on his travels. His "Mexico of the Twentieth Century" has for some time been the standard work in English on the economic re- sources of the republic as it was under President Diaz. Some of Mr. Martin's books have been very dull, but this one is readable. The author has a strong sympathy for his hero, and a fairly clear comprehension of his subject. An im- pressive bibliography, which will prob- ably be of greater value to future histori- cal students than it seems to have been to the author, contains relatively few ref- erences to books published in this coun- try. Like most journalists, Mr. Martin writes readily, and rarely fails to publish anything that he has written. He also has the strong prejudices of the British newspaper corespondent, and is, as a rule, unwilling to think well of the United States of America. His animus is con- stantly cropping out, but It is so perfect- ly obvious that it makes his books inter- esting and instructive. It is often "good medicine" to read the criticisms of a pre- judiced English traveller. IN the present disordered state of our diplomatic service, the chapter deal- ing with the United States representa- tives in Mexico, during the last part of Maximilian's life, is peculiarly significant, and deserves to be widely read. The Campbell affair is one which may well cause us to blush for shirt-sleeved diplo- macy. "It has to be remembered that whereas Mr. Campbell was appointed Min- ister to Mexico, in May, 1866, he did not take up his duties until December, while he resigned in the following June, of 1867. During the whole thirteen months, he had journeyed but once to the Republic of Mexico, and had never visited the capi- tal at all. He had not met, nor had he troubled to meet, a single member of the Mexican Administration; his letters of credence had remained in his portfolio until delivered by a deputy, and beyond a number of crudely composed and badly translated dispatches addressed to the Foreign Minister, the Mexican Govern- ment had no official cognizance of his existence." It is Mr. Martin's opinion that "Mr. Lewis D. Campbell should never have been in the diplomatic service of any country — especially that of the United States. It is doubtful whether any other government would have em- ployed such an officer." Naturally, Mr. Martin does not spare Campbell's repu- tation, and presents only one side of the case; but at best there is little justifica- tion for an episode which, if it did not ac- tually cost Maximilian his life, has left an indelible stain on the records of our State department. The book is illustrat- ed by many good portraits. NO READER of Mr. Arthur Symons's "Knave of Hearts" (John Lane) can entertain a doubt of its author's rare poetic accomplishments, his possession of subtle melody, phrasal suggestiveness, and a vibrant sensibility which reaches the nerves, if not the hearts, of his hear- ers. The opening for the skeptic lies elsewhere — in the insubstantiality of the work as the poetical outcome of four- teen years of the mature life of an able man. These poems are the mere exhala- tions— here and there the effluvia — of vague and melancholy moods, from which the author has conscientiously re- fused to extract either truths or incen- tives or discipline. If a man substituted the odors of food for food itself— and this typifies pretty clearly the aim of the sym- bolists— the strongest aromas would no doubt come to be preferred, and a re- course at times to horror or sensuality is the price Mr. Symons pays for car- rying the etherealization of beauty to ex- cess. A like reaction is evident in cer- tain wilful interruptions or distortions of the obvious course of the metre, in con- formity to the latter-day doctrine that a calculated roughness is the finish of finish. The author uses and abuses the word "dream," and his poems suggest that half-waking state in which realities float dimly upon a surface of hallucina- tions. Indeed, many qualities in this work, its vagueness, its plaintiveness, and its fleshliness, suggest that the very traits which were once regarded as the disabilities of adolescence have here been set up as the standards of maturity. The collection embraces two powerful brief dramatic scenes from the life of Nero, and a truculent sonnet against women for their right*. More than half
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April 23, 1914] The Nation 4=73 the volume consists of translations, chief- ly from Verlaine and Catullus, in which the virtuosity of Mr. Symons meets hard tests successfully, and sometimes reaches a mastership which all but refutes the favorite dogma of the untranslatability of verse. While it is true that English- even an English lightened by Mr. Symons — is too slow and too massive to repro- duce the lightness and celerity of a French aerated by Verlaine, the transla- tions are remarkable both for sensibility and for execution. DR. ARTHUR S. WAY has turned a prodigious amount of Greek verse into English verse, with somewhat un- even success. His "Argonautica," in Morris's flowing ballad lines of six accents, seemed to us an excellent reproduction of the original, though it did not suit the taste of some critics. Certainly his Quintus Smyr- nseus, in blank verse, recently pub- lished in the Loeb Library, was a mas- terly bit of translation. But his Euri- pides, revised for the same Library, was on the whole a commonplace piece of work, and his Sophocles, the second part of which, containing the "Aias," "Elec- tra," "Trachinian Maidens," and "Philoc- tetes," has just been issued by Macmil- lan, will not increase his reputation. It is scholarly, it follows the original closely without being servile, it has many vir- tues, but too much of it bears the brand of "mechanic exercise." A specimen will confirm this judgment — the first words of the chorus: Electra, hapless child Of mother sin-defiled, Why in insatiate mourning dost thou pine For him who long erewhile Ensnared by treacherous guile Of thine own mother's impious design, Died by her felon hand? Ruin seize them who planned And wrought the deed ! — if such prayer may be mine. We submit that this sort of jigging rhyme would not give a non-Grecian reader the slightest notion of the lyrical parts of a Greek tragedy. Elsewhere, particularly when he uses a long free metre, Dr. Way is decidedly more suc- cessful, as, for example, in this noble re- ply of Electra: Oh, if the dead is to lie dust, nothingness, ever forlorn — • Ob, if on traitor assassins shall dawn no retribu- tive morn, Out of men's hearts must all honor, all fear of the Gods be torn. There is something of the swing of the original in that, a little of its spirit, too, although as a matter of fact Dr. Way has allowed himself rather more license here in filling out with conventional po- etic words than in the passage before quoted. Perhaps the point is just there. To reproduce the effect of the less ornate lines of Greek poetry it is virtually neces- sary to heighten the tone, so to speak, by developing the metaphorical or emo- tional vocabulary; otherwise what is nervous and elegant in the original be- comes fiat and prosaic in the translation — such is the difference in the genius of the two languages. Dr. Way has not em- ployed this art with uniform cunning— but neither has any one of his prede- cessors. Sophocles still awaits a trans- lator. THE death occurred on April 15 of George Alfred Townsend, the news- paper correspondent, novelist, and poet, who wrote under the pseudonym of "Gath." Mr. Townsend was born in Georgetown, Del., on January 30, 1841, and graduated from the Central High School, Philadelphia, in 1860. His first ex- perience of journalism was in the same town, but in 1862 he became war corre- spondent for the New York Herald, and later in the year went to England, where he lectured on the war and wrote for English and American publications. In 1864-5 he served as war correspondent for the New York World, and in the fol- lowing year described for the same paper the Austro-Prussian war. For forty years subsequent to 1867 he resided in Wash- ington and wrote daily correspondence for a number of papers, among them the Chicago Tribune and the Cincinnati En- quirer. Mr. Townsend was the author of "The Bohemians," a play, 1862; "Cam- paigns of a Non-Combatant," 1865; "Life of Garibaldi," 1867; "Real Life of Abra- ham Lincoln," the same year; "The New World Compared with the Old," 1868 "Poems," 1870; "Lost Abroad," 1870 "Washington Outside and Inside," 1871 "Mormon Trials at Salt Lake," 1872 "Washington Rebuilded," 1873; "Tales of the Chesapeake," 1880; "Bohemian Days," 1881; "The Entailed Hat," 1884; "Presi- dent Cromwell," a drama, 1885; "Katy of Catoctin," 1886; "Life of Levi P. Morton," 1888; "Tales of Gapland; Mrs. Reynolds and Hamilton," 1887; "Columbus in Love," 1892; "Poems of Men and Events," 1900. CHARLES S. S. PEIRCE, logician, mathematician, and philosopher, who died on April 20, was born in Cambridge, Mass., on September 10, 1839, the son of Prof. Benjamin Peirce, the foremost Amer- ican mathematician of his time. His moth- er was the daughter of United States Sen- ator Mills, of Massachusetts. He was graduated from Harvard in 1859. He was connected with the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey for a number of years, and for several years was lecturer on logic in Johns Hopkins University. It was in this subject that his most origi- nal work was done, his papers on the algebra of logic and on the logic of rela- tives being pioneer work, and giving him an international reputation. His most conspicuous contribution to the philo- sophical thought of the time was the idea of pragmatism, afterwards developed and modified by William James. In 1887 he retired to Pike County, Pa., to devote himself completely to logic. His only companion was his wife, who, before her marriage, was Juliette Froissy. Mr. Peirce was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sci- ences. He was the author of "Photo- metric Researches," and of numerous ar- ticles upon logic, history of science, met- aphysics, psychology, mathematics, grav- itation, astronomy, map projections, col- or-sense, chemistry and the cataloguing of libraries. He contributed a large part of the scientific definitions to the Cen- tury Dictionary and some of the chief articles on logic to Baldwin's Dictionary of Psychology and Philosophy. During many years, Mr. Peirce was a highly valued contributor to the Nation, his re- views of mathematical and other scien- tific works being of unusual interest and brilliancy. SAMUEL RUTHERFORD CROCKETT, the novelist, who died on April 20 in Scotland, was born in Duchrae, Gallo- way, September 24, 1860. He was edu- cated in Edinburgh, Heidelberg, and at New College. In 1886 he entered the Free Church of Scotland and was min- ister of Penicuik for several years. It was at this time that he turned his at- tention to journalism. In 1893 he wrote "The Stickit Minister," his first and pos- sibly his most successful novel. Among his other novels are "The Raiders," 1894; "Mad Sir Uchtred," 1894; "Cleg Kelly," 1896; "Lochinvar," 1897; "Sir Toady Lion," 1897; "The Red Axe," 1898; "The Black Douglas," 1899; "lone March," 1899; "Kit Kennedy," 1899; "The Stickit Minister's Wooing," 1900; "The Dark o' the Moon," 1902; "An Adventurer in Spain," 1903; "The Bloom of the Heath- er," 1908; "Love in Pernicketty Town," 1911, and "The Moss Troopers," 1912. NOTES FROM ABROAD. THE so-called "federal solution" has occupied a prominent position of late in Parliamentary discussions of the Home Rule bill. Its chief attraction for party tacticians is that nobody knows anything aboiu it, and therefore there is little or no opposition to the idea. Some Liberals are inclined to look kindly upon it in the hope that it may concili- ate the Opposition, and on the other side some Unionists see the chance that the prospect of a federal settlement may be used to postpone actual home rule in Ire- land until the Greek Kalends. The need of elementary instruction in the subject may be realized from the fact that one member of Parliament actually expressed his preference for a federal system on the ground that it would set up an un- divided sovereignty in place of a divided sovereignty. ALMOST the only voice raised in warning is that of Mr. Erskine Childers, who cautions Liberals against proposals to "federalize" the Home Rule bill by making it conform, without the smallest regard to the special needs and claims of Ireland, to some nebulous plan — undiscussed in the country, unsanction- ed even in principle by the country — for the future reorganization of the United Kingdom. He further objects that the suggestion is a return to the vicious at- titude of putting English interests first and Irish interests second. "Our busi- ness," he declares, "is to give Ireland home rule because it is an act of justice, and to give her the kind of home rule which suits her needs, not the kind which suits British convenience." ONE never knows in what eccentric- ity the new enterprise of the 7 I Is going to break out nowadays. Here is its latest bid for advertisements: "The capital outlay charged to insure the ap- pearance of an "In Memoriam' announce- ment in the Times annually in perpetuity is £15 for four lines, and pro rata." No
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474 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2547 doubt, while their grief is fresh upon them, many bereaved persons of means will avail themselves of this offer. Onc- ol' the Labor papers, however, has had the impertinence to work out a sum in arithmetic to find out what this means. The Interest on £15 at 5 per cent, per annum is 16 shillings. The advertiser, therefore, in addition to making the Times a capitalist to the extent of £15, is paying it 15 shillings for a four-line In Memoriam notice. Hut the ordinary ever; 5 -day charge for a single In Me- moriam notice in the Times is 7 shillings and 6 pence — just half that sum — for any- thing up to six lines. MR. EDWARD MAKSTON, whose death occurred recently in Eng- land, in his ninetieth year, deserves re- membrance on other grounds than his longevity. The publisher who brought out Wilkie Collins's "Woman in White," Charles Reade's "Hard Cash," R. D. Blackmore's "Lorna Doone," William Black's "Daughter of Heth," James Payn's "Lost Sir Massingberd," and the early books of Thomas Hardy, certainly played an active part in the production of English fiction of the Victorian period. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louisa M. Alcott, and Harriet Beecher Stowe were among the American authors whose English editions were issued by Mr. Marston's firm. Mr. Marston was one of the few survivors of the special constables en- rolled to assist in the keeping of the peace at the time of the Chartist trou- bles in 1839. THE site of the supposed villa of the 1 poet Horace has been excavated by order of the Italian Government with the following result, according to a re- port from the French School of Rome. The buildings which have been cleared were of three epochs: (1) the beginning cf the Empire, when they were part of some rich man's house; (2) the end of the first century of the Christian era, when they were baths; (3) the second century, also baths. Nothing has been found to confirm the tradition of Horace's villa. SEVERAL years ago the Nation had occasion to notice the valuable work done by Nahum Schlousch in his theses for the French doctorate of letters — on the history and literature of the Jewish colony of North Africa, of which he is himself a native. He has now reported to the Acadernie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres the results of the Govern- ment mission with which he has been charged in Morocco. Dr. Schlousch cross- ed through the Glaoua, the mountain passes at a height of 8,500 feet, and came down in the hitherto inaccessible •zone, of the East by the course of the Oued Dads. He classifies his explora- tions: (1) Cave shelters of the Great At- las; (2) so-called Roman ruins; (3) monuments of Berber architecture; (4) historical documents. He has analyzed for the Academy ten collections of manu- scripts in Hebrew and Jewish Arabic, relating- to several centuries of Moroccan history and revealing many unknown events. Thus, a Christian principality still existed in the Upper Draa after 900 a. l>. Also, the Jewish population of the .!< ■iinh in the high mountain region is shown to have been of native and not Spanish origin, as commonly supposed, bj Hebrew inscriptions of the Great Atlas extending from the fifteenth to the sev- enteenth centuries. Science THE COSMOS OF "PARADISE LOST." Milton's Astronomy. By Thomas N. Orchard. New York: Longmans, Green, & Co. Illustrated. $2.50 net. This volume is devoted mainly to an exposition of the many choice passages in Milton which embody astronomical allusions. Mr. Orchard, by way of a suitable background for such interpre- tation, begins with a brief historical sketch of astronomy, from the time when primitive man first directed his attention to the study of celestial phe- nomena down to the death of Milton in 1674. Even during his lifetime astron- omy made vast progress: the telescope was invented, making possible the dis- covery of spots on the sun, moons of Jupiter and Saturn, phases of Venus, the stellar composition of the Galaxy; and the definite substitution of the Copernican system for the Ptolemaic, which utterly revolutionized the pro- gress of human thought. Milton was alive to all this and fully conversant with it. Mr. Orchard's sketch of astronomy, while hardly sat- isfying from a practical astronomer's point of view, and making overmuch of the picturesqueness of Horrox, neverthe- less well indicates the atmosphere of Milton's time; but it is even more impor- tant to remember that several years of the poet's young life, while he lived at Horton in Buckinghamshire, were de- voted to the study of a type of physical science now known as cosmography, or cosmology. A lengthy chapter deals very fully with this, making it clear how the momentous events of "Paradise Lost" take place in the four regions of universal space, as he conceived it: the Mundane Universe, Hell, Chaos, and the Empyrean. Students of the modern cosmogony will find much that is suggestive in Mil- ton's poetic fancies. Mosaic and Hesio- dic in origin, they improve on Ovid's conception by personifying Chaos, and likening the tumult of the elements, as Mr. Orchard says, to the heat-tormented streams within a molten planet: Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild, Up from the bottom turned by furious winds And surging waves, as mountains to as- sail 1 1 Heaven's highth, and with the centre mix the pole. vii. 212-15. By a happy anticipation he points out the direction in which modern re- search has definitely tended: that there is really but one kind of matter in the universe, and that cosmic changes through the lapse of ages may return systems of worlds to the primordial con- dition of chaos. No poetic or philosophic system of the Miltonian era would have been accepta- ble with the infernal regions left out; and in order to localize Hell, the poet partitioned off the lowest depths of Chaos for his Inferno: A universe of death, which God by curse Created evil, for evil only good. ii. 622-23. All the Early Fathers, and Dante aluo, put Hell within the earth, and St. Thom- as was quite right in declaring that no- body without a special revelation can say exactly where it is. Milton, by plac- ing it far outside the Universe and at the nether side of Chaos, favored rather the ancient classical and mythological conception. Upward and out of Chaos sprang the Mundane Universe: matter rolled into whorls and vortices that condensed into suns and systems of worlds, comprising a countless multitude of shining orbs, the fixed stars and spiral nebulae of the present age. Of course, Milton adopted the Ptolemaic system of concentric spheres in localizing all the known bod- ies of his Universe, which, as a whole, were pendant by a golden chain from the floor of the Empyrean. These sev- eral spheres revolved, earth-centred, with a Speed, to describe whose swiftness num- ber fails. viii. 38. Outside the Sphara Stellarum, or eighth sphere of the Universe, there was noth- ing save the two huge hollow spherical shells added to the Ptolemaic system by the astronomers of the Middle Ages: the ninth Crystalline Sphere, and a tenth or Primum Mobile, "the wheel of day and night," which, as Professor Masson says, "strongly shelled us in" against the frightful warfare of the elements which was perpetual in Chaos. Mr. Orchard makes a most interest- ing chapter of Milton's brief residence in Italy, especially in relation to the "Tuscan Artist," whom he visited at Arcetri, just out of Florence. "There it was," wrote Milton, "I found and visited the famous Galileo, grown old, a prisoner of the Inquisition, for think- ing in astronomy otherwise than the Francisian and Dominician licensers thought." There can be little doubt that their conversation led the poet to inquire into the merits of the new Copernican system. Milton must thor- oughly have understood all the argu- ments for and against the heliocentric system, as is minutely set forth In the philosophic colloquy in Book viil of Adam, Raphael, and the Angel. Our present-day knowledge of the stars, and their mysteries, of the dou- bles and multiples, and clusters and
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April 23, 1914] The JSTation 4.75 nebulae, are amply set forth in Mr. Orchard's volume. All these objects in Milton's day were regarded as small and unimportant in magnitude, com- pared with the sun and the moon, and more distant than the outermost planet, though not excessively remote. It seems not a little remarkable that no indi- vidual star is mentioned by name any- where in his poems, and only the dog- star and one other indirectly. It was not thought in Milton's day that any- thing could by any possibility be as- certained concerning the physical con- stitution of the stars; the era of the Herschels had not even dawned. Very abundant are the allusions to Venus, as both morning and evening star; to the Pleiades, and to the Gal- axy, that Milky Way Which nightly as a circling zone thou seest Powdered with stars, vii, 574-81. which fairly sums up our knowledge ■of it, after three centuries of interroga- tion with lens and mirror. Quite contrary to what we might ex- pect, there are but two cometary allu- sions; and meteors more often took the poet's fancy, as the Attendant Spirit in "Comus": Swift as the sparkle of a glancing star- — C. 80. Mr. Orchard is at his best in this scholarly volume, portraying Milton in his more lengthy and numerous astro- nomical descriptions, from that of Creation in "Paradise Lost" to the con- templative serenity of the concluding lines of "II Penseroso": And may at last my weary age Find out some peaceful hermitage, The hairy gown and mossy cell, Where I may sit and rightly spell Of every star that heaven doth shew, And every herb that sips the dew; Till old experience do attain To something like prophetic strain. 167-74. The careful index is a great help, and might well have included first lines of citations. The few obvious printer's blemishes (pp. 48, 287, "Dr. Wallis, Sa- vilian Professor"; p. 118, "colure is still in common use"; p. 126, "Medes and the Lydians"; p. 152, "Ptolemaic theory"; pp. 203, 284, "Houzeau") are worth cor- rection in later editions. Dr. George William Hill, the astron- omer, generally acknowledged the fore- most man in the world in the field of ce- lestial mechanics, died on April 16 at the age of seventy-six. Dr. Hill was born in New York. He graduated from Rutgers College in 1859, and subsequently receiv- ed honorary degrees from Cambridge, Princeton, Columbia, and Rutgers. In 1861 he became assistant in the office of •the American Ephemeris and Nautical -Almanac, and later succeeded to the di- rection of this publication, but resigned to become lecturer on celestial mechanics at Columbia University. In 1887 he re- ceived the gold medal of the Royal As- tronomical Society of London, on account of his researches in connection with the lunar theory, and in 1898 he gained the Damoiscan prize of the Paris Academy of Sciences. In 1909, he received the Cop- ley medal of the Royal Society, the high- est honor awarded by that body. The preeminence of his work in mathemati- cal astronomy was recognized by the Carnegie Institution in the publication, undertaken some years ago, of his "Col- lected Mathematical Works." A more ex- tended notice of Dr. Hill will appear in the Nation at an early date. Drama THE NEW SPIRIT OF FRENCH DRAMA. Paris, April 2. The Paris theatrical year is at its turn. Plays have risen, fallen, lived, and died, and lasted. In spite of im- ported foreign fashions, of new social layers rising to the level of theatre- going, of physical and consequent men- tal changes in the living of the edu- cated and the rich who furnish thea- tres their chief public, the Paris stage ever returns to the natural play-actor- ing of the French race. This is never all tears nor all laughter; and a good deal of sermonizing is endured. A hun- dred years ago Tom Moore did not real- ly believe, as his quotation marks show, what he felt himself obliged to write for English readers: I have the bliss To date to you a line from this "Demoralized" metropolis. At the two state theatres and at the two dozen other theatres properly so- called which the Paris critic is sup- posed to follow, the atmosphere is less cosmopolitan or international and more French than it has been for many years. One would almost think that French society — the bourgeoisie — were pulling itself together and turning from Bohemian and exotic and doctrinaire pastime to more congenial play. Brune- tiere worked out his criticism by the evolution of literary forms. Now. plays in France are literature, with forms well defined; and this is a chief rea- son why Parisians have been unable to support very long the formless, indefi- nite, unliterary plays of late years. Not that the Paris stage is becoming a safe moral or social mentor in any- thing except pronunciation. Comcdie- bouffe, like opcra-bouffe, will always hold its own. I should imagine that "La Belle Aventure" of Robert de Flers and A. de Caillavet at the Theatre du Vaudeville must be the best money- earner of the year, with the excep- tion of Wagner's "Parsifal" at the Opera. The theatre's name, of course., has nothing to do with the distorted and vulgarized American use of the word "vaudeville." Twenty years ago it had another very French success in Moreau's "Madame Sans-Gene," but that was history piquant and well acted. "Le Roi," by Flers and Caillavet, also had a notably long run at the Theatre des Varietes, which for a century has been the very home of Bouffe. The con- versation is always a little free for the Anglo-Saxon who has still to do violence to his Puritanism; and re- ligious men might find, as Bossuet did in all things theatrical, that the tem- per is too Greek. All is laughter, all is dust, and all is nothing! So the Anthology said, but the Greeks, too, had Prometheus. Of all places in the world, Monte Carlo has just pro- duced at its theatre a new French piece quite as serious. George Rivollet, who gave two successful verse-plays from Euripides to the Comedie Frangaise, has exhaled in it the religious tragedy of certain souls of to-day in devious pilgrimages through "Jerusalem." It is there a skeptical Irish widower in public life, George Lesly, travelling with his young daughter, encounters the wid- owed Italian princess Domitia. In her intense piety, their mutual love is ac- companied by the imperious necessity that he shall be converted, that they shall not be for ever separated by death. At the Holy Sepulchre, with her fore- head bowed on the Rock of Calvary, she prays for the victorious grace. At her request he allows his daughter to walk in procession with other young girls clad in white and bearing lighted can- dles in their hands. Her veil catches fire, and she dies. The Italian woman whose prayer has thus been strangely answered revolts; but the stricken fath- er bows his head in submission, because, if such things happen, there must be a God to make them right some time, somewhere. And he who is comforted by this grace of faith, in turn, has to convert her. She becomes his wife, while others — and the public — moralize. This may or may not be good theology; but the cry of helpless human sorrow is given in real words that are also high poetic tragedy in language and form. If, as is expected, the play should be produced at the Theatre Fran- cals, it would be another sign that Je- rusalem still co-exists with Babylon, which is true elsewhere than tn Paris. A mistake might be made from the slow but sure vanishing of the psychological and sociological plays which so long have cumbered the ground of dramatic art. A like death from exhaustion Is
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4=7 (y The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2547 DOted in tho French novel. The old problem play went first. Soul analysis, different from characterization, which is drama's Quintessential, still lingers on. It was but yesterday we had the prob- lem transferred from the individual to the undramatic collectivity in such plays as Paul Bourget's "Le Tribun"; and this, too, is going. A moderate suc- cess only has met "Un Grand Bour- geois" at the Theatre Antoine, which was the first stage of the New Art that is already old. It is by Emile Fabre, whose other pieces have proclaimed his narrow but powerful outlook on new- rich society. Here we see the second purse-proud generation between shirt- sleeves and shirt-sleeves. The founder of the money-making business is still alive and has kept the essential tem- per of a workman, in •sympathy with the Social Revolution. He has given over the administration of his fortune to his son, who is eager for power and willing to sweat labor, and who breaks on a rock in the third generation of these sudden riches — his daughter. She re- fuses to marry the man necessary to the combinations of the parvenu Croesus and fixes her heart on a salaried em- ployee. The grandfather, in the name of the Revolution of 1793 and of 1848 and of the Commune, in all of which the family had a part, has to step in and take the reins again to put all in sociological order. The solution of the sentimental question would be accepted everywhere nowadays; and the play- wright's supposition that forced mar- riages have an air of reality in the French world of to-day is an unconvinc- ing part of his work. In the Labor question, with all the power of his story and human talk, there is min- gled a bitterness which also seems rath- er the resentment of a bourgeois with a doctrine than that of a genuine work- man. With only faint praise from the Parisian public, but high appreciation of critics and probably foreign favor, it is another sign of French seriousness. This, of course, does not prevent the usual year's production of successful pieces comic in situations wherein Smollet would have revelled, like Paul Gavault's new play at the Varietes, "Ma Tante d'Honfleur." What folly To say that the French are nol dear Dolly! S. D. Since I wrote the above, a sensational event has happened — the resignation of M. Antoine as director of the second French state theatre, the Od6on of Paris. Whether and how far this confirms my observation of changing dispositions in the French theatrical public is a seri- ous question, not to be answered at a is notice. In thirty years, An- toine has done more than any other Frenchman to lift the stage from lifeless routine and to direct it along new lines. These sometimes led back to classic French traditions, sometimes forward to New Art— and again toward exoti- cism. After ten years of struggle at the Theatre Libre and ten more of fair suc- cess at the Theatre Antoine, he has now passed eight years at the state-subsi- dized Odeon — and failed from a money point of view. M. Viviani, Minister of Public In- struction, in these last closing days of Parliament, had obtained for Antoine another $25,000, but it was not enough. Antoine's last production was Moliere, Corneille, and Quinault's "Psyche," with Lulli's music and ballet, to the unani- mous admiration of critics in the press — and $440 as a nightly receipt! Yet Antoine's direction had brought the an- nual subscription receipts from $4,400 when he took the theatre to $20,000 for the present year. All this proves that no theatre can subsist on subsidies and subscriptions alone without a regular volunteer public. Why M. Antoine has not secured this also is a problem to which many answers may be given. Tne case is the same — but not the an- swers— for the American venture in Paris a year ago. SHAKESPEARE'S WOMEN. The True Ophelia and Other Studies of Shakespeare's Women. By an Ac- tress. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. $1.25 net. This is a very clever little book, and particularly interesting as the product of keen and original observation quick- ened by professional experience. The author, of course, has nothing to offer that is subversive of long established ideals. She writes as a theatrical ex- pert rather than as a commentator, and it is quite possible to disagree with some of the details in her conceptions — sound as these generally are in the bulk — but she always gives reasons for the faith that is in her, and exhibits notable, sometimes excessive, ingenuity in extracting support for them from the text, of which she has evidently been a most conscientious and intelligent stu- dent. Plainly, she is not one of those performers content to abide by stage traditions and acting versions. Of the modern spectacular productions, in which dramatic proportion, well-balanc- ed characterization, and the true spirit of the play are too often sacrificed to scenic necessities or the aggrandization of the star, she speaks with sane and vigorous contempt, illustrating, by preg- nant examples, the manner in which subordinate but important personages are reduced to meaningless nonentities by unintelligent compression. This is an ancient grievance, but she gives fresh point to the expression of it. Her chief weakness as an expositor of character arises from her tendency to over-emphasize every word or phrase which can be twisted to fortify her own view and a certain unscrupulousness in arguing from imaginary conditions, wholly unwarranted by the text, if not altogether inconsistent with it. And in her interpretation of certain passages she is occasionally led astray by her desire for theatrical effectiveness. Bui, in the main, her reflections and conclu- sions exhibit as much sagacity as inde- pendence. Although the essay on Ophelia occupies the place of honor in the volume, it is inferior in interest and value to several of the others. It is not possible at this late day to say any- thing new about that unhappy lady and to the one vexed question about her, she does not allude. But she tells her story prettily and with very complete appreciation of its emotional and pa- thetic possibilities. If she ever acted it along the suggested lines, her im- personation must have been worth see- ing, but the intimation, in her adopted title, that it was left for her to reveal the "true Ophelia" smacks of presump- tion. That was done long ago by Ellen Tree, Kate and Ellen Terry, and Helena Modjeska, not to mention others, but it is unfortunately true that the part has often been belittled by most incompe- tent pretenders. In her analysis of Lady Macbeth our anonymous actress not only displays fine imagination and intuition, but pos- sibly affords a clue to her own identity. In any case, she rehearses the views and seems to speak with the tongue of Clara Morris. That great actress did not, indeed, fully embody the ideal here set forth — for the simple reason that her technical efficiency was unequal to the task imposed upon it by her artistic inspiration — but she did succeed in mak- ing the intellectual intent of it clear, and in establishing its plausibility, if not its correctness. There has always been a critical controversy — which is not likely to be settled— concerning the relative responsibility of Macbeth and his wife for the crimes in which they were mutually engaged. In the theatre the question is apt to be decided by tin- dominance or popularity of the male or the female performer. Any theory mak- ing Lady Macbeth the primary insti- gator of the plot is plainly untenable. Macbeth conceived it upon the first hint from the witches. But it was she who applied the spur to his faltering pur- pose and goaded him to action. In this sense she became the leader in tb terprise, developing a nature and will essentially masculine. Chariot le I'ush- man, with her rugged power— and other famous actresses of similar type — could embody this conception successfully, and
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April 23, 1914] T li e Nation 4=77 helped to make it traditional. But jt involves certain inconsistencies. Would an Amazon of this kind have provoked the tender terms of endearment — "dear- est chuck," etc. — which Macbeth ad- dressed to her, or would she have been liable to feminine collapse? This actress — like Clara Morris, who, indeed, could have portrayed no other- conceives a Lady Macbeth direfully am- bitious, subtle and unscrupulous, but with the external fascinations of her sex, beautiful, alluring, guileful as the ser- pent. Mrs. Siddons is known to have approved this interpretation — while adopting one better suited to her own style and personality — and there is much to be said in its favor, as all candid readers of this book will ac- knowledge. But it does not dispense with the necessity for tragic force in the great climaxes, and it was the absence of this quality that was the fatal defect in Miss Morris's bold and thoughtful performance. The chapter on the Queen Mother in "Hamlet," having for its chief object the rehabilitation of that unfortunate lady, is full of sound and acute crit- icism. The thesis that Gertrude was an innocent, simple, well-meaning woman, the victim of circumstances altogether beyond her control, is aj-gued with con- vincing skill. And there is a capital dis- sertation on the character of Portia and the really strong legal point in her de- fence of Antonio, not the quibble about the "jot of blood," but the fact that, by his refusal to provide a surgeon, Shy- lock was convicted of a "conspiracy against the life" of a Venetian, and thereby brought himself under the terms of the statute. Her interpretation of the moral of "The Taming of the Shrew" will find cordial acceptance with her own sex. She does not believe in the least in Petruchio's triumph or Katharina's conversion. She holds that Katharina delivers her marital sermon with her tongue in her cheek, stooping only to conquer, and that in the end Petruchio will find out that it is he who has been tamed. The book is very good reading. sound reputation in heavy parts. Proba- bly his greatest success was as Jacques Frochard in "The Two Orphans." To- gether Mr. and Mrs. Rankin produced "The Danites," founded on Joaquin Miller's novel "The First Families of the Sierras," and "49," another Western drama. They built Rankin's Theatre on Third Avenue, which was opened in 1883 by Joseph Jefferson in "Rip Van Win- kle." Recently Mr. Rankin had been as- sociated with Miss Nance O'Neill in Shakespearean productions. Music Arthur McKee Rankin died in San Francisco on April 17 at the age of sev- enty-three years, nearly sixty of which had been spent on the stage. Mr. Ran- kin was born in Canada and first ap- peared on the stage at Rochester, N. Y., under the name of George Henley. In the sixties he played in London under his own name, and his first appearance in New York was in 1870, when he played With Lydia Thompson. He was asso- ciated with the Continental Theatre Com- pany in Boston, other members of which were E. L. Davenport, his daughter Fan- ny, James Lewis, and Kitty Blanchard, whom Rankin afterwards married. Lat- er, when %.. M. Palmer formed his stock company at the Union Square Theatre, Rankin was engaged and established a WAGNER'S UNPUBLISHED LETTER. (The Withdrawal of "Tannhauser.") Much has been written about the cele- brated fiasco of the first performance of "Tannhauser" at the Paris Opera House, which occurred just half a century ago this spring. In this connection was pub- lished some years ago a letter to Wag- ner, in reply to one from him, written by the Minister of State of the time, Count Walewski, who, during the Second Empire, had under his control every- thing pertaining to the subventioned the- atres. These, of course, included the Opera House, where "Tannhauser" was produced, on March 13, 1861. But the text of the letter to which Count Wa- lewski's is the reply has never been made public. Thanks, however, to Mr. J. G. Prod'homme, the Paris musical critic, we are able to give an English translation of this document, even be- fore the French original has appeared in print. The draft of the letter as finally sent was found recently in the archives of the Paris Opera House. The chirog- raphy is, of course, that of Wagner, who knew French very well, though there are some changes, in the writing of his warm friend and librettist, Nuitter, who was then archivist of the Opera. The occasion was so important that Wag- ner had recourse to his collaboration, but in the translation given below, the text of Wagner has been followed, which, it may be stated, has undergone but a few minor modifications by the pen of Nuitter. It may be added that Walewski's reply to Wagner's request was a decisive negative, in consequence of which, and the turmoil of the public at the first performances, Wagner decid- ed simply to withdraw the opera, though all the seats were sold ahead fo- a dozen nights: Since, by order of his Majesty. "Tann- hauser" has been admitted to the reper- toire of the Opera, it is scarcely neces- sary for me to assure your Excellency how profoundly grateful I am for this honor. I must add, too, how touched I am by the zeal and talent with which the administration, the heads of the dif- ferent departments, and the artists them- selves, of the Opera have seconded me in this undertaking. Up to the last mo- ment, I felt that the performance would be quite worthy of the high favor with which I have been honored by his Maj- esty. But there is one point to which I feel I ought to call the attention of your Excellency. I refer to the leadership of the orchestra. When at the beginning of this affair, M. Royer, director of the Opera, asked me if I would lead the orchestra during the first performances, I declined this honor on the ground that it would be more natural and more in the interest of the opera itself if I were to initiate the regular leader intc all my intentions, and in this way make sure that the piece would be well executed, whether I were present or not. So I have made every effort to accomplish this end, and have furnished every possible explanation. But, notwithstanding all this labor, I am now convinced myself and stand ready to convince likewise a committee of ar- tists, that the leader who is going to con- duct this opera is not yet in a position to perform this difficult task, which can- not be mastered in a few months. When I am not immediately at hand to aid him, when I leave the stage and sit in the auditorium, I am struck at every moment by his incompetency, his lack of mem- ory, and his inability to keep up the in- dicated movements; while the singers, who are left to take care of themselves, feel that they are not supported by the leader and the orchestra. Under such circumstances, the performance is sure to be but a mediocre success, which will not repay all the effort put into it. This is a serious risk to run for a work which makes no concessions to ordinary tastes, and which can force attention only by means of perfect execution, which could be had if I were at the head of this so justly famous body of musicians. This favor, which I at first declined, is everywhere considered a composer's right. When I declined it, I never dream- ed that my right to exercise it would be questioned at the last moment when cir- cumstances made me feel that I should exercise it. But now I find it impossible to get M. Dietsch, the leader of the or- chestra, to grant me this favor. In venturing to ask your Excellency to come to my aid in this matter, I am the first to recognize the difficult posi- tion in which I place your Excellency. If I were in the ordinary situation of an author in relation to his theatre, 1 should simply withdraw my opera from the stage before the first night. But it would be impossible for me to act in this way on this occasion, when I have been treated with such high favor. Yet, as matters now stand, I find myself on the eve of a first-night where success seems very doubtful. Consequently, the only course left for me would seem to be to have nothing further to do with this af- fair, whose direction is no longer in my hands. But before withdrawing, I have felt that I should send your Excellency this protest against the presentation of my work under such conditions, and should declare that I reserve the right to protest also to the public, If what happens in the near future calls for such a protest. Paris, March 7. : -
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4=7 S T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2547 REAL MUSIC TEACHING. Musical Interpretation. By Tobias Mat- thay. Boston: Boston Music Co. $1.50. Piano Playing with Piano Questions An- swered. By Josef Hofmann. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co. $1 net. For serious students of the pianoforte there is probably no more helpful book than Tobias Matthay's "The Act of Touch." Although its style is not re- markable for lucidity, it throws much light on obscure questions of prime im- portance to all players. The author, who is professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London, has written several other books of instruction that are much used. His latest work, "Musical Inter- pretation," includes a series of lectures repeatedly delivered by him. While deal- ing with the subject mainly from the pianist's point of view, the principles formulated concern also the players of other instruments, including even the operators of mechanical pianos. Liszt, the greatest teacher as well as the greatest pianist that ever lived, never gave a real "lesson" in his life. He confined himself entirely to hints as to interpretation, to playing examples, and to arousing enthusiasm for the good in art and contempt for the mere- tricious. A similar result is evidently aimed at by Professor Matthay. While he believes that really great artists are born, he is convinced that even the most talented can be greatly helped by wise counsel, because it prevents their wast- ing years in futile experiments. The trouble with most teachers is that they do not know how to impart helpful ad- vice. They tell a pupil to "play more sympathetically" or "more rhythmical- ly," without pointing out precisely how it is to be done — many of them for the good reason that they do not themselves know how to do it. Professor Matthay does know, and therein lies the value of his instructions. He makes perfectly clear the difference between mere cram- ming and real teaching, as well as that between merely directing pupils to "do things" and teaching them to think — to ponder the reason why. This way of im- parting information also makes work infinitely more agreeable to the teach- er, who, as the author pathetically re- marks, not infrequently hears a pupil whose performance is "appallingly un- musical— sometimes enough to make him almost shriek with the downright misery of it." There is one chapter in this book which cannot be as cordially endorsed as the others, although the author evi- dently is particularly proud of it. It is concerned with The Element of Ru- bato. While it is gratifying to find him maintaining that the rubato is applica- ble not only to Chopin and other mod- ern composers, but also to the classical writers from Bach to Beethoven, one is disappointed to lind that Professor Mat- thay adheres to the absurd old notion that if the player dwells a little on one note, he must shorten those that follow sufficiently to atone for the extra time thus given — a rule as preposterous as it would be to ask an actor, if he dwells on a word or two at the beginning of a line, to accelerate the following words so as to deliver each line of a stanza in exact- ly the same time. That is not the way the great pianists play. Their rubato consists in frequent slight accelerations or retardations of the pace, without any regard for the metronome or the mechanical steps of the dance-hall. Yet some of them, while instinctively using the poetic freedom of pace, parrot that same old aesthetic police regulation about restoring in one place the time "stolen" (rubato) in another. There is such a thing as that, but it is of very slight importance com- pared with the real rubato, about which Paderewski has written so eloquently. The greatest of Paderewski's col- leagues, Josef Hofmann, makes that same mistake in his book on the piano. The first edition of this book appeared six years ago. It is now reprinted with the addition of 175 pages of answers to questions which were first printed in the Ladies' Home Journal. As in the case of Professor Matthay's book, the pages on rubato are the only ones to which one can take exception. It is needless to say that Hofmann does not live up to that maxim; he plays poetical- ly, not metronomically; indeed, he re- peatedly "speaks disrespectfully" of the metronome, which "kills the vital ex- pression in playing." Hofmann was a pupil of Rubinstein, to whose method of teaching he devotes some pages. The multiplicity of topics touched on by him is indicated by the fact that the index covers sixteen columns. A few of the subjects discussed are: Starting on a Concert Career, Afraid to Play Before People, Can Music Be Studied in Amer- ica? How to Get Music Published, How to Use the Pedal, International Pitch, Individual Teacher or Conservatory? Or- ganizing a Musical Club, Sex of the Piano Teacher, Watch Your Breathing, Why the Piano Is So Popular. Henry T. Finck. "Mona Lisa" is the name of a new opera by Schillings, which is to be pro- duced at the Imperial Opera in Vienna next season. The object of the new Music League of America is to help talented young musi- cians to obtain professional engagements of a remunerative character. There has been in recent years a surprising growth of interest in music and a steadily in- creasing demand for singers and play- ers, but the plums have more often gone to those who have business instincts than to those who are musically the most gifted. The main object of the League is to correct this state of affairs by bringing deserving artists into touch with the clubs and private parties requiring their services. Orders for the services of art- ists, amounting to several thousand dol- lars, have already been received. Sing- ers or players, unless already well known, must be passed on by a jury of experts before they will be endorsed. The League is backed up with abundant capital, the officers being Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, Mrs. Willard D. Straight, Mrs. Otto H. Kahn, Mrs. Linzee Blagdon, Mr. Alvin Kroch, and Mr. Dave Hennen Morris. During the thirty-nine weeks of the first season of the Century Opera Com- pany twenty-six operas were sung in the following order: "Ai'da," "La Gioconda," "Tales of Hoffmann," "Lohengrin," "Jew- els of the Madonna," "Madame Butterfly," "Tosca," "Lucia," "Samson and Delilah," "II Trovatore," "Thai's," "Faust," "Bo- hemian Girl," "Carmen," "Louise," "La Boheme," "Romeo and Juliet," "Rigolet- to," "Cavalleria Rusticana," "Manon," "Hansel and Gretel," "The Secret of Su- zanne," "Tiefland," "Martha," "Natoma." All the operas were sung in English. The experiment of giving one performance in the original language was soon abandon- ed. Some of the operas named were sung more than one week; it is pleasant to note that Humperdinck's charming fairy opera, "Hansel and Gretel," holds the rec- ord, having been sung, in conjunction with the International Ballet, twenty-nine times. "Ai'da" and "The Tales of Hoff- mann" also proved very popular, being sung seventeen times each, while "Mad- ame Butterfly" and "Thai's" each had six- teen performances, and "Louise" had fif- teen. It is worth noting that with the eight performances given last week Vic- tor Herbert's "Natoma" has been sung thirty-eight times altogether, which is a bigger success than any other American grand opera has won. The Century Opera House is to be rebuilt during the summer to make room for 40 per cent, more of the cheaper seats, for which there has been the largest demand. Bet- ter translations of librettos are promised for next season, which is to be consider- ably shorter than the first, because the house will be taken for a time by Mr. Dippel and his operetta company. Ernest Schelling, on his last tour in America, did a good service in making his audiences acquainted with some of the masterworks of the "Spanish Cho- pin," Enrique Granados. The Schirmers have just published four of • the latest compositions by this original writer: a "Valse de Concert," "A la Cubana," "Danzas Espagnolas," and "Marche Mill- taire." The conductor of the New York Phil- harmonic Society, Mr. Stransky, and the conductor of the Mendelssohn Choir of Toronto, Dr. A. S. Vbgti have made a plan for. repeating in New York in 1915 or 1916 the programmes of the music festival to be held In Berlin i>n the twen- tj fifth annlversarj of the Kaiser's reign. lMl:;;ir Stilman Kelley lias been invited by the Liszt Society i" conduct his New England Sympbonj at their festival la Aitenburg on April 27.
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April 23, 1914] The Nation 4=79 Art HOW HISTORY IS NOT REPEATED AT THE BRITISH ARTISTS'. Loindon, April 9. Probably there never was a time when the English artist relied so implicitly upon precedent to establish his claim to greatness. The sedulous students of Matisse and Picasso find themselves ridi- culed and refused; the Pre-Raphaelites and Whistler, they say, were ridiculed and refused, but are now accepted as masters; therefore, we who are exposed to the same treatment must also be masters. The belated Impressionist re- members the years when Manet and Monet and the others of the group could not sell their pictures; he cannot always sell his own pictures as fast as he would like to; therefore, he is convinced he, too, must be a genius misunderstood. Something of the same reasoning has been used in connection with the recent appointment of Frank Brangwyn to succeed the late Sir Alfred East as president of the Royal Society of Brit- ish Artists. Whistler, the critics recall, revolutionized the Society when he was elected to the same post, and he, with his followers, infused fresh life into it, with such success that in the end the British Artists themselves could not en- dure it and got rid of him; therefore, the critics argue, Brangwyn, who is an independent, even though an associate of the Academy, must save the Society again from the slough of commonplace. Before the opening of the first show under his presidency great stress was laid upon the fact of his own inde- pendence, of the new members and exhibitors he was bringing with him, of the reforms he meant to initiate, and it really seemed as if the British Artists would a second time take a new lease of life from their president and be pre- pared to carry on the traditions of in- dependence in art that the New English Art Club has outgrown, and the Inter- cational all but forgotten; as if the his- toric gallery in Suffolk Street would again be the headquarters of all that is most alive and promising in English art, and, in its accomplishment, a dan- gerous and much-needed rival to the Academy. Let me say at once that, now it has opened, it is a disappointment. History has not repeated itself, for the simple reason that it has not the same ma- terial to deal with. Whistler not only reorganized the Society and introduced new methods, but by his presence he gave it a distinction It had never had before and has never had since. Brang- wyn, it is already evident, is also ready to reorganize the Society and run it on his own lines. Like Whistler, it is clear that he has due respect for the arrangement of an exhibition and that he believes pictures and drawings and prints should be placed upon the wall with some feeling for harmony and dig- nity— not crowded together, as many as the wall will hold, with the idea, that the more there are the greater the chance to replenish the bank account of the Society and the pockets of the ex- hibitors. But Brangwyn, though he has the sense to understand the importance of the proper presentation of a work of art, has not Whistler's talent for deco- rative arrangement. Whistler could make a gallery beautiful; Brangwyn cannot quite do that. The best he can do is to make the British Artists' rooms pleasanter to the eye than they have been for some years past. Brangwyn, himself, sends to the ex- hibition only one painting, The Bridge, Avignon, described by the catalogue as unfinished — a large canvas that might be part of a series for mural decoration. An arch of the bridge stretches high up across the com- position, its midway tower seen at the far end with an indefinite indi- cation of architectural forms on the farther side; below, a great barge and a confused group of people, with, close by, boys bathing; beyond, framed by the arch, a suggestion of country, but no suggestion whatever of Avignon or Provence in it. The first impression, as in all Brangwyn's work, whether painting, etching, or lithography, is of bigness; the second, of exaggeration, of the sacrifice to this bigness of all finer and subtler qualities, all local charac- teristics and atmosphere. It is the big- ness of the scene-painter, color and design and detail used, it would seem, for their theatrical value. It is im- mensely able and clever, it abounds in the vigor which is so deplorably lack- ing in most paintings nowadays. But Brangwyn has not the art, or appar- ently the application, to hide his arti- ficiality. Moreover, he is in danger of inventing a hard and fast formula, and a formula, no matter how vigorous, is always a serious obstacle to the artist. The danger is perhaps more seriously felt in his etchings and lithographs, but there it is, without question, and a formula cannot take the place of renew- ed study and inspiration; it must ex- haust itself in the course of time. Another of the more prominent new- comers is James Pryde, who has achiev- ed of late a surprising popularity. He works on a smaller scale than Brang- wyn, but on his small canvas he, too, aims at expressing architectural big- ness; he, too, grows theatrical; he, too, threatens to reduce his expression of bigness to a formula, if he has not al- ready. Recently he showed at the In- ternational an interior in which the upright posts and curtains of a great four-poster rose to colossal heights out of all proportion with the bed itself and the other detail in the room. Now he follows it up with A Sinister Interior, in which the same extravagant effect of height is strained after, and the lines of a door in the background are carried up and up, until one feels, not the de- sired effect, but the straining to pro- duce it, and the figures dwindle into pigmies, and the rest of the dark and dimly seen room is reduced to an ex- cuse, a peg upon which to hang an ex- ercise in sensationalism. More unexpected is the presence of George Henry, who many years ago, as one of the Glasgow School, helped startle London, but who, as an Associate of the Academy, has, in the way of most revolutionaries turned into Academi- cians, ceased to startle or rebel. He sends a portrait which he calls Cherries, ap- propriately, for the fruit, piled on a plate set in the centre of a white-cov- ered table, is so excellently painted that the eye is drawn to it rather than to the figure of the woman who fills the other side of the canvas and who is only less sweet and pretty than the pret- ty and sweet women of Frank Dicksee. G. Spencer Pryse, known as a member of the Senefelder Club, has a large lith- ograph, a triptych, for a poster, Labor the subject, printed in three or four colors, that is one of the best things in the exhibition. It does what a poster should do — it tells on the walls, the lines and masses used to good decora- tive purpose, the figures well grouped, while it is free from the mawkish sen- timent with which artists too often ap- proach similar themes. Pryse is young, he shows power in his drawing, he can work out a large and spacious design, but he seems disposed in his litho- graphs to rely upon the same color scheme, the same types, the same ef- fects, rather than to seek the new pro- blems and experiments by which the artist develops himself and his talent. However, after his triptych, little else stands out with a genuine note of in- dividuality. Bertram Priestman, who also, I believe, comes in with Brang- wyn, and one or two others — now the way has been pointed out to them — seek to express their appreciation of the pictorial possibilities of work in their landscape. But with this short list I have exhausted the special inter- est of the exhibition; that is, of any new signs it gives of vitality in the present or renewed life in the future. Whatever achievement, whatever en- couragement Brangwyn at the British Artists' may hold in store for a world sadly in need of both, he offers little promise as yet History may repeat it- self in supplying the same conditions, but conditions alone do not create the artist. N_ N_
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4SO The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2547 Finance "WAR MARKETS." When the news came suddenly over the wires from Washington, on Tues- day of last week, that the fleet had been ordered to Tampico, to insist on Huer- ta's making apology in due form for the Mexican insults to our sailors, the stock market was already declining on the news of the President's announcement that the new "Trust legislation" would be pressed. The arrival of this warlike news at once suggested a further and far more violent decline. This did not happen; the afternoon market display- ed greater steadiness than that of the forenoon. Next day the morning newspapers were crowded with black head-lines, pic- tures of the warships, measures of the naval force, and its belligerent capacity. People came downtown, shaking their heads and declaring that now we were "in for war." The stage was apparently set for a "war market" on the Stock Exchange. But if Wednesday's market answered that description, it foreboded very little concern about the war. When stocks went down, they fell not by points but fractions, and nearly half of them closed at a slight advance. The actual news of Huerta's refusal to sub- mit to the terms imposed by our Gov- ernment came in last Sunday. Monday's Stock Exchange market, opening slight- ly lower, promptly recovered all its loss, and showed every sign of coming to an expectant halt. It declined at the close, on the notion that President Wilson's address to Congress, later in the day, would bring on the crisis; but on Tues- day, with the Presidential speech on record, prices recovered all of Monday's loss. This was at least an enigmatical "war market"; but then the war news itself was an enigma. No one has felt alto- gether clear in his own mind as to what kind of war this war would be, how long it would last, or how much it would cost. There is little with which to compare the present episode, as regards the pos- sible bearing of a war with Mexico on the financial situation. Our earlier Mexican War of 1846 throws the least imaginable light on it. Taylor com- manded barely 3,600 United States troops when he crossed the border from Texas into Mexico, that year. Scott cap- tured Vera Cruz and Mexico City, dur- ing 1847, with an army of 12,000. Our War Department's expenditure increased only $4,700,000 in the first year of that war and only $15,400,000 more in the second, and the total increase in the public debt, between the year, 1846, when war was declared, and the year, 1848, in which peace was signed at Gaudalupe Hidalgo, was only $31,500,- 000. But those were days of military operations with small armies, and of warfare whose expense was a trifle com- pared with nowadays, when even the two years' Transvaal War cost England, on the average, by the Chancellor of the Exchequer's subsequent report, $1,000,- 000 per day. The composure of the Stock Exchange has been variously ascribed to the fact that even war would not make the finan- cial position, as regards Mexico itself, worse than it was before, or to con- tinued skepticism as to whether the war would actually amount to much in the long run. But stock markets, though often accurate in forecast, do not al- ways display good judgment as to the probabilities at such a time. In the Cuban war, they did. When our people began to talk of war with Spain, at the opening of 1898, the mar- ket was falling rapidly. The blowing up of the Maine in Havana harbor, dur- ing February, caused a violent decline; in March, when Spain asked the with- drawal of Consul-General Fitzhugh Lee, prices went lower still. Then all activ- ity seemed to stop, awaiting the actual declaration of war. That came on April 21, and on the same day an advance on the Stock Exchange began, which was hardly checked during the rest of 1898, and which led the way to an outburst of activity and strength a few months later. The market had correctly fore- seen a short and quickly successful war. With the Boer War of 1899, the case was different. That war had similarly been preceded by some months of fall- ing English markets — largely due, how- ever, to tight money and an over-extend- ed speculative position. Kruger's ulti- matum brought on active hostilities in October. London Stock Exchange prices declined with considerable sharpness, and the bank rates rose, in England and on the Continent. But the stock mar- ket, after this first decline, recovered rather promptly. It was to be a small war; a remote war; a short war, and a war without foreign complications. This impression lasted during the two first months of fighting — after which, in De- cember, the defeat of two English de- tachments under Buller and Methuen suddenly roused the markets to appre- ciation of the fact that the war would be long and expensive, and that the gold mines of the Transvaal would in the meantime be blockaded. Then the pro- longed decline on the English Stock Ex- change began. When the Japanese fleet attacked the Russians at Port Arthur, in February, 1904, the European markets had been weak, though mainly in connection with the world-wide liquidation of 1903. The French market, where prodigious amounts of Russian bonds were held, and where it was clear that St. Peters- burg would have to borrow for its war expenditure, was attacked with great violence on the war news. There was a day of panic; a heavy break in Russian bonds, and then the thrifty "country in- vestor" of France appeared upon the scene. His purchases brought about im- mediate recovery on the market, which was not thereafter subjected to any vio- lent decline. How mueh of the worldwide disturb- ance of the markets of 1913 was due to the Balkan War itself; how much to fear of "complications between the Pow- ers"; how much to the extravagant heights to which public and company borrowing on those markets had risen, is a still unsettled question. The one certainty of the case is that Europe, when the war broke out in 1912, said that it would be "isolated" and would not be far-reaching in Its consequences, but that the event proved somebody to have badly misjudged the matter. BOOKS OF THE WEEK. FICTION. Blundell, J. Oh, Mr. Bidgood! Lane. $1.25 net. Curie, R. Life is a Dream. Doubleday, Page. $1.35 net. Henry-Ruffln, M. E. The Shield of Si- lence. Benziger. $1.35 net. Jones, D. E. Peter Piper. Philadelphia: Jacobs. $1.25 net. Palmer, F. The Last Shot. Scribner. $1.35 net. Pickthal, R. The Comic Kingdom. Lane. $1 net. Roberts, Isabel J. Polly Day's Island. Benziger. 85 cents net. Wayside Neighbors. By the Author of Wayside. Longmans. 90 cents net. HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY. Callahan, J. M. Semi-Centennial His- tory of West Virginia. Semi-Centen- nial Commission. Crow, C. America and the Philippines. Doubleday, Page. $2 net. Havemeyer, John Craig. Life, Letters, and Addresses. Revell. $1 net. Macaulay's History of England. Illus- trated. Vol II. Macmillan. $3.25 net. McClure, W. K. Italy in North Africa- Philadelphia: Winston. $3 net. Miron, E. L. The Queens of Aragon. Brentano. Nepean, Mrs. E. On the Left of a Throne. Lane. $3 net. Newton, A. P. The Colonising Activities of the English Puritans. New Haven: Yale University Press. $2.50 net. Pennell, A. M. Pennell of the Afghan Frontier. Dutton. $3 net. Phillips, W. A. The Confederation of Europe. Longmans. $2.50 net. Strachey, R. A Quaker Grandmother. Revell. $1 net. GOVERNMENT AND ECONOMICS. Fillebrown, C. B. Taxation. Chicago: McClurg. 50 cents net. Ilbert, C. The Mechanics of Law Making. Columbia University Press. Mecklin, John M. Democracy and Race Friction. Macmillan. $1.25 net. POETRY. Arensberg, W. C. Poems. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. $1 net.
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April 23, 1914) The ]STation 4:81 Comrie, F. M. A Little Book of Verse. Private edition. Dowden, E. Poetical Works. Dutton. $4 net. Fall, C. G. The Soul of the East. Bos- ton: Old Corner Bookstore. Selection of Latin Verse. New Haven: Yale University Press. 75 cents net. Tagore, Rabindranath. The Post Office. Macmillan. $1 net. Untermeyer, L. Challenge. Century. $1 net. TRAVEL. Bosanquet, Mrs. R. C. Days in Attica. Macmillan. $2 net. Duke of Mecklenburg. From the Congo to the Niger and the Nile. Philadel- phia: Winston. Goodrich, J. K. The Coming Hawaii. Chicago: McClurg. $1.50 net. Fyfe, H. The Real Mexico. McBride Nast. $1.25 net. Pears, C. From the Thames to the Neth- erlands. Macmillan. $2 net. MISCELLANEOUS. Ade, G. Fables. Doubleday, Page. $1 net. Altham, E. A. The Principles of War. With Maps. Macmillan. $3.50 net. Bohn's Popular Library: Trollope: Small House at Arlington. Vaughan's Poeti- cal Works. Trelawney: Adventures of a Younger Son. Macmillan. 35 cents net. Cowles, J. D. The Art of Story-Telling. Chicago: McClurg. $1 net. Heath's Modern Language Series: Mon- taigne, Poemes and Chants de France. Pages Choisies de Calvin. Heath. 90 cents net. Lake English Classics: Shakspere: The Tempest. Ed. by W. A. Neilson. Chi- cago: Scott Foresman. 25 cents net. Loeb Classical Library: Tacitus. Macmil- lan. $1.50 net each. Thwing, C. F. Ihe American College. Piatt & Peck. $2 net. Turnbull, U. P. Chessmen in Action. Dutton. 60 cents net. SCIENCE. Byrd, M. E. First Observations in As- tronomy. Concord: Rumford Press. Guillaume, C. E. Mechanics. Doubleday Page. 50 cents net. Houston, A. C. Studies in Water Supply, Mec. Science Monographs. London: Macmillan. $1.60 net. Lusk, G. The Fundamental Basis of Nu- trition. New Haven: Yale University Press. 50 cents net. Philip, A. The Reform of the Calendar. Dutton. $1.50 net. Smith, E. F. Chemistry in America. Appleton. $2.50 net. White, Lazarus. The Catskill Water Sup- ply of New York City. John Wiley & Sons. $6 net. ART. The Studio Year-Book of Decorative Art. Lane. $3 net. Year-Book of American Etching. Lane. $2 net. MUSIC AND DRAMA. Drama League Series: The Great Galeo- to by Echegaray. Doubleday, Page. 75 cents net. Parrott, T. M. The Comedies of George Chapman. London: Routledge. REFERENCE. Catholic Encyclopedia. Index and Read- ing List Encyclopedia Press. Faxon, F. W. F. Dramatic Index 1913. Boston: Boston Book Co. Roberts, K. L. The Clubwoman's Handy- book of Programs and Club Manage- ment. Funk & Wagnalls. 75 cents net. Statement of the Ownership, Manage- ment, Etc. as of April 1st, 1914, of The Nation, published every Thursday, at New York, N. Y. Required by the Act of August 24th, 1912. Name of — Post-office address. Editor — Harold deWolf Fuller, 83 Washington Place, New York City. Managing Editor — Harold deWolf Fuller, 83 Wash- ington Place, New York city. Business Manager — Emil M. Scholz, 162 West 54tb Street, New York city. Publisher — New York Evening Post Company, 20 Vesey Street, New York city. Owner — New York Evening Post Company, 20 Vesey Street, New York, N. Y. Stockholders holding 1 per cent, or more of total amount of stock : Henry Adams, 1605 H Street N. W., Washington, D. C. Wm. H. Beam, Trustee of estate of Julia Sands Bryant, 45 Wall Street, New York, N. Y. Alexander D. Noyes, 2 West 94th Street, New York, N. Y. Oswald G. Villard, Dobbs Ferry, N. Y. Oswald G. Villard, Trustee, Dobbs Ferry, N. Y. Fanny G. Villard, Dobbs Ferry, N. Y. Horace White, 18 West 69th Street, New York, N. Y. EMIL M. SCHOLZ, Business Manager. Sworn and subscribed before me this 1st day of April, 1914. HENRY H. BROWN, [Seal.] Notary Public, N. Y. Co., 390. (My commission expires March 31st, 1915.) Ready Saturday By the Author of "The Garden Without Walls" Florence on a Certain Night AND OTHER POEMS By Coningsby Dawson $1.2$ net It is believed that this volume will win for its author among poets at least the same rank that he has re- 131 cently attained among novelists. ggL H enry H olt&Co. ,&*' vo* Folk Ballads of Southern Europe By SOPHIE JEWETT Associate Professor of English Literature at Wellesley College, Author of "God's Troubadour." 12mo. $1.50 net. "Miss Jewett has spread her net wide in the shaping of this collection. . . . Our author is particularly successful when she uses for her renderings the simple short-line metre. ... In the translations of the wild Roumanian Folk Songs Miss Jewett is seen at her best. The introduction is excel- lent and the notes informing."— London Athenaeum. The original text is printed by the side of the English translations. New York G. P. Putnam's Sons London THE FUNDAMENTAL BASIS ( OF NUTRITION By GRAHAM LUSK, M.D. This is a practical remedy to the high cost of living, emphatic with the authority of a specialist speaking In bis own field. Price 50c. net, carriage extra. YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS. New Haven. Conn. 225 Fifth Ave., N. Y. C. IMPERIAL GERMANY THE STORY OF ITS DEVELOPMENT. By Prince BERNHARD von BULOW. Ex-Chancellor of the German Empire. Large Svo. 342 pages, $3.00 net. DODD, MEAD & CO., Publishers, NEW YORK. HISTOR YOF ENGLAND By ALLEN C. THOMAS. A.M. Profe$tor of Hittory lit Haverfort College. TRACES social and Industrial progress, the rise of the common people to par- liamentary control, and the development of the British empire. Cloth. 600 page*. Map* and illuttrationt. $1.60. D.C.Heath&Co.,Publishers,Bo*ton,NewYork,Chic»go WHAT MEN LIVE BY Br Dr. RICHARD C. OABOT $1.50 net. Postage extra. HOUQHTON MIFFLIN CO., 4 Park St., BOSTON ©hef toning |0£t BOOK of BANK REPORTS Containing the complete reports (at the close of business March 4, 1914) of all the National Banks of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Pittsburgh, and of the leading banks of the principal banking centers of the fnlted States, besides other Interesting and complete statistical matter of Interest to bankers and financial institutions. AND REPORTS OF CANADIAN BANKS. ORDER A COPY NOW 25 Cents per copy. 20 V«ey Street One Dollar per rear Enclosed find ONE DOLLAR for wblch send me Book of Bank Reports for one year. Name Address
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4:82 The ISTation [Vol. 98, No 2547 Not Every Magazine Publishes in One Number A CHAPTER by MARK TWAIN which has never before been printed. A hitherto unpublished poem by MRS. BROWNING. A description of KIPLING'S "ROAD TO MANDALAY," with illustrations from photographs of the famous road. A description, with illustrations, of O. HENRY'S "NEW ORLEANS." All these features are in THE BOOKMAN for May. Have you seen THE BOOKMAN this Spring? KIPLING'S INDIA, by Arley Munson. HEARN SEN SEI, Japanese Recollections, by Mock Joya, a Japanese pupil of Lafcadio Hearn. AMERICAN AUTHORS AND THEIR PUBLISHERS, by Algernon Tassin. Etc. Etc. Etc. THE BOOKMAN 25 cents a Copy published monthly $2.50 a Year By DODD, MEAD & COMPANY at 443 Fourth Avenue New York
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Welleslej., ^^ The Nation *> VOL. XCVII1— NO. 2548 THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 1914 Rep. U. S. VCE TEN CENTS Some Scribner Publications The United States and Mexico, 1821-1848 A HISTORY OF THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE TVVO COUN- TRIES FROM THE INDEPEN- DENCE OF MEXICO TO THE CLOSE OF THE WAR WITH THE UNITED STATES. By George L. Rives, formerly As- sistant Secretary of State. With many excellent maps. Two vol- umes. $8.00 net; postage extra. "The appearance at the present moment of this important, instruct- ive, and very enlightening exposition of the relations between the United States and Mexico during the forma- tive and critical period to which it relates, is singularly opportune." — John Bassctt Moore. "During these days of strife and crisis in Mexico, and the anxiety of the American Government and peo- ple in their attitude towards the Mexican question, Mr. Rives' narra- tive is a most timely and important work." — Boston Transcript. "There could be nothing more timely, in view of present interest in Mexico, than Mr. Rives' copious and commanding work." — New York Tri- bune. "It is a happy chance that at a time of strain between the United States and Mexico Mr. Rives' history of the last crisis between the two States should be printed." — London Saturday Review. "The timeliness of the book is a real as well as an adventitious ad- vantage. There is no subject upon which the people of the United States are in more urgent need of better information than that which Mr. Rives has taken for his own." — New York Sun. North Africa and the Desert By George E. Woodberry. $2.00 net; postage extra. This is one of that very small group of books in which a man of genuine poetic vision has perman- ently registered the color and spirit of a region and a race. It is as full of atmosphere and sympathetic in- terpretation as any that have been written. Chapters like that on "Figuig," "Tougourt," "Tripoli," and "On the Mat" — a thoughtful study of Islam — have a rare beauty and value. Life Histories of African Game Animals By Theodore Roosevelt and Ed- mund Heller. With illustrations from photographs, and drawings by Philip R. Goodwin, and with forty faunal maps. Theodore Roosevelt has used the greater part of his leisurable time in t he last several years in the prepa- ration of this splendid work. He has produced it jointly with Edmund Heller, of the scientific department of the United States National Mu- seum, who accompanied him on his famous African expedition The general plan of each chapter is first to give an account of the Family, then the name by which each animal is known — English, scientific and native; then the geographical range, the history of the species, the narrative life-history, the distinguish- ing characters of the species, the coloration, the measurements of specimens, and the localities from which specimens have been examin- ed, accompanied with a faunal map. It is one of the most important works in natural history and the only comprehensive work of this kind in the African field. 2 Vols. $10.00 net; postage extra. The Influence of the Bible Upon Civilization By Ernest Von Dobschiitz, Pro- fessor of the New Testament at the University of Halle-Wittenberg, and now lecturing at Harvard as exchange professor of the year. $1.25 net; postage extra. This is an attempt to answer by the historical method the great question of the day: "How can Christianity and civilization advance in harmony?" The writer simply follows the traces of the Bible through the different periods of Christian history — a task which, singularly enough, has hardly ever before even been attempted, and never before successfully or even thoroughly done. Hebrew and Babylonian Traditions By Morris Jastrow, Jr., Ph.D.. Pro- fessor of Semitic Languages in the University of Pennsylvania. 8vo. $2.50 net; postage extra. An important and extraordinarily interesting study of the relationship between the Hebrews and the Baby- lonians, devoted primarily to point- ing out the differences between Babylonian myths, beliefs, and prac- tices, and the final form assumed by corresponding Hebrew traditions, de- spite the fact that both are to be traced back to the same source. CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Notes of a Son and Brother henry james By Henry James. With Portraits. $2.50 net. The Nation. — "Certainly, if one were invited to name the literary masterpiece of the twentieth century, one would do well to hesitate before passing further than Mr. James's autobiography. It is not merely that it gives us a unique analysis of every- thing that went to the making of a characteristic literary artist of our times. It does more than this. It introduces us to the most charming and wonderful family group a novel- ist ever found to his hand. It is a book of a warm as well as of a subtle beauty, and is one of Mr. James's masterpieces in character- ization." My First Years as a Frenchwoman,1876-1879 By Mary King Waddington, author of "Letters of a Diplomat's Wife," "Italian Letters of a Diplomat's Wife," etc. $2.50 net; postage extra The years this volume embraces were three of the most critical in the life of the French Republic. 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11 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2548 A WEEKLY JOURNAL [Entered at the New York City Post Office as second-class mail matter.] The Nation is published and owned by the New York Evening Post Co. Oswald Garrison Villard, President; John Palmer Gavit, Sec. and Treas. Three dollars per year in advance, post- paid, in any part of the Onited States or Mexico; to Canada $3.50, and to foreign countries comprised in the Postal Union, $4.00. Address THE NATION, Box 704, New York. Publication Office, 20 Vesey Street. HAROLD dk WOLF FULLER, Editor. STANLEY WENT, Assistant Editor. PAUL ELMER MORE, Advisory Editor. EMIL M. SCHOLZ, Business Manager. CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER. 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April 30, 1914] The Nation 111 "A Veritable Wonder- Journey " Theodore Roosevelt in the Brazilian Wilderness Second Article in the May SCRIBNER The articles by Theodore Roosevelt describing his adventurous trip in the Brazilian Wilderness are attracting universal attention. The April Number of SCRIBNER'S contained the first of these articles. There will probably be eight altogether. To any reader of THE NATION who will at once send us $1.50 we will send the Magazine covering the entire series. RICHARD HARDING DAVIS whose brilliant news dispatches are appearing in the daily press, will send from the front to SCRIBNERS MAGAZINE A series of articles which will form a complete story of the MEXICAN WAR CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 597 Fifth Ave., New York ALGEBRA OF LOGIC. By Louis Couturat. Authorized translation by L. G. Robinson; with a preface by Philip E. B. Jourdain, of Cam- bridge. "Couturat's treatise is fitted to serve as an introduction to the study of mathematical logic. Mr. Jourdain's preface is of an historical character and gives a very thorough account of the development of the subject and the various phases of it especially em- phasized by each of its different rep- resentatives." Cloth, 98 pages, $1.50. Our new complete Catalogue and samples of our Magazines "The Open Court" and "The Monist" sent free on request. The Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago SOCIAL IDEALS OF A FREE CHURCH Eleven papers of great interest and value to all students of social problems in their re- lation 10 the church, by various authors, in- cluding: FRANCIS G. PEARODY MRS. ANNA GARLIX SPENCER SAMUEL McCHORD CBOXHERS .TAMES O. FAGAN CHARLES F. DOLE PAUL REVERE FROTniNOIIAM AND OTHERS. Edited by ELMER S. FORBES A remarkable combination of mature and progressive theory and successful practice. In- dispensable for one seeking to keep pace with the best efforts in this great fit H'. 12mo; 139 pages. SI .00 net; by mall, «1.09 AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION 2.j BEACON STREET, BOSTON MASS Bays Miniature Law Library. Only complete work on Com- mercial law. Contains Leral Forms of all kinds. Should be in every Library. Fits the pock- et. 9 volumes J12.00. Safe — — ^^— counsellor. Worth its weight in gold. 2000 pates. Order Now. Sent on approval CALLAGHAN A CO., Law Publishers, CHICAGO Animal Communities in Temperate America A Study in Animal Ecology Designed to Serve as a Reference Work and Textbook. By Victor Ernest Shei.- ford, of the Department of Zoology in the University of Chicago. This volume presents the principles of field ecology, illustrated by the more widely distributed animal habitats of the eastern half of temperate North America, and the aquatic habitats of a much larger territory. Six chapters deal with general principles. In sev- eral chapters the animal communities are considered from the point of vie of modern dynamic ecology. A valu- able feature of the book is the three hundred figures of widely distributed animals chosen to represent the chief types of animal communities and their characteristic modes of life. 380 pages, 8vo, cloth; price $3.00, postage extra (weight 44 oz.) The University of Chicago Press CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. AGENTS The Baker & Taylor Company New York The Cambridge Univ.Press.London and Edinburgh Karl \V. Hiersemann Leipzig The Maruzen-Kabushiki-Kaisha, Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto ANCIENT HISTORY By HUTTON WEBSTER. PhD. Professor in the University of Xcbraska. I Q IVES especial prominence to the social, I industrial, and commercial life of the i Ancients. Art, literature, religion, and political development are not neglected. Cloth. 698 pages. 219 illus. 53 maps. $1.50. D.C.He»th&Co.,Publishera.Bo»ton,NewYork,Chicago NOW READY GREATJURISTSOF THE WORLD Fr»m PAPINIAN to VON IHERING BY VARIOUS AUTHORS With 20 portraits. Edited by Ed- ward Ma.nson, Co-editor of the Journal of the Society of Compar- ative Legislation, and with Intro- ductions by Sir John Macdonnei.l, Professor of Comparative Law in University College, London, and by Van Vechten Veedei:, Judge of the United States District Court, New York. 8vo. Cloth, $5.00 net. The aim of this volume in the Con- tinental Legal History Series is to set forth the life, work, methods, and Influence of the great jurists who have had more than a merely nation- al importance in the development of European Law. This work is a sort of Plutarch's Lives for the History Qtinental Law. Papinian. Alci.it. olus, Vico, Hacon, Leibnitz, Bel- den, Montesquieu, <'ujas, Vattel, 8a- vigny, Bentham, Beccaria, Von iher- ing, Mittermaier — these and a few other names stand out as landmarks for all European Law. i for descriptive pamphlet of the Continental Legal History Scries. LITTLE, BROWN & CO., Publisher., Bottom SOW READY THE AMERICAN YEAR BOOK FOR 1913 D. API'M.TON & (OMPANV, riihlUlirrx
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IV The N" a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2548 The Spring Educational Number —OF— THE NATION will be published Next TVeek Two of the leading features of this important number will be the following articles: By Prof. LEO WIENER, of Harvard University 1. Philology 9 Thp Hrmnr Q^cf-^m By Prof. o. w. firkins, of d. 1 IIC riUHUl OyblClll the University of Minnesota The leading publishers will announce their new textbooks; advertisements for this number will be accepted as late as Monday night, May 4th. Who Writes for The Nation? These names are taken from a list of more than two hundred contributors: Dr. Charles Francis Adams Prof. Francis G. AUlnson Prof. C. W. Alvord Prof. C. McL. Andrews Prof. H. M. Ayres Prof. Irving Babbitt Frederic Bancroft Prof. Carl Becker C. William Beebe Bernbard Berenson Prof. Hiram Bingham H. W. Boynton Gamaliel Bradford, Jr. Prof. James H. Breasted Prof. J. Douglas Bruce Prof. F. M. Burdick Lawrence J. Burpee Prof. G. N. Calkins Prof. W. H. Carpenter Gen. W. H. Carter, U. S. A. F. W. Coburn Prof. Archibald Cary Coolldge Prof. Lane Cooper Kenyon Cox John Cotton Dana Prof. W. M. Davis Stoddard Dewey Prof. Frank H. Dixon Prof. Ephraim Emerton Mrs. A. von Ende Prof. Sidney B. Fay Prof. W. S. Ferguson H. T. Finck Prof. O. W. Firkins Prof. Warner Fite Prof. J. B. Fletcher Prof. George T. Flom Prof. H. J. Ford Worthington C. Ford Prof. J. E. Frame Prof. Kuno Francke Fabian Franklin Prof. P. H. Frye Prof. John Fryer H. Nelson Gay Rev. Charles R. Glllett Prof. G. L. Goodale Prof. T. D. Goodell Rear-Admiral C. F. Goodrich, U. S. N. Prof. C. H. Grandgent Rev. W. E. Griffls Prof. A. D. F. Hamlin Arthur S. Hardy Prof. J. M. Hart Prof. C. H. Haskins Prof. George Hempl Prof. F. Hirth Prof. E. W. Hopkins Prof. J. K. Hosmer Prof. W. G. Howard Gaillard Hunt Prof. A. V. W. Jackson Dr. Joseph Jacobs Dr. Morris Jastrow, Jr. Prof. W. H. Johnson Prof. A. G. Keller Prof. Francis W. Kelsey Prof. J. F. Kemp Prof. C. J. Keyser Arne Kildal Prof. Chas. R. Lanman Luther S. Livingston Prof. Gonzales Lodge Prof. A. 0. Lovejoy Prof. Wm. MacDonald Prof. A. C. McGlffert Prof. Allan Marquand Henry Rutgers Marshall Prof. Frank J. Mather, Jr. Albert Matthews Prof. Elmer T. Merrill Prof. R. B. Merrlman Prof. Lawrence H. Mills Prof. George F. Moore Prof. Louis T. More Prof. T. H. Morgan Prof. George T. Northup A. D. Noyes Prof. G. R. Noyes Rollo OgdeD Dr. William Osier Mrs. Joseph Pennell Rev. John P. Peters Gustav Pollak Prof. James B. Pratt Miss Ruth Putnam Prof. E. K. Rand Miss G. M. A. Richter Prof. F. N. Robinson Prof. J. Royce Prof. H. R. Seager Prof. Stuart P. Sherman Prof. Paul Shorey Lindsay Swift Wm. R/ Thayer Prof. Calvin Thomas Pres. J. M. Thomas Prof. C. H. Toy Paget Toynbee J. R. Towso Prof. W. P. Trent 0. G. Vlllard Luigi Villari Dr. Joseph W. Warren Prof. A. G. Webster Horace White I<\ J. Whiting Prof. Burt G. Wilder Prof. K. H. Wllkins Lieut.-Col. C. deW. Wlllcox, U. 3. A. Prof. F. W. Williams Dr. S. L. Wolff Gen. A. A. Woodhull Prof. C. II. C. Wright
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April 30, 1914I The Nation v Send for Free Copy of Select Suburban Home Booklet Issued by the New York Evening Post for the benefit of the Home Seeder, show- ing details and illustrations of choice homes and their surroundings. Forwarded upon receipt of a two cent stamp to cover postage. Address Real Estate Department GFhe Keto IJarK pwuitug $M 20 Vesey Street, New York Places For Sale and For Rent worthy of your atten- tion in the Real Estate ad- vertisements in the New York Evening Post every Saturday. A BOOK OF TIMELY INTEREST. CALIFORNIA UNDER SPAIN AND MEXICO Hy Irving II. Riehnian. "A valuable and interesting addi- tion to the literature of a little known period of American history, beginning' with Cortes's coming, con- tinuing through the rule of the Fran- ciscan and Dominican Missions and the establishment of Mexican Inde- pendence in 1821, to the war with the United States in 1847."— The A. L. A. Booklist. With maps, charts, and plans. Postage extra. $4.00 net. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN CO., 4 Park St., Boston NEW MAGAZINE ON EGYPT An Illustrated quarterly magazine, beautifully Illustrated, with news of late discoveries, edited by PR01tien Court Publishing Co. Rednced from 91 .SO to 0 to 83 cental "The contributors are all men of authority in their respective fields, and the boot con- tains some valuable special knowledge ire sented In Interesting form." — Railroal '. 1 .-. Itr. Delivery charges prepaid by us if "The Xation" is mentioned. R.S. ANDERSON & CO. FINE ARTS BUILDING, CHICAGO
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VI The 3ST a t i o 1 1 [Vol. 98, No. 2548 New Macmillan Books of Special Importance PUBLIC QUESTIONS SOCIALISM: PROMISE OR MENACE. By MORRIS HILLQUIT and JOHN AU- GUSTINE RYAN, D. D. The famous de- bate on Socialism attacked by a Churchman and defended by a Socialist, now reproduced in permanent book form in response to the generous public interest manifested in the discussion. $1.25 net VIOLENCE AND THE LABOR MOVE- MENT. By ROBERT HUNTER. A dra- matic, historical narrative of the labor con- flicts of the last half century. $i.so net PROGRESSIVA AND AFTER. By WILLIAM ENGLISH WALLING. A force- ful survey of radical political progress from the practical, economic standpoint. 91.50 net DEMOCRACY AND RACE FRICTION: A Study in Social Ethics. By JOHN MOF- FATT MECKLIN, Ph.D. A clear analysis of democracy in regard to the race problem. 91-25 net THE INSTINCT OF WORKMANSHIP. By THORSTEIN VEBLEN (Univ. of Mis- souri). An interesting analysis of the effect of labor upon the human mind. $i.so net LITERATURE THE SECRET BOOK. By EDMUND LESTER PEARSON. A book of fascinating word pictures linked with cumulative inter- est around incidents of library life, full of charm, fluency, ease and elegance of style. $1.25 net THE STORY OF PHAEDRUS: How We Got the Greatest Book in the World. By NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS. A beautiful idealistic story of the life work of a literary slave devoted to the preservation of the early Christian chronicles. illustrated 91.9s net STORIES OF RED HANRAHAN. By WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS. "Every li- brary, public or private, will be sensibly enriched when in possession of this book of charming legends and curious fancies." — Philadelphia North- American 91.2s net RELIGION THE ENLARGING CONCEPTION OF GOD. By HERBERT ALDEN YOUTZ. A significant work which vividly brings the sense of religious reality into the life and needs of the day. 91.2s net CAN WE STILL BE CHRISTIANS? By RUDOLF EUCKEN, Ph.D. Nobel Prize- man, 1908. The views of the learned Ger- man philosopher on what constitutes the essence of Christianity. 91.2s net NEW AND FORTHCOMING MACMILLAN FICTION A STEPDAUGHTER of the PRAIRIE. By MARGARET LYNN. A glowing ro- mance of daily life in the lonely wastes of the Far West. 91.2s net THE RECONNAISSANCE. By GOR- DON GARDINER. A thrilling adventure story of self forgetting endurance, devotion and courage. Illustrated. 91.2S net A LAD OF KENT. By HERBERT HARRISON. A stirring novel of vigorous life, adventure and bubbling humor. Ready in May THE STRENGTH OF THE STRONG. By JACK LONDON. A new book of life and adventure in this popular author's best Style. Ready in May FAITH TRESILION. By EDEN PHILL- POTTS. An attractive story of early nine- teenth century life in a remote village in Cornwall. Ready in May THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL. By MAY SINCLAIR. A new book rich in character study by the well-known author Of "The Divine Fire." Ready in May Published at 64-66 Fifth Ave, N. Y. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY On Sale Wherever Books Are Sold
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The Nation. W II YOHK. FBBR8DAY, APRIL 30, 1914. Summary of the News The crisis in Mexico, which by Tuesday of last week, when the naval forces un- der Admiral Fletcher commenced their OOOUpatloa of Vera Cruz, had developed into actual warfare, was relieved on Sun- day by the offer of mediation on the part of the republics of Chili, Argentina, and Brazil. The offer was promptly accepted by the Administration, with the stipu- lation that any plan suggested must in- clude the elimination of Huerta and the proviso that in the event of an act of aggression by Mexico the United States should take what military measures it deemed necessary. Huerta's formal ac- ceptance of the proposal for mediation was received by the Spanish Ambassa- dor in Washington on Monday night, and was unconditional. It is understood that considerable pressure was brought to bear on the Federal leader by Great Brit- ain, France, and Germany, as well as by the Powers of South America, to in- duce him to accept the proposal. The envoys of the mediating Powers began their labors in Washington by a confer- ence on Tuesday. The occupation of Vera Cruz was ef- fected, with the loss of seventeen Ameri- cans killed and more than sixty wound- ed, by noon of April 22, General Maas and the Mexican garrison retiring to a point some fifteen miles from the city. The civil authorities were invited to continue their customary functions, and the inhabitants to resume their ordinary avocations. It was neces- sary, however, on Sunday to declare martial law for the proper govern- ment of the town, as the civil au- thorities were reluctant to assume con- trol. The sensation of the week, from the point of view of the Administration, was the message from General Carranza protesting against the occupation and demanding the withdrawal of American troops from Mexican soil, the President and the Secretary of State having in- clined to the belief that the assistance of this country in eliminating Huerta by forcible methods would be welcomed by the rebels. As a result of Carranza's attitude the embargo on arms was re- imposed on Thursday. Nelson O'Shaugh- nessy, the United States ChargS d'Af- faires, received his passports from Gen- eral Huerta on Thursday, and arrived at Vera Cruz with his family and the personnel of the Embassy on Friday. A number of American refugees from Mexico City also reached Vera Cruz the latter part of last week, but many more remained or were detained in Mexico City, and until the mediation proposals were accepted considerable anxiety was felt for their safety. Dispatches to Washington on Monday gave the in- formation that nearly 2,000 American refugees from interior points in Mexico had been sent to ports whence they could obtain transportation to the United States. The Volunteer Army bill, designed to defects in the law of 1898, hastily passed three days before the outbreak of the war with Spain, has been passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President. We deal elsewhere with the provisions of the new law, one of the most important of which is that regulating the term of enlistment, which Is not for a fixed period, as previously, but is ended when the emergency that called for the enlistment has passed. Fighting of a more serious character than any that has engaged the American troops in Mexico has taken place during the past week in Colorado between the State militia and the striking miners. The strike area embraces a radius of some twenty-five miles from Trinidad, and since September, when the strike was called, it is estimated that not less than three hundred persons have been killed. During the past ten days pitched battles have been fought, the area of violence has extended to the northern mining districts of the State, more than a score of persons were killed last week and nine more on Tuesday. The outstanding cause of the strike is the refusal of the owners to recog- nize the union, and the passions of the men have been inflamed by the im- portation of strike-breakers. The State militia is apparently entirely powerless to deal with the situation, and the finan- cial question involved by keeping it in the field has become a serious one. On Tuesday it was decided, after a Cabinet meeting, to dispatch Federal troops to the strike zone, which Gov. Ammons on the same day proclaimed to be in a state of insurrection. On Mon- day, at the President's request Chair- man Foster, of the House Committee on Mines and Mining, had a confer- ence in New York with John D. Rocke- feller, jr., representing the interests con- trolling the Colorado Fuel & Iron Com- pany, with a view to effecting a com- promise with the strikers, but without result, Mr. Rockefeller presumably main- taining the position he took in giv- ing evidence before the House commit- tee of investigation, when he insisted up- on the right of workers to engage in em- ployment without reference to a union. A convincing message from Colonel Goethals was read at the hearing on the Panama Canal Repeal bill on Friday, putting himself on record as favoring the repeal of the exemption clause on finan- cial grounds. The results of the elections held in Venezuela on April 19 to elect a Presi- dent of the Provisional Government only became known on Thursday of last week. Dr. V. Marquez Bustillos, Secretary of War, was elected President, and Dr. J. Rojas Fernandez, Vice-President. The outgoing President, Gen. Juan Vicente Gomez, was elected Commander-in-Chief. Official announcement was made on Monday that the Japanese Government would participate in the Panama-Pacific Exposition, for which purpose an ap- propriation of $600,000 was made as long- ago as last May. Preparations for active resistance to the Home-Rule bill continue to be made in Ulster, and counter-preparations by the Irish Nationalist Volunteers. On Fri- day night and Saturday morning the Ul- ster volunteers succeeded in landing 40,- 000 rifles and half a million rounds of ammunition, which have since been dis- tributed by means of automobiles, and on Monday night the Nationalist organ- ization retaliated by landing a consign- ment of arms, said to have come from America, at a remote spot on the coast of Donegal. There have been persistent reports that the Government contem- plates taking some drastic step (the ru- mors that Sir Edward Carson would be arrested have been revived), and, accord- ing to dispatches from Belfast, five war- ships arrived off Larne, seventeen miles from Belfast, on Monday night. Despite official denials, the statement is repeated that regiments in Dublin are in readiness to be moved to the north. In the House of Commons on Monday Mr. Asquith was plied with questions on the situation. Concerning the gun-running of the Ul- ster Volunteers, which he denounced as "a grave and unprecedented outrage," he declared oracularly that the Government would "take without delay proper steps to vindicate the authority of the law and to protect the officers and servants of the King and his Majesty's subjects in the exercise of their duties and in the enjoyment of their legal rights." The third reading of the bill for the disestablishment of the Church in Wales was passed in the House of Commons on April 21 by a vote of 349 to 245. The result of the French general elec- tions held on Sunday was to return defi- nitely only 351 of the 602 Deputies. In 251 districts where no candidate obtained an absolute majority, a second ballot will hi on May 10. The King and Queen of England paid a state visit to Paris, the first since Kin^ George came to the throne, on Tuesday of last week, returning to London on Fri- day. The cordiality of their reception testified to the firmness of the ententr. It seems clear, however, from the terms of an official note issued from the British Foreign Office on the exchange of views between sir Edward Grey and If. Dou- mergue, that there is no present sition to turn the triple entente of Eng- land. Prance, and Kussia into a more formal alliance, as the two last countries would desire. The deaths of the week include: Judge James B. Holland, April 24; Count Khuen-Hedervary de Hedervar, April 25; Very Rev. Dion y si us F. Best, George F. Baer, Thomas J. Barratt, April 26.
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4:84 T li e Natio 11 [Vol. 98, No. 2548 The Week During April, in the almanac-maker's phrase, look out for war. Of our chief wars, only one, if we consider that the War of li)l2 virtually began with Madi- son's ninety-day embargo on April 4, has failed to date from that month. Our last entanglement completes a series of coincidences that extends even to the day. April 19, 1775, Parker met Pit- cairn at Lexington; April 19, 1861, the first blood was shed at Baltimore; April 19, 1898, the joint resolution with re- spect to Cuba passed Congress; April 19, 1914, the ultimatum to Huerta ex- pired. The one exception is the first Mexican war. Ezekiel Biglow dated his enclosure of his son Hosea's first poem, with its picture of Boston recruiters rat- tling away on kettle-drums, to "Mister Eddyter," in "June, 1846." But even that conflict had features appealing to the unretentive memory of schoolboys. The first blood had been shed by Taylor, April 24, six weeks before the actual declaration of war; while Scott fought Cerro Gordo April 18, 1847. The purely mathematical probability of a continu- ance of April's distinction may be slight; but if peace societies should choose to interpret this train of events- as a peep into our Sibylline leaves, they might be forearmed to take special pre- cautions during the third week of the second month of spring. have hitherto left such matters pretty much to private management, only a few States having undertaken even to super- vise the work of private bureaus in any thoroughgoing manner. Students of the problem feel strongly that the time has arrived for more scientific grappling with it on the part of individual States, and also of the nation. The Commission is not rushing into the new ground reck- lessly, but is to hold public hearings in New York and elsewhere before it at- tempts to draft a bill for presentation to Congress. The National Bureau of Labor Ex- chaage, proposed by the Commission on Industrial Relations, is in line with the recommendations of the recent Confer- ence on Unemployment in New York. While the Bureau would have jurisdic- tion over all private employment agen- cies doing an interstate business, its most important service would be the gathering and distributing of informa- tion regarding the labor market, and the establishing of free public employ- ment offices. As Professor Pigou, of Cambridge, remarks in his recent vol- ume on "Unemployment," the efficacy of labor exchanges is especially great when they are organized "as an interconnect- ed national system, and when they act, not merely as bureaus of information, but also as centres for the actual em- ployment of hands." In accordance with our general policy in this country, we In contrast with the hysteria which has tainted some of the talk emanating from high railway quarters, is the quiet, but none the less forceful, statement of the cardinal factors in the railway-rate question made by I. L. Lee, executive official of the Pennsylvania. It is upon this plane of sober and comprehensive discussion that the subject should be treated by all three of the parties in the case — the railway companies, the Gov- ernment, and the public. And so far as the public is concerned, certainly so far as the intelligent public is concerned, we believe its desire is altogether for a handling of the question in a spirit of fairness, and of regard for distant conse- quences no less than of immediate ef- fects. That is the spirit invoked in Mr. Lee's remarks. He points out that we have entered upon a new era in operating rail- ways, "an era demanding elimination of grade crossings, demanding improv- ed railroad stations, steel cars, auto- matic signals, higher wages to the men, better accounting, and numerous other similar details"; but that we are not giving corresponding attention to the problem of "providing for the cost of these improvements." To maintain the standards exacted by modern conditions and modern opinion in these matters, the railways must have at command a big stream of new capital; and, says Mr. Lee, "there is to-day no established pol- icy on the part of the people or the Gov- ernment concerning the railroads which enables a man putting his money into a railroad investment to know the kind of treatment he is going to receive." able, of the men who gave meaning to the title of captain of industry. He com- bined the talent of a great lawyer with the skill of a great organizer, the ex- pert knowledge of a thorough railway man, and the iron will and fixed adher- ence to sound business principles which are necessary to make these qualities pro- ductive of real success in such an under- taking as he assumed when he took the helm in the affairs of the Reading Com- pany. To him is due the transforma- tion of that railway from a condition of chronic bankruptcy to a condition of as- sured prosperity. This he accomplish- ed, not only by skill as a manager and power as an organizer and administra- tor, but by steadily resisting all kinds of pressure by financiers to conduct the road upon stock-jobbing instead of rail- way principles. He put blood into the road instead of sucking it out. The Reading under Baer fared like the Union Pacific under Harriman, in con- trast with the Missouri Pacific under Gould, the 'Frisco under Yoakum, or the New Haven under Mellen. Baer placed the road where bankers would come to it, instead of placing it where it would have to go to bankers. His work as a railway manager must be accounted as remarkable, not only for ability, but for soundness. George F. Baer, who died on Sunday, was one of the ablest, and, in his per- sonal traits as well as his personal achievements, one of the most remark- There is nothing startling about the scheme developed by employees and offi- cials of the New York Edison Company for investment in the stock of the com- pany by persons in its service. But every movement of this kind is to be welcomed, both as good in itself and as an indication of a tendency which many hope may become general and may as- sume a character of very great impor- tance. There is, in one respect, more sig- nificance in a simple and modest plan like this than in one that Is of dazzling attraction; for what it lacks in great- ness of immediate effect it supplies in the evident fact that it is capable of imi- tation in almost any soundly establish- ed industrial enterprise. Under this scheme it is free to every employee to invest or not, as he pleases; and the mechanism provided is that of an "Em- ployees' Investment Company," to tbe stock of which subscriptions of the smallest amounts may be made, these being applied by the ancillary company to the purchase of stock of
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April 30, 1914] The 1ST a t i o ri 4,85 Company itself. The result, In the course of years, says one of the Edison Company officials, will be to "make of the persons working for the electric com- pany one of the most formidable groups of stockholders, and they will have pow- er to make rulings and laws affecting their own business welfare." It is along lines like these that many serious stu- dents of industrial conditions hope to find the development of a more whole- some relation between capital and labor. One of the duties of the Governor of Massachusetts is to veto the annual bill giving the "veterans" of the Spanish War preference over civilians in ap- pointments to the civil service of the State. The effect upon the quality of work done for the State is, of course, beneath consideration. What impresses the outsider is the persistence with which the bill is introduced and passed, only to be vetoed. For a series of years every Governor of Massachusetts, Re- publican or Democrat, has had the priv- ilege of disapproving it. Do the mem- bers of the Legislature secretly hope that he will take upon his shoulders the responsibility of preventing its enact- ment, while they shake their heads in apparent sorrow over his obstinacy? It must be admitted that the "veterans" of all our wars have never shown reluc- tance to jog our memory of their sacri- fices. American moralists on the false pride of denominationalism have never had need to go to Kikiyu for a text. A plain one is revealed in the John F. Slater Educational Fund's examination of church schools for negroes in the South. In the cities and towns of twelve States It reports fifty cases of the flagrant du- plication of effort by denominational schools; in some, four or five are weakly but eagerly competing with one anoth- er or with the public schools. The tact- ful administrators of the Fund appeal to a sense of denominational expediency. One cooperative school, founded on that at present strongest, should generally suffice. Each church might put the money saved "into some strong, central college or industrial institute, whose graduates would be fitted to carry forth the particular faith. . . . Or if no one church school might be left with the work, especially in primary education, might not all withdraw to advantage and cooperate with the public-school au- thorities in providing better facilities?" No one thinks money for negro educa- tion can be made to go too far; and the churches could recite with more fervor the immense need for contributions if their own failure to cooperate were not in part responsible for it. The health of Jacob A. Riis, it is stat- ed, has become so impaired as to require his retirement from the activities to which he has been devoted. He is as yet only on the threshold of old age, be- ing not quite sixty-five, and there are not many men in the country who have more fairly won the good wishes of all "men of gentle will" for many years of quiet happiness after a lifetime of ac- tive effort. Mr. Riis was one of the van- guard of that army of men and women who, in the past five and twenty years, have been laboring to improve the lot of the least fortunate of their fellow-be- ings, and have quickened the national conscience in this whole domain of thought and feeling and action. In his work, and his talk, and his writing, about conditions in the slums of New York, there was a quality of heartfelt sympathy, made all the more moving by a kindly and genuine humor, which was peculiarly contagious. A certain simplicity of mind, which in some mat- ters that he touched was not to his ad- vantage, only strengthened him in what he said and what he did about the wretchedness of Five Points, the crying need of downtown playgrounds and parks, and other concrete things that he fought for and won in behalf of the poor of New York. He can take to himself, in his retirement, the satisfaction that goes with having done good work him- self, and having been the cause of good work, and of good feeling, in others. If anything is more wonderfully fraught with chance than history, it is undoubtedly the collection of histori- cal materials. The rich mine in which Assistant State Librarian Swem of Vir- ginia has been delving for manuscripts concerning the Old Dominion! Kentucky, and the Northwest is calculated to make the growing tribe of Western an- tiquarians green with envy. His zeal and industry in tabulating the mass of material that he discovered In the base- ment of the Library are undeniable; but how its exploration was left for him is a story paralleling the finding of the Jesuit Narratives and Kaskaskia Rec- ords. Mr. Swem's report, "A List of MSS. Recently Deposited in the State Library by the State Auditor," enumer- ates among the accumulated State and county papers of a century and a half nearly 700,000 pieces of value. Records of property alone are estimated "to con- stitute the most authentic and compre- hensive source material for the econom- ic and social history of "Virginia from 1782 to the close of the war between the States." Items abound scarcely less interesting than the following: "Clark, George Rogers. 70 packages of letters, accounts, orders, captured papers, and miscellaneous documents concerning George Rogers Clark and the Illinois country, 1778-1783. 300 pieces per pack- age." Nothing of more interest to the growing army curious concerning the opening of the Ohio and Mississippi country has been recently brought to light; though the work of investigators among buried materials has been a ris- ing monument to the ability of a new historical perspective to bring forth new Columbuses. How unresponsive to the spirit of the time it is possible for a community to be is illustrated by Indianapolis, which, according to the latest reports, is not to have a "clean-up week." Not to have a clean-up week is worse, if anything, than not to have a "slogan" or a plan for a civic centre. But the Indianapolis Board of Public Works takes the posi- tion that the city is cleaning the streets and alleys all the time, and that a spe- cial week for that purpose is unneces- sary. If citizens have any complaints about the work as at present conducted, they are invited to state them. This line of reasoning may sound well, but it overlooks the main point. What is the purpose of a clean-up week? To clean up? Of course not. The purpose of this institution is to arouse the spirit of cooperation among the citizens, to get them off the beaten track for a few days, to set everybody doing something that he Is unused to doing. Clean-up week, in a word, has the same end as reading poetry or listening to a Chau- tauqua speaker. It makes one feel that one is a part of the great uplift of hu-
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4:86 The Nation (Vol. 98, No 2548 inanity now everywhere staged, and at the same time it is a novel form of recre- ation. Federal Commissioner Claxton holds that the schools should provide in- struction through "what is now, in most cities, a long, wasteful vacation." The Chicago Tribune supports local educators in pronouncing the three months "an unnecessary waste, and worse than waste." Whether the va- cation ought to be shortened may he arguable either from the point of view of the revolutionary schedule of Dr. Claxton, involving completion of eight years' primary work in six, extension of secondary studies to comprehend early college work, and the advanced specialization of the universities, or from that of city residents to whom the long vacation seems an outgrown rural institution. But opposition has hereto- fore been effective, in a feeling that even slight ennui at home was not harmful, if thereby the return to school was made something not to be contem- plated with loathing. A new magazine which challenges the public with such a title as the Unpopu- lar Review must expect to stand on its mettle. But if the January issue left any lover of "disagreeable truths" doubting whether this particular quar- terly was likely to justify its name ever-well, his doubts have probably been removed by the solid substance and brilliant execution of the second issue, now out for April-June. On inspection the truths turn out to be fairly agree- able. Their nature may be gathered from the opening articles of the current number. Thus, the initial paper deals with the "Soul of Capitalism": "a broad- er and more liberal humanity than the world has known before — such, after all, is the evolving soul of capitalism." It will pass away, being "none too respon- sive," but in its place will come neither unbridled individualism nor a socialis- tic regimentation. As a pendant to that thesis stands the article on "Natur- al Aristocracy," which argues that "the remedy for the evils of license is not in the elimination of popular restraint, but precisely in bringing people to re- spect and follow their right leaders. The cure of democracy is not more democ- racy, but tetter democracy." Meanwhile the writer of the essay on "A Sociologi- cal Nightmare" makes excellent fooling of the wild scramble of theorists who are turning society into an "addled Par- liament" of tongues; another essayist, with genial gallantry, rallies the women on their presumed "Right to Be Amus- ed," and still another speaks with grave concern of "Social Untruth and Social Unrest," as seen in the careless, or wick- ed, habit of exaggerating actual evils in such a way as to promote a revolution- ary propaganda rather than a salutary reform. There is abundant other matter in the Unpopular, but from these opening ar- ticles its main intention is clear — to laugh the follies of the day out of court, and to stand stanchly for what has been proved and found good; to distinguish between the giddy eddies of conceit and the advancing current of order; to look below the surface glitter at the deeper meaning of the age; to be wise and mer- ry at the same time. To such a quar- terly the Nation extends the right hand of fellowship. And for Mr. Henry Holt, who is at once the editor and publisher, we desire the success that he merits and all the enjoyment that he is sure to find in his new undertaking. His friends will hope that a goodly number of men and women who have never heard his voice may come, through the pages of the magazine of which he is the animat- ing spirit, to share with them the ripe wisdom of his years and experience. If the victory of the Oxford relay team at the Pennsylvania games does not ex- cite a shout of gratulation in England, it will be at least "a thought," in Mr. Pecksniff's words on a like occasion, "which is very soothing." The less noise is made over it, of course, the more read- ily will some Americans correct an ex- aggerated impression that athletic deca- dence has been the introspective topic served with British luncheon, dinner, and breakfast for months. Nothing lack- ed to make the triumph complete. The single American Rhodes scholar among the runners made the poorest race, in comparison with his opponent, of the four. The eight-inch margin at the tape, the pluck of the English runner, who closed up fifteen yards in the last mile and collapsed, the virtual record for a heavy field, united to distinguish the result. Charges of conspiracy and falsifica- tion are steadily hurled against Mr. Asquith, and if Mr. Bonar Law, when brought to the point, will mitigate and explain and postpone, that does not seem to stand in the way of the same accusation being brought forth with the same degree of violence on the next occasion. The Unionist indict- ment was challenged last week by Mr. Asquith, who offered to set a day for debating the conspiracy charge; where- upon Mr. Bonar Law embattled sud- denly became Mr. Bonar Law judicial, asserting that he could not fling him- self into the fray for King and coun- try until he had read a Government White Book on the subject. The personnel of the new French Chamber of Deputies, returned by the general elections held on Sunday, will not finally be determined till after May 10, when there will be a second plural- ity turn for the 251 districts which gave no absolute majority. It is probable, however, that the Radical and Socialist majority will remain in power, although on Sunday's voting the groups led by ex-Premiers Briand and Barthou, and known as the Democrats of the Left, have made some gains. The murder of the editor of Figaro, followed by unpleasant disclosures regarding the close connection between high finance and men high in political power, may have affected the outcome in isolated instances, but it will hardly have broken the established ascendency of the radi- cal elements. The murder of M. Cal- mette led to the resignation of two Cab- inet members and might have over- thrown the Doumergue Ministry if the elections had not been so close at hand. The advantage of being in power dur- ing a general election is recognized in France as in other Latin countries. The issue which has been most debated dur- ing the campaign is the proposal for an abandonment of the three years' mili- tary service law, which was enacted al- most the other day under the influence of the German war scare. At that time there was every sign that the nation, with the exception of the Socialists, was united in favor of the longer term of service. The fact that a return to two years has now been found a popular election cry shows to what extont na- tional "iiplu : 1 \ : 1 1 .- ," may be exaggerated, as the result of manipulation.
Page 590
April 30, 1914] The Nation 4:87 MEXICO. The week that has passed has been one of grave and sobering experience for this country. We have been, not on the brink of war, but actually in armed conflict with another Power — call that power Huerta or Mexico — and while there was on all hands a determination, If the worst must come, to do what must be done, there was evident in the mass of the American people a profound distaste for the whole sorry business, a convic- tion that somehow, somewhere a blun- der had been committed, and that we were going to war for no just cause and with a people against whom we had no just quarrel. Nobody will rightly ac- cuse President Wilson of insincerity in contending that our operations have been directed not against the Mexican people but against Huerta, but the reply of Carranza to the amiable overtures of the Secretary of State is sufficient dem- onstration of the view that the people of Mexico as a whole take of our action. The plain facts of the case are these: that the Administration has undertaken hostile operations against a man whom it has refused to recognize as de-facto President of Mexico, because he tem- porized about making reparation to this country for an insult to the flag in the precise form prescribed by inter- national usage. It was not even that an apology had been refused, for it had not. Huerta had made an apology; more, he had undertaken to salute the flag in the manner demanded, the only stipulation being that the salute should be returned and that a protocol to this effect should be put into writing. That was the occasion for the undertaking of an enterprise the end of which no man can foresee, but which has already ex- acted its price in the lives of Americans and Mexicans. And the reason for the refusal of the protocol? Because it was not in accord with diplomatic usage? But what has diplomatic usage to do with a private individual whose official existence we do not recognize? Or be- cause the mere signing of it might in- volve that recognition which we have so studiously avoided? So, we may talk to a man through our accredited diplo- matic agent in Mexico, but rather than correspond with him we will go to war. It is straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. These are the official reasons advanc- ed for our action in Mexico. Nobody pretends that they are the sole reasons. If they were, our justification for the ex- treme measures that have been taken would appear even more miserably in- adequate than it does. Huerta has pur- sued a policy of pinpricks exceedingly trying to the patience of the Adminis- tration, galling to the pride of any but a nation that is truly great and secure in the consciousness of its national hon- or. The lives and property of American citizens have been in danger in Mexico, and to protect their lives is one of the first duties of a government; but in the part of Mexico controlled by Huerta Americans have enjoyed heretofore a greater security than in those districts which are in the hands of Villa and the rebels. Yet, be it remembered, it is against Huerta, and Huerta alone, not against Villa, not against the Mexican people, Federals or rebels, that all the armed resources of the United States' have been arrayed. These, we think, are the kind of re- flections that have been in the minds of many thoughtful Americans during the past week. It is because the majority of the American people realize, perhaps vaguely, the inconsistency which has marked the policy of the Administra- tion, the inadequacy of the grounds on which war has been threatened, that there has been a notable absence of the jingoistic spirit. The same temperate spirit which made the American people view with distaste the prospect of a war in Mexico has made it welcome with a sense of pro- found relief the announcement on Sun- day of an offer of mediation by the re- publics of Brazil, Chili, and the Argen- tine, and the acceptance of the offer by our Government and by Huerta. Confessedly, the difficulties still con- fronting us are many and great. Which- ever way one looks at it, the Mexican situation appears formidable. The chapter of accidents may go fatefully against the plans of the Administration and of our mediating friends in South America. But a good and hopeful begin- ning has been made, and the thing to do now is to press on with courage. Already much has been accomplish- ed. In accepting so promptly, even if with due reservations, the good offices of Brazil, Chili, and the Argentine, Pres- ident Wilson gave the very best proof of bis sincere desire for peace. One needs only to recall the difference in 1898. Then the British Ambassador made a proffer of friendly services, on the part of European Powers, to prevent the war with Spain, but it was politely declined by President McKinley. Mr. Wilson could, in consistency, do no less than welcome the approach of the South Americans. He and Mr. Bryan have been negotiating a series of treaties aim- ing to bind the nations to agree to a certain "pause" for inquiry and reflec- tion, before passing from a cause of hos- tility into actual war. The offer of such a breathing space was immediately ac- cepted by the Administration, and Presi- dent Wilson must have seen how ready his countrymen are to support him in every reasonable effort to ground arms in Mexico. Most welcome, also, is the instant ef- fect of his action throughout South America. It came in the nick of time; for ugly things were already beginning to be said about us in the Argentine press and in Brazil. In Montevideo, anti-American demonstrations had actu- ally begun. It is evident that a strong feeling against the United States would soon have been manifesting itself in all those countries. If war with Mexico had been resolved upon, for whatever reason and with whatever disavowals of selfish purposes on our part, we should have been denounced up and down South America as a nation of hypocriti- cal land-grabbers. But now all this will be stilled; for it is in the hands of South Americans that we have, as it were, placed the keeping of our honor, with the task of avoiding war with Mex- ico, if that be possible. The effect will surely be to create a great and favor- able revulsion of sentiment in South America. Even in distraught Mexico, the result must be to revive confidence in the for- bearance and good will of the United States Government. The present, sure- ly, is the moment for intelligent and patriotic Mexicans to assert themselves. They must see that here is a last chance to prevent their country from either MeMU&g to death or being overrun by a foreign invader. In the fact that me- diation is now offered by nations of their own race and speech, they ought to see the happiest auguries. The advances made to the Mexican people by the South
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488 T li e _N a t i o 11 [Vol. 98, No. 2548 American mediators are certain to be sympathetic. So, too, will their advice be intelligent and candid. Now, if ever, there ought to be a great rallying of the better-class Mexicans in the hope of working out a plan that shall at once stay a desolating civil war, put a stop to threatened foreign hostilities, and give promise of a permanent restoration of law and order. Any suggestion of this kind must per- force be at present only tentative. The great thing is that time for thought has been gained, time for negotiation, time for the humane instincts to reassert themselves. The fighting has been checked. Opportunity for reason to ut- ter its voice has been obtained. The whole Christian world will look on with devout hope that the effort now making to find a peaceful solution may in the end succeed. THE ARMY AND THE WAR. Our aggression in Mexico finds the regular army in vastly better condition for a campaign than it was in 1898. Then its authorized strength was 27,164, but its actual numbers considerably less. Many of its officers were incapaci- tated by dry-rot and advanced years. Many regiments had never met as a whole, and only two or three generals had ever manosuvred a division, much less a corps. The lieutenants and cap- tains of 1898 are the colonels and gener- als of to-day. Whereas Gen. Shafter was physically incapacitated for active ser- vice and sixty-three years of age, Gen. Funston, our senior brigadier, is not yet forty-nine, and of a vigorous and alert personality. To-day the author- ized strength is 100,000, and the actual numbers close to 90,000, including the Philippine Scouts. Of the total, 65,000 are in this country, the rest being in Panama, Porto Rico, Hawaii, and the Philippines. These figures include the Coast Artillery. No one would, of course, contend that our army has reached perfection. The Inertia of a body of officials with per- manent positions is greater than those unacquainted with it can imagine. There is an almost paralyzing lack of initiative; officers sit at their desks and too readily become the victims of con- servatism and of red-tape regulations. Hence, if a large mobilization should be recessary, we should see a good deal of the confusion of 1898, and certainly much of the delay repeated, particularly as the Volunteer Army bill has only just passed. There has been great slothful- ness in working out detailed plans for the mobilization of the militia, although most elaborate programmes for the in- vasion of Mexico by the regulars have been in hand for several years. But for two years many regulars have been in camp in Texas or patrolling the border, between 17,000 and 18,000 being so em- ployed to-day. There probably never were American troops in better physical condition for service, and 4,000 of them were promptly sent by water to garri- son Vera Cruz. While Shafter's army was a splendid aggregation of small units, admirably officered as to captains and lieutenants, the present regiments are far better armed and equipped, and their officers have had a much broader training and far greater variety of ser- vice, notably in large bodies. Fifty per cent, of them have seen active service in Cuba or the Philippines, and the aver- age age of the officers of every rank is much lower than was the case in 1898, while their physical condition is su- perior. But should all of Mexico turn against us, these men would be merely a drop in the bucket. Indeed, the best-drilled militia, like that of New York, would, in the event of hostilities actually devel- oping, do well to expect an immediate call to arms. Somebody would have to take the place of the regulars on the Texas border, even if our operations were confined to the Huertistas. Forts must be garrisoned to relieve the Coast Artillery, which would have to do infantry duty, as It did in Mexico before, and as it did in the Civil War. This use of the militia would be of great service, and would be within the Constitution; the Attorney- General has ruled that, in accordance with the specific terms of that document, militia cannot be sent across the borders of our country. Insistence by certain militia on their right to fight on their own territory was the cause of one de- feat in our war of a hundred and two years ago. Under the proposed new vol- unteer law, State militia regiments will be allowed to volunteer as a whole — which was the principle for which the Seventh New York stood up in 1898 and for which it was so outrageously ill- treated by an unthinking public. But even the New York regiments cannot all go until, in accordance with our Con- stitution, 10,000 militia are raised to take their place. These would be partly officered, as in 1898, by men v/ho for physical or for family reasons are not able to go to the front. As for the troops, many would drop out for similar reasons. All talk of the 112,000 militia being ready for war as a whole is nonsense. The regiments would have to be made over largely, as in 1898. Volunteer regiments of wholly new material should come into being, now that the new bill is law, under far bet- ter auspices than in 1846, 1861, or 1898. For instance, it will provide a system of recruiting regiments in the field from recruit depots, instead of the wasteful practice of the Civil War of recruiting new regiments when the veteran organ- izations melted away. It provides for the appointment of staff and general offi- cers; it makes easy the passage of regu- lar officers to the highest places in the volunteer regiments, and provides tem- porary substitutes for the officers thus detailed away from the regulars. It prescribes that the President, instead of the Governors, as heretofore, shall appoint all volunteer officers, and that preference shall be given to men of ex- perience and training in the army, the militia, the volunteers of 1898, and the military schools of the country. There is also an excellent provision for elim- inating unfit or vicious officers. Under this law there should be no payment of bounties and no short-term enlistments, both great evils In 1861-65. Finally, the President is authorized by the law to call out 200,000 men as he sees fit. But it is an open secret that as time has gone on the army authorities have steadily raised their estimates of the number of troops needed to "pacify" all of Mexico. Originally, the estimate was 250,000 men and five years. To-day some generals estimate as high as 500,000, and an expense of a million dollars a day is expected by all. Should all Mex- ico be arrayed against us, the country would have to be prepared for terrible sacrifices of men and money. Only two or three of our active generals have com- manded a brigade during hostilities; their worth would have to be tested i" what one of them has called the "best guerrilla country in the world." The cost of it all mi^iit easily be itaga
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April 30, 1914I T li e Nation 489 THE RIGHT TO PUNISH. There appeared in the newspapers a short time ago an item to the effect that in Rhode Island a former convict has brought suit for the recovery of wages which he says are due him for labor performed by him while a prisoner un- der the convict-contract system. The suit is based on the fact that the Con- stitution of Rhode Island, which con- tains a prohibition of slavery, does not expressly declare that the prohibition ir not to be understood as covering la- bor, or involuntary servitude, exacted as a punishment for crime. The lan- guage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." But we have no de- sire to enter into the judicial question brought up in the Rhode Island case, as such. What does interest us very much is the attitude that appears to be adopted towards the matter by certain advo- cates of prison reform. With the gener- al aims of the constantly growing num- bers of earnest workers in this field we are in hearty sympathy. There is a tremendous task before us in the direc- tion of improved methods of treatment of criminals, not to speak of the ex- tirpation of outrageous abuses and fla- grant inefficiencies in the administra- tion of existing methods. But along with a great deal of admirable endeavor, both in the way of constructive criti- cism and of intelligent experiment, there is rife nowadays a great deal of crude dogma and dangerous sentimentality. It is stated that this convict's suit is backed by persons interested in prison- labor reform. The case for his claim, as seen by them — and apparently ap- proved by the editor — is thus stated in an editorial in the Chicago Record- Herald: The theory is that a convict should be paid decent wages, and that his family or other dependents should have the ben- efit of his toil. Of course, if the convict is a slave, he has no rights that anybody is bound to respect. If he is not a slave, the wages of his toil and conditions of his employment in or out of prison re- quire proper regulation in the interest of justice. It is to be hoped that the Supreme Court of Rhode Island will not seek or find some technical loophole through which to escape, but will tackle the issue in its vital bearings and rejoice in the opportunity to hand down a mem- orable opinion. Undoubtedly, the question of a convict's wages and of the conditions of his em- ployment is one that requires "proper regulation." It may be that to give him the full net proceeds. of his labor would be a wise policy; it is almost certainly true that some approximation to such a course would be most beneficial to the community as well as to the convict. But to say that he has a right to such treatment simply because he is not a "slave," is to reduce to absurdity the whole idea of criminal justice. Where are you going to draw the line? If he possesses the ordinary rights of a free- man, he possesses the right to come and go, to enjoy the society of his wife and children, to work as much or as little as he pleases. Is he to be mocked with mere wages, to be enjoyed perhaps only after years of waiting, and in the meanwhile to pine away in loneliness and confinement? Is the withholding of wages the only deprivation which the slave endures? Is it the bitterest of the pangs he is called upon to suffer? Is the loss of liberty nothing, so long as a daily dole of money is added to the daily dole of food? We ask these questions not by way of legal argument on the Rhode Island case, but on account of their bearing on the whole subject of criminal law and criminal administration. Those who un- dertake to settle the fundamental is- sues of that subject by an appeal to the mere catchwords of an abstract dogma of human rights are only saved from sinking in a quagmire of impossibilities by failure to carry their dogmatizing and sentimentalizing to its legitimate conclusion. The abstract right of a man to the ordinary prerogatives of a free- man is either forfeitable by crime or it is not. If it is not forfeitable, we have no right to deprive any crim- inal of his liberty. If it is thus for- feitable, the nature and limits of the deprivations to which he may be sub- jected must be determined by consid- erations of public expediency, and not by the dicta of any abstract theory of human rights. Let unnecessary harsh- ness be abolished, by all means; but let it be abolished because it is shown to be unnecessary or ineffective. Let encour- agement to thrift be given the convict; but let it be given because there is sound reason to believe that it will promote his reformation, or succor his depen- dents, and will not injure the commu- nity. We grope sadly, to be sure, in the treatment of these matters. We have given them scant attention; we have blundered in regard to them; we have suffered venality and incompetence to work untold evils in relation to them; we have even been shamefully niggard- ly in supplying the means for a proper administration of the system we have. To mend all this — slowly if we can do no better, rapidly if we can arouse the community to a sense of its full duty — is an urgent task. It is being carried on by men and women who devote their lives to this unattractive and often thankless work. But with all its faults and shortcomings the system of crimi- nal justice has performed a function absolutely indispensable to the carry- ing on of civilized life. It has done its work wastefully, stupidly if you please; but it has done its work, and that work c ntinues to be as essential as ever. In order to maintain it, it is necessary to hold, with clear conviction, without tremor or apology, that the right to punish rests on the solid foundation of the highest public expediency. Those who indulge in such talk as we have here been criticising can find no logical stopping-place short of a complete de- nial of that right as so founded. And that way madness lies. THE LONELY HEIGHTS OF SCIENCE. Looking under the name "Hill," in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, we find "Hill, Ambrose Powell, American Con- federate soldier," "Hill, Daniel Harvey, American Confederate soldier," "Hill, David Bennett, American politician," and other Hills, American and English, but not Hill, George William, American astronomer. Nor did the death of George William Hill, a few days ago, evoke from the American newspaper press anything more than perfunctory notice. Yet he was one of the extremely small group of men in this country whose scientific work was of the high- est order. His researches in celestial mechanics will rank permanently among the memorable achievements of the hu- man mind in a domain in which some
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490 The 1ST at ion [Vol. 98, No. 2548 of the greatest intellects of the race haw exerted their utmost powers. One of the many notable testimonials to his rare eminence was the publication, sever- al years ago, by the Carnegie Institu- tion, of his "Collected Mathematical Works," with an introduction by Henri Poincare, the most illustrious French mathematician of the last two genera- tions. In this introduction, Poincare gives an outline of Hill's researches, and discusses their relation to what had been done by his predecessors, and their bearing on the future development of celestial mechanics. So remote are labors like these, not only from the ordinary interests of mankind, but from the possibility of even a dim apprehension of their nature on the part of any but mathematicians, that it is not surprising that the man whose life is given over to their pursuit gains none of the glittering rewards, such as they are, of popular notice. And in the particular case of George W. Hill, it would be peculiarly inept to treat the absence of such notice of him, alive or dead, as a personal griev- ance. For Hill was, by deliberate choice, a recluse, a solitary, even in relation to the small circle of the elect who were capable of fellowship with him in the special intellectual field to which he was so exclusively devoted. And yet one can but feel that, in one way or another, the consciousness of this kind of high endeavor and achieve- ment might well be more widespread than it is; and that if it were, the re- sult would be a reciprocal benefit — a benefit to the man of science and a benefit to society at large — of no small value. In the case of an almost freakish simplicity and self-withdrawal like that of Hill, it may be that nothing of the kind would be possible; but his case is highly exceptional. It is not many years since there died an American mathe- matical physicist of similar scientific eminence, a man whose work is ac- knowledged to be in the first rank, and who was during his entire career pro- fessor in one of our leading universi- ties; but how many Americans knew the name of Willard Gibbs? How many persons in New Haven — how many Yale students even — were aware that this modest scholar was one of the world's leaders in a great field of scientific thought? It is something of a coincidence that within the few days since the death of Dr. Hill, another American man of ge- nius has been taken away who, different in almost every possible way from Hill, was like him in that his life had for many years been passed in extreme se- clusion. A man at once of extraordi- nary acumen and originality, and of a phenomenal range of intellectual inter- ests, there was in Charles S. Peirce a vein of the erratic, perhaps one may say the unstable, which seems to ac- count for his achievements having fall- en far short of what might have been expected of his unquestionably splendid powers. Even as it is, however, he left his mark on at least two branches of the intellectual activity of the age. In that modern development of the science of reasoning which is usually designated by the name of Symbolic Logic, his work well deserves to be called lahn- brechend; the leading German writer oh the subject, Ernst Schroeder, makes it the foundation of his extensive trea- tise. And it is from Peirce that William James derived the name "Pragmatism," and the doctrine for which that name stands in James's work; though, in the interest of accuracy, it is necessary to add that Peirce repudiated James's de- velopment of his seminal idea. But the concrete fruits of Peirce's labors, many as are the fields in which he worked, are small in comparison with what those who came into contact with him could not but feel would have fallen into his hands if he had but possessed that some- thing— constancy, balance, or whatever it may be — which nature seems to have denied him. That there might he — that there has been in other times and other countries ■ — an atmosphere more genial and friendly even for those whose labors car- ry them to those strange and lofty heights in which dwells the mathema- tician or the abstract philosopher, we have already intimated. But these al- most self-condemned exiles from "the kindly race of men" are not the only scholars who suffer from an intellectual isolation that is deplorable, and to the nature and consequences of which we seldom or never give attention. That free-masonry of the intellect which has played an inestimable part in the high- er culture of Ewrope is almost wholly flbsenl as pel In our university circles. Foreign Correspondence TIIK BRITISH CIVIL SERVICE— REC- OMMENDATIONS OF A ROYAE COMMISSION. London, April 17. The British Civil Service has had a hard task to live down the reputation giv- en it by Charles Lamb. His rhyming account of the problems that occupied him daily from ten to four, and his prac- tice of making up for late arrival by go- ing away early, have left a widespread impression that Whitehall is almost a synonym for Lotus Island. But Lamb retired from the East India Office in 1825, and nowadays the interiors of the large buildings that stretch from Trafal- gar Square to the Houses of Parliament show little resemblance to a land where it is always afternoon. Indeed, the pres- sure upon the more responsible Civil Ser- vants when bills relating to their own departments are passing through the House, might be compared to that upon the station masters of the big railway ter- minals during the excursion season. Not only is the daily round of the Government clerk far more strenuous than a hundred, or even fifty, years ago, but, at the same time, the gate into the service has been narrowed by the mod- ern custom of filling so many of the ap- pointments by open competition. In 1853 it was declared by the Commissioners chosen to report on the existing system of appointment by nomination that "ad- mission into the Civil Service was great- ly sought after, but it was for the in- competent and the indolent and inca- pable that it was chiefly desired." The Government departments then were re- garded "as a means of securing a main- tenance for young men who have no chance of success in the open competi- tion of the legal, medical, and mercan- tile professions." That scandal, at any rate, has been brought to an end. A Royal Commis- sion on the Civil Service that has been sitting for more than two years has re- cently published its recommendations, based on four considerable volumes of evidence. It finds that the fundamental principles on which the Service is based are sound, and that its organization is, in the main, efficient. There are some defects of considerable importance, for which remedies are suggested, but the Commissioners recommend that the principle of open competition should be adhered to, and, whenever it is applicable, extended. One of the reforms now proposed is due to the recent agitation against "blind alley" employments. At present, there are about 2,600 "boj clerks" who are re- cruited between the ages of fifteen and sixteen. Some of these have a chance of gStthlg a permanent 1 lerksliip, but most of them are dismissal .it eighteen. It is recommended that this class he entirely abolished, and that, in Inline, tin lowest class in the offlciftl hieran hv shall bo a "junior clerical 1 lass," recruited at six- teen, iinin boys « iio have c plated tin' Intei on .hate unci. 11 > schools, Appointments to this olau will bi manent.
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April 30, 1914] The Natio 11 491 Perhaps the mo.-t hotly contested ques- tion that has demanded the attention of the Royal Commissioners has been the relation of first division clerks to second division i lerks. At present the first di- fa a corps ffHtte of about 450 offi- cials. They enter the service through the door of one of the most difficult ex- aminations in the British Isles. With few exceptions, the successful candidates are men who already have gained high university distinctions. The higher status and better prospects of first division clerks are keenly resent- ed by many members of the second divi- sion. These are men who enter the ser- vice at the age of eighteen or thereabouts, after an examination of a much less ad- vanced type. Their demand is that at least the first division should be large- i lit id by promotions from the sec- ond, so that a young man who enters at this earlier age, after no more than an ordinary secondary education, shoiild have a chance of some day rising to the highest post in his department. Some of their most prominent advo- cates have weakened their case by an absurd attack upon the first division as the apanage of a privileged caste. This Is sheer nonsense. Most of the first di- vision men are, in fact, men without pri- vate means, who have made their way through a university by scholarships. Some of them, it should be noted, come of working-class families, and have climbed the educational ladder from the lowest rung, by winning scholarships in the first place from the elementary to the sec- ondary schools, and afterwards from the latter schools to the universities. The Commissioners emphatically reject the proposal that the first and second division clerks should ultimately be merg- ed into a single class. They reach the conclusion that the best education, taken in conjunction with the training and for- mative influences of university life, pro- duces the best type of public servant. This opinion is confirmed by Sir Francis Mowatt, permanent Secretary to the Treasury from 1894 to 1903. In an in- terview in the Times he points out that "experience in comparatively routine work, industry, and trustworthiness — qualities which distinguish the second division in a high degree — though they are justly entitled to the description of merit, do not of themselves qualify for the higher duties of control and administra- tion." It is, indeed, a most short-sighted pol- icy to attempt, in the supposed interests of democratic equality, to break down the barrier between the first and second divisions. A young university graduate who has to keep himself by his own earnings finds his great difficulty when he has completed his course at college and is looking round for a career. The scholarships that have hitherto kept him have now dropped. At this point the civil-service first-division competition comes to his aid. If that is to be abol- ished for the sake of improving the po- sition of youth who enter the service at eighteen, the chief sufferers will not be members of the aristocratic caste, but the ablest sons of middle-class and work- ing-class homes. H. \V. H THE NEW PARLIAMENT— LEADING PERSONALITIES IN FRENCH POLI- TICS. Paris, April 17. Five of the six Republican leaders of the past four years are likely to remain the protagonists of the new Parliament which will assemble in June as a result of the general elections on Sunday, April 26. Leaders of the Conservatives and of the Monarchist remnant do not count. All fairly represent a high and not un- common type of member of Parliament in France. Raymond Poincare is fifty-four years old, and has been removed from active politics by his election to the Presidency of the republic. He was elected against the utmost endeavors of Extreme Radi- cals and Socialists, for, as Prime Minister, he had been directing French interior and foreign policy along other lines than theirs. He belongs to a family distin- guished in science, and his cousin Henri Poincare' was the greatest mathematical genius France has produced for a cen- tury. He is a man of complete university education, a lawyer occupying a fore- most place in the exclusive Paris bar, and a member of the French Academy. He entered Parliament at twenty-seven, was Minister of Public Instruction at thirty-three, and was twice a particular- ly able Finance Minister; and he was a power in European councils when For- eign Minister during the Balkan troubles. Alexandre Millerand is fifty-five years old, and is also a leading Paris lawyer. He first appeared in politics as one of Clemenceau's young men on the famous Justice newspaper. He was in Parlia- ment at twenty-six, but did not enter a Government until he was forty. Then, from 1899 to 1902, he was Minis- ter of Commerce in the Government which Waldeck-Rousseau organized to settle the Dreyfus affair. He was known as the first Socialist that ever held a post in a French Government. Like Briand, who came later as chief of Government, he has been repudiated by the Unified Socialist party of Jaures. In the Poincare Cabinet he was Minister of War, and he is credited with having prepared the return to the three years' compulsory military service, which has been so opposed by Extreme Radicals and Socialists. His power is in his in- telligent, serious, and patient labor. Aristide Briand is fifty-two years old. He took his university degree in law, but entered politics early as director of the Radical Socialist journal, La Lanterne. He was forty before he was elected to Parliament, where he sits as an Inde- pendent Socialist for the strong work- ing-men's constituency of the manufac- turing city of Saint-Etienne. He took a leading part, conciliatory as far as pos- sible, in the preparation of the law of separation of church and state. He became a Minister with Clemenceau at forty-four, and he has since been twice Prime Minister. The French Parliament has perhaps never had a greater master of debate in patient reasoning, ready answer, and warm, persuasive voice. He has also great power over popular assemblies: and his instantaneousness of thought is said to be the result of frequent par- ticipation as a college student in the cabaret politics of his native seaport. He is accused by Radical Socialists of lead- ing the republic straight toward Conser- vative reaction. He will not soon be for- given two famous words summing up volumes of political argument — that the present Parliamentary constituencies are "stagnant pools," and that the great need of the country is "appeasement." These have damaged vitally the Extreme Radi- cal position. As for Socialists, they have shown themselves capable of alliances with other parties when these advance their peculiar aims. Louis Barthou is fifty-two, a lawyer of the Paris bar and a writer. He entered Parliament at twenty-seven and Govern- ment at thirty-two; and at thirty-four he held the important Ministry of the In- terior in the Moderate Republican Me- line Cabinet. Beginning with Clemenceau, he has been a member of several Radi- cal Governments in late years and was Prime Minister after Briand until No- vember of last year. Then Extreme .Radi- cals and Socialists, led by Caillaux in an unexpected combination, succeeded in overturning his Government and the "ap- peasement" policy with it. They accuse Barthou of Opportunism with a Conser- vative trend, dangerous to the Simon- pure republic. Joseph Caillaux is fifty-one years old, and was the real leader of the Extreme Radicals until the unhappy shooting of his political enemy, Calmette, editor of the Figaro, by Mme. Caillaux. This, how- ever, is not likely to keep him from po- litical life. He is the son of Finance Minister Caillaux, of that Broglie Gov- ernment which all but pushed the young republic into Conservative reaction to- wards monarchy, and which was over- thrown by Gambetta and the Radicals of that time. He has gone to the opposite extreme of Radical Socialism, after spe- cializing in finance. He entered Parlia- ment at thirty-five, and Government the year after, with Millerand and Waldeck- Rousseau. He was again Finance Min- ister with Clemenceau; and he was Prime Minister at the difficult moment of the German aggression of Agadir. He ceded Congo that France might have a free hand in Morocco. Caillaux is the Radical most feared by Moderates and Conserva- tives, because of his recognized ability, joined with daring and violent policies, and an apparent willingness to take gam- blers' risks. Jean Jaures, who is the best known of all abroad, is fifty-five years old, and a university professor of philosophy by profession. He belongs to a family of distinguished naval officers, and certain- ly has nothing of the workman about him. He was a member of Parliament at twenty-six, and sat in the Republican Centre. He has never been in ( Govern - rnent, for he migrated rapidly to extreme Collectivist Socialism. Twice he lost his election, and bo skipped two Parliaments; but, in and out of Parliament, he has been leader of the Socialist party. He is inferior as a debater to Briand: but he is by far the most noted orator of France, both popular and Parliamentary, with a id chest equal to any strain. S. D.
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4=92 T li o Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2548 Clinical Teaching. DR. JANliWAY TO GO TO JOHNS HOPKINS. The announcement that Dr. Theodore C. Janeway, Bard Professor of Medicine in Columbia University, and recently elected director of the medical depart- ment of the Presbyterian Hospital of New York, has accepted the professor- ship of medicine in the Johns Hopkins Medical School — the position once held by Sir William Osier — marks the com- pletion of the reorganization of the main clinical departments of the Johns Hopkins Medical School on the full-time or university basis. The origin and sig- nificance of the new organization, now for the first time put into effect any- where, may be stated as follows: The Johns Hopkins Medical School opened in 1893 with two novel features: in the first place, it possessed an ade- quate endowed hospital under full uni- versity control — the trustees of the Med- ical School having the complete right to select the hospital staff; in the second place, the professors of the so-called lab- oratory subjects, anatomy, physiology, pathology, and their assistants, were all full-time men — teachers, that is, devot- ing their entire time and energy to instruction and research. Hitherto full- time laboratory teaching had not been entirely unknown, but the instances were rare and sporadic. The full-time basis in laboratory teaching has succeeded so well that now- adays it is everywhere accepted as the only possible arrangement. It has great- ly improved the quality of teaching in the laboratory subjects, and greatly in- creased the volume and quality of scien- tific research in these branches. The endowment of the Johns Hopkins Medical School was not, however, large enough to extend the university arrange- ment to clinical chairs. Nevertheless, the advisability of a full-time experi- ment in the teaching of medicine, sur- gery, and other clinical subjects has been favorably discussed from time to time. The arguments in its favor were very substantial. In the first place, as the full-time anatomist and physiologist had amply justified themselves, there was good reason to suppose that the full- time arrangement would be even more advantageous in case of the still more difficult and complicated clinical branch- es. There is, however, an additional reason arising from the increasing dis- tractions incident to a successful medi- cal or surgical career. For the univer- sity professors of medicine and surgery, by reason of the eminence of their aca- demic position and its implication of su- perior knowledge and skill, are likely to be more and more deeply absorbed by the demands of practice, just at the time when their opportunities for teaching and research are largest In response to a request from the trustees of the Johns Hopkins Univer- sity, the General Education Board in October last made a gift of $1,500,000 to the Johns Hopkins Medical School, to be known as the William H. Welch En- dowment for Clinical Education and Re- search, the entire income thereof to be used for the support of full-time teach- ing and research departments in medi- cine, surgery, and pediatrics. It was stipulated that, in reorganizing these three departments, the professor, his as- sociates, and assistants should hold their posts on the express condition that they be salaried university officials and that they should themselves accept no fees for any medical or surgical service that they might render. The university medical or surgical teacher is, of course, in charge of the hospital wards and out- patient department; but over and above his work in the public wards, he is free to render any service required in the interest of humanity and science; he can see any patient that he cares to see. Should these be of the usual pri- vate patient type, they would pay the university a reasonable fee. But the time and energy of the professor is fully protected, not only because his salary eliminates financial interest on his part, but because he is himself sole judge as to whether a particular case should or should not command his attention. In order that the time and energy thus safeguarded may be profitably employed under favorable conditions, the endow- ment was made large enough to provide professors and assistants with well- equipped laboratories, books, and other necessary facilities. , The full-time plan is an appeal to the scientific interest and devotion of the clinician; and it is significant that the first three full-time posts created have been filled by men of conspicuous pro- fessional standing, who have all gladly made great sacrifices in order to pro- cure ideal conditions for clinical teach- ing and investigation. Dr. Janeway, who becomes professor of medicine, is a New Yorker by birth, son of the late Dr. Edward Janeway, himself one of the most distinguished and influential teachers of medicine of his generation. Indeed, the elder Janeway was one of the pioneers in introducing into Amer- ica the modern conceptions of pathol- ogy and histology contributed to medi- cal science by Virchow; he occupied the chair of medicine in the Bellevue Hos- pital Medical College, and subsequently in the consolidated University and Belle- vue Medical School. The younger Jane- way, who now becomes leader in anoth- er step forward in medical education, was graduated as doctor of medicine of Columbia University in 1895; he was an instructor in bacteriology in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, 1895-96; an interne at St. Luke's, 1897; instruc- tor and lecturer in the University and Bellevue Medical College, 1898-1906; as- sociate in clinical medicine in the Col- lege of Physicians and Surgeons, 1907, and professor of medicine, 1909. He has also served as visiting physician to St. Luke's, the Presbyterian, and the City Hospitals. Dr. Janeway is a mem- ber of the Board of Scientific Directors of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, of the Association of Ameri- can Physicians, and other scientific bod- ies. His incumbency of the chair of medicine at Columbia University has been notable for the close relationship established between the Presbyterian Hospital and the University, and the in- stitution in the Presbyterian Hospital of the single-service organization, head- ed by the University professors in the several branches. It is only fair to say that the conditions brought about in the Presbyterian Hospital and the College of Physicians and Surgeons represent the most desirable type of relationship between hospital and medical school. The chair of surgery at the Johns Hopkins on the full-time arrangement will be occupied by Dr. William S. Hal- sted, most of whose brilliant surgical career has been passed in the Johns Hopkins Medical School. Like Dr. Jane- way, he is a graduate in medicine of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York, serving afterwards in succes- sion as surgeon to the Presbyterian, Bellevue, and Roosevelt Hospitals of New York city. Called to Baltimore on the establishment of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Dr. Halsted has ever since been its surgeon-in-chief and professor of surgery. The chair of pediatrics will be occu- pied by Dr. John Howland, also a New York man. Dr. Howland graduated as doctor of medicine at New York Uni- versity in 1897 and at Cornell in 1899; he was a house officer at the Presbyter- ian Hospital, and subsequently in charge of the Children's Clinic at Bellevue Hos- pital. He has been associate in pedi- atrics at Columbia University and pro- fessor of pediatrics in Washington Uni- versity, St. Louis. Dr. Howland was called to the Johns Hopkins a year ago to be physician-in-charge of the Harriet Lane Home for Invalid Children — this institution being the pediatric clinic of the Johns Hopkins Medical School. One more remark ought to be added. The full-time scheme in medicine and surgery calls for an endowment ade- quate to support professors, assistants, laboratories, etc. Each department re- quires a complete organization, and each member of the organization requires fa cilities adapted to his particular kind of work. The large sum involved makes it improbable that the scheme will be at once generally Instituted.
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April 30, 1914] T li e Nation 493 Church as a Social Force A SYMPOSIUM ON THE QUESTION: HAS THE PROTESTANT CHURCH LOST GROUND IN ENDEAVORING TO MAKE ITSELF A SOCIAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL FORCE? A CHURCH OF THE CLERGY OR OF THE PEOPLE. The answer to the question proposed depends upon what is meant by "The Protestant Church." Is it not true that usually when people speak of "The Church" they mean the clergy, and that they are somehow obsessed with the idea that an ordained priesthood or min- istry is the sole channel by which a church expresses itself? That, to my mind, is a most discouraging error. If the laymen and the laywomen of the Protestant churches do not regard the work of the churches as their own, but are content to do their duty by proxy, then it is a sad day for the Protestant churches. If, then, by the Protestant Church you mean the ministers, I am inclined to believe that, while there may be sometimes a temporary gain in num- bers and notoriety, there is usually a loss of influence and efficiency in the churches whose ministers become known primarily as social agitators. Ministers are very rarely trained to expert know- ledge or to sound judgment about social problems. They ought to be, but they are not. They are apt to speak upon such problems without adequate ac- quaintance with the subject, and there- by to bring themselves and the cause which they represent into deserved ridi- cule and reproach. One of the perils of our industrial situation is the "valor of ignorance" which tempts impatient and ill-equipped ministers to rush in where the more experienced tread with caution. A minister cannot wisely compete with politicians, economists, and finan- ciers. His function is to keep alive the fires of faith and hope and love, and to set forth abiding principles. He can show that in all industrial disputes the first necessity is justice. He can de- clare that the true principle of liberty is freedom, not to do what one likes, but to do what one ought. He can show what equality means, not equality of distribution, but equality of considera- tion, and that the first principle of fra- ternity is that "we are all members one of another." His special opportunity is to proclaim the prophetic vision, to preach the spiritual optimism and prac- tical idealism which will induce his people to put principle into practice and transmute vision into service. If, however, by "The Protestant Church" is meant the people of the Protestant churches, then I believe that the most progressive and influential churches of our day are those where the application of Christian truth and principle to social problems is most di- rect, intelligent, and persistent. The real test of a church nowadays is not its doctrinal accuracy or its sacramental authority, but its practical efficiency. The churches that count for something in the life of this generation are those that are showing their faith by their works. They are the churches whose adherents are helping to solve the prob- lems of education, of charity, of intem- perance, of the care of the dependent and delinquent, of the administration of justice, of international law and peace. They are the churches whose people are concerned with the saving of neglected children, in the ameliora- tion of the conditions of labor, in the prevention of poverty and disease, in the promotion of good laws and the en- forcement of existing laws, in provid- ing playgrounds, public parks, and vil- lage improvements, in making libraries, art, music, and the drama add to the happiness of the people. Such enter- prises are not only a high privilege and a plain duty, but also in them has been and will be found the salvation of many a languishing church. The passion for social service is the logical carrying out of the New Testament teachings. It is a return to the ideal that was cen- tral in the teaching of Jesus Christ, the bringing on earth of the kingdom of God. That is the most vital mission of the churches to-day. The absorbing social interests of our time must be made to disclose their deeper signifi- cance and brought into vital connection with the religious hopes and aspirations of men. Social regeneration, we have been told, may proceed from without, by schemes of legislation and by the machinery of organization, or it may proceed from within, through the creation of individual character. It is evident that the attention of the pres- ent generation turns chiefly to the for- mer method. Never before were there such multiplicities of committees and societies and meetings for the ameliora- tion of social conditions. These move- ments may be a blessing, yet it Is al- ready evident that at best they can do nothing more than provide the mech- anism through which deeper and more permanent powers can work. What we need to-day is not only an improved so- cial mechanism, but "a power that can run through that mechanism and make it leap into effectiveness." That is the power that the ministers and people of the churches working together can pro- vide. The Protestant churches will rise to their real power when they more and more make it impossible for men to set- tle down to the gains and ease of the self- indulgent life. They will take their rightful place when they summon and encourage men to the ventures of faith, the crusades of righteousness, the pil- grimages of peace and good-will. Samuel A. Eliot,. President American Unitarian Associa- tion, Boston. II. SOCIAL SERVICE BY THE CHURCH STILL EXPERIMENTAL. The Church has, in my opinion, great- ly strengthened itself by its excursions into social fields. I shall express my opinion more honestly if I say that by its adventures in social service the Church has arrested a decline of power and influence that had aroused in many thoughtful minds grave fears for the future of Protestantism. Social service by the Church is still tentative and experimental, and it must remain so until the highest councils of the several denominations devise and support a definite policy and plan of work. The timidity of the representa- tive assemblies in dealing with this question has not been reassuring. It still seems to be left to individual min- isters to undertake social work or let it alone, as they choose. Unity is Prot- estantism's great need, and until this is effected, with its resulting economies of money and energy, no great victories for social betterment through religious agencies may be expected. Where there are instances of failure in the effort to socialize the Church, they are, I think, attributable to causes not in themselves discouraging. They are often due to hasty plunges after novelty — efforts to rally the wavering line by abrupt and ill-considered experi- ments. The man who has been allowed to assume that he is satisfying every requirement of religious obligation by saying prayers and giving alms to the poor must not be warned too suddenly that he is not promoting his soul's health by loving his neighbor as himself at long range, but that he has a per- sonal responsibility for his brother's peace and happiness. I became aware, on printing two years ago an essay on the question, "Should Smith Go to Church?" that there ex- ists a great deal of antagonism to the democratizing and socializing of the churches. There remain many valiant defenders of the old orthodoxy, and of the once-a-week church system, who view with apprehension the reorganiza- tion of the Church to bring it into touch with the social needs of the twen- tieth century. The position of the clergy in this transitional period is one of great em- barrassment and difficulty. The pros- perous laity are quite often hostile to the discussion of social problems from the pulpit. It is much safer for a minis-
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494 Tlie Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2548 tor to defend points ol faith than to speak of social injustice in his own com- munity. Clergymen among my own ac- quaintance have been severely criticised for offering to act as mediators in labor troubles, when they were animated by the noblest civic and Christian motives. Manifestly, without strong support from the laity, the pulpit is powerless to as- sert itself greatly along social lines. A ministry specially educated for so- cial work is imperatively demanded. Specialization is quite as proper in the training of clergymen as in any other profession. It is absurd to expect a man to preach eloquently on Sunday when he is hard-driven all week admin- istering to social needs. The "depart- ment" church, which I believe to be the church of the future, will require many kinds of talent for its administra- tion. A great weakness of the institutional church, as we now know it, lies in the fact that it is usually the fruit of one taan's labor, and that his death or transfer to other fields leaves his charge in the air. The first institutional church of which I had knowledge pass- ed utterly with the man who created it, though it had been planned on broad lines and brought to a high state of efficiency. We shall see many lapses and failures until the denominations stand behind such work authoritatively and provide a continuing line of trained men to carry it forward. The difficulties of this whole matter have been greatly increased by the grad- ual relinquishment to secular agencies of tasks imposed by Christianity. So- cial service was seized upon only when Protestantism, deprived of its old ap- peal to the supernatural, suddenly found itself dying for lack of means to inter- est the people. In social service lies, I think, Protestantism's main hope of regaining its lost prestige. When Pro estantism shall present, as it ultimate- ly must, a united front to a world that sorely needs Christianity, its security and permanence will rest upon an in- telligent system of social service, and the Church will regain its power over men's imaginations and become a liv- ing testimony to what Arnold calls "the greatest and happiest stroke ever yet made for human perfection." Meredith Nicholson. III. THE PERIL OF THE COMMONPLACE. The question, "Has the Protestant Church lost ground in endeavoring to make Itself a social and sociological force?" calls for an answer in fact as well as In theory. As a matter of fact, those churches that have wisely considered the econom- ic and physical life of human beings have added greatly to their influence. Again as matter of fact, those churches that have ignorantly handled economic and social conditions, and have substi- tuted zeal for knowledge, have so far fallen from the respect alike of genuine reformers and of sound citizens. The answers to the questions of gain or loss depend upon the previous question whether the advance has been in wis- dom or in folly. When looked at from that point of view, the Protestant Church has gained here and lost there in endeavoring to make itself a social and sociological force. Two things only should arrest the advance of any church in seeking influ- ence in the evolution of a better social order. The first is incompetence; the second is failure to annex this new hu- man interest to the ultimate sources of religious power, the appeal to God for ideal light in the inner life of the hu- man spirit. There is in preachers no inherent disqualification for social ser- vice. They may render themselves com- petent to deal with this great interest; at the same time they may refuse to accept the commonplace moralities of the market. One great example may be cited, that of Dr. Chalmers, the Scottish preacher. At the age of twenty-six he published a book that showed rare insight into economic conditions; at fifty he pub- lished a Political Economy which a gen- eration later commanded the praise of J. S. Mill. Further, when at the height of his fame as a preacher, he turned the attention of the good people of Glasgow to the problems of poverty, ignorance, and vice. He built schools, organized his parish of 11,000 persons into twen- ty-five districts, appointed superinten- dents and visitors for these districts, did away with the state tax for the re- lief of the poor, originated the voluntary system of help, reduced the expenditure on this system from $7,000 a year to $1,200, and by the action of intellectual and moral forces raised to a new level of independence and efficiency the whole parish. The eloquence of this preacher has shrunk to a tradition; his sermons, then the amazement of his countrymen, are no longer read; but his method of social enlightenment and relief, taken up into the wider human movements of our day, remains a living influence. A general reason here appears in fa- vor of the church that allies itself with the great distresses of society. It was not the few churches which exposed the social iniquity and inevitable racial de- moralization of negro slavery in the United States that lost ground, but the many churches which winked at the evil or undertook an apology for it, that went bag and baggage to the moral rear of the nation. When Wendell Phillip? said in his eulogy upon Theodore Par- ker that while orthodox preachers in their prayers moved cautiously round the subject of slavery, this heterodox preacher flamed against it in his speech to God, and when some one in the audi- ence named three or four orthodox preachers who struck hard at the gigan- tic wrong, the retort of the orator brought a sense of shame to multitudes of religious men: "Three or four ortho- dox ministers in the whole country who did not pray that way! Not enough to save Sodom!" The church that detach- es itself from the cause of the oppressed may gain in wealth and for a day be- come the playground of fashion and power; but that church is doomed. Nevertheless, social service is attend- ed by the two serious perils already mentioned. It is apparently easy; to make some show of devotion to the higher interests of men, unusual intel- lectual power and character are not an obvious necessity. What if a man is no scholar, no thinker, no preacher, com- monplace in mind and spirit, he may still organize his people for social ser- vice, arrange Dorcas societies, cry out vociferously for more of the institution- al church, belittle the function of the prophet, and plead for the treadmill of unillumined and ill-advised sociological service. If the new passion of our day for closer contact with the conditions of the working and suffering world should encourage these unfit persons to enter the ministry of the Protestant churches, these churches would cease speedily to serve the soul of man any- where. The peril here is real. Inferior men are a menace alike to social ser- vice and to religious insight. Even where the social worker is not incompetent, he may be uninspired. The earthly life of man should never be separated from the heavenly. Social service is particularly likely to take a limited view of the human being. The physical conditions and distresses, the social and temporal disabilities are apt to dim the sense of the august relation of the soul to its Maker. These are dangers through which the Protestant Church must pass in her clos- er and profounder care for the tem- poral life of men. The Hebrew prophets undertook a similar task; the moral leaders of the Western world have so conceived their duty; the faith of all true Christians has ever been that ulti- mately the kingdoms of this world would become the Kingdom of our Lord and his Christ. The humanity of Jeaus is matched against the inhumanity of the nations; while others abandon him for it, the Church called by his name should refuse to follow the example of treason to the loftiest of man's ideals; it should stand by him against the en- tire immemorial evil custom of the world. Qbomh A. (ioiiooif, Minister OM South ('lunch, Huston.
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April 30, 1914I The Natio 11 4t95 IV. THE NEED OF TRAINING FOR THE NEW FUNCTION. This is one of those questions to which no direct answer can be given. Some churches have lost ground, and some have not. Those which have lost ground have lost it because of the in- capacity of the individual church, or group of churches, under the charge of a single minister, to do this social work. The minister is ordained primarily as a preacher. His mission is to "fill the pulpit." The service of preaching re- quires his whole strength. If to the preaching be added sociological work, it will be found that the preaching has become so ineffective that the Church has lost ground, unless the minister himself is trained for the sociological office and function. That is the significant condition. Most ministers are not trained; they are un- able to meet the existing demands of the practical profession of sociology. They know little of the diverse forces which are included in "associated char- ities." Tenement-house inspection and reform, the place of play and of play- grounds in the life of the boy or girl, the duty of the city or town towards the health of its citizens, public health nursing, these and many other forms and forces of public welfare are foreign to them. It is no wonder that they are foreign. For the minister has been train- ed in a professional school which still declares itself as a school theological or a school of divinity. Such a school has its place, and a most important place. But the point is that, if the minister trained on the theological side only at- tempts social and sociological work, he is attempting a delicate and complex task in which, usually, he is foredoom- ed to failure, and his church with him. It would appear, therefore, that there are three paths, any one of which the Church may follow: (1.) It may train its clergy in both theology and sociol- ogy. The theological training is, of course, a sine qua non. Theology is the science of which religion is the art. If the minister be lacking here, the lack is fundamental. But in addition to such education, he should be educated in so- cial service. Most churches, be it said, are able to support only one minister. Most churches, too, are obliged to undertake social service, be they situated in either town or country. Therefore, it is evi- dent enough that the Church should give to its clergy this two-sided education. (2.) A second path is open to a few churches, and to a selected number of clergymen. The church large in mem- bership and filling many functions in the community should be provided with a staff of workers, of which one part should be concerned with the preaching and one part with the sociological work. Through this practical method, let man's reformation be achieved. Let the social settlement, or the college settle- ment, be made an annex to the church. Let clubs and scouts, leagues and socie- ties, associations and organizations, rep- resent the methods and the means which the minister of this type shall use for human betterment. Other members of the church-staff shall preach and "ad- minister the Christian ordinances." (3.) The third method consists in the Church keeping itself closely to the tra- ditional lines of service — a conserva- tism of interpretation and of office of which the Catholic Church is a most impressive example to the Protestant. Let it, moreover, accept the leadership and help of all social and sociological organizations in carrying forward its own work of this type. Let it cooper- ate with all such associations. Let it, for instance, not seek to employ its own nurses for its poor and sick fam- ilies, but transfer to the Associated Charities or to the Visiting Nurse As- sociation of its city the families to whom such ministries should be offer- ed. Such cooperation is economical and effective. Which of these three methods is the more useful is largely a local question. The first is better fitted for the ordinary church; the second can be used only in and by the church of large membership and abundant means; the third may prove to be peculiarily adapted to the ordinary church in the ordinary city, a church having an annual budget of not less than four, nor more than seven, thousand dollars. Charles F. Thwing, President Western Reserve University, Cleveland. V. THE SUBSTITUTION OF SERVICE FOR CREED. . I would rather ask, "Has Protestant- ism lost ground?" for Protestantism of right includes a large body of men who are deeply religious, who are influenced by the spirit of Jesus, who are seeking to pattern their lives on His teaching and example, and who yet are so pro- foundly discontented with the present forms of Protestant orthodoxy that they rarely attend church. Their parents were stanch church-members, and they themselves will be found seeking mem- bership in the Protestant churches again just so soon as those churches shake themselves free from the entan- glements of creed and invite all who wish to follow and obey the teaching of Christ to join their society. If the question is so understood, I would say that Protestantism has great- ly gained in its effort to socialize itself. Indeed, it has no future at all, unless it returns to the simple and more hu- man gospel wnich Christ brought to men. He was the greatest of all Prot- estants; His life, His teachings, His actions were one embodied protest. He protested man's inalienable right to turn for himself to God, no man, no insti- tution barring his way; and He de- clared man's supreme duty to believe in a Fatherly God, and to prove that belief by service to his brother man. He found Judaism, which had been the era- die of a pure monotheism, "bound around with grave clothes," and He sought to loose it and let it go. The national religion had been, as He said, the bottle which held a precious vintage, the wine of a true religious life, in trust for all men. But bottles grow old and rotten. They are but the outward forms, the conduits at which men drink; they are not the living draught of re- ligious life itself. Good men, in His view, were so intent on the bottle that they forgot the inherent properties of the wine that made it valuable. Many things written about Him may perhaps be questioned, but none can question this, that He cared for the multitude, that He lived among and for the poor — He cared for men's bodies as well as for their souls, and He left to all who are willing to follow Him an "example that they might follow His steps." On sociological matters He is so ex- plicit that any doubt as to His teaching is out of the question. He will have no one follow Him or claim a place in His band unless one pro- fess oneself willing to try, at least, to follow His example. He is the great Servant, and all Chris- tians must be servants, too. In answer, then, to the question pro- posed for discussion, I would say that Protestant churches must succeed or fail just in so far as they stand or do not stand for what the great Protestant stood for: man's open unobstructed way to God, and man's supreme duty of ser- vice to his fellow-man. In the 1,900 years of our era there have been many Protestant movements. Many of them seemed to die down and fail; some, perhaps, through errors of leadership; some through persecution. But in the end the principles of Protes- tantism must win, for they are eternally true, they are the principles of Jesus Himself. In seeking to socialize it- self to-day, to substitute Christ-like ser- vice for Christian creed, Protestant- ism is only feeling its way back to the sreat Master's side, only attempting in newer times and with newer machinery to do as He would have done. For like a chIM sent with a Blek To find bis way across a dusky nistht. Miti walks the world — again and yet ■ .- The lamp must be by <rii- P.iit shall not He who «ini him from II- Relight tbat W. S. Rajxsford.
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49(3 T li e JN a t i o 11 [Vol. 98, No. 2548 Books and Men COMPULSORY BELIEF IN FAIRIES. All of us, I am sure, admire Mr. Don- ald Caltbrop for his efforts to give the London children a good time, and to in- ject a little romance into their lives. There must be some personal inconveni- ence, even for an actor, in putting on, in broad daylight, the costume which he wears as Puck in Mr. Granville Bar- ker's production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," cavorting about Ken- sington Gardens (home of Peter Pan), springing into trees and out again, turning flip-flaps, and trying, in general, to make it as easy as possible for the boys and girls to believe in fairies. No other motive inspires him, I hear. He thinks that the English child needs more fairies in his every-day existence, and he is trying to supply the want. But I cannot help wishing that Mr. Calthrop had been more fortunate in the choice of the photograph, which has been reproduced in some of the illus- trated papers, showing him in action. There he is, cutting didoes before a group of six children. Five of them are gazing at him with a curious mixture of toleration and uneasiness, while the sixth — who is nearest the actor — is plainly bursting into the loud boo-hoos of simple terror. If Mr. Calthrop's Puck should suddenly spring out from behind a bush and confront me as I was cross- ing, say, Central Park, it is certain that I should feel like Jim, when Huckle- berry Finn inquired about his attitude towards Frenchmen. "S'pose a man was to come to you," suggested Huckleberry, "and say Polly- voo-franzy — what would you think?" "I wouldn't think nuff'n," replied Jim; "I'd take an' bust him over de head." Is not the actor's dubious success in his attempt to give the children a treat rather typical of the many endeavors to please and instruct children? Ac- tors and playwrights who seek juve- nile applause, artists who try to catch the childish fancy, and especial- ly the authors and publishers, teach- ers and librarians, who urge certain books upon children — all these folk seem amazingly confident of the acceptability of their efforts. Doubtless they are of- ten justified in their confidence; doubt- less, also, the child sometimes says he likes the play, the picture, or the book, because he is too polite, or too crafty, to disappoint his elders. There was a painful amount of truth in the picture in Punch which represented a perspir- ing gentleman skipping about with a fool's cap on his head, in order to enter- tain a children's party. "Don't feel so bad about it, old fel- low," whispers one of the guests (aged twelve) to the son of the house, who is sitting dejected at the back of the room; "don't feel so bad about it: my governor made just such a bally ass of himself last Christmas!" There is a great gulf between what adults think children ought to like and what they really do like. Sometimes, it seems, children believe in fairies; sometimes they pretend to the belief in order to "play the game." They are often more sophisticated, more self-con- scious, than we think. When Miss Maude Adams, as Peter Pan, steps for- ward and asks all who believe in fairies to clap their hands or wave their hand- kerchiefs, and thereby save the expiring Tinker Bell, there is almost invariably a small girl or boy who adds immensely to the general merriment by crying out: "I do!" This is very effective, but if you compare notes with other persons who have been to the play, you will find that the thing happens with an uncanny regularity. It may be a genuine testi- monial to the powers of the dramatist and the ability of the actress. Or it may be — the suspicion will arise, even in the most innocent breast — it may be that somebody has been coaching. In the field of books the problem Is a very real one. It may be that some peo- ple believe the average young lady if she likes to declare that her favorite book is the Iliad, or her favorite au- thor is John Milton. Persons of experi- ence reflect that there is hope of for- giveness, even for Sapphira, and say nothing. The same spoonful of salt must be taken with many of the utterances of children about books. They soon learn what books the teacher or the li- brarian wishes them to enjoy, and they "aim to please." The shrewd librarian thinks more of the evidence of thumb- marks, and the broken backs of certain popular books, than of any number of sweet assurances that one of her young readers "just loves" the Nibelungenlied. Other librarians, not less well-inten- tioned, but more credulous and "op- timistic," find it too painful to think that children do not always care for what a conscientious committee of eld- ers has decided is best for their good. It is rather bad form, they think, even to suggest that you can lead a child to the classics, but cannot always make him read. " 'Treasure Island' is approved by all the authorities," a librarian wrote to me a few weeks ago, "and so we keep a large number of copies on hand all the time; but I do not notice that they are read very much." Yet, in other libra- ries, there is unmistakable evidence that Stevenson's novel is one of the most popular of all stories for boys. This is a case, plainly, where the tastes of com- munities differ. Such differences are not always taken into account, though surely it is important that they should receive consideration. Perhaps the game is up; perhaps it is too late to declare for a compulsory belief in fairies. Mrs. Eddy abolished Santa Claus — it may be that the scien- tific age is upon us, and that Mr. Cal- throp's cantrips in the London park are but a last, hopeless endeavor to revive the age of foolish faith. Mr. Maurice Hewlett told the electors that it was senseless for them to agitate for old-age pensions and workmen's insurance when they were deprived of the really impor- tant things of life, of jousts and tour- neys, of feudal suzerains and over-lords, of battlements and donjon-keeps, and everything else which made life tolera- ble in the one happy period of the world's history — the Middle Ages. But he did not get into Parliament upon that platform. Tennyson declared, thir- ty or forty years ago, that there were no longer any children — only over-edu- cated young prigs. This was because his pointing out a "fairy-ring" to some children was met with an astonished ex- planation: "Why, don't you know? Those are only mushrooms — the fairies don't dance in them; there aren't any fairies!" Edmund Lester Pearson. Poetry "PADDED POETS." How long, as through the groves of Academe I wandered, had I sought thee, perfect word! And sought in vain— till late, amid the scream Of Brown's department store, my soul was stirred As with a trumpet, and my eager heart Warmed to thee, triumph of the critic's art! The "Padded Poets!" I had known them long, And by their gentle muse been lulled to rest; Or, mildly wakeful, had foretold their song, As one who knows, when some familiar guest Crosses the threshold, just what he will say, Because, forsooth, he said it yesterday. And all the while, despite the willing ear, Which I had ever lent their prolix si rain, I knew not what to call them, and the drear Incertitude had gone against the grain — Until my mental "table of contents" Grew rich with "Padded Poets, I'M fly Cents." Edmund Kkmper BBOADUB.
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April 30, 1914] Tli e Natio n 497 News for Bibliophiles. LITERARY FINDS. A FRAGMENT OF KEATS. A nine-line fragment of Keats's "Otho the Great," cut by Severn from the autograph manuscript and given to a Boston lady in 1862, has recently come to light. It contains a speech of Ludolph (Act V, scene 2), noted by the editor, H. Buxton Forman, as missing from the main body of Keats's manuscript of the play ("The Complete Works of John Keats," Glasgow, 1901; Vol. Ill, p. 126; see also p. 36), and reads as follows: He : there, there, O thou Innocence! I see it all. he Is the Paramour. There, hug him — dying, O Barbarian, Shrive him and comfort him at his last gasp. Kiss down his eyelids — was he not thy friend? Wilt thou forsake him at his lastest (sic) hour? Keep fearful and aloof from his last gaze, Ills most uneasy momenta, when cold death Stands with the door ajar to let him in? The first three words are written over the cancelled reading, "There he is"; in line 7, "Keep" takes the place of a cancelled "Stand." Comparing this fragment with the standard text — first printed by Lord Houghton in 1848, from Brown's copy — one notes seyeral variant readings: nine lines instead of the eight of the printed version; "shrive" (line 4) and "friend" (line 5) in place of "shrine" and "love" of Lord Houghton's text. While the condensing of the first three lines of the beginning of the speech in the autograph to the two of the printed version, and the later reading "love" for "friend," may represent the poet's re- vision of the text, the reading "shrive" of the autograph, instead of the mean- ingless "shrine" of all the printed edi- tions, is obviously the only correct one. George B. Weston. Harvard University. II. THE MANUSCRIPT OF SIR WALTER SCOTT'S "WILLIAM AND HELEN." The original manuscript of Scott's trans- lation of Burger's ballad of "Lenore" was given by Scott to Mr. Dugald Stewart. Stewart's grand-niece married a member of the Morris family, of Philadelphia, but did not live long, and her little daughter was sent to England to be educated by her relatives. She received from an aunt the manuscript of "William and Helen." This little girl afterwards married Sir Samuel Romilly. She gave the manu- script, along with a miniature which may be of Scott as a young man, to her cousin, Miss Caroline Nourse, of Washington, who married Commander Bladen Dulany, U. S. N. By her the manuscript was be- queathed to her grand-daughter, Miss Rosa Dulany Chew, now Mrs. Richard C. Williams, of Baltimore. The manuscript of "William and Helen" is of importance as the first poem, except the merest fragments, that Sir Walter Scott wrote. It has been describsd as a "rough draft," but this is hardly the case, though there are in it numerous correc- tions and additions which it is the pur- pose of this notice to record. It is rather a "fair copy," made for presentation, upon which many changes have been entered. The poem is written upon fifteen small sheets, upon one side only, with various additions on opposite pages. The ink is of faded brown ; some of the corrections are in another and darker ink. The pages are tied together with a green ribbon. Upon the outside is the title: "William and Helen / from / the German / of / Bur- ger." At the top, in pencil, is written, "Sir Walter Scott's Manuscript." Scott's own autograph signature does not occur. The chief variations between the manu- script and the published version of so fa- mous a poem are not without interest. Where the change has been very slight I have not thought it worth while to record it. References are by stanza and line. In several cases an original reading has been crossed out and the reading of the accepted text substituted. II, 3. "Judah's shores," erased and "wars" substituted. IV, 4. "The mark of victory," erased and "badge" substituted. VII, 2. "She sought each breast in vain," erased and "the host" substituted. VIII, 2-4. "Rent" and "wept," erased and "rends" and "weeps" substituted. IX, 3. "Broken vows," erased and "fleet- ing heart" substituted. XI, 3. The manuscript reads: "No pity is in God for me." XII, 2. "Pious" crossed out and "af- frighted" substituted. The published ver- sion returns to "pious." The manuscript version of this stanza was afterwards used for stanza XIX. XIII, 2. "O pray for heavenly grace," erased and "O turn to God and grace" substituted. XVI. The manuscript reads: O take the sacrament my child And cease this desperate woe Implore our father good and mild To wipe these tears that flow. XVII, 1-2. The MS. reads: No sacrament can slake this fire This bosom's scorching pain. After the seventeenth stanza of the published version there follow three stanzas now for the first time printed: "Perhaps, my child, thy fickle knight In Zion's distant land Has pledged his troth to a new new love And knit the nuptial band. "Despise my child the worthless loss Nor sorrow thus in vain. A perjured lover's fleeting heart No tears recall again." "O Mother! Mother! Gone Is gone And lost for ever Ionic Death only Death can succour me — O had I ne'er been born!" XVIII reads in the MS.: "O break my heart, O break at once 0 drink on my life Despair No pity has oar God for me — For me has heaven no share." Lines 3 and 4 were crossed out and the following substituted: "Since heaven has dealt so hard with me 1 ecorn each Idle prayer." These in turn were erased and the lines as printed inserted. XX, 4. "An earthly love replace," erased and "Convert thy bale to bliss" substitut- ed. XXII, 1. MS. reads: "Despair has fired her maddening brain." XXVII, 4. MS. reads: "Arise! arise! my fair." This whole stanza was crossed out and the form in which it was pub- lished inserted in a different ink. XXXIV, 1. "The black barb snorts — the moon shines clear," erased and "Look here, look here" substituted. After stanza XXXIV there comes in the MS. the following lines, part of which occur later in the published version: "Say William whither must we go? And where thy bridal bed" — " 'Tis distant far" — "Still short and stern" — "And narrow trustless maid." XXXVI, 1. The MS. reads: "Strong love prevailed. Fair Helen bounes." XLIV. This stanza is not in the MS. XLVIII. The MS. has many small changes and erasures in this stanza (which apparently gave trouble) that are not worth recording. LXII, 2. "Martial steel," erased and "casque of" substituted. LXVI. This last stanza is not in the MS. The original ending after stanza LXV is, I think, better. S. C. Chew, jr. Hotchkiss School, Lakeville, Conn. American Oriental Society Boston, April 18. The 126th meeting of the American Oriental Society was held in Boston and Cambridge April 16 and 17. The at- tendance was somewhat smaller than usual, though all the leading institu- tions at which Oriental studies are car- ried on were represented. The two ses- sions on Thursday and the one on Fri- day morning were held in the hand- some quarters of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, admirably adapted for gatherings of scientific bodies, while the session on Friday afternoon was in the Phillips Brooks House at Harvard. Preceding the reading of papers there was a short business meeting, at which various reports were read and the more important correspondence with foreign scholars and institutions during the year. On the conclusion of the business meeting Prof. Paul Haupt, of the Johns Hopkins University, delivered his ad- dress as president of the Society, choos- ing as his topic "Armageddon" — or Harmageddon, as the Revised Version has it — mentioned in the Book of Reve- lation, xvi, 16, as the place where the Kings of the earth will be gathered for the "last battle of the race." Interpret- ing the name as "Mount of Megiddo," Professor Haupt traced the ideas asso- ciated with Armageddon to the great struggle of the Israelitish clans, c. 1200 b. c, at the beginning of their national history against the Canaanitish groups under the leadership of Sisera. The
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4=98 Tlie .N n t i on [Vol. 98, No. 2548 \ letorj of ;ii( Im a< lites is comnn ed in the celebrated song at Deborah, in the fifth chapter of the Book of . This production, being contem- poraneous with the event, is therefore one of the oldest, if not the oldest piece Of poetic literature In the Old Testa- ment. Tin reference to Megiddo in the poem is an indication that it was there thai the decisive battle was fought — because of its position as a strategical point at the entrance to the plain of Esdraelon. The event, marking as it did the beginning of Israelitish indepen- dence, never faded from the memory of the people, and Megiddo thus became the name around which there grew up the conception of a great final rallying-place in the contest against the powers of evil. The second portion of Professor Haupt's address was devoted to a crit- ical analysis of the Song of Deborah, the text of which requires considerable emendation in order to obtain a satis- factory interpretation. The metrical translation of the poem which he made on the basis of the restored text, and which in conclusion he read, was mark- ed by great beauty and poetical vigor, bringing out the elemental grandeur of this remarkable production of a semi- barbarous age. Professor Haupt's analy- sis of the poem was full of suggestions, one of the most striking of these being the evidence advanced for regarding Deborah as the personification of the clan that led in the struggle. The title of Deborah as "a mother in Israel" he regards, in accord with Oriental par- lance, as the designation of a tribe or a clan and not of an individual. Of the thirty-seven papers announced only some twenty were read, the au- thors of the others not being pres- ent. The Indo-Iranian communications predominated this time over those in the field of Semitics. Most of them were exceedingly technical in character, deal- ing with textual criticism of passages in the Sanskrit literature or with ques- tions of grammar. Of more general in- terest was the announcement of Pro- fessor Edgerton, of the University of Pennsylvania, regarding the progress of a great corpus of variants in the Vedas in preparation by Professor Bloomfield, of the Johns Hopkins University, and himself. This work when completed will be an invaluable aid in the inter- pretation of parallel passages in the Vedas, and in deciding questions of pri- ority as between variant readings in different Vedic texts. It will be pub- lished in the Harvard Oriental series edited by Professor Lanman, who has at present some ten volumes of texts and translations in press or well under way — a significant evidence of his edi- torial activity. Dr. Ogden, of Columbia University, discussed a passage in the famous Behistun inscription of Darius, which red formed a Becure basis for the of the events narrated bj Darius. A feature of interest was the active participation in the meetings of two Japanese scholars, Professor Asakawa, of Yale University, and Professor Ane- saki, of Tokio University, who is the Harvard exchange professor this year. The former presented a valuable com- munication on the origin of feudal land- tenure in Japan, which he traced back to the period following upon the great Reform of the seventh century. Profes- sor Asakawa distinguished two main sources of the Sho, as the landed es- tates in Japan are called, (a) lands spe- cially granted by the Emperor, and therefore immune from taxation, and (b) illegally acquired tracts of land, for which after the tenth century char- ters of immunity were granted. By the twelfth century the immune Sho had become more numerous and powerful than the lands that still remained in control of the state. In the course of his paper Professor Asakawa dwelt on the interesting parallel presented be- tween the growth of feudal lands in Japan and western Europe, which, while presenting some minor differences, was in its main features strikingly similar. Professor Anesaki gave an interpreta- tion of two stone carvings from China, now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, one dating from the middle of the sixth century a. d. and representing a dedicatory offering for the security of the throne and the national welfare; the second of later date, with sculp- tures illustrating popular Chinese tales of a Buddhistic character. Professor Barton, of Bryn Mawr Col lege, presented two communications, one on an important cylinder inscription in the Museum of the University of Penn- sylvania, which dates from the dynasty of Agade (c. 2600 b. a), and which com- memorated the rebuilding of the temple at Nippur after a plague that had swept over the land. The other dealt with an investigation of the religious concep- tions underlying Sumerian proper names which clearly demonstrate the iden- tity of religious views held by the non- Semitic population of the Euphrates Valley with the Akkadians or Semites, who eventually obtained the control in both Babylonia and Assyria. The Rev. Dr. J. B. Niea, of Brooklyn, placed before the Society some of the re- sults of his investigations on the origi- nal pictures underlying cuneiform signs of Babylonia and Assyria — an exceeding- ly difficult task on which he has been engaged for some time. He showed in a very interesting manner how, e, "■ the sign for honey arose from a pic- ture of a bee in a bee-hive; and the form of the bee-hive in the oldest cuneiform script still shows in its outlines the form of I" e hive used at the present time in Palestine and in other parts of the East. .Mr. F. A. Cunningham, of Merchant- ville, N. J., discussed the very puzzling problem of the so-called Sothic cycle, i. e., a cycle determined by the Heliacal rising of the Dog Star Si'rius, known to the Greeks as Sothis. Mr. Cunningham's solution for the difficulties encountered in Egyptian chronology proposes that the use of the Sothic Cycle began in 3000 b. c, but that two changes were introduced in the course of time with a view of harmonizing the 365 solar days with the actual solar year of 365 days and a fraction. The first change was made in 1774 b. c. under Asseth, adding fifteen days to the year, and a second adjustment in 1321 b. c. Among the Semitic papers mention should be made of Dr. Worrell's demon- stration by means of a Rbntgen-ray ap- paratus of the pronunciation of the Arabic sounds h and kh. The investi- gation was made by Dr. Worrell in the Colonial Institute of Hamburg, with na- tives of Egypt and Yemen as the sub- jects. The session on Friday afternoon was- devoted to papers on the history of re- ligions and to other papers of a more general interest. Professor Haupt set forth new evi- dence for his view that Magan and Melukhkha, occurring frequently in old Babylonian inscriptions, were designa- tions of Egypt and Nubia, respectively, and not, as is held by many scholars, territorial sections in the Peninsula of Sinai. Professor Jackson, of Columbia Uni- versity, spoke of a recently acquired manuscript of the quatrains of Omar Khayyam, dating from the year 1349- a. d., and therefore of great value in the study of the genuine quatrains as dis- tinguished from those which represent imitations of Omar Khayyam. Mr. Schoff, of the Commercial Mu- seum of Philadelphia, presented a paper of striking interest on some aspects of the everland trade routes to the Orient at the time of the Christian era, in which he pointed out the causes that led to the abandonment of the older route from Antioch to Seleucia, thence north of the Persian desert to the Pam- irs and the upper Indus, in favor of an independent one, with its terminus in Petra at the head of the Gulf of Akaba, in northern Arabia; thence by caravan or sailing, around Arabia to the head Oi tin Persian Gulf, and overland south of the Persian desert to Kabul. The prosperity of this route was due to states not acknowledging Parthian sov- ereigntj (Which controlled the older route), cooperating with a power then controlling the passes to India and China, which appears to have been the well-known Kushan monarchy, b the Etomaa conquest of Petra
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April 30, 1914] The Nation 499 at the end of the first century a. d.. the Parthian conquest of the Persian Gulf states and the Chinese conquest of the Pamirs (which overthrew the power of the Kushan monarchy), this trade-route was broken up. Chinese records now- come to our aid in confirming this ex- planation and in establishing the pe- riod 50 b. c. to 50 a. d. as the height of the Kushan power in Asia. Professor Jastrow closed the after- noon session by a paper on the relations between medicine and magic in Baby- lonia and Assyria, from which it ap- pears that, despite considerable progress in medical treatment, the primitive theory of a cure being effected through the driving out of the demon of disease or exorcising him out of the body con- tinued to prevail. The beneficial effects of certain drugs and of other methods of medical treatment is assumed in the medical texts of the Euphrates Valley, just as in the incantation texts revert- ing to a very early period, to be merely a consequence of their real purpose to disgust the demons by ill-smelling com- pounds and concoctions or to induce them, by agreeable odors, to leave their victim. On Friday evening the members and their ladies assembled for the annual dinner in the Colonial Club of Cam- bridge which marked the close of the sessions. New York was selected as the place of meeting in 1915, and Professor Jastrow was elected president for the ensuing year. J. Correspondence THE NEW "NATION." To the Editor of The Nation : Sir: As an old and veteran reader of the Nation I wish to express my satisfac- tion at its recent expansion. I consider the improvement momentous. There is no need of specifying the features, all of which are apparent to your coterie, but way out West is an old war-scarred relic very much pleased at the new par- turition. L. B. Crocker. Menclnta, 1)1., April 20. THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. To the Editor of The Nation: Sin: The action taken by the Biblio- graphical Society of London at the an- nual meeting in January will be welcome news to American libraries and collec- tors. Following the suggestion of the Hon. Secretary, A. W. Pollard, that (to commemorate the Society's coming of age) the membership roll, which was fixed at 300 in 1894, might be re- opened for a few months, it was unani- mously voted that, during the year 1914, the council be empowered to elect mem- bers irrespective of the number already on the roll, and that the rule restric ting the roll of English and American mem- bers of the Society to 300 be for this pe- riod suspended. A rare opportunity is thus given to tlM.se who have hitherto been unable to obtain the publications of the Society, which are distributed only to members. The stately series of illustrated mono- graphs in large quarto, the latest of which. K. B. McKerrow's "Printers' and Publishers' Devices in England and Scot- land, 1485-1640," was recently reviewed in the Nation, includes such works as Ashbee's "Iconography of Don Quixote," Haebler's "Early Printers of Spain and Portugal," Macfarlane's "Antoine Ve- ra rd," Proctor's "Printing of Greek in the Fifteenth Century," Bourdillon's •'Early Editions of the Roman de la Rose," and De Ricci's "Census of Cax- tons," to mention only a few. The series in small quarto includes, besides the eleven volumes of Transactions, a num- ber of works almost indispensable to stu- dents of English literature, such as Greg's "List of English Plays Written Before 1643," and his supplementary "List of Masques, Pageants, etc.," Miss H. R. Palmer's List of English Editions and Translations of Greek and Latin Classics Printed Before 1641," Esdaile's "List of English Tales and Prose Ro- mances Printed Before 1740," Duff's "Century of the English Book-Trade, 1457-1557," continued by McKerrow's "Dictionary of the Printers and Booksell- ers in England, Scotland, and Ireland, 1557-1640," and Plomer's "Dictionary of the Printers and Booksellers in England, Scotland, and Ireland, 1641-1667," these three covering very fully the personnel of the English book-trade for a period of two hundred and ten years. The latest issues in this series are Wise's "Bibliog- raphy of the Writings of S. T. Coleridge," and the fourth and final part of the "Handlists of Books Printed by London Printers, 1501-1556," completing the pre- liminary survey for the study of English types in the first half of the sixteenth century; the object of these lists being to put on record all the known books of each printer as a basis for further work. For the year 1914 it is proposed to issue Volume XII of the Transactions, which, in addition to the papers read in the last two sessions, will contain "Notes on Bib- liographical Evidence for Literary Stu- dents and Editors," by R. B. McKerrow; a volume containing Gordon Duff's "Catalogue of English Incunabula"; and, if funds permit, Gray and Palmer's "Abstracts of Wills of Cambridge Sta- tioners." Since its foundation, the So- ciety has been able to spend very nearly its whole income from subscriptions on paper and prints, its other expenses be- ing defrayed from entrance-fees, sales of publications to new members, and the interest on invested life-subscriptions; and, without any solicitation on the part of the Society, it has recently received a grant of £100 from the Treasury, mainly to help the publication of Mr. Duff's book. A fuller statement of the objects of the Society, with a list of the books it has printed, can be obtained from either of the Hon. Secretaries (A. YV. Pollard, M Murray Road, Wimbledon. London. B. \v., or r. b. McKerrow, 4 Pftamix Lodge Mansions, Brook Creen. Lomlofl, W.)f to whom also names of candidates may be sent. The Hon. Secretary for America is E. D. North, 4 East 39th Street, New York. George William Harris. Cornell University, April 16. REVOLT OF THE ENGLISH OF- FICERS. To the Editor of The Nation : Sir: As a former contributor to and present reader of the Nation, I have been in the habit of relying on statements made editorially. But the article in the issue of April 2 under the caption "The English Army Mutiny" has given my trust in the paper's reliability a severe jar. How it happens that the serious and accurate Nation asserts that a brigadier- general and fifty other officers "impu- dently" told "the Government what or- ders they would and what they would not obey" is explicable only on the as- sumption that the writer read only the "scare heads" of Radical journals, and neglected to read the declarations of the Liberal Ministers in both houses of Par- liament, to the effect that there had been no refusal to obey orders on the part of any officers or men. Sir Edward Grey was not the only one to emphasize this. The fact, as stated in the House, is that the Government, through the Secre- tary for War, ordered the commander-in- chief in Ireland to put to the officers two alternatives: to take part in active op- erations in Ulster — then, as now, perfect- ly peaceful — or to be dismissed from the army. The choice was to be made at once. Then, and only then, did Gen. Gough and the fifty officers accept the second alternative. It was the Govern- ment, not the officers, that introduced politics. The officers never did "protest against the orders coming to them from the duly constituted authorities," as it is further put in your article. Conse- quently none of them were "mutineers," as you term them, and if "a deadly blow" has been "struck ... at the army, both at home and abroad," it has been by the Government, not by any of the officers or men. Your article says "the War Office had acted without Government authority." Again it would have been well to read what Lord Morley said on this point in the House of Lords, for his statement does not tally with yours — and he spoke as a member of the Cabinet. The repudiation of an important mem- orandum you do not touch upon, nor on the farce of Col. Seeley's resignation, which he knew was already refused by the Prime Minister. All grace and truth are not the ex- elusive property of the Liberal party, and the Nation, ©f all American papers, might well be expected to show itself impartial as between the British parties, at least in questions which do not affect the United States. F. C. i>k Simichrast. London, Knfr , April 11 [What occurred after the date of our correspondent's letter is perhaps a suf- ficient answer to it. The Secretary of State for War later avowed that he had
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500 The ]NT at ion [Vol. 98, No. 2548 acted without the sanction of the Cab- inet, and his resignation was accepted. Ed. The Nation.] THE INVENTOR OF THE STEAM- BOAT. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: In your issue of December 25, 1913, your correspondent Herbert Joseph Fitch contends that John Fitch invented the steamboat. He mentions the claim made in England that Symmington built the first practical steamboat in 1802 and speaks of the credit given to Robert Fulton in America, but does not mention the name of James Rumsey, who from evidence given in various records ap- pears to have been the real inventor. I give a few quotations which support this contention. From an article in the Engineering Magazine, August, 1895, page 878, by James Wier, jr.: The man who, in America, first dis- covered a method of successfully pro- pelling a vessel against wind and tide, with steam as the motive power, was James Rumsey. The Government of the United States has recognized this to be an established fact, for in 1839 Congress ordered a medal to be struck in his hon- or, commemorative of this brilliant achievement. James Rumsey was born of Scotch parents in 1754. Maryland was his native State, but he removed to Shep- herdstown, Va., when about twenty years of age. . . . Machinists were rude and unskilled in their profession, and Rumsey was forced to plan, model and make his own machin- ery. He even did his most important casting himself, making the moulds and running off the metal with his own hands. Testimony adduced before the House of Representatives in 1839 shows that Rumsey had conceived the idea or steam navigation as early as August, 1783 (Congressional Record). Laboring under very adverse circumstances, he succeeded in the autumn of 1784 in mak- ing a test of some of the principles of his engine and propelling apparatus. He wrote to General Washington, about 1784, communicating to him the principle of his invention. General Washington wrote of Rumsey's invention to Gov. Johnson, of Maryland. This let- ter was produced before the Committee of the House in 1836, at which the reso- lution was offered and passed, awarding to James Rumsey, jr., the son and only surviving child, a suitable gold medal, commemorative of his father's services and high agency in giving to the world the benefits of the steamboat. In January, 1785, Rumsey obtained a patent from the General Assembly of Maryland for navigating the waters of that State. In 1786 he successfully navi- gated this boat on the Potomac at Shep- herdstown in the presence of hundreds of spectators. The experiment was emi- nently successful, as was proven by the affidavits and personal testimony of numerous witnesses who testified before the above-mentioned Committee of the House in 1839. Rumsey's letters to Mr. West, his brother-in-law, show that he and Ful- ton were on intimate terms in London. It is definitely known that Fulton never gave a thought to the steamboat until after Rumsey's death. From Appleton's Encyclopredia of American Biography, Volume V, page 347: He wont to England, where a society similar to the Rumsey Society of Phila- delphia was formed, and he obtained pat- ents for his inventions in Great Britain, France, and Holland. A boat and machin- ery were built for him, and a successful trip was made on the Thames in De- 1 .ember, 1792, but he died while prepar- ing for another experiment. Martha Rumsey Simonds. Chicago, 111., April 0. A CORRECTION. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: In the course of a review of Knut Hamsun's "Shallow Soil" in the Nation of April 2, your reviewer, following the publisher's announcement, says: "Yet he [Hamsun] is now first introduced to the English-reading public." As a matter of fact Hamsun was introduced to the Eng- lish-reading public at least as early as June, 1899, when Smithers, of London, published George Egerton's translation of "Hunger." I remember reading the book in the autumn of that year. Fred Newton Scott. University of Michigan, April 6. Literature THE POWER OF THE COURTS. The American Doctrine of Judicial Su- premacy. By Charles Grove Haines. New York: The Macmillan Co. $2 net. The purpose of this volume, the au- thor tells us, is to trace the develop- ment of the American Doctrine of Judi- cial Supremacy, in the law of the Unit- ed States, and to indicate its importance in the political history of the country — a purpose which has been accomplish- ed in a manner worthy of praise. In these pages is found no plea for the view that our courts of justice attained their position as guardians of our writ- ten constitutions by a "great conspiracy" or by "usurpation of authority." On the contrary, abundant proof is offered that the principles upon which the doc- trine of judicial supremacy in this na- tion rests had gained clear recognition before the Federal Constitution was adopted. Chapter iv contains a valua- ble discussion of colonial precedents and State cases, prior to 1789, while the following chapter deals with State decisions, rendered after the Federal Constitution went into operation and before the great opinion of Judge Mar- shall in Marbury v. Madison (1803, 1 Cranch 137). The author's careful ex- amination of these precedents leads him to the conclusion (in which every fair- minded student must concur) that the American Doctrine of Judicial Suprem- acy was well established by State deci- sions prior to its classical exposition by Chief Justice Marshall. "In practically every case where there was resistance to judicial decrees invalidating legisla- tive acts, the Court's opinion and judg- ment were ultimately accepted and vin- dicated. Impeachment proceedings and legislative censure only tended to strengthen judicial power." Slowly but surely other departments of government acquiesced in the doctrine of judicial supremacy, which had won popular ap- proval. "The way was prepared for the general adoption of the practice of ju- dicial control of legislative acts, before the Federal courts were factors to be reckoned with in the law of the Unit- ed States." Chapter vi contains an interesting ac- count of a device set up by several States to protect the fundamental law by a council of censors instead of by judicial decision. The plan "failed sig- nally in Pennsylvania, accomplished very little in Vermont, and was not a successful check on the Legislature in New York." Its failure was so con- spicuous that "it merely tended to strengthen the cause of those who fa- vored judicial guardianship of Constitu- tions." After tracing the development of the doctrine of judicial supremacy, the au- thor proceeds to consider its importance in our political history. In his opinion, its growth and general acceptance dur- ing Chief Justice Marshall's term of office were due in large measure to the popular distrust and fear of legislative power. The people had embodied in the Federal and State Constitutions their ultimate conception of a fundamental law. They had committed the guar- dianship of these legal principles to the courts, whose decisions were to be ren- dered, not during the heat and partisan- ship of a political campaign, but in the orderly course of a legal proceeding be- tween litigants, whose interests were affected by legislation which was at- tacked as violating constitutional guar- antees of personal or property rights; decisions reached after full and free ar- gument by counsel and deliberate con- sideration by the courts. The triumph of Jacksonian democracy aroused a spirit of opposition to the practice of judicial supremacy both in the Federal and State courts. With the accession of Chief Justice Taney Professor Haines discovers a change of attitude on the part of the Supreme Court and a disposition to interfere as little as possible with Congressional action. In the Charles River Bridge case (1837, 11 Peters 420) he finds the new Chief Justice departing from the doctrine of judicial supremacy, and forestalling the views of present-day progessives, touching judicial interfer- ence with public-welfare legislation. Chief Justice Taney was disposed to con- fine judicial decisions to "those sub- jects only which are judicial in char- acter and not to those that are politi- cal." He was opposed to the tendency in courts to legislate by means of judi- cial decisions. The supremacy of the judiciary WU challenged from another Quarter dur-
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April 30, 1914I The Natio 11 501 ing the War of, the Rebellion and the reconstruction period. President Lin- coln is represented by our author as "holding a modified form of the Jack- sonian doctrine." Congress went very far during President Johnson's term in asserting its supremacy over the execu- tive and the judiciary. At the end of that term, according to Professor Haines, indications pointed to an aban- donment of the doctrine of judicial su- premacy. After 1870, however, popular distrust of legislative power revived, and the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment gave to the courts a splen- did opportunity to become again the champions of personal and property rights against the aggressions of hasty and partisan legislation. In the opinion of our author, the courts have gone further than was wise for them to go in this championship. He attributes much of the present opposi- tion to the judiciary to its undue ex- tension of the power of annulling legis- lative acts. It has failed, he thinks, to observe always the distinction between the wisdom and the constitutionality of a particular piece of legislation. This may be true. It probably is true. But the soundness of Professor Haines's judgment upon particular cases is sad- ly impeached by his remarks about the Jacobs case (1885, 98 N. Y. 98). He fol- lows Mr. Roosevelt in asserting that this decision "set an almost impassable barrier in the way of tenement legisla- tion"; an assertion that has not a shad- ow of justification in fact. The law was declared unconstitutional because it was not, in truth, a law to protect the health of tenement dwellers, or of cigarmakers, or of the public, but was a piece of class legislation. It was not aimed at all tenement houses, nor at any tenement houses outside of New York and Brook- lyn. It neither prohibited the manu- facture of cigars in the living rooms of all tenements, nor such manufacture anywhere for sanitary reasons. It was aimed at a class of cigarmakers who were competing with union men. Mr. Roosevelt has said the act was crudely drawn. It was as insincere as it was crude. The judges, both at General Term (See 33 Hun, 374-383), and in the Court of Appeals, were careful to dis- tinguish this statute from an honest attempt to obtain healthful conditions in tenement houses; and the act was not framed nor advocated by these in- terested in tenement-house betterment. The decision has been characterized as one made by judges who did not know life. On the contrary, it was because these judges — Davis, Brady, and Dan- iels, at General Term; Ruger, Andrews, Rapallo, Miller, Earl, Danforth, and Finch, in the Court of Appeals — did know life, that they were not tricked into accepting a piece of class legisla- tion for an honest health statute. CURRENT FICTION. Under Handicap. By Jackson Gregory. New York: Harper & Bros. This is a tale of cowboys and the wild West. Mr. Gregory's purpose, however, extends beyond the mere exposition of the actual conditions of ranch life. He takes up the question of life's handicap and proves to his readers that he is not handicapped who must struggle for food and the elements of an education, but rather he who, born in the life of luxury and receiving every advantage, has learned to enjoy his dependence. For the latter is no man, but only a man's son. Yet one such "man's son" is made a hero by Mr. Gregory, in whose capable hands he rapidly returns to the field of the worthy poor. "Greek" Conniston en route for San Francisco with the last check the whim of a rich father will advance him, is astounded by the horse- manship of a young girl trying to board the train. He follows her to her father's ranch and enlists as a cowboy to be near his lady. He is goaded on to mak- ing a man of himself by the taunts of the latter, and in the end is instrumen- tal in reclaiming a barren tract of land in the Half-Moon country, in which the girl's father has sunk his last dollar. The real romance, however, centres upon the reclamation fight with the water- dam as heroine. Never was bride so eagerly courted or more pursued by villains. For had the reclamation plant not been ready at a given date, the vil- lains, in the form of a rival company, would have reaped the spoils and ruined the original projectors of the scheme. In the end, however, the righteous conquer, the desert is reclaimed, and the man's son becomes a man. Rung Ho! By Talbot Mundy. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Now the gist of the thing is: Be silent. Be calm. Be awake. Be on hand on the day. Be instant to heed the first note of alarm. And — precisely — exactly — obey. When we find gnomic verses of this sort as chapter headings in a story of India, we know where we are. It is in- teresting to see a literary convention getting started. Perhaps all future sto- ries about India will have to include similar little oracles in verse; and all because Mr. Kipling happens to be as clever at verse as at prose. Anyhow, it is a pleasant custom; and on Mr. Mun- dy's part it seems to be a sort of cour- teous acknowledgment of his debt to his master. He is by no means an unworthy pupil. "Rung Ho!" is full of color and of swift and varied action. The scene is in northern India, in the days preced- ing the Mutiny. The real hero is Mahom- med Gunga, the splendid swaggering Rangar chieftain, who in the darkest hour rallies his tribesmen to the Eng- lish cause and provides them with a leader. Foreseeing the need, he takes young Cunningham, a raw subaltern, the son of his old chief, and trains him to be his father's successor. In the course of this training the reader is made to see through the young English- man's eyes the astonishing contrasts and paradoxes of Indian life. There is a series of stirring adventures, with the suggestion of a love story; and the book ends with a glorious fight. Somebody's Luggage. By F. J. Randall. New York: John Lane Co. An amusing farce involving a confu- sion of yellow trunks (Anglice, boxes) and their owners. The boxes are pre- cisely alike, the product of a big Lon- don shop. They all cross from Calais to Dover on the same boat. One of them contains a lottery ticket worth fifty thousand francs; a second contains a letter concerning a fortune; the third belongs to a professional thief; and the fourth to a young Cockney bounder. It is the bounder who becomes the chief person in the action, a foolish and cow- ardly figure, and rather delightful in his way. He gets the wrong box at Dover. His own box, bearing his name, is sup- posed to have belonged to a man lost overboard during the crossing, and our Mr. Hopper finds himself advertised as dead. As he has recently lost his job and his sweetheart, he determines to let himself be dead. Then he finds in the trunk a letter about a legacy, addressed to the man who really went overboard. He takes it to the firm of lawyers who have written it, intending to tell the truth. But this is his one independent act; from that moment he becomes the passive hero always dear to farce. How he is forced to impersonate the heir, confounded with the owner of the lot- tery check, bullied by an hereditary ser- vant, pursued by supposed relatives and real detectives and criminals, and comes out of it all much more comfortably than he might have done — all this makes up a very passable bit of fooling, and might conceivably be adapted to a theatre audience by a skilful hand. Stories of Red Hanrahan; The Secret Rose; Rosa Alchemica. By W. B. Yeats. New York: Macmillan. The method and speech of the first six tales here collected are of the Irish peasantry, and they leave a pleasant sense that the legendary material has been but slightly rounded and elaborat- ed. Any the reader chooses will evoke George Moore's vignette of Yeats perch- ed like a great blackbird on some coun- try stile, while Lady Gregory invaded a poor cottage in search of folk stories for the poet to refashion. Hanrahan
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50^ T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2548 was a hedge schoolmaster of misty pe- riod, tall, strong, red-haired, with irre- sistible poetic speech. The main tradi- tion parallels the German story which gave basis to Rip Van Winkle; how Hanrahan entered a cottage a young lover, was tempted forth by an old man whose magic turned a card-pack into a fox-hunt, and slept on the mountains while the world whirled his contempo- raries into old age. Of more poetic qualities are stories with so little move- ment that some seem chiefly designed to mount scraps of Yeats's poetry. There is the song Hanrahan made by the fire- side of a wayside hut of Cathleen na Houlahan, till a blind beggar "shook his rags with a sob"; his rhymed curse on Old Age; his vision of times past, be- fore Norman entered Ireland, and his lonely, impressive death. The tales out- side this Hanrahan cycle are more dra- matic, full of color and clash, with original action plainly added to the wistful beauty of the peasant concep- tions. Most have mediaeval glamour, with castles, kings, cruel abbots who crucify minstrels, and a brutish peasan- try; but for all this objectivity of ma- terial, they waver before us like images in shadowy waters. Languorous mys- ticism has its fullest sway in "Rosa Alchemica," which stands apart from the rest as an unsuccessful excursion into the realms of Poe and Hoffmann. THE LAST OF A GREAT AGE. Thomas Wentworth Higginson: The Story of His Life. By Mary Thacher Higginson. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co. $3.00. Mrs. Higginson's memoir of her hus- band, though in good taste, is not alto- gether without the defects which seem almost inevitable when a biography is undertaken by one of closest relation- ship to the subject thereof. It is also apparent that it adds little new matter to what he himself recorded in "Cheer- ful Yesterdays." Yet the volume has considerable charm and was well worth doing, for Col. Higginson was one of the most attractive figures of the great New England age of which he was the last eminent survivor. His life was a re- markable blending of literary produc- tiveness and of personal achievement during the crisis of the nation, both in- spired by the highest ideals. It is a career upon which every American can dwell with pride, and Mrs. Higginson has well brought out its simplicity, its unselfishness, and its never-failing cheer. Indeed, it is characteristic ot the man that he wrote and named his "Checrfiil Yesterdays" while propped up in bed during a year's serious illness when three score and ten. His faith in American democracy never waned, but waxed as long as he lived, and his hu- mor survived. There are many instances of it in this volume, and some delight- ful anecdotes of himself and his friends, taken in large part from his correspon- dence. There is, of course, no attempt at a critical estimate of the man or his work; to our mind, not enough atten- tion has been given to Col. Higginson's association with John Brown and the struggle for Kansas, thus compelling the student to go to the Colonel's own writ- ings and such books as Villard's "John Brown" for a real picture of his daunt- less bravery and moral courage at this time. Of all the New England John Brown conspirators, Higginson alone stood firm when the Harper's Ferry raid came and the others fled to Canada or took refuge here and there. In the Bos- ton Public Library there is a remarka- ble letter of the Colonel's as yet unpub- lished in full, flaming with indignation at one of the conspirators who seemed to be showing the white feather. It truly reveals the Colonel's fine character. Higginson stood four-square; he let all the world know where he was, including the United States officers of the law, just as he had during the Anthony Burns excitement. But the pro-slavery forces and their Northern sympathizers in office were careful to let him alone. He was not even summoned to appear before the Mason Investigating Commit- tee of the Senate, although he alone had preserved his correspondence with Brown in full, to the great profit of lat- ter-day historians. He was even left free to plan an effort to rescue Stevens and Hazlett, then in the Charlestown jail, which would have been attempted had it been in any degree possible. Nat- urally, this militant clergyman was the man above all others to command the first negro regiment raised on the At- lantic seaboard. The story of it he has himself recorded for all time; but the heroism he and Shaw and the Hallo- wells, and the other officers of these negro regiments displayed in going to war with a "halter around their necks," since they were at first foredoomed to death if captured, cannot easily be esti- mated. After the war this man of action be- came purely a man of letters, of stead- ily growing prestige, and a never flag- ging and ever-welcome reformer, pro- foundly influencing all with whom he came in contact. In his every aspect he was a model citizen of the republic. When John Brown died, George Hoad- ley prayed that God might "give us a little of his courage, piety, and self-sacri- ficing spirit." It is impossible to lay down this memoir of Brown's bravo friend without echoing this wish in con- nection with Thomas Wentworth Hig- ginson. The volume contains a most useful bibliography which demonstrates anew Col. Higginson's extraordinary range of journalistic activity. We are happy to note that his long connection as a val- ued contributor to the Nation, from 1877 to 1904, is recorded therein. RELIGION AND ECONOMICS. The Reformation in Germany. By Henry C. Vedder. New York: The Macmillan Co. $3 net. Of making many books about Luther and his work there seems to be no visi- ble end. This latest contribution by Professor Vedder, of Crozer Theological Seminary, makes somewhat extraordi- nary claims to a hearing. In his "Fore- word" Dr. Vedder informs us that the student "will look in vain, in books ac- cessible to him, for the idea that the great religious struggle of the sixteenth century was only a phase of the social revolution then going on in Europe," and that "momentous economic changes were the underlying cause of political and social movements." We had sup- posed that precisely these ideas had be- come the current coin of thoughtful writers on the Reformation from Ranke and Hausser down; but all the same we are prepared to welcome an attempt to bring them out into new significance. This is one of Dr. Vedder's justifications for his book; but there is another, which, if we may be allowed to guess, was at least equally important to him. He has wished above all things to avoid the dry-as-dust style which he seems to associate with the scientific method while at the same time he proposes him- self to follow that method. The result is certainly a readable book. Dr. Vedder has selected with good judgment the telling points in the de- velopment of the German reform, and has dwelt upon these without unneces- sary detail. He has a certain sense for the dramatic, which at times is in danger of getting the better of him. It is a little too much, for instance, to speak of "the new Luther" after 1521, and to describe him as having "drunk the new wine of popular applause" and thus acquired an "insatiable craving for still deeper draughts." There was pain and strug- gle enough already in sight for the young reformer to make the vision of power anything but one of "sweets." But what we miss more than anything else is any adequate treatment of that social and economic situation which the author has declared to be the most im- portant aspect of his subject. Only In one chapter, that on the peasant revolt, do we find specific reference to economic questions, and this does not rise above the most ordinary commonplace without serious discusBion. The peasants were oppressed and revolted and were crush- ed— that is about, all. One cannot resist the impression that Dr. Vedder's judgment ot the Lutheran Reformation La largely dictated by his
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April 30, 1914] T h. e N" a t i o 11 503 own religious connections. The warm- est approval expressed for any religious group is reserved for the Anabaptists. They alone saw the issue clearly, unbe- fogged by any practical considerations whatever. "If," says Dr. Vedder, "these groups could have . . . won recep- tion for this real Gospel of Jesus, . . . three centuries of struggle and blood- shed and martyrdom would have been made unnecessary, and the world would have been by so much advanced further towards social justice than it stands to- day. The Anabaptists were silenced, trampled into the mud, destroyed; and the clock of civilization was set back three hundred years." Now, one might as well say that, if only men were some- thing other than men, history would be something other than what it is. A sim- ilar apology might be made to-day for the doctrines of "scientific anarchism." If men were so made as to need no gov- ernment, then obviously no government would be necessary; but we can hardly be accused of holding back the clock of time because we do not abdicate in favor of the anarchist party. It is a gross exaggeration to say, as Dr. Vedder does (p. 345): "The Anabaptists were the real reformers, and the only real re- formers, of the sixteenth century." It was easy enough then, as it always is, to make logical programmes for the Christian life; the difficult thing was so to present the cause of a true Christian- ity that society, as it was, would even appear to accept it and so to prepare the way for a fuller and freer accept- ance by generations to come. It is to be regretted that Dr. Vedder, with his un- usual preparation, did not see fit to de- velop much further this side of the re- form movement, with its manifold reac- tions upon the more conservative parties. Such a presentation can be made with- out the continual and, in a very true sense, unhistorical minimizing of the Lutheran contribution towards ultimate religious liberty which marks the pres- ent volume throughout. RELIGIOUS FEMINISM. Tantra of the Great Liberation: A Translation from. the Sanskrit, with Introduction and Commentary by Ar- thur Avalon. London: Luzac & Co. Hymns to the Goddess. Translated from the Sanskrit by Arthur and Ellen Ava- lon. London: Luzac & Co. The worship of the Supreme Spirit as a female power, and, conversely, the rec- ognition of the female element as su- preme, are not traits peculiar to the re- ligious spirit of India. Many savage tribes recognize a grandmother-spirit as one above the gods and the worship of the magna mater at Rome was but a weak expression of the full significance of the original idea as held by the Orien- tals from whom this worship was de- rrted, In India the cult of the female power is much older than would ap- pear, for in its grosser form it gave rise to no permanent literature, while the hymns to the goddess derived from the "right-hand" cuit do not date from more than two thousand years ago. In theory, this cult supersedes that of the Vedas and represents the only true religion of the present age. It was a happy thought on the part of "Arthur Avalon" to present the chief works of this ancient religion in English dress. Both he and his wife are care- fully trained Sanskrit scholars of the English school, and their interpretation of the hymns selected for translation is generally unimpeachable. Of these a few only have been translated before, while the "Tantra" now appears for the first time, as the complete text has not yet been published, even in the original. The learned introduction consists large- ly in a well-ordered explanation of the strange terms used in Tantric worship, knowledge of which is indispensable to any one taking up the subject for the first time. If, as is asserted in the Gayatri Tantra, the cult in this form was first revealed by Ganesha to the Devayoni, it is an involuntary admis- sion of the fact that the literary side of Tantrism must have been a late devel- opment. Nor does the character of the hymns, interesting as they are in themselves, do anything to vindicate a great an- tiquity for the higher cult. Hymns at- tributed to Shankara-acarya cannot be very old, and the Durga hymns of the epic are among its latest additions. In some cases the evidence that the mother- cult is forcibly intruded into the epic narrative lies palpably before one. Thus the goddess saves a hero who lauds her and yet has to be saved again by some other means the moment the hymn is finished. In other cases the lateness of the production may be judged from the language and verse. It is no criticism of these two very welcome additions to our store of trans- lations from the Sanskrit to say that mother-worship is here represented at its best, and that some obscenities are decently veiled. To the ordinary wor- shipper the female principle was repre- sented as a naked woman, with whom and in the cult of whom nameless orgies were carried on as a religious ritual. Even in the later epic the god- dess is preeminently the "naked" Ko- tavi, and in the ordinary cult the philos- ophy of the Tantra was practically non- existent. It was, and is, as crude a cult as was probably the actual worship of the corresponding goddess in the West. Nevertheless, it is an extremely fascin- ating phenomenon which is presented in the books here translated. That God as mother appeals to higher instincts than any degradation of the cult would imply, may be inferred from the fact that even in this century one of the great ascetic saints of India worshipped God under this form exclusively; not to speak of the tendency in the Christian church to substitute the Mother of God for other manifestations of divinity. The extreme Tantrist, however, holds not so much that the goddess is a form of di- vinity as that the female element is the only real divine element, the forms of gods being her inferior manifestations. Thus as the older religions derived the goddess shakti of Shiva from him as male, so the Tantrist derives Shiva from the goddess, all gods being but manifesta- tions of her. It is religious feminism run mad, of course; even the Hindu poet sings: "She is the goddess who ex- ists in all things, even in the form of error." We are glad to learn that Mr. "Avalon" purposes to translate more of these Tantras. Very few scholars have the training to attempt the task. But why does the author conceal his iden- tity under a pseudonym? Notes Dodd, Mead & Co. have in the press: "International Perspective in Criticism: Goethe, Grillparzer, Sainte-Beuve, and Lowell," by Gustav Pollak. The sixth edition of F. X. Garneau's "Histoire du Canada" (Vol. I), revised and edited by Hector Garneau, has been published by the Librairie Alcan, Paris, The second volume is in the press, and will be published shortly. The Macmillan Company announces the forthcoming- publication of "The Strength of the Strong," by Jack London; "The Return of the Prodigal," by May Sin- clair; "Faith Tresilion," by Eden Phill- potts.. The following numbers of a series of Romance monographs wall be issued by the Johns Hopkins Press in June or shortly thereafter: "Flaubert's Literary Development in the Light of His 'M*5- molres d'un Fou,' 'Novembre,' and 'Edu- cation sentimentale,' " by A. Coleman; "Sources and Structure of Flaubert's 'Salammbo,' " by P. B. Fay and A. Cole- man; "La Composition de 'Salammbd' d'apres la correspondance de Flaubert," by P. A. Blossom. THE Harness Prize Essay for 1 r> 1 3, "Elizabethan Drama and its Mad Folk" (Cambridge: Heffer), by Edgar A. Peers, is a creditable review of the maniacs and melancholies, the 1 of delusions and the pretenders of mad- ness who haunt our early drama. The author wisely sticks close to his texts and to contemporary notions concern- ing mental troubles and their treatment; he brings to his subject no modern medical or ethical prepossessions. What emerges very clearly from this study of whips, chains, and darkened rooms and of ravings usually intended and no doubt accepted, though the convention is now somewhat outworn, as comic, is the su-
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504 T lie Natio n [Vol. 98, No. 2548 periority of Shakespeare over his con- temporaries. This is not merely because Shakespeare in a few striking: cases contrives to make madness tragic; it is because throughout he is here as else- where a more sensitive recorder of the facts. A TRANSLATION, with a few slight alterations and thirteen charming illustrations of Charles Bastide's "Ang- lais et Frangais du XVIIe Steele" which appeared in 1912, is published by Lane under the title of "The Anglo-French Entente in the Seventeenth Century" ($3 net). It consists of a miscellaneous collec- tion of essays on the lives and activities of French travellers, merchants, literary men, and refug-ees in England from the time of Queen Elizabeth to that of Queen Anne. Here one can learn of the vari- ous routes from Paris to London in the age of Louis XIV, and the duration and expense of the journey, or the details of the sojourn of Shakespeare in London from 1598 to 1604, at the house of the Huguenot wigmaker, Christopher Mon- goye. The careers of such men as Guil- laume du Gard, editor of the French weekly newspaper — the Nouvelles Ordi- naires de Londres — which was published at the English capital from 1650 to 1657, and Themiseul de Saint-Hyacinthe, the first French translator of Robinson Cru- soe, are pleasantly described. There are some amusing and significant specimens of Frenchmen's English, and two more weighty chapters on "Huguenot Thought in England." The accurate preservation in the present volume of the lucidity, grace, and precision of the original French is apparently largely due to the fact that M. Bastide has been his own translator. He is thus more than justi- fied in quoting on his title-page the fa- mous words of Roger Ascham, "Even as a hawke flieth not hie with one wing, even so a man reacheth not to excel- lency with one tongue." A FEW weeks ago — March 5— we no- ticed the first volume of the illus- trated edition of Macaulay's "History of England," the first illustrated edition of this work ever published, edited by C. H. Firth, Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford (Macmillan; $3.25). The second volume has now ap- peared, and bears out the splendid prom- ise of the first. It is a rich treasury of reproductions of paintings, letters, car- toons, broadsides, medals, and the like pertaining to the subject under treat- ment. The frontispiece is a reproduction in color of the painting of the Duke of Monmouth, by Sir Peter Lely, in the Na- tional Portrait Gallery, and among the other full -page plates in color are those of James II, Queen Mary of Modena, Dryden, and, as prophetic of the Revolu- tion, William III as a child. Military critics will be interested in the sketch- plan of the battle of Sedgemoor, taken from the Pepysian library, and in the "part of a plan of the camp at Houns- Iow," from an engraving in the Suther- land collection; literary antiquarians will wish to see "Monmouth Routed" and "Re- belllon Ets to arouse sus- picion in the mind of the reader. Prof. Kittredge's essay and supplement on "Cotton Mather's Election Into the Royal Society" put to rest forever all doubts that have been held from Mather's time to the present as to his right to the let- ters P. R. S., though they show at the same time that he never was a fellow in the technical sense, having never under- gone the formality of a ceremonial ad- mission. The same writer's contribution of letters from Samuel Lee and Samuel Sewall to Dr. Nehemiah Grew contains a wealth of learned annotation upon a score or more of curiosa, from apothe- caries to raccoon grease. Chester N. Green ough's admirably critical study of "John Dunton's Letters from New Eng- land" is an extraordinary disclosure of plagiarism, and emphasizes "the necessity of extreme caution in accepting as a fact or as original anything attributed to Dun- ton or claimed by him as his own." Sam- uel E. Morison has added a sort of pre- liminary chapter to his "Life of Harrison Gray Otis," by taking up the question of "The Property of Harrison Gray, Loy- alist," and narrating as his most inter- esting topic the efforts of Gray to recover from John Hancock a debt of nearly £1,- 000, with the result that he failed to ob- tain a farthing from Hancock in his life- time, and left to his grandson the task, as it happened, of procuring two-thirds of the debt from the Governor's widow. The volume includes many shorter com- munications of consequence, upon only one of which is comment necessary. Al- bert Mathews, in his remarks upon Henry Newman, would have rounded out New- man's career more fully had he noted the fact that Newman was colonial agent for New Hampshire for many years, and left a large collection of papers that are now in the Bodleian ' Library. FROM Mitchell Kennerley we have re- ceived "The Fair Haven" and "The Humour of Homer and Other Es- says," by Samuel Butler. The lat- ter volume contains a biographical sketch of Butler by his friend H. Festing Jones. The Homer essay gives in epitome butler's favorite notion that the "Odys- sey" is virtually a satire against man- kind composed by a clever Sicilian spin- ster. The eleven other essays contain, besides some delightful fooling, two sketches of the Lombard Alps, the ter- ritory covered in "Alps and Sanctuaries," and three essays "The Deadlock in Dar- winism," in which Butler attacks with characteristic wit and cogency the theory of a mechanical natural selection. The volume represents Butler's main predi- lections, is free from his occasional lon- t/ueurs, and may be recommended as a beginning to those who wish the easiest approach to the great thinker and baf- fling ironist of "Erewhon." "The Fair Haven," on the contrary, is only for the adept, and difficult enough for him. Writ- ten in 1873, when theological discussion was rife, it purports to be the eirenicon of a thoroughly emancipated Christian. The imaginary author, John Pickard Owen, a thin disguise for Butler him- self, proposes to save Christianity by proving its cardinal miracle, the resur- rection. In this vindication he gives the rationalistic skeptics their entire point of view and half their case. Setting side by side the views of orthodox Christian- ity and of the skeptics — an analysis
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April 30, 1914] Tli e N" a t i o n 505 made with unsparing candor — he endeav- ors to find a common ground of under- standing. The book ends disappointingly with what can only be called a burlesque substantiation of the resurrection from the equally difficult miracle of the ascen- sion. Some of Butler's most brilliant pages are in this book. It is one of the strongest anti-dogmatic tracts ever pen- ned. Yet the whole effect is unsatisfac- tory. The blend of seriousness and irony is baffling in the extreme. At the time "The Fair Haven" was reviewed as a no- table work in apologetics and as an in- sidious manoeuvre of an atheist. Butler, who was at bottom neither apologist nor atheist, was satisfied with the ambiguous effect he produced. His reader of to-day will hardly share such satisfaction. One likes to know where an author stands, particularly when religion is involved. Still the general point of view is highly prophetic. All that Butler says about the spiritual value of historic uncertain- ty and in general about the right kind of legend as superior to any sort of mere fact might be put in the mouth of any Modernist, and no Modernist has pursued the anti-dogmatic course with anything like Butler's ability and raciness. THE subjects of Horace B. Samuel's essays, "Modernities" (Dutton), range from personages as comparatively remote In time as Heine, Stendhal, and Disraeli, to Strindberg and Frank Wedekind. The author believes them all reasonably char- acteristic of the modern movement which started with the French Revolution. Other studies deal with Nietzsche's "Ge- nealogy of Morals," "The Weltanschau- ung of Miss Marie Corelli" (!), Arthur Schnitzler, Emile Verhaeren, and "The Future of Futurism." The essay on Miss Corelli, by the way, contains a delicious comparison of her work with that of Mrs. Elinor Glyn. Of course, the writer might have chosen De Musset, Ibsen, Gorky, Sudermann, and Shaw for his essays, and have been no more put to it to explain why he grouped them in one volume, and why he called the book "Modernities." As it is, he acknowledges his difficulty, but thinks that his chosen ones possess a "spirit of energy, of fearlessness in an- alysis, whose sole raison d'etre and whose sole ideal is actual life itself." This is saying very little. As a matter of fact, Mr. Samuel had written a number of acute, and sometimes ironical, studies of writers who interested him. He thought he should like to put them between book covers. This he has done — and a well- informed book is the result. THE excellent series of popular hand- books published by B. G. Teub- ner of Leipzig, under the common name "Aus Natur und Geisteswelt," has been enriched by a revision of the volume entitled "Henrik Ib- sen, Bjornstjerne Bjornson und ihre Zeitgenossen," by the late Professor Bernhard Kahle. In its revised form this little book is nothing short of admir- able for lucid simplicity. The outgrowth of a series of popular lectures delivered In Frankfort in 1907, it is conclusive proof that a German critic can be intelli- gible when he chooses. It has the unpre- tentious form of a rapid re-telling of the substance of each critic's works in their chronological order. Biography, criticism, and all generalization are for the most part incidental, yet there is enough of unobtrusive comment to place each writ- er definitely and to qualify his merits and defects very sharply. If ever a series of essays on literary masterpieces were in any sense a substitute for the books discussed, it is true of the essays that make up this little volume; yet no one who reads it can fail to find his appetite whetted for the books described. Besides Ibsen and Bjornson, there is detailed treatment of Jonas Lie, Kielland, Amalie Skram, Garborg, and Knut Hamsun. U/^HAUCER and the Roman de la Rose" >^ (Columbia University Studies in English and Comparative Literature: Lemcke & Buechner), by Dean Spruill Fansler, gives us a useful conspec- tus of the influence of the great French poem upon Chaucer. The ground has been so thoroughly work- ed that one is not surprised to find that the author has to offer nothing new that is of importance, but the definite classification of the various forms of influence on Chaucer's reading, style, situations, descriptions, etc., makes the debt of the English poet to his French originals clearer than ever. Dr. Fansler sifts with good judgment and sobriety the immense number of parallels which have been suggested by previous scholars, and he adds a few of his own, as, for in- stance, in the Manciple's Tale, where the lines on the necessity of reining the tongue are traced to the "Roman de la Rose" rather than to Albertano of Bres- cia, as different commentators have as- sumed. On the other hand, he suggests that in his description of the God of Love and his train of ladies Chaucer was fol- lowing Machault's "Dit du Vergier," and not the "Roman." The suggestion, how- ever, does not strike us as convincing. NOTES FROM ABROAD. PHILATELISTS, in the course of this year, will have the pleasure of new French colonial issues of postage stamps. For Djibouti, in East Africa, the seaport of the route up to Abyssinia, .designs have been made by the painter Monta- der. They are oblong in shape. One represents goats browsing on rocks, with a native tambourine player framed be- tween. Another, in gray-blue on rose color, is the railway bridge of H0II6- Holle\ A third, in black and green, is a young Arab girl of Djibouti. Other stamps are to be issued for the French Congo andMadagascar.lt is expected that their artistic quality, added to novelty, will help to an end not postal — but not to be neglected in postage-stamp issues since the collecting craze has so devel- oped— the sale to amateurs. Such sales in certain cases have gone far towards covering the expenses of the issue. THE attempted revival of the famous opera balls in Paris has at least re- called their place in French literature and art. They were begun by the Re- gent in 1716 and were at their highest in Balzac's time. In 1830, the great or- chestra leader Napoleon Musard trans- formed the "cancan" into the "galop in- fernal," which Daumier illustrated. That which is bound, in spite of all protest, to go down as the Pope's dance — la fur- lana — appeared there, taken from "La Muette de Portici," which Auber pro- duced at the Opera in 1828. Alfred de Musset danced and Alexandre Dumas, the romancer, brought his son, the future playwright, to see. Gavarni's text to one of his cartoons of the opera ball is still remembered: "What a lot of women — and to think they eat every day! That's what gives a swagger idea of man!" Science THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. Washington, April 24. The National Academy of Sciences held its annual meeting in Washington on April 21-23. A year ago the Acad- emy celebrated its semi-centennial, and there are many reasons for believing that in the half-century now entered upon it will develop an importance and usefulness greater than that already at- tained. One of the outward evidences of this tendency is the foundation by Dr. George Ellery Hale, the distinguish- ed foreign secretary of the Academy, and his brother and sister, of the Wil- liam Ellery Hale memorial lectures on the various aspects of the theory of evo- lution. These were successfully opened at the present meeting by two lectures by Sir Ernest Rutherford, F.R.S., upon the "Constitution of Matter and the Evo- lution of the Elements." In his first lecture on Tuesday Sir Ernest described recent work on the nature of molecules and atoms, dealing first with Perrin's remarkable work on the Brownian movement. This is shown under a powerful microscope by very small solid particles immersed In a liquid, which are seen to be in perpet- ual motion of an absolutely irregular kind. It has been conclusively demon- strated that the motion of these par- ticles, one one hundred thousandth of an inch in diameter, is due to impacts against them of the molecules of the liquid. They strike them on all sides at random and drive them hither and thither in a manner which, although ir- regular, conforms in so remarkable a way to the laws of probability that we may calculate the number and size of the molecules. Another discovery of the last two years is that of the law of reflection of the X-rays by crystals, investigated by Laue and Knipping in Germany and by Bragg in England. It has long been assumed that the properties of crystals are due to the arrangement of their atoms or molecules in simple geometri- cal order, and investigation of the geom- etry shows that there are over two hun- dred possible ways of grouping. It is found that a beam of the invisible X- rays from a vacuum-tube produces on
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506 The _N :i I i n [Vol. 98, No. 2548 the photographic plate a large number of spots distributed witb great regu-lar- ity around a central image. The as- sumptlon is that these spots are due to the setting in vibration of all the atoms, which send off radiations in all direc- tions. The rays cause an interference like that produced by ordinary light, so that from the measurement of the pho- tographs may be determined not only the wave-length of the X-rays, until now unknown, but even the distances by which the atoms are separated one from another. Leading up to the subject of the elec- tron, or particle, proved by Sir Joseph Thomson to be 1,800 times lighter than the lightest atom, that of hydrogen, Sir Ernest conducted the beautiful experi- ment of the beam of cathode rays, made luminous by a fluorescent screen. The beam, being deflected by a magnet held near, is shown to be composed of small particles charged with nega- tive electricity. The discovery of radioactive substances, his contribu- tions to the knowledge of which have won for Sir Ernest Rutherford the Nobel Prize, has made clear that these bodies emit radiations known as beta-rays, which are found to be com- posed of small particles moving with great velocity and to be identical with the negative electrons of the cathode ray in the vacuum tube. It was suggested that the atoms of all the elements are composed of these primordial electrons, but Rutherford's own work has demon- strated the corresponding importance of the alpha rays, composed of much heav- ier particles than the beta particles, travelling at a much slower speed, and positively charged. It is by means of these alpha and beta particles that the evolution of the radioactive elements, a series which now contains about thirty members, is explained. At intervals an atom explodes with great violence, emit- ting an alpha or beta particle, and changing its atomic weight and chem- ical nature. These atomic changes are more violent than any known chemical reactions, and it is to them that the ex- traordinary properties of the radioac- tive bodies are due. In spite of the enormous number of alpha particles emitted per second, Rutherford has accomplished the ap- parently impossible task of counting them, and the lecturer concluded with a brilliant experimental demonstration of this remarkable feat. A minute tube of radioactive gas, so powerful as to cause fluorescence in a crystal bright enough to be seen by the whole audi- ence, was held near a tube having a fine hole through which the alpha particles might enter, and affected by Its electri- cal action a sensitive electrometer. This instrument, composed chiefly of a very thin fibre, projected by a powerful microscope upon the screen, enabled the audience to count the alpha particles entering the hole, one for each kick of the electrometer fibre. In the second lecture Sir Ernest pre- faced his own theory of the atom by showing the wonderful photographs of C. T. R. Wilson, on which may be seen the actual tracks of the alpha and beta particles, made visible by their action on the droplets of water produced in a fog-chamber. These trails, though in gen- eral straight, show sudden angular changes of direction, which are explain- ed as impacts with atoms. The changes of direction are so sudden that they must be caused by enormous forces, an observation which has led Rutherford to his construction of the atom as a positive, very small nucleus, surrounded by rings of negative electrons, like plan- ets around an infinitesimal sun. Through this system the foreign particle pene- trates and is strongly deflected by the central nucleus, in a manner compar- able with the experiment wherein a magnet, hanging as a pendulum from the ceiling of the room, was suddenly de- flected by a fixed vertical magnet un- der it. The lecturer described the experi- ments of his own pupil, Mosely, on the reflection of X-rays and gamma rays from radioactive substances by the dif- ferent chemical elements. It was long ago shown by the chemist Mendelejeff that if the elements are arranged in the order of their atomic weights cer- tain properties periodically recur, but the reason for this has been very du- bious. The spectra found by Mosely have led to the startling generalization that there may be attached to the atoms of the various elements certain charac- teristic numbers far more regular than the atomic weights, in that they change from one element by the same whole number. Thus the elements fall natu- rally into a table in which there are only three gaps, indicating elements for the chemists still to discover. What do these atomic numbers represent? Ac- cording to Rutherford, they denote the number of unit positive charges in the central nucleus, to each one of which corresponds an electron in the plane- tary ring. This daring generalization, if proved to be true, may well entitle the physicist, Sir Ernest Rutherford, to be considered the GEdipus of the riddle of the chemical sphynx. Only a few of the remaining thirteen papers which were read in the session of Wednesday can be here reported. W. H. Howell, of the Johns Hopkins Medi- cal School, in a paper on "Causes of the Clotting of the Blood," stated that the fundamental process in the clotting is a chemical reaction between a protein called fibrinogen in the blood with an enzyme called thrombin, which causes the fibrinogen to set into a jelly, as was demonstrated by the speaker by mixing the two colorless and limpid fluids. To the question of the origin of the throni- )in it is replied that calcium salts are essential to its production, but it is not dear why the blood does not clot while in the blood-vessels. Dr. Howell does not believe in the "tertium quid," which lias been supposed to prevent the reac- tion, but he has succeeded in separating out a protein compound which has no action on fibrinogen, but which on being brought into contact with calcium is converted into thrombin. There is in the blood a substance that prevents the reaction, which is found in the salivary gland of the leech. Howell has found that a liquid can be obtained from the corpuscular elements in the blood which will not clot. The reason that the pro- tection from clotting ceases when the blood is shed is that when the cor- puscles touch solid substances they dis- integrate, and from them comes a new material which with the calcium makes the thrombin. Jacques Loeb, of the Rockefeller In- stitute, in New York, in a paper on "Heterogeneous Hybridization," under- took to answer the question why the sperm of one species does not fertilize the eggs of another somewhat remote from it. Loeb believed that if some means could be found of forcing the spermatozoa of one species into the egg of another, then fertilization would take place. A controlling influence seems to be exercised by calcium salts in the so- lution enveloping the egg. When the jelly surrounding the egg of the sea- urchin was removed by acid, the egg could be fertilized by its own sperm, but not by that of the star-fish, but in the presence of calcium the eggs were fer- tilized by that of the star-fish, and all developed. W. H. Humphreys, of the U. S. Weath- er Bureau, in a paper on the "Relation between American Temperatures and European Rainfall," premised by stat- ing that changes in the earth's tempera- ture are due to changes in the sun's surface and the earth's atmosphere. When sun-spots are numerous we have low temperatures, and conversely, when volcanic eruptions cause dust to rise above the highest clouds the dust acts as a screen against the sun's rays and we have lower temperatures. The rainfall changes with the humidity in the at- mosphere; for when more water evap- orates more must fall to keep the bal- ance. In a hot year much water evap- orates and there is more rain, while the cold years are dry, contrary to current opinion. In order to confirm this rea- soning Mr. Humphreys has considered the Atlantic Ocean, over which winds blow generally from the west, so that hot weather in America may be expected to evaporate much of the water which falls ■ihiindantly in England. The averages .»t rainfall in England, displayed
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April 30, 19 14] T li e 1ST a t i o 11 507 ically in curves compared with tin- American temperatures at correspond- ing times, show a striking agreei Henry F. Reid, of the Johns Hopkins slty, In considering the "Move- ments of Magnets Caused by Earth- quakes,'' attempted to determine wheth- er the observed movements of magnetic indicating instruments are due to changes in the earth's magnetism dur- ing the earthquake, or merely to me- chanical shaking. Mascart attempted to settle this question by suspending a bar of copper of the same size and shape as the magnet, and since it did not oscillate, while the magnets did, he concluded that the disturbance was mag- netic. Reid, however, calls attention to the fact that in the case of the magnet a counterweight is necessary to coun- teract the tendency of the earth's mag- netism to tip the magnet from the hori- zontal, and that the displacement of the centre of gravity causes an entirely dif- ferent mechanical effect. By an in- genious examination of the mechanics of such systems he shows in an appar- ently convincing manner that the shak- ing of the supports of the magnet will produce all the observed motions. The annual dinner of the Academy was rendered memorable by the pre- sentation of a new medal, endowed by Mrs. Helen Hartley Jenkins, of New York, in memory of her father, Marcel- lus Hartley, and given by the Academy for "Eminence In the Application of Science to the Public Welfare." The first award of the medal was to Col. George Washington Goethals for his work in the construction of the Pana- ma Canal, and to his colleague, Sur- geon-General William Crawford Gorgas, for his work in sanitation that made the construction of the Canal possible. Arthur Gordon Webster. The expedition to Dutch New Guinea by Mr. A. F. R. Wollaston, whose enter- taining account of it is given in the Geo- graphical Journal for March, has made a substantial addition to science, notably that of ethnology. The hill natives, who were most carefully studied, are an absolutely primitive people, apparently without a religious idea. Among the natural history collections made were sixteen new species of rhododendrons and eighteen species of birds of paradise. To the concluding part of Prof. J. W. Greg- ory's answer to the question "Is the earth drying up?" is added the interesting dis- cussion of it by noted scientists. There was a general acquiescence in his conclu- sion, fortified by a remarkable collection of evidence, that "in historic times there has been no world-wide change of cli- mate." Among the other contents are a paper on "Relief in Cartography," by Capt. H. G. Lyons; "Physical Character- istics of the Siachen Basin and Glacier System," by Dr. W. H. Workman, and a statement by Sir E. H. Shackleton as to the composition and aims of his proposed Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Drama CHRIST AND THE C] The .Vaster. By W. G. Hole. London: Erskine Macdonald. This little two-act play, by W. G. Hole, who has already won a conspicuous place among modern poets and drama- tists with his "Queen Elizabeth" and "The Chained Titan," is a work of sin- gular power and beauty, remarkable not only for the dignity and spiritual in- sight with which it treats a subject of great delicacy, but for compactness of construction, tenseness of dramatic sit- uation, and felicity of literary descrip- tion. Bold in conception and develop- ment, unflinching and logical in dem- onstration, it is absolutely free from mere emotional sensationalism. Stephen Phillips, in an appreciative "foreword," calls it a "severe masque," but it is a veritable tragedy, unsuitable indeed for the theatre, except before a very special audience, but in all technical respects capable of effective reproduction in ac- tion. He lays stress upon the charm of its natural imagery, and very justly, but its preeminent distinction is to be found in its trenchant exposition of the ir- reconcilable differences between the creed and practice of a dominant ecclesi- asticism and the essence of the Chris- tian faith as taught by its Founder. It proposes a problem, but unlike most problem plays, it does not shrink from giving the answer. What, it asks, would happen if Christ came on earth again to-day, as He came before? And the reply is that He would again be cruci- fied if the Church were his judge. The scene, to be sure, is allotted to the sev- enteenth century, but the moral, in its application, is clearly intended to be contemporary. The first act occurs in the open space before the cathedral of a great city, whither the Master has come attended by a great crowd of the common people who, as of old, have received him gladly. In the foreground various minor charac- ters discuss the incidents that have ac- companied his appearance, until inter- rupted by the entrance of the Cardinal Prince Bishop, a very frail old man, with his Secretary of State, Gaspardi; his almoner, Silvanus, and his guard. Gas- pardi, a clerical zealot of the inquisitor- ial type, urges the Cardinal to proceed against the alleged Messiah as an Im- postor and enemy of the Church, but the Cardinal, more devout and states- manlike, and harassed by a sense of responsibility, is inclined rather to heed Silvanus, a simple priest, who has been listening to the mysterious stranger and been impressed by the magic of his elo- quence. In a vivid piece of descriptive verse he depicts the apparently miracu- lous transformation of a fallen woman of which he has just been the witness, and boldly asks the Cardinal, how, if this should be the Christ, he wouid choose to meet Him, as a servant bear- ing office, or one of the crowd? Gas- pardi, in a fine speech, impetuously de- clares that the Church's head would necessarily be greeted with all the Church's pomp, to which Silvanus re- plies in a passage which contains the gist of the play and is worth quoting as a fair sample of Mr. Hole's work: What if, as you would have it, at the sign, The great doors flinging open of them- selves, Bells pealing and the organ pouring forth Fit welcome for the master of the world, And in high state the hierarchs of the Church, Blazing in ordered pomp about the porch, The Pope, a vassal prince of vassals, ready To pay low homage — what if then ap- proached From out the common crowd a common man: A carpenter with shavings in his beard Smelling of resinous wood new sawn, or, say, A strange blue-jerseyed fisherman, his hands Sodden and chafed from handling mid- night nets? What then would happen, think you? Would the Church, Her splendor so apparent and her pride So justified, with joy transfigure him And make his glory greater than her own? Or would she fling her wealth aside — that wealth She has indeed so wisely striven to gain Else had she failed — slough all her splen- dor off And humbly fit herself for such a mas- ter? It must be one or other — this or that. But Gaspardi is unshaken. He in- sists, against the protestation of the Car- dinal, that the pretensions of the Mas- ter, who has been brought to the front, shall be put to a crucial test. Let him prove his divinity by restoring life to the dead child which a poor widow has laid at his feet. The scene which fol- lows is one of rare pathos and drama'ic intensity. Throughout it, as throughout the play, the central figure is mute, but his disciple, Melchior, protesting his own faith, avows his wonderment that Gaspardi, after all that he has seen and heard, should demand a special miracle to strengthen his. The colloquy is con- ducted with fine terseness and point, and the suspense culminates in the final hys- terical appeal of the woman for compas- sion and help, the curtain falling at last upon a tableau of the sorrowful but si- lent master, the deeply perplexed Car- dinal and the triumphant, mocking Gas- pardi. The second act is devoted chiefly to a remarkably subtle analytical study of
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5G8 T li e Nutio 11 the character of the Cardinal, a char- acter intrinsically noble, in which the original instincts of simple devotion have been blunted or confused by the intricacies of theological speculation and pride in the glory of the Church. Utter- ly opposed as he is, in character and principles, to the fiercely intolerant Gas- pardi, he yet finds himself impelled by what he deems the inexorable logic of circumstances to agree with him in the conclusion that the Christ, in whose divine identity he now believes, must die. To his confidant, Silvanus, who bas confessed his own conversion, he compares himself with Caiaphas— whom he represents as the predestined instru- ment of Heaven's will— and argues that the whole scheme of redemption would have failed if his judgment had been other than it was. This leads up to a scene of startling originality and bold- ness, but so inspired by grave intellec- tual and spiritual purpose as to offer no offence to the religious. The Cardinal, confronted alone with his prisoner, tells him that he is recognized, and then pro- ceeds, with a really extraordinary grasp of the imagined situation, to expound his case. His argument is too long to be given in detail here, but it is no less remarkable for sophistical skill than for eloquence of literary expression. In effect, it is a plea that the reappearance of a peasant Christ would be a virtual disavowal of all that the Church— mean- ing ecclesiasticism in general, not neces- sarily any one particular division of It —has been, and done, through the ages. To go back to first principles, to ac- knowledge that the whole fabric of mod- ern ecclesiasticism was based on a rad- ical misconception of the true Evangel, would be to shatter faith and work irre- parable mischief and ruin. Therefore, argues the Cardinal, I, as Caiaphas, like him a predestined instrument, and, like him, perhaps, incurring damnation, must condemn you to a second Calvary, but a Calvary without publicity— and thus, by your second sacrifice, confirm and strengthen the Church which you originally came to establish. But, at the last moment, the Cardinal, quailing before the steady and silent regard of his captive, is shaken by doubts, and, as- suming the attitude of a suppliant, dies, as he asks whether "it is yet too late." The moral of the parable is clear enough. Whatever variety of opinion may be possible concerning its valid- ity and justice, there can be no ques- tion of the literary, imaginative, and dramatic power with which it is con- veyed and illustrated. (Vol. 98, No. 2548 Music Small, Maynard & Company announce Mication on May 2 the 1914 edi- Oon of "Who's Who in the Theatre." The Gymnase Theatre in Paris has "' "PStard," a new play by Iff. i '] eras, 1 r. 1 pei formances li en at the Metropolitan. This "• ludes fifteen double bills and two bene- fit performances, In each of vi hioh four »cts of differ* ni operas wei
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April 30, 1914I The Nation 509 Fourteen of the operas were also sung in Brooklyn, ten In Philadelphia, one in Albany, while Atlanta, this week, will hear eight. In the number of perform- ances Wagner leads (as always) with thirty-six, Puccini coming next with thirty-one. Verdi had sixteen, Humper- dinck twelve, Strauss and Leoncavallo nine each; Wolf-Ferrari, seven; Mous- sorgsky and Mozart, six each; Charpen- tler, Montemezzl, Victor Herbert, and Ponchielli, five each; Massenet, four; Masragni, Glnck, and Donizetti, three each; Offenbach, two; Gounod, one. One of the features of the Cincinnati tnusii festival (May 5 to 9) will be the singing of Bach's B minor Mass, with the assistance of one hundred girls, who will sing the second soprano part, leav- ing the regular soprano choir of the big chorus undivided. The great May festi- val chorus of adults is under the personal training of Dr. Ernst Kunwald, who will conduct the entire festival. The Cincin- nati Symphony Orchestra will be used, Cincinnati's two famous musical institu- tions l.eing thus combined. The solo- ists will be Alma Gluck, Flor- ence Hinkle, Schumann-Heink, Mar- garet Keyes, Evan Williams, Dan- iel Beddoe, Pasquale Amato, Henri Scott, and Douglas Powell. "The Damna- tion of Faust," of Berlioz, will be the opening programme on May 5. On May 6 the Bach B minor Mass will be sung. On Thursday there is a matinee orches- tral programme, with Amato and the children's chorus, and the following evening the Verdi "Requiem" will be given. On May 9 the festival will close with two performances. At the matinee Schumann-Heink will be the soloist, and the children's choir will sing in the Mahler symphony, and in the evening Alma Gluck will be the soloist; the clos- ing number will be the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven. In Monte Carlo, where several of Mas- senet's operas had their first hearing, a monument to him has been erected. It is the work of the sculptor Bernstamm, who also made the Berlioz monument in that city. "Czerny: Perfection in Style" is the name given to the twenty-five charac- teristic etudes or finishing studies of that famous pupil of Beethoven and teacher of Liszt, issued for the first time in Amer- ica by Schirmer. It is edited by Sigmund Herzog, who has done his work well. At- tention is called to the fact that some of these studies (notably 5 and 22) fore- shadow Chopin. Among the singers who will be heard in Paris in the performances of the Bos- ton and the Covent Garden Opera Com- panies in the ten weeks beginning last Monday are: Emmy Destinn, Louise Ed- vina, Mary Garden, Melba, Nielsen, Mag- gie Teyte, Bender, Schaefer, Margarete Matzenauer, Ferrari-Fontana, John Mc- Cormaek, Martinelli, Johannes Sembach, Pasquale Amato, Scotti, de Segurola, Marcoux, and Malatesta. The operas to be performed are "L'Amore dei tre Re," "Les Masques," by de Lara; "Un Ballo de Mascbera," "II Barbiere di Siviglia," "Don Giovanni," "Manon Lescaut," "Die Meistersinger," "Tristan und Isolde," and "Figaro." Art OLD TIMEPIECES. English Domestic Clocks. By Herbert Cescinsky and Malcolm R. Webster. Illustrated. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. $10 net. To collectors and students of Ameri- can furniture this book is valuable; to those whose range is international, in- dispensable. Clocks are notoriously hard to classify, explain, and assign to definite periods and influences. The au- thors of this sumptuous work have col- lated and interpreted their data in a painstaking and discriminating spirit. The advantages of their collaboration are obvious. Mr. Cescinsky, also author of "English Furniture of the Eighteenth Century," has made exhaustive research- es among clock cases and their accessor- ies. Mr. Webster is a practical clock- maker, the importance of whose quali- fications is not easily overstated. Much current writing on old clocks lacks pre- cision and authority because the writer knows the clock solely as a piece of decorative furniture. Much more than that is, of course, required. Cases are often earlier or later than the mechan- ism in them. A name-plate may bear the name not of the maker, but of a re- pairer. To fix a date, even approximate- ly, means to include several factors. All brass lantern, or "Cromwellian" clocks, for example, are popularly supposed to be very old. Yet they really were man- ufactured, especially in provincial dis- tricts, well into the nineteenth century. The development of the English clocks prized by the collector may be said to begin with the introduction of the pen- dulum as regulator. This is the point from which Mr. Webster's illuminating chapters on clock construction start. Anent a familiar dispute that concerns the invention, the safe statement is made that "the date of the pendulum as applied to English domestic clocks Is approximately about 1660, and the honor of the invention has been variously at- tributed to Richard Harris, Christian Huygens, Ahasuerus Fromanteel, or Robert Hooke. It is certain that its use was common in Germany and Italy ear- lier than 1660." The new type of regu- lator was directly responsible for the long case clock, since protection was re- quired for the pendulum, which, for recording time in seconds, must be near- ly 40 inches long. The date of the appearance of the "grandfather clock" in England our au- thors are inclined to set back from 1680 to about 1670. Nothing is said regard- ing much earlier references in Ameri- can inventories to this kind of time- piece, the existence of which is posi- tively asserted by Miss Esther Singleton and more cautiously urg- ed as probable in Mr. L. V. Lockwood's ' Colonial Furniture in America." Whereas one well-known handbook tells us that the first English tall clocks were made by William Clement about 1680, Messrs. Cescinsky and Webster il- lustrate a very fine long-case clock sign- ed by "Johannes Fromanteel, Londini," which, on internal evidence, they as- sign to 1670-5, saying that it "is per- haps the very earliest example of a long- case clock which was ever made." The book consists largely of descrip- tions of typical clocks in English collec- tions, private and public. One notes with interest the late introduction of mahogany, probably not before 1760, as the fashionable wood for clock cases. This coincided with the beginning of a decline in standards of workmanship and design, culminating in the gigantic and ugly Yorkshire clocks. The terms "Chippendale" and "Sheraton," as ap- plied to clocks, are, it is shown, often meaningless or misleading. It has never been settled whether the designs of these great artists were actually used by clockmakers. Neither of them cer- tainly knew much about clocks and their manufacture, and the authors give reasons for believing that their publish- ed designs must have been derisively re- ceived by the trade. The manufacture of English long-case clocks and other clocks of artistic de- sign languished in the nineteenth cen- tury, when even the best of the old work was neglected. Their restoration to hon- or came, apparently, a little later than in this country, for it is stated that "only during the last twenty years have these masterpieces of the old clockmak- ers been greatly esteemed and cherish- ed; they were frequently relegated to lumber rooms during the Victorian era, to moulder or rust, the cases broken up, and the movements sold as scrap metal." 'Flanders," by Max Rooses, in the Ars Una series (Scribners), has the merits which characterize these miniature and fully illustrated histories of art. The lit- tle volume is densely packed with infor- mation, yet written with enthusiasm and very readable. Few readers perhaps will share Mr. Rooses's admiration for certain of the Antwerp Romanists. It seems premature, in a general handbook, to accept any exact identifications for the Maitre de Flemalle. Rooses takes Hulin's view, for which the evidence is at best merely circumstantial, that the Maitre is no other than Robert Campln of Tournai, teacher of Rosier de la Pas- ture and of Jacques Daret. The value of the fairly full bibliographies is less- ened by the absence of logical classifica- tion— a not infrequent defect in this series. A third of the entries arranged by artists would be much more useful, and some notation for especially Impor- tant articles would be welcome. The proofreading has not been the most care- ful. These are minor blemishes in an excellent and useful work.
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51Q r|i T li e N" a t i o 11 [Vol. 98, No. 2548 Mnance THE STOCK EXCHANGE AND THE MEXICAN NEWS. If the movement of prices on the Stock Exchange, at the outbreak or (luring the progress of a war, were gov- erned by nothing but events in the one direction, it would provide an invalua- ble index to the trend of affairs. But a stock market cannot cease to "reflect" other influences because it Is also mea- suring the probabilities of war, and therefore there are often perplexing cross-currents in a war-time market. One of these has already occurred in the present episode. Until Friday of last week, the New York Stock Exchange had stubbornly refused to show the expected signs of dismay and demoralization over the thickening horizon of our Mexican sit- uation. That heavy selling of securi- ties, by home investors, bankers, and speculators, which traditionally accom- panies outbreak of hostilities, seemed to be wholly lacking. The market was expectant and apprehensive, but not dis- ordered. Suddenly and without warning, on Friday, selling orders in our securities were executed for European account, in such quantity as to break prices with great rapidity. It was inferred at once that financial Europe was either draw- ing conclusions which our own markets had not drawn, or had received news which had not reached our markets. But the cabled news which followed showed that the home securities on the London and Continental markets — not- ably British consols — were suffering more severely than our own securities. Private dispatches from the foreign financial houses presently set forth the unexpected view that the cause of this selling lay in Europe, not in America. What the trouble was, did not plainly appear. One European market report- ed that it was the shipment of arms from the Continent to Ulster; another, that it was Russia's accumulation of gold, with a view to military prepara- tions; still another, that it was the ill- ness and approaching death of the old Austrian Emperor, and the political confusion which might be expected to follow. But the effect of the selling on our own stock exchanges was not altered by the explanation; a"nd in Wall Street the conclusion continued to be drawn, despite the cables, that the Mexican situation lay at the bottom of it. Prices on the New York Stock Exchange, there- fore, ended the week with every sem- blance of a "war market," and, in fact, the market's action provided a very ac- curate mirror of the mood and feeling of the entire community, in regard to the successive occurrences in the Mexican ii i.s probable that the news and rumor of Sunday, when the Stock Ex- change was closed and newspaper "ex- tras" in New York published wildly ex- travagant stories of what was happen- ing in Mexico, would have thrown the market into still greater demoraliza- tion. In the light of what followed, the incident recalled those early July days in the war of 1898, when the stock market closed on Saturday with dis- quieting news from the army before Santiago, when the dispatch from Gen. Shafter came on Sunday, stating the probability that he would have to draw back his troops, and when only on Mon- day morning did the country learn of Admiral Sampson's destruction of the Spanish fleet. Something like this occurred in the present instance, when, following the gloom and despondency of Sunday, the Monday morning newspapers reported Huerta's acceptance of the Latin-Amer- ican mediation and contradicted the stories of wholesale pillage and mur- der practiced in Mexico against the American residents. Beginning with an advance in the early London market for American securities, prices advanced with great violence at Monday's open- ing, rose further that day, and advanced sharply again on Tuesday. Such a sequence of movements on the Stock Exchange leaves the infer- ence, as to just what is predicted for the Mexican affair, more perplexing than usual to trace. There are three general possibilities in this Mexican adventure. The crisis may be surmounted by some extraordinary accident of good fortune — such as Huerta's unreserved with- drawal, and the assent of Carranza and Villa to a general adjustment — which would presently terminate hostilities. The campaign may be short, effective, and entirely successful. Or we may have a long and arduous struggle in de- feating Huerta, destroying or capturing his army, and pacifying the country. The third of the possible results is not altogether pleasant to consider, even by the very numerous people who have be- lieved that our intervention in Mexico was inevitable. The probable effect on the country's financial and industrial fortunes, however, even of such an out- come, can easily be exaggerated. Noth- ing has been more certain, throughout all the recent reaction in finance and in- dustry, than that the country's position was fundamentally sound. This war sit- uation, whatever its ultimate result, has not come on a business position inflated by a "credit boom" or on markets over- extended with speculation. Such a con- dition prevailed when the Boer War broke out, and when the Balkan War began, and a good part of the business strain and financial disorder, which ac- companied and followed both those epi- v, as a far more direct conse- quence of the pricking of a bubble than of the simple cost of war. This country's present situation has no resemblance to that which prevailed in 1899 and 1912. To use the market's familiar phrase, we are thoroughly "liquidated," and the liquidation has not even been a consequence of intrinsic weakness. Business and finance have been taking in sail during fourteen suc- cessive months, in which the underlying c nditions — in the United States, at any rate — would amply have warranted spreading out more canvas. The reaction of the past two or three months has been largely due to senti- mental or imaginary causes. It is diffi- cult to suppose that it has not been greatly overdone. It has ignored what at the moment is an extremely favor- able position in that most important in all the fundamentals of prosperity, the outlook for the harvest. All these things being so, it is reasonable to as- sume that, even if it were to be our ill fortune to find ourselves confronted by a costly war, we should he better pre- pared to meet the strain than was any nation that has gone to war since we went to war ourselves in 1898. BOOKS OF THE WEEK. RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY. Allen, A. L. The Message of New Thought. Crowell, $1.25 net. Barker, E. Letters from a Living Dead Man. Kennerley. $1.25 net. Bergson, H. Dreams. Trans, by E. Slos- son. Huebsch. 60 cents net. Bertrand, L. Saint Augustin. Appleton. $3 net. Boutroux, E. Natural Law in Science and Philosophy. Macmillan. $1.75 net. Coffin, H. S. University Sermons. New Haven: Yale University Press. $1.50 net. Cooper, H. H. Right Living. Chicago: McClurg. $1 net. Fleischer, C. American Aspirations. Huebsch. 50 cents net. Gottheil, R. Zionism. Philadelphia: Jew- ish Publication Society. Haklane, J. S. Mechanism, Life, and Personality. Dutton. $1 net. Holt, Edwin. The Concept of Conscious- ness. Macmillan. $3.25 net. Locke, C. E. A Man's Reach. Eaton & Mains. $1 net. Loeb Classical Library: St. John Damas- cene. Trans, by H. Mattingly and G. R. Woodward. Plato, trans, by H. N. Fowler. Macmillan. Miinsterberg, H. Psychology and Social Sanity. Doubleday Page. $1.25 net. Orchard, W. E. The Temple. Dutton. $t net. Osier, W. Man's Redemption of Man. A Way of Life. Hoeber. 50 cents each net. Rompapas, J. The Book of My Life. Rabelais Press. Saint Hilalre, J. B. The Buddha and his 1:. ligion nutlon. $1.25 net. Barker, B. K. Introduction to the Sclenci oi Education, Longmans $1.10 net. Stanton, Horace E. Telepathy of the Ce- lestlal World. Revell. $2 net. St rout,', A. H. Popular Lectures on the I looks of the New Testament. Phila- delphla: Griffith A Rowland. $1 net. WalpOle, G. II. S. The Shrine anil the Prei 1 Mitton. $1 mi GOVEItNMKNT AND ECONOMICS. Barnard, W, G, Regulation. Seattle: ilatlon Publii tilni 1 !o. $1
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April 30, 1914I Tlie Nation 511 Best. H. The Deaf. Crowell. $2 net. Bigelow, John. American Policy. Scrib- ner. $1 net. i!e. C. V. The Small Family Sys- tem. Huebsch. $1 net. Hlllqult, M.. and Ryan, J. A. Socialism, Promise or Menace? Macmillan. $1.25 net. . E. Women Workers in Seven Profesaiona. Dutton. $2 net. Public Papers of. Governor Sulzer. State of New York. W. A. Banking. Chicago: Mc- Clurg. 50 cents. sen: mi:. Hall, A. D. A Pilgrimage of British Farming. Dutton. $1.50 net. Hind, H. L., and Randies, W. B. Hand- book of Photomicrography. Dutton. $2.r.o net. Moritz, R. E. Memorabilia Mathematica. Macmillan. $3 net. Moulton, I'". R. Celestial Mechanics, New- Edition. Macmillan. $3.50 net. Rockwell, F. F. The Gardener's Pocket Manual. MacBride Nast. 75 cents net. Roosevelt, T., and Heller, E. Life His- tories of African Game Animals. 2 Vols. Scribner. $10 net. Sharp, D. L. Beyond the Pasture Bars. 1 lentury. 50 cents. Verill, A. H. Harper's Gasoline Engine Book. Harper. $1 net. HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY. Beard, C. and M. American Citizenship. Macmillan. $1 net. Bryan, W. B. A History of the National Capital. Macmillan. $5 net. Cromwell, J. W. The Negro in Ameri- can History. Washington: American Negro Academy. $1.25 net. Great Men: Louis Pasteur. Dickens. By A. Keim and L. Lumet. Stokes. 75 cents net each. Ireland. A. Joseph Pulitzer. Kennerley. Joyce, P. W. A Social History of An- cient Ireland. Longmans. $7.50 net. Moore, G. Hail and Farewell. Vale. Ap- pleton. $1.75 net. Russell, C. E. These Shifting Scenes. Doran. $1.50 net. FICTION. Bacheller, I. The Marryers. Harper. $1 net. Ball, E. H. Traffic in Souls. Dillingham. 50 cents net. Baroness Orczy. Unto Caesar. Doran. $1.35 net. Barr, A. E. Playing with Fire. Apple- ton. $1.35 net. Blake, M. Mathew Ferguson. Dilling- ham. $1.25 net. Dehan, R. The Cost of Wings. Stokes. $1.25 net. Foster, M. Keeping Up Appearances. Appleton. $1.25 net. Hamilton, C. The Blindness of Virtue. New edition. Doran. $1.25 net. 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The Red House Chil- dren's Vacation. Boston : Lothrop, Lee, Shepard. $1 net. Garis, H. R. Charlie and Arabella Chick. Fenno. 75 cents net. Kaleel, M. J. When I was a Boy in Pal- estine. Boston: Lothrop, Lee, Shep- ard. 60 cents net. Rose, H. N. Grandma's Gems. Fenno. 75 CGiits net Stoker, R. E. Andy at Yale. Sully & Kleinteich. $1 net. Todd, B. L. Hiram, the Young Farmer. Sully & Kleinteich. $1 net. Williamson, M. John and Betty's Irish Visit. Boston: Lothrop, Lee, Shepard. MISCELLANEOUS. Bacon, P. V. Elements of German. Allyn & Bacon. Hopkins, T. The Romance of Fraud. Dutton. $2.50 net. Lilies, W. G. Auction Bridge. Barse & Hopkins. Lytton, C. Prisons and Prisoners. Do- ran. $1 net. Macpherson, W. How to Argue Success- fully. Dutton. 60 cents. Pearson, E. L. The Secret Book. Mac- millan. $1.25 net. Selected Short Stories, edited by Claude M. Fuess. Merrill. 35 cents. University of Toronto Studies: Vol. XVIII. Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Co. $1.50. Year Book of the Pennsylvania Society. A Noteworthy New Edition Prehistoric Times BY LORD AVEBURY (John Lubbock) 7th edition, revised and reset, $3.50 net The American Library Association Book- list says: "Before his death the author thoroughly revised the entire work, cut out the non-essential portions, and added new material, specially on the records of pre- historic man and quaternary mammals. New illustrations have been added or re- m place old ones. Considerably cheaper r\ than the sixth edition." ^HenryHolt&Co.,^-^ UNIVERSITY SERMONS BY HENRY SLOANE COFFIN. A character making volume written by a master "f English style ami full of the sincer- ity ami interest which are characteristic of Dr. Collin's sermons. Price $1.50 net. YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS New Haven, Conn. Fifth Ave.. N.T.C. BERGSON'S LATEST BOOK DREAMS AN EXPLANATION OF THE MECHANISM OF DREAMING IS NOW READY ALL BOOKSTORES 60 CENTS NET 225 Fifth avenue New York B. W. Huebsch, Hannibal Once More By D. W. FRESHFIELD. Illustrated. 8vo. $1.40 neri(weight, 16 oz.). In this little volume Mr. Freshfield has put into final shape the results of his study of the famous and still debated question: "By which Pass did Hannibal cross the Alps?"' LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. A Modern History of the English People By R. H. GRETTON "As brilliant as Mr. Herbert Paul at bis best." — Qlaxgow Herald. "The development of England's prosperity since the early eighties has been treated with an en grossing minuteness which Is only paralleled in the works of Mr. Arnold Bennett." — Scotsman. "So tonic it is, so extraordinarily sensible, so bracing in its immediate effects." — Liverpool Cour- ier. V. I. 1880-1K0S. 448 pp. V. II. 1890-1910, 368 pp. The Set $5.00 net, carriage extra. Small, Maynard & Company, Ronton The Justice of the Mexican War OF 1847-S A review of the Causes and Results of the War, with a View to Distin- guishing Evidence from Opinion and Inference. By Charles H. Owen Formerly of Staff Fourth Division, Second Corps. Army of Potomac. 12mo. $1.25 net. By mail, $1.40. The author contends that the Mex- ican War was fought in enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine, and that those who declare it was unjust base their charges upon mere opinion. "The work is ably and entertainingly « rii ten." — Chicago Advance. "A patriotic defence of our riovernment aud its Annies." — Literary Di'iest. It .til Itoolmellrrs G. P. Putnam's Sons, Publishers Reading Case for The Nation To receive the cur- rent numbers In a convenient (tempor- ary) form. SulKtan- tlally made, bound in cloth, with The Na- tion stamped on the side in gold. Holds about one volume. Papers easily and neatly adjusted. Sent, postpaid, on receipt of 75 cent*. SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS First Folio Edition. Edited by Char- lotte Porter. 40 vols. Cloth, 75c per vol. ; leather, $1.00 per vol. "By all odds the best edition now accessible." — [The Isiving Age. THOMAS Y. CROWELL CO., New York The Curious Lore of Precious Stones by i.kuik.i: fiu.oi:hick kunz. With numerous plates in oolor and doable-tone. Hro. Cloth. Itnied. J.VOO net. Carriage extra. Rflnc a Description of Their Sentiment* and Fo]k-I/>re. Superstitions. Symtwllsm. Mysticism. Cac In Medicine, Protection. Prevention. Religion and Divination. On Crystal Qszlng. Birth Stone* and Hoys! Jewels. THE NATION. 20 Ve-ey St.. New York j. B. Upplncott Co.. Phlln.lelphln. T«.
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512 T lie Natio n [Vol. 98, No. 2548 BOOKS E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY BOOKS FICTION The World Set Free By H. G. WELLS Cloth. $1.35 net. "A breathless story of great wars between world powers, of Kings in council, and the com- ing of world peace on the sound basis of a consciously planned and noble world state." Its thesis is: "War shall cease," and Mr. Wells makes it believ- able— on the very eve of war. The Wonderful Visit By H. G. WELLS Cloth. $1.85 net. A new edition of one of the most bitingly sarcastic and humorous stories this famous writer of stirringly suggestive fiction has ever written. Liliecrona's Home By SELMA LAGERLOF Cloth. $1.25 net. "A little gem of local color and atmosphere. . . . Masterly pictures of real Swedish life." Drum's House By IDA WILD Cloth. $1.35 net. An entertaining, clever picture of the rigidity of the conven- tions of English county society. Greek and Roman Sculpture Translated and Abridged by HORACE TAYLOR from the standard text- book by A. FURTW ANGLER and H. L. URLICHS. With 60 Plates and 73 Illustrations in the text. Cloth. $2.50 net. Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood ^By W. Holman Hunt The new edition, though less expensive than the first, is really of greater value, since it contains added material on the special parts played by members of the Brotherhood. 'Second ed. Revised with new illus. $7.50 net. The Poetical Works of Edward Dowden Includes the "Poems" published in 1870, with later poems and his numer- ous notable translations, including the whole of Goethe's "West-Eastern Divan." In two volumes, each with a portrait in photogravure. $4.00 net. Shakespeare Personally By David Masson Edited and Arranged by ROSALINE MASSON. Cloth. $2.00 net. For thirty years Prof. Masson made Shakespeare a human reality to the succession of his students through the lectures here published, each year revising and adding to his sympathetic picture of the dramatist. Plays andPoems of George Chapman-Comedies Edited by THOMAS MARC PARROTT, Ph.D., Professor of English Literature at Princeton University. Uniform with the volume of Chapman's Tragedies previously issued. Cloth. $2.00 net. Pot-Pourri Mixed by Two By Mrs. C. F. EARLE, Author of "Pot-Pourri in a Surrey Garden," and Miss ETHEL CASE. Each supplies a chapter in turn, producing a very readable book of garden information and general gossip. Cloth. $2.50 net. Women Workers in Seven Professions Edited for the Studies Committee of the Fabian Women's Group by EDITH J. MORLEY. A Survey of Economic Conditions and Prospects. Cloth. $2.00 net. Cesare Borgia By William H. Woodward After the attempts of romanticists to replace the traditional horns and hooves of the Borgias with harps and crown, it is a relief to read this competent, fair-minded biography. Cloth, 8vo. $8.50 net. The Golden Age of Prince Henry the Navigator Translated from the Portuguese of P. OLIVEIRA MARTINS by J. JOHNSTON ABRAHAM and WM. E. REYNOLDS. A sparkling nar- rative of the adventures of the early founders of Portugal, well-known as a classic in its own and several other languages, but not hitherto translated into English. Cloth. $3.50 net. ' Handbook of Photomicrography A thorough exposition by H. L. HIND and W. B. RANDLES of modern methods of recording by photography the results of research with the microscope. Among the illustrations are reproductions in color of direct color-photomicrographs. With 164 illustrations. Cloth. $2.50 net. Dictionary of the Organ By Carl Locher Newly revised from the fourth German edition of an unrivalled authority which has been translated from the original into eight different lan- guages, and issued in "Braille" for the blind. Cloth. $1.25 net. The Romance of Fraud By Tighe Hopkins Chapters which deal with romantic mysteries of crime, with curious bits of history discovered by investigating frauds. Cloth. $2.50 net. Eat and Grow Thin. The Mahdah Menus With a Preface by VANCE THOMPSON. A reasonable method of dis- carding superfluous fat without banting or the use of drugs. Cloth. $1.00 net. THE NEW BOOKS OF ALL PUBLISHERS, WHEREVER ISSUED, ARE FOR SALE BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 681 WWa?™
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Two Sections EDUCATIONAL NU VER Section I The VOL. XCVII1— NO. 2549 THURSDAY, MAY 7, 1914 Reg. U. S. Pat. Office. PRICE TEN CENTS YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 225 Fifth Avenue, New York City LATIN A SELECTION OF LATIN VERSE Edited by Members of the Latin Faculty of Williams College. In this compilation, representative of the best Latin poetry of all periods, the instructor will find material suitable for n and for upper classmen as well. In their text criti- Clgm the editors have secured clearness and simplicity without a -.oi iii.. hi scholarship, making a -election full enough to en- abli iii' Instructor to draw at discretion from the supply con- tained hi a single volume. 'I lie Ix.ok has already been adopted foi us. in several prominent colleges within three weeks of pub- 16mo. Cloth binding. 184 pages. 75 cents net; carriage extra. THE INFLUENCE OF ISOCRATES ON CICERO, DIONYSIUS AND ARISTIDES By HARRY M. HUBBELL l2mo. Board binding. 72 pages. $1.25 net; carriage extra. IN PREPARATION : CICERO OF ARPINUM By E. G. SIHLER, Ph.D. Author of "Annals of Csesar," "Testimonium Animse, etc. This important work is designed to be a full and compre- hensive biography of M. Tullius Cicero. Prof. R. Y. Tyrrell, of Dublin University, says: "The work will prove to be epoch- making and a decided counterblast to Mommsen and Drumann." HISTORY THE FRAMING OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES By MAX FARRAND, Ph.D. "No man is better qualified than Professor Farrand to tell this story, for his work on the records has given him a thorough knowledge of the day-to-day debates of the Convention, and he tells it in a plain, straightforward manner." — R. r.. Schuyler in the Political Science Quarterly. (.Second Printing.) 8vo. Cloth binding. 281 pages. Ap- pendix of 47 pages. Index. $2.00 net; carriage extra. THE ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION By GEORGE BURTON ADAMS "The book is of the gravest import, and in the future must figure conspicuously in the literature of this important subject." — Benjamin Terry in the American Historical Review. 8vo. Cloth binding. Gilt lop. 378 pages. Index. $2.25 net; carriage extra. WRITINGS ON AMERICAN HISTORY, 1912 Compiled by GRACE GARDNER GRIFFIN A bibliography of books and articles on United States and Canadian history published during the year HI12, with some memoranda on other portions of America. Imperial 8vo. Cloth binding. 180 pages. Index. $2 00 • eat i lage extra. BOOK OF TOPICAL I.XTEREST POPULAR GOVERNMENT, ITS ESSENCE, ITS PERMANENCE, AND ITS PERILS By WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT (Second Printing.) l2mo. Cloth binding. Qilt top. 283 liagcs. $1.15; carriage extra. 135 Elm Street, New Haven, Conn. ENGLISH THE COLLEGE CHAUCER Edited by Prof. Henry Noble MacCracken. Instructors in English who are choosing their text-books for the coming term will do well to consider this book, which has already been adopted as the official Chaucer text in the English departments of Columbia, Brown, Yale, Wellesley, Smith. Florida State College for Women, Allegheny College, Butler College, Western State Normal School, and the Univer- sities of California, Virginia, Indiana, West Virginia, and Min- nesota. l2mo. Cloth binding. 713 pages. $1.50 net; carriage extra. BOOKS IN DEMAND IN COLLEGE ENGLISH COURSES: ENGLISH LYRICAL POETRY From its Origin to the Present Time By EDWARD BLISS REED (Second Printing.) 8vo. Cloth binding. Qilt top. 616 pages. $2.25 net; carriage extra. YALE BOOK OF AMERICAN VERSE By THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY, LL.D..L.H.D. (Second Printing, regular edition. Fourth Printing, Bible paper edition.) 8vo. 570 pages. Index. $2.25 net, $3.00 net, $5.00 net, and $10.00 net; carriage extra. SCIENCE THE MENTAL HEALTH OF THE SCHOOL CHILD The Psycho-Educational Clinic in Relation to Child Welfare By J. E. WALLACE WALLIN, Ph.D. Professor of Clinical Psychology and Director of Paycb ti.n.il Clinic School of Education, University of Pittsburgh. In nineteen chapters of pointed discussion and original sta- tistical contributions the author [.resents a fund of Information in regard to the scientific study and improvement of backward, precocious, or mentally unusual children. 12mo. Cloth binding. 1,50 pages. $1.75 net; carriage extra. THE FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF NUTRITION By GRAHAM LUSK, M.D. "In this concise and readable manual Dr. f.usk ical study of nutrition and modern Investigations in He includes very important statistics Showing how llfferent occnp irlousb/ noniisl maximum number or protelnt maj be obtained at a 1 ''""f- The " | the principles of nutrition ir generation bai doi I much to discover and in a form to benefit the layman."— Chicago Medical Recorder. ' l2mo. Cloth binding. St pa gel. Index. 50 cents; carriage extra.
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11 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2549 A WEEKLY JOURNAL [Entered at the New York Citii Pust Office as second-class mail matter.'] The Nation is published and owned by the New York Evening Post Co. Oswald Garrison Villard, President; John Palmer Gavit, Sec. and Treas. Three dollars per year in advance, post- paid, in any part of the United States or Mcd-iro; ta Canada $3.50, and to foreign cimntrirx comprised in the Postal Union, $4.00. Address THE NATION, Sox 794, New York. Publication Office, 20 Vesey Street. HAROLD DE WOLF FULLER, Editor. STANLEY WENT, Assistant Editor. PAUL ELMER MORE, Advisory Editor. EMIL M. SCHOLZ, Business Manager. CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER. SUMMARY OF THE NEWS 513 THE WEEK 514 EDITORIAL ARTICLES: An American Concert of the Powers 517 The Colorado Puzzle 517 The Amending of Constitutions 518 Below the Surface 519 Filling in the Map 520 FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE : French Opinion on Mexico 521 The Change of Ministry in Italy 521 Austria's Trade iu the Balkans 522 POETRY : A Minor Poet 523 Margaret L. Woods 523 NEWS FOR BIBLIOPHILES 525 CORRESPONDENCE 526 LITERATURE : Mexico, the Wonderland of the South.... 527 Idle Wives 528 The Heart's Country 528 Gillespie 528 Quick Action 529 The Substance of His House 529 The Full of the Moon 529 The Red and Black 529 The Marquis of Montrose 529 Exploration in Chinese Turkestan 530 The Oxford Book of Spanish Verse 531 NOTES FROM ABROAD 531 MUSIC : Seventeen Thousand Librettos 532 FINANCE: The Movement of Events 533 BOOKS OF THE WEEK 534 EDUCATIONAL SECTION T,:',7, • • • Copies of The Nation may be procured lu Paris at Brentano's, 37 Avenue de l'Opera; in London of B. F. 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The Nation. \ / IV 1 ORE, THURSDAY, MAY 7, 1914. Summary of the News Negotiations for a settlement of the Mexican situation have hardly advanced beyond the preliminary stages, but the general outlook is not unpromising. Fol- lowing a conference between Villa and Carranza came the news on April 29 that the latter accepted the proposals of me- diation. An armistice was arranged the following day between the United States and the Huertistas, and strenuous efforts were made to induce Carranza also to agree to an armistice between his forces and the Federals. In a statement Issued on May 3, however, he declined explicit- ly to suspend hostilities, asserting that to do so would be only to the advantage of Huerta. The impression that Gen. Huerta's downfall or voluntary retirement is near has gained ground both in Washington and at Vera Cruz. Reports have been current of dissatisfaction with the Huerta regime in Mexico City, and his demand for the resignation of his Foreign Min- ister, Senor Portillo y Rojas, has given color to rumors that there are dissen- sions in his Cabinet. In the meanwhile, Villa on Sunday commenced a general advance on Saltillo. The number of the rebel force was stated to be 18,000 and that of the Federal garrison 12,000. At Vera Cruz on May 1 the civil gov- ernment under Robert J. Kerr, which had been set up by Admiral Fletcher, was superseded, by direction of Secre- tary of War Garrison to Brig.-Gen. Funston, by a complete military govern- ment. Secretary Garrison assigned as his reason for taking this step that it was desirable, since the city was under martial law, that all officers concerned in its government should be directly re- sponsible to the War Department. A disquieting incident occurred on May 2, when a small force of Mexicans appeared at the waterworks at Tejar, nine miles south of Vera Cruz, and demanded the surrender of the place. The demand be- ing refused, the Mexicans retired after firing a few harmless shots. The garri- son at the waterworks has been in- creased, but some anxiety is felt for its safety. The city is entirely dependent on these works for its supply of water, and it is feared that in case of a determined attack by Mexicans in force the pipe lines might be so seriously injured as to cut off the supply. The dispatch of Federal troops to Colo- rado has resulted in a decided improve- ment in *he general situation. The strike zones have been patrolled by the troops, and since their arrival practically all of the Colorado National Guardsmen have been withdrawn. The original dispute be- tween the mine owners and the men is no nearer a settlement than it was this time last week, but at least respect for law and order has been enforced by the presence of a body of trained and well-officered men. Interest for the moment centres principally on the conduct of the State militia, who have been charged not only with having exhibited gross incompe- tence, of which there appears to be no reasonable doubt, but also with the de- liberate slaughter of women and children at the burning of the tent colony at Lud- low. Concerning the latter charge, how- ever, the report of the State Military Board, which has recommended a court- martial of "all officers and enlisted men" who participated in the affair, says also that when the tents were set on flre "it could not be supposed that any women, children, or other non-combatants re- mained in the colony." Announcement was made on Monday that President Wilson had selected Rich- ard Olney, formerly Secretary of State in the Cleveland Administration, to be Governor of the Federal Reserve Board, and Paul M. Warburg, of New York, to be a member of the Board. The Clayton bill, which embodies the anti-Trust legislation favored by the Ad- ministration, was reported on Saturday by the House Committee on the Judiciary. It is expected that difficulties will arise when section 7, which relates to labor unions, comes up for consideration. As the bill stands, the legal status of labor unions Is recognized, but they are held liable to prosecution for any acts they may commit in contravention of the pro- visions of the anti-Trust statutes. The Labor group and Progressive leaders of the House will press for an amendment excluding labor unions and voluntary as- sociations of farmers from the operation of the Sherman act. The Senate anti-Trust bill, entitled "In- terstate Trade Commission bill," which was made public on May 1, is of a more drastic character than the House legisla- tion, giving broad inquisitorial powers to the Trade Commission, which is author- ized to investigate the "organization, busi- ness, financial condition, conduct, man- agement, and its relation to other corpo- rations" of any corporation engaged In interstate commerce. Little hope is entertained for the res- cue of the 172 men who were entombed as a result of an explosion In the New River Collieries Company's mine at Ec- cles, W. Va., on Tuesday of last week. In the area so far explored numbers of bodies have been recovered and condi- tions in the mine are such as almost to preclude the possibility of any survivors being found. Announcement was made last week by Premier Borden that the Canadian Gov- ernment had decided to guarantee $45,- 000,000 in bonds of the Canadian North- ern Railway. Considerable opposition Is expected to the plan, but confidence Is expressed on behalf of the railway that it will go through. It was announced in Washington on. Sunday that Alfredo Gonzalez had been- elected President by the Congress of Costa Rica. The new Administration will be inaugurated to-morrow for a term of four years. Prospects of a peaceful settlement of the Home-Rule question appeared to be brighter last week than for some time. In the debate on the vote of censure on the Government, introduced by the Oppo- sition, Mr. Winston Churchill, in particu- lar, adopted a conciliatory tone, inviting Sir Edward Carson to state frankly the amendments he considered necessary to safeguard the interests of Ulster and thereafter to use his influence with his followers to effect a settlement. Mr. Churchill's statement, though entirely personal, was subsequently endorsed by Mr. Asquith, and the vote of censure was defeated by 344 to 264. Meanwhile, de- stroyers continue to patrol the eastern- coast of Ulster, and the inhabitants have extended a cordial welcome to the ves- sels whose purpose presumably is to check their gun-running exploits. Talk of fur- ther "conversations" has been renewed and there seems to be a general feeling in England that an agreement may yet be reached. On the other hand, it is rec- ognized that there is danger of the Ul- ster "Covenanters," under the influence of religious fanaticism, breaking from the control of their leaders and precipi- tating conflict by attacking their Nation- alist neighbors. The annual budget was introduced in the House of Commons on Monday. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Lloyd George, stated that he had to meet an estimated deficit for 1914-15 of $26,650,000. He estimated the nation's total revenue at $1,003,275,000, while he placed the ex- penditure at $1,029,925,000. The trouble in northern Epirus, due to the disinclination of the inhabitants to be included in the new state of Albania and their desire to be annexed to Greece, is assuming a serious aspect. On May 2 it became known through dispatches to the Governor of Durazzo that the Epi- rote insurgents had attacked and cap- tured Kolonia, the garrison of which had been weakened by the transfer of gendarmes to reinforce Koritsa. It was reported also that there had been a massacre of the inhabitants and that the town was burned. King William an- nounced some time ago that he would head an expedition to suppress the re- volt, but it would appear rather doubt- ful whether the military resources of the kingdom of Albania are adequate to the task, and further intervention by the Powers who assigned northern Epirus to Albania may be necessary. The deaths of the week include: Wil- frid do Fonvielle, April 29; Dr. Paul Ehrhart, April 30; the Duke of Argyll, Prof. Bazley Lee, May 2; Major-Gen. Daniel E. Sickles, Rev. C. Sylvester Home, Prof. Newton H. Winchell. Har- rison Van Duyne. May 3.
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514 T li e JN" u t i o 11 [Vol. 98, No. 2549 'V The Week There is no reason to be surprised ■at the reports from Washington that a big light in Congress is threatened over the "labor" clauses in the new Anti- Trust bill. What those clauses are do- ing in that galley at all, it would be hard to explain. Intricate and conflict- ing provisions about injunctions and picketing and boycotting read very queerly in a Trust bill, and especially in one aiming to reduce the "debatable area" around the Sherman act. Here is a challenge to a thousand fresh debates, and the first one is apparently going to come in the House itself, or at least among its Democratic members, over the wisdom of including any such mat- ter in the proposed bill dealing with Trusts. As the clauses stand, they are a fine mixture of ambiguity, meaning- less phrases, and dangerous stuff. It looks as if a dozen different pens had been at work in drafting the measure. Each sought to get in a favor or guard against a peril, with the result that the whole appears to give with one hand what it takes away with the oth- er. This satisfies nobody, least of all the labor-union leaders. They know ex- actly what they want, and are breathing out their usual threats of punishment at the polls if their demands are not con- ceded. If the entire labor hodge-podge in the bill, with its resulting animosi- ties, should cause the Democrats such disgust and political apprehension as to lead them to throw the whole thing into the Potomac, no harm would be done. The outlook for passage of the Pan- ama tolls-exemption repeal bill, at an early date, is now extremely promising. Whether the Simmons amendment, ap- proved last week by the Senate Inter- oceanic Canals Committee — the vote standing 8 to 6 — is to be incorporated in the bill is as yet an open question. That amendment reads as follows: Provided that neither the passage of this act, nor anything therein contain- ed, shall be construed or held as waiv- ing, impairing, or affecting any treaty or other right possessed by the United States. If the incorporation of this statement in the bill is necessary for the quieting of doubts or fears which may be trou- bling the minds of some of the Senators who are in opposition or who are hesi- tating, we see no great harm in giving (hem that satisfaction. Those who have been urging the repeal do not wish to waive, impair, or affect any treaty or other right that the United States pos- sesses. To deny that the bill does so is to deny what nobody asserts. It is high- ly satisfactory to note that an amend- ment having somewhat the color of an assertion of the specific right to exempt our coastwise ships was voted down in committee by 10 to 4; and this though it did not actually make that assertion, but merely declared that the repeal act was not to be "construed as an admis- sion that the United States has no right to exempt its coastwise vessels from the payment of tolls." Both in and out of Congress, the signs point straight to an early settlement of the tolls question, and a settlement in the right way. Senator Borah's proposal that the question of Panama tolls be "referred to the people" can hardly be intended seri- ously. It appears like an attempted shift by the minority in the Senate, possibly for delay, possibly in the hope of put- ting somebody in a hole. The moment one asks for the ways and means of tak- ing a popular vote on tolls-exemption, the fantastic nature of the plan appears. Should there be a special election? If so, under what Constitutional power could the national authorities call one? If the matter were to be voted upon at a general election, everybody knows that tolls-exemption would be mixed up with so many other things that no clear de- cision could be got. And in what form would the question be submitted? All would depend on that. Senator Borah would doubtless like to put it in this way: "Shall Americans surrender their rights and truckle to England?" But the other side would insist upon some such form as this: "Shall the United States keep its word solemnly given?" Plainly, Senator Borah is merely try- ing on a tricking little diversion. When this is brushed aside, the Senate will do its obvious duty and itself decide the question, one way or the other. The possibilities of the right of peti- tion have surely never been so exempli- fied as in some petitions from Medford, Petersham, Gloucester, and other places in Massachusetts which Senator Lodge presented to the Senate a few days ago. They protested against legislation clos- ing barber shops In Washington on Sun- day. Washington itself seemed unaware of the menace, and but for the timely assertion of the right to petition might never have found it out. Another illus- tration of the almost uncanny omni- science which the existence of this right confers upon our freeborn citizenship is found in remonstrances that have been made against a supposed proposal to alter the shape of the flag. No one in Washington appears to have heard of such a proposal, but the protests against it which the right of petition facilitates should be enough to prevent any Con- gressman who has been nourishing so treasonable a design from attempting to carry it out. The Massachusetts peti- tions suggest that we have never used this right as we might have done. If Medford and Petersham feel called upon to express themselves upon the matter of barber shops in Washington, why should not Yonkers and New Rochelle put their convictions with regard to Sunday baseball before the legislators of Madison and Jefferson City? Inter- state petitioning must take its place be- side the initiative, the referendum, and the recall as a neglected weapon of our democracy. The Medical Society of the State of New York has passed resolutions peti- tioning Congress to provide for the men- tal examination of arriving immigrants by experts in. the United States Public Health Service; for the detail of Amer- ican medical officers on vessels bring- ing immigrants to this country, in or- der that their welfare may be safe- guarded and those with mental diseases or defects discovered; for the assump- tion by the Federal Government of an equitable share of the burden of caring for dependent aliens, and for the safe and humane return to their own homes of such aliens in our public institutions as may desire to return. There is doubt- less good reason for each of these pro- posals; and in that relating to the shar- ing of the financial burden by the Fed- eral Government the State of New York is interested in a special degree. But concerning the extent of the evils in question, it is easy to fall into serious error. The case, as stated by Dr. Thom- as W. Salmon — and as usually stated — is as follows: 1 ..1 ;i year there were confined in the Btate boapltali toi Insane In this State
Page 620
May 7, 1914] The Nation 515 31,624 patients. Of these, 13,700 were for- eign born, and 9,244 were aliens. It cost the State of New York about $2,500,000 to care for those 9,244 insane aliens who do not belong here. Now, of the population of this State above twenty years of age, 41 per cent, are foreign born; and 13,700 is 43% per cent, of 31,624. Accordingly, reckoning in all those "9,244 insane aliens who do not belong here," the foreign-born popu- lation contributes only the least shade more than its proportion to the State hospitals; while, if we left out those 9,244 "who do not belong here," we should have the foreign-born contribut- ing only one-third of their share. Evi- dently, therefore, the matter requires closer examination; the thing to be as- certained being chiefly how long these aliens who are committed to the hos- pitals have been in the State, or in the United States. According to the House Committee on Printing, it is not for cheap fiction alone that pine forests are criminally swept away. The report filed last Fri- day shows that there are 1,000 tons of useless documents in Government store- rooms, and that the last six years have seen 6,000,000 uncalled-for volumes "printed at enormous expense." This is apart from the estimate that $100,000 a year can be saved simply by curtail- ing the "leave to print" anything in the Congressional Record, from an exten- sion of remarks to complete instalments of "Progress and Poverty." By the com- mon-sense plan of appointing a Joint Committee on Printing to govern the supply by study of the public demand, $850,000 a year can be saved. But it is not money figures that will so impress the nation as the fact that evidence of intellectual waste and of official credu- lity in the enlightening power of the Press is to be estimated in the huge to- tals of tons. Reports of bureaus and commissions, of field operations and in- vestigations, have been printed in thou- sands to feed no circulation at all; and others have been issued in thousands where scores would have sufficed. natorial primaries, the newspapers are shadowing forth what the Oregonian calls "an earnest and widespread de- mand for consolidation of many State boards and for abolition of others." One candidate promises to sweep away the Immigration Commission, the Commis- sion to Investigate Rural Credits in Eu- rope, the State Architect, the Commis- sion for Licensing Sailors' Boarding Houses, the Nurses' Examining Commis- sion, and the State Tax Commission; while he would merge four different bodies into the Industrial Accident Com- mission, three into the Land Board, three into the Veterinary Board, and two into the Railroad Commission. Even the most conservative aspirant, while pleading for a cautious survey, has "no doubt many are useless, though some cost very little and others are self-sus- taining." This is a spirit which has lately been reflected even at Washing- ton. But the remarkable feature in Ore- gon is that so many permanent bodies are under fire; while it is not so much a demand for economy as for efficiency that prompts the movement. man who belongs to the union; if he does affiliate with them, he incurs dis- like from other classes in the South. Fortunately for his peace of mind, unionism has never made great progress in that section; but these utterances of an ex-Governor emphasize the unique obstacles that confront him even in the elemental problem of making a living in the place where he and his fathers have made it. • Oregon is not alone in having Com- missions which serve mainly by stand- ing and waiting; but as the State which contemplates dispensing even with a Senate, she logically leads the onslaught against them. In the heat of the guber- It has been deemed that there was an impassable gulf between social equality of the whites and negroes, but the mem- bers of white labor unions, in voting to affiliate with members of negro labor unions, have made the first move to bridge that gulf. So, according to ex-Gov. Brown, of Georgia, even industrial equality must be denied the negro, because, like politi- cal equality, it casts before it the awful shadow of social equality. The ex-Gov- ernor's array of evidence shows that substantial progress has been made in the South towards such industrial equal- ity. Last autumn all the members of the white 'longshoremen's union at Mobile quit work in order to enforce the de- mand of the 2,000 negro 'longshoremen for more pay; and in various places occurred difficulties between white and negro workmen over the question of the affiliation of the unions of the latter with those of the former, the white la- borers urging such affiliation. This is a new attitude, and indicates a growth in the feeling of solidarity among work- ingmen in the section where such feel- ing has hitherto been weakest. For the negro, this development introduces an- other element of perplexity. If he does not affiliate with the white unions, he in- The death of Gen. Daniel E. Sickles will undoubtedly serve to revive one of the oldest and bitterest controversies of the Civil War — the question of the han- dling of his corps at Gettysburg. While his partisans insist that his action was a stroke of genius, the great mass of military judgment is heavily against him. It is usually accepted as true, too, that the loss of his leg at that battle was the only thing which prevented his court-martial. All in all, he was a typical representative of the untrained man who worked his way to high rank by means of politics, and also by un- doubted aggressiveness and force of character. If future generations shall wonder as they read the history of the Civil War how Mr. Lincoln could have appointed so many politicians, there was little or nothing in our handling of the war with Spain which indicated that we had advanced much beyond the idea that the army might be sacrificed in order to keep some political fences intact. With the death of Gen. Sickles there survives now but one Northern corps commander, the gifted Grenville M. Dodge, of Council Bluffs, who as sol- dier and citizen stands high in public esteem. Another brilliant general who survives is James H. Wilson, of Wil- mington, who bears the unique distinc- tion of being the only general of our time to take a fortified city by the use of cavalry only. Gen. Nelson A. Miles is, perhaps, the only other survivor of the Civil War whose name stands out, now that the late Gen. Joshua L. Cham- berlain, of Maine, a real hero of Gettys- burg, has also joined the great ma- jority. How slowly we emerge from partisan- ship in matters that are essentially non- political is being shown in Maryland. Steps towards a thorough reform of the prison conditions in that State have re- curs the hostility of the white working- 1 cently been taken, and yet we read that,
Page 621
51(3 The !N a, t i o 11 [Vol. 98, No. 2549 with the naming by the Governor of three new members of the Board of Man- agers of the House of Correction, this institution will pass into the control of the Republican party by a majority of cne. This change in the political aspect of the Board is apparently not due to excessive partisanship on the part of the Governor, but is the only way by which he can insure the introduction of his ideas of prison management? Why? Because the institution has so long been regarded as one of the opportunities for political patronage. There are as many as twenty-six places, big and little, to be filled by the Board. While it is all very well to talk about what a capable Board could do in the direction of mak- ing the institution a model of its kind, there has always been the larger ques- tion of who was to have these twenty- six places. The Governor's action is a makeshift. He must know that there is no such thing as enduring prison re- form without elimination of "politics." Senator Poindexter's courage in mak- ing himself the champion of Dr. Fred- erick A. Cook, as he did in the Senate last week, is peculiarly admirable in that he flies in the face not only of the general judgment of intelligent men the world over, but in particular ranges himself in opposition, on this question, to the leader of his party. Col. Roose- velt's recognition of Peary's achieve- ment, and rejection of the Brooklyn man's story, must be well known to the Senator from Washington; and even those who are not Progressives would cheerfully admit the Colonel's special qualifications for judging the merits of a question of exploration. We do not, however, attach any political signifi- cance to the episode. The desire to show that the Progressives are not a one- man party has taken many curious shapes, but we cannot believe that an assertion of the authenticity of Dr. Cook's amusing observations of lati- tude and longitude is one of them. Mr. Poindexter's resolution proposed that Dr. Cook be given the thanks of Con- gress for his achievement. Congress, of course, will do nothing of the kind, but there can be no doubt of Mr. Poindex- ter's receiving the hearty thanks of Dr. Cook. ter. Only the other day we recorded the passage of a law forbidding the pho- tographing of naked Filipinos for exhi- bition purposes. Now the mail brings the news that the Commission has pass- ed a law "prohibiting, among other things, the taking or transportation of any member of a non-Christian tribe or entering into any contract with the same for the purpose of exhibiting him either in the Philippine Islands or any other country." A fine not exceeding 10,000 pesos, or imprisonment for not more than five years, is the penalty for violating the act. We submit that this can only be intended as a deliberate slap at Mr. Worcester, whose exhibition of Igorrotes was so successful at St. Louis for all but the Christian Filipinos. Such is the ingratitude of the dependen- cies of republics. Of course, the Har- rison Administration cannot prevent Mr. Worcester's continuing to give his mov- ing-picture lectures in this country on the wild tribes. But we warn it that this last act will inevitably fortify Mr. Worcester's belief that the Philippines are going to the dogs, now that a new Governor-General is in charge and a new policy under way. exchange of financial aid for a certain control over the railway, to its desire to court the company as a political ally. The Filipinos continue cruelly to per- secute their ex-ruler, Dean C. Worces- What the press dispatches call the "Government announcement" that Can- ada will guarantee a $45,000,000 bond is- sue for the extension of the Canadian Northern marks the carrying of Bor- den's long-awaited proposal through the Conservative caucus. From the magni- tude of the sum involved, it has met op- position even within party ranks. Yet it continues a long tradition of state aid to Canadian railways, and in making it possible for the C. N. R. R., on the credit of the Dominion, to raise ap- proximately half the amount required for the completion of the company's transcontinental line, is but another step in the scheme of development long pursued by the country. Only three weeks ago the National Transcontinen- tal ran its first train into Prince Ru- pert on the Pacific, the 1,480-mile sec- tion from Winnipeg having been built through the Government's guarantee of bonds to the extent of 75 per cent, of construction cost. The Canadian North- ern can now complete its stretches from the Rockies westward, and to Hudson Bay. The opposition of the Liberals will take the ground that economic policy is being sacrificed, In the Government's When Sir Edward Carson drops his 'Ercles vein and expresses the hope that the new Dublin Parliament will be so successful that Ulster will be glad to come under its rule; when Mr. Balfour admits that Home Rule for Ireland is now inevitable, though it means the shattering of his life-work against it; when Bonar Law affirms that a settle- ment by consent must be earnestly sought in order to prevent the prestige of the Empire from being further low- ered in the eyes of Europe — surely the end which all parties are seeking ought to be readily attainable. Mr. Asquith has not as yet enlarged his offer re- specting Ulster; and the working out of a solution by means of applying the Federal principle all round is only in the air. If the Unionists, however, are at last ready to abandon their main con- tention for twenty years past, a way out may fairly be said to be in sight. It is now so obviously the desire and the in- terest of all concerned to reach a peace- ful settlement that the terms of it should be speedily forthcoming. The old Eng- lish instinct for political compromise is now asserting itself strongly. The new Constitution for the Repub- lic of China, promulgated last week at Peking, certainly does not realize the ideals of radical and almost socialistic democracy which the party of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen in the first flush of victory over the Manchus dreamt of imposing upon China. But it is premature to speak of a dictatorship in the person of Yuan Shi-Kai. The Parliament is retained in the form of a single-chamber Assem- bly, elected, it is true, upon a restricted franchise, but possessing wide legisla- tive functions, even though the Presi- dent exercises an absolute veto on its acts. China's Parliament may be regard- ed as exercising about the same author- ity as the Russian Duma. Its functions, to be sure, fall short of the parliamen- tary Ideal, but nevertheless serve a Use- ful purpose as a check upon the autoc- racy and a rallying ground for public opinion. The nucleus of representative government remains, and that, alter all. Is about as much as one could expect.
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May 7, 1914J T li e ]NT a 1 1 o ri 517 AN AMERICAN CONCERT OF THE POWERS. The public has had to hear a good deal of rather unseemly and certainly futile disputing over the question who is entitled to the honor of first suggest- ing joint action in Mexico by the larg- er American nations. It matters very little. In its essence, the idea of Pan- American Union goes back nearly a hundred years. Various actual develop- ments have helped or hindered it; but its strength has been, on the whole, in- creasing through the past two decades. It was much furthered by Secretary Root's journeys in South America; and has also been aided by some things that Mr. Roosevelt has said, both while Presi- dent and later. Thus the sudden and fortunate coming forward of the A. B. C. countries, in the endeavor to find the path of peace for Mexico, may be thought of as a practical application to a given state of facts of a principle long ready to become fruitful. Without entering into the debate about priority, we may recall a signifi- cant article by Prof. Theodore S. Wool- sey, of Yale, which appeared in Scrib- ner's Magazine in March, 1909. This was at least an early grasping and statement by an authority on interna- tional law of the possibilities for peace and better government which lay in common action by the stronger and more stable American republics. Professor Woolsey suggestively gave his article the caption: "An American Concert of the Powers." The reference to the Eu- ropean Concert was obvious. His main point was that good will and coopera- tion on this Continent might do much to check revolutions and repudiation of national obligations; and even help in bringing the weaker and more frequent- ly disturbed nations forward along the road of orderly government. The plan was, in general, of a more or less defi- nitely organized "American police force" that might not only prevent wrongs but establish rights. Professor "Woolsey did not make light of the diffi- culties in the way. There would be sus- picion and jealousy to overcome. It might even happen that, as in Europe, a general agreement would be displaced by a general conflict. But the scheme of an American concert was well worth considering and striving for, Professor Woolsey maintained. It would not bring on the millennium unawares, but it might easily do great good in unfore- seen emergencies. Professor Woolsey stated his conclusion in words some of which have almost a prophetic sound to-day: Unity of action too strong to be op- posed; peace as a result, instead of rev- olution and war; the dictator at a dis- count, since no one will recognize him; political friendship and commercial sym- pathy instead of suspicion and jealousy; a premium set on stability and solvency, since to be in the concert rather than outside of it would mean so much to the minor states, would be so well worth while; a trade mutually profitable based on mutual good-will; an influence larger in world policies than any one state could aspire to. Such results as these, even if not realized, are at least worth aiming at. Are they not more profitable if the United States joins hands with its fellows on this continent, than they could be if it plays the game alone? What is uppermost in all minds to- day, in connection with the mediation undertaken by Argentina, Chili, and Brazil, is the immediate thing sought. But any one can see that out of this movement for a definite and practical result, a large policy rhay come. Thus far, the plan has worked with grati- fying success. Hostilities have been stayed, and an armistice agreed to by Huerta and our Government. The nego- tiators have been listened to with great respect by all the elements in Mexico. Their efforts are heartily seconded by the Administration at Washington. Eu- ropean nations are impressed, and are lending all assistance within their pow- er. Never did a novel international un- dertaking start off under happier aus- pices or give better promise of achiev- ing Its objects. These grow under the hands of the mediators, and now include not only the averting of a threatened war, but the restoration of order and legal government In Mexico. While these main ends are worked for, a by-product of great value Is al- ready being attained. A feeling of deep satisfaction and pride is evidently spreading through all South America. Even the meagre cable dispatches make this clear. It came partly as a revul- sion in sentiment. The South Ameri- cans were on the point of believing the worst of the United States. There we were, in the face of all our virtuous professions, about to invade and despoil Mexico. But suddenly the scene shifted, and it was South Americans who ap- peared, with the ready acquiescence of the United States, at the front of the stage, charged with the duty of seeking peace and obtaining for Mexico a sta- ble government. The entire effect can- not be other than wholesome. This ap- parently chance development, in addi- tion to easing the Mexican strain, puts a wholly new aspect upon our relations with the countries to the south of us. II ought to be an easy task for states- manship in the future so to enlarge and strengthen these new bonds on this continent as to make a Concert of American Powers more than a name — a reality which will also be a blessing to humanity. THE COLORADO PUZZLE. It is difficult to recall any great pub- lic issue of late years in which the facts have been so difficult to ascertain as is the case with the "war" in Colorado. The public is, we believe, thoroughly puzzled. Mr. John D. Rockefeller, jr.'s, statement had a ring of genuine sincer- ity about it, yet his assertions are cate- gorically denied by the representatives of the miners. Where does the exact truth lie? Is Mr. Rockefeller misin- formed by the men he trusts in Col- orado? Or are the miners misrepre- senting the situation? What makes the tangle all the more intricate is the fact that a Congressional committee of in- quiry has just visited the scene of dis- turbance, without, however, throwing any light on the merits of the contro- versy. Even Congressman Foster, who called on Mr. Rockefeller on behalf of President Wilson, is quoted as saying that he does not know just what are the real merits of the case. If he does not, how can the public be expected to un- derstand sufficiently to form an intelli- gent opinion? Nor do the newspapers seem able to help in the matter. The most careful statement does little more than marshal fragmentary assertions of both sides, or, rather, of the three sides, there being three parties to the controversy: the so- called militia, the operators, and the union miners. Nobody seems to be speaking for the non-union miners. Al- most certainly, there is much to crit- icise on all three sides. Where the field to be covered Is so vast, the mass of witnesses so great, and the occurrences extend over a long period, it would take any judicial investigators, any commis-
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518 The N a t i on [Vol. 98, No. 2549 sion which might be appointed, like Mr. Roosevelt's Anthracite Coal Commission, months to measure out the exact blame, in- oven to ascertain whether the de- clared policy of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company in such matters as check weighers, store purchases, and an eight- hour day has been carried out by the superintendents. Amidst all the confusion and conflict of testimony one thing is clear: the to- tal collapse of the authority of the State of Colorado. Its militia has obviously been a disgrace to it and to the coun- try. There appears to be no doubt that at times the armed guards of the com- panies, comprising in some cases the roughest elements of cities like Pueblo and Denver, have been company guards one day and State militia the next. Their total lack of discipline and con- trol is indicated by the calm refusal of a lot of them to continue to serve be- cause they were dissatisfied in not get- ting their pay when they wanted it! Again, there seems to be no doubt that they assailed encampments containing women and children, in one case burn- ing the tents over their heads. In short, they appear to have been everything soldiers ought not to be; at least, they have infuriated the strikers by their ag- gressions, and their total failure to keep the scales even between the other par- ties at issue, as the regulars now on the spot can always be depended upon to do. Thus, as has so often been the case in our history, social strife has been fomented or intensified by bad govern- ment— in this case by the total break- down of government. The armed guard invariably makes matters worse. But what is a property- owner to do, if a State, by reason of in- adequate or incompetent militia and the absence of a proper State police, is un- able to protect him? It is not going to help the strikers if he abandons his property, to have it wrecked by casual passers-by or by lawless elements among the strikers. Many people will recall the mischief done by the Pinkertons during the Homestead strikes, which, if we remember aright, led to a law forbid- ding the use of private detectives in Pennsylvania, and helped towards the establishment of the admirable Pennsyl- vania State Constabulary. To this we have often called attention. It has han- dled the various strikes fairly to both sides, though not without loss of life in its ranks and those of the strikers. No State ought to be without such a body of men, particularly a State like Col- orado. The armed guard is a wretched substitute, for he is a partisan, and too often a lawless character himself, and bitterly hostile to the men he is called on to oppose. Against one bit of confused reasoning, which has appeared, curiously enough, in the World, there should be protest: the holding of Mr. Rockefeller responsi- ble for the shameful acts of the militia. That is to assert that he is the govern- ment of Colorado. The wild assertion has even been made that he holds the Government of the United States, as well as that of Colorado, in his hands. This is absurd, of course. Whether he has done wisely in refusing to arbitrate, whether he did not needlessly intensify the situation by his statement in Wash- ington that he and those with him would lose their all in Colorado before surrendering on the question of union- izing their men, are matters for discus- sion upon which there will be two sharply diverging opinions. THE AMENDING OF CONSTITUTIONS The farcical vote by which, at the spe- cial election of April 7, a Constitutional Convention for New York State next year was decreed has been the subject of much comment. The total vote was 305,000, about one-sixth the normal vote; the majority in favor of the pro- posal was 1,353, and but for Tammany's ability to muster a comparatively solid array of its followers and allies at the polls, the proposal would have been snowed under. In other words, that "imperative demand" of the people, the assumption of which had all along been the main-spring of the project, proved to be non-existent; and yet the project has gone through. To draw general conclusions from the mere figures of so peculiar a case would be quite unjustifiable. But it may well serve as a reminder of the dangers at- tending a loose way of thinking on the general subject of the amending of Con- stitutions, and especially that of the United States. The adoption of the Six- teenth and Seventeenth Amendments has disposed, once for all, of the notion that the Constitution cannot be amend- ed except through some national con- vulsion like the great Civil War. It is not easy to introduce into the United States Constitution any change on which the sentiment of the country is not fairly general throughout all sec- tions; but with this condition fulfilled amendment presents little difficulty. The passing of the amendment by a two- thirds vote of each house of Congress almost insures its enactment. In any State Legislature only a majority vote is required to ratify. To obtain this ratification in three-fourth of the States is a requirement easy of fulfilment in any matter in relation to which the country is fairly homogeneous. Espe- cially is this true if, as is generally thought, a State may vote to ratify af- ter it has voted to reject, but may not vote to reject after it has once voted to ratify; the possibility of ratification be- ing thus held open indefinitely, with every favorable change of opinion count- ed and every unfavorable change of no effect. The moral is that in the process of amending a Constitution, whether State or national, it is dangerous, as well as absurd, for those charged with a deci- sion at any stage to regard their part as merely perfunctory. When an amend- ment to a State Constitution is propos- ed, its advocates are apt to raise the cry that those opposed to it are "afraid to leave it to the people"; in other words, they want the amendment to be adopt- ed with much less real consideration, and much less certainty of what even the popular desire of the moment may be, than is the case with an ordinary legislative proposal. Reference of an amendment to the people for approval is manifestly intended as a check upon the Legislature's action, not as a sub- stitute for it; the object is to obtain a more deliberate judgment than is ob- tained in ordinary law-making, not a less deliberate one. And similar consid- erations apply — in some respects with even greater force — to the respon- sibility of Congress in regard to amend- ments of the Constitution of the United States. If the requirement of a two- thirds vote in House and Senate shall ever cease to be regarded as laying upon each member a solemn obligation of conscientious and patriotic duly, the Constitution will become the play of every passing wind of doctrine, its amendment little more than a matter Of chance.
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May 7, 19 14] The Nation 519 There is now pending in Congress a proposed amendment to the Constitution winch, whatever its actual prospects, bids fair to present in an acute form the question we have been discussing. Al- though the prohibition amendment has rot yet been reported out of commit- tee, the plea has already been advanced in its favor that Congress should leave the matter to the States. Even if leav- ing it to the States meant leaving it to a majority vote of the people, the objec- tions to such a course would condemn it in the eyes of any thinking man, whatever his views on the particu- lar issue of prohibition; for they rest not on the merits of that issue but on the fundamental principles of rational government. But as a matter of fact, leaving it to the States would mean something quite different from leaving it to the people, arid something even less defensible. It would mean that if the Legislatures of thirty-six States should, each by a mere majority vote, declare in favor of national prohibition, the peo- ple of the other twelve States, even though they might far outnumber those of the thirty-six States, would have to submit. Now, however great may be the dif- ferences of opinion on the subject of prohibition, there is one thing about it upon which there is no room for differ- ence; everybody must agree that it is a question of great importance. National prohibition would mean an experiment to which the world furnishes no paral- lel, or even approach. Long as State prohibition and local option have been with us, we have never yet so much as attempted to prohibit the sale of liquor in any of the great centres of popula- tion; and elsewhere State prohibition has been very different in its working from what national prohibition would be. Whether we shall enter upon a scheme so tremendous in its bearing upon the lives of millions of people, is a national question of the first magnitude. Apart from everything else, it involves an extension of Federal power in a do- main hitherto regarded as peculiarly be- longing to the States. It may be right to do this; but it is certainly not right to do it without the full satisfaction, in good faith, of all those requirements which the Constitution has prescribed as a safeguard against ill-considered in- novation in the fundamentals of govern- ment. To insist on a bona-flde test of the issue in Congress is the duty of all who, whatever their views on the liquor question, are faithful to the spirit of American institutions. BELOW THE SURFACE. The experts of science who have de- vised amazingly delicate instruments for measuring the length of light waves, the minutest of variations in tempera- ture, and the velocity of radium emana- tions could do nothing more useful than give us some machine for measuring the speed of the age we live in. We need exact information. "No age has ever moved so fast," says a writer in the May Atlantic. His subject is "The Cult of the Passing Hour," and his concern is with the social good and evil we may expect from an age which has grown superbly indifferent to what hap- pened before the present body of first- voters was born. "Never before," says our writer, "has the past receded so rap- idly, or has the eclipse of its works been so speedy and overwhelming. We have established a new provincialism, the provincialism which substitutes a slit of time for a nook of space, and the parish of 1914 circumscribes our ideas and interests." This sentence makes it clear why we need a social speedometer. The furious rate of modern progress has become such a commonplace that even those who deplore the tendency do not stop to ask just how fast we are really going and whether the speed of the ship is commensurate with the piercing shriek of the whistle. Altogether, too much generalization in this field has been done on the basis of newspaper "specials," and very little on the basis of the original sources. Take the case of literature as cited by the writer in the Atlantic: The reading of the great past litera- ture has become a specialty, abandoned with obvious relief by the general reader to the conduct of the select few. . . . Tested by range and power alike, the spell of Dickens was perhaps the most potent ever exercised by literature, an J its appeals were to elementary and peren- nial instincts; but the youth of to-day are impervious to that magic which fifty years ago counted Dickens among the reasons for being glad to be alive. This is plausible, and it isn't so. Scan the literary columns of to-day, and the impression cannot be avoided that Wells and Shaw and Masefield and Ben- nett not only have more meaning to us than Dickens has, but that Dickens has really no meaning at all, for the reason that he died before a great many of those who write and read literary col- umns were born. But this is what we have called generalizing from newspa- pers. For that matter, it is unjust to the newspapers. For, by turning from the leading literary articles to the mi- nor literary notes, and, better still, to the book advertisements, we shall find that Dickens is not dead. If we supplement our researches in the publishers' cata- logues with statistics from the circulat- ing libraries, we shall find that the magic of Dickens is far from vanished. It would be a perfectly safe wager to make that Dickens has many more read- ers than Shaw or Wells or Bennett; and that he moves them with greater po- tency. No; the reading of the great past lit- erature has not been abandoned by the general reader. The critic who would maintain this, in face of the plainest facts, simply shows that he is himself a victim of the passing cult of the hour, mistaking speed for depth and mere as- sertion for reality. The publishers of the Everyman's Library have sold dead authors to the extent of millions of vol- umes. The publishers of Dr. Eliot's famous five-foot book shelf assert that they have disposed of very dead writ- ers by the million. The encyclo- paedias, concerning themselves as they do with a vast mass of dead literature, dead history, dead art, dead religion, nevertheless continue to sweep the coun- try. We have never been inclined to take too seriously the immense com- mercial vogue of the standard "sets," the near de luxe editions of the Jane Austens, the Trollopes, with the Balzacs and Voltaires. We have regarded the primary appeal of those long lines of handsome volumes as largely in the na- ture of wall decoration. Yet even of this immense body of subscription library furniture a very considerable portion cannot in the nature of things fail to become something more than that. Bought as so many yards of gay bind- ing, it ends by being discovered as lit- erature in thousands of homes. Undoubtedly there is a passing cult of the hour. The only question is to what extent the ardent and fleeting en- thusiasms among the small minority of the intellectual youth are representative of the forces and tastes that rule the great body of citizenship. Among the
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520 T h. e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2549 masses the sense of continuity with the past is not dead, for the simple reason that the present cannot divorce itself from the past, even if it would. The- ories and schools flash by on the film, but to the extent that they possess real- ity they draw their strength from a few simple, slow-changing sentiments and beliefs. We may cite an example to il- lustrate what we have in mind. To the reader of Socialist literature nothing is more striking than the rapidity with which Socialist theory is being contin- ually modified. With almost every new book from the press the philosophy of the Socialist movement is reconstruct- ed. The writers of such books pride themselves on dealing with the facts of the moment, and not for them is the au- thority of Socialist thinkers who, what- ever they may have been in their day, are now dead. Yet we need only consid- er such actual manifestations as the I. W. W., Paterson, Lawrence, Colorado, to see that unrest among the workers ex- presses itself in a few elementary for- mulas. The soap-box orator for Socialism is not concerned with the influence of Bergson on Socialist philosophy. His appeal is to the fundamental appetites and wrongs which have been the bases of working-class discontent since time immemorial. FILLING IN THE MAP. Upon the basis of the dispatches from Manaos, where Col. Roosevelt has emerg- ed from the Amazonian forest, it is im- possible to decide whether, with true Roosevelt luck, the distinguished trav- eller has really found an unknown trib- utary of the Madeira River, stretching over eight degrees of latitude, or wheth- er he has traced the unknown upper course of a river already known in part to the map-makers. It is true that Mr. Roosevelt's own dispatch to. Profes- sor Osborn, of the Museum of Natural History, is characteristically free from doubt: We have also put on map a river run- ning from north of thirteenth degree to south of fifth degree, the largest afflu- ent of the Madeira, the upper part hith- erto unknown to any one, and lower part utterly unknown to cartographers. Now, the lower part of a branch of the Madeira River would be that part of the branch stream stretching from its entrance into the Madeira back into the interior. It is hard to see how, being the largest feeder of the Madeira, this newly discovered river could have escap- ed the attention of the chart-makers, who, whatever their deficiencies with re- gard to the hinterland, have succeeded in mapping literally dozens of tributar- ies of the Madeira, at their points of debouchment. We are asked to assume that a river between six and seven hun- dred miles long cuts such a poor figure at the point of its junction with the parent stream that it has been dismiss- ed by the cartographers as not worth while putting on the map. Simultaneously with Col. Roosevelt's own dispatch comes a press story from Manaos which seems directly to con- tradict his assertions: The river Duvida, or "River of Doubt," was found to be unquestionably the river Gyparana. The party followed this river from the end of the telegraph line to its junction with the Madeira, a distance of about 630 miles. It is plain that having sailed down the Gyparana to its junction with the Ma- deira, Mr. Roosevelt's party could not have sailed down any other stream that debouches into the same river. The distance given, 630 miles, would be just about the length of a stream covering between seven and eight degrees of lati- tude— "from north of thirteenth degree to south of fifth degree." The Gyparana is not only well known to the geogra- phers, but its course on maps extant for some time is traced for hundreds of miles, along its upper reaches, where it takes the name Rio Machado and Rio Machadingo, to an indefinitely unknown stretch in the uplands of the Matto Gros- so, west of Cuyaba, on the river of the same name, the last civilized settlement of any dimensions that Col. Roosevelt encountered before striking out into the wilderness, according to the map of his route published in the April Scribner's. Thereafter, Mr. Roosevelt was in a great watershed region cut up with streams running northwest to the Madeira, north to the Tapajos, another tributary of the Amazon, and south to the Paraguay and the La Plata. There, indeed, was vir- gin soil for the map-makers. Mr. Roosevelt's experiences are a re- minder of what great spaces of the earth's surface still await the work of the explorer. Putting aside the Polar regions, where we can hardly be said to have yet passed from the period of discovery to the period of exploration, the Amazon country is the most exten- sive field for detailed investigation. Not only are there countless tributaries to be traced to their source, but the origin of the mighty mother stream is not yet established beyond dispute. Dr. Wil- helm Sievers believes that he has found the ultimate source of the Amazon in the Lauicouchar, the most important of the three affluents of the Marafion, which he traced to its ultimate springs in the Cordilleras of central Peru; but there is difference of opinion among the experts. Among the great rivers of Asia, the sources of the Brahmaputra are still an unsolved problem, in spite of additional knowledge cast upon the geography of eastern Tibet in the course of the British expedition against the Abors in 1911. A region compara- tively so near at hand as the Gulf of St. Lawrence has its tasks for the explorer. In the summer of 1912 Henry G. Bryant, president of the Geographical Society of Philadelphia, gave us virtually a new river in the St. Augustine, which he traced from its mouth in the Gulf on the Labrador shore to its source 140 miles in the Height of Land. In Asia the geographers' interest has shifted for the time being from the great central plateau to the Arctic coast. A number of Russian expeditions have been at work in Kamtchatka and in the region between the Kara Sea and the Gulf of Obi, almost on the dividing line between Europe and Asia. School-day familiarity with the picturesque name of Spitzbergen tends to give one a wrong idea of our knowledge of the interior of that region, as the fate of the recent German overland expedition testifies. The conquest of Tripoli has brought the enormous Libyan territory within the purview of the cartographers. Here the Italians have set to work on a task that will take years to complete. A region that will wait long for detailed exam- ination is the interior of Australia, so great are the difficulties which confront the explorer and so little promising the practical results, while the romance that hovers over the Polar regions is lack- ing. When the easily accessible por- tions of the globe have been exhausted there will remain the immense desola- tion of the Polar regions. Stefansson's second attempt at mapping the coast- land east of the Mackenzie seems at the present moment to have received a seri- ous check. Greenland has Its problems. In the Antarctic there is the unknown heart of a continent.
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May 7, 1914] T li e Nation 521 Foreign Correspondence FRENCH OPINION ON MEXICO— COM- MENT OK THE PRESS— THE -MEXI- CAN COLONY. Paris, April 25. Now that we seem to have embarked on an adventure in Mexico, it will be well to state clearly French opinion — so far as there is any opinion in the matter — from all the different points of view. We are too great a nation to show our- selves thin-skinned to current observa- tions which are sure to be made in every I ry — even at home. The Government does not dream — now less than ever — of changing its deliberate policy as stated by Prime Minister Dou- mergue in the declaration to Parliament: "Like other European Powers, the Gov- ernment of the French republic has re- tralned from all intervention in the do- mestic affairs of Mexico — thus giving credit to the policy of the Cabinet of Washington, which is more particularly interested in the reestablishment of order on its southern frontier." No small confidence in the United States — or else a strong sense of power- lessness under the circumstances — is re- quired of a Government like the French to remain faithful to such a policy. By every mail it is obliged to hear the de- spairing appeals of its 4,000 citizens who were prosperously established in Mexico and are now threatened with utter ruin; and it has to watch over the interests of Frenchmen who unsuspectingly in- vested more than $1,000,000,000 in that country while it still had an air of set- tled law and order. As to the Paris press, it was to be expected that strong criticism of Presi- dent Wilson's policy would be made, just as it is at home. This is the unavoidable penalty of any "waiting" policy, of which the end never comes to relieve nervous- ness until one day it turns out differ- ent from what was expected. In France also, as nearer home, much apparently responsible newspaper work is perfunc- tory, written day by day without any keen sense of the interpretation which may be given to chance sayings abroad. On the whole, the Paris press has not complained or argued or condemned or protested too much. No one doubts President Wilson's painful sincerity, although he is often called a theorist. Of course, the general impression here, as throughout Europe, is that it would have been better to rec- ognize Huerta from the start as the less- er of two evils— and this goes along with the prevalent notion that no "constitu- tional" government is possible in Mexico without a President-despot like Porfirio Diaz. Another prevalent idea that Amer- ican money started Madero and the Con- stitutionalists going and so upset all the work of Diaz had its origin in American and English newspapers. The further idea that Americans wish to annex territory, or at least to estab- lish a virtual protectorate with business predominance in Mexico, is frequently put forward; but it is not expressed so crudely as by the German press. Col. Watterson's declaration published yes- terday in Paris, "If our flag goes up across the Rio Grande, it will never come down," is unlikely to mitigate such ideas. Among the weightier Paris journals, the Dibats, which once represented the now defunct Liberalism, has taken sides frankly against Washington. "We do not know if the United States, from the point of view of their interests, are acting with foresight. But we believe ourselves sure that they are committing an evil action." The Moderate Temps recognizes that "the United States, before the aggrava- tion of Mexican anarchy, was very near being forced to this dilemma: either to acknowledge Gen. Huerta in accord with the Powers and, in concert with them, to give him the means of reestablishing order, or to intervene by force. . . . Al- though the last word is bound to remain to the enormous mass of men and wealth represented by the United States, it is easily understood that the American Congress and people manifest but a rela- tive enthusiasm for an adventure which answers to no popular ideal and is con- trary even to that policy of Pan-Amer- ican fraternity on which the Americans pretend to base their Continental sys- tem." The military Echo de Paris opines that "President Wilson did not engage himself so far without having reassuring news from Tokio!" As to the opinion of the French people, it is enough to say they have none. Those who have a right to an opinion, that is, those who have invested their money in Mexico, certainly consider that in the United States is their only hope for the final protection of their property and interests. They are showing this now at the Bourse, no matter what judg- ment they may pass on what has hap- pened before. They have no confidence in Mexico ever pacifying itself. Correspondents have been doing their utmost since the occupation of Vera Cruz to get expressions of opinion from prom- inent Mexicans resident in Paris. Their success naturally has been mediocre, as no one wishes to compromise himself. All, of every party, observe the watchword "All Mexicans will unite to face foreign invasion." In undertones there is a pretty unanimous reprobation of Huer- ta as an impossible President of a unit- ed Mexico. I have been unable to find much sympathy with Constitutionalists, although they keep an agency here. There is a small, but relatively impor- tant, Mexican colony in Paris. It is made up exclusively of rich families many of which would be Parisian alto- gether were it not for their fortunes, which are still in Mexico. Senor de la Barra, the present Minister, is a newcom- er; but his predecessor has been a life- long resident; and one of the secretaries has held his post thirty years. The rich families have had their children marry here or in Spain ; and it may be doubted how far they still represent Mexicans at home, even those of the moneyed class. They very nearly resemble the old time absentee colony of our own Americans, which Goldwin Smith said was a prima-facie justification of anar- chy. Well, anarchy has come to Mexico — and France will not prevent the United States finding a way out of it, if she can. S. D. THE CHANGE OF MINISTRY IN ITALY— REASONS FOR GIOLITTI'S RESIGNATION— THE NEW PRE- MIER. Rome, April 22. Many reasons have been given to ex- plain the Ministerial crisis that led to the resignation of the Giolitti Cabinet; some of them general — the financial problem, and the condition of the Treas- ury after the war; others particular — the violence of the personal attacks of the extreme Socialist Left upon the Prime Minister, and the difficulty of an understanding at the present moment between the Socialistic groups in the House and the Radical party, which as- pires to unite with them in future. I may affirm absolutely that the deter- mining cause lies solely in the will of the ex-Prime Minister. If he had be- lieved that his remaining in power was indispensable or useful to his country, not all of his opponents put together would have been sufficient to cause the crisis. He believed that he had accom- plished his task and that another should now take his place. Giolitti is perhaps too much the rep- resentative man of the middle genera- tion, which grew up in Italy after the revolution — somewhat skeptical, a little greedy, pressed by many needs, by scanty salaries, and the dear cost of liv- ing. This generation was prone to com- promise, and none too scrupulous, drag- ged here and there by its necessities. But we must not forget that Giolitti's politi- cal education was formed at the time in which the men of our revolution, noble and high-spirited, were still in Parlia- ment. By contact with them, and by their example, in the most secret cor- ner of his mysterious heart, there was planted a constant personal disinterested- ness, and a superior conception of poll- tics, which neither the defects nor the errors of the Parliamentary system of the last years in Italy could entirely destroy. I know that from the day when Par- liament reopened Giolitti's firm purpose was to leave the Government. He de- nied it, and appeared to resist; he oscil- lated between sickness and health; he wished to give credit to the report that he would remain in power, provided that the Radical party should not be detached from his Parliamentary majority. But these were expedients intended to allow him the liberty of leaving when he de- sired. And this he did as soon as the discussion concerning the expenses of the war in Libya was ended. In carrying out his plan, Giolitti, grate- ful to the Radical party, and desirous of leaving it free to work out its future destiny, begged it to separate itself from him, so as to leave him in a minority In the House. In this way the Liberal and Radical coalition, upon which his Minis- try rested, would fall, the Radicals would remain free to arrange their plans in accordance with those of the extreme parties, and the inheritance would belong to the Conservatives. All of which has happened, and we have had the Minis- try of Salandra. It would thus seem as if we had a Conservative Ministry after a Ministry both Liberal and Radical, but things have turned out otherwise.
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5Q2 Tlie Nittion [Vol. 98, No. 2549 Mr. Salandra is a man of knowledge and cultivation, a professor of public law in the University of Rome, and, by origin, a Conservative one of those true Con- servatives of southern Italy, educated in the school of philosophy of Bertrando Spavento, the expounder of Hegel in Na- ples. In politics, he followed the finan- cial theories of Sella and Minghetti ; but this did not prevent him from often em- bittering the existence of Luigi Luzzatti, who is the pious custodian of all the memories of those great men of the old Right, that is, the Conservatives. Salan- dra was also for many years a constant follower of Mr. Sonnino, until the day when some of his friends, finding Son- nino too imperfect a Conservative, at- tempted to choose Salandra, willing or unwilling, as head of the new Conserva- tives. According to appearance, there- fore, while Giolitti was head of the Lib- eral party, and Sonnino was aspiring to succeed him at the time when the Lib- eral party, devoted to Giolitti, should be purified, Salandra was the head of the New Conservatives. Instead of this disposition, however, during the period of the last elections, Salandra unexpectedly made a decided step towards leadership of the future majority that Giolitti would probably obtain. He managed to make people for- get the name of Chief Conservative, which some of his friends had inoppor- tunely given him, and regained the first place in order of Liberal succession, ahead of Sonnino. Salandra knew Gio- litti's purpose of leaving the Government after the elections, and he knew more- over that Sonnino preferred leaving to others the task of reorganizing the Lib- eral party. It is necessary to explain that all the political parties, since their programmes are not clearly formulated, have some- thing in common. In the new Italian life, many things are still in formation, pushed this way and that by the inheri- tance from the past and the hopes of the future. The difference between par- ties is often more nominal than real, ex- cepting always between those parties which have antagonistic principles, as, for instance, the monarchical and repub- lican parties. Thus it is that Salandra, who was a true Conservative yesterday, desires, by virtue of a brief electoral preparation, to be a Liberal to-day. In Italy, It is said that the Ministry of Salandra will last as long as Giolitti wish- es. And this would be true If Giolitti de- sired to return to the Government, as he did at the time of Luzzatti's Ministry, which sprang into being at his pleasure and collapsed at his bidding. But again I shall say something which would not readily be believed in Italy: This time Giolitti will not allow himself to be in- duced to reassume the power, except if ■an impelling duty should be imposed upon his patriotism. Besides his strict polit- ical duty, one ambition only might draw him from the tranquil repose of his home at Cavour into the open field, that is, if a fusion of all the democratic elements in the country should loudly call for him; for he is still vulnerable on this side. These two events, however, appear to be neither near nor probable. MlCHELE RlCCIARDI. AUSTRIA'S TRADE IN THE BALKANS —ART AND MUSIC. Vienna, April 16. The question of commercial supremacy in the Balkans has been much discussed in central Europe during the last fort- night. Much indignation has been aroused by the attacks made on Austria-Hungary in German journals. It is stated that Austria has only herself to blame for her failure to retain the commercial terri- tory which belonged to her exclusively until the outbreak of the Balkan war. She is accused of unloading her damaged wares on the ignorant Balkan folk, and Austrian commercial men are told that they are ignorant of the first principles of business, and do not even trouble to manufacture goods to suit requirements of trade in the Balkans. Long replies to the accusations have been printed, but from the controversy there emerges the plain fact that Austria-Hungary is los- ing her trade, both in the Balkans and in the Levant. Every effort will now be made to retain that trade and to prevent German and Italian merchants from wresting the su- premacy from Austria-Hungary. She has already begun to take measures to facili- tate transportation in the south. She has concluded a railway loan for $54,000,- 000 for the building of Bosnian railways. There is no doubt that these railways are being built for strategic purposes, in the first instance, but their commercial im- portance must also not be overlooked. The greater part of the money, raised by a 5 per cent, loan, will be used for laying broad-gauge lines, to take the place of the narrow-gauge, which meant the un- loading of goods on the Hungarian fron- tier, and entailed great delay in trans- port. New railways connecting various points of the country are also to be laid down, and efforts are being made to en- courage agriculture and increase the prosperity of the annexed provinces. Sun- day courses in agriculture were held for farmers and others last season, when more than one hundred instructors trav- elled throughout the country on their missionary work. The courses were at- tended, for the most part, by youths who had been pupils at the elementary schools and were working on farms, but 46,000 of the pupils were older men. Dr. Karl Patsch, in a lecture, said that the Government was beginning to carry out an extensive scheme of draining and irrigation in Herzegovina. He attributed the presence of rainless districts, not to the Venetians, who are reported to have cut down the trees and thus ruined the land, but to the carelessness of the in- habitants themselves and to the Turkish Government, that was wasteful every- where. The Herzegovinians had cut down the forests at random without re- placing the trees. He said that the soil was fit for the growing of tobacco, vines, and maize, while the Government intend- ed to introduce silk-worm culture into the country. He referred to the baleful in- fluence of emigration on the inhabitants of Herzegovina. The relations of men who went to the States were so well sup- plied with money from their relatives abroad that they did not take any interest In the hard toll, for low pay, which was the rule there. Returned emigrants, too, were inclined to invest their money in el general stores and neglect the cultivation ot the land. The Vienna KUnstlerhaus and the Se- cession have both opened their doors for their spring shows. The K iinstlerhaus, at which the more conservative artists ex- hibit, and which keeps up a very high standard of artistic merit, includes 100 pictures sent by the members of the Hun- garian "Miiveszshaz," a fine collection of oils and specimens of architectural de- signs, including a portrait of the Em- peror-King, Franz Josef, which he in- tends to present to the former British Ambassador in Austria-Hungary, Sir Fairfax Cartwright. The "Secession," where the "mad" artists, as they are called, formerly ex- hibited cubist and "secessionistic" pic- tures, is very quiet this year. Their vogue seems to be at an end. Such "fu- turist" pictures as were on view were snow pieces, mere blurs, good examples of impressionism, but too indistinct to leave any definite memory. There were also pictures of the severely decorative type without shading of any kind, the light and dark lines being merely drawn in broad and thick, without intermediate graduation. The fairy-tale friezes were very pretty, and have formed a special- ty of the exhibition each spring. The general impression was one of great re- straint, probably due to changing ideals and an uncertainty as to what the next thing will be. The Vienna Mannergesangsverein re- cently gave its 1,000th concert. It counts 428 active members, who carry on trades and professions during the day and meet for singing in the evening. The Society- has travelled over Europe and to Ameri- ca, and is well known throughout the civ- ilized world. There was considerable dis- appointment that the Emperor could not be at the concert, but he was represented by Archduke Karl Franz Josef and Prin- cess Zita of Parma. A prologue, by Ben- jamin Shears, written for the occasion, was recited by Alfred Gerasch, of the Vienna Burgtheater. The Philharmonic Concert Company played the overture to Weber's "Beherrscher der Geister" and other compositions. These, with songs and ballads, rendered by the Manner- gesangsverein, formed an interesting pro- gramme which was concluded by the presentation of wreaths of flowers from various musical and artist societies in Vienna. The repertoire at the Vienna Court Opera is not satisfactory to many of the Viennese, and recently the Union of Mu- sic and Literature in this city presented a memorial to Director Gregor, begging him to put on the old favorites more frequently and objecting to his prefer- ence for foreign composers. They say that "Fidelio" was only played once this season, while Puccini's "Girl of the Golden West'' was put on twenty-four times. In Vienna there are no long runs at the Court theatres, and the public objects to anything that appears to tend this way. Consequently it is keeping a strict watch on Gregor, whom it suspects of Introducing "business" methods into 1 1 pera. L. R
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May 7, 1914] The Nation 523 Poetry A MINOR POET. The firefly, flickering about In busy brightness, near and far, Lets not his little lamp go out Because he cannot be a star. He only seeks, the hour he lives, Bravely his tiny part to play, And all his being freely gives To make a summer evening gay. Amelia Josephine Bukk. MARGARET L. WOODS. A wkMaURKI) POET who SINGS of THE WEIX-BBED CLAN The conviction gains ground that there is no virtue left in the great An- glican church of poetry, and no honor to be had by those who cling to the decorous but obsolete vestments of its priesthood. The poetic revival appears to be in the hands of Dissenters. How quaintly "academic" sound to-day the old master's words on the conduct of the poet's life: "He shall be like a priest shining in sacred vestment, washed with lustral waters, who goes up to make augury before the jealous gods!" We know that the office-seeker who treads warily in the steps of his prede- cessors may become poet-laureate; but we also know that we shall never read him. We know that life in the high lonely tower, communion with the sages, select reading and society, and sustained reflection upon the passionate history and destiny of man, will never produce anything but a respectable up- holder of an outworn aristocratic tradi- tion. We have closed our history and opened our folklore; turned from the philosophy of Plato to the wisdom of the peasant; symbolized our imagina- tive impulse in the playboy that cleaves his father to the , "breeches belt." Who cares to hear what the well-bred poet says or sings of the well-bred clan? Has not the very language of our classical literature been formally declared bank- rupt? He who would now write a liv- ing line must forge himself a new in- strument of the dialect of Dorset or Yorkshire, or adopt the new hand-made idiom of Dublin, or enrich his vocabu- lary by familiar converse with publi- cans and sinners. He must sweat the civility out of his blood by tramping with tramps, cursing with stevedores, sleeping in dugouts, sailing before the mast, or, happily, meditating the mys- tery of justice behind prison bars. So, in the exhausted society of our times, may he hope for a fresh vision and a new birth of passion. So may he wake the silent harp of Erin or chant In ifluent Billingsgate beside the ale-house .door. So, in these topsy-turvy days, are the celestial Muses wooed and won. Only to readers who, unconvinced by the foregoing considerations, occasion- ally suspect, like the profane Lord Byron, that "we are all upon a wrong revolutionary poetic system, not worth a damn in itself" — only to such readers can be commended the recently collect- ed poetical works of Margaret L. Woods.* So far as the new poetry-read- ing public is concerned, Mrs. Woods has nearly everything against her. Daugh- ter of a late Dean of Westminster, and wife of a sometime president of Trinity College, Oxford, she responds to the august appeal of great traditions with a loyalty of spirit which involves a cer- tain fine exclusiveness of thought and feeling. She sounds no note of revolt; voices no vagrant gypsy yearning; chimes in with no vague popular en- thusiasms. Her poetic life moves and has its being within the ideals and in- stitutions accepted by the normal cul- tivated Englishwoman. For twenty-five years she has been writing novels, dramas, and poems which have won high approval from English critics: "A Village Tragedy" was declared by Mrs. Humphry Ward worthy to rank with George Eliot's work; "The Princess of Hanover" was named by Thomas Hardy as the most interesting production of the year 1902; " 'Aeromancy,' " said Mr. Mackail, "embodies the inmost spirit of Oxford." And now, as the skeptic will say after a glance at the title-page, she has her appropriate reward, she is a member of the Academic Committee of the Royal Society of Literature. Aside from the professional followers of Eng- lish verse, how many on this side the water know as much of her as that? I confess that the comment on her work with which I am most in sympathy is this by Frederic Harrison in the Nine- teenth Century: "I have found a new poet." After I had followed her fresh singing voice a little way into the vol- ume, I came upon three lines at a stanza-end which have haunted me since: Return and tell how all the unfooted pathways Are white with dew, and deeper in the forest Dwells the enchanted bird. I. Mrs. Woods is intensely English. The American whose sensibilities are out- raged by the suggestion that he is of Anglo-Saxon stock will hurry through the Oxford pieces, and the grave com- memorative poems of the earlier pages. But the American who, treading the dusky aisles of Westminster Abbey, in- stinctively bows his head, feeling him- self in the presence of his canonized fore- 'The Collected Poems of Margaret L. Wood*. (lew York: John Lane Co. $1.50 net. fathers, will linger with kindred feel- ings over "The Passing Bell," "The Builders," and "High Tide on Victoria Embankment." One lingers over the first of these pieces because it is so dif- ficult to find any among our morbid singers who has the power to speak worthily of the dignity and the splendor of death. "The Passing Bell" was occa- sioned by the death of the author's father, Dean Bradley: a sombre revery on the merging of the counted years of a man's life with the infinite past — a revery sombre but broken at regular in- tervals and gradually brightened to a starry peace by the deep traditionary voice of the Abbey bell tolling — Jus- toram animw — in manu Dei sunt — Non tanget illos tormentum mortis — Pax in aternum Dei. Less audibly but not less truly religious in its ultimate meaning is "The Builders," of which the occa- sion was a special service held in the Abbey at the time of King Edward's coronation for a body of Colonial troops who had fought in the South African war. If there were nothing but im- perial pride in unhiving the heroic mem- ories of the Abbey in this piece, and in weaving the gorgeous tapestry of em- pire in the third, we could not resist the magic of single lines and isolated pas- sages like these in "High Tide on Vic- toria Embankment": Solitary ships moving' in waste horizons, Out of the wide, lonely dazzle of water and air, There where the wind-worn bastions And crumbled towers of Cornwall darken over the Atlantic, Where southward wild Finistere flashes on the night, or the superb tribute to Sir Cloudsley Shovel and the old mariners of England in "The Builders": That footfall passes Over the old grim conquering Admiral's body That once ran on the swift Atlantic surges Hither and thither, tossing rudderless, To reach the inhospitable Scillian shore. And many another keen, indomitable, That swept in thunderous battle long ago Bound England's ocean man Ins. Men that have loved the salt spray's buf- feting game Better than sport and better tnan the dance, To ride with the slant deck and maik the measure Of the sluicing scupper's wash and the clap of the sail. But the imperial pride of Mrs. Woods. springing from faith in the high destiny of the English and exulting in men who have proved their "race," is chastened by such dark visions as trouble the mothers of infant sons and the sweet hearts of soldiers in the field. It is a pride more than half composed of pure love, an awful hope, and a fiery prayer
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524 T li e .N a t i o 11 [Vol. 98, No. 2549 that those we have set our hearts upon may be reckoned among the just souls that are in the hand of God. It has the lift of the ancient chivalry in it, and it tunes the spirit up to the concert pitch. In a half-dozen shorter lyrics and ballads — "Young Windebank," "To the Forgotten Dead," "The Mariners Sleep by the Sea," "A Song of Home- coming"— the poet mingles with the eternal pathos of farewells and the praise of the beautiful death of those who die for their country a feminine note of thrilling wistfulness. She kisses the sword with a passionate grace which should make a young lieutenant rush upon a forest of Ashanti spears, and die smiling. II. World-without-end love between men and women is recognized by modern critics as an essentially feminine inven- tion of that ingenious Victorian Age which also set up for the first time the monogamic standard for marriage. It is perhaps "going out," with the other derided products of the Black Walnut Period. Mr. Galsworthy, who is in the Movement, has recently published a nov- el from which it may he inferred that modern love must always be feasting and that sacramental bread palls upon its cloyed appetite. Better in verse hark back to the Cavalier mood which is gallantry, or to the Queen Anne mood which is cynicism, or to the Continen- tal mood which finds its afflatus in rev- ery upon past satisfactions of the senses, than to the Victorian mood which is religious devotion. Mrs. Browning was the arch-priestess — I lift my heavy heart up solemnly, As once Electra her sepulchral urn. Xow Mrs. Woods is Victorian; she seems still to entertain the feminine Victorian prejudice that the love which makes the face of the world fair and fires the poet's heart results rather from the restraint than from the in- dulgence of passion. Its symbol is not Dutch bundling, but the sundering sword of old romance. Under a ban and a vow it spiritualizes itself. It knows how to fast till its appointed hour, numbers its renunciations with its ecstasies, and brings its spikenard with tears and adoration to the be- loved's feet. Of this paradisiacal pas sion the sweetest lyrics, alas, in this bad world, are cries of anticipation be- fore the disenchanting dawn of experi- ence and dirges at eventide. In the lyrics of love rather sparsely scattered through Mrs. Woods's collec- tion there is no very noticeable color of individual feeling. Indeed, a reti- cence with regard to peculiar and per- sonal emotions is a part of her distinc- tion. Yet here are the breathlessly 1 Qt touch, the right throb, and the authentic rapture. The sequence is mine: 1. When the world's asleep I awake and weep, Deeply sighing say, "Come, O break of day, Lead my feet in my beloved's way." When the morning- breaks, When the world awakes, Then a dream too dear Haunts me like a fear, And as one in sleep I linger here. If some star of heaven Led him by at even, If some magic fate Brought him, should I wait, Or fly within and bid them close the gate? 2. With thoughts too lovely to be true, With thousand, thousand dreams I strew The path that you must come. And you Will find but dew. I break my heart here, love, to dower With all its inmost sweet your bower. What scent will greet you in an hour? The gorse in flower. 3. Cover, O eve, the world with mist Till we two shall have kist and kist! Linger, O morn, in the Western skies, Till we have looked in each other's eyes! Whisper, O wind! we shall not speak, Heart upon heart and cheek to cheek Drown, wild dawn, the stars in fire! We shall have had our heart's desire! — SuDg by Konigsmarck in "The Princess of Hanover." 4. We have emptied the cup of the earth, And I break it here at your feet; What else could hold were worth The savour of hours so sweet? III. Though Mrs. Woods has a poem on "The Eternal" and two spirited songs to the Earth, her work is not burdened with cosmic philosophy. She seems to have accepted her universe blithely and by a happy instinct rather than by the grave and slow processes of reflection. She perceives the Eternal in the image of a "mighty and jubilant heart," and is moved rather to dance than to debate before the Lord. If I were to indicate the relations of her thought to that of the greater Victorian singers, I should say: A woman of the fair outlook and high mettle of George Meredith's hero- ines has often conversed with Tenny- son, Swinburne, Arnold, Browning, and Meredith on many a May-morning jaunt over green English hills and beside thfl sea. She has not returned with mere hollow echoes of their discourse. Sho has a clear voice of her own and an in- dependent life, rich and spontaneous. But in this high association she han found directive and sustaining power. sin has been helped by Tennyson's long faith to a vision of the Weaver behind the shimmering unfinished web: One indestructible soul, Sleepless, unwearied that brings Order from chaos at length, Out of the fading and weak infinite splen- dor and strength. She has been stirred by the bugle notes of Robert Browning. Indeed, her fare- well to Earth, "Vale atque Ave," of which I shall quote the close, is an im- passioned development of the theme given in the epilogue to "Asolando": Up, not to fall again Into the welter; Up, see, this urgent Life of me pushes, Swings now on white wings where the wave dances Rhythmical, pipes in the coppice-wood shelter Low, with strange sweet hesitancies Till a song floods full on the night of Maytime. With the galloping rhythm of hoofs it rushes, Leaps in some merry brown beast at its playtime, Suffers and dies one way or another, Learning the lessons that life must learn. But I shall still blindly fumble and wait Till the true door open, the true voice call again; And back to the human high estate, Back to the whole of the soul, resurgent, 0 Earth! O dearest! I shall return, 1 shall return to thee, Earth, my mother. She has been upheld in her imperial pride and in her passion for the sea by the fiery paeans of Swinburne, and in her praise of Earth by the dewy gusto of the voice in the Woods of Wester- main. Her delight in the natural has not shaken her loyalty to the civil order. With Arnold she has felt the beauty of the august in character and the uplift- ing power of high classical traditions in university, state, and church. She has sympathized, too, perhaps even more keenly, with the less frequently empha- sized element in Arnold— his exquisite sensibility to the idyllic in nature, to the romantic in history, and to the sub- tle drifting fragrancies of old poetic memories. If I were asked to illustrate the qual- ity of Mrs. Woods's non-dramatic verse by a single specimen, I should select "March Thoughts from England." Though in this piece there is a breath of the spirit of all her companions, the enchanting harmony of the poignant wtinam, the soft dreaming mood of the evocation, and the shining clarity of the images is her own. There has been noth- ln§ in English more nearly approach- ing perfection in its kind since— I had almost said, since the odes of Keats. At any rate, I make an extract from it as reluctantly as I should abbreviate the "Ode to a Nightingale": 0 that I were lying under the oil So should 1 see the far-off cltlee , ;|in, , in,, low by <\i<' purple water,
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May 7, 1914] T li e Nation 525 Gleaming high on the purple mountains; See where the road goes winding south- ward. O that I were dreaming under the olives! Hearing alone on a sun-steeped headland A crystalline wave, almost inaudible, Steal round the shore; and thin, far off, The shepherd's music. So did it sound In fields Sicilian, Theocritus heard it, Moschus and Bion piped it at noontide. O that I were listening under the olives! So should I hear behind in the woodland The peasants talking. Either a woman, A wrinkled grandame, stands in the SUn- SllilH', Stirs the brown soil in an acre of violets — Large, odorous violets — and answers slowly A child's swift babble; or else at noon The labourers come. They rest in the shadow. Eating their dinner of herbs, and are merry. Soft speech Provencal under the olives! Like a queen's raiment from days long perished, Breathing aromas of old unremeinbered Perfumes and shining in dust-covered places With sudden hints of forgotten splen- dour— IV. Mrs. Woods gives us two tragic dramas: "Wild Justice" and "The Prin- cess of Hanover." "Wild Justice" is set on a windy island off the Welsh coast in the early years of the nineteenth cen- tury. It tells how the wife and the chil- dren of Gryffith Gwyllim, the lighthouse builder, driven to frenzy by his savage brutality, contrive to sink him one night in the quicksands, and how the chil- dren in the execution of the deed are swallowed up by the sea. "The Princess of Hanover," of which the nucleus is a familiar historical mystery, is set at the Hanoverian court at Herrenhausen in the last decade of the seventeenth century. It tells how Sophia Dorothea, neglected and abused by her husband, afterwards George I of England, plans to escape with her lover, the Swedish soldier of fortune, Philip von Kbnigs- marck, and how he on the night of the elopement is trapped by the jealous Madame Platen, murdered, and walled up in the masonry of the castle forever. After the fragments given of Mrs. Woods's verse, I hope it is unnecessary to say that "Wild Justice" and "The Princess" are poetic. An enthralling ballad is the overture to each of them, recurring in a weird undertone at in- tervals in the play. Lyrics besprinkle them. The blank verse, though not al- ways victorious, though occasionally too frankly reminiscent of Shakespeare, quivers with musical feeling to the ex- tent of tempting one at times to sing rather than to speak it. The "atmos- phere" is tense with passion and ter- ror and beauty and doom. These things are "poetic." But all these things can the Irish playwrights do — and Maeter- linck, and the rest of us who are upon the "wrong revolutionary poetic sys- tem." If space permitted, I should like to show, first, that "Wild Justice" and "The Princess" are dramatic, and then that they are tragic, and finally that, whatever their incidental faults, they are constructed upon the right poetic system, to which w7e must return if we are to have a poetical drama of more than ephemeral interest. I should re- mark in passing that these plays, though poetic, are written in English — for the most part in verse that is simple, swift, supple, hot, and with the pointed ac- cent observable in excited human inter- course. I should add that instead of symbolical vessels of vague emotion, we find here for persons characters — with various internal organs and quite dis- cernible moral lineaments. But I should dwell chiefly upon the presence here of genuine dramatic action— human antag- onist pitted against human adversary; upon the flaming restoration of "poeti- cal justice"; and upon the tragic ex- hilaration of seeing blood shed once more, and a heart fairly and squarely broken, upon a broken law. Stuart P. Sherman. News for Bibliophiles JUDGE WOODWARD. In August, 1817, Judge Woodward, Chief Justice of the Territory, caused to be passed by the legislative machinery "An act to establish the Catholepiste- miad or University of Michigania." The bill was drawn by Judge Woodward. Augustus E. B. Woodward in 1805, the year of his appointment to the bench of the new Territory of Michigan, was a resident of Alexandria or of Washington, the Federal city. It is recited in a deed recorded by him in the District of Co- lumbia, temp. 1797, that his birthplace was in Rockbridge County, Virginia (Michigan Pioneer and Historical Col- lections, XXIX, 664). In 1801 the philo- sophical Thomas Jefferson came to the White House; during that year young Woodward (b. 1775) published at Wash- ington a small treatise entitled "Consider- ations on the Substance of the Sun." Woodward's business was the law, and Mr. Jefferson sent him out to Michigan to be Chief Justice of the Territory. Judge Woodward was a managing man, of numerous strange fancies. He may have bullied most people — Gov. Hull, Gen. Proctor (during the British occupation of Detroit) ; his colleagues, his subordi- nates, the public. Intricacies of the ground plan of Detroit to-day are due to Judge Woodward's liking for the methods of L'Enfant at Washington. Judge Woodward's mind was of the speculative sort, but he had a strong im- pulse for application. He was publishing small or large books from time to time almost to the end of his life, in 1827, on such topics as "The Executive Govern- ment of the United States," "The Open Trade with China" (Michigan, doing much with furs, was in a sense very near to China), "The Erie Canal" (by a different channel), "The Republic of Letters," "The Presidency of the United States." His most ambitious literary work, the "En- catholepistemia," was left unfinished. In this he remarks (Vol. I, p. 10) : "To us of this age and of this country knowledge is presented in rich and copious stores, abundant in materials, defective princi- pally in arrangement." To offer a sys- tem was the purpose of the work. It is not easy to come at the title of the "Encatholepistemia." The book itself, in quarto, 371 pp., is a fine example of the printer's art of Philadelphia a cen- tury ago. Beginning at the stamping on the back, we read merely: "Encatho- lepistemia Volume I." The title-page stands: "A System of Universal Science. E'hiladelphia. Published by Edward Earle, Harrison Hall, and Moses Thomas. Printed by William Fry, 1816." Then, next following: "Considerations on the Divisions of Human Knowledge and on the Classification and Nomenclature of the Sciences." What might be called the Preface is at the end of the book: The fourth part of this investigation, relating principally to an American National Institute, must necessarily be deferred. The Supreme Court of the Territory of Michigan commences Its annual ses- sion on the sixteenth day of September, and there remains barely time for the performance of the journey. A. E. B. WOODWARD. Philadelphia, August 31st. 1816. Inserted at the back cover are tables that Judge Woodward followed closely the next year in drawing his bill for the establishment of the University of Mich- igania : The catholepistemiad, or university of Michi- gania, shall be composed of thirteen didaxum or professorships: First, a dldaxla, or professorship, of catholepistemia, or universal science, the didac- tor, or professor, of which shall be president of the Institution; second, a didaxia, or professor- ship, of anthropoglosslca, or literature, embracing all the epistemum, or sciences, relative to lan- guage; third, a dldaxla, or professorship, of matli- ematica, or mathematics; fourth, a dldaxla, or professorship, of physlognostlca, or natural his- tory, &c, &c. The other departments being of phy- siosophica, astronomia, chymia, iatuca, eeconomica, ethica, polemitactica, diegit- ica [historical sciences], and ennocica "or intellectual sciences, embracing all the epistemum, or sciences, relative to the minds of animals, to the human mind, to spiritual existences, to the deity, and to religion." It was Judge Woodward's fancy, in contrast to the encyclopjedia (or circle of the sciences) to devise an encatho- lepistemia, a regular and concatenated system. Mr. Jefferson liked to exercise himself in a somewhat similar way, as witness his catalogue of his library. He also was interested in a thoroughgoing scheme for a State University, and, as it happened, got his first bill to that end through the Virginia Legislature in the year 1818. April 3, 1825, Mr. Jefferson wrote to Judge Woodward: "Withdrawn by age from all other public services and attentions to public things, I am closing the last scenes of life by fashioning and ring an establishment for the in- struction of those who come after us." Alfred J. Morrison.
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52(5 r 1 1 1 1 1 1 [Vol. 98, No. 2549 Correspondence THE TOLLS. Ti 1 the Editor of The Nation ; Sir: in your editorial on "Coastwise Trade insincerities," you speak of the "clap-trap" of "those opposed to repeal." Manifestly, the clap-trap is not all on one Mine you state that "A repoit recenflj made by Congressman Alexander, chair- man of the Committee on Merchant Ma- rine and Fisheries, said that 94 per cent, of all our coastwise shipping', on the At- lantic and on the Gulf, is owned by rail- ways or by combinations in alliance with railways." The curious observer who turns to Mr. Alexander's report will discover that that statement is made not of "all our coast- wise shipping," but only and specificall; of "regular line services," which on the Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific make up aboul one-eighth of our coastwise tonnage — so that your editorial statement should have read "94 per cent, of one-eighth" of al our coastwise shipping — which is quite ; different thing. The ships of these "regular line ser- vices" as a rule are not going through the Panama Canal. In the first place, most of them are not adapted to that trade. No passenger and package freight steam- er from Boston to Baltimore or from New York to Jacksonville is likely to leave the service for which it is especial- ly designed, to run from Boston or New York to San Francisco. Of the American lines actually preparing for that service, not one is controlled by a railway or owi- ed by the combinations mentioned. Moreover, the Panama Canal act of August 24, 1912, absolutely forbids all ships in which railways have any direct or indirect interest, and all ships owned by combinations illegal under the Sher- man law, "to enter or pass through said canal." Noting this, one is in a position to appreciate the delicious humor of that assertion of Representative Sims, which you quote, that the "chief beneficiaries" of free tolls would be "largely the rail- roads on both coasts"! Is it strange that "the other side" "did not challenge" the distinguished navigator from the wilds ot Tennessee? A joke is made to be enjoy- ed, not "challenged." As to your own solicitude lest there may be some "discrimination" against foreign ships at Panama, I doubt if there is much anxiety on this point among European steamship managers. They ex- pect that President Wilson and Secretary Bryan will win — that full tolls will be imposed on all American vessels in either coastwise or overseas trade, and tb: thereupon that felicitous condition de- scribed by Senator Lodge — who favor; tolls for American ships but a subsid to pay them — will ensue: that foreign governments which pay in subsidy "in- directly or specifically" the tolls on their principal national steam lines at Sue7 will do the same at Panama — in which case the only actual discrimination will be against the ships of the people win built the waterway and gave it to the world. What more can foreign governments ask — save, perhaps, a White House ukase that any presumptuous ifankee crafl ap proaching the canal shall be instantly sunk by the guns of the fortifications? New Englander. Boston, Mas 2. LThe Panama Act does not forbid ves- sels owned by railways to use the Canal —that is, if the ships compete in rates with the roads. And all the railways have filed statements with the Inter- state Commerce Commission testifying that their ships do compete. In that case, they may enter ana pass through the Canal like any others. — Ed. The Nation.] TREATY OBLIGATIONS. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: The following quotation from De Morgan's "When Ghost Meets Ghost" may perhaps help a few questioners to see the moral issue more clearly. Mr. Jerry began, feebly: "You can't do more than keep your word, Mo . . ." (Mo, a fine old ex-prizefighter, replies) : "Yes, you can, Jerry. You can keep your meanin'. And you can do more than that. You can keep to what the other party thought you meant, when you know. I know this time. I ain't in a court o' justice, Jerry, dodgin' about, and I know when I'm square, by the feel." N. Ball 111 ire, May 1. IMAGINATION IN COLLEGE. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: In a recent newspaper article President Nichols is quoted as saying that "the purpose of Dartmouth is to build the well-rounded man for useful and effective living. The emphasis is not at all on how to make a living, but on how to live. ... It may reasonably be doubted if one man in a hundred ever takes from college a single fact that he can turn into money. What he should take from college are well-trained fac- ulties which he can turn into anything he chooses." Herein are summed up the salient facts of the situation. Is not the real purpose of any college to de- velop personality; to give students the opportunity to find themselves and to become through study original thinkers rather than slavish imitators? And does it not all go back ultimately to the ques- tion of imagination, which is fostered or blighted according as the surroundings offer mental stimulus or merely material advancement? College students of a generation back, looking forward to purely material work, regarded the study of the liberal arts as the necessary preparation for their career. They followed precepts and tra- ditions which had proved their value. Nor was the purpose of their education any different — "To prepare us for com- plete living," says Spencer. But the age of practicality is upon us. In their ef- forts not to "neglect the plant for the sake of the flower" many of our Institu- tions are cutting off the flower for the more complete nourishment of the plant. If the study of agriculture and the me- chanic arts, or the courses intended to prepare for business life, were conducted with due respect for other branches of learning, all might be well. But the analysis of all the soils in the world will not teach men to live better, to get the fullest satisfaction from life, if there be no background. A purely scientific imagination is no imagination at all. One may dream of unlimited mechanical inventions and be no better off than Low- ell's brazen traveller, "who could scarce be induced to expose his unclothed body to a village of prairie dogs," yet "compla- cently displayed a mind as naked as the day it was born, without so much as a tig-leaf of acquirement, in every gal- lery of Europe." The goal towards which our college studies should be directed is the ju- dicious combination of specialized and general training. We do not expect a student of applied science to have a broadly liberal education, any more than the student of liberal arts is expected to talk with intelligent depth on higher mathematics, although the latter case is more common than the former. We should strive for an education of security, and by this I mean the broad education producing the type of mind which can adapt itself to varying situations, can express itself intelligently on many sub- jects while at the same time it possesses a detailed knowledge of that subject in which its chief interests lie. Too many ot us are inclined to overlook the fact that pleasure has come to be a legitimate aim of our modern life, and educational plea- sure is the result of that appreciation of many branches of knowledge which leaves little to regret. But unfortunate- ly this pleasure of which I speak has been perverted to mean comfort, which carries with it the inclination to fol ow the lines of least resistance, to specialize from the start. President Nichols's ideal can be at- tained only by effecting a compromise, by striving for the secure education, the education with lasting satisfaction. Do not train students for their mission in life before giving them an opportunity to discover that mission by means of an individuality and imagination properly trained. Elza Gordon Bassett. Iowa State College, April 25. FREDERIC MISTRAL. To tub Editor of The Nation: Sir: Fredenc Mistral died one week be- fore his golden jubilee as member of the Paris Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers. His "Mireio," in the shape of the opera "Mireille," endeared him from the beginning to the whole French people, who could never have understood his poem in Provencal. They took his heroine so to their hearts that long ago the gloom of her tragic end had to be changed for them to a lightsome marriage; but to Mistral they have given all glory and affection for his loved creation, n !■ ,,,,t i,,r quite the same reason that Qer man .cities are now proclaiming him the greatest of recent French poets and be would not have denied that Provencal is French writ otherwise, Gounod and
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May 7, 1914] Tli e Nation 527 Michel et in this age; a poet like Deucalion's men, from a flint- - r the Crau; a primitive poet in our age of decadence; a Greek poet in non; a poet who creates a language from a dialect as Petrarch created Ital- poet, who, out of common patois, a language classic in image and my, ravishing fancy and ear; a poet playing on his village Jew's harp symphonies of Mozart and Beethoven; a poet at twenty-five, giving forth in pure waves of melody from his genius' first flow a rural epic wherein the Odys- s< y's descriptions, and Paphnis and Chloe's innocent passion, mingled with Christian holy sadness, are sung with the grace of Longus and the simple majesty of the blind man of Chio." All this may be very much out of fash- ion as criticism ; but Lamartine saw clearly that the unrelieved tragedy of the original would never be accepted by French hearts. "The ending is sad — like two lilies lying in the same soft earth after the Rhone has overflowed the gardens of the Crau. Here the poet seems to have failed in that manual clev- erness of composition wherein Virgil too failed in the Aeneid, but where Tasso and Ariosto failed never." The aged poet is frankly prophetic in his welcome of the young troubadour. "O poet of Maillame, thou art the cen- tury plant of Provence. Thou hast grown three cubits in one day, flowering at twen- ty-five. Thy poetic soul makes fragrant Avignon and Aries, Marseilles, Toulon, and Hyeres, and soon all France; but, hap- pier than the tree of Hyeres, the per- fume of thy pages shall not pass for a thousand years." Mistral himself, in his own extreme age, has written modestly these among other words on "My Tomb": Here at Maillame be dwelt; The old men of the lane" Have seen him haunt our paths. Some day they'll say — 'Tis he They chose king of Trovence ; Bnt his name scarce survives Save in the brown crickets' song. D. Paris, April 8. THE BACONIAN CIPHERS. To the Editor op The Nation: Sir: Apropos of your review of the latest book on Baconian ciphers, has it ever been pointed out that the printed volumes of Shakespeare's plays, both the first and second folios, and I believe the quartos as well, end alike with one word, a word which might be considered of extraordinary significance? In catalogu- ing the collection in the Lenox Library, some years ago, I was struck by the fact that this conspicuous word, Finis, stand- ing alone at the end of each hook In the manner of a signature, has not only the same number of letters as Bacon, but the same arrangement of a I vowels and consonants, two and three. The resemblance between Finis and Francis is yet more striking, as in both cases we have the initial F, the n exact- ly in the middle with a vowel on either side and the final s. Considering care- fully the make-up of this word Finis, with its two i's, one on each side of that nasal n, just as they occur in the human countenance, may we not infer that in looking for Baconian ciphers the search- er has only to use his eyes? George Db C. Curtis. Poster, Oal., April l'T. "SIGNBOARDS" IN MAGAZINES. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: May I, through the columns of the Nation, protest against the manner in which some magazine articles are torn into pieces by the insertion of paragraph headings. To illustrate, let me cite an example taken at random from a weekly maga- zine. There I have been reading about the contradictory advice given to the de- parting traveller by his friends. Sudden- ly I find myself at the end of the thread, confronted by the announcement, in prominence that will not be denied: "In Praise of the Admirable Lubly." The fact that the first word of the next line is also exalted into typographical emi- nence helps to prepare me for the shock of a new chapter. Good! Enter the admirable Lubly! I attack the next sentences with all the boldness and expectancy bred of this thorough preparation, and find myself grievously disappointed when I discover that the advice of the friends left behind is still the only topic, and Lubly remains a mystery to me. In the next paragraph Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday come on the stage, but still no admirable Lub- ly. Has he missed his cue? Another paragraph, and another. By this time my memory has rejected the name Lubly as a foreign, indigestible substance. In the following paragraph I read of a small man in a uniform, stealthily entering the stateroom. It is the English manservant, the traveller's bedroom steward, by name Lubly. Ah ! mchercle, here is Lubly at last, full fifty lines, four and a half paragraphs, dis- tant from the signboard advertisement set to herald his appearance! But even if these lines were logically placed, as they sometimes are, I cannot say that I regard them as the most grate- ful investment of space and ink. I can scarcely regard them, in fact, as other than an insult to the average reader. When an intelligent human being reads the ordinary, easily intelligible magazine article, he really does not care to be told at every turn "what's coming next." On the contrary, such a proceeding will impress him much in the same manner as the auditor of opera or concert is im- pressed if some neighbor continues to dish out, in an audible whisper, explana- tions on the chief points of the pro- gramme. Are not these insertions souk thing which our magazines have adopted from the cheap daily newspaper? Albert Lehenbauer. Riverside. Cat, April 20. Literature THE PROBLEMS OF MEXICO. Mexico, the Wonderland of the South. By W. E. Carson. Revised edition with new chapters. New York: The Macmillan Co. $2.50. Five years ago Mr. Carson published the first edition of his work on Mexico, and recent events have led him to re- vise it and add new matter. A tour made as a newspaper correspondent and a fairly long residence in the country have familiarized him with the condi- tions and regions of which he writes. Of the descriptive parts, little need be said. From time to time, however, ma- terial for a thorough understanding of the fundamental difficulties in Mexico is provided. Such a passage is that dealing with the wide indulgence in mescal, tequila, and pulque, which have so evil an effect on the lower class. Con- nected with this is the amazingly high death-rate in the City of Mexico. The chapters dealing with historical mat- ters appear to be drawn, unfortunately, from short manuals. Misleading state- ments are occasionally found, as that the Emperor Iturbide went to England for a time, and the whole series of events between Maximilian's execution and the coup d'etat of Gen. Huerta is crowded into a single paragraph. The section describing the life of the people gives a good idea of the sur- prising mixture of barbarism and cul- ture in the capital, the jealous seclusion of women among the upper class, the indolence of the servants, and many of the strange paradoxes of the country. The author's personal impressions and observations are usually accurate, but the treatment of such matters as liter- ature in Mexico is quite inadequate. Par- ticularly good is the chapter on the Mex- ican woman, which discusses conditions that seem almost incredible. The pres- ent miserable state of the peon and his unhappy prospects, threatened by the system of peonage, by ignorance, drink, political oppression, and innate indo- lence, are fully shown. Most interesting under the existing circumstances is the chapter dealing with events from Diaz to Huerta. Mr. Carson holds that the career of Diaz proves that the benevolent military dic- tatorship under the form of a pure de- mocracy was exactly the sort of govern- ment which .\hxico needed, and which it still needs. He records the amazing progress under this great leader's direc- tion, in which foreign investments leap- ed from $500,000 to $1,400,000,000. Very accurate, however, is his estimate of such government: That he had enormous difficulties to contend with cannot be denied; but even his admirers are forced to admit that in
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5^8 T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2549 the latter years of his Administration he might have clone much more for the great mass of the people than he succeeded in accomplishing. As it was, he reaped the harvest of revolution and civil strife which so many autocrats have gathered through their blindness to the conse- quences of their acts and follies. It is largely owing to the lack of a substan- tial middle class and a system of small land ownership that Mexico to-day is in such a deplorable condition. Yet if Diaz could not educate his peo- ple and prepare them for actual con- stitutional government, how can any other benevolent dictatorship succeed? Lesser men, without one-tenth of his capacity and breadth of view, are not likely to do any better under conditions which are enormously more complex than when Diaz gained the power. Mr. Carson reviews the tragic events of the ten days' fighting in the capital. He thinks that the killing of Madero and Pino Suarez was due to a military conspiracy among the soldiers of their escort on the way to the penitentiary, in revenge for Madero's murder of Riveroll. He describes the personality of Gen. Huerta with evident admiration. After this addition to the first edition of his hook, Mr. Carson expounds the machinery of government in Mexico and shows how unsuccessful has been the blind copying of the letter of the Con- stitution of the United States. The final chapter deals with Mexi- can Problems of To-day. The author here advocates the theory of dictator- ship as the only suitable form of govern- ment for Mexico, and regrets our fail- ure to recognize Huerta, an action which he considers the cause of the con- tinued disturbances. He asserts the need of a Lord Kitchener for Mexico, and lacking one, of a strong Mexican substitute. He repeats the charge against the oil companies, agreeing with another writer that "the whole Mexican situation has reeked with crude pe- troleum." Many of the words quoted from Span- ish are incorrectly spelled. "Criadors" as the equivalent of "waitresses" is nov- el. Certain passages, true at the time of the first edition, have been left unre- vised in the second. President Diaz no longer lives in his house on Calle Cadena; the Moorish kiosque has not stood in the Alameda for five years; and some of the illustrations are almost tra- ditional, they are now so out of date. Most glaring is the statement that in the old days, on account of the diffi- culties of communication and transpor- tation, revolutions easily gained head, but the present strong government and the resources at its command result in "little chance of a revolution succeed- ing, even temporarily." Since these words were written, not one revolution but two have succeeded, and the world now awaits the success of a third. CURRENT FICTION. Idle Wives. By James Oppenheim. New York: The Century Co. No doubt this is a sincere attempt on the part of the author, a writer of popu- lar magazine fiction, to do a novel with a purpose. Like many another earnest man, he observes with consternation the large number of young American wives who have nothing to do but be unhap- py. If they would only wash their own dishes and take care of their own chil- dren, we should have less neurasthenia and fewer divorces. Not a new lesson, but still worth enforcing, we suppose. It may be that Mr. Oppenheim has tak- en the right means of enforcing it upon the audience he is aiming at. The vein of voluptuous and at times well-nigh hysterical sentiment which he has found to be effective in his stories for the magazines is here worked assiduously. This is well enough in a tract, but rath- er contemptible in a work of art. Al- ways we must be insisting that a novel is dead unless it contains human be- ings with the breath of life in them. The married pair over whose relations we are here expected to yearn are in- finitely less real than Punch and Judy. This idle wife and busy husband are mere confused outlines of two wretched types of domestic egotism. Their chil- dren are supplied for the performance by the property man. For real charac- ters and action are substituted a quasi- moral picture-show, much sentimental commentary, and not a little of that "frank" speech about matters of sex which it is now the fashion to affect. We submit the opinion that even a phy- sician-novelist may go too far with obstetrical details. The Heart's Country. By Mary Heaton Vorse. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. The promise of a love story, implicit in the title, is thoroughly borne out. It is less, however, the romance of two souls than- a consistent analysis of a girl's mind and emotions under the stress of three successive courtships — the last a successful one. The book has the atmosphere of New England fifty years ago. The closest friend of Ellen Payne tells how the latter, a lovely and ardent girl of eighteen, meets and falls in love with a serious young teacher; how she outgrows this passage to car- ry on a whirlwind affair with a young man of her own fiery temperament whom she is at last compelled to give up through fear of a nameless under- current in his character; and how at last an accident, endangering the life of an old chum, reveals to her that he is the long-sought object of her real af- fection. In part, the friend through whom the book is written draws her ma- terials directly from observation; in part, they are conveyed by Ions and illuminating letters from Ellen. The study of a sensitive and attractive girl's heart is done with sympathy and with insight. To those who do not mind in- trospection, and who are not wedded to complexity of action, it should make a wholesome appeal; though the book is wholly feminine in outline and tone. Gillespie. By J. MacDougall Hay. New York: George H. Doran Co. This is a harrowing story of the kind which can only be excused on the ground of its "truth to life." In its real- istic character and in the substance of the narrative it strongly suggests an- other story, by a young writer who did not live to make his calling sure: the "House with the Green Shutters" of George Douglas. The Scottish village setting, the prosperous trader whose pride and greed are to have their fall, his slack wife and imaginative but de- generate offspring, the domestic tragedy of blood towards which all steadily marches — these things both novels have in common. Similar material will be remembered in more than one of the Dartmoor tales of Eden Phillpotts. We all know the dreadful frequency with which "rural tragedy" means patri- cide or fratricide— as if the range of rustic action were narrow enough to keep even murder in the family. Every week, every day almost, these savage and apparently wanton acts are report- ed in the newspapers. But are they wanton? Have they no meaning, no aspect of real tragedy, or at least of real pathos? Such questions may appeal strongly to a serious writer of fiction. Mr. Phillpotts has commonly held a brief for the defence. His murderers are not devils, but warm flesh and eager spirit, like you and me, men or wo- men thrust slowly onward by defect of character or unhappy play of circum- stances to the sin of Cain. This is true of young Gourlay in the "House with the Green Shutters." Poltroon and drunkard though he be, he strikes his fatal blow in a last flicker of man- hood. Old Gourlay, with murder in his own heart, almost deserves to die at his son's hand. Mr. Hay's "Gillespie" is an- other Gourlay, with less physical cour- age and more cunning. Fate takes him not by bereaving him of his wealth and power, but by showing him their use- lessness. His neglected wife becomes a drunken wanton and in her final mad- ness kills their son. No detail of the act is slighted: ". . . In a horrible silence she, with the savage strength of a demoniac, slashed his throat open through the muscles, till the razor scrap- ed on the surface of the bones of the neck. A huge gout of nrtorlal blood spouted on her face, blinding her, and pumped far across the room, splashing the wall. . . ." When this kind of "realism" In detail
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May 7, 1914] The Nation 529 is employed by a writer who is essen- tially romantic and even sentimental, the total effect is simply distressing. Mr. Hay begins with a portent, fore- warning that his chief characters are to lie from birth under an hereditary curse. The working out of the curse is described with an emotional intensity far removed from the grim ironic calm of true realism. Quick Action. By Robert W. Chambers. New York: D. Appleton & Co. In this volume of ingenious yarns Mr. Chambers has a little fun with his serious-minded critics. There is a pref- ace in which we are told that "the au- thor offers this humble volume to a more serious audience than he has so far ventured to address." It has a Latin motto, not quite correct to be sure, "Amor nihil est celerius." The six stories, all illustrations of this prin- ciple, are told by a beautiful crystal gazer, Countess Athalie, to a group of her admirers, including a young realis- tic novelist. All the stories are bits ot real life which she has seen in her crys- tal. All the heroes have the commonest of names — Jones, Smith, Brown, Gray, Green, White — and, of course, the most extraordinary things happen to all of them. Brides from the blue, so to speak, descend upon Jones and Smith, busi- ness trips of Gray and White turn into sudden romances. The most entertain- ing experiences are those of Brown and Green. Green is a banker who scoffs at the impossible "best-sellers" of his friend Williams. Brown, at twenty- four, "resolutely graduated from Har- vard, stepped out into the world, and looked about him very sternly. All was not well with the world. Brown knew It. He was there to correct whatever was wrong. And he had chosen Good Literature as the vehicle for self-expres- sion." For these gentlemen Mr. Cham- bers reserves his best adventures; in- cidentally he pokes a little fun at him- self. On the whole, "Quick Action" is a clever and readable apologia. The Substance of His House. By Ruth Holt Boucicault. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. Wondrous beauty, utter sweetness, and a degree of devout conscientiousness un- surpassed in the calendar of saints are this heroine's modest endowment. Ob- viously designed for exemplary purposes, her mission is to show how strict obedi- ence to the teachings of Mother Church will bring a woman safely through the most vexed ethical dilemmas known to the holy state of matrimony. Lady Mary had been the innocent victim of an international marriage, and met too late the man she should have married. Through her love for Carmichael she is subjected to two crucial tests. The first comes when she is offered her free- dom by her considerate husband; the second, after the husband's death and her marriage to Carmichael, when she is confronted by the prior claim of the woman who calls herself his common- law wife. These are the salient points of this demonstration of idealism. Dra- matic novelty is introduced by revers- ing the usual motives in the first of these scenes — it is the husband who urges love as the supreme law, and Mary who maintains the superior sanctity of the marriage vow — and, in Carmichael's trial for bigamy, by the expedient of having Mary deny on the witness stand the legality of her own status. That the path of duty proves too rigorous for frail mortality reflects no discredit on the author's thesis. The scenes and circumstances of the story belong to modern London and Cal- ifornia, but Mary's convictions are bor- rowed directly from mediaeval legend. There are passages mingling amorous ecstasy with religious exultation, which seem sadly in need of an antiquated set- ting. The Full of the Moon. By Caroline Lock- hart. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co. Miss Lockhart adopts the ingenious expedient of bringing a heroine from New York on no pretext other than a desire to sample life on the Mexican border. Pretty, well-bred, and charming- ly gowned. Nan herself proves some- thing of a curiosity in Texas down by the Rio Grande; and is treated to one exhibition of local color after another in gratifyingly rapid succession. After be- ing abducted by a "bad man" and fall- ing in love with a handsome cowpunch- er, she is rescued from further impru- dence by a formerly misprised suitor from home. He it is who "gets the drop" on murderous Mexicans, saves an innocent victim from frontier justice (a particularly bad bit of burlesque this), and in the very jaws of a canon flood gives his horse to a lady. He is not only deus ex machina, but the standard of perfection by which Nan's cowboy shows up a very faulty mortal indeed, and the poverty of frontier life becomes glaringly apparent. Needless to add, Nan returns contentedly to the effete East. The Red and the Black. Translated by H. B. Samuel. New York: E. P. Dut- ton & Co. De Stendhal's introspective autobiog- raphy of Julien Sorel, with its account of the crimes, adventures, and upward scramblings of that morbid and indi- vidualistic youth, has been repeatedly translated, and just as often suffered to pass out of print. The latest English rendering is by H. B. Samuel, late schol- ar of Corpus Christ! College, Oxford, and compares favorably with those pre- viously essayed by E. P. Robins and C. Tergie. The difficulties of Stendhal's style, which he is said to have modelled on the Napoleonic Code, reading a few pages before every period of composi- tion, are not great. The worst charge to be brought against the translation is that a number of flagrant errors in proofreading have slipped by. Student and general reader alike may thank Mr. Samuel for making accessible in our tongue a work often ranked not far be- low Balzac's best novels, and of immense importance to the literary historian. "The Chartreuse of Parma" is already obtainable. A NEGLECTED HERO. The Marquis of Montrose. By John Buchan. New York: Charles Scrib- ner's Sons. $3 net. Mr. John Buchan made an enviable reputation as a charming essayist and raconteur during his undergraduate ca- reer at Brazenose; he increased it dur- ing the next ten years, by branching out into the field of modern politics and eco- nomics; but the work which lies before us marks his first serious effort in the line of historical biography. He has certainly been fortunate in his choice of a subject; for Montrose — in many ways the most heroic figure in the annals of Scotland — has been strangely neglected by historians. Mr. Buchan's book will go far to make him known as he de- serves to be. Brief, compact, charm- ingly illustrated, and very readable, Its statements are almost invariably based on the very soundest authorities. Best of all is the author's sense of pro- portion and perspective. Montrose is placed, not only in his proper rela- tion to the men and events of his time, but also to the whole course and current of the history of his native land. The centre of the stage is occupied, as one would expect, by an account of the "year of miracles" which began with Montrose's victorious onslaught at Tip- permuir in September, 1644, and wit- nessed his successive triumphs at Aber- deen, Fyvie, Inverlochy, Auldearn, Al- ford, and Kilsyth, only to terminate in the tragic surprise and massacre of Philiphaugh in September, 1645. The terrible disadvantages under which the Marquis labored, the absence of disci- pline and subordination of his Highland levies, and the fatal lack of adequate equipment, are all made clear. His ex- traordinary eye for the country in which he fought, his supreme gift of suiting his scheme of battle to his material, using his horse now as mounted infan- try and now as cavalry, and getting full value from the impetuous Highland charge, and, last of all, his unique power of leadership, are described in glowing terms. Interesting comparisons abound. The late S. R. Gardiner Is quoted as
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530 T li e ]ST a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2549 rating Montrose's military genius as higher than that of Cromwell (p. 289), and Mr. Buchan points out that "Aul- dearn was in miniature an anticipation ol the tactics of Austerlitz" (p. 145). It is just here, if anywhere, that the author tends to overstate his case. All students of military history recognize the fact that the leadership of an army of five to ten thousand men is a vastly simpler matter than that of a larger one. Montrose never had more than (i,000 men under his command; Crom- well had 30,000 at Worcester, 11,000 at Dunbar, 13,000 at Naseby; Napoleon had 05,000 at Austerlitz, 190,000 at Leipzig, and 125,000 at Waterloo. It is certainly dangerous to compare the leaders, when the forces at their command and the consequent difficulty of managing and provisioning them, were so very dissimi- lar. By the same token, parallels be- tween the English generals in the Great Civil War and the commanders in the contemporaneous struggle in the Em- pire, where the forces employed were vastly larger, are likely to be exceed- ing misleading. Montrose's religious and political views are in some respects even more interesting than his brilliant career as a soldier. He has had to wait for more than 200 years to come into his own in this respect. "The history of Scotland was written first by the bivines and then by the Whigs, so it is small wonder that Montrose has fared badly.". As Milton in England discerned that "the new presbyter was but the old priest writ large," and Cromwell struggled valiant- ly against the substitution of parlia- mentary for royal tyranny, so Montrose in Scotland foresaw the consequences of the intolerant theocracy of Argyle. Against it, as against monarchical ab- solutism, he advocated the rights of the people; "he stood for the Scottish democracy, both against those who would crush it and those who betrayed it with a kiss." But he had the ability to dis- cern that "a direct plebiscitary govern- ment was impossible in the Scotland of his day," "that the common people were scarcely conscious of political rights, and needed rather to be wisely protected than to be endowed with ill-understood duties." For the purpose of securing that protection he preferred monarchy, not because he shared the contemporary belief in the Divine Right of Kings, but because it happened to be the form of gov- ernment in existence in his native land. Kingship, he believed, was necessary to bring order out of chaos and "enforce moderation in a rabble of fanatics and debauchees"; and therefore he drew the sword. But that kingship, he also dis- cerned, must be modified, pari passu with the progress of society, through the concession to the common people of political rights, as soon as they should prove themselves able wisely to exercise them. He may, therefore, justly oe said to have anticipated the political arrange- ments of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: "his ideals are in the very \ arp and woof of the constitutional fab- ric of to-day." EXPLORATION IN CHINESE TUR- KESTAN. Les Documents Chinois decouverts par Aurel Stein dans les Sables du Tur- kestan Oriental. Publies et traduits par Edouard Chavannes. Oxford: Im- primerie de l'Universite. A great many of those remarkable discoveries made by Sir Aurel Stein during his celebrated journeys* in Cen- tral Asia would be dead material but for the interpretation of philological experts. This is especially the case with the Chinese documents obtained from the desert, dating, as far as could be ascertained, from the beginning of the first century b. c. to some time during the T'ang dynasty (618-907 a. d.). Under Professor Chavannes's treatment these documents, of which there are nearly a thousand, are restored to new life. The book he has devoted to these speci- mens of ancient and mediaeval Chinese writing is in every respect a master- piece of Sinological research and the methodical manner in which he has suc- ceeded in extracting valuable results from the hundreds of partly mutilated and very difficult short texts would be a credit to any of our best workers in classical archaeology. The inscriptions, which have been re- produced in an Appendix containing facsimiles (with few exceptions in the original size) of about nine hundred specimens, are partly written on wooden tablets, partly on scraps of paper, and these represent the oldest types of Chi- nese writing materials of their kinds. It is well known that, before the invention of paper in the second century a. d., the Chinese wrote on bamboo slips or thin tablets of some other wood; but this mode of writing was abandoned later on, though wooden tablets dating from periods as late as the T'ang dynasty have still been found. Professor Cha- vannes divides these documents into three divisions, according to the time in which they appear to have originated: (1) Those of the Han dynasty (98 it. c. to 153 a. d.); (2) those of the Tsin dynasty (263 to 330 a. d.); and (3) those of the T'ang dynasty (up to about the ninth century a. ».). During the Han dynasty the greater part were writ- ten on wooden tablets; only three frag- ♦"Hulns of Desert Cathay." London. 1912. Bee review la the \ntion, Vol, JCOV, No This work followed after an Interval of Ave years 1 ho description of his former Journey published un- der the title of "Ancient Kbotan." Oxford, 1907. so,- review tn tui Nation Vo\ i.xxxvi. No ■ir.vi. ments of thin paper have, on the ground of circumstantial evidence, been assign- ed to the second century a. d., and these must be looked upon as the oldest speci- mens of paper now to be seen anywhere in the world. Of the wooden tablets the oldest, so far as can be determined by a date appearing in the inscription, goes back to the year 98 b. c. The greater part of the documents are of importance not so much by rea- son of the contents of their inscrip- tions, many of which contain merely fragments of domestic, military, or gov- ernmental records and great numbers of Buddhistic texts, but on account of the material on which they are written and the style of writing used. The most in- teresting discovery, and for this reason receiving the first place among Professor Chavannes's notes, concerns a few frag- ments of an ancient glossary compiled during the years 48-33 b. c, under the title "Ki-tsiu-chang," a sort of primer used in teaching young folk the ele- ments of the language. The "Ki-tsiu- chang" was most widely circulated dur- ing the first few centuries a. d., and was employed as a model for copying as late as the seventh century, when the well- known scholiast, Yen Shi'-Ku (579-645), republished it with a commentary which has become the basis of the work still existing under the title "Ki-tsiu-p'ien," edited with notes of Wang Ying-Lin of the thirteenth century. A copy of this work is in a rare collection of reprints owned by Columbia University. This edition, however, and a few others now existing, are not based on the original manuscripts of the Han dynasty, since which period the style of writing Chi- nese characters has undergone consider- able changes. The wooden slips obtained from the sands of Eastern Turkestan are therefore of the utmost importance as throwing authentic historical light on the development of Chinese writing. Some of these slips represent undoubt- edly the writing of the earlier Han dynasty, and are thus the oldest speci- mens of Chinese "writing" in the prop- er sense of the word; that is, if we do not include in it inscriptions chiselled in stone. The characters look odd, but they are, to one accustomed to handle Chinese printed books and manuscript, not nearly so difficult to read as one might imagine from specimens derived from much later periods, of the so-called grass-character, and from the seal char- acters of the "Shuo-won Dictionary," published in 100 a. d. It seems that the style represented in the "Kl-tsiu- chang" lias served as a model by which writers of comparatively late periods have educated their hand. The hand- writing of the Emperor Mlng-hiinng, of the T'ang dynasty (713-752 a. d.)i as represented in the celebrated epitaph ho wrote with his own hand of the Ttirk prince Ktil-tagln, and In a Stone inscilp
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May 7, 191 4] The Nation 531 tion found on Mt T'ai-shan, bears the almost identical character, and the writer of this review even received not more than twenty years ago a Chinese L«tter written with characters quite sim- ilar in style. Professor Chavannos's book ought to be in the hands of every scholar inter- ested in Central-Asiatic research. SPANISH POETS. oxford Bool. 0) Spanish Verse. en by James Fitzmaurice-Kelly. New York: Oxford University Press. $2 net. "The Oxford Book of Spanish Verse," chosen and edited by Prof. James Fitz- maurice-Kelly, is the most recent addi- tion to this well-known series. The edi- tor's fine critical sense and sound schol- arship render him peculiarly fitted for his task, and he has acquitted himself in his usual happy manner. Wider in scope than the similar anthologies com- piled by Menendez y Pelayo and other Spaniards, the present book offers by far the completest and most judicious choice of Spanish lyric poetry ever pub- lished within the limits of a single vol- ume. The collection gives an excellent apergu of Peninsular verse from the thirteenth century down to the present day. It is admirably suited to serve as a textbook in universities. In gathering from the most diffuse of literatures, it was necessary for the edi- tor to govern his choice by certain hard- and-fast rules. Exigencies of space and a desire to avoid inclusion of fragmen- tary excerpts have led him to omit se- lections from epic and dramatic poets. The drawbacks of such a course are more apparent in a Spanish anthology than in one of any other literature; for the epic and the drama are the two chief glories of Spanish poetry. The epic genre, it is true, is represented by a judicious choice of ballads, but there appears no excerpt from the "Poem of the Cid," the most national of Spanish poems. Owing to the same editorial principle, we miss the name of Ercilla, ■certainly one of the leading Renaissance poets. The reader, too, can gain but a faint idea of Calderon's genius from the sonnet here offered as a sample of his work. Segismundo's soliloquy from "La Vida es Suefio" would have been a far more characteristic morsel. But all this the compiler must have realized better than anybody else. Who can blame him for refusing to open the flood-gates to the vast ocean of Spanish dramatic and epic poetry? We merely wish to indi- cate that the system followed has ex- cluded the work of many of Spain's great poets, and that some who have been admitted are not represented by their best work. Proportion has been well maintained throughout. In that part devoted to the Middle Ages we are spared the prosy naivete of Berceo, and are liberally re- galed with the vagrant wit of Juan Ruiz, that Friar Tuck turned poet. The dreary artificiality of John IPs rhyming cour- tiers is passed over lightly. Instead, "The Coplas" of Jorge Manrique, the gifted singer of "the sublime common- places of death," are given entire. In the Renaissance period, the places of honor are assigned to the Italienate Garcila'sso de la Vega, Luis de Leon, than whom, Fitzmaurice-Kelly thinks, "the Peninsula has produced no more superb poetical temperament," Gongora, Lope de Vega, and the mordant Quevedo. Cervantes is represented by a lone son- net, a courtesy to which the great novel- ist, considered as a poet, is barely en- titled. Nearly one-half of the volume is devoted to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Esponceda and Nunez de Arce are indubitably the two greatest figures in this period. Doubtless Span- iards will regret that Zorilla is not more generously represented. But mere grace and facility are more appreciated in Spain than elsewhere. The con- temporary school, led by the Nica- raguan, Ruben Dario, brings the volume to a close. They deserve credit for their effort to avoid improvisation, that be- setting sin of many a Castilian poet. No more conscientious craftsmen than some of these can be found in any land. Mr. Fitzmaurice-Kelly has never done anything better, in brief compass, than his introductory essay on Spanish poetry. His skill in analysis and talent for pointed characterization are once more in evidence. Brief biographies of all the poets whose works have been drawn from add interest and value to the book. Notes from Abroad [We omit "Notes" from this issue ow- ing to the large amount of kindred mat- ter in the Educational Section. The omission of certain other regular feat- ures is explained on similar grounds. — Ed. The Natiox.] THE agitation for admitting women to the legal profession in England has been revived of late, and has enlisted in its support several distinguished names, including that of the Attorney-General, Sir John Simon. The promoters of this change, however, are likely to find that this is a most Inopportune time for get- ting a hearing. A Past Master of the City of London Solicitors' Company, for instance, reminds his fellow-lawyers that for several months past many educated women have been exhibiting an utter want of respect for the law. Ought such persons, he asks, to be allowed to hav. any part in the administration of the laws or the conduct of legal proceedings? His remonstrance is the more pointed i: view of the fact that one of the Pank- hursts is an LL.B., and would presum- ably be one of the first women to claim admission to the roll. THE British Association rarely goes outside the mother country to hold its annual conferences, and special in- terest has therefore been aroused in the meetings to be held in Australia in Au- gust. Labor politicians are not usually supposed to care much about science, but the Federal Government of the common- wealth has sent the Council of the As- sociation $75,000 to pay the travelling ex- penses of 160 invited guests. Nearly 200 others are expected to undertake the journey. In Australia itself the way of the visitors will be smoothed by free rail- way passes on the state railways, and by hospitality on a generous scale. Some of the members are hoping to supplement their attendance at the sessions by tak- ing part in geological and anthropological expeditions inland and in the South Seas. IN Wigmorc Street, in the heart of the London doctors' quarter, there will be opened in May, as a permanent institu- tion, the Historical Medical Museum, which has been developed out of the temporary exhibition arranged in con- nection with last year's International Congress of Medicine. Admission will be restricted to members of the medical and kindred professions. The Museum will include many relics of famous doctors, and such curiosities as models of six- teenth-century hospitals and early labo- ratories. The section devoted to charms and amulets is widely representative, ranging from the anti-ophthalmic talis- mans of ancient Egypt to the strands of red silk wound around the necks of Nor- folk children to stop bleeding from the nose. THE latest innovation at a London theatre is said to be an imitation of an Oriental custom. The manager of the Coliseum is arranging for a run of serial plays, producing one act a week until the drama is completed. He will copy the practice of editors who publish serial tales, and will preface each later act by a synopsis of what has gone before. It has been suggested that this method might be tried with "Hamlet," so as to get rid of the necessity of cuts. OXONIANS of middle age will rub their eyes when they come across the announcement that a University Co- operative Society has been formed and will open a store next term in the High Street. Yet the venture is not such an astonishing one. The cooperative move- ment has long ceased to be a purely- working-class affair. Many yen the example set by the mill operatives of Rochdale was followed by members of the Civil Service and officers of the Army and Navy. Nowhere is the credit system more mischievous than at Oxford, where 1 hi- obsequiousness of touting shopkeepers often tempts young men to run up accounts they will afterward find it difficult to meet. Canon Scott Holland and Prof. W. O. 8. Adams will be among the senior members of the committee, but the man- agement will be mainly in the hands of undergraduates.
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532 T li e 1ST a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2549. ""pHE Marseillaise of Labor, running — ■* 'Tin the final struggle — Stanil together and to-morrow Tlie Internationale Sball be Mankind? has a beginning of fulfilment in nego- tiations made necessary by the closing of the Kussian frontier to German wheat and rye. Just as Irishmen go for the harvest to England and Italians dig in railways and Hungarians in mines in America, while Spaniards who have work- ed at Panama are now found along rail- way tracks near Paris, and Belgians and Italians come harvesting in eastern Prance, so German agriculture employed last year 412,000 foreign laborers, and German industry 355,000 foreign work- men. In Germany, these foreigners are mostly Slavs from Russia and Austria, Among such agricultural laborers alone there were 260,000 Russian Poles. Of the total number from Austria, 281,000, half were Poles. There were 69,000 Italians, 64,000 Belgians and Hollanders, and 20,000 Hungarians. Without these foreign Poles, East Prussia would be unable to harvest her crops. All this has to be considered in the important negotiations for new treaties of commerce now beginning throughout the Continent of Europe; and it has to be taken into account in all war or anti-war agreements. ONE or two Paris journals remembered that March 26 was the centenary of the death of Dr. Guillotin, who narrowly escaped decapitation by the machine bear- ing his name: On October 10, 1789, while the Revolution was still young and phil- anthropic, he demanded its adoption "to lessen suffering and automatically to make sure of equality before the execu- tioner. With my machine, I cut off your head in the twinkling of an eye, and you do not feel the least pain." Every one laughed, and the vote was unanimous; but when, in 1792, the "little Sainte Guil- lotine" became the deadly instrument of the Terror, the good Doctor who had never foreseen this protested loudly. He was imprisoned, and would have had to "kiss the Widow" forever bearing his name if Robespierre had not made ac- quaintance with her first. Ten years later, Dr. Guillotin drew up his own obituary notice, enumerating his various profes- sorships at the Paris Faculty of Medicine and his vaccination experments — but omitting carefully all mention of the guillotine. THE Souvenir presented to Queen Mary by the committee of Parisian Com- merce, in celebration of the English sov- ereigns' visit, is a notable piece of hand embroidery. It is an apotheosis of the ■■entente cordiale, representing France wel- coming England, who holds the olive branch. Below, to right, is the British lion, whom a genius crowns with flowers. To left is the Gallic Cock beside a cornu- copia pouring out its riches. In the back- ground, the horizon is a calm sea with the rainbow of Peace against the sky. The border is of arabesques formed of roses, thistles, and shamrocks, with the arms of Great Britain. At the four corners there are Louis Quinze medallions showing manifestations of entente cordiale be- tween the two nations in the past: (1) Francis I and Henry VIII at the Field of the Cloth of Gold; (2) King Louis Phi- lippe and his English house of Claremont; (3) Queen Victoria and Emperor Napo- leon III at the Paris Opera; (4) King Ed- ward VII visiting President Loubet in Paris. The silver gilt frame, with moth- er-of-pearl and ivory incrustations, has Queen Mary's coat of arms between those of London and Paris. ONE kind of literature credited to America has had heavy sales of late years all over France. It is published in paper-covered numbers at five cents each — "Buffalo-Bill," 321 numbers ;, "Nick Carter," 317; "Capitaine Morgan," 200; "Nat-Pinkerton," 320, and still running, like "Texas-Jack," 270. The sales in France must have gone into the hundred thousands. The numbers are "printed in German" by the same house which prints for German consumption lurid tales attacking the French "foreign le- gion." Music SEVENTEEN THOUSAND OPERA LIBRETTOS. Catalogue of Opera Librettos Printed Before 1800. By Oscar George Theo- dore Sonneck. Washington: Govern- ment Printing Office. 2 vols. $2. More than 30,000 operas have been performed in Europe and America since the year 1597. The repertory of the Metropolitan Opera House during the season just closed included thirty-six different operas. Annesley's "Standard Opera Glass," which is perhaps the most comprehensive collection of its kind, contains, in its edition for 1899, the plots of 123 operas, and of these at least forty-eight are obsolete. By a liberal estimate, of all the operas ever com- posed, not more than seventy-five are now alive and more or less popular. That there is a good deal of interest concerning these is shown by the abun- dance of books in the market similar to the one just referred to, and the large number of editions which some of them have passed through. What of the discarded operas? A few of them are referred to in the elaborate histories of music — at least, their music is spoken of; but concerning their li- brettos hardly any information has been available. The indefatigable Mr. Son- neck, chief of the Division of Music in the Library of Congress, now comes to the rescue with two volumes, amount- ing to 1,674 pages, devoted to opera librettos printed before the nineteenth century, and there is an intimation in the preface that another volume, con- cerned with the librettos of the nine- teenth century, will follow in a few years. Even the industrious Mr. Sonneck would not have been able to give the world such an impressively comprehen- sive catalogue had he not been able to avail himself of the labors of a German, Albert Schatz, of Rostock, who spent forty-two years of his life in collecting librettos, as well as material for a dic- tionary of operas. In 1908 Mr. Schatz, being in feeble health and feeling that he could not complete his task, offered his collection to the Library of Con- gress, which promptly purchased it. It comprised about 12,000 opera librettos and a few hundred librettos of oratorios and cantatas. Using this as a nucleus, Mr. Sonneck gradually built up the col- lection now before us. Comprehensive though it be, it is far from being com- plete; but the editor hopes that others will now be in a position to help him fill up gaps. Those left by Mr. Schatz were chiefly in the realm of opera in France, Russia, Scandinavia, Bohemia, Hungary, Spain, England, and America. Mr. Sonneck thinks it is a safe esti- mate that the total number of librettos which have accrued to the Library of Congress by purchase, copyright, gift, or otherwise now reaches, if it does not exceed, 17,000. Heretofore the only printed catalogue of librettos has been that of Wotquenne, of the Royal Conservatory Library of Brussels. This, however, covers only one century (the seventeenth), where- as Mr. Sonneck's, when completed, will cover the three centuries of the exist- ence of this young art. At first thought, nine-tenths of the matter in this cata- logue would seem to come under the head of useless knowledge; but Mr. Son- neck, in his preface, advances sundry rea- sons why such a collection is of value, especially to historians and other stu- dents of operatic evolution. He is in- clined to think, and with reason, that the very foundations of opera were laid by the librettist, Rinuccini, as much as by the composers, Jacopo Corsi, Peri, or Caccini. To most persons the word libretto suggests a thing which is neith- er drama nor literature, and there is abundant reason, even in recent produc- tions, for this notion; but it must be remembered that not only the opera texts of Wagner, but those of Gilbert, Maeterlinck, and, in earlier days, of Zeno, Metastasio, Goldoni, Quinault, Favart, and others, come under the head of high-class dramatic literature, al- though in judging them it must be re- membered that they had to be construct- ed with special reference to music, and therefore followed different standards from those of the drama without music. This is what is so often forgotten In estimating the value of the poems of Wagner and of others. For a long time the librettists, partic- ularly in Italy, where opera originat- ed, were the too obedient servants of the composers. Metastasio resented this submissiveness, insisting that libret- tists had important problems of their own to solve. How difficult theia prob-
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May 7, 19 14] The Nation 533 lems are may be inferred from the scarcity of librettists as compared with the abundance of playwrights. All the composers complain of the difficulty of getting suitable plots and texts. Puc- cini, for instance, spends years reading manuscripts, and then he usually falls back on some play that has succeeded. He, nevertheless, holds that the music should dominate the play, as it really does in the operas of Wagner, notwith- standing all his theorizing and preach- ing. Among the many interesting notes Mr. Sonneck has contributed to this cat- alogue there are several which show that these questions received serious at- tention long before Wagner. Isaac Bickerstaff, for example, declared (1765) that the best composition of the greatest master would not make a con- temptible poem pass with an audience. Of particular interest, at this moment, when Richard Strauss's "Legend of Jo- seph" is being staged, is the remark of John Burgoyne (1781) that "music, if employed to express action, must be confined to dumb show. It is the very essence of pantomime; and we have lately seen upon the opera stage how well a whole story may be told in dance." Hexry T. Fintck. Busoni, who has been engaged by Han- son for another American tour next sea- son, has composed an Indian Fantasie for piano and orchestra, which is said to embody "the impressions received dur- ing his last visit to America." An attractive souvenir of the opera season is KobbS's "Opera Singers." This book, published by the Oliver Ditson Company, is kept up to date. Caruso, for instance, who was not in the first edition, leads off in the sixth edition with half- a-dozen pages of biography and eight character portraits. Four favorites of the day, Geraldine Farrar, Johanna Gad- ski, Olive Fremstad, and Mary Garden, are treated at length, and Nordica has two pages. There are many full-page portraits, mostly in costume. The following operas will be given at the Wagner-Mozart festival at Munich this summer: Wagner — "Parsifal," July 31, August 10, 19, and 28, and September 7, and 15; "Der Ring," August 12 to 17, and August 31 to September 5; "Tris- tan und Isolde," August 4 and 22 and September 10; "Die Meistersinger," Au- gust 7 and 25 and September 12. Mozart — "Figaro's Hochzeit," August 2 and 27; "Die Entfiihrung aus dem Serail," August 6 and September 14; "Don Giovanni," August 9 and September 9; "Die Zauber- flote," August 21 and 29 ; "Cosi fan tutte," August 24. A month ago "Parsifal" had already been sung twenty-two times at the Scala, in Milan, and was still drawing crowded houses. Similar results have been achiev- ed in cities all over Europe, including London, where the series of twelve prom- ised performances was extended to four- teen. This means that hundreds of thou- sands of lovers of music are delighted that the efforts to keep up the Bayreuth monopoly of "Parsifal" for the benefit of Wagner's millionaire heirs were not suc- cessful. Munich has been saving its "Par- sifal" premiere for this summer's Wag- ner festival. The part of Kundry has been assigned to the American artist, Edyth Walker. Finance THE MOVEMENT OF EVENTS. When the stock market last week, whose course in the week preceding had plainly indicated the probability of a general and severe decline, suddenly reversed its form — starting out on Mon- day with initial advances of V2 to 2 points, rising further on that and the succeeding days, and rushing into a really violent recovery on Friday — the reversal of the movement was naturally ascribed to the change in the Mexican situation. That change had certainly been very great — how great, the Stock Exchange seemed only slowly to realize. Whether the beginning of a serious war with Mexico would or would not have served logically to demoralize our finan- cial and business affairs, the facts re- mained that wars are apt to have just that effect, that the week's heavy break might have been interpreted as a "war market," and that the situation which it was "discounting" had been suddenly changed, over Sunday, from open war to at least a truce, if not to actual peace. To a very great extent, this is the ex- planation of the market. But it was not the single explana- tion; at any rate, it was complicated with other considerations. When Eu- rope, on Friday of last week, suddenly began pouring out stocks upon the American market — not until then very seriously disturbed — Wall Street declar- ed at once that, even if financial New York had received the Mexican news with composure, London and the Conti- nent had taken fright at it. But when it appeared that British consols and English home securities were breaking more heavily than our own, there was a bewildered pause in drawing inferences. Presently came cable dispatches, de- claring that the trouble was not "Mex- ico" at all, but Europe's own affairs. When, further, It was asked, with some surprise, what had happened in Europe to provoke that sudden liquidation, the foreign stock exchanges answered that money rates were rising; that financial Paris was again on the verge of col- lapse; that the Continent was prevent- ing the Bank of England from getting the new supplies of Transvaal gold; that Russia and Germany were grow- ing quarrelsome; that the old Austrian Emperor was dying, and that civil war was about to break out in Ulster. At the beginning of last week, the for- eign markets turned to recovery as suddenly as did our own. British con- sols, which had fallen 1% the week be- fore, rose nearly a point; French 3 per cents, which had gone down %, recov- ered more than 1 point; German 3s re- gained half of their 1-point decline; Russian 4s advanced % after falling iy2. How was all this to be explained, in line with the causes assigned by Eu- rope for the break? The rise in London discount rates, from 1% per cent, on April 1 to i last week, may have been disconcerting to people who had reckoned on contim. ance of abnormal ease; but it was also a corrective to the adverse foreign ex- changes. On April 1, money earned fully 1 per cent, more at Paris or Ber- lin than at London; it was easy, then, for thp Continental markets to borrow on Lombard Street, depress their ex- change on London, and draw gold. On Saturday, the London money rates were squarely up to those of the French and German markets, and the process was not so easy. This was in reality a fa- vorable change, which London itself may have misjudged. Since the Paris Stock Exchange gave a particularly good account of itself last week, and since rentes recovered more rapidly than any other European Gov- ernment security, it is in point to ask whether London may not, as on so many previous occasions, have become more alarmed about the French situation than Paris was itself. The Austrian Emperor is eighty-four years old; any illness incurred by him is likely enough to bring the end, and it has been the habit of Europe to predict a general break-down of the political structure of the Empire when Franz Joseph, long the personal link in a combination of heterogeneous and jealous states, should die. But the old Emperor surviv- ed, and meantime Europe had the op- portunity again to ask the question, whether an event long expected, long dreaded, and long prepared for with the greatest care, was not apt to turn out a far less formidable political ca- tastrophe than had been imagined. To what extent the "Ulster crisis" was taken on the London Stock Ex- change as something likely to lead to civil war, has never been possible really to determine. There were those who could not look at the episode as any- thing short of a political ope>a bouffe, and there were those who felt that, whatever either side intended, there were elements of political conflagration in the matter as it stood which might start a most destructive blaze. It certainly bore that aspect the week before last, when the cables told of arms landed secretly In Ulster and when the London market's break began. But the "Ulster controversy" underwent a
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534 T li e IN a t i o 11 [Vol. 98, No. 2549 change, the following week, as sudden as that of the Mexican imbroglio, and quite simultaneous with it. First, the Government's pugnacious spokesman, Mr. Winston Churchill, then the Pre- mier, and finally Sir Edward Carson himself, the head and front of the "Ul- ster insurrection," declared in Parlia- ment their willingness to compromise on the general basis of the allotment of Great Britain and Ireland into feder- al units under Parliament; of which units, Ulster should be one. But that principle, once accepted, would have meant the beginning of the end of the Ulster trouble. Which of these various considerations was responsible for the disordered mar- kets, and for the rapid recovery? It is a curious question, and it certainly sug- gests the possibility that the vagaries of sentiment, political or otherwise, may have had more to do with this year's strange financial situation than the real economic influences. BOOKS OF THE WEEK. FICTION. Chi- Parbee, L. In the College Days, cago: Denison. $1 net. Broadhurst, G., and Schomer, A. To-day. Macaulay. $1.25 net. Chester, G. R. Cordelia Blossom. Hearst's International Library. $1.35 net. De Lara and Pinchon, E. The Mexican People and their Struggle for Freedom. Doubleday, Page. $1.50 net. Dix, D. Mirandy. Hearst's Internation- al Library. $1 net. Dudeney, Mrs. H. Set to Partners. Duf- f.eld. $1.25 net. Henckley, J. "E.": A novel. Duffleld. $1.35 net. Johnson, O. The Salamander. Indian- apolis: Bobbs Merrill. $1.35 net. Key, lv. J., Mrs. A Daughter of Love, lnillield. $1.25 net. Leroux, G. The Secret of the Night. Macaulay. $1.25 net. Lessing, B. With the Best Intentions. Hearst's International Library. $1.25 net. .Marriott, C. What a Man Wants. In- dianapolis: Bobbs Merrill. $1.35 net. Miller, A. D. Things. Scribner. 50 cents net. Reeve, A. The Dream Doctor. Hearst's International Library. $1.35 net. Yuka, D. A Child of the Orient. Hough- ton Mifflin. $1.25 net. Vandercook, M. The Loves of Ambrose. Doubleday, Page. $1 net. Waggaman, M. T. The Ups and Downs of Marjorie. Benziger. 45 cents net. Wells, H. G. The Wonderful Visit. New Edition. Dutton. $1.35 net. POETKY. Barbe, W. Great Poems Interpreted. Hinds, Noble. Heine, H. Atta Troll. Trans, by H. Scheffauer. Huebsch. Maquarie, A. The Happy Kingdom; The Days of the Magnificent; Floralisa; The Wheel of Life. London: Bickers. BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY. Ballagh, J. C. The Letters of Richard Henry Lee. Macmillan. $2.50 net. Bassett, A. T. The Life of John Edward Ellis. Macmillan. $2.50 net. Hare, C. Men and Women of the Ital- ian Reformation. Scribner. Loeb Classical Library: Dio's Roman History. Trans, by E. Cary. Macmil- lan. $1.50 net. Selincourt, B. de. Walt Whitman. Ken- nedy. $2.50 net. Woman's Who's Who in America. The American Commonwealth Co. GOVERNMENT AND ECONOMICS. Bonnet, T. A Friend of the People. San Francisco: Pacific Publication Co. Branford, V. Interpretations and Fore- casts. Kennerley. $2.50 net. Foster, W. T., and Others. The Social Emergency. Houghton Mifflin. $1.35 net. RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY. Bacon, B. W. Christianity, Old and New. New Haven: Yale University Press. $1 net. I h, A. Education and the New Utilitarianism. Longmans. $1.20 net. Day, II. C. Catholic Democracy. Long- mans. $1.80 net. ol,, ,ii, W. T. .Sun Lore of All Ages. Put- nam. Stetson, A. E. Vital Issues in Christian Science. Putnam. TRAVEL. Hall, X. E. Dutch Days. Moffat, Yard. $1 net. Palmer, H. Mountaineering and Ex- ploration in the Selkirks. Putnam. $5 net. Woodberry, G. North Africa and the Desert. Scribner. $2 net. MUSIC AND DRAMA. Gibb, M. P. A Guide to the Chassevant Method. Stokes. $1 net. Harris, F. H. Eight Plays for the School. Dutton. 60 cents net. Hauptmann, G. Dramatic Works. Vols. Ill and IV. Huebsch. $1.50 net. Schnitzler, A. The Green Cockatoo and Other Plays. Chicago: McClurg. $1 net. ART. Fiirtwangler, A., and H. L. Ulrichs. Greek and Roman Sculpture. Trans. H. Tay- lor. Dutton. $2 net. Hunter, G. L. Inside the House that Jack Built. Lane. $1.35 net. Watt's, Mrs. R. The Renaissance of the Greek Ideal. Stokes. $5 net. TEXTBOOKS. Allen, P. S., and Phillipson, P. German Conversation. Holt. Davis, W. S. Readings in Ancient His- tory. Greece and Rome. Allyn & Bacon. 2 vols. $1 each. Keller, G. Die Drei Gerechten Kam- macher. Heath. 35 cents. Livingston, G. Field Crop Production. Macmillan. $1.40. Metcalf, J. C. American Literature. Richmond: Johnson. Richman, J. and Lehman, E. Methods of Teaching Jewish Ethics. Philadel- phia: Jewish Chautauqua Society. Selections for Oral Reading. Macmillan. 25 cents net. Tucker, L. E. Visualized History of Edu- cation. Hinds, Noble. $2. West, W. M. American History and Government. Allyn & Bacon. $2.50. By the Author of "The Great Illusion" Arms and Industry A Study of The Foundations of International Polity By Norman Angell 12mo. $1.25 net The author shows systematically and scientifically, though with the same clearness and simplicity which mark his earlier work, the nature of those forces which are trans- forming the relationship of states, and indeed, to some extent, the mechanism of organized society as a whole. A large proportion of the work is devoted to showing the interaction of material and moral forces in politics, the relation of nationality and political idealism to those theories with which the author's name is so strongly identified. " Hi Angell has compelled on tin part 0) all honest readers, a new mode j thinking on the whole question of war. — The most pregnant money's worth ni Europe to-day." — Daily Chronicle. New York G. P. Putnam's Sons London A HISTORY OF JAPANESE MATHE- MATICS. By David Eugene Smith and Yoshio Mikami. The scientific attainments of Japan during the past four centuries is one of the marvels of history. This book will show to the West the nature of mathematics indigenous to Japan and serve to strengthen the bonds that unite the scholars of the world. The book is full of very interesting mater- ial even for the non-mathematical reader. Illustrated, cloth, 300 pages, $3.00 net. Our new complete Catalogue and samples of our Magazines "The Open Court" and "The Mnnl»t" sent free on reqnest. The Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago FRENCH GERMAN Mellon, I II. Tallin-, Gulden, Dictionaries, Conversational Books, elr. Hi-nd lor catalogue of any lanffvaf SCHOENHOF BOOK CO. 128 TBEMONT BTBSBT, noSTON, MASS. SPANISH ITALIAN LIBRARY RESEARCH Researches made in Boston and Harvard i.ibra- rlea. Ancient and modem language*, Translation, 1 , , 1 i f manuscripts, 1 tc miss m 11 BUCKINGHAM, < bestnut Btrsst, Boston, Mass.
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VOL. XCVIII— NO. 2550 New Macmillan Farm, Garden and Outdoor Books Bailey's New Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture -Edited by L. H. Bailey- The fullest, most authoritative, up-to- date work on Horticulture, entirely new and superseding the old Cyclopedia of American Horticulture, issued fourteen years ago. Will increase the efficiency of every plant grower The New York NATION'S opinion " No one who knows anything at all about the literature of gardening needs to be told that the Cyclopedia is unique. It is the Bible and Britannica of the garden-folk, amateur and professional alike. And the remarkable thing is that, while it is fundamentally a work of reference, it also con- tains limitless quantities of good reading of the sort dear to the heart of the garden enthusiast." Six Volumes. Richly Illustrated. Volume One. Now Ready. $6.00 net THE BEGINNER'S GARDEN BOOK. By ALLEN FRENCH. Author of "How to Grow Vegetables," etc. Just the book for the amateur gardener and beginner of whatever age. Illustrated. $1.00 net FIELD CROP PRODUCTION. By GEORGE LIVING- STON (Ohio State Univ.). A work based on actual ex- periment, and pointing out from every direction the "better" way of raising field crops. Illustrated. $1.40 net FARM STRUCTURES. By K. J. T. EKBLAW (Univ. of Illinois). A practical work which enables the farmer to solve his own particular building problems. Illustrated. $1.75 net THE DISEASES OF ANIMALS. By NELSON S. Mayo (Kansas State Agric. Coll.). Concise and popular advice on the care and the common ailments of farm animals. Illustrated. $1.50 net COMMERCIAL GARDENING. Edited by JOHN WEATHERS. The most practical and scientific work for Market Gardeners and Growers, Nurserymen, Fruit, Flower and Vegetable Growers. Written by specialists. Four Vols. Colored illustrations. $15.00 the set. THE CORN CROPS. By E. G. MONTGOMERY (Cornell University). Explains the best methods for the maximum production of Maize, Kafirs and Sorghums, in the United States and Canada. Illustrated. $1.60 net THE FARM WOODLOT. By E. G. CHEYNEY and J. G. WENTLING (University of Minnesota). Covers the whole subject of raising forests and producing timber as part of a farming business. Illustrated. $1.50 net. Ready shortly CHEMISTRY AND ITS RELATIONS TO DAILY LIFE. By LOUIS KAHLENBERG and EDWIN B. HART (University of Wisconsin). A work of consider- able value for the home, the school and the field. Illustrated. $1.25 net THE COUNTRYSIDE MANUALS I. THE SUBURBAN GARDEN GUIDE By Parker Thayer Barnes "The best, most compact, and handiest of garden manuals published." Cloth, 50 cents net II. THINGS MOTHER USED TO MAKE By Lydia Maria Gurney The good, old-fashioned, but ever new, recipes for the best products of kitchen cookery. Cloth, 50 cents net From THE MACMILLAN STANDARD LIBRARY Series THE PRACTICAL GARDEN BOOK. By L. H. Bailey and C. E. Hunn. "Presents facts only that have been p-oved, anil which are capable of application." HOW TO GROW VEGETABLES. By Allen French. "Gives not only « convenient and reliable planting-table, but particular aft ntion to the culture of the ve. etables." HOW TO KEEP HENS FOR PROFIT. By C. S. Valentine. "B gin- ners and seasoned poultrymen will find in it much of value." A MANUAL OF PRACTICAL FARMING. By John McLennan "Places before the reader in the simplest terms a means of assistance in the ordinary problems of farming." A SELF-SUPPORTING HOME. By Kate V.St. Maur. "A detailed account of all the work ncrctary in every branch of hus- bandry to be met with on the small farm." HOW TO KEEP BEES FOR PROFIT. By D. Everett Lyon. "Gives the life history of the bee family, and tells how to start an apiary and care for it." Handsomely bound. Decorated covers. Illustrated, each volume, 50 cents net Published at 64-66 Fifth Ave.. N. Y. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY On Sale Wherever Books Are Sold
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11 The IN" at ion (Vol. 98, No. 2550 A WEEKLY JOURNAL \Entiral at the \Sl "The Charm of Isabel" 583 MUSIC: Musical History and Instruments 583 ART: The International 584 FINANCE: The Remarkable Harvest Outlook 586 BOOKS OF THE WEEK 586 » • • Copies of The Nation may be procured in Paris at Brentano's, 37 Avenue de l'Opera; iu London of B. F. Stevens & Brown, 4 Trafalgar Square, Charing Cross. JUST PUBLISHED THE SPIRITUAL MESSAGE OF DANTE (William Belden Noble Lectures, 1912-13) By the Rt. Rev. William Boyd Car- penter, Canon of Westminster, and Clerk of the Closet to the King. Dante as the world's great interpreter of religious experience Is the subject of this Jtudy, Itself an Interpretation of charm and fresh analytical power. Dante's own life is Considered as precursor and parallel to tin- drama of the soul In the Divina commedia. The Illustrations, reproduced from ancient por- traits of Dante and the drawings in Lord Vernon's famous edition of the Inferno, fur nlsh an unusual added Interest. Price. $1 B0 HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMHKIDOE MASSACHUSETTS Educational Camp Algonquin A^Ts,£Ahlb1VNH- A camp where boys are busy all the time. Where they learn something worth while. Prom which they return strong physically and strong in character. Send for booklet. Edwin De Meritte, Principal De Meritte School. 815 Boylston Street, Boston, Mass. New Jersey, Morrlstown. Morristown School ^JlToT/ol Boys. Small classes ; partial self-government. Su- pervised sports; new gymnasium. Lower School. Advisory Board — President Hibben. Princeton ; Dean Hurlbut, Harvard ; Rev. Anson Phelps Stokes, Jr., Secretary of Yale; Dean Keppel, Columbia; President Prltchett, Carnegie Foundation. The Misses Kirk's College Preparatory School Offers unique opportunities for individual work In all college preparatory subjects, combined with the advantages of school life. Prepares especially for Bryn Mawr. Twelve boarders. Faculty of eight teachers. Outdoor gymnastics. P. O. Box 804. Bryn Mawr, Pa. The WOLCOTT SCHOOL, DENVER.COL Superior climate. Accredited with Eastern Colleges for girls. Fine music advantages. Gymnasium. THE FISK TEACHERS' AGENCIES, J. Ettbeitt O. Fiskb & Co., Proprietors. Boston, 2a Park St. Denver, 317 Mas. Tern. New York,156FlfthAT. Portland, 316 Journal Bd. Washington, 1847 U St. Berkeley, 2161 Shatt'k Av. Chicago,28E.JacksonBd. Los Angeles, 343DougJasBd. Send to any address above for Agency Manual. Harlan P. French, Pres. Vincent B. Flsk, Sec'y. THE ALBANY TEACHERS' AGENCY knows how. Twenty-two years of successful ex- perience In bringing together good schools and good teachers. Send for Bulletin, 81 Chapel St., Albany, N. Y. 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May 14, 1914] The Nation 111 PROBLEMS OF SCIENCE. By Fede- rigo Enriques. Authorized trans- lation by Katharine Royce; with an Introduction by Josiah Royce. The author is professor of projective geometry and K-eometric drawing in tlie University of Bologna, and one of the most conspicuous of contemporary Italian scientists. Cloth, 375 pages, $2.50 net. Our new complete Catalogue and samples of our Magazines "1 Open irt" and "Tbe ' sent free on request. The Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago The Fundamental Basis of Nutrition By GRAHAM LUSK, M.D.. Professor of Physiology, Cornell University Medical Col- lege, and Scientific Director af the Jtussell Sage institute of Patholutjy. Why r.in white rats not live on pure lard? Why duos ilir bread and butter which yon get free at a restaurant nourish you more than the food you pay for? How can a family of five live on 50e a day? This little volume of (12 pases answers mas- terfully these questions and many more, solv- i- g in an authoritative way the problem of the high cost of living. 50 cents'; can mac extra. YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 185 Elm street. 228 Fifth Avenue New Haven, Conn. New York City. A Modern History of the English People By R. II. CRKTTON "As brilliant as Mr. Herbert Paul at his best." — Olasgow Herald. "The development of Eigiand'a prosperity since tbe early eighties linn bees treated with an en minuteness wbleb Is only paralleled In the works of Mr. Arnold Rennett. "—Scotsman. "So tonle It Is, so extraordinarily sensible, so bracing In Its Immediate effects." — IAverpool Cour- ier. V. I. 1880-1808. 44S pn. V. II. 1899-1910, S68 pp. The Set .f .». net D(tl)l), MEAD * CO.. Publisher*, NEW > (IRK.
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IV r M T li e ZTST a t i o ii [Vol. 98, No. 2550 A REMARKABLE NOVEL that will arouse both serious and amused discussion FRANK DANBY'S MAS'IERLY WORK FULL SWING is a distinct advance over those other successes THE HEART OF A CHILD and PIGS IN CLOVER $1.35 Net. Postage extra. Pull swing centers about Agatha Wanstead, a woman of noble character, who, incredible as it may appear, is a type of heroine unlike any other in English action. That there are Agatha Wansteads in real life is unquestion- ably true, and her name will soon be synony- mous for a class of women just as now we have our Becky Sharps and Haggle Tulli- vcrs. The other characters are just as real, and through the novel run two love stories of heart gripping interest. JEHANE OF THE FOREST By L. A. TALBOT. 12mo. Cloth. $1.25 net. Postage extra. Since Maurice Hewlett's "Song of Renny" and '"The Forest Lovers" there has been no finer tale of high romance than this. TWO IN THE WILDERNESS By STANLEY WASHBURN, 320 pp. 12mo. $1.25 net. Postage extra. Here is a romance of rare naturalness — a tale which sweeps one through the splendid forest land of British Columbia. TRAVEL ^UNKNOWN MONGOLIA: A Record of Travel and Exploration on Russo-Chinese Borderlands By DOUGLAS CARRUTHERS. With 168 illustrations, three original col- ored maps, and three other maps. In two volumes. $7.00 net. Postage extra. This will undoubtedly be one of the biggest travel books of the year. Mr. Carruthers spent nearly two years in exploring Mongolia, and this work is the only authoritative one In English. THROUGH JUBALAND TO THE LORIAN SWAMP By I. N. DRACOPOLI, P.R.G.S. 44 illustrations and 2 maps. $3.50 n£t. An adventurous journey of exploration and spoil in the unknown African forests and deserts of Jubalaud to the undiscovered Lorian Swamp. IN FAR NEW GUINEA By HENRY NEWTON, B.A. 47 il- lustrations and a map. $3.50 net. A stirring record of work and observations amongst the people of New Guinea, with a description of their manners, customs and religions, etc. THE WAYS OF THE SOUTH SEA SAVAGE By ROBERT W. WILLIAMSON, M.Sc. With 43 illustrations and a map. $3.50 net. A record of travel and observation amongst the savages of the Solomon Islands and primi- tive 'oast and mountain peoples of New Guinea. AMONG THE PRIMITIVE BAKONGO By JOHN H. WEEKS. 40 illustra- tions and a map. $3.50 net. A record of thirty years' close Intercourse with 1 lie Bakongo and other tribes of Equa- toii.il Africa, with a description of their habits, customs and religious beliefs. Lovers of Beautiful Gardens Will Prize THE PRACTICAL BOOK OF GARDEN ARCHITECTURE Fountains, Gateways, Peugolas, Tennis Courts, Lakes and Baths, Arches, Cascades, Wind-Mills, Temples, Spring-Houses, Bridges, Terraces, Water-Towers, etc. By PHEBE WESTCOTT HUMPHREYS. Frontispiece in color. 125 illus- trations. Square octavo. Ornamental cloth, in a box. $5.00 net. Car- riage extra. Containing 125 ILLUSTRATIONS OF GREAT BEAUTY from actual examples of Garden Architecture and House Surroundings. /( has been prepared: For the owner developing his own property — large or email; for the owner employing a professional garden architect ; for the artist, amateur, student, and garden-lover; and is the handsomest and most complete work of the kind ever published. It is written from the standpoints of Eminent Practicality, the Best Taste, and General Usefulness, being equally suited as a guide for either modest or extensive expenditure in city or in country. FREE ON REQUEST— An Eight-Page Circular describing in detail this Exceptional Work The TRAINING of a FORESTER By GIFFORD PINCHOT. 8 illus- trations. $1.00 net. Postage extra. This compact little book gives correct in- side information on Forestry in this country. Just the book to put in the hands of the young man who loves outdoor life. Mr. Pinchot has written an inspiring volume on the profession which he has brought so forci- bly to public attention. THE FLOWER FINDER By DR. GEORGE L. WALTON. With 590 illustrations. Limp lea- ther. $2.00 net. Postage extra. CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER: "What's that flower over there in the field? You'll find out in 'The Flower Finder.' Gives many color charts and sketches ; grouped so that you can easily find what you are looking for ; is bound in leather that permits it to be slipped in the pocket." THE A TIMELY NEW EDITION HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC Being the Story ef the British Antarctic Expedition 1907-1909 By SIR ERNEST H. SHACKLETON. New and Revised Popular Priced Edition. With a map and many illustrations in color and black and white. Large 12mo. Cloth. 368 pages. $1.50 net. Postage extra. The second Antarctic Expedition under the leadership of Sir Ernest H. Shackleton will start from the United States early in the Summer. The people of this country have shown the keenest interest in the various British Polar Expeditions, and it is for the many who y earlier nomlsts, are here dealt with In open eyed, new-century processes of fearless thinking. The average citizen will be b wiaai and thoughtful fellow niter perusing ami studying the argument* adduced in mis volume."
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The Nation. W H YOitK. rnvnSDAY, HAY 14, 1914. Summary of the News Rumors and alarms over the Mexican crisis have been plentiful, but, so far as the United States is concerned, there has been no marked change in the situation since we wrote last week, nor is any de- cided change anticipated pending the meeting of the mediators at Niagara Falls next Monday. That the military situation at Vera Cruz has occasioned anxiety has been evident from the frequent consulta- tions of the military authorities at Wash- ington, and the preparations made to re- inforce Gen. Funston's forces. Gen. Huerta, on Friday, made representations through the mediators protesting that the activities of the American troops at Vera Cruz were in violation of the armistice, and another protest was made on Monday against the "occupation" of Lobos Island, the light on which is being tended by American sailors for the benefit of navi- gation. It is understood that the agree- ment in force, which Gen. Huerta terms an armistice, permits of the strengthen- ing or moving of the troops on either side within their own lines, so long as no ad- vance is made. Two other incidents in the week which at one time caused serious alarm have been satisfactorily settled. The German steamship Kronprinzessin Cecilie, which had on board a consignment of arms and ammunition for Huerta, sailed from Vera Cruz on Monday without having dis- charged her cargo, and news was receiv- ed on Tuesday that the Mexican Gov- ernment had ordered the immediate re- lease of Vice-Consul John R. Silliman, who had been held a prisoner at Saltillo and concerning whose safety consider- able anxiety had been felt. The rebel attack on Tampico was re- newed on Sunday, and reports of its cap- ture have been circulated and contradict- ed with bewildering frequency. At the time of writing indications are that its fall will not long be delayed, and with Tampico in the hands of the rebels it seems probable that Saltillo will be aban- doned and that the Federal forces will fall back on San Luis Potosi, or some point even further south. Rumors per- sist that disaffection is spreading among Huerta's forces. We comment elsewhere on the wran- glings which have marked the proceed- ings of the Colorado Legislature in con- nection with the recent mine riots. It is satisfactory, however, to note that the admirable conduct of the Federal troops has had the effect of quieting the strike area and no further disturbances have been reported. On Monday the President issued an order for the compulsory dis- armament of all civilians, including dep- uty sheriffs, five o'clock Wednesday evening being fixed as the time limit for the voluntary surrender of arms. On Monday the Colorado House of Represent- atives passed the third reading of the bill to provide a $1,000,000 bond issue to pay for past, present, and future ex- penses of the militia in the strike field. The Naval Appropriation bill was pass- ed by the House on May 7. The bill car- ries approximately $140,000,000, and au- thorizes a building programme of two new battleships, six torpedo-boat destroy- ers, and eight submarines. A resolution authorizing the President to increase the strength of the regular army to 110,000 men was presented to the Senate on May 7 by Senator Chamber- lain, of Oregon, chairman of the Military Affairs Committee. The resolution was referred to the Committee on Military Affairs. A report issued by the Agricultural De- partment on May 7 indicates that the United States will this year harvest the greatest winter wheat crop in its history. According to the report, the condition of the growing crop over the whole of the United States is 95.9 per cent, perfect, and a harvest of 630,000,000 bushels may be anticipated. The final item of the Administration's enti-Trust programme came before the House on May 7, when the Railway Cap- italization bill was reported by the Com- mittee on Interstate and Foreign Com- merce. The bill, which has met with a considerable amount of opposition from the big railways, provides that railways, before issuing stocks or bonds, shall ob- tain authority from the Interstate Com- merce Commission; that all facts relat- ing to the issue of stocks or bonds shall be made public through the Commis- sion, and that interlocking directorates shall be prohibited except by permission of the Commission. Two boats containing the captain and thirty men of the steamship Columbian, of the Leyland Line, which was wrecked by a series of explosions in her hold and abandoned, burning, on May 4, 150 miles south of Sable Island, N. S., were picked up on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week by the Franconia and the Manhat- tan. A third boat, containing the rest of the crew, variously estimated at nine- teen to twenty-five in number, has not yet been accounted for, but it is hoped that she may have been rescued by some steamship not carrying wireless. There is apparently a prospect that the British Government may reconsider to some extent its uncompromising re- fusal to be officially represented at the Panama Exposition. A deputation con- sisting of nearly half of the members of the House of Commons waited upon Mr. Asquith last week to suggest for his con- sideration a scheme by which the Gov- ernment should build a special pavilion which should serve as a rallying point for British subjects. The Premier inti- mated that the scheme, which would in- volve small cost, might be adopted. It was officially announced in London on Thursday of last week that Prince Alexander of Teck, brother of Queen Mary, will succeed the Duke of Con- naught in October as Governor-General of Canada. No important developments have oc- curred in the Home Rule situation. Con- versations have taken place between members of the Government and Nation- alist leaders, and it was reported that a conference was also held early last week at which Mr. Asquith and Mr. Winston Churchill met Mr. Bonar Law and Sir Edward Carson. If, however, the meet- ing took place, the results of it have i\ot been made public. A petition from the Unionists of Leinster, Munster, and Con- naught, protesting against the Home Rule bill, was sent to the King on Monday. The French general elections were completed on May 10, when supplemen- tary ballots were taken in the 252 con- stituencies which failed to give the ma- jorities necessary to elect candidates at the first voting on April 26. The out- standing feature of the elections is the success of the Unified Socialists, who have obtained 102 seats in the new Cham- ber as compared with 64 in the last Par- liament. The grouping of the new Cham- ber is given in cable dispatches as fol- lows: Extreme Socialists, 102; Indepen- dent and Republican Socialists, 30; Unit- ed Radicals, 136; Independent Radicals and Republicans of the Left, 102; Demo- cratic Alliance, 100; Progressive and Fed- erated Republicans, 54 ; National Liberals, 34; Right, composed of Royalists and Ex- treme Conservatives, 26; Independent, 16. The Paris Temps, analyzing the returns, gives 308 of the 602 members as in favor of the three years' military service, 279 as supporting the income tax, and 352 for proportional representation. A severe earthquake occurred on the east coast of Sicily on Friday night, and slighter shocks were felt on the three days following. Nearly a score of vil- lages were destroyed by the shock of Fri- day, and the number of persons killed is estimated at between 150 and 200. The Italian Government has undertaken the work of relief, and troops are restoring order in the district. Fighting continues in northern Epirus between Epirotes and Albanians, the for- mer apparently being in the ascendant. A massacre of Mohammedan Albanians was reported to have taken place at Kodra early last week. The deaths of the week include: Am£d6e Gasquet, Judge John F. Dillon, May 5; Dr. Charles S. Wainwright, Coun- tess Edmond de Pourtales, May 6; Col. Milton Park, Vincenzo Lombardi, May 8; Charles W. Post, May 9; Mme. Lillian N'ordica, Ernst von Schuch, Frau von Bethmann-Hollweg, Sir William A. Smith, May 10; Col. John C. C. Mayo, Daniel de Leon, Arthur Gillespie, Major-Gen. Charles B. Hall, May 11.
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558 The .N a lion (Vol. 98, No. 2550 The Week Dispatches from Vera Cruz indicate that the army officers in command there are not losing their heads over the al- leged killing of Private Parks, an or- derly who, apparently in a state of men- tal aberration, caused by the heat, rode away from the American lines towards the Mexican lines. Gen. Funston, it is stated, deems it inadvisable to open for- mal communication with Gen. Maas, and is therefore leaving the case to be dealt with from Washington. But the incident serves to emphasize the spe- cial nature of the responsibility at pres- ent resting on President Wilson. That responsibility is more acute, and de- mands more constant and unflinching firmness in the pursuit of a fixed prin- ciple of conduct, than at any previous stage of the situation. Now from one quarter, now from another, will come distressing or disturbing stories, true and false. To sift the truth from the falsehood is in itself far from a light undertaking, and yet this is not the most troublesome aspect of these mat- ters. The incident of the Tampico refu- gees is a striking exemplification of the kind of danger that has continually to be dealt with — the danger or emotion and ignorance getting the better of judgment and knowledge. It is so much more "natural" to get indignant over the fact that the American warships did not go into the harbor and carry off our fellow-citizens than to recognize that in accepting the offer of the British com- mander we saved the lives of our com- patriots instead of exposing them to slaughter by infuriated Mexicans, and gave the peace negotiations a chance in- stead of plunging the country into war. The President has a trying task before him in steering the ship through these troubled waters; but it is a noble work, and the country trusts him to hold the rudder true. Congress and President seem to be settling down to a clear determination that the session must come to an end early in July. The decision is a wise one. After the first of July, any con- sideration that Congress may give to the questions involved in the very im- portant measures which the President desires to have passed is sure to be far from adequate. What it may be possi- ble to accomplish in the weeks still be- fore it, nobody can predict with con- fidence; the one thing certain is that a jamming-through process at this stage, especially in relation to the Trust bills, would be thoroughly bad. There are many essential points of difference be- tween the legislative situation surround- ing these bills and that which existed in regard to the Tariff bill and the Bank- ing and Currency bill. The lowering of the tariff was a clearly defined and cen- tral part of the programme to which the Democratic party was pledged. The reform of the banking and currency laws had been for years a universally acknowledged need of the country, and the work of the Monetary Commission, while not disposing of the difficulties and controversies affecting it, bad brought public opinion to a point at which a settlement could be compassed by vigor- ous and patriotic leadership. Upon the Trust bills there is neither any definite- ness of programme nor any general feel- ing in the country of the need of them. On the other hand, there is a widespread and intense conviction that the country is entitled to a rest. If Congress should adjourn without passing any Trust bills, the disappointment would, we imagine, be about as keen as would be the dis- appointment of the people of New York if the recent Constitutional Convention election should be declared void by the courts. It is gratifying to learn, from the general testimony of the Washington dispatches, that the Senate is likely to judge Mr. Wilson's appointments to the Federal Reserve Board on the basis of experience, knowledge, and fitness for the duties which will have to be per- formed. If confirmation is to be deter- mined on these grounds, there will be little doubt of the Senate's favorable action. Indeed, one good result of the thorough Congressional discussion of the Banking law's provisions, in and out of the committees last autumn, is that the average Congressman has gain- ed an unusually clear idea of the pe- culiarly exacting technical problems which will confront the Board, and of the absolute necessity of competent men to deal with them. No objection has been raised In any quarter to any of the President's nominations, on the ground of incompetence for the office. The most that has been heard, by way of crit- icism, is the somewhat perfunctory re- mark of one or two Senators like Mr. Bristow, that the proposed Board is "re- actionary in its personnel." "Reaction- ary" is always a serviceable word when a critic is at loss to find an explicit basis of opposition. In the present in- stance it might mean that the nominees were too largely men experienced in banking, or that they were men who would hesitate to indulge in haphazard experiments, or that they were likely to shape their official policies through study of the experience of the older and s ccessful state banks of Europe. In- asmuch as Senators of the majority par- ty are aware that the party's prestige will be affected by the practical success or failure of the important experiment, and inasmuch as Senators of the opposi- tion party are committed to the general purposes of the act, we imagine that such an argument will cut little figure in obstruction. From Para Col. Roosevelt hurled the word "blackmail" at the $25,000,000 which the new treaty proposes that the United States pay to Colombia. This is characteristic, but hardly conclusive. For Roosevelt himself when President, or, at any rate, his Secretary of State, Mr. Root, speaking for him, admitted that Colombia was entitled to money damages from us. He pointed out, early in 1909, when the Root-Cortez treaty was pending, that there were, in the treaty of 1846, as also by the original contract with the French Panama Canal Company, certain "stipulations and reservations running to Colombia," which it was necessary for this Govern- ment to quiet in order to make its title to the Canal Zone "unquestioned." In order to do this, Secretary Root offered, among other things, to pay the sum of $1,250,000. Was that blackmail? When the Taft Administration increased the offer of this country to $10,000,000, was it blackmail? Whether the proposed $25,000,000 is too much, we need not at present discuss. But it cannot fairly be called blackmail by the man who him- self was ready to pay a smaller sum. Blackmail begins with the first cent, not with the last million. In 1907 the New Havon found it ad- visable, so it is declared, to get rid of
Page 646
May 14, 1914] The Nation 559 some 109,000 shares of Boston & Maine stock which it held. Mr. Billard, a pri- vate capitalist, agreed to buy it at $125 per share. For this, and for some ad- ditional shares — enough to obtain con- trol—he paid part from his own cash resources and borrowed for the balance, one of the lenders being a subsidiary company of the New Haven itself. A year or so later the New Haven desired to buy back the stock. It did so at $150, paying, not in cash, but in the notes of another New Haven subsidiary. These notes Mr. Billard sold to a cor- poration which was organized for the purpose and in which he was the only stockholder, and that corporation issued its own notes in return. The New Ha- ven subsidiary which had loaned to Mr. Billard, when he first bought the Boston & Maine stock, now purchased from him the fourteen millions Billard Corpora- tion notes. With part of the proceeds he paid off his debt to that same sub- sidiary, and his loan to a New York bank. There remained the notes of the Billard Company held by the first of the New Haven subsidiaries, and these were in part redeemed by selling to the lending company the notes of the other New Haven subsidiary, which were col- lateral against the Billard Company's obligations. Mr. Billard's testimony be- fore the Interstate Commerce Commis- sion did not make it clear how all this remarkable series of financial achieve- ments left the mutual indebtedness of the various participants who had alter- nately figured as borrowers from or lenders to one another. None of the outward and visible mem- orials to the lofty place that Lincoln has already assuredly taken in history will be so striking in its significance as the statue that is to be erected oppo- site Westminster Abbey in connection with the peace centenary next year. The statue, which is to be a replica of Saint- Gaudens's impressive work in Lincoln Park, Chicago, is to be dedicated on Lincoln's birthday, which happens to fall within three days of the centenary of the signing of the Treaty of Ghent. Next year, it may be noted, will be also the semi-centennial of Lincoln's death. It would be difficult to Imagine a more dramatic setting for the statue than the one chosen. Hard by are the stately Houses of Parliament, and statues of such typical British statesmen as Peel, Palmerston, Disraeli, and Canning. What can an Illinois railsplitter, and rough and ready debater on New World questions, have to do with polished gen- tlemen like these? Even the presence of a statue of Cromwell only emphasizes the wonder of the matter, for Lincoln was neither a zealot nor a dictator. Yet no one will question his right to stand there, in streaming London's central roar, and visitors to the metropolis of the world will not look with least inter- est and emotion upon the figure of the ungainly man from across the sea. Gov. Blease's failure to control the Democratic State Convention of South Carolina, which is assured by his defeat in a large majority of the counties that have chosen delegates, does not neces- sarily mean his defeat for the Senator- ship. The chief questions that are to come before the State Convention bear, indeed, upon the primary at which the Senatorial nominee is to be chosen, and virtually elected. These questions are the safeguarding against fraud, charges of which were pointedly made in con- nection with the primary of 1912, and the restriction of admission to the pri- mary to those who are constitutionally qualified to vote at the regular election. At present, white illiterates are permit- ted to vote in the primary, which is the real election, and their better educated neighbors then go through the solemn farce of ratifying in November the tick- et so chosen. As Blease has always been strong with voters who could be stirred by appeals to race and other prejudices, exclusion from the primary of men who, knowing the law, have grown up without taking the trouble to learn to read and write, would appar- ently be a severe blow to him. But the Convention is more likely to pay atten- tion to the methods of preventing fraud than to the question of who shall be eligible to vote in the primary. At this distance, the chief thing that stands out in the doings of the Colorado Legislature thus far is an apparently complete failure to realize the disgrace that has fallen upon the State, and to join hands in an endeavor to redeem its good name. The Legislature was, of course, sure to have to grapple with subjects of controversy upon which feel- ing would be intense and struggle would be protracted. But in a State conscious of the obligations of its primary duty, and alive to the most rudimentary promptings of self-respect, the reestab- lishment of the supremacy of its own government within its own borders would demand and obtain the attention of the Legislature, to the exclusion of all other elements in the situation, until it was provided for. The wranglings at Denver are a most significant commen- tary on the bloodshed and anarchy in the mining districts. Impotence in the maintenance of the law, there is but too much reason to believe, has been merely a reflection of the lack of that kind of public sentiment upon which, in the last analysis, the integrity and the potency of the law everywhere depend. It is to be hoped that the Legislature will yet show that it has the capacity to rise to the demands of the situation. If it does not — if it shows itself con- tent to leave the duty of maintaining law and order within its own borders to be performed for an indefinite time by the United States army — it will put Colorado in a place which no sister State of her rank in population and wealth has ever been willing to occupy. Ohio is becoming an experiment sta- tion for municipal government. Taking advantage of the constitutional amend- ment granting home rule to cities, Day- ton is trying the city-manager plan, and Columbus has just adopted a new char- ter which is described as a modified fed- eral scheme. It was adopted by only 1,000 majority in a total vote of 16,000, which is but 40 per cent, of the vote cast at the last election. The features of the new charter are a council of seven chosen at large in place of the present council of sixteen chosen by wards; non-partisan election of, and preferen- tial voting for, Mayor, City Attorney, and Auditor, with the initiative, refer- endum, and recall. Separation of execu- tive and legislative powers is preserved by leaving in the hands of the Mayor the usual authority to appoint and re- move officers whose positions are creat- ed by the Council, while the Mayor and the Council are brought together by the provision that the Mayor has a seat in the Council, but no vote. It is not easy to see why the principles of non-par- tisan election and preferential voting
Page 647
5GO The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2550 should not be applied to the Council as well as to the other elective officers. Lillian Nordica was the greatest vo- cal artist America has produced. For sheer luscious beauty of tone her voice has seldom been equalled — "glorious" was an adjective frequently applied to it. She had, too, what most singers lack, style, and plentiful powers of ex- pression. She modestly attributed her suc- cess to her zeal and industry. "Plenty," she once remarked, "have natural voices equal to mine, plenty have talent equal to mine, but I have worked." Like Lilli Lehmann, her only superior in the parts of Isolde and Briinnhilde, she retained the art of singing Italian florid music brilliantly long after she had be- come a Wagnerian specialist. She ap- plied the Italian art of oel canto to Wagner's "speech-song"; and, converse- ly, infused the charms of the fervent dramatic style into such a part as Gou- nod's Marguerite. No artist was ever more eager to benefit by every hint given by the composer, in libretto, score, essay, or letter; yet so well did she know the art of concealing art that the result had the charm of emotional spontaneity. While the opera was her special domain, she was also inspiring in oratorio; the chance to hear her sing the "Inflam- matus" in Rossini's "Stabat Mater" al- ways drew a crowded house. As a sing- er of Lieder also she had few equals, often delighting connoisseurs with new touches, as when, in Schumann's "Nuss- baum," she emphasized the heart-story in it more than the whispering of the leaves. purchasing or confiscating works of ar- tistic or antiquarian value. In so far as commercial use is made of them, home legislation can check the trade; so far as their collection is by individuals, for public or private preservation, it has re- mained for the campaign of the Asiatic Institute to foster a sentiment against the graver abuses. Since Lord Elgin's day there has been strong sentiment against the spoliation of relics by the agents of museums, and others; it is pleasant to see it showing itself with regard to defenceless Orien- tal lands. At a meeting last week of the American Museum of Natural His- tory, "the trustees," we read, "authoriz- ed the president to communicate with the Chinese Government endorsing the movement of the Asiatic Institute for the preservation of the antiquities of China." Such action hopefully coincides with that of other institutions in Amer- ica and Europe. Nowhere more than from the nations eloquent for Chinese unity, have travellers, explorers, ambas- sadors, teachers fallen Into the habit of To Irish Home Rule it is presuma- bly appropriate that a lively row should leave the combatants in friendly mood. The army-against-the-people episode brought the House of Commons temper to a high pitch of exasperation, but ended on a strong note of peace. The recent gun-running episode gave rise to a revival of bitter partisanship; but once more conciliation seems to be to the fore. There is good reason for be- lieving that a second peace conference is already in session, and that any day may bring an acceptable basis of com- promise. This does not mean that the extremists on either side have been won over. A resolution against Home Rule in any form has just been signed by a hundred Unionists. In view of the fact that some form of Home Rule has been accepted by Carson and Bonar Law, and that Arthur Balfour in a pathetic speech virtually admitted that Home Rule was bound to come, we can look upon this latest manifesto as only an- other expression of the "die-hard"- spirit which has brought repeated misfortune on the Unionist party. If Mr. Austen Chamberlain was con- tent to say that the proposals in Mr. Lloyd George's new budget are so com- plex that they require much examina- tion, Americans may well be cautious in passing judgment upon them. The estimated expenditures for the fiscal year 1914-15 pass the billion-dollar mark by $30,000,000. The amount has been growing at an impressive rate, for a long time, and there is no sign of a slackening. Much of this increase has been due to the growing demands of war-preparedness, much to the social- welfare programme which has been the distinctive feature of the present Lib- eral Government's policy. To neither of these can any assignable limit be set; and there is accordingly likewise no telling to what heights taxation may be carried, especially in the case of the wealthy and the well-to-do. Already, in the proposed budget, the income-tax rate is above 13 per cent, in the case of large incomes, and nearly 7 per cent, in the case of "unearned" incomes — that is, incomes derived from investments — whether large or small; while the death- duties, or inheritance taxes, reach a maximum of 20 per cent. What the ul- timate effect of this policy may prove to be, it would be rash to predict. For Americans, it may be sufficient to re- mark that, if we should ever commit ourselves to the general principle of na- tional provision for old-age pensions, charity subventions, and the like, the scale on which it would be carried out would be pretty sure to make the Brit- ish experiment seem trifling. On Sunday occurred the second and final round in the elections to the Cham- ber of Deputies in France. The one outstanding result is a notable increase in the strength of the Unified Socialists, who will count roughly 100 in the new Chamber, a gain of more than 30, This leaves the official Socialist party in the French Parliament not far behind the German Socialists with 110 mem- bers of the Reichstag, and the German record is surpassed if we include the French Socialists of independent stand- ing who do not recognize the discipline of M. Jaures. Among the other groups that make up the Radical majority in the Chamber of Deputies, there have been comparatively unimportant shift- ings. Group and party lines are far from rigid in the French Chamber, and the fortune of programmes and leaders cannot be foretold on the basis of the elections. It is difficult to say even what the opinion of the country has been on issues like the three years' mili- tary service or the income tax. On the one hand, figures have been published showing that candidates in favor of maintaining the service of three years have been successful. But this is out- weighed by the very striking increase among the Socialists, who are in favor of returning to the two years' service. The quinquennial recurrence of parlia- mentary elections shows the unquestion- ed solidification of the Republic. The various monarchist ■ factions and the Conservative Centre have been steadily going down.
Page 648
May 14, 1914] The ]STation 561 LYING FOR THE SAKE OF WAR. We hear of many complaints about newspaper "specials" from Mexico. The regular press services give cause enough, in all conscience, for disquie- tude. They feel compelled to send on a certain amount of rumor, but it is plain- ly labelled as such. No like restraint influences the correspondents in the em- ploy of certain New York newspapers. Of them it is necessary to use plain lan- guage. More than one of them is known in the profession to be utterly untrust- worthy. They have been detected be- fore in reckless lying. Moreover, the stories they have forwarded are ob- viously composed in large part of wild romancing. They snap up the most im- probable reports and enlarge upon them with every detail that their fancy can suggest. All that one would need to do to demonstrate their entire untruthful- ness would be to take a series of their dispatches, covering a period of a week or ten days, and see how assertion after assertion falls to the ground. They do not retract anything proven false, these correspondents; they simply replace one lie with another. Now, the great harm done by their conscienceless work, and especially by printing it day after day under big head- lines, is that it inevitably confuses and misleads the American public. The general newspaper reader cannot be ex- pected to scrutinize narrowly all that is laid before him as coming from Mexico. He knows nothing of the character of the men sending on the stuff. Nor is he accustomed to noting closely internal evidence, or to weighing inherent prob- abilities. He gets merely the constant iteration of alarming news, and the im- pression made upon him is that war is inevitable. And, of course, to produce that impression is precisely the fiendish intent of the men who invent insults to the United States in Mexico, and who manufacture outrages out of whole cloth. They are in their hearts for war and would stop at nothing to bring it on. The sensational newspapers for two or three weeks past recounted the slaughter of Americans by scores. Americans had been set upon and butchered in Mexico City; they had been killed in San Luis and in Orizaba; Saltillo and Tampico and Cuernavaca had their American slain. But we now know, as the truth has slowly filtered out, that all this mass of rumor and in- sinuation and alarm had the smallest possible foundation in fact. The early statements were not withdrawn; they were stamped as false, one after anoth- er, by the mere course of events. It is now well established that there has been nothing like a massacre of Americans anywhere in Mexico. Since the rela- tions between the two countries became acute, there may have been a few indi- vidual cases of murder, or attempted murder, but it is now certain that the positive and alarmist reports of a few days ago were one part rumor to nine parts lying. As the facts become known, it is more and more evident that the Mexi- can authorities have done all within their power to protect the lives of Americans, and to aid them in leaving the country in safety, when they desire to do so. Tucked away on an inside page of the New York Times of last Sunday was a little telegram from Mexico City, conveying the attitude and belief of many Americans there. They think that their danger has been great- ly exaggerated. Especially is it untrue that long-time American residents, who have sense enough to refrain from acts of provocation, are exposed to any spe- cial risk. The telegram concludes: Every day well-known American men and women are seen tranquilly walking in the thoroughfares of the city. Women engage in their shopping or marketing as usual. So far from being naturally ferocious, the great majority of Mexicans are natu- rally gentle. With what special wonder must a first-hand statement like this overcome a reader long fed on the lurid accounts of sensational newspapers! Yet every one who knows anything at all about the Mexicans knows that they have been grossly calumniated by much of the matter that has been published in the American press. Mexico has her turbulent classes. And she has, unhap- pily, a long tradition of cruelty in war- fare. But to suppose, as many of our rash newspaper writers would have us, that the mass of the Mexican people are bloodthirsty and treacherous and without the element of humanity, is monstrous. It is really an affront to our intelligence. All the unbiassed witnesses speak well of the native In- dian stock, making up, as it does, three- fourths of the population. The educated classes have manners so fine as to make the ordinary American appear boorish. And they are not behind us in natural kind-heartedness. "Will lying never cease?" Horace Greeley used indignantly to demand. It is probably too much to hope. But it is not too much to hope that the sentiment of a great people, in a time of national crisis, will not be moulded by systemat- ic exaggerations and misrepresentations. Above all, it is not too much to hope that the policy of the Administration will not be determined by lying news- paper dispatches. SENATOR O'GORMAN'S SPEECH. Senator O'Gorman's speech on Pana- ma tolls last Thursday was awaited with natural interest. He is the one leading Democrat in the Senate who has broken with his party and with the President on this question. It was right to ex- pect, therefore, a powerful statement from him of the reasons which com- pelled him to this course. Moreover, his reputation as a Constitutional lawyer and as a former judge had inevitably awakened hopes of a great argument. We should hear the words of a jurist dealing with law and treaty. Seldom, indeed, have political and personal con- siderations so joined to give a Senator in advance a wide and attentive audi- ence for a carefully prepared speech. The occasion was made for Senator O'Gorman. Did he rise to it? A patient reading of the entire text of his speech leaves one with a sense of disappointment. Surely, this cannot be what the Senate and the country had been waiting for! It would be, we ad- mit, unfair to expect Senator O'Gorman to strike out on wholly new lines in a matter which has been so thoroughly debated. He could not but traverse a good deal of familiar ground. But he might at least have given us ordered and coherent argument. He might have spared us the clap-trap about British arrogance and rapacity, and the wicked scheming of our railways, which any demagogue from the West could have got off with better grace than the Sena- tor from New York. Above all, Sena- tor O'Gorman might have addressed himself to the legal points Involved with the close analysis and logical grappling of a mind trained by years on tho bench. But he did not. His speech is
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562 T lie 1ST a t i o ri [Vol. 98, No. 2550 flung together, rather than close Knit; and his arguments in the very matters where he was supposed to be a master are far from being conclusive. We can touch upon his reasoning only at two or three points. Senator O'Gor- man makes a great deal of our sov- ereign rights at Panama. These can- not be deeded away by treaty, although they are acquired by treaty. He round- ly asserts that "the Supreme Court of the United States, in Wilson against Shaw (204 U. S., 33), decided that the sovereignty of the United States over this tract, known as the Canal Zone, is the same as over any other part of the United States." Senator O'Gorman does not cite any of the words used by the Court in the case referred to, and we think it would puzzle him to find any language in it justifying his sweeping assertion. The case of Wilson against Shaw was a suit to restrain the Secre- tary of the Treasury from paying out money or issuing bonds for the construc- tion of a canal at Panama. And all that the Court held was that, for the pur- poses of canal building, we had sov- ereign rights on the Isthmus. This is no denial that our sovereignty there is limited. It came to us, by treaty with Panama, impressed with a trust. If we were not to execute the trust we should have no title to the Zone. The point was forcibly put by Representative Ste- vens, whose speech is, by common con- sent, reckoned the ablest that has been delivered on this whole subject. Refer- ring to the fact that Panama still has, in ex-President Taft's phrase, "a shadow of sovereignty" over tne Zone, Mr. Ste- vens asked what would happen if we were to abandon the canal project en- tirely. Why, the land would revert to Panama automatically! So far is it from being true, as Senator O'Gorman affirms, that our sovereignty at Panama is as unlimited as it is in Fourteenth Street. The United States took the Zone im- pressed with a trust, and a part of that trust was, as plainly laid down in the treaty with Panama, to build the Canal and to open it, when constructed, "in conformity with all the stipulations of the treaty entered into by the Govern- ments of the United States and Great Britain on November 18, 1901." This is the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, and to that and its interpretation we neces- sarily come back after all the irrelevant blether about our limitless sovereign rights. But Senator O'Gorman has scarcely the patience to examine in de- tail the Hay-Pauncefote treaty. He does, indeed, offer an argument to show that the word "vessels" in that treaty does not mean coastwise vessels, but he re- gards the whole treaty as a "blunder," just as the Clayton-Bulwer treaty be- fore it was a "dismal page" in our dip- lomatic history. We doubt, however, if Judge O'Gorman would have permitted a suitor in his court to squirm out of a contract on the plea that he was sorry he had ever entered into it; and wheth- er the Hay-Pauncefote treaty was or was not the lamentably bad bargain that it is now asserted to be, there it stands, a national obligation, and there is no way of railing the seal off that bond. It may be that the main reason why Senator O'Gorman did not, in the "great- est effort of his life," meet the expecta- tions of his friends, is the fact that he felt that the battle had gone against him, and that the archers are pressing him sore. When all is said, there is a perfunctory air about his speech. He had to maintain his consistency. He had to go on record. In the very act, he seems to be aware that nothing which he can say will change a vote or affect the result. Indeed, he says in so many words that he is simply fulfilling a duty in making his solemn protest "before the deed is consummated." De- spite all this, there will be disappoint- ment that he was not able to make a better show of argument to justify his course. The hour was there, the high occasion, the great opportunity, Out the powerful reasoner was wanting. THE PRICE OF HEALTH-WORSHIP. In a recent article Dr. Goldwater, Commissioner of Health of New York, has presented the case for "universal periodic medical examinations" with great vigor and force. So far as regards the advantage of early medical examina- tion for the discovery, and possible ef- fective treatment, of cases of cancer, tu- berculosis, and certain other diseases, what he says is calculated to do much good. But there is a larger aspect to the proposal he puts forward — a pro- posal that has of late been much in the air — and to the doctrine upon which it rests. And it is time this larger aspect were realized in a manner commensur- ate with its bearing on the whole char- acter of human life. Whether Dr. Goldwater, or Dr. Biggs before him, or the estimable and dis- tinguished gentlemen who are the back- ers of the Life Extension Institute Movement, look upon compulsory medi- cal examination of all persons as their goal, we cannot positively state. Appar- ently they do. Dr. Biggs has been quot- ed as advocating medical examination of all "citizens," which points very strongly that way. No unmistakable statement of such an object has yet been made, so far as we have observed; but we are as yet only in the first begin- nings of the movement. Dr. Goldwater's article closes as follows: The next great task of preventive med- icine is, therefore, the inauguration of universal periodic medical examinations as an indispensable means for the con- trol of all diseases, whether arising- from injurious personal habits, from congeni- tal or constitutional weakness, or from social and vocational conditions. If we see this in the green tree, what may we expect to find in the dry? Will it be much of a step from "universal" examination to compulsory examina- tion? Will it be much of a step from that to compulsory heeding of the re- sults of that examination? Is there any limit that can safely be set to the ex- tension, not of life, but of the meddling with life, which this whole movement promises? But it is by no means on the score of legal compulsion alone that the pro- posal of "universal periodic medical ex- amination" is open to objection. Wheth- er brought about by legal requirement or by the pressure of general opinion, the benefits to health and the prolonga- tion of life which it might effect would be purchased at a tremendous price. What that price would be it re- quires some power of imagination, per- haps, to realize; but some idea of it may be obtained from the very facts which Dr. Goldwater adduces. Take but a sin- gle one of them. "In a recent examina- tion of the employees of a New York city bank," he says, "100 per cent, of the employees were found to be abnormal and on the sure road to diseases of heart, lungs, kidneys, or blood vessels." Very likely, this examination will have been the means of stopping tin- progress of disease in the case of some of theafl men; but if the fact is as stated. Ilw whole body of them were suddenly con-
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May 14, 1914] The ]STation 563 verted from a group of normal men, nearly all of whom were doubtless go- ing about their work and their play with no thought of sickness, into a solid body of semi-invalids. Who shall say that the addition of two or three years to the average duration of their existence will outweigh, in the scales which measure real human values, the freedom, the elasticity, the unconsciousness of the trammels of the body, which have been impaired or destroyed by this intrusion? And even from the standpoint of medi- cal results, in the narrowest sense, there is room for grave misgivings. Not all diagnoses are correct; not all alarms given by medical men are well-founded. It may be said in reply that we must do the best we can. So be it. Let every man who feels that he has some reason to suspect that there may be something wrong get medical advice by all means, and get it early. He must take his chance of a certain average percentage of error. But whatever that percentage of error may now be — and it Is not in- significant— would be a mere trifle in comparison with what the new pro- gramme bids fair to furnish. "The task before us," says Dr. Goldwater, "is to discover the first sign of departure from the normal physiological path, and promptly and effectually to apply the brake." With this as the ideal before them, will not the false alarms of the physicians outnumber those of to-day ten to one, or fifty to one? Will not thousands of persons who might have lived happily and comfortably to three score and ten before that "first sign of departure" had developed into anything serious, be called upon to exercise care, to be solicitous about their bodies in- stead of ignoring them, and, in no one knows how many cases, have their lives not only dulled, but actually shortened by hypochondria? "Those to whom the care of delicate mechanical apparatus is entrusted," says Dr. Goldwater, "do not wait until a breakdown occurs, but inspect and ex- amine the apparatus minutely, at regu- lar intervals, and thus detect the first signs of damage." This is the favorite simile of the health-enthusiasts. But in it are embedded two fatal fallacies. In the first place, the working of a ma- chine is not affected by our concern over it, while our body may be. And second- ly, the only interest we have in the ma- chine is that it shall function well as a mechanism; while in the case of our bodies we may deliberately choose to sacrifice perfection of the mechanism to other objects which we prize more high- ly— indeed, we must do so, at some point or other, if we wish to keep out of Bed- lam. OTHER WORLDS THAN OURS. If we had a real sense for intellectual values, the centre of public interest nowadays would be found neither in the Mexican situation nor in the Colo- rado troubles, neither in the railway- rate question nor in the Administration programme as to Trust legislation. Things like these, which, however im- portant they may seem at the moment, are, after all, of comparatively transient significance, would be completely over- shadowed in interest by revelations that are being made, in at least two distinct directions, which must affect profoundly all our views of man and nature. We refer especially to two remarkable docu- ments. One is the statement of Gen. Sir Alfred Turner, K.C.B., contained in the cable dispatches of Friday, concerning the visits paid by the late W. T. Stead, or his spirit, to sundry highly respec- table persons who have not yet shuffled off this mortal coil. The other is the article by Maeterlinck, in the current number of the Metropolitan Magazine, telling in great detail of the intellec- tual prowess of the gifted horses of Elberfeld. What to our mind gives special value to Major-Gen. Sir Alfred Turner's state- ment is that it goes far to remove a reproach often directed against the la- bors of psychical researchers. Unlike almost any other branch of science, it is said, this appears to be wholly lack- ing in the quality of progressiveness, of cumulative strength and definiteness. Now, although the casual reader of the news may not observe it, Gen. Turner's statement marks an advance of the highest importance. When Mr. Stead appeared, lie tells us, to a group of persons gathered at Cambridge House to receive him, he "came to them in short, sharp flashes, dressed exactly as when on earth." This question of the clothes worn by returning spirits has always been one of the most perplexing in the whole matter; never before, so far as we can recall, has it been settled by authority so impressive as that of a K.C.B. We know now that it is not only the spirit that returns, nor only its wonted bodily accompaniment, but also the outer garments of the latter. Thus a vast new field of research opens up; and there is every reason to ex- pect that in the matter of costume- hitherto strangely neglected— there will be found far greater variety and in- terest than has as yet been developed by the oral communications of the ghostly visitants, though they have ranged all the way from Socrates to Stead. Turning to Maeterlinck's article on "The Elberfeld Horses," we find in it an embarrassment of riches, and are reluctantly compelled to name only the one or two things that strike us as most remarkable. It is difficult to choose. One is tempted, for instance, to dwell on the rapidity with which the Arab stallion Muhamed acquired his mastery of arithmetic; so strikingly does it con- trast not only with what one expects from a horse, but with what can usually be got out of even the most talented of boys or girls: Within a fortnight of the first lesson, Muhamed did simple little addition and subtraction sums quite correctly. He had learned to distinguish the tens from the units, striking the latter with his right foot and the former with his left. He knew the meaning of the symbols plus and minus. Four days later, he was be- ginning multiplication and division. In four months' time, he knew how to ex- tract square and cubo roots. But, after all, this gives no accurate idea of just what problems the hofse could tackle; nor does it preclude the possibility of some kind of deception or mistake. We pass at once, therefore, to what is at once the crowning exam- ple of the horse's intellectual powers and a complete demonstration of their genuineness. Dr. Hamel, an investi- gator, "alone in the stable with the horse," its owner being away travelling, "takes from an envelope a problem of which he does not know the solution," namely, to find the fourth root of 7,890,- 481. "Muhamed replies, 53. The doctor looks at the back of the paper; once more the answer is perfectly correct." Interesting as these marvels are In themselves, they are perhaps even more interesting in their bearing on the gen- eral question of the principles of belief and unbelief. The great majority of those persons who are usually regarded,
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534, The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2550 and who usually complacently regard themselves, as sound thinkers attach great importance to the antecedent prob- ability or improbability of a given as- sertion, its accordance or disagreement with the whole body of human know- ledge. When this improbability is very great, when this disagreement is ex- treme, they not only hesitate to believe it, but are usually unwilling to spend more than a moderate amount of time upon its consideration. It is for this reason that the champions of the view that the earth is flat, though they emerge into a certain conspicuousness at long intervals, can never get more than a brief hearing and a summary dis- missal. It is for this reason that the inventors of Bacon-Shakespeare ciphers, though they get up a new one every year that is every bit as good as the one that was cast into limbo the year before, never succeed in having their doctrine recognized. The great service done by the Elberfeld horses lies not in the light they may throw upon the in- telligence of animals, but in the rebuke they administer to the arrogance of science and of so-called common-sense. Hereafter, when any one is tempted to reject a tale simply because it is in- herently absurd, or a scientific crotchet hatched in an untutored mind because it is ridiculous, the single word "Elber- feld" should suffice to reduce him to si- lence and shame. RATIONALE OF SCHOOLBOY BLUN- DERS. By what the English call "howlers" in school recitations, examination papers, etc., amusement has long been furnished. Genuine or invented, undoubtedly often touched up as they are passed on in con- versation or in print, they have usually been thought of as mere blunders, chance vagaries of the young human animal un- dergoing education. But, as was inevi- table, they have now begun to be studied scientifically. Here is a range of mental activity — or inactivity — which has not been thoroughly investigated, with the results neatly classified; and it would ap- pear that several inquirers are putting their hand to the work. Prof. John Adams, who holds the chair of Education in the University of London, has been lecturing to teachers on the need of de- fining "howlers," and tracing them to their source; and the London Spectator recently devoted a page to the subject. A whole large class of schoolboy mis- takes must, of course, be set down to lack of knowledge. "Pure ignorance, madam," is still as good an explanation as it *vas in Dr. Johnson's day. And when you add to It inattention on the pupil's part, with a touch of impudence, you have the spring and origin of many school blunders. The boy takes a shot at a question, when he has no idea at all of the true answer to it, and thereby produces occasionally something bril- liantly ludicrous. But these happy strokes of effrontery are not the commonest source of "howlers." If they were, there would be, of course, nothing in them to analyze; no obscure workings of the schoolboy mind to seek to follow. It is the honest blunderer who is in question, not the reckless guesser; and it appears possible to work out rules or reasons to account for different groups of "howlers." One of them is, obviously, the little knowledge that is a dangerous thing — knowledge misunderstood or not assimi- lated. The boy knows something about the subject, but knows it hazily, and in trying to come out of his fog makes un- conscious jokes. This was the case of the schoolgirl who was asked to explain the "classes" into which the United States Senate was originally divided by the Constitution. She wrote that the Senate was divided into three classes, the civilized, the semi-civilized, and the savage. To those who laughed at this as ignorance, Mark Twain protested that, in fact, the girl "knew too much." Translation from foreign languages is naturally a fruitful mother of uninten- tionally humorous mistakes. The ven- erable instances from the classics it is not necessary to repeat. More recent ones are certified to by English school au- thorities. Thus we have the unexpected trade turn given to "exempli gratia," which was translated "samples free." Another excellent Latin "howler" is the rendering of "Libertas sub rege pio" as "Our pious king has got liberty under." A third seems, though vouched for, quite too good to be true — namely, translating "splendide mendax" as "lying in state." Considering what were until lately the relations between England and Germany, it is hardly surprising to find an English schoolboy translating "le vieil Allemand," "the vile German." Merely phonetic blunders make up a large class. The pupil has heard the word indistinctly, or confused it with some other of similar sound. For this the reproach must often belong to the teacher, on the score of indistinct articu- lation. It was due either to this, or to defective hearing on the part of the pupil, that the latter said that the only pouched animal in America was the "apostle." In a similar way, no doubt, originated the information that Hannibal was a well-known composer of music. And church as well as school is responsi- ble for mixing up sounds in the child's head. It was in good faith that the little girl recited: "Lord, who hatest nothing but the housemaid" ["nothing that thou hast made"]. It is evident that there ought to be dis- crimination, by teachers and investiga- tors, between "howlers" that are purely foolish, and those that have their natural explanation. "Why," a boy was asked, "is Patti called the Welsh nightingale?" His answer was: "Because she sings at night." In this .there was a glimmer l sense that ought to be encouraged, even if it iimisI In' laughed at. Foreign Correspondence THE IMPROVEMENT IN ANGLO- GERMAN RELATIONS — RESULTS OF THE BALKAN WARS— THE AT- TITUDE OF RUSSIA. Berlin, May 1. Berlin looked on unmoved at the cor- diality of King George's recent reception in Paris. Germany has got used to the entente cordiale and England to the Ger- man fleet. In Germany, the idea that John Bull will begin war without notice out of pure envy of Germany's swelling trade returns is dying of want of nutri- tion. The British shipyards are still active, because of the generous foreign patron- age they enjoy. But the German yards, which depend for battleship orders on their own Government, are beginning a period of lean years. They now build two capital ships a year instead of four, and even when the Navy bill is com- pleted they will only receive orders for two battleships and one cruiser a year. The main factor in bringing about these improved conditions was undoubt- edly the Balkan War. The Anglo-Ger- man rivalry presented mankind with the august spectacle of two perfect egotisms in conflict. Germany said, "I want." Eng- land replied, "Thou shalt not have." Neither harmed the other in any way. England simply could not see how Ger- many could "have," without possessing the means to "take," which did not fit in with her arrangements. Young Ger- many was fully convinced that the world had been Anglo-Saxonized long enough, and that it was time to give modern methods a trial, which could not be if the globe was still to be regarded as a prolongation of the London suburbs. The Balkan War disturbed the mag- nificent simplicity of this antagonism. As long as England thought there was to be a war with Germany for the mas- tery of the seas, and Germany thought of the coming struggle as the gateway to the colonial empire of which so many Germans dream, there was no limit to the animosity that both countries could develop. When, however, it turned out that the war was to settle whether the Montenegrins or the Albanians were to have Skutari, the prospect was less ap- pealing. It has become clear to both peoples that neither will attack the other. If they fight, the Anglo-German conflict will be a part of a general European war, which can only arise out of a Bal- kan quarrel between Russia and Aus- tria; and that will not directly touch any German or British interest, and cannot in any case bring real advantage to either country. If victory remained with the Triple Entente, the main result would be a huge extension of Russian iniiucnce in Europe and Asia, which is not exactly what the English pray tor. [f the Triple Alliance won, German; would have the burden of the fighting, her IndustTJ would suffer out of all proportion to the losses of 1 li'SS hir.lilv ilivrl oped allies, and the profH of victory would go mainly to Austria Hungary, The dual monarchy would gel a ntw
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May 14, 1914J Tlie Nation 535 lease of life. But Germany does not want to take anything from Russia, and her share would be the implacable hate of the Russian people, which is too young and too numerous to suffer permanently from an unsuccessful war. So that England and Germany are on the side of peace, and throughout the Balkan troubles, which are by no means over yet, both have exercised a moder- ating and restraining influence on their friends. Uprmany on Austria, England on Russia. The obvious unwillingness of England to convert the entente into a hard-and-fast alliance is another fac- tor in the reconciliation between the two Powers. It seems to be forgotten in France that an English offensive and defensive alliance is not of much use un- less England binds herself to keep her main weapon, the navy, constantly with- in striking distance of the enemy, that is, within European waters. Practically speaking, of course, that state of affairs already exists; but a definite pledge to keep the fleet in the North Sea would alter the situation to the disadvantage land. It would be known to other Powers, and might very conceivably af- fect the attitude of Japan when the Anglo-Japanese alliance comes to be re- newed. At any rate, it is a consideration which makes for peace between England and Germany. On such foundations are international friendships based. Time and incalculable circumstance have worked for England, as it is the habit of the eternal forces to favor in- sular and maritime powers. The island sea Powers have as a rule only one en- emy at a time, whereas that enemy has to compound with a jealous land-neigh- bor, who has a coterminous frontier with him. This principle has worked strikingly to the advantage of England during the last five years. When the Anglo-German naval rivalry became acute, Germany was on something like friendly terms with Russia. She had gone out of her way to help Russia during the war with Japan. In consequence of Ger- man assurances, Russia was able to de- nude her western frontier of troops. Rus- sia was, of course, the ally of France, but this was understood to be a measure of precaution on her part, a defensive and not an offensive arrangement into which she had entered a dozen years after the Triple Alliance had menaced her with at least a two-Power enemy in case she quarrelled with Austria. Further, Russia was weakened by de- feat in foreign war, racked by rebellion at home, and in the hands of money lenders. We have changed all that. The revolution is suppressed, a series of good harvests has placed the Government in a condition of financial independence, and the Manchurian bruises have heal- ed. Russia is still without a navy, but a start has been made with a new one, and in ten years she will have a formidable fleet in the Baltic. Whether it will be more efficient than the fleet which rest? on the floor of the Straits of Korea or serves the yellow enemy under new names, remains to be seen. But there is the probability that Russia, too, has learned, and in case of war with the Triple Alliance a powerful Russian squad- ron in the Baltic would be a serious men- ace for Germany. Now it is certain that in a few years the Russian squadron will be there, and it is equally certain that if Germany tries conclusions with Eng- land between the Kentish coast and the Frisian Islands, Russia will be taking a hand on the side of England. There is no pretence of friendship be- tween Russia and Germany now. The Balkan war has removed the last traces of good feeling on the Russian side. The Russians realized with unspeakable bit- terness last year that it was the Ger- man army, with which they have no di- rect quarrel, that crippled their Balkan policy. With Austria they would soon have settled scores, but for Germany they were not ready. They are not ready yet, but they are making feverish ef- forts to bring their army to the point where it will be ready to challenge the Austro-German combination, and they have the advantage of inexhaustible numbers. THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN JAPAN —COUNT OKUMA AND THE NEW MINISTRY. Tokio, April 20. Japan has recently passed through an ordeal. The naval scandal, culminating in the collapse of the Cabinet, and fol- lowed by the sudden death of the Em- press Dowager, plunging the whole em- pire again into mourning, has proved a period of stress to the public mind and a severe test of the national temper. All tendency to rancor and political tur- moil has been hushed in the presence of death, and with the inauguration of a Ministry the personnel of which is more popular and hopeful than that of any Cabinet the country has had for many years, Japan looks forward to a season of quietness and prosperity. The remarkable thing about the fall of the Yamamoto Government is that the charges of corruption in the navy, which were indirectly the cause of the Cabi- net's undoing, have yet to be proved in due course of judicial procedure. The late Government was thus virtually condemned and cast out without a hear- ing. The preliminary examination of the accused officers took a long time, during which the public mind was inflamed through the press by all sorts of rumors tending to prejudge the case, and the people became so exasperated that the Government could no longer withstand them. The immediate cause of the Cabinet's resignation was the action of the House of Peers in refusing to sanction the na- val budget. A subsequent conference of both Houses led to a deadlock, and the Cabinet was forced out. The choice of Count Okuma, the "Sage of Waseda," for Premier is the most pleasant surprise that Japan has expe- rienced for many years. For more than a quarter of a century he has been the leading champion of popular rights — re- form of all kinds, extension of education, modern methods — as well as a leader in the peace movement. Consistently wag- ing warfare against the bureaucracy, he was ostracized bv them, and for years has held no public office. Raised to the Premiership once before, in 1898, he overcame the opponents of liberalism. He lost one of his legs by a bomb, but he has never wavered from his course; and now that he finds himself once again in power, the nation is anticipating great things. No sooner was his name an- nounced as the head of the new Cabinet than prices on the Stock Exchange took a leap upwards. More striking still is the fact that the vernacular press is almost unanimous in its approval. This universal acclaim is doubtless due to the fact that the masses are expecting Count Okuma to carry out all the reforms that he has been advocat- ing for the last fifteen years. But the new Premier will go much more cautious- ly than the radical element expects; for Count Okuma is no radical. He is a Japanese of the Japanese, and believes that if Japan has much to learn from the West, she also has much to teach the West. He is unlikely to ignore any in- fluential section of public opinion, wheth- er it be bureaucratic, aristocratic, or democratic, though he will insist on the freedom which all progressive peoples de- mand. The policy of the new Japanese Cabi- net may to some extent be inferred from the personnel Count Okuma has selected. It is a coalition Cabinet, representing the minority parties in the Imperial Diet. The minor parties, thus for the first time united, are likely to prove the dis- comfiture of the Seiyukai party, which kept the last Government in power. The next most important member to the Pre- mier is Baron Kato, Minister of Foreign Affairs. As Ambassador to Great Britain he was well known to the English-speak- ing world. His long and successful ca- reer as a diplomat revealed him to be a man of uncommon ability and tact, and much is expected of him in connection with negotiations now in process with the United States, and Japan's Far East- ern policy generally. From an Occiden- tal point of view, one of the most inter- esting men in the new Cabinet is the Hon. Yukio Ozaki, Minister of Justice. For many years Mayor of Tokio, he made a name for himself as an able adminis- trator, winning favorable opinions both at home and abroad. Most of the other members of the Cabinet are men of eminence. Baron Oura and Mr. Wakatsuki have held Cab- inet positions before, the latter in the last Katsura Cabinet as Minister of Fin- ance, and the former in the last Saionji Cabinet as Minister of Agriculture and Commerce. The new Cabinet represents all that was admirable in the last Katsura Cabi- net, with the still greater strength of the Liberal wing of Japanese polities. It is in fact an admirable combination for a nation needing many reforms that should be carried out slowly but surely, so as to avoid what is too radical and revolu- tionary. Japan is passing through a period of popular awakening, in which too much baste might arouse a propen- sity to lawlessness and illegitimate means of gaining ends. All the members of the new Cabinet are men of mature experi- ence, with clean public records. "Dempo."
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zee T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2550 A Naughty Decade OSOAR WILDE AND OTHER DECADENTS OP nil; NINETIES PRETEXT OF TUE MOVE- MENT—ITS REAL SOUHCE. PART ONE. Mr. Jackson has written a book* that is at once excellent in understanding and perverted in its conclusions; nor, if one considers his theme, is this para- dox as singular as it might appear, for it is a common mark of the condition which he expounds as apologist. His sub- ject, with some excursions into alien matters, is the irruption of a sort of decadence into English art and litera- ture in the closing years of the nine- teenth century; and his quotations are so apt and abundant, his characteriza- tions so clear and well-instructed, that one scarcely needs to go outside of his pages to form an independent judgment of the school, while the confusion of his own ideas when he tries to interpret the facts is an added document in evi- dence. I. The movement, whose influence to-day is concealed because it has put on a new disguise, may be said to have opened with the publication of Oscar Wilde's "Decay of Lying" and "Picture of Dorian Gray" in 1890, and to have closed with his pitiful death in 1900. By the little band who were working so feverishly in the midst of the surround- ing British Philistinism it was thought to be the dawn of a new era for art — "a great creative period is at hand," wrote William Sharp. While at the same time it was felt to be the end of all things, and the phrase fin de siecle was whispered as a kind of magic form- ula. "It's fang-de-seeaycle that does it," says one of John Davidson's bur- lesque characters, "and education, and reading French." As one goes back to the productions of these men now, and particularly as one turns over the effu- sions in the early volumes of the Yel- low Book, one is likely to be impressed mainly by a note of amateurishness run- ning through their work. In compari- son with the decadents of the Continent whom they attempted to imitate, they appear rather like truant boys who need to be spanked and sent again to their lessons. In the first issue of the Yellow Book, the "incomparable" Max Beer- bohm prints "A Defence of Cosmet- ics," wherein he observes sententiously that "the Victorian era comes to its end and the day of sancta simplicitas is quite ended." The essay seems to us to- day, with the reek of Broadway in our nostrils, as childlike a piece of extrava- gance as could well be Imagined; yet it 'The Eighteen Nineties. By Holbrook Jackson. Mew York: Mitchell Kennerlcy. $3.00 net. succeeded in rousing a little storm of protest, and one solemn critic wrote it down as "the rankest and most nauseous thing in all literature." Another con- tributor, Lionel Johnson, asks, in sur- prise at his own naughtiness: "What would the moral philosophers, those puzzled sages, think of me? An harm- less hedonist? An amateur in morals, who means well, though meaning very little?" And one is inclined to answer: "My dear sir, be comforted; the puz- zled sages would not have thought of you at all." Yet however we may, and do, pass by these books as largely factitious imita- tions, there is an aspect of the revolt that is serious enough in all conscience. The disease from which it sprung was no jest, and beneath the antic contor- tions of their wit these men were suf- fering the very real pangs of physical disorganization. It is in fact like a nightmare to read their lives. The hectic decay of Aubrey Beardsley is al- most health in comparison with the state of most of those who gave to the movement its tone. Of the living we speak not: but there is Lionel John- son, the best artist of them all, a vic- tim of absinthe, found in the gutter with his skull crushed; there is John Davidson, with his vision of a new uni- verse ended in mad suicide; there are Ernest Dowson and Francis Thompson, mingling their religion with the fumes of alcohol and opium; there are others whose tainted lives and early deaths need not be examined; and, above all, is the hideous tragedy in Reading Jail. These men, who appeared to be tread- ing so fantastically in "the variant by- paths of the uncertain heart," knew also in the flesh the certain terrors of organ- ic decay. No, we shall do these men less than justice if we merely smile at their mop- ping and mowing as at the gestures bor- rowed of a jackanapes. They are wor- thy of condemnation. They had a real driving motive in the flesh, and they had their ideal philosophy. Through all their works, now in the form of direct argument, now implied in the symbol of verse or picture, you will find run- ning the ambitious design of making life itself into a fine art, of welding life and art into one indistinguishable crea- tion. As Oscar Wilde says of his hero in the book which is the completest manifesto of the school, "There were many, especially among the very young men, who saw, or fancied that they saw, in Dorian Gray the true realization of a type of which they had often dreamed in Eton or Oxford days — a type that was to combine something of the real culture of the scholar with all the grace and distinction and perfect manner of a citizen of the world. To them he seem- ed to be of the company whom Dante describes as having sought to 'make themselves perfect by the worship of beauty.' " And with this coalescence of art and life, as its very source and purpose, was to be joined the garnering of sensations, in a manner which these young enthusiasts caught up from Ros- setti and Walter Pater and the other virtuosos of the vibrating nerve. Thus, to the confusion of the Philistine, the Puritan, and the votary of common- sense, they were to create for the world a new Hedonism: "It was to have its service of the intellect, certainly; yet it was never to accept any theory or sys- tem that would involve the sacrifice of any mode of passionate experience. Its aim, indeed, was to be experience it- self, and not the fruits of experience, sweet or bitter as they might be." II. In this longing after the fulness of experience, without consideration of the lessons of experience, we come close to the heart of the movement, and we also see how it was no vagary of a few iso- lated youths, but was the product of the most characteristic evolution of the age. "It was," as our present guide rightly observes, "the mortal ripening of that flower which blossomed upon the ruins of the French Revolution, heralding not only the rights of man, which was an abstraction savoring more of the classi- cal ideal, but the rights of personality, of unique, varied, and varying men." Personality was to assert itself in the direction of unlimited and unquestion- ed expansiveness, in the claim of the individual to be purely and intensely himself, in the free pursuit of those emo- tions and sensations which are the root of division among mankind, while deny- ing those rights of man, in the classical sense, which mean the subordination of the individualizing desires to the com- monalty of the law of reason. And, as life and art were to proceed hand in hand, personality was to manifest itself in a symbolism which should endeavor, in the words of Arthur Symons, "to fix the last fine shade, the quintessence of things; to fix it fleetingly; to be a dis- embodied voice, and yet the voice of a human soul." The final marriage of life and art was to be in the swooning ecstasy of music. There was nothing discordant between the toil of the artist to fix the quintessence of things in fleet- ing form and the insatiable curiosity of a chaotic egotism. Nietzsche had said it: "Unless you have chaos within, you cannot give birth to a dancing star" — an idea which Mr. Jackson has develop- ed at hazardous length, thus: Indeed, when wrought into the metal of a soul impelled to adventure at what- ever personal hazard, for sheer love of expanding the boundaries of human ex- perience and knowledge and power, they [this egotism and curiosity] become, aa It were, the senses by which such a soul tests the flavor and determines the quali- ty of its progress. In that light they
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May 14, 1914] T li e Natio 11 567 are not decadent, they are at one with all great endeavor since the dawn of human consciousness. What, after all, is human consciousness when compared with Nature but a perversity — the self turning from Nature to contemplate it- self.' . . . Not even a child has curios- ity until it has experienced something; all InQUiaitiveneflfl is in the nature of life asking for more, and all so-called de- e is civilization rejecting, through certain specialized persons, the accumu- lated experiences and sensations of the race. There is no need to illustrate this philosophy by examples. Any one who has read Oscar Wilde's "Picture of Dorian Gray" may waive the pleasure or pain of going through the other pro- ductions of the school. Most of these writers, in fact, had a perfectly clear knowledge of what they desired to be and to accomplish. And not seldom they knew the fruits of their philosophy and experience, as any one may discover by turning over the pages of Mr. Jackson's book. The root of the whole matter lay in a febrile satiety of the flesh, in a cer- tain physical lesion, which the suffer- ers, having no philosophy of moral re- sistance to oppose to it, translated into a moral fatigue. "It was as though they had grown tired of being good, in the old accepted way; they wanted to ex- perience the piquancy of being good af- ter a debauch." In this mood the liter- ature of exquisite curiosity, whether veiled under the English cant of Epi- curean austerity or announced more boldly from across the Channel, fell upon the dryness of their souls like a spark of fire upon parched grass. The consequence is set forth in Dorian Gray's discovery of "A Rebours": It was the strangest book that he had ever read. It seemed to him that in ex- quisite raiment, and to the delicate sound of flutes, the sins of the world were pass- ing in dumb show before him. . . . There were in it metaphors as mon- strous as orchids, and as subtle in color. The life of the senses was described in the terms of mystical philosophy. One hardly knew at times whether one was reading- the spiritual ecstasies of some mediasval saint or the morbid confes- sions of a modern sinner. It was a poi- sonous book. The heavy odor of incense seemed to cling about its pages and to trouble the brain. The mere cadence of the sentences, the subtle monotony of their music, so full as it was of complex refrains and movements elaborately re- peated, produced in the mind of the lad, as he passed from chapter to chapter, a form of reverie, a malady of dreaming-. There could not be a better descrip- tion of the way in which art revealed itself to all the men of the group as a kind of narcotic for the torture of tired nerves, evoking under brush or pen the images of artificial dreaming, whether they displayed "the wan and saintly amorousness" of Burne-Jones's figures lor "The Romaunt of the Rose," or wax- ed "fat with luxury" in the illustrations of Aubrey Beardsley, or flaunted the ghastly cosmetic rictus of Arthur Symons's creatures of the stage. Al- most always behind the veil, and too of- ten stalking wantonly into view, is the horror of an impotent sex-inquisitive- ness and perversion. The subject is not agreeable to touch on, but any-one who thinks such a statement too strong may satisfy himself by the frank confes- sions of their apologist. Beardsley, for instance, "loved the abnormal, and he invented a sort of phallic symbolism to express his interest in passionate per- versities. His prose work, 'Under the Hill,' is an uncompleted study in the art of aberration." The spectacular dis- aster of Reading Jail has so impressed our imagination that we are apt to re- gard its victim as a monster among his fellows, whereas in his heart of hearts he was probably less perverted than were many of those who went through life unscathed by public opinion. But if the author of "Dorian Gray" carried the outer brand, the wages of an evil mind fell upon them all. It is said of Aubrey Beardsley that he "introduced into art the desolation of experience, the ennui of sin." That is to take him, perhaps, a trifle too gravely, but there is some- thing in the conduct of his later years that may at least remind us of Poe's decrepit "Man of the Crowd." "His rest- lessness," observes his friend, Max Beer- bohm, "was, I suppose, one of the symp- toms of his malady. He was always most content where there was the great- est noise and bustle, the largest number of people, and the most brilliant light." And that, adds Mr. Jackson, "is a pic- ture of the age, as well as of its epit- ome, Aubrey Beardsley." The right of personality to reject "the accumulated experience" of the race, and to expand indefinitely in the search of sensations, turns out in reality to be in no wise "at one with all great endeavor," but to be in the main the unfruitful restlessness of satiety and impotence. III. I would not have it inferred that the votaries of the Yellow Nineties produc- ed nothing of pure beauty and intrinsic value. One of them, indeed, Ernest Dowson, who died just as the decade came to an end, left a modest body of verse, which possesses a singular fas- cination, and which, though Mr. Jack- son quotes, I believe, not a line of it, may still be prized when its more as- sertive contemporaries are all but for- gotten. The little collection opens with a variation on the old Horatian theme, Vitm summa brevis: They are not long, the weeping and the laughter, Love and desire and hate: I think they have no portion in us after We pass the gate. They are not long, the days of wine and roses: Out of a misty dream Our path emerges for a while, then closes Within a dream. That is all: two light stanzas, with no mark of originality, unless it be in the sighing melody of the words. Yet you will not read them without saying to yourself: This is poetry, the ancient, wonderful heritage, though held in feeble hands. And in the whole collec- tion, amid a good deal that flutters in- effectually, you will find some ten or twelve other poems that carry the same note of indefinable charm. Such a pro- duct is not to be reckoned with the great and grave things of literature. If you wish to feel this distinction, read the last of the lisping lines at the head of which Dowson has written the majestic Latin phrases: 0 mors! quam amara est memoria tua homini pacem habenti in substantiis suis; and then, having read these, turn to No. 120 of the Adventur- er, in which Dr. Johnson has unrolled his solemn meditations on the same text: Affliction is inseparable from our pres- ent state; it adheres to all the inhabit- ants of this world, in different propor- tions indeed, but with an allotment which seems very little regulated by our own conduct. It has been the boast of some swelling moralists, that every man's for- tune was in his own power, that pru- dence supplied the place of all other divin- ities, and that happiness is the unfailing consequence of virtue. But, surely, the quiver of omnipotence is stored with ar- rows, against which the shield of human virtue, however adamantine it has been boasted, is held up in vain: we do not always suffer by our crimes; we are not always protected by our innocence. . . . Nothing confers so much ability to re- sist the temptations that perpetually sur- round us, as an habitual consideration of the shortness of life, and the uncertainty of those pleasures that solicit our pur- suit; and this consideration can be in- culcated only by affliction. "O death! how bitter is the remembrance of thee, to a man that lives at ease in his posses- sions!" Dowson's is the poetry of weakness, but of weakness that veils itself in sub- tle reticences and in the praise of si- lence— his favorite word — and, above all, that wears the loveliness of purity. Strange as it may sound, in connection with his life and his associations, there is something of almost virginal inno- cence in his muse. To read in his book after hearing others of the decadent band, is as if a silence had suddenly fallen upon a place of unclean revelry, and out of the silence there rose the thin sweet voice of a child singing of pathetic things it scarcely understood. I may be peculiar in my taste, but in my ears he bears comparison well even with the religious poet whose reputation has been growing so portentously these
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568 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2550 latter days. His "Amor Umbratilis," simple and unsuggestive as it is, ar- rests me with a touch that I somehow miss in the more complicated stanzas of Francis Thompson on the same theme of love's renunciation; and in all the gorgeous, stirring pomp of Thompson's odes there is still lacking — to me at least, though his best admirers will judge otherwise — some sweet submissiveness which I find, or almost find, in such a poem as Dowson's "Nuns of the Perpet- ual Adoration": Calm, sad, secure; behind high convent walls, These watch the sacred lamp, these watch and pray: And it is one with them when evening- falls, And one with them the cold return of day. They saw the glory of the world dis- played ; They saw the bitter of it, and the sweet; They knew the roses of the world should fade, And be trod under by the hurrying feet. Therefore they rather put away desire, And crossed their hands and came to sanctuary; And veiled their heads and put en coarse attire: Because their comeliness was vanity. And there they rest; they have serene insight Of the illuminating dawn to be: Mary's sweet Star dispels for them the night, The proper darkness of humanity. Calm, sad, serene; with faces worn and mild: Surely their choice of vigil is the best? Yea! for our roses fade, the world is wild; But there, beside the altar, there, is rest. The strange thing, as I have said, yet not so strange perhaps, when we reflect on it, is that this sweetness and purity should be found in one who was so thor- oughly corrupt in body and habit. There was the weariness of the devastation in his soul, as expressed in the refrain of the poem by which he is best known: Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine; And I was desolate and sick of an old passion, Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head: I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion. But it was not the hardening desolation of the inner lie, and decadence kept him, as it were, in a state of fragile imma- turity. His face, as we see it in the photograph or in the sketch by Mr. liothenstein, with its unclean lips and furtive eyes, has the look with which we are too familiar in the degenerate types of our city streets, and from which we turn away with physical revulsion; but it half conceals also something of the expression of Keats — a Keats ruin- ed. He was, as Mr. Arthur Symons says of him so finely in the memoir publish- ed with the Poems, "a soul 'unspotted from the world,' in a body which one sees visibly soiling under one's eyes; . . . there never was a simpler or more attaching charm, because there never was a sweeter or more honest nature." He suffered the penalties of perversion without its illusion. P. E. M. News for Bibliophiles DRYDEN IN THE DUNCIAD. "What induced Pope to point the fin- ger of scorn at Dryden?" The answer is, he did not. The story is worth telling. Seven editions of the "Dunciad" were printed in the year 1728. In the first three, line 94 of Book I stood: And furious D n foam in Wh 'g rage. In the next two London editions the line was altered to: And furious D s foam in W 's rage. And in the last London edition the "W — 's" was changed to "W — y's." But in the edition printed by Faulkner in Dublin the line read: Aud furious Dryden foam in Wharton's rage. These seven editions contained few and short notes. The bulky critical appara- tus we now associate with the poem was not published until the following spring. For the quarto, the first of the several editions of 1729, the line (there number- ed 104) was entirely rewritten: And all the Mighty Mad In Dennis rage. And of the two lengthy notes appended to it the second began with this sentence: This Verse in the surreptitious editions stood thus, And furious D — foam, etc., which, in that printed in Ireland, was unaccountably filled up with the great name of Dryden. In the editions of 1735 and subsequent years this sentence was omitted. Unluckily for Pope, the scholars of half a century ago resurrected evidence to show that his morality was by no means so impeccable as he would have the public believe it. But the sway-back- ed virtue of the mid-Victorians was righteous overmuch. It established a tradition of holding up holy hands where no horror was — a tradition lusty still. In what Pope said and in what he did not say, it found alike evidence of devious dealing. Thus, as for the sentence quot- ed above, it was felt that there was some- thing suspicious about putting it in, and about leaving it out, too. The line has given rise to a great deal of speculation. "C" (whom I take to be Carruthers, the editor of Pope) once of- fered a guess. "I cannot for a moment believe that Dryden was meant [i. e., by Pope]; but, as Faulkner was Swift's printer, and Swift hated Dryden, may the Dean not have suggested this mode of filling up the blank?" The best of all the anecdotes connected with it, though, is the one in which Macaulay and W. J. Thorns were the leading dramatis per- sona;. It has been well told by the late Edward Solly. He and Thorns were dis- cussing this very line once on a time. This led Mr. Thorns to say: "Aye, but how about the first name 'furious D — n'? What induced Pope thus to point the fin- ger of scorn at Dryden ?"■ — and he then proceeded to tell in detail, what I had heard him more than once allude to be- fore others, that once in the Library of the House of Lords, he had suggested this very question to Lord Macaulay, in the presence of several peers, whereon Macaulay, turning sharply round, said, "Oh, dear no; you are mistaken; there is no possible reference to Dryden in the Dunciad"; and then for nearly ten min- utes poured out a rapid and eloquent vindication of Pope, finally taking down a copy of a later edition, and proving to all around that Mr. Thorns was in error, for there was neither Dryden nor yet "D n." Mr. Thorns bowed and was si- lent, though he had all the time in his pocket a copy of one of the first editions of the Dunciad of 1728 with the name "Dryden." Now, any one familiar with contem- porary copies of this and similar pro- ductions in which names were suggested by first (or first and last) letters will recall that the omitted letters are fre- quently supplied in manuscript, some- times in the margin, sometimes above the runners that follow or separate the let- ters. This Dublin edition was set up from a copy of the first or second edition sent over from London, in accordance with the common practice of the day. The sender (I do not think it was Pope him- self, though such is possible, but some one who, like Edmund Curll, was familiar with Pope's intentions, but not in his intimacy) had completed the names by writing out the missing letters, as may be demonstrated almost to the point of proof. His handwriting must have been crabbed. Most of the names were printed correctly. But in Book II, line 319, we find Metbwin instead of Milbourn (sometimes spelled Milburn), which, as we know from the later editions and the Keys, was the name intended. In Book III, line 271, occurs the impossible Ecyden where was intended Eusden, a name correctly repro- duced in other lines of this same Dublin edition. The combination of a u with a long s might easily be translated into a cy. The Irish compositor, we may sur- mise, was not familiar with the names of contemporary London men of letters; and when he found in Book I, line 94, the D n and the scribbled letters unto, he misread them as something other than Dunton. If the first down stroke of the written n was rather- long, and n placed close 1o the I, and the cross struck b I in- t so as to start from the ..on. i peak of the w, he would easily ,.i ad ryde, for an <■ in contemporary script was much i e like an « than la ours. Macaulaj was i Lgl le main after .ill. Ami another one or the . h i'. provei groundless. i:. ii, Gmfjitb. i be i in-.. in H 1 »t * ' a
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May 14, 1914] The Nation 56U liooks and Men PENGUINS. The penguin is by no means a new discovery. At least twenty-five years ago a group of penguins stood, in an austere group, at the head of the chap- ter on Antarctic Regions in my geog- raphy. Possibly they were known to man even before that time. But the re- cent explorations of the South Polar country, the expeditions of Shackleton and Scott, have brought this curious bird into greater publicity. Not only his peculiar habits are better known, but the latent humor of his appearance is more generally appreciated. For al- though the penguin is in some sense a beautiful bird, he is also an absurd one, a jeu d'esprit of nature. He is beginning to figure in art and literature. The artist-hero of "Buried Alive," it may be remembered, made a sensation by a picture of some penguins, while Mr. E. V. Lucas has introduced into one of his essays a pathetic story about them. Persons who overcame their objections to moving pictures suf- ficiently to see the records of the Scott expedition — as well as those who had no objections to overcome — will remember the intensely interesting and comic views of penguins in their domestic re- lations. The tragedy which overhung the Scott pictures was lightened by the representation of penguin parties, and of penguins in peace and war. The reel which showed the men of the expedition chasing the birds on the ice on Christ- mas morning was amusing, because there was nothing cruel about it. The penguins seemed to have as good fun as did the men — and they kept their feet much better. A delightful little book, which I have read this week, called "Antarctic Pen- guins" (McBride, Nast & Co.), has for its sub-title "A Study of Their Social Habits." The author is Dr. G. Murray Levick, of the Royal Navy. Dr. Levick was the zoologist to the Scott expedi- tion. His book is, in a way, a tribute to the funny and friendly creatures who did so much to cheer him and his com- panions during their two long years in the far South. "When seen for the first time," Dr. Levick writes, "the Adelie penguin gives you the impression of a very smart little man in an evening dress suit, so absolutely immaculate is he, with his shimmering white front and black back and shoulders. He stands about two feet five inches in height, walking upright on his little legs." The droll appearance of the penguins has impressed the explorers of all na- tions. The men of the Belgian and French parties noted it, before Shackle- ton's first trip, and penguins had a vogue in Paris. Their ceremonious at- titudes caught the fancy of one of Punch's artists, who likened them to floor-walkers of Chesterfieldian deport- ment— bowing, with one flipper extended across the breast. Dr. Levick observed the penguins ar- riving, at the beginning of the Antarc- tic summer, at what he calls the "rook- ery." That is hardly an appropriate word, though it is not so awkward as pcnguinery. They came not in bat- talions, but as single spies. There were two on the first day, but twenty on the next. "On arrival," he writes, "they wandered about by themselves, or stood or walked about the beach, giving one the impression of simply hanging about, waiting for something to 'turn up.' " One certainly needs the pictures, with which the book is fully supplied, to un- derstand the scene. Of all the animal photography during the past dozen or fifteen years — and there has been no small amount — hardly anything has ap- proached in interest these views of the Antarctic penguins. They lent them- selves to the work of the camera as few live animals have done. The pho- tographers mastered the difficulties of the snow-covered ground, and the black coats and coat-sleeves (for that is what they look like) of the penguins stand out vividly against the glare. The arrival of the main body of the penguins took place on October 21, about six days after the first ones had been seen. They came in thousands, all on foot, and from the north. They poured on to the beach in a continuous stream — "the snaky line of arrivals extending unbroken across the sea-ice as far as the eye could see." The photographs of the procession make it look very much like a straggling throng of people walking to some picnic ground — a host of little clergymen in black "cutaway" coats. All they need is small baskets in their flippers to make the illusion complete. But the penguins travel without bag- gage. Out of the mysterious and awful polar distances they come, led on by the migratory instinct. These spring pilgrimages — for October is spring down there — are often hundreds of miles in length, and the penguins walk a .good part of the way. Or rather, Dr. Levick writes, they have two modes of pro- gression: The first is simple walking-. Their legs being very short, their stride amounts at most to four inches. Their rate of step- ping averages about one hundred and twenty steps per minute when on the march. Their second mode of progres- sion is "tobogganing." When wearied by walking, or when the surface is par- ticularly suitable, they fall forward on their white breasts, smooth and shim- mering with a beautiful metallic lustre in the sunlight, and push themselves I along by alternate powerful little strokes of their legs behind them. . . . When quietly on the march, both walking and tobogganing produce the same rate of speed, so that the string of arriving birds, tailing out in a long line as far as the horizon, appears as a well-ordered pro- cession. I walked out a mile or so along this line, standing for some time watch- ing it file past me, and taking the photo- graph with which I have illustrated the scene. Most of the little creatures seem- ed much out of breath, their wheezy res- piration being distinctly heard. After the arrival, and a little moving aDout and examination of the rookery, begin courtship, marriage, and the set- ting up of housekeeping. As a matter of fact, however, the order is somewhat reversed, for the hen-penguins begin to construct uncomfortable-looking nests of pebbles before they have contracted any alliances whatever. The nest is built upon the ground, and after the hen has settled in it a cock penguin comes along and offers himself as husband. Frequently more than one such offer is made, and then there is a resort to arms — or, rather, to beaks. The cocks fight long and savagely, though never to the death. The defeated bird is usu- ally in the condition of the hero of Hen- ley's poem: his head is bloody but not bowed. One of Dr. Levick's photo- graphs of such a fight seems to show the coy lady penguin with her head buried in the breast feathers of a friend of her own sex — ostensibly horrified, but secretly pleased at the awful bloodshed she is causing. The victorious suitor then waddles off and procures a pebble as his contri- bution towards the household arrange- ments. If the bride accepts the gift, the affair is evidently legalized, though the husband has first to undergo a ter- rific pecking from his wife, inflicted in order to put him in his place at the outset. The tameness and extreme curiosity of the penguins enabled Dr. Levick to observe them very closely. The photo- graphs show them at the nearest pos- sible range. All the details of their life are exhibited — the nest-building, fighting, social gatherings and gossip- ings, and the various amusements. Swimming and diving are among the latter, and one of the most appealing of all the pictures is that which shows a group of penguins peering over the edge of an ice-cake to watch one of their number whom they have just pushed overboard. The sea leopards by water, and the skua gulls by land, are their chief en- emies. Those who saw the moving pic- tures of the Scott expedition will re- member the piratical skua gull who pounced upon the penguin's egg and sailed away with it, a sardonic grin upon his face as he watched the pitiful flap- ping of the mother penguin.
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570 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2550 Dr. Levick devotes nearly all of his book to the Adelie penguin, though there is a short chapter, with two ex- cellent photographs, about the Emperor penguin. The Emperor is the largest of the species, as he weighs between eighty and ninety pounds. Only one rookery is known, and that, at Cape Crozier, was visited by a party from Capt. Scott's first expedition. Tempera- tures of 78 below zero Fahrenheit were encountered, and in such cold as this, and in "the dark days of July," the Emperor penguins lay their eggs upon the ice and hatch their young. Edmund Lester Pearson. may follow with profit the books and ar- Icles 1 1 1 ed by Professor McLaughlin in his foot-notes and bibliography. Of espe- cial Importance is the recent work by Charles Grove Haines, entitled, "The American Doctrine of Judicial Suprema- cy," which was reviewed in the Nation i April 30. See also the opening essay in McLaughlin's recent work, "The Courts, the Constitution, and Parties." Kayner W. Kelsey. Haverford, Pa., May 2. Correspondence "THE CONSTITUTIONAL POWER OF THE COURTS." To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: In your issue of April 23 appeared under the above caption a communica- tion in reply to a short note of an ear- lier date by the present writer. My critic repeats my quotations from the Federal Constitution, and states that I offered them "as proof" of the conten- tion that the Constitution confers upon the Supreme Court the power to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional. I beg leave to say that I did not cite these quotations as proof at all, but merely as the basis of the argument. I ad- mitted the possibility of two interpreta- tions, but proceeded to mention a train of historical facts that favor the usual interpretation by our courts. My critic replied by citing the same passages from the Constitution, and then, to controvert the various historical facts mentioned in my article, he stated one alleged fact which is in reality directly contrary to the truth of history. In his last paragraph he states as his ultimate argument "that nowhere at the time the Constitution was framed was there a judi- ciary endowed with such power." If my critic had examined a standard general history of the United States, to say noth- ing of many special treatises by eminent authorities, he would not have made that statement. For example, I quote from Prof. A. C. McLaughlin's "The Confederation and the Constitution" ("The American Na- tion," Vol. X, pp. 250-251): "When the Federal Convention assembled, the nature of a written constitution, emanating from an authority outside the Government, had already been made manifest by several judicial decisions. In New Jersey, as early as 1780, the court refused, in the case of Holmes vs. Walton, to regard as valid an unconstitutional act of the Legis- lature. Two years later a similar doc- trine was laid down in Virginia, and in 1786, as we have already seen, the Rhode Island court announced the same prin- ciple." The author, continuing, cites a similar case in North Carolina. Any one wishing to examine further the historial facts bearing upon this question To the Editor op The Nation: Sir: If the two passages from the Fed- eral Constitution mentioned in the letter in your issue of April 23, signed "E. M. H.," were the only ones upon which to base the authority of the Federal courts to declare acts of Congress unconstitu- tional, and hence void, there might be some foundation for the contention that these courts had arrogated such power. But these passages must be read in con- nection with that part of the Constitution which defines the power of Congress wherein is stated upon what subjects it may legislate, and upon what it may not. Therefore, in a case in law or in equity, where a question is raised as to whether some enactment of Congress is within or without the scope of its defined pow- ers, and hence as to whether it is or is not binding, there can be no doubt that such a case is one "arising under this Constitution," and hence included within the grant to the judicial power. How else could the power of Congress be tested? It would be destructive of that cooperation between the Executive and Congress which is essential to the work- ing of our system of government if the Executive were to assume the power of denying the validity of an enactment of Congress. Discussion of this point is useless. Should Congress be the judge of its own power? If so, the carefully word- ed grants of and limitation upon its power might as well not have been written. But, again, the powers not granted to Congress are reserved to the States, or the people thereof. Should the States be the judges of the validity of Congressional enactments? To ask the question is to answer it, for that would mean the de- struction of the Federal system, and would lead to a condition worse, if any- thing, than that under the old Confed- eration, for the correction of which the Constitution was adopted. The reference by E. M. H. to the experience of Euro- pean countries acting through Legisla- tures free from control by the judiciary is not in point. Nowhere is there any limitation placed upon the Legislature — no reservation of powers. In Great Brit- ain, where alone there is true parliamen- tary government, Parliament is the sole source of legislative power — there is no instrument with grants, limitations, and reservations. There is no Federal sys- tem, with its division of power between central and local divisions. No question can arise as to the power of Parliament — the only question that can present itself is whether in any particular case the ex- ercise of that power is acceptable to the nation. The legislative bodies of other European countries are so differently con- stituted and are subject to such different checks, that comparisons with them are valueless. It seems strange that, at this late date, the question of the right of the Federal courts to exercise this power should be raised. It is purely academic, but since it is seriously advanced, it is most desirable for the correct political education of our citizens, especially of those of the genera- tion now coming upon the stage, that the true and necessary position of the Federal courts in our complicated system should be correctly apprehended. Wheth- er the past action of the Supreme Court has been beneficial or not, is a matter of opinion. Whether it has the ultimate power to keep the Federal Government and the State Governments within their respective limits by reference to the grants, limitations, and reservations of the Constitution, ought not to be a matter of opinion. Edward C. Pearson. Flaintield, N. J., May 1. PRESIDENT WILSON'S MEXICAN POLICY. To the Editor op The Nation: Sir: It is very easy to talk of "the in- consistency which has marked the policy of the Administration [towards Mexicol, the inadequacy of the grounds on which war has been threatened," and of "our aggression in Mexico" (Nation, April 30). It is, of course, perfectly futile to predict what the outcome will be, but I venture to think that so far Mr. Wilson's policy has been extraordinarily successful. First of all, the refusal to recognize Huerta, which has often been criticised as the cause of the present situation, rests on a firm basis. When in 1903 Peter Karageorgevitch ascended the throne of Servia over the dead bodies of King Alexander and Queen Draga, the Powers of Europe refused recognition to the new regime till it was demon- strated, after several years' waiting, that the new King commanded the support of the country. Not only were the cir- cumstances of Huerta's accession to pow- er more suspicious than those surround- ing King Peter's, but the Mexican dic- tator has slowly but surely lost ground. There is nothing to show that our atti- tude has handicapped him, for he has been able to obtain money; he has had every opportunity to show that he was the requisite "strong man," and has mis- erably failed to do so. The assumption of President Wilson that Huerta was an eternal guarantee against a permanent peace in Mexico has been borne out by the course of events, that is, by the as- tonishing success of Villa and his army. Secondly, Mr. Wilson has declined to take sides in Mexico. When it became clear that the closing of the Texan border was working out to the advantage of Huerta, the embargo on arms was raised. Since then, each faction could secure all the war material it could pay for. Bu1 when our occupation of Vera Cruz shut off Huerta's supplies, Villa's were also I in tailed by restoring the embargo on the frontier, Ami it is worth remember- ing- that Carranza has nut been recog- nized, for the very good reason that bin government Is no more legitimate lli.-m I I nerta's.
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May 14, 1914I Tlie Nation 571 Thirdly, had our Government taken stern measures to protect the lives and property of Americans and Europeans in Mexico, however desirable that protection might be, the result would surely have been a real war with Mexico. Fortu- nately, the situation was saved by Huer- ta's tactlessness. Mr. Wilson was care- ful to state, in his address to Congress, that an official dispatch of the United States Government had been held up, and that the flag Incident at Tampico was merely the culmination of a series of in- iiniHit. At no time in the last year has the wisdom of our been so clearly de d, for the fact that we were dealing with an irregular government enabled us to base our de- mands, not on international law, but on What has been the result? The seizure of Vera Cruz has had a profound effect, as Mr. Wilson intended, upon Mexican opinion of all classes and factions. The truth seems to have dawned upon our unfortunate neighbors that further trifling with the United States could have but one result, the occupation of Mexico by our troops, and, if our history is any guide to the future, the end of Mexican independence. Two weeks ago Mexico seemed on the eve of a complete collapse. To-day, so far as one can judge from the daily press, a permanent settlement is more likely than in many, many months. It is to this end that the South American mediators appear to be devoting their energies rather than to an adjustment of the American quarrel with Huerta, for we still insist that he must retire. For the great improvement in the gen- eral situation, Mr. Wilson's diplomacy is entirely responsible. Bernadotte E. Schmitt. Western Reserve University, Cleveland, May 2. [The Nation's criticism on the recent acts of the Administration in Mexico is precisely on the grounds that, as our correspondent suggests, they might lead to "the occupation of Mexico hy our troops" and ultimately to "the end of Mexican independence." — Ed. The Na- tion.] THE PASSING OF A MASTER MIND. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: I desire to record a word of tribute to one of the master minds of America. The recent death of Charles S. Peirce re- moves an heroic figure from the field of American learning. Living for the most part in retirement, he was known to a relatively small circle. Yet where known, his name was spoken with exalted re- spect; and his fame, critically appraised, placed him with the chosen few of any generation. How far he sought and failed to find the wider recognition that falls to those whose labors are in fields open to public approbation, how far he did not care to pursue the accredited steps to preferment and recognition, I cannot say. Yet this aspect of his ca- reer is significant. My acquaintance with Mr. Peirce be- gan in 1882 when I came as a graduate student to Johns Hopkins University. He ' was there lecturing on "The Algebra of —a subject which he in large mea- sure established in this country. He had interested certain able students — all of them since distinguished in various fields — in his explorations into a broad domain of thought; and of this enterprise a vol- ume of studies by himself and his pupils bears record. In those days there was gathered in Baltimore a group of schol- ars and productive intellectual workers that would have been exceptional in any scholarly community. Their names would suggest the notable contributions of American scholarship in their generation. Yet among them the impression of Mr. Peirce stands forth most prominently primus inter pares. The impression that I retain of his analyses of logical and philosophical problems is that of observ- ing a plummet line descending through troubled waters foot by fodt, sounding the depths, avoiding the weeds and the shoals, and reaching an undiscovered bot- tom; for to the student many of the problems in a controversial sea seemed bottomless. It was not argument, but discovery. It was Mr. Peirce who introduced me to the possibility of an experimental study of a psychological problem. He provided the problem, the instruments which I set up in my room, the method, and the mode of reaching the results; these were printed over our joint names. He also introduced me to the mode of at- tack upon larger psychological problems by methods of statistical inquiry. He gathered about him a group of five or six students and proposed a study of "great men." He drew up the questionnaire; we gathered and collated the results. The work was not finished; though I was permitted to publish one or two aspects of the material in brief papers. My per- sonal indebtedness gave me the opportu- nity to gauge the measure of the man. Only one other produced upon me an equal impression of original greatness. I refer to William James. The two men may well be associated, for each held the other in high regard. Professor James recognized in Charles Peirce the true founder of Pragmatism, a way of thinking which James made popular, the signifi- cance of which he expounded. If, in ad- dition, it be remembered that these logi- cal, psychological, and philosophical pur- suits were in a sense avocational, and that Mr. Peirce was for a long time ac- tively connected with the Geodetic Survey, was a physicist and mathematician by profession, the scope of his attainments will be more truly perceived. In a sense he represents the American Helmholtz. I do not know that Mr. Peirce ever held any academic position other than the lec- tureship for a few years at Johns Hop- kins University. That his was the per- sonal temperament that may well be call- ed difficult may be admitted; such is the disposition of genius. It cannot but remain a sad reflection upon the or- ganization of our academic interest that we find it difficult, or make it so, to pro- vide places for exceptional men within the academic fold. Politically as educational- ly, we prefer the safe men to the brilliant men, and exact a versatile mediocrity of qualities that makes the individual organ- izable. All this has its proper place and is doubtless more or less inevitable, even sound; but the penalty paid for safety is too heavy, when it excludes the use of rarer gifts, the choice product of exceptional power of sustained thought. Of this lamentable lack of efficiency — to turn the sting of an abused word against itself — Mr. Peirce is not the only example. Other master minds knocked in vain at academic portals, and were refused as too elect. Or, more truly stated, the small group of their liberal-minded friends within the hallowed precincts fail- ed to persuade the authorities to adjust methods to men. Certainly it remains true for all time that no more effective stimulus to promising young minds can be found than to give them the oppor- tunity of contact with master minds in action. The service that a small group of such men can perform is too fine, too imponderable, to be measured; and like- wise too intangible to impress its value upon the judgment of those with whom these issues commonly lie. Yet nothing would have shown better the greatness of a great University than to find a place in it for rare men like Charles S. Peirce. His memory invites not only the personal tribute, but is a reminder of our neglect of the true worth of genius. Joseph Jastrow. The University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis., May 6. THE LATE EDUARD SUESS. To the Editor of The Nation : Sir: On the 26th of April there died at Vienna, in his eighty-third year, one of the greatest of European scientists, the distinguished geologist, Eduard Suess. Strange to say, his death has passed unnoticed in the American press, al- though few scholars have ever lived who deserved better of their fellow-men. I must leave it to competent hands to point out in the Nation Professor Suess's ser- vice to science. Suffice it to say, in this place, that his principal work, the monu- mental "Das Antlitz der Erde," is re- garded as the most authoritative exposi- tion of the principal features of the earth's surface and their correlation, and that it has been translated into four lan- guages. In the preface to the French edition Marcel Bertrand likened the ap- pearance of the work to the action of a sudden ray of light in penetrating chaos, and the London Geological Society, which conferred on him the Wollaston medal, congratulated him on his seventieth birthday as the greatest living geologist. From 1857 to 1901 Suess was professor of geology in the University of Vienna, and from 1899 to 1911 he was president of the Vienna Academy of Sciences. But over and above his scientific work, Professor Suess achieved renown as one of the most indefatigable and most un- selfish workers in Austrian public life. As a member of the Municipal Council of the city of Vienna, of the Diet of Lower Austria, and of the Reichsrath, he was a champion of liberal measures and a parliamentarian of remarkable power. The city of Vienna is indebted to him for its present water supply, the plans for which he drew, and which
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572 were adopted by the Municipal Council in 1864. He was the most modest of men, and refused all his life decorations and other outward distinctions offered him by his grateful monarch. Professor Suess was in frequent con- tact with various American scholars, notably with the late Angelo Heilprin, and on various occasions he evinced great interest in our public affairs. He was of striking- personal appearance, tall and distinguished looking, most winning in discourse, and of undiminished mental powers even in extreme old age. Racial and religious bigotry he combated with all the fervor of a noble soul. GUSTAV POLLAK. New York, May 11. TEXTUAL CRITICISM. To the Editor op The Nation : Sir: It seems that on Sunday, April 12, 1914, that pious statesman, Senator Penrose, conducted religious services at Whitehall Baptist Church, Tacony, Pa., and preached a sermon. It was a fine sermon, so fine that, as appears from the Congressional Record of April 16, by re- production it has been made part of the proceedings of the Senate. I would draw attention, however, to the absence of a prefixed text of Scripture, indispensable to sermons, according to all preacher opinion. Perhaps a text, once prefixed after the orthodox fashion, was omitted when the sermon was transformed into a State paper. Be this as it may, the theme of the deliverance was President Wilson's attitude as to the claim of one V. Huerta to be President of Mexico, and the single excerpt here following makes it plain what the text was: "It is fairly obvious now, even to a par- tisan supporter, that the man most likely to secure peace in Mexico was the one who was rejected.' Text: "Had Zimri peace who slew his master?" 2 Kings ix, 31. And Mr. Penrose takes the affirmative of the proposition. William George. Sausalito, Cat., April 25. THE ANNIVERSARY OF EL GRECO. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: The little city of Toledo, Spain, has just commemorated the three hun- dredth anniversary of the death of the painter known as "El Greco"; three fes- tal days were set apart by the Mayor, including a general holiday for every one. A more favorable day for a pilgrimage to Toledo could not have been desired. The balmy air blowing up the valley of the Tagus, a matchless sky, and blossoms everywhere made it evident that spring had come at last. Everywhere the farm- ers were at work irrigating their plots of land, in which process the chief part is played by a blindfolded mule, which, walking an incessant round, moves n wa- ter-wheel, a method used in Spain since time immemorial. An occasional herd of fighting bulls could be seen, black against the bright green of the lands bordering the river. There is no mediaeval town In Spain that offers so many picturesque sights as Toledo. Situated on the top of a clifl rrhe Nation surrounded on three sides by the river Tagus, which here assumes the form of a horseshoe, it has, because of its almost impregnable position, played an impor- tant part in every epoch of Spanish his- tory. An ancient bridge still forms the chief approach, and the rickety dili- gences, the ox-carts, the venders of fruits and vegetables, all indicate that the char- acter of the traffic has undergone but lit- tle change in the course of time. Near the entrance to the bridge is an old foun- tain where the muleteers who come from without water their beasts, or where many-shaped earthen jars are filled by the servants, who still carry the water as in mediaeval times, to the houses which have neither fountain nor faucet. The great question which confronts Toledo is the preservation of its innu- merable ancient monuments. Many are being cared for, but others are growing unsafe, and the characteristic procrasti- nation of the Spaniard is already respon- sible for the collapse of several build- ings. A few years ago the beautiful patio of the Hospital de Santa Cruz, one of the great structures of the early Span- ish Renaissance, fell in, but a national Art Commission immediately set to work to restore the building, and when it is completed it will be opened as a museum. The refectory is still in ruins, but the patio, with its noble plan, its delicate columns, its striking lights and shadows, can be enjoyed again, and constitutes, to- gether with the great chapel, one of the chief glories of Toledo. El Greco, who was a Cretan by birth, seems to have come to Toledo about 1576 or 1577, producing up to the time of his death a most astonishing number of paintings, of which Toledo is still the great treasure-house. Here he is sup- posed to have acquired immense wealth, and if the scanty details of his life, as recorded by his biographers, are to be trusted, the immense house in which he dwelt was not only filled with paintings of his own, many half-finished, orders on which he was constantly at work, but the wealth thus made was lavishly spent in festivities and entertainments. To form a comprehensive idea of El Greco, one must spend many days in Toledo, where churches, monasteries, and noble houses were once filled with his innumerable paintings of every con- ceivable subject. Unfortunately, his ar- dent admirers have made a cult of his peculiar art, and it is therefore impossi- ble for a layman to follow their unqualified praise of all that he has done. Notably the creations of his last period are most difficult to appreciate, nor does his own explanation of the fantastic outline of objects "which, when seen through cer- tain mediums, appear larger than they are," entirely justify his presentation of the human form. The most satisfactory interpretation of his genius makes him not only a great but also gives him a prominent ii among the Spanish mystics Warm reds are replaced by transparent blues or veiling grays, giving all of his h ions a pun !•. ci Ii si lal ainio: pin i' I'cu' this reason many of his paintings should never be viewed en a level wdii Mi' eye'. This groupie [Vol. 98, No. 2550 well as the attitude of individual figures, improves vastly when seen from below. Like those of a true mystic, all of El Greco's creations are wholly serious; hardly a smile brightens the general im- pression made by his canvases. Even his portraits, stupendous as they are in their variety and individuality, indicate an un- varying preference for a serious or thoughtful moment. The three festal days in honor of El Greco were filled with the usual merry- making, including fireworks at night and bull fights by day, without which even a mystic of the Renaissance cannot be properly honored. The numerous an- tiquity shops also celebrated after their fashion by raising the price for the bene- fit of visitors, and the hotels added a slight sum to the bill of the unsuspecting guest. But Toledo can never lose any of its charm. After I had lost my way for the twentieth time in the labyrinth of a hundred crooked passages, I felt that I was at last becoming acquainted with the old imperial city. R. S. Toledo, Spain, April 15. Literature AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. The Hapsburg Monarchy. By Henry Wickham Steed. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. $2.50 net. Hungary's Fight for National Existence, or The History of the Great Uprising Led by Francis Rakoczi II, 1703-1711. By Ladislas Baron Hengelmiiller. New York: Macmillan Co. $3.25. The Life of the Emperor Francis Jo- seph. By Francis Gribble. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. $3.75 net. The author of "The Hapsburg Mon- archy" is in some respects unusually well qualified for his task. He has, as he says, lived for ten years the daily life of the country, and he has had access to excellent sources of information. He has thus learned to look upon the com- plex political and social conditions of the Empire, not with the eyes of an Eng- lish critic, but as an interested observ- er, who, detached as he is, has in some ways adopted an almost Austrian point of view. The very title of the book gives us a clue to the author's general attitude. He identifies himself with those students of Austrian history who find in the es- sential unity of all the lands of Austria- Hungary under the Hapsburg dynasty the best guarantee of her future exist- ence. The dynastic tie seems to him far stronger than the dualism which now unites Austria and Hungary. Sin- gularly enough, his political creed is in the main that of the pro-revolu- tionary, conservative Austrian Lib- eral— dissatisfied with existing con- ditions, recognizing the need of Change in many directions, yet liav ing no particular remedy to SU
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May 14, 1914I The Nation 573 and turning, after all, to the Hapsburgs as those best qualified to hold together the strange medley of races, nationali- ties, religions, and classes that consti- tutes the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Of this type the poet Grillparzer was the most distinguished representative, and Mr. Steed fortifies himself by quot- ing in his preface Grillparzer's famous lines which, in 1848, were intended to impress upon Austrians of whatever nationality the need of rallying around the dynasty and the army in support of the state. It seems a curious anomaly that a country so difficult to govern as Austria- Hungary should have found in Francis Joseph — a ruler of no well-defined po- litical convictions, not even of consis- tent political leanings — precisely the man best able to command that person- al loyalty which, again and again, has temporarily reconciled the warring ele- ments of the monarchy. Were Mr. Steed fully acquainted with the characteristic traits of the Austrian rulers of past times, he would find the present Em- peror less of a psychological riddle. Francis Joseph appears to him "person- ally unselfish, generous and just, ever ready to redress a private injury," and yet, as a ruler, often "callous to the point of injustice," willing to tolerate, as long as recruits and money are forth- coming, Ministerial policies that press hard upon whole sections of loyal sub- jects. Such a judgment leaves wholly out of account the many insoluble prob- lems that have beset Francis Joseph from the beginning of his reign. There is, however, greater justice in the fol- lowing summary of the contradictions of his career: The youth, not illiberally educated, who In 1848 succeeded to the throne of an empire in revolt and learned to distrust constitutionalism, liberalism, and all forms of progressive political aspiration ; the ab- solutist ruler, led by stress of circum- stance and reactionary advisers to believe that the army, the church, the police, and the bureaucracy are the only reliable pillars of a throne, and induced on his twenty-fifth birthday to present his peo- ples with a Concordat involving an abject capitulation of the state to the church; the defeated commander-in-chief at Sol- ferino, whom the loss of Lombardy and the imminence of state bankruptcy caused to doubt the wisdom of his reactionary counsellors; the semi-constitutional Em- peror of 1860-65, anxious to save his lead- ership among German princes, but who, being outmanoeuvred by Bismarck at the Frankfort Diet of Princes in 1863 and by Moltke at Sadowa in 1866, was compelled to fall back on his hereditary peoples, to bargain with Hungary and to bedizen Austria with constitutional robes in the vain hope that what was irrevocably lost might yet be retrieved; . . . and, finally, the Constitutional King of Hun- gary and Constitutionally absolutist Em- peror of Austria . . . such a man or some such man is Francis Joseph of Hapsburg-Lorraine. The sketch is too rapid to be wholly life-like. Elsewhere in the volume other aspects of Francis Joseph's long reign are discriminatingly touched upon, such as his determination, in the late sixties, to subordinate the Church to the State, and his active interfer- ence, in the Conclave of 1903, against the election of Cardinal Rampolla to the Papal throne. In fact, faithful Cath- olic as Francis Joseph always has been, the interests of the state have ever been his first concern. No priest has been among his intimate counsellors, and he has never given countenance to relig- ious and sectarian prejudice. That no monarch of recent times has, on the whole, been actuated by a higher sense of duty towards all his subjects must be conceded by every fair-minded critic. The author's general familiarity with his subject is most apparent in the chap- ters dealing with such topics as The Bureaucracy, The Police, The Church, and The Press, though not infrequently there is manifest that tendency to over- emphasize abuses which is inherent in his peculiar mental attitude. The Aus- trian bureaucracy has many sins to answer for, and as a circumlocution of- fice it has perhaps had few equals, but to imagine that only "a new Joseph II, or a new Lueger," could simplify its pro- cedures is to adopt precisely the hope- less tone of the old-fashioned Vienna burgher, and to ignore the fact that the Austrian civil service has during recent years made great strides in efficiency and is approximating Prussian stan- dards. Similarly, in speaking of the pervasiveness of the Austrian police, the author exaggerates the functions of that petty tyrant, the city house porter (Hausmeister). It is not correct to say that the police — whether in ordinary times or at critical moments — keep strict watch over the movements of for- eign visitors in Austria. "The stranger is unaware," says Mr. Steed, "that the porter of his house is a confident of the police, and that his goings and com- ings, his manner of life, the number and names of his friends, and all per- sonal details are carefully communicat- ed by the porter to the police, which preserves them in a dossier ready for communication to the political or to the fiscal authorities as occasion may re- quire. Unless warned from some friend- ly quarter, he may not know that his correspondence is being watched, his telephone 'tapped,' and his intercourse noted." It seems worth while to point out the glaring exaggerations in this statement, in view of the fact that an American publicist of the first rank has adopted a similar view of the functions of the Austrian police, following, prob- ably, like Mr. Steed, the account of an- tiquated conditions In Dr. Ignaz Beid- tel's "Geschichte der bsterreichischen Staatsverwaltung, 1740-1848." Mr. Steed has a keener eye for cer- tain peculiarly Austrian incongruities, such as the discrepancy between the rigor of the press regulations and the ease with which a confiscated journal can bring the obnoxious article before the public. If such a journal is on a friendly footing with a member of Par- liament, it simply asks him to embody the confiscated matter in a parliamen- tary interpellation. "The journal is then able to reproduce its confiscated article from the parliamentary reports and to wave it under the nose of the public prosecutor and the police." The passages characterizing the prin- cipal Vienna papers are among the most interesting in the book, though they are marked by an anti-Jewish animus which is its chief defect. Mr. Steed finds Jew- ish influence so pronounced in every field of activity throughout the Empire that he feels impelled to devote to the solution of the "problem" many pages and much ingenious speculation. The simple solution, lying in the fact that in Austria, as elsewhere, intellect and character find in the long run their natural level, has escaped his notice, although he unconsciously pays both the Austrian Jews and their country a high tribute in saying that the Haps- burg monarchy, "despite its reputation for conservatism, might with justice claim that it offers even to its humblest citizens a career open to talent, espe- cially when the talent is that of the Jew." The author's remarks concerning army conditions in Austria-Hungary are fair-minded and Instructive. He con- trasts the officers favorably with those of Germany: The bulk of Austro-Hungarian officers are drawn, not as in Germany, from the aristocracy and the nobility, but rather from the middle and lower middle classes. Austro-Hungarian officers are, for the most part, hard-working, hard-living men, un- spoiled by luxury, and striving to subsist on little more than their meagre pay. They stand nearer than the German officers to the common soldier. Cases of ill-treatment of men by officers are rare. The subal- tern who should restrict his intercourse with his men to the shouting of a few words of command would soon be found wanting. The bulk of Austro-Hungarian regiments are racially composite. Their officers must speak enough of the lan- guages of the men to be able to supple- ment the German words of command with detailed instructions and explanations in the mother tongues of the rank and file. There results a personal relationship that renders the army in Austria-Hungary a more human and humanizing organization than in Germany. The author finds also a certain edu- cative force, as compared with other countries, in the Austrian Socialist movement, which has acquired increas- ed momentum since the introduction of universal suffrage in 1906-7. He speaks
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574: T he !NT a t i o 11 [Vol. 98, No. 2550 with deserved praise of the organ of the party, the Arbeiter-Zeitung, which "frequently treats the larger political, social, and even diplomatic issues with a breadth of view and statesmanlike grasp that would honor any independent journal in Europe." The Socialist lead- er, J)r. Victor Adler, "a Jew of the prophetic, self-sacrificing, zealous type," has devoted his personal fortune largely to the maintenance of the journal. Mr. Steed draws a sombre picture of the future of Austrian Liberalism, which is giving way, on the one hand, to the radicalism of the Social Demo- crats, and, on the other, to the brutality of the Christian Socialism of Lueger, that "genial, irreverent demagogue," who gave such a powerful impulse to the present "middle-class policy" of the Government, and whose tactics are in no small degree responsible for the par- liamentary degeneracy that has dis- graced Austria. The chapter on the foreign policy of the Empire, though pervaded by the author's usual pessimism, contains an interesting historical retrospect. He indulges in the day-dream of a modifica- tion of the dual system and its possible replacement by a Federalist organiza- tion which would give the Southern Slavs a commanding position in the domestic and foreign relations of the Empire. "From the standpoint of the internal cohesion of the monarchy," he says, "the Magyar state has acted as a repellent force, powerless for good, pow- erful for evil; and, pending proof to the contrary, students of Hapsburg affairs are constrained to regard the Magyars rather as a liability than as an asset of the Crown." All this in spite of his full recognition, as elsewhere expressed in the volume, of the clear-sighted wis- dom of Deak and Andrassy, both as to the demands of Hungary and the re- quirements of the monarchy. But with all its contradictions and marked prejudices, Mr. Steed's volume forms a valuable contribution to the study of present-day conditions in Austria-Hun- gary, and well repays careful reading. No one better fitted to speak for the right of Hungary to her present posi- tion in the monarchy could easily be found than Baron Hengelmuller, for many years the Austrian Ambassador to this country, who has had the happy thought to write the first English story of Rakoczy's romantic rising against the Hapsburgs early in the eighteenth century. The struggle was of Euro- pean significance, inasmuch as its vary- ing phases implicated France and the Germanic Empire during the war of the Spanish Succession, and enlisted the sympathies of the envoys of Eng- land. Mr. Bryce, in his preface to the volume, briefly points out the connec- tion between Rak6czy's resistance to the Hapsburg policy and that national sen- timent which culminated in the revo- lution of 1848-49 and led to the triumph of Francis Deak in 1867. Baron Hengelmiiller's work, which is to be followed by a second volume, is the fruit of most painstaking research, and, as might be expected from a man in his position, his story is a model of tactful presentation. He has drawn largely on Rakoczy's own "Autobiogra- pny," which, written for himself, was deposited in a French monastery and not discovered until 1858. Baron Hen- gelmiiller has carefully pointed out the discrepancies between the "Autobiogra- phy" and Rakoczy's "History of the Revo- lutions in Hungary," which was writ- ten partly in Latin and partly in French and published at The Hague in 1739. The volume deals largely with mili- tary movements and diplomatic trans- actions and with the blunders of Aus- trian officialdom that often enough play- ed into Rakoczy's hands. The states- manlike sagacity of Prince Eugene emerges from the crowd of the incom- petents, whom the author sketches with an unsparing hand. The policy of Aus- tria during the time of Rakoczy's war- fare is condemned as hopelessly short- sighted. "There is no doubt that the Austrians of the period looked upon Hungary very much as the English did on Ireland." Rakoczy's personality, from the time of his election as Prince of Transylva- nia till the breaking off of the peace ne- gotiations in 1706 (with which the vol- ume closes), does not, perhaps, stand out with as much distinctness as might be wished, but Baron Hengelmuller did not intend to write a biography. As an historical investigator, he certainly has achieved a notable success. It is to be regretted that the author has departed from established usage in discarding Hungarian accents. There is no good reason for a change which gives a strange and linguistically unwarrant- ed appearance to many historic names, including Rakoczy's own. In the case of Sz§ch£nyi alone the accents have been retained. It is to be hoped that the second volume will have the benefit of more careful proof-reading than the first, which contains numerous mis- prints. Francis Gribble, the author of "The Life of the Emperor Francis Joseph," takes himself seriously. He sees no rea- son why the "historian" who is not un- der obligations of loyalty or hospitality should not criticise freely. According- ly, he has dished up one of those messes of love affairs, intrigues, scandals, and back-stairs gossip which it has become the fashion to call memoirs or biogra- phies. Barring what he has gleaned from others, he knows very little of "Austro-Hungary" and its history. The name Rudolph, he says, had not been borne by a Hapsburg ruler for five hun- dred years, and in the next sentence he speaks of Rudolph II, "who had died mad" — in 1612. The author, in sum- ming up, finds the reign of Francis Joseph "an intensely interesting pe- riod of history. It is interestihg from the personal point of view as the story of Nemesis overtaking the op- pressor; the story which we have pre- sented symbolically as the story of the fulfilment of Countess Karolyi's curse." This curse and other portents furnish him with historical material, which he also finds abundantly in the career of Princess Louisa of Tuscany and other wayward scions of the house of Haps- burg, among whom he includes King Ludwig of Bavaria. "The Martyrdom of an Empress" appears to him of doubt- ful authenticity — but he pads his pages all the same with specimens of its long- exposed falsehoods. It is pitiful that such rubbish can find publishers and readers. , CURRENT FICTION. Grannie. By Mrs. George Wemyss. New York: The Macmillan Co. Having just received a pen, a blotter, and a pig — in reality an inkwell — as gifts from her grandchildren, Grannie could not better show her appreciation of these tokens than by applying them to the description of her role as grand- mother. She has reached the age when one gives counsel with authority and judges matters by feeling rather than by reasoning. The confessions of this unas- suming, good-natured, mellow little old lady are refreshing. She speaks of her family, of modern Claudia who rules the household and insists upon calling a spade a spade; of Putts, who calls Grannie "Patts"; of Patricia, whose ro- mances Grannie furthers. She speaks of the village folk, and particularly of Miss Cherry, whom they honor by read- ing to her model obituary notices that will appear when she dies. Grannie's chronicle is most successful when deal- ing with the young. Their prattle has a naive spontaneity. Grannie's success comes from her understanding of the nature of her flock. The characters of the narrative are varied. Had they been cut in more deeply, the book might have aspired to the permanence of "Cranford." Sunrise Valley. By Marion Hill. Bos- ton: Small, Maynard & Co. Related in this lively, spontaneous fashion, the adventure of teaching coun- try school and boarding with a "direc- tor's" family makes a surprisingly gay little story. It has been stretched to In- clude a legend of hidden treasure and one incongruously heavy love scene, both of which seem mistakos, though more forgivable ones than the thinly disguised didacticism that crops out
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May 14, 1914] Tlie Nation 575 from time to time. It is certainly a pity to find it in a tale otherwise so full of merry humor and accurate observation. Anybody who has ever had to contend in the schoolroom with the idioms of western Pennsylvania can vouch for the naturalness of those scenes of education- al effort pervaded by the "agonizing proficiency" of Loleda Jones Toledra, "who could complete all tasks mapped out for her quicker than a cat can lick cream," but in whose vocabulary the preposition behind had no place, in back of flourishing in its stead. Nor could the delightful Aldriches possibly have grown elsewhere, with their efficiency and kindliness, their strictly practical Ideas, their affectionate home wrangles, and their unstinted pride and indul- gence reserved for their own. Dodo's Daughter. By E. F. Benson New York: The Century Co. Mr. Benson is supposed to have re- gretted "Dodo" as a youthful indiscre- tion, but his penitence on that score may be doubted since twenty years af- ter he comes out, effervescent and un- ashamed, with "Dodo's Daughter." His last novel is not nearly as shocking as was his first, but that is probably less poor Mr. Benson's fault than our own. The science of moral anti-seismography has been highly developed since Mr. Benson, an archbishop's son, tickled pleasantly the naughty aspirations of the British middle classes, and to-day it takes something particularly strenuous from Germany or the Scandinavian countries to make us feel even the sem- blance of a shock. The bitter truth must be admitted; Dodo is not as naughty as we had pic- tured her through the telescope, no, opera glasses, of youthful recollections, and Dodo's daughter and her friends are almost mid-Victorian in the propriety with which they marry and are given in marriage — Ouida would turn in her grave at the domesticity to which the British aristocracy has descended. For not only does Dodo's daughter, after some rather perfunctory misadventures with a character whom in essentials Mr. Benson has used in a previous book, con- tract a happy alliance with an ideally commonplace young man, but Dodo her- self, having divorced Prince Waldenech, the bibulous nobleman with whom we left her twenty years ago, marries her first love, the fiance whom she so un- ceremoniously jilted early in her ca- reer, and, of all bourgeois achieve- ments, at the age of forty-five, presents him with an heir. As Dodo herself says, "Isn't it ridiculous?" The author has not wholly lost his knack of social satire, and his tongue is in his cheek when Nadine and her friends patronize the Victorianism of the "souls" among whom Dodo in her heyday was a daring leader. "Dodo's Daughter" is a readable book, and it is plain that Mr. Benson has mellowed with the years, but it is not as clever either as "Dodo" or as some of the other novels that he has written in the interim. My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard. By Elizabeth Cooper. New York: Freder- ick A. Stokes Co. The changes that China has under- gone in the last quarter of a century are reflected in the sequestered life of a Chi- nese lady of rank. The record consists of two series of letters. The first of these are written to her absent hus- band from a home where a mother-in- law of the old school rules severely. They describe at length the daily life and customs of an aristocratic Chinese household untouched by the invasion of Western ideas. The later letters are ad- dressed by this wife in middle age to her erstwhile tyrant of a mother-in-law, and tell how official life in new China looks on the domestic side. The culture and wisdom of the old civilization to which the spirit of the Occident has proved so inimical, is often beautifully defended, and from time to time one comes on an adage that compares amus- ingly with one of our own, as "When a man has been burned once with hot soup, he forever after blows upon cold rice." Probably no woman, East or West, ever wrote private letters so full of description and exposition. It is a book written about a Chinese woman, not by one, and creates as little illusion as to the personality of the writer as did a sagacious Englishman's treatise of some years ago, entitled "Letters of a Chinese Official." There are plenty of excellent photographs by way of illus- tration. Ezekiel Expands. By Lucy Pratt. Bos- ton: Houghton Mifflin Co. Miss Pratt, in this further study of Ezekiel, her gifted negro-child creation, writes with perfect control of the negro dialect and rare understanding of the race, acquired during her residence at Hampton. The extraordinary imagina- tion of Ezekiel and his power of cast- ing a spell over his audience, whether black or write, are again set forth. But this is something more than entertain- ing writing. It is the negro character which In many of its phases is here por- trayed. The pathos of the negro child and of the cruel color-line is well brought out in the quaint sayings of the brave and shrewd little boy. And there are not a few deserved hits at the su- perior race. Whoever has attended a conference on the negro will enjoy Ezekiel's definition of such a gathering: "Wy, it's where dey all talks about 'em. Doan't yer know, it's where dey talks about uplif'in' de culled people, an' 'bout how dey's gwine help 'em. Ain't yer nuver hyeah 'bout it?" Upon which his listener, Archelus, responds: "Doan't look like it's sense ter talk 'bout 'em all time, is it?" only to meet with this crush- ing retort from Ezekiel: "I doan' know et" it's sense or not, but it's de onlies' thing dey does, anyway." Miss Pratt must have been a rarely sympathetic teacher. At any rate, there are valuable lessons here for a reading public which needs to have its sym- pathy aroused for a struggling race. IDEALS OF HINDUISM. Studies from an Eastern Home. By Sis- ter Nivedita (Margaret E. Noble), with Prefatory Memoir by S. K. Rat- cliff e. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. $1.20 net. Now that Nationalism has become en- demic, the historian of the future can- not fail to consider the subtle influence that the author of these studies exer- cised among her followers, apart from her unconscious share in revivifying an otiose Hinduism. Sister Nivedita's Irish ancestry explains, in a large measure, the passionate enthusiasm with which she invested an ill-understood propagan- da, and the mysticism in which she ap- parently immersed a keen, aggressive mind. Only in a small degree is she un- like the disciples of the Celtic Move- ment. But it must be remembered that the real force of her personality impinged on the Hindu imagination through an utter effacement of creed, dogma, and nationality, that must ever be the de- spair of the ideal missionary or educa- tor in India. As Max Miiller has some- where remarked, in India you find your- self between an immense Past, and an immense Future. As a pioneer in edu- cation, Sister Nivedita caught the dual vision. She championed an education for the Hindu in the tradition of his race, religion, and custom, as opposed to the hybrid that is the ideal of the English university system in India, and in adopting this attitude she discovered a means of contact and a policy for all those who wish to understand and in- terpret the subject races in India. From platform and press she thundered at British blunders in reform. Yet so com- pletely did she identify herself with Hindu ideals and standards that she failed to express herself against such evils as child-marriage and perpetual widowhood. In the present volume are collected studies of Hindu myth, custom, and legend, translated with something of the same shy, rare understanding that we associate with Lafcadio Hearn's in- terpretation of the Japanese. Here, however, the angle of belief is more acute, and the association with a re- ligion, alien in its native milieu both in
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576 T li e 1ST a t i o ii [Vol. 98, No. 2550 practice and interpretation, is more complete. Still, we imagine that the exponents of a new Hinduism as typi- fied in the Arya Somaj or the Brahmo Somaj, whether or not they approved of her, lost in Sister Nivedita a val- uable ally. These studies, taken with her pre- vious volume, "The Web of Indian Life," embody the results of a life spent in a quest of the soul of a people. While it must suggest the failure of a rare personality to come to grips with the essential problem of Hinduism — its stagnation, and its apathy towards the new spirit animating the younger gen- eration of its adherents, the refusal to avail itself of the rising tide of Na- tionalism— yet this failure may be oth- erwise explained. Sister Nivedita's at- titude, doubtless, had its definite spir- itual rewards. Prof. William James re- f rred to this condition of mind, using the words of Saint Teresa, as "the ori- son of union"; and as such we must understand Sister Nivedita's mystical absorption in Hinduism. A NEW NOTE IN FRENCH FICTION. A far-away melody is heard more and more in the fiction of younger French writers. It lingers round the race's traditional life in provincial families whose youth are forced into the mod- ern hurly-burly. This may be natural reaction, and it may prove short-lived; but it is spontaneous and often comes from those who can have no conscious- ness of reaction. It is like Walter Scott preparing Englishmen for the Ox- ford Movement, as Newman noted. In form, it goes little further back than Balzac, who was a prime reaction- ary, and to Flaubert's "Education Sen- timentale." But these Neo-Classicists, as some of them dubiously label them- selves, look on dead Zola and living Anatole France like Christian on Pagan and Pope in the Pilgrim's Progress. For them, the attempt to show "how entirely non compos mentis the world was till our time" is a failure. Anatole France has expressed his annoyance at this new generation which escapes him: "It has not faith — since faith is lost — and it makes a show of faith." Perhaps the show is revival in a race that has been examining its conscience. "Laure," by Emile Clermont, is not really open to this suspicion of faith or reaction; yet it follows the new trend. All last season it was the novel most canvassed, coming up for the Acad- emy's great prize ot Literature and barely missing it, the prize remaining unawarded. The Immortals were too equally divided between its merits and those of a Nationalist book by Jean Variot, of Maurice BarrSs's school. Not that there is the slightest taint of Exoticism in "Laure," for who: < French quality Ernest Lavisse stood sponsor. The book begins: You must take your way through mo- notonous countries without a past and de- void of history to know the inestimable value of the spiritual air breathing through places that have brought forth noble events. . . . Ancient houses with shutters falling and disjointed, chateaux lonely in their valleys — how many there are through this country of France which all along their past have sheltered high tragedies! Sacrifice, devotedness, piety, deep inner dialogues, and wills freed from the world's common motives, and lofty wisdom won in tears— all this does not evaporate in an hour. An imprint re- mains, a fragrance of legend and re- spect . . . For nigh two hundred years the Engerand family has occupied this house and park. . . . The scions of its four primitive branches have stayed on in the country in fair number, with vary- ing fortune and names, still keeping the remembrance of common origin and often brought together again by new mar- riages. But, among all these cousins, from far back, there was a settled and particular consideration for this house of La Mettrie. . . . There, only a few years since, such deference was paid to the two last representatives of the name — Maximilien — Foel Engerand, who was near seventy and seemed chief of all the kin, and his son Charles-Armand, who retired here a widower with his two daughters — Laure and Louise. . . . Laure and Louise were united by an affection which was visible to everybody. It was not only attachment, confidence, mutual attentions; it was more still, an indefinable, secret agree- ment, as if each, at every moment, took the other to witness of her feelings and behavior. In this leisurely way a story unwinds which is not unknown to literature, for it can end only in the love of both sis- ters for one unsuspecting and undecided man. Hence, that the true love of one may run smooth, the other's true love must be sacrificed — and the other is L<aure. Her inner trials and victories and the lack of understanding around her are the subject of this book. Her last victory is over the man himself, who little recks of her tragedy. "It is true," said Laure, "I have been troubled for some days to see that Louise and you have not protected as your most precious good the affection which has united you." The man, Marc, chiefly wonders that his sister-in-law should leave them al- together for life in a convent; and so the story ends. "Dcai- me, T^aure! perhaps your and your knowledge and even your vir- tues need to be vei Bd. You think 1 and we mus1 i.elieveyou. But for those like us who have only a simple, common hi. ii i: b greal thing by Itself 1 thai such as you exist." w'ii h words like thesi ired hei ..(ii times that, from h treat, some radiance would still fall upoa them. Thus they finished their farewells, full of promises. It should be said that the convent part of the story counts for little, and the writer seems respectful of religious realities, rather than familiar with them. But the very old French idea of the sacrifice of one for another as opposed to the modern "right to live one's own life" is brought out strik- ingly. "Les Survivants," by Rene Behaine, leads us into another traditional and provincial world — gentry ending their race in unpropitious days. Here we are back with Walter Scott and his Osbal- distones; but the French author has never a Di Vernon to light up the per- petual afternoon. Here, too, the con- vent, which may have been suppressed by law, but is not yet driven from French tradition, is brought in for the education of young girls of a declining caste — a picture full of simplicity and charm. Jean Morgan, in two successive nov- els, "Au Seuil de l'Amour" and "Parmi les Ruines," moves also in such belated French lives with which belated New England consciences should have much sympathy. In the first the heroic young maiden sacrifices her own prospects of worldly happiness to make a current man of her young brother, when the death of their parents leaves them with- out the fortune to which they were ac- customed. There is a charming picture of noble, needy University life; and when the sacrifice of legitimate affec- tion is over, perhaps unappreciated, the hospital sister continues in other works of love. The second is the story of a family shaken and rent by infidelity and divorce to the great danger of the children, until, by some Providence, it swings back to tradition: The house of the family which lives after the man, the sacred place where the elders see the little ones grow up and these, in turn, remember their forefathers before they go to rest at their life's end. "Les Demoiselles Bertram" is a novel of Paul Acker, who hovers still round his loved Alsace, but in an Alsatian family which has chosen to remain in France— the country of their heart. The story is entirely taken up with the failing fortunes of the holder of a small office in the state service of Finance, when the age of retirement has come. His three amiable daughters are dower- less — a tragedy relieved only by love and sacrifice in this old-world commu- nity in which each one clings to his so- cial grade. One daughter marries hap- pily— beneath her; one is sacrificed, and one realizes yel again the Idea which occurred to unimaginative Lady Am- brose in "The New Republic": 1 m \,,ii know, mj dear, 1 hai • .
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May 14, 1914] T 1 1 e 1ST a t i o n 577 of eight cousins, all unmarried; and when I look at those girls' faces, I do confess, my dear, that I positively wish your re- ligion was true; for then they could all go into convents. Perhaps it is because the French re- public has left so few convents stand- ing that this solution of a grave social problem recurs so often in the litera- ture of Young France. It is true that France has as yet no suffragettes to regulate the position of women who are shut out from marriage by the present state of society. None of these young French writers books — upsetting surely all English no- tions of "French novels" — has been taken from among the many which os- tentatiously proclaim religious faith. Those centre upon names only beginning to be known abroad, particularly Charles Peguy, with his periodical "Cahiers"; Paul Claudel and Francis Jammes, oft- enest mentioned as poets; Robert Val- lery-Radot, the son-in-law of Pasteur and his biographer and also a poet. Of these Anatole France will have it that "their wrongheadedness may amuse at first and end by annoying." "La Revolte des Anges," by Anatole France, excites mixed feelings. With these angels who learn on earth Darwin- ian eugenics (euphemistically), there is neither reverence nor respect of the lim- itation of religious ideals, nor even wholesome comedy as in "The Wonder- ful Visit" of Wells; nor Is it the inap- propriate love-making of Byron and Woman wailing for her demon lover. In the known pellucid, artistic lan- guage there is more than irony and the laughter of Mephistopheles; there is something very much like human ani- mus, illogical and therefore unfair. "La Force mysterieuse," by J. H. Rosny ain&, is a story of future possi- bilities, very scientifically evolved from the supposition that a molecular force of the universe somehow goes wrong — that is, not like what we expected from past observation. It has a particular interest from its preface, in which the author calls attention to the use of the same supposition — after himself — by Conan Doyle, who seems not to have been able to work out the science of it. In 'iLa Rose des Ruines" Victor Mar- gueritte, who is now one of the older French novelists, continues that mod- ern view of life and love in quick, clear, sharp sentences which distinguish him and his brother. There are, as we have seen, more modern than they. Of intensely provincial pictures, real, rol- licking, sordid, tragic, there are two excellent examples — "Le Vieux Garain," by Gaston Roupnel (not for babes), and "Sicoutrou," a tale of love and poach- ing, delightfully close to the ground, by a new writer, Francisque Parn. S. D. 'Notes In the educational section of last week's Nation the title of a book by Dr. G. L. Walton was by an error of the re- viewer incorrectly given as "The Plant- Finder." The correct title of Dr. Wal- ton's book is "The Flower-Finder." McBride, Nast & Co. have in prepara- tion for early publication "The Political Shame of Mexico," by Edwin I. Bell. The Macmillan Company announces the forthcoming publication of "The Soul of America," by Stanton Coit; "Feeble- mindedness," by Henry H. Goddard; "They Who Question," Anonymous. Frederick A. Stokes Company an- nounces for publication in June "The League of the Leopard," by Harold Bind- loss. "Juvenile Courts and Probation," by Bernard Flexner and Roger N. Baldwin, will be issued by the Century Company early next month. The Oxford University Press announces the immediate publication of "Princeton," by Prof. V. C. Collins, which is the sec- ond volume in its American College and University series. Longmans, Green announce for publi- cation shortly: "Modern Industry," by Florence Kelley; "The Economic Organ- ization of England," by W. J. Ashley; "Fight Without Formulae," by Command- er Duchene; "Factory Administration and Accounts," by Edward T. Elbourne. Barrett H. Clark's "Continental Drama of To-day" will be issued by Henry Holt & Co. on Saturday. The same company announces another edition of Anderson Nexo's "Pelle the Conqueror — Boyhood." The second volume of the trilogy will be published about November 1. Brentano's will publish on May 26 a new volume of Bernard Shaw's plays. The volume, in addition to Mr. Shaw's preface, will contain "Misalliance," "Fan- ny's First Play," and "The Dark Lady of the Sonnets." The John Lane Company announces for publication to-morrow: "The Purple Mists," by F. E. Mills Young; "A Girl's Marriage," by Agnes Gordon Lennox; "The Trend," by William Arkwright; "Curing Christopher," by Mrs. Horace Tremlett; "Macdonald of the Isles," by Mrs. A- M. W. Stirling; "The New Op- timism," by H. de Vere Stacpoole. The same company will publish "The Titan," by Theodore Dreiser, on May 22. A VALUABLE contribution to our knowledge of an interesting coun- try is Mr. John Claude White's descrip- tion of his experiences in Bhutan, in the National Geographic Magazine for April. The head of a mission representing the Government of India at the inauguration of the present King, Sir Ugyen, in 1907, he had unequalled opportunities for see- ing everything of interest and for gather- ing information otherwise impossible to procure. The reproductions of his photo- graphs show the beauty and variety of the scenery in the heart of the Hima- layas, and also the remarkable decorative architecture of the forts, palaces, monas- teries, and even of the native houses. The people are a fine race, who do excellent work in suspension bridge building, and are skilful artisans, as is shown by their ironwork, casting of metals, gold and sil- versmith's work, and especially weaving and embroidery. The personality of the King and his family life are attrac- tively pictured. The new building of the National Geographic Society, whose mem- bership is now 285,000, is described, and some interesting facts are given as to its present aims, exploration, and geographic research work. IN choosing such a work as the "Bar- laam and Ioasaph" of St. John Dama- scene for a volume of the Loeb Library (Macmillan; $1.50 net), the general editors are, we think, following a wise policy. No doubt the great classical writers are of the first importance for the series, and these, as a matter of fact, are receiving the proper precedence; but, by making an author like St. John — not to mention Philostratus and Quintus Smyrnseus, al- ready published — easily accessible, in a form suitable for rapid reading, the Library may do something to enlarge the contracted interest of our classical schol- arship. And it often needs enlargement. How many professors in this country whose business it is to know Greek lit- erature have never read more than a few pages of Philostratus, for instance; have never looked into "Barlaam" (which may be excusable), and have not even had the ambition to make themselves familiar with the stirring poem of Quin- tus (which is inexcusable) ? The an- swer, one suspects, would be a sad con- fession of mechanical routine taking the place of a quick and contagious inter- est. MESSRS. G. R. WOODWARD and H. Mattingly, the translators of the "Barlaam and Ioasaph," conclude that it was certainly composed "during the Icon- oclastic Controversy, in the eighth cen- tury," and probably about the year 75« a. d. The author, they contend, was either St. John of Damascus himself or some other monk of the name John who was intimately acquainted with the works of the Damascene, quoted from them largely, and held the same views. The conclusion will probably not be dis- puted by anybody in this country, and by few anywhere outside of Germany, where it is still not quite orthodox to ac- cept a traditional attribution. For their English version, Messrs. Woodward and Mattingly have adopted a style strongly flavored with scriptural idiom. They were led to this by the difficulty of f'mrlinf: any other style that would fit the con- stant Biblical quotations into the text without disagreeable transitions and a general effect of patchwork. The result has been a greater freedom in the ren- dering than would have been necessary with a less artificial medium; but the freedom seldom descends into license, and the manner is suited to the matter. De- spite its considerable interest, religious and in places fairly human, "Barlaam and Ioasaph" has never before been com- pletely translated into English from the original, and the present undertaking is
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578 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2550 a work of considerable value, carefullv executed. Tho marginal references and elaborate Indexes add to the scholarly character of the book. On page 191, "man ol hell" is an odd misprint for "maw of hell," and on page 345 "I am thy debtor" reverses the meaning of the Greek. Oth- er negligences could be pointed out. IN "The War of the Roses, 1377-1471" (London: Crosby Lockwood & Son), Mr. R. B. Mowat, after a painstaking study of the printed sources, has written a convenient and ■ trustworthy guide for those who desire a short history of this confusing period. While he does not dif- fer materially in his account from Stubbs, Galrdner, Ramsay, and Oman, he has added numerous incidents to illustrate the spirit of the age and has given some espe- cially good character sketches. The pri- mary cause of the War of the Roses, Mr. Mowat says, was the family settlement of Edward III, by which that ruler hoped to establish powerful royal families to act as a counterpoise to the hostile feudal barons. The result was just the reverse. Instead of families bound to the king by ties of blood and self-interest, he created the "over mighty subject," who could well boast that he was "of as good birth as the King, only richer." Early in the fifteenth century, the five appanaged houses were reduced to two, Lancaster and York, whose bitter rivalry and struggle for the crown plunged England into a long inter- necine war. The ultimate causes of the downfall of the house of Lancaster were the loss of French territory, the weakness and virtual bankruptcy of the central government, and the spirit of lawlessness engendered amone the nobles and their retainers during the foreign campaigns of the Hundred Years' War. MORE vigor and definiteness of pur- pose are attributed to Henry VI by the author than others have usually assigned to him. He rejects Stubbs's dictum that "constitutional progress had outrun administrative order," and shows that the so-called Lancastrian ex- periment did not foreshadow modern re- sponsible government. Henry VI fre- quently violated the rules of the Consti- tution, packed Parliament, interfered with the administration of justice, and strange- ly disregarded the demands of Parliament and public opinion. A good chapter is the one dealing with English Society dur- ing the War of the Roses. The rural and urban population were, on the whole, prosperous. Prices remained virtually the same. Trade and commerce were rapidly developing, and the old spirit of isolation was breaking down. Plundering by the soldiers was not common, for, indeed, such a policy would have been fatal to the party practicing it. The war was large- ly restricted to the barons and their re- tainers. The bitter family feuds preclud- ed giving quarter, and the battles were usually followed by unrestrained murder and assassination. Lord Clifford exclaim- ed when he stabbed the youthful Earl of Rutland after the battle of Wakefield, "By God's blood, thy father slew mine; and bo will I do thee, and all thy kin." Tho vir- tual extermination of the caste nobility opened the way for the control of local government by the middle class. A strong monarchy, a nobility of service, and a wealthy middle class enabled Eng- land "to go through the tremendous crisis of the Reformation without the internal conflicts which devastated other coun- tries." MRS. ELIZABETH DOUGLAS VAN DENBURGH is the author of "My Voyage in the United States Fri- gate Congress" (Desmond Fitzgerald; $2.50 net). She has rewritten a diary kept by herself as a girl of fourteen on a long voyage in 1845-4G of the Congress from Norfolk to Hawaii, upon which she was a passenger with her father, Joel Turrill, Consul-General to Hawaii, and the other members of his family, and An- thony Ten Eyck, Commissioner to Ha- waii, who was also acompanied by his family. It was a long and uneventful voyage, with a very stormy passage around Cape Horn. The book is interest- ing only as a picture of conditions on a warship just at the period when sailing frigates were disappearing and steam warships coming to take their place. Mrs. Van Denburgh and her sister are the sole survivors of this cruise. Of the ship's company only two were really distin- guished, Commodore Robert F. Stockton and the commander of the ship, Samuel Francis Du Pont, later the well-known Admiral of the Civil War. A COLLECTION of thirty-five brief impressions of places is comprised in "The Tower of Mirrors," by Vernon Lee (Lane, $1.25 net). France, Switzer- land, Germany, and Italy are put under contribution to provide fine sensations. At her best Vernon Lee is superlatively good in this swift notation of personal reaction to place. Such an essay as "Sterzing am Brenner," with its dream pageant of the folk who through the ages have halted at the German outpost above the Venetic plain is extraordinarily evocative. Sens and the Nun of the Bon Pasteur is exquisite. The Victor of Xan- ten, a parallel of the myths of Siegfried and St. Victor suggested by the sight ol Siegfried's legendary birthplace at Rhine mouth, is a delightful essay. It illus- trates the blend of vivid impressionism with nice and apposite historical associa- tions, which is the distinguishing merit of Vernon Lee's work. She envisages a sharply seen present in the light of all the past, and this without sentimentalism. The occasional defect of this work is a sort of priggishness, insistence on small impressions, forcing a sensation when none arrives spontaneously, a trick of deliberately avoiding the larger point of things as too obvious. It would be hard, for example, to tell less about Vallom- brosa in an equal number of words. Still this is a kind of writing in which the rule' is whim, and a too natural and ex- pansive Vernon Lee would be a dire dis- appointment to her readers. For her de- vout admirers, among which the review- er counts himself, the best of these slight essays will convey the very 0.1 of her strong and delicate genius. THOMAS SPENCER JEROME, who died on April 12, at Capri, in his early fifties, was a fine representative of a type rare among us, tho private, un- attached scholar. For many years he had pursued exhaustive studies of the Roman Empire. Recently his lectures before the American Academy at Rome and the Historical Society at London had gained him a long-due recognition among his colleagues and had aroused high ex- pectation of the great work he was not to live to complete. Jerome was of pio- neer Michigan stock. His father, David Hewell Jerome, made a fortune in min- ing and railway building, becoming event- ually Governor of Michigan. The son was graduated from the literary depart- ment of the University of Michigan in 1884, studied in the Law School for a year, and took his master of arts at Harvard in 1887. For a time he gave himself to the practice of the law at De- troit, but his scholarly predilections soon became overmastering. Freed from the usual task of money-making, he decided to move to the scene of his favorite studies. With his friend, Charles W. Freer, the well-known connoisseur, he bought the delightful Villa Castello on the heights of Capri, assumed the quite honorary function of consular agent, continued the building up of a remark- able historical library, and began the ex- cerpting of a truly formidable mass of notes. Though a delightful host and stimulating companion with his intel- lectual peers, his life was very much that of a recluse. Inordinate application to his studies unquestionably shortened his years. The marking feature of his his- tory was to have been, first, a radical critique of the Latin historians; second, a fuller use of non-literary sources, epi- graphic especially, than had ever been undertaken; finally, a reinterpretation of the crude data in the light of modern science and psychology. A characteris- tic comment on the famous dictum Lati- fundia destroyed Italy was "Read mala- ria." TO his task of reinterpretation he brought a keen and robust intelligence, good humor, and common-sense. ONE of the rarer scholastic pleasures was to hear him trim and discount historians of the moralizing type of Sene- ca, Tacitus, or Suetonius. His researches swung a wide orbit, as is shown by the fugitive studies recently collected into the volume, "Roman Memories in the Landscape Seen from Capri" (London: Mills & Boon). From his study window were visible all the greater landmarks of Campania, a landscape truly eloquent to such an observer. Two volumes of simi- lar preliminary and incidental studies are about to be issued by the Putnams. Gradually the knowledge of his studies brought him the acquaintance he most valued, and his bachelor establishment and library became a resort and a re- Cor all scholarly visitors to < laprt. His championship of the traduced Em- peror Tiberius and his own serviceable good sense won him also the affection of the natives of the Island. Alter- his ai the American Academy, this admiration took the form, erabai i to a modest scholar, of a serenade bj the ■/Mage band, an address of thanks by the and the quaffing of official oham- to i be memoi s ol I be best, and worst -entreated, of Emperors and to the health of the Amerloan consular agent. Mr, Jerome's voluminous notes
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May 14, 1914] The Nation 579 are so legible and admirably arranged that a skilful literary executor might be able to carry the work forward. He often surveyed the huge tables on which his material lay in appallingly complete order and said ruefully, "I shall be the Lord Acton of America." The jest hit near the mark. It is to be hoped that some continuer of his studies may be found, and that some adequate salvage be made from the notes that represent many years of indefatigable labor and alert selection. NOTES FROM ABROAD. THE Channel Islands — where there is still in everyday use a patois almost identical with the Norman French spok- en by William the Conqueror — are the home of other quaint antiquarian relics. One of them, an ancient form of injunc- tion, was revived in Guernsey last month. A local politician, whose election as "ju- rat" had been annulled by the Royal Court of the island on the ground of his having been sentenced to a term of im- prisonment some years ago, knelt bare- headed at the entrance to the court house and exclaimed: "Haro! Haro! Haro! a, l'aide, mon Prince, on me fait tort." The effect of this appeal, technically called the "clameur de Haro," is to stay pro- ceedings until the petitioner's case has been heard. In modern times the cry has most frequently been raised to in- terrupt building operations on land to which the title is disputed — much to the annoyance of unsuspecting strangers who have settled in the islands without being aware of this curious tradition. Popular etymology explains "Haro" as an abbreviation of "Ha! Rollo," thus making the cry a direct appeal to the first Duke of Normandy. HUNTERS of autographs will be justly envious of the good fortune of Glasgow University in obtaining the MS. notes of Arthur J. Balfour's Gifford Lec- tures. They are written on large, cream- colored envelopes, and consist almost entirely of headings and catchwords. The Glasgow Herald publishes this sam- ple: "Paradox of chance. Poincar6. But a priori. Pennies? Monte Carlo. No drift. Random. Sufficient reason. Knot. Objective to subjective. Dice. Theism." REGIS MICHAUD is bringing out in French two volumes (Paris: Ar- mand Colin) of an "Autobiographie d'Em- erson," boiled down from the ten vol- umes of the Journal, with notes to aid the French understanding. An effort is made to follow out the spiritual evo- lution of the "American philosopher." Emerson is bound to be known in France, as Montaigne, whom he resembled in many ways, is known everywhere, as "the author of the Essays." In the sixties, Victor Cousin, who thought himself as omniscient as his reading was omni- vorous, said of Emerson — "Much erudi- tion and no logic!" The "young" of the passing generation in France know more than that, thanks largely to Initiating theses of a doctoresse, Marie Dugard. Translations have followed and commen- taries by current philosophers. It is true that Young France, now crowding for- ward, appears little likely to pursue the acquaintance. Still, Emerson has at least dawned on French literary consciousness more than Walt Whitman, whom he ap- preciated . and who has been similarly studied, but infinitely less and sixty years later than Poe, whom he despised. He may catch up ultimately with Carlyle, who has been pushed of late years for his French Revolution. Emerson had a strong opinion about France, "where poet never grew"; but a judicious choice of his own poetry, esoteric and prag- matic, might yet win him a place among "foreign classics" acknowledged by the French. Poe's Tales, thanks to Baude- laire, long since became a French clas- sic. Fenimore Cooper has been taken even more closely to the heart of the nation as a universal schoolboys' writer —another reversal of criticism by Hu- manity. THE French version of the fourth vol- ume of Dierauer's monumental "His- toire de la Confederation suisse" has lately been published at Lausanne, the narra- tive being brought down to the year 1798. The author is director of the famous li- brary at St. Gall, and his work not only displays an accurate and thorough knowl- edge of the subject, but is written in an admirably lucid style. The part which will be read with most interest by students of Swiss history is that relating to the im- position by France of the Helvetic consti- tution, during the last decade of the eigh- teenth century. A YOUNG author of Geneva, M. Frank Grandjean, may be regarded as the epic poet of the Nietzschian school. He attracted some attention by his popular lectures at the university on Bergson; and has now published a partly pessimis- tic, partly supermannish, poem entitled "L'Epopee d'un solitaire." Apparently he is the "solitaire" disguised under the name of Helios. It is doubtful whether many admirers of belles-lettres will find the eight cantos of this long and somewhat lugubrious work very enticing; nor will philosophical readers recognize in the Ge- neva poet a new Lucretius, although he has evidently read Lucretius. Ideas like those of the Non-Ego, the Maya, the Un- created, and "the nightmare of Evolu- tion" are troublesome in prose, and are more troublesome when veiled in the lan- guage of poetry. WHAT promises to become a serious agitation is in progress against the Federal Council of Switzerland be- cause of its failure to suppress the pub- lic gambling now so prevalent at the chief Alpine resorts. The legal prohibi- tion is perfectly explicit, but the authori- ties seem reluctant to enforce it — not the local authorities, but the executive Gov- ernment itself. The clergy, university professors, and the principal newspapers are very Insistent in their protests. But the blame is put upon the foreign visit- ors to Switzerland. They would not like, it is said, to be deprived of this form of amusement. This excuse has added fuel to the flame of opposition; for the Swiss are greatly concerned at the way in which their political and economic life is dominated by foreign, especially by Teutonic, influences. The Bund, the Gov- ernment organ at Berne, is thoroughly German in its spirit and tendencies. The army is said to be in danger of becom- ing Germanized; officers are accused of introducing Prussian ideas and manners into the service; artillery is ordered from Krupp; Swiss industries are being every- where absorbed by Germans; and the more important hotels are owned, man- aged, and served by Germans. Germany cannot, however, be held responsible for the gambling. Science A PHILOSOPHER'S SELF-REVELA- TION. Glimpses of the Cosmos: A Mental Au- tobiography by Lester F. Ward, LL.D., comprising his minor contributions now republished, together with bio- graphical and historical sketches of all his writings. Vols. I-III (to be completed in twelve volumes). New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. $2.50 net each. This "mental autobiography" is to be a reprint in full of every essay, minor article, or note that the author has ever written and published during his entire life, or from the age of sixteen to sev- enty, with but a single exception, that of a certain newspaper article of which both print and manuscript have been lost. There are 557 bibliographic titles, which with a few notable exceptions cover most of the subjects upon which the human mind has exercised itself. To the title of each of these entries is add- ed the date of publication, the age of the author, and the history of the arti- cle, or the circumstances under which it came to be written. The author's nu- merous books and scientific monographs are duly listed and their history given, often at great length, as in the case of "Dynamic Sociology," the account of which is extended to nearly one hun- dred pages; but these works are not re- produced. The author explains that the three volumes now before us are offered in re- sponse to those admiring readers who wished to have ready access to his scat- tered writings, and to know more of his personal history; this work they must accept in lieu of a more formal biog- raphy. His further object and his meth- od of attaining it are explained in great detail; his multifarious papers are not classified by subject, but are all entered in strict chronological sequence, be- cause, as he says, the sciences are all mutually related. "Of course," as he fur- ther explains, "between a paper in which I describe a hundred new species of fos- sil plants and one on the principles of social mechanics there seems to be as wide a chasm as can be conceived of, but when under social statics, which is one of the great subdivisions of social mechanics, I am obliged to range the
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580 T li e INT a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2550 principle of sympodial dichotomy, sup- posed to be a strictly botanical princi- ple, and little understood by botanists themselves, and to show that it is the main principle governing cosmic, or- ganic, and social evolution, we see that the two apparently so remote ends of the series are brought together, and that all nature is ultimately one." "I have never been able," he adds, "to treat any subject except in its relation to all oth- er subjects, and my main purpose has always been to point out those rela- tions." It is evident that the author took a serious view of life at an early day, for he had kept a diary steadily from the age of nineteen. To these sources he could turn for a history of his activi- ties, but he had at command still other and more extensive scrap-books, num- bering twenty-three volumes, and de- voted to "Reviews and Press Notices," "Autograph Letters," and "Biography." To illustrate his desire to know every- thing that he had ever thought, said, or written, it may be noticed that ne made a great card-index to the whole of this material, "sparing no pains to cross- index every name, subject, or word on every page." Moreover, as the work of compilation progressed, he decided to make another card-index of his entire manuscript, which in the end required 10,000 standard cards. "I saw," said Dr. Ward, "that a complete index of this manuscript would place my entire life- work within my reach, and I cared quite as much for this as for the republica- tion of my essays." Probably no author has ever been so well primed upon his own labors, or has ever presented so precise and exhaustive a history of his own literary or scientific career. Professor Ward could not bring him- self to skim the cream from his writings and throw away the milk, for each pa- per, as he naively remarks, will be found to harbor "at least one thought." His aim, in short, was "to put into ac- cessible form all the thought that he had ever given to the world." Not only do these essays, ranging from the pe- riod of his youth to old age, serve to show the metabolism of his mind, but they "supplement" his system. Tak- ing a warning from the experience of Auguste Comte, who, by rejecting much of his early work as premature, sacri- ficed one of the brightest things he ever said, "Tout est relatif; voila le seul principe absolu" (or would have done so had it not been reproduced), our au- thor would preserve every line, not only "believing," as he says, but "knowing that a considerable proportion of read- ers would be grievously disappointed . . . if even the least of my utter- ances were wanting in this place." In deciding upon so unusual a course, he assumes "that the reader is a reason- able being," that after reading the preface, he will "know what to expect, and that he will make the proper allow- ance for all the circumstances." But the reader assuredly has the same right to expect the author to be reason- able, and we think that after scanning the contents of these volumes, most will agree that Comte adopted the wiser course. The author does not hesitate to ana- lyze and classify the new ideas that he has contributed to the world's thought. "Now, what constantly strikes me," remarks this philosopher, "is that ever and anon some modern writer comes forward with the claim to the discovery of an entirely new truth. In every such case that I have thus far met with, if it is really a truth, it is one, or small part of one, that I have not only stated earlier, but, at least in most cases, have fully set forth, carefully analyzed, and connected with other related truths, as an integral part of my system of phil- osophy." Such instances the author would not necessarily ascribe to pla- giarism, but thinks that they often arise from ignorance of his work, when not "due to the Zeitgeist itself, which is at last tardily overtaking" him. In support of these rather extraordi- nary claims, the "Creative Evolution" of Henri Bergson is held up as a flagrant example, for many ideas therein, upon which our author has "been ringing the changes for thirty years, are served up as something wholly new to the world." Bergson has been credited with giving an entirely new character to evolution by showing that it is creative, but, says our author, "I should like to know if I have not been holding this idea up throughout my whole career. I have not only shown that evolution is crea- tive, but how it is creative. Bergson scarcely gets beyond his title." Again his doctrine of the "6lan vital," says our author, "embodies a great truth, but it is not new. In fact, it is nothing less than the manifestation in the organic world of the nisus of nature, the universal energy, mak- ing for higher stages of being." "In the latter part of his book Bergson shows his colors completely, and comes forth a pure metaphysician. But he thinks that he has made a great discov- ery that distinguishes him from all oth- er metaphysicians. Instead of regard- ing the conception of time as derived from that of space, and that of space from that of matter and motion, as is becoming quite fashionable to do, he makes time (duration) the basis of ev- erything, and plants his entire system upon that idea." Spencer, whose ideas have chiefly inspired this work, accord- ing to Bergson, "is not a philosopher at all, and all because, instead of making a universe out of whole cloth, as a true philosopher must do, he took the one he found, and did the best he could with it. If Bergson had known me and deigned to mention me, I should have shared the same fate, and so of all who deal with realities. ... In fact, there is no place in his scheme for ob- servation and the only faculty called out by it is imagination." Similarly, Germany is being flooded with new books, in support of the monistic philos- ophy, but, says Professor Ward, their claims to originality are unfounded; not even their principles are new; "the greater part of them are to be found in my books, dating back ten, twenty, or even thirty years." The outlook is rath- er discouraging. Professor Ward deals rather briefly with his biography, under the head of "Personal Remark," for he declares that his mind had "always been trimmed toward the future rather than the past"; accordingly he was never interested in genealogy, and regarded pride in ances- try as a mark of degeneracy. He was born at Joliet, 111., on June 18, 1841, his father, a mechanic by trade, having gone thither to build one of the locks on the Illinois and Michigan Canal. As a youth, he developed a great love for nature and an aptitude for languages, opportunities for exploring the woods and fields meantime being rarely neglected. When he was twelve years old his family emigrated from Illinois to Iowa, travelling the entire distance in a small covered wagon, to take up .a quarter section of land, for which his father held a warrant on account of ser- vice in the War of 1812. This was a memorable journey for the boys, who slept on the ground at night, had many adventures by day, and supplied the family generously with game. Return- ing to Illinois after his father's death in 1857, young Ward went to work on a farm, and was soon able to pay his tuition at school and to satisfy in some measure that persistent thirst for know- ledge which was as characteristic of the boy as of the man. He joined his older brother the following year in a wagon- hub factory in Pennsylvania, and though the business was a failure, he made great progress in Latin, Greek, German, and French. He went through Ollen- dorff's Greek Grammar while at his work, and it was "over the arch" that he studied Loomis's Physiology and many other text-books. His next school showed the advantage to be gained by such studious habits, for he was ad- vanced over class after class, until he was soon reading Livy and Herodotus. In the winter of 1861-62 this "autodidact" was teaching school and preparing to enter college, when, catching the fever of the times, he entered the Civil War Instead. He served as a soldier two years and three months, and was en- gaged at the battle of Chancellorsvlllo, where he had the unusual experience of being shot three times in U many 111 In-
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May 14, 1914] The Nation 581 utes, and of recovering almost complete- ly afterwards. Shortly after the war Lester Ward en- tered the civil service of the Govern- ment at Washington, where he remain- ed, first in the Bureau of Statistics, and afterwards in the office of the Geological Survey, for upwards of forty years. De- termined not to relinquish his plans for a higher education, Mr. Ward entered Columbian (now George Washington) University, where he was graduated in 1869, and two years later he had completed its law course. His scien- tific career began at this time, when he determined to study botany and began to plan for his first extensive work in philosophy, which later developed into the "Dynamic Sociology." While engaged at the Bureau of Sta- tistics he made a careful computation of the number of immigrants arriving in this country prior to 1820, and placed it at 250,000, which is still regarded as ap- proximately accurate, and while a mem- ber of the Geological Survey he publish- ed nine extensive monographs upon fos- sil plants, not to speak of a vast number of minor papers upon a great variety of subjects. In 1869 Mr. Ward was instrumental in the formation of the National Reform League, a secret organization devoted to freedom of thought, particularly in religion, and became the editor of its organ, the Iconoclast, which appeared the following year and ran through eighteen numbers, when it died of ina- nition. Some sixty articles which were contributed anonymously by the editor to this magazine are reproduced in the first volume of the present work. At this time Mr. Ward was obsessed with the idea that the Church was not only a great hotbed of superstition, but so- ciety's most insidious enemy, which should be rooted out and destroyed. This feeling is well illustrated in his editorial, which appeared as the opening gun of the first number of the Icono- clast: "We have thoroughly examined," said the editor, "the teachings, character, and effects of the great and popular in- stitution known as the Orthodox Church; we have inspected its leading doctrines and satisfied ourselves that they are only the modified superstition of bar- barous ages, the natural offspring of man's primitive ignorance." Professor Ward was, we believe, very outspoken on the subject of religion, and, so far as we are aware, he never changed his views upon this subject. The "Dynamic Sociology," Dr. Ward's first extended work, had a hard time in finding a publisher, or even a magazine that would print any part of it, but it was finally accepted by the Appletons on the guarantee basis. Though its sales were small, the work has gone through two editions, and has been on the market for over thirty years; to the author it was a moral, if not a financial, success. Shortly after its ap- pearance four laudatory reviews appear- ed in as many Washington newspapers. In one of these articles, which was con- tributed anonymously to the Washing- ton Post, the writer said: "That this book is destined to produce a profound impression upon the more thoughtful classes of society, and one that will grow with repeated and extended perusal, we cannot doubt. That such a system of thought should have emanated from an American is a most hopeful sign, and Washington is to be especially congratu- lated on being the focal centre from whence it has proceeded." Now, it is not a little curious to find that the writer of this amiable criticism and of the oth- er three was no other than the learned author himself, who not only reproduces the articles as part of his bibliographic output, but candidly writes the history of his own criticism of his own work, adding that "any one who should read all these [articles] consecutively would not suspect that they were from the same pen, as in each case I presented the work from a different point of view." Whatever inconsistencies one may find in Lester Ward's philosophy, or however one may differ from those who think that they have found in him a Moses to lead them into the promised land, all must acknowledge that he united to an intellect of very exceptional powers an ardent love of truth and an industry that was truly phenomenal. His "Glimpses of the Cosmos" is a remarkable human document. Drama RECENT LONDON PRODUCTIONS. THE SUCCESS OF "PYGMALION" — MR. SHAW'S PROLIXITY — GALSWORTHY'S "THE MOB" — THE INDISCRETION OF A FUTURIST PRODUCER. Volume II of "The Bodley Head Natur- al History" (Lane) is devoted to three or four families of the order Passeres of British birds. The text, of indifferent merit, ordinarily states the habitat of the bird, describes it, gives the facts regard- ing its nest and eggs, and tells something of its song, or any of its idiosyncrasies. The chief merit of the enterprise lies in the illustrations, a flood of pen sketches, roughly tinted, which decorate the mar- gin of the page. They show an eye for the pose of birds which is decidedly un- common. The Annates de Giographie for March opens with a report of the recent confer- ence in Paris on the international map of the world, by its secretary, M. E. de Margerie. The increasing- interest in this undertaking is shown by the fact that while at the previous conference in London there were only twenty-four del- egates from eleven countries, at this there were sixty-six delegates from thir- ty-five countries. An article by M. G. Capus, based on seven years' observations in the Tonking delta, asserts the econo- mic value of tropical rains. The other subjects treated are the plain of Valence, and the recent abrupt change in the level of the Caspian Sea. A brief account is al- so given, in the geographical chronicle, of Archdeacon Stuck's ascent of Mt. Mc- Kinley. London, April 30. There seems to be no doubt that "Pyg- malion" is a success at His Majesty's. I had difficulty in securing a seat for last Wednesday's matinee, and found the house crammed. Appearances in the theatre are not always "veridical"; but as appearances in England are borne out by unquestionable results in Ger- many, we may fairly conclude that Mr. Bernard Shaw has this time "backed a winner." Why resort to stable slang, it may be asked, to convey the simple fact that he has made a success? I do so because I think the secret of the suc- cess is revealed in that phrase. Mr. Shaw happens to have hit upon one of the stock themes which are perennially attractive to popular audiences, or, in other words, which may be trusted to win whenever they are handled with reasonable skill. It is very significant that the title of one of Sir James Bar- rie's early successses, "The Professor's Love-Story," would suit "Pygmalion" te a nicety. Mr. Shaw's Professor Higgins is in all essentials Sir James Barrie's Professor Goodwillie over again — the ab- sent-minded, unpractical, unworldly man-of-science, who considers himself an old bachelor and, when brought face to face with the devotion of the charming girl, cannot understand either her feel- ings or his own. This simple romance — note that Mr. Shaw calls his play a romance — is susceptible of several vari- ations. Mr. Shaw has chosen one which heightens its poignancy. The lady, in Professor Goodwillie's case, was mere- ly his secretary; in Professor Higgins's she is an uneducated flower-girl, on whom the Professor has conferred the gift of articulate speech, and (incidental- ly and inadvertently) a soul. It is here, of course, that the analogy to "Pyg- malion and Galatea" comes in; but sev- eral other analogies could easily be found without going either to Sir Wil- liam Gilbert or to Greek mythology. The play is, withal, one of Mr. Shaw's most human, if not most brilliant, pro- ductions. It contains some gems of com- edy, such as the scene between Higgins and Alfred Doolittle, the flower-girl's father, and the converted flower-girl's first appearance in polite society. It is more or less amusing throughout; but technically it cannot escape the re- proach of dlffuseness, not to say pro- lixity. Its five acts might with advan- tage have been compressed into three.
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582 Tlie 1ST at ion [Vol. 98, No. 2550 The first scene, which shows us the meeting of Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle, on a rainy night, under the portico of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, may be valuable from the point of view of picturesqueness and oddity, but is not dramatically essential. Perhaps I should have appreciated it more but for the fact that Mrs. Patrick Campbell's cockney dialect was so uncompromising that I did not understand a word she said. Then, again, the fourth act, in which the perfected Galatea shows her astonished Pygmalion the difference be- tween a woman and a gramophone, is curiously short and perfunctory. In par- liamentary language, we look for a full- dress debate, and no sooner has it be- gun than the house is counted out. A dramatist more careful of his craft than Mr. Shaw would either have run the fourth and fifth acts into one, or would at least have placed a crucial scene in the fourth act, and made the fifth, which, in fact, is long and rambling, a brief, bright epilogue. The crimson expletive of which so much has been heard occurs at the end of the delightful scene in the third act, in which Miss Doolittle shows that she has mastered English pronunciation, but not the grammar, vocabulary, or conventions of polite society. For my part, my objection to the word is sim- ply that it is undramatic. It is flatly incredible that Higgins and his coadju- tor, Colonel Pickering, should not from the first have put an embargo upon that word of all others in the language. It would have been quite right and very amusing if, in a moment of excitement, Eliza had caught herself in the act of saying "bl " and had hastily substi- tuted "very" or something equally color- less. As it is, she brings out the word quite calmly and confidently, without any stimulus of emotion. There may be some question as to how far a dramatist should extend his vocabulary in the in- terests of dramatic truth; but here the question does not arise, for dramatic truth demands, not the utterance, but the suppression, of the offending word. It remains to be said that in the per- formance at His Majesty's we can see but as in a glass, darkly, the play as Mr. Shaw conceived it. Mrs. Campbell's per- formance of Eliza Doolittle is a bril- liant piece of acting, and no doubt con- tributes enormously to the success of the production; but an actress who made her first great success twenty-one years ago, and was then no novice, obviously cannot give us the sensation, so to speak, of Mr. Shaw's heroine. Curious- ly, and yet quite comprehensibly, she was most convincing as the draggled waif of the first two acts. Huddled up in rags, and bedizened with the flaunt- ing picture-hat of the slums, a woman may have any age or no age. But when Eliza comes out in the height of Bond Street fashion, and especially in the gorgeous evening gown of the fourth act, she is so obviously a radiant and conquering woman of the world that we cannot believe for a moment that Hig- gins and Pickering could overlook and ignore her as they pretend to do. Our powers of make-believe, of provisional credence, are overtaxed. To give the thing a moment's plausibility, Eliza should be an unripe slip of a creature, whom it is possible for men with eyes in their heads to consider insignificant and negligible. As for the character of Henry Higgins, one can but dimly di- vine Mr. Shaw's intention through the haze in which it is enveloped by Sir Herbert Tree's overpowering personality and all too familiar methods. Sir Her- bert is clever and amusing just as we have seen him clever and amusing in a score of other parts. He has long given up the attempt to subdue his personality to his author, and has adopted the op- posite plan — as a star actor almost in- evitably must — of subduing his author to his personality. Mr. Shaw, one fan- cies, must find in his heart a new fellow- feeling with Shakespeare. At the Coronet Theatre, Bayswater, Miss Horniman's Manchester company has been presenting with success, for the past two weeks, Mr. John Galsworthy's four-act play, "The Mob." It does one good to see so distinguished a piece of work received with acclamation by pop- ular audiences; but if you asii whether it is a great play, or whether it stands on a level with "The Silver Box," "Strife," and "Justice," I am bound to confess that I cannot think so. Frank- ly, Mr. Galsworthy has let the humani- tarian get the upper hand of the artist. He seems in this play to be going the way of Tolstoy; but Tolstoy knew how to put into his most doctrinary work a marvellous wealth of life-like detail, which we miss in "The Mob." I would not grumble at the sacrifice of the artist to the humanitarian if the humanitarian profited by it. But he does not. Mr. Galsworthy's indictment of The Mob would be much more telling if the play were more life-like. His humanitarian- ism is for once a little inhuman. Stephen More is a statesman who re- signs his place in the Ministry in order to protest against an unjust war into which England is being hurried. His friends all draw away from him; his wife, the daughter and sister of a sol- dier, is shocked at his proceedings; even his little daughter wishes that her daddy would be on "our side." News of disasters arrives; popular feeling is in- tensely wrought up, and Stephen More insists on undertaking a "stop the war" lecture-tour through the country. The mob spits upon him and stones him, but still he keeps on. When news arrives of her brother's death at the front, his wife deserts him, carrying off his child. The mob breaks his windows; the servants are driven from his house, and, at news of the first victory, the "mafficking" pop- ulace rushes in upon him and kills him. Then the curtain rises for a moment on the "Aftermath" — a silent tableau ex- hibiting the statue erected to his mem- ory. Evidently this is not so much a play as a symbol. The characters have no independent life; they are simply there to illustrate a theme. The theme is exactly that of Ibsen's "Enemy of the People"; but oh, what a difference in the humanity of the two plays! "The Mob," no doubt, has a certain impres- siveness. It reminds us forcibly of the clanger of being carried away by the rush of some cheap and shallow col- lective frenzy. But it overshoots ite mark. While we feel the theoretic dan- ger, we also feel, "No, there is no prac- tical danger of our being carried away to such insensate extremes." All of us but the very young remember clearly the fever of the Boer War, which Mr Galsworthy obviously has in mind. We know that feeling ran very high, and that the Pro-Boer minority was far from popular. We know that some vio- lent partisans of the Boers held meet- ings of a more or less stormy charac- ter. Some of them, I dare say, were broken up. We know that, after black months of tense anxiety, the relief, first of Ladysmith and then of Mafeking, was hailed with rejoicings in which a great deal of regrettable rowdyism was let loose. But it is not the case that the most outspoken Pro-Boer was treated like a leper by his family and friends. It is not the case that mob-patriotism went the length of serious personal vio- lence— much less of assassination. I do not remember that a single window or a single head was broken. "Mere questions of degree!" Mr. Galsworthy may say: "My picture of the bestial vulgarity of epidemic patriotism remains substantially right." But degree is ev- erything in these matters. It is use- less to quarrel with the mob for not being always in the right. The ques- tion is whether they are apt to carry their shallow, unreasoning passion to the pitch of gross inhumanity; and here I think that, so far as England is concerned, the evidence is against Mr. Galsworthy. How much profounder, how much bitterer, is Dr. Stockmann's mob-psychology, as he gathers up the stones that have come through his win- dows: Just look at them! Upon my soul, there aren't more than two decent-sized lumps in the whole heap; the rest are nothing but pebbles— mere gravel. They stood down there and yelled and swore they'd half kill me; but as for really doing it— no, there's mighty little fear of that in this town. Mr. Chesterton's "Magic" has been
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May 14, 1914] The Nation 583 followed at the Little Theatre by a play named "Account Rendered," by Mr. Robert Elson. It deals, very inexpert- ly, with a good theme. The clever wife of a stupid Cabinet Minister manages to keep him in office by playing on the passion of his chief opponent, and prac- tically inducing him to betray the in- terests of his party. She well knows, but will not admit to herself, what re- ward he expects for his sacrifices; and when he "renders his account" she re- fuses to pay. This theme is capable of very interesting developments; but it Is feebly handled and comes to nothing. I mention it on account of the enter- taining "Foreword" which the manager, Mr. Kenelm Foss, prints on the play- bill. Mr. Foss has taken several leaves out of the books of Mr. Granville Bar- ker and Mr. Gordon Craig, and appar- ently aspires to be the Futurist pro- ducer of London. He says: It may possibly be remembered that in " I solicited adverse criticism by two (if no more) eccentricities of decora- tion. The Prelude on a Hill-top was pre- sented with the artificial coloring and decorative unreality of a Japanese print; while in the play itself I deliberately broke the restfulness of the Hall of an English Manor-house with shimmering esoteric curtains that instantly became a most vital factor in the pictorial scheme. The instance will serve for my entire method. My conception of the duty of a producer is to take the real message of the author (whether he himself knows what it is or no) and to convey it (in spite of themselves) to the audience, either with the aid of, or in defiance of, the actors. He then goes on to explain that "Ac- count Rendered" demands "queer" treat- ment, and that, therefore, he is present- ing it "in a whimsical and new manner. . . . And if this new setting should set a fashion, as genuinely new things have a way of doing, no one will be more pleased than I." The whimsical novelty of the setting mainly consisted in making a Cabinet Minister's drawing- room look like an extremely cheap and dirty Italian restaurant. But Mr. Foss is, I believe, a really clever young man, and no doubt he will live down this amusing indiscretion. William Archer. "THE CHARM OF ISABEL." The charm of Isabel, in the play of that name, produced last week by Wil- liam A. Brady at Maxine Elliott's Thea- tre, is, at the best, rather a negative quality, consisting, as it does, principally In the lady's inability to say "no." Mis- understanding on this point is impossible, for the author, Sydney Rosenfeld, has apparently created one rather long part, that of Caroline Leighton, express- ly for the purpose of testifying to this peculiarity in Isabel's character. Consequently, the intelligence of the au- dience is relieved of whatever strain might be imposed upon it by having to draw its own conclusions from the devel- opment of the characters and the action of the play. Mr. Rosenfeld understands the familiar machinery of the theatre, but the oil of inspiration is lacking. "The Charm of Isabel," in motive and construction, is thoroughly hackneyed. The first act is redeemed only by the excellent act- ing of Albert Browp, as an impres- sionable stage Frenchman, who breaks into Isabel's room when she is in bed to propose to her. There seems to be no particular reason for this sit- uation rather than for another, and neither the indifferent stage settings nor the unreposeful comedy of Miss Marie Nordstrom, as Isabel, can be commend- ed. In the second act, in which Isabel, still unable to say "no," is embarrassed by the attentions of various members of a sanctimonious New England household, Miss Nordstrom is more at home, and there is some excellent dialogue in a scene at an organ between Isabel and a young probationer, which shows that the author is capable of better work than on this occasion he has produced. The promise of this act, however, is not ful- filled in the third, and the play comes haltingly to a conclusion, by no means unforeseen, but wholly unbelievable, in the engagement of the flighty Isabel to the probationer, while the amorous Frenchman finds consolation in the am- ple charms of her friend, whose function in the universe has heretofore been to insist on Isabel's infirmity in the mat- ter of saying "no." S. W. NOTES. It was announced recently that Paul Gavault has been appointed director of the Od6on Theatre in succession to M. Antoine, after eight years of artistic ef- fort which met with liberal appreciation from the critics, but with insufficient sup- port from the public. M. Gavault was the author of "Mile. Josette — Ma Femme," the amusing farce, which enjoyed a long run in Paris, and, in Anglicized form, was successful also in London. In reference to the performance of Henry Porter's "The Two Angry Women of Abingdon" at the Shakespearean Fes- tival at Stratford this year, the critic of the London Times says: "It is all first- rate, honest, homely fun, ingeniously woven, and racy in every word with Elizabethan wit and Elizabethan flavor. That, of course, is not all appreciable by modern ears and modern taste. These servingmen and their jests are a little out of touch with us of to-day. Mr. Kirwan's Elizabethanism turns out to have nothing excessive about it beyond the small 'noise,' as the men of that time would have called the band of strings which plays music of the time between the acts and the trumpets which announce the performance. But Mr. Kirwan and his company have undoubtedly succeeded in catching something more important than detail. They have caught what we must suppose to be the Elizabethan spirit in the acting — a hearty, jovial spirit that makes the most of this Elizabethan farce." Music MUSICAL HISTORY AND INSTRU- MENTS. Familiar Talks on the History of Music. By Arnold J. Gantvoort. New York: G. Schirmer. $1.50. Outlines of Music History. By Clarence G. Hamilton. Boston: Oliver Ditson Co. $1.50. The Story of the Flute. By H. Macaulay Fitzgibbon. New York: Chas. Scrib- ner's Sons. Advice to Violin Students. By Wallace Ritchie. New York: Chas. Scribner's Sons. The Art of Tone Production on the Violoncello. By Emil Krall. New York: Chas. Scribner's Sons. For more than twenty years Arnold J. Gantvoort has lectured on the his- tory of music to students of the Cincin- nati College of Music. He has now printed the substance of his lectures in a volume of 285 pages which has con- siderable merit and some faults. The most serious of the faults is a lack of proportion. Like most other historians of music, he gives a great deal too much space to the early stages as compared to the later and more important epochs. To allow thirteen pages to the Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, and four to the Chinese in a treatise so short that there is room for only one page on Chopin, and little more for most of the great masters, is surely a mistake. When space is so valuable, why dwell on such unimportant personages as Gombert (who gets half as many lines as Cho- pin!), Ducis, Verdeleet, and dozens of very minor musicians? The absence of an index is another defect, and there seems no reason for retaining the spell- ing Monteverde, since that composer in all his letters signed himself Monteverdi. As against these blemishes one must concede to the author a good style, com- prehensive and usually up-to-date know- ledge, and the art of presenting informa- tion in language free from needless technicalities. One of the best features of the book is the use of copious illus- trations in musical type, some of which — especially those taken from early operas — the student would have difficul- ty in finding elsewhere. Musical illustrations abound also in the excellent "Outlines of Musical His- tory," by Clarence G. Hamilton, of which a new edition has been issued. The chapter dealing with the most modern developments has been entirely rewrit- ten, to give room for brief mention of Schoenberg and other composers of the day who make a specialty of false notes. The author himself strikes a false note in declaring that those who do not like the "cataclysmic dissonances" and oth-
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584: The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2550 er peculiarities of these "progressives" are "compelled by public opinion to wage a losing fight." Figures and night- ly experience in opera houses and con- cert halls do not bear out this state- ment. One of the most valuable features »f Mr. Hamilton's book consists of ju- diciously compiled lists of books after the several chapters, in which the epochs or composers referred to can be studied in greater detail. For class work these lists are invaluable. Although it is only within a few decades that Ameri- can musicians have shown merit worth remembering, Mr. Hamilton devotes half-a-dozen pages to the principal na- tive composers, headed by Edward Mac- Dowell, who has "achieved the most far- reaching reputation for originality." In the history of musical instruments none goes back as far as the flute, al- though the particular shape of the flute now in use is of comparatively modern origin. Mr. Fitzgibbon discourses learnedly but with the eloquence of a devotee of the various transformations this instrument has passed through. Biographic as well as technical details are given about those who, in several countries, helped to improve the flute, their number being surprisingly large. Military fifes and piccolos are not ignor- ed. The gradual improvement of flute music is also described, with many in- teresting glimpses of the peculiarities of diverse composers, from Bach and Han- del to Richard Strauss, in their treat- ment of this instrument. Regarding Strauss the author remarks that "in his works the extreme limit as regards the technical difficulty is assuredly reach- ed; whether the result obtained, how- ever, is commensurate is certainly open to question." Advice to violin students is always in order — their number is growing from year to year. Wallace Ritchie, in his little book on this subject, emphasizes his own discoveries and observations during a long experience as principal of a violin school in London. A chapter is given to the Sevcik method, which he considers "by far the most complete and perfect system the world has yet seen." It is well to remember, however, that Sevcik's work lies entirely in the field of technique. Among the other topics treated by Mr. Ritchie are the art of practicing to most advantage, the choice of teachers, and what ought to be taken into consideration in buying a violin. Of violoncello players there are not nearly as many as of violinists; but Emil Krall's book on Tone Production appeals to the latter, too, for it is con- cerned with the art of bowing, on which expression depends, and which, in the opinion of Mr. Krall, presents more dif- ficulties even than the left-hand tech- nique of fingering. His book is based on "The Physiology of Bowing," by Dr. Steinhausen, who was the first to give scientific reasons for the practices re- sorted to by the greatest violinists. There are many pictures showing how to hold the instrument and the bow, and how to guide the latter so as to secure always the appropriate tone and expres- sion. Henry T. Finck. Fourteen eminent soloists have already been obtained for the Philharmonic con- certs in Carnegie Hall next season. Among- them are five singers: Lucrezia Bori, Alma Gluck, Lucille Weingartner- Marcel, Julia Culp, Pasquale Amato; four violinists: Fritz Kreisler, Efrem Zimbalist, Arrigo Serato, Jacques Thi- baud; six pianists: Ferruccio Busoni, Os- sip Gabrilowitsch, Carl Friedberg, Er- nesto Consolo, Eleanor Spencer, Ger- maine Schnitzer. Kitty Cheatham will be the soloist at two concerts for young people. The concerts will begin on Oc- tober 29 and last till March 26. Lulli (who died in 1687) has recently been remembered in Paris by the revival of his tragic ballet, "Psyche," which was designed by Moliere. It was performed as nearly as possible under the conditions that prevailed in the time of Louis Qua- torze. Lulli was the composer of no few- er than thirty ballets between the years 1658 and 1671. Mme. Lillian Nordica, who died at Ba- tavia, Java, on May 10, was born on May 12, 1859, at Farmington, Me. Her early musical education was received from John O'Neill and at the New Eng- land Conservatory of Music, and her first public appearance of note was at the age of seventeen, when she sang in a "Mes- siah" performance given by the Handel and Haydn Society. She was advised by Tietjens to go to New York and study with Mme. Maretzek, and through her she became acquainted with the eminent bandmaster, Patrick Gilmore, who en- gaged her as soloist for a Western tour and subsequently took her to England, where she sang at seventy-eight con- certs. In 1878, the year of the Exposition in Paris, she was the first vocalist to be heard in the new Trocadero. Then she went to Italy, where she took lessons from Sangiovanni and sang in the opera at Brescia for three months. During two seasons at the Paris Opera, Mme. Nor- dica had the advantage of studying some of her roles with Ambroise Thomas and with Gounod, in whose "Faust" she sang in New York in 1883. After singing year after year in the various opera centres of Europe and America, she was invited to impersonate Elsa in "Lohengrin" at Bayreuth, by Cosima Wagner, with whom she studied for three months. Her prin- cipal Wagner studies were made, how- ever, with Anton Seidl at the Metropoli- tan Opera House, and under his guidance, and with further aid from Jean de Reszke and her second husband, Zoltan Doeme, her impersonations grew more and more poetic and dramatic. After the deaths of Grau and Conried, Lillian Nordica, like Emma Eames, left the Metropolitan com- pany while still in her prime. For some years she spent part of her time on con- cert tours, which were attended Willi the greatest success, but her proper sphere, because of her dramatic impul- siveness, was the opera. After conducting the Royal Opera in Dresden for forty-two years, Ernst von Schuch died there on May 10, at the age of sixty-seven. He was born in Graz, Austria, on November 23, 1847. After studying with Dessoff in Vienna, he be- gan, in 1867, his career as conductor. In 1873 he was appointed court conductor in Dresden, where the opera soon acquired a world-wide fame through his efforts and influence. Richard Strauss chose him to preside over the premieres of several of his operas. Heinrich Conried once- brought him to New York, but he did not remain, being unwilling to give up his position abroad. In 1897 he was en- nobled by the Austrian Emperor. He married, in 1875, the eminent opera sing- er, Clementine Schuch-Prochazka. Art THE INTERNATIONAL. London, April 20. Seldom has a society of artists been more successful in throwing off the re- sponsibilities of its name than the In- ternational Society of Sculptors, Paint- ers, and Gravers. Having had the cour- age to give to sculptors the priority oth- er societies reserve for painters, it has finally established itself in the new Grosvenor Gallery, where no provision is made for the exhibition of sculpture and it is impossible to show more than a few small bronzes and marbles and perhaps one or two larger pieces, as this year, when Rodin's Eve commands the centre of the first large room. The So- ciety, having also had the courage — and it required courage in England — to* call itself International, and to be for several years as international as its name, is now as British as the Royal Academy, to which many of its members have been called, the foreigner being, hardly less of an exception at the Gros- venor than at Burlington House. Nor has it been any more faithful to its prin- ciples and traditions. In the beginning it asserted its independence of the Acad- emy by allowing no Academician to be elected to its ranks or to remain an ac- tive member. Now, one Associate of the Academy is the vice-president— virtual- ly the president, since Rodin presides but in name — and five are on the Coun- cil. In the beginning space was found for earlier work that seemed to Bel the standard for the Society, and that It was a delight to see again in an exhibi- tion. This year, only three early works of conspicuous note are included: one of the interiors Alfred Stevens knew so well how to paint, with such beauty and quality in every detail of furniture and ornament that the figure, as in this lit
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May 14, 1914] Tlie Nation 585 11. painting, becomes almost an intru- sion; one of Daumier's small, tragical- ly sombre versions of Don Quixote; and Millais's Mrs. Heugh, painted before he had lost all memories of his Pre-Ra- phaelite training to develop into the popular and pleasing portrait painter, an amazing study of old age, full of character in the stern, seamed, wrinkled face and the folded wrinkled hands, full of beauty of tone in the rendering of the passages of white about the head and shoulders. The portrait, I believe, was once owned in America; it should not have been allowed to return to Eng- land, for already the small proportion of Millais's work that represents him at his best has passed into permanent collections. Serious as are these lapses and infi- delities, more serious is the fact that, although the exhibition just opened is only the sixteenth to be held, it should fall so far below the level of interest and excellence attained during the So- ciety's first years in the spacious rooms at Prince's Skating Rink, Knights- bridge. In the beginning, the Interna- tional, even in its British section, was the most formidable rival the Academy had ever been obliged to face. Now it is almost as oppressed by convention as the Academy, and, to a certain extent, like most other societies of artists in London, has degenerated into a sort of annex to the Academy. There is no ques- tion of the effect of a divided allegiance upon those members who have become Academicians. It may be that John Lavery sends nothing this spring be- cause he is reserving himself for the show he is to give in the same gallery during June and July. But if Charles H. Shannon restricts himself to some of his already-known woodcuts and to a study in pastel for a decorative design, a big, bad prig from Puvis de Cha- vannes; if William Orpen has only a weak, superficial portrait of a woman the critic would hardly stop to look at save for his name in the catalogue; if William Strang is so reticent as to send only one of his large, inanimate groups gathered together in a discord of shrill, acid color; if Anning Bell is among the absent, and D. Y. Cameron rather emp- tier than usual in a Scotch mountain- ous landscape — the reason is evident. In three more weeks the Academy opens, and, despite everything, the Academy remains, to the British puhlic and the British painter, the exhibition of the year, for which, therefore, the artist with an eye to the main chance naturally keeps back his most impor- tant work. Other members are evidently in dan- ger of sacrificing themselves, not to the Academy which has not yet opened its inner doors to them, but to their own conventions. Here and there you will come upon an artist who seeks the new life in his work that new problems will give, as, for instance, Professor Sauter, who, whether altogether successful or no, finds a new scheme of color, a new expression of character, in his present- ment of Prof. H. G. Fiedler, of Oxford, and, because he paints portraits, is not blind to the fresh loveliness of spring foliage out of his London windows, or to the solemn dignity of the Alps. Here and there among the few foreign exhibi- tors, Mancini, with his vigorous Eve and St. John; Breitner, with his sombre, tragic architecture; Frieseke, with his decorative fantasies; Morrice, with his harmonious landscapes, lend interest and variety to the walls. Here and there among the prints and drawings, the water-color of a Cock by Joseph Craw- hall; the lithographs by Joseph Pennell, Spencer Pryse, Copley, Kathe Kollwitz, Ethel Gabain; the caricatures of Dulac, who seems to have found himself as a comic draughtsman, and is genuinely funny in his elaborately carried out idea of Ricketts and Shannon as a cou- ple of many-armed fakers; the pas- tels of Henry Muhrman, strike a dis- tinct personal note. But the tendency of too many who have once achieved a success is to re- peat it until they find themselves held fast in the chains of a formula of their own creation from which, apparently, there is no escape. Year by year, James Pryde exaggerates, by the cheapest of scene-painting tricks, the height of the architecture he paints and deepens the colors on his palette until he now be- gins to produce but parodies of him- self. Year by year, Charles Ricketts emphasizes what would once have been called the "literary" interest in- his faked-up classical and Biblical legends, until it has become the critical fashion to look into them only for what the pres- ent criticism describes as "intellect." And so it might be easy to go through the list. When it comes to the paint- ers who make the most strenuous show of individuality, they do so chiefly by sacrificing to the movements and fash- ions of the moment. Simon Bussy, an artist of some distinction when uninflu- enced by others, seems now to vie with the most decayed of the Matisse group when he paints a leopard against a vivid pink background with such an absence of atmosphere and detail that it is nothing more than one of his mild little sketches enlarged; or when he makes of his portrait of a little girl a flat pattern in a high key, so that it would tell best as an open-air advertise- ment, George W. Lambert, in a group of a prize-fighter in costume, a flower girl, a baby, and a man in a silk hat and black coat, to which he gives the title Important People, is evidently vacillating between his desire to be in the modern Post-Impressionist mode of simplification and his determination to force people to come to his shop, as his address is printed on the barrow in the background, and to make them talk, as John Collier, with his academic pop- ular "problem pictures," sets them talk- ing every spring at the Academy. By whatever new name it may be disguis- ed, the old-fasbioned ambition of a cer- tain type of artist to epater le bourgeois, continues to flourish, though the phrase has dwindled into a cliche-. Perhaps more characteristic of the tendencies of the new generation is the pretended return to Pre-Raphaelitism of a young painter, Eric H. Kennington, hitherto unknown, whose Costermon- gers is sure to prove, to use another venerable cliche' , the clou of the exhibi- tion. I do not mean that his tribute to the Pre-Raphaelites by studying them is characteristic; it is rather his ten- dency, shared with so many other young men, to express personality by borrow- ing it from somebody else. Of all the movements of the nineteenth century, Pre-Raphaelitism probably had less last- ing influence than any other. And yet here is an unquestionably clever young man starting out upon his career by pretending to imitate the Brotherhood in their concern with detail, their love of pure color, their heroic pursuit of realism. He goes for his subjects to the life about him, as the Pre-Raphael- ites did at times— Millais in the Blind Girl and Autumn Leaves, Holman Hunt in Strayed Sheep, Rossetti in Found; above all, Ford Madox Brown in Work. But he does not really get them there. In the rendering of his Costermongers he has burdened his canvas with the minute detail which he never saw, and the minute treatment of it that with the Pre-Raphaelites passed for observa- tion. It happens, however, that the great defect of the Pre-Raphaelites was just the lack of that observation sup- posed to be their chief end as realists. They were too apt to' see nothing but details, and each detail separately. Mil- lais could paint leaf by leaf the creepers covering a brick wall, never noting the change that each hour of the day brought with it. Holman Hunt could camp out in the desert with his loaded gun in one hand and his palette in the other, to get the right background, and then turn out a Scapegoat as clean as a newly washed baa-lamb. It is the same with their latest disciple. One of Ken- nington's Costermongers, who are busy cooking potatoes out-of-doors, stands in the gutter, but his boots are spotless and his trousers are pure; all, presum- ably, have been doing hard work, but their hands and arms are beautifully clean; one girl kneels on the skirt of the other, but does not even ruffle it with her heavy weight. The observa- tion, the realism, when examined, sug- gests nothing more real than the studio and models painted without brains —
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586 Tli e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2550 only with lots of seriousness. It is this sort of work, this reecho, clever often, laborious always, serious sometimes, but at the best a faint reecho, that makes one understand the distinguished Amer- ican artist who, after his first introduc- tion to the masterpieces of the young British geniuses, wanted to hurry to the National Gallery "to wash his eyes." N. N. Finance THE REMARKABLE HARVEST OUT- LOOK. The Government's "May estimate" last week on winter wheat — the early- planted crop which usually makes up two-thirds or more of the country's to- tal wheat yield — brought forcibly into consideration a very remarkable factor in the financial outlook. That estimate was fully up to the hopeful expectations of the trade, and as rainfall and sun- shine have alternated, since the data for the report came in at the end of April, in such manner as to improve even the favorable outlook of a fortnight ago, the official forecast of a 630,000, 000-bushel yield was all the more readily accepted. This would be more than a hundred mil- lion bushels above the largest previous winter wheat crop — that of 1913. The forecast by the Department of Agriculture did not take the grain trade or the markets by surprise. Agricultur- al conditions have probably never been better at this season. The winter wheat crop certainly has the best promise of the past two decades, on the largest acreage ever known. The crop is with- in five weeks of harvest in the extreme Southwest, and every additional day of good weather means millions of bushels saved to the yield. The Southwest has of late had more than the usual supply of moisture, and growing conditions are at present as nearly perfect as they can be. There is likely to be some loss here and there from insects, but there is a large enough acreage more than to offset the average accidents and still leave a wholly satisfactory crop. Even west- ern Kansas, which is the most precari- ous section of the wheat belt, and which has not had a really good crop of wheat in years, has the best of promise on this occasion. The Government's estimates are habit- ually based, first on what is called the "condition percentage" of the crop at a given date — that is to say, its relation to a perfect growth, as compared with the crops in a group of preceding years. The condition assigned last week was 95%, the highest May condition since that of the great winter wheat crop of 1891, and the third highest condition ever reported in the grain trade's his- tory. Not only is the total of planted acreage abandoned during the winter season the smallest of any but one of the past fifteen years, but the larger part of the past season's loss was in States where the usual yield of wheat is small. Kansas has the promise of a 132, 000, 000-bushel crop, the greatest ever known, and 40,000,000 bushels over the maximum yield of 1912. For the four States west of the Missouri River — Kan- sas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas — the indicated yield is 246,000,000 bush- els, or 71,500,000 more than was harvest- ed last year. The four leading "soft-winter-wheat States" — Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio — can claim, on the basis of the esti- mate, 176,000,000 bushels, or 20,000,000 over last year's harvest. With the pres- ent outlook, the country can lose 107,- 000,000 bushels between now and har- vest, and still leave as much as was harvested last year. On the basis of the average marketing, there would be 378,000,000 bushels to be marketed, of which the railways will get the great- er part, or a very much larger aggregate than ever before. The later-planted or "spring wheat crop," is not yet far enough advanced to admit of safe prediction. It has not been as remarkably favored as the early wheat by the season's weather, but it has met no serious setback. Since pres- ent promise for the winter wheat yield is undoubtedly better than the Govern- ment's forecast of 630,000,000 bushels as of April 30, and since the average spring wheat yield of the past five years (which included one partial failure) has been 245,000,000 bushels, the grain trade per- sists in asserting that a 900,000,000-bush- el wheat crop this year is at least a reasonable possibility. Last year's yield was 763,000,000, exceeding all previous harvests, and the largest wheat crop raised in the five years 1907 to 1911 in- clusive was 683,000,000. The Stock Exchange made practically no response to the high crop estimate — a fact which attracted wide attention and inspired some misgiving. But its at- titude, and the continued absence of re- vival in general trade, need not blind any one to the necessary significance of that news. Waiving entirely such ques- tions as doubt over the political devel- opments of the day, or over "rate deci- sions," or over Mexico, there are a few perfectly obvious inferences to be drawn. We have not yet reached har- vest time; even the early wheat crop cannot yet be measured with absolute assurance. But in that one important crop, we are long past the possibility of harvest failure. Only a most unusual combination of adverse circumstances can prevent the maturing of the largest winter wheat crop in our history. When it is borne in mind that a bountiful harvest is the one certain tangible addition to a na- tion's wealth, and the one infallible source of an expanded foreign trade, and when it is also remembered that the produce of the farms must be carried to market, and that therefore quantity, and not price, determines the direct profits of the railways from the harvests, it is superfluous to ask what the present promise of the crops ought to mean to general prosperity. There have been years when "bumper harvests" have served only to avert or temporarily postpone a formidable in- dustrial reaction; that was true of the great crop seasons 1906 and 1891. But those were years in which bank credits and trade engagements had been pre- viously brought to a scale of precarious inflation, which is precisely the reverse of the conditions which prevail to-day. Furthermore, even on those occasions the influence of the crops on the gener- al situation, though only temporary, was powerful enough to shape the finan- cial history of the year. This is so unvarying a lesson of our past industrial history that any one who ignores its natural bearing on the fu- ture history of the present year is likely to miss his calculation. He may assume that a blight will fall on the growing crops in June or July; that we shall be plunged in war by midsummer; that Congress will run wild in anti-corpora- tion activities, and that some great catastrophe will occur in the foreign credit markets. But these are assump- tions, for which there has been quite as much warrant, at this time in half a dozen recent years, as there is to-day. That being so, it is not altogether un- reasonable to accept the actual news from the grain country as having at least equal significance, in its relation to the future, with the action or inaction of prices on the Stock Exchange. BOOKS OF THE WEEK. BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY. American Crisis Biographies: Daniel- Webster. By F. A. Ogg. Philadelphia: Jacobs. ?1.25 net. Bolton, H. E. Athanase de Mezieres. Cleveland: Clark. Illinois Historical Collections. Travel and Description. By S. J. Buck. Springfield: Illinois State History Library. Jones, J. L. An Artilleryman's Diary. Wisconsin History Commission. Kelly, II. A. Some American Medical Botanists. Troy: Southworth Co. M 11 1 1 re 1, W. B. Selections from the Fed- erallst. Cambridge: Harvard Univer- sity l'ress. Narratives of the Wltchcrafl Cases. L648-1706, Scribner. $:t net. Ottley, Alice. A Memoir Compiled by m. E3. James, Longmans. $i net. Rowe, •!■ I '•• The Romance of Irish liis- tory, Longmans. $1.60 net. •1 raubel, 11. Willi Wall Whitman In Camden. Vol. in. Ksnnerlej GOVERNMENT and ECONOMICS. \ir,. 11, n. Anns and [ndusti v. Put- nam, I1.2S net, Antln, M. They Who Knock at Our Gates Houghton Mifflin, $1 net,
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May 14, 1914] The Natio n 587 Blackford, K., and Newcomb, A. The Job, the Man, the Boss. Doubleday, Page. $1.50 net. Clark, J. B. Social Justice Without So- cialism. Houghton Mifflin. 50 cents net. Kelley, F. Modern Industry. Longmans. $1 net. Koester, F. Modern City Planning and Maintenance. McBride, Nast. $6 net. Smith, H. A. The Law of Associations. Oxford University Press. 6s. net. Wakefield, E. G. Art of Colonization. Ox- ford University Press. 5s. net. 'i RAVEL. Jarintzoff, Madame N. Russia, the Coun- try of Extremes. Illustrated. Holt. igh, R. H. Modern Mexico. Dodd, Mead. Stuck, H. Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled. Scribner. $3.50 net. POETHY. Dawson, C. Florence on a Certain Night. Holt. $1.25 net. Maquarie, A. A Rhapsody for Lovers. London: Bickers. Oxford Edition of Standard Authors: Poems of Charles Kingsley. Oxford I'niversity Press. Is. 6d. The Golden Treasury. With Notes by C. B. Wheeler. Oxford University Press. The World's Classics: Poems by D. G. Rossetti. Poems by William Morris. Oxford University Press. Is. net. Williams, B. C. Gnomic Poetry in Anglo- Saxon. Columbia University Press. RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY. Boyd, W. From Locke to Montessori. Houghton Mifflin. $1.25 net. Clark, A. C. The Primitive Text of the Gospels and Acts. Oxford University Press. 4s. net. C. R. A. What Are We to Believe? London: Watts. Eucken, R. The Problem of Human Life. New Edition. Scribner. $2 net. Hill, R. A. P. The Interregnum. Put- nam. $1.45. Sister Nivedita and Dr. Ananda Coom- araswamy. Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists. Houghton Mifflin. $4.50 net. SCIENCE. Bragdon, Claude. A Primer of Higher Space. Rochester: The Manas Press. $1. Baisant, C. A. Mathematics. Doubleday, Page. 50 cents net. Richardson, A. S. Better Babies and Their Care. Stokes. 75 cents net. Saleeby, C. W. The Progress of Eugenics. Funk & Wagnalls. $1.50 net. DRAMA AND MUSIC. Anthology of German Piano Music. Vol. I. Ed. by M. Moszkowski. Ditson. $1.50. MacKaye, P. Saint Louis. 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588 The Nation [Vol.rQ8, No. 2550 McClurg's New Catalogue of Rare & Fine Imported BOOKS Selections from the finest collection in the country Copy sent free on request A. C. McCLURG & CO. Dept. P. 218-24 S. Wabash Avenue CHICAGO A BOOK OF TIMELY INTEREST. CALIFORNIA UNDER SPAIN AND MEXICO By Irving It. It ichman. "A valuable and interesting addi- tion to the literature of a little known period of American history, beginning with Cortes's coming, con- tinuing through the rule of the Fran- ciscan and Dominican Missions and the establishment of Mexican Inde- pendence in 1821, to the war with the United States in 1847." — The A. L. A. Booklist. With maps, charts, and plans. J4.00 net. Postage extra. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN CO., 4 Park St., Boston 1-1 "ilSM'W' *fH ^T^T^KfeSSfe m BOSTON ~« COMMONWEALTH AVE. 100 yards from Massachusetts Ave. (Hljr Statinrltur Uuatnn guitar A hotel especially atl 1 .1. tive those who demand the best and prefer a home-like atmosphere. Single rooms from $2. Combined sitting room, bedroom una bathroom from $4. Self contained mites, Sum,- globe trottert have been good enough to call the Puritan one <y the most inviting hotel in tht world. I :i 1 'A-ii, , 1,, i,,, ,,,,, "1,-1 . m InltJ! "li to- f hum ol J 0Q1 ' :ir,l N. A. COSTELLO, Manager This Letter Suggests the thought that you may wish to name a deserving student. The Nation is prepared to offer an exceptional proposition to College Students who are "working their way" through college. If you will clip and send the blank below to- day, you will help the student and favor the Nation. The Nation, 20 Vesey Street, New York, N. Y. Gentlemen: I was interested in receiving a let- ter from your circulation department, for I have thought for a long time that a paper as useful as the Nation is should reach the hands of a much larger number of subscribers. In these days of radical tendencies the influence of your paper ought to be extended, and it seems to me that if an effort could be made to put it before young men, it might have a decided influence on their opinions and later lives. I know that in my own case it seriously influenc- ed me, and I believe would many others. In this connection a method of in- creasing the circulation of the paper recently was brought to my atten- tion, and it occurred to me it might be one which you would care to con- sider. I received a call a short time ago from a young man who was working his way through college, and who was obtaining subscriptions to ■ . Inquiry developed the fact that he was a student in good standing and worthy of support, and when he told me that he had been able to pay his expenses through Yale by this means, and that a number of other men were doing the same thing successfully in different parts of the country, I was much interested. You are probably quite familiar with this method, but it seems to me if students were selected in various universities, and strong efforts were made to get subscriptions to the Nation from young men who are about to enter life, it might not only extend your circulation, but influ- ence a large body of men in the right direction. THE NATION, 20 Vesey Street, New York City : Make Your Special Offer for Summer Can- vassing to Now a Student at Special Address Name Sent by Address
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WeU&*tey, Mass. The *A * VOL. XCVIII— NO. 2551 THURSDAY, MAY 21, 1914 Reg. U. S. Pat. Office. PRICE TEN CENTS They By MARY ANTIN. A powerful presentation of the Immigration Problem by the Author of "The Promised Land." Mary Antin knows what it is to be an immigrant, poor, oppressed, and ignorant. She has come up by her own efforts helped by our free schools and libraries. What she has done she believes other immigrants can do, and she believes, furthermore, that the immigrant may be as great an advantage to America as America may be to the immigrant. Illustrated. $1.00 net. Postage extra. The Monroe Doctrine and Mommsen's Law By CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. A vigorous assertion of the obsolete nature of the Monroe Doctrine and the ob- stacles to the hegemony of the United States over the Americas. Mr Adams believes that history enforces the law formulated by Mommsen that an organized state and civilized people absorb their neighbors who are in political or intellectual nonage. 50 cents net. Postage extra. The New Politics By WILLIAM GARROTT BROWN. Lord Bryce, ex-Ambassador to America from Great Britain, says: "The scat- tered articles from the pen of the late Mr. William Garrott Brown well deserved to be collected and published in a volume, not only as a memorial to a young writer of the greatest promise, but also in respect of their intrinsic ex- cellence. Mr. Brown's mind was singularly fair, penetrating, and judicious." With photogravure portrait of the author. $1.75 net. Postage extra. ' Letters of a Woman Homesteader By ELINORE PRUITT STEWART. Tells a connected story of pioneer life, full of buoyancy and pluck and the spirit of adventure. The writer's world is full of attractive people who have long since learned that without good will a pioneer settlement cannot endure. The letters tell a story — a love story, too— and make one of the most humorous, touching, exciting, and inspiring documents in recent literature. Illustrated by N. C. Wyeth. $1.25 net. Postage extra. Nurses for Our Neighbors By DR. ALFRED WORCESTER. This book gives a history of nursing both here and abroad and makes a strong plea for the infusion of a more personal human interest into the nurse's work. It will be of interest not only to nurses and doctors, but to all who have had or are likely to have experience in caring for the sick. $1.26 net. Postage extra. The Place of the Church in Evolution By JOHN MASON TYLER. This very vigorous and readable book, written from the point of view of a biologist, emphasizes the naturalness of moral and religious development and of such an organization as the church; also gives a manly and wholesome view of what the church ought to be now and in the future. $1.10 net. Postage extra. The Ministry of Art By RALPH ADAMS CRAM. These papers embody and eloquently exploit that view of the relation of mediaeval ideals to modern life which has made the author the most brilliant exponent of Gothic architecture in America. $1.50 net. Postage extra. Religious Confessions and Confessants By ANNA ROBESON BURR. Readers of Mrs. Burr's able literary and psychological study of "The Autobiography" will be in a measure prepared for the wealth of material that she has brought together in her account of the religious confession throughout the ages. $2.50 net. Postage extra. A Handbook of Mexico By T. PHILIP TERRY. These chapters, from Terry's Mexico, contain the author's information regarding the coun- try, its people, and their history from earliest times to the present. The book is obviously timely and contains the recent and reliable information which is so much called for now. With railroad map, 75 cents net. Postage extra. The Art of Spiritual Harmony By WASSILI KANDINSKY. Translated from the German, with an introduction by M. T. H. Sadler. Kandinsky gives a critical sketch of the growth of the abstract ideal in art, forecasts the future of the movement, and says in what way he considers Cubism to have failed in its object. The fairness and generosity of his argument together with the interest of his own daring theories, will certainly attract the English as it has attracted the German public, who called for three editions of the book within a year of publication. Illustrated. $1.75 net Postage extra Before Vassar Opened By JAMES MONROE TAYLOR. This is an authoritative and readable" account of the early days of the education of 1°^ '? tm^Ca> ,T,th a fu' ,record °f the events leading up to the founding of Vassar, including a vivid character sketch of Matthew Vassar. Illustrated. $1.25 net. Postage extra. 4 Park St. BOSTON HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 16 E. 40th St. NEW YORK
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11 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2551 A WEEKLY JOURNAL [Entered at the Neiv York City Post Office as second-class mail matter.] The Nation is published and owned by the New York Evening Post Co. Oswald Garrison "Villard, President; John Palmer Gavit, Sec. and Treas. Three dollars per year in advance, post- paiil. in any part of the United States or to Canada $3.50, and to foreign countries comprised in the Postal Union, $4.00. Address THE NATION, Box 794, New York. Publication Office, 20 Yesey Street. HAROLD dk WOLF FULLER, Editor. STANLEY WENT, Assistant Editor. PAUL ELMER MORE, Advisory Editor. EMIL M. SCHOLZ, Business Manager. CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER. SUMMARY OF THE NEWS 589 THE WEEK 590 EDITORIAL ARTICLES: The Two Voices 593 Colorado and the Nation 593 Balkan Atrocities 594 Legislators Under Fire 595 Literary Influences from Russia 596 FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE : Alcohol in Europe 597 Compromise on Home Rule '. 598 A NAUGHTY DECADE: Part Two 598 BOOKS AND MEN 600 NEWS FOR BIBLIOPHILES 601 CORRESPONDENCE 602 LITERATURE : Japan's Inheritance G04 The Wonderful Visit 605 From an Island Outpost 605 The Marryers 605 Viennese Idylls 605 Sweetapple Cove 605 The Early Life of John Howard Payne.... 606 Theodore Thornton Munger 607 NOTES 608 SCIENCE : Housewifery as a Science 609 DRAMA : The Tragedy of Pompey the Great 610 Second Nights 611 MUSIC: Modern Choral Conducting 612 ART: Les Oathedrales de France 613 FINANCE: Public Opinion and the New Banking System 614 BOOKS OF THE WEEK 614 • • • Copies of The Nation may be procured in Paris at Brentano's, 37 Avenue de l'Opera ; In London of B. F. Stevens & Brown, 4 Trafalgar Square, Charing Cross. JUST PUBLISHED THE SPIRITUAL MESSAGE OF DANTE (William Belden Noble Lectures, 1912-13) By the Rt. Rev. William Botd Cak- penter. Canon of Westminster, and Clerk of the Closet to the King. Dante as the world's great Interpreter of religious experience Is the subject of this study, Itself an interpretation of charm and fresh analytical power. Dante's own life Is considered an precursor and parallel to the drama of the soul In the Dlvina Commcdia. The illustrations, reproduced from ancient poi traits of Dante and the drawings in Lord Vernon's famous edition of the Inferno, fur- nish an unusual added interest. Price, $l.sn HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS Educational THE DE MERITTE SCHOOL offen exceptional opportunities for boys and young men of character and ability to prepare for col- lege or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Address EDWIN DE MERITTE, 815 Boylston Street, Boston, Mass. The W0LC0TT SCHOOL, DENVER.COL Superior climate. 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May 21, 1914] The ]STation 111 May 28th The Last Day Unless You Act at Once To-day you run the risk of missing the last chance to get an indispensable book at a price which is only possible because of the exceptional circumstances of its pub- lication. You may, or may not, decide to buy now. But if you do buy, it will be at a substantial saving, and you will have the added satisfaction of acquiring a thoroughly good book at a price which is really a great bargain. Cut out the order form on this page and use it TO-DAY . The New Encyclopaedia Britannica 29 volumes, 41,000 articles, 44,000,000 words of text, the one great work of hu- man knowledge, superseding and displac- ing all other editions and all other works of reference. The "Ideal" Encyclopaedia — Because It is easy to buy — counting quantity alone, the cheapest book you can purchase, — and counting quality, too, so cheap that there is no .comparing it with anything else you could buy. You can pay as little as $5 down and make the remaining payments in near- ly any way you like. It is easy to house — a compact book, printed on India paper, so that its 44,000,000 words are contained in less than two cubic feet of space, only 31 inches of shelf room. It is easy to handle — each volume, though it contains as much letter press as 15 ordinary books, is only an inch thick, weighs a little more than a couple of monthly magazines and may be held comfortably in one hand. It is easy to consult — to get a quick answer to any question — an elaborate index gives you the exact whereabouts of every item you want. It is easy to read for study or amusement, be- ing interestingly and attractively written by masters of style. And also THE NEWEST, MOST AU- THORITATIVE, MOST PRACTICAL And Beyond Comparison the Best Investment for Small Sums Telegraph if you do not have Time to Write During the closing days of this sale our of- fices will be open until 8 p. m. — on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, May 25th, 26th and 27th — and until 12 o'clock midnight on the evening of Thursday, May 28th. If by any chance you should not see this notice until the last moment, you can secure a set on Thursday evening by telegraphing or telephoning to any of these offices. Encyclopaedia Britannica 120 West 32d Street, New York PHILADELPHIA CHICAGO 945 l)rc»el Building People's Gas Building Telephone, 554 Lombard Telephone, B I s!> Randolph TORONTO SA\ FRANCISCO Kent Building Monadnm k Building Telephone. Adelaide 2!)f,S Telephone, Butter 2820 THE BINDINGS Cloth — as good as a cloth binding can be made. Full Sheepskin — rich dark green, burnished, as durable as Morocco; a very attractive and satisfactory binding. Full Limp Suede — dark gray, natural nap of leather, corners rounded in prayer-book style; an unusual and hand- some binding. Full Morocco — dark red, a sumptuous binding in selected goatskin, as good a binding as money can buy. \o order at these prices tvill he accepted unless sent us in a letter postmarked on or before May 28, 1914 The Encyclopaedia Britannica Co., ORDER FORM 120 West 32d Street, New York. for India Paper Please send me the new Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition, 29 volumes, published by The Cambridge University Press, of England. I enclose $ being (payment"'!™ ^ll) an<1 1 agree to send tne seC0Dd and a11 subsequent pay- ments on the corresponding day of each following! month until payment is com- plete, in accordance with the style of binding and the terms of payment Indi- cated by the X I have placed in one of the squares below, showing my selec- tion. It is agreed that I shall keep the books, but the title does not pass to me until the total amount has been paid. Terms, F. O. B. N. Y. Please indicate binding desired by marking X in one of the squares. □ CLOTH (ordinary covers). Al monthly payments of $5.00 20 " 7.50 14 " 10.00 and 1 of $5.00 12 " 11.87 8 " 17.59 4 " 34.81 Cash Price 137.75 J FULL SHEEPSKIN (flexible). 37 monthly payments of . $5.00 24 " " . 7.50 17 " •• . 10.00 and 1 of $5.00 12 " '• . 14.29 8 " . 21.22 4 " " . 42. Of, Cash Price 166.75 □ FULL LIMP SUEDE I Prayer- Book Style). 40 monthly payments of . 30 Cash Price $5.00 7.50 10.00 17.89 26.65 52.94 210.25 J FULL MOROCCO (flexible). 47 monthly payments of . $5.00 30 7.50 and 1 of $5.00 12 A'ame . Address 10.00 18.52 27.50 54.75 217.50 1 5.00 After May 28th this price will be $29.00 more. This price will be $36.50 more after May 28th. This binding will cost $45.00 more after May 28th. After May 28th this binding will cost $50.00 more. Occupation 1/ in business add buginett ■ ■■■■ □ □ □ If vou want a bookCRM, please mark X In one of the squares below. Hi Single tier, soli.l m.ihogany: $14.50 cash (or 3 monthly payments of |S. TO after pftyffient! for the bookR are completed). soil. I mahogany: $.8.75 rash (or 2 monthly payments of (2) Two tier $5.00 each) (3) Portable oak stand; $3.00 cash
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IV T li e 1ST a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2551 AVESTA AS THE SOURCE OF THE RELIGION OF CYRUS A DICTIONARY OF THE GATHIC LANGUAGE OF THE ZEND AVESTA, by Professor Mills of Oxford, being Vol. Ill, pp. 623-1138+lix of the FIVE ZAKATHUSHTKIAN GaTHAS (four plates). Vols. I. and II. were subventioned by his Lord- ship the Secretary of State for India in Council and by the Trustees of the Sir J. Jejeebhoy Translation Fund of Bombay; edit, exhausted. A further Government subvention was later conceded toward a second edition, including in addition this present first edition of Vol. III., 1913, then not yet begun. That antiquated subvention ('97) has just been kindly declared by Govern- ment to be still in force. The Trustees Sir J. J. T. Fund have also subventioned the Dictionary. This Dictionary Is In the original Avesta characters, with a complete Grammar of the Gathas, including lengthy excursuses upon both the danger and the value of the Puhlavl, Persian, and Sanskrit translations edited and translated in Vol. I., and here also reproduced in full, with the original Avesta. All serious opinions, ancient and modern, are here produced with the Author's own. Pp. 518 + xxvii, price 18 shillings, Brockhaus. This work, together with Vol. XXXI. of the Sacred Books of the East (same author), and with the editions ol the Pahlavi Yasna published In the Zeitschrift of the German Orient. Soc. with all the MSS. collated, some forty chapters, translated in J.R.A.S., exploits the MSS. of the Yasna now in the Bodleian Library, especially the leading one, which contains 770 photographs, with an introductory note by L. H. Mills (Ten Guineas). B.B.E. XXXI. is the official translation of its Avesta text. For the Author's translations into Sanskrit, see Y. I., 1910, sep. printed, 2s.: — Y. XXVIII.. see Roth's Festgruss 1SD3. and the Bombay memorial vol. of the Sir J. J. College, 1!)14: — for Y. XXIX , Museon, Louvain, 1912 ;— for Y. XXX. see Z.D.M.G., 1914;— for Y. XXXI., the Museon, 1914;— for T. XLIV. see Acts, of Orient. Cong., Paris, 1S97, and Z.D.M.G., 1911-12. A few copies of ZARATHUSHTRA, PHILO, THE ACH/EMENIDS, AND ISRAEL PP. 460+xxx (Open Court Pub. Co., 1906, $4.00), still to be had of Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., and booksellers in Oxford, 12s. 6d. "He treats his subject thoroughly and exhaustively . . . deep and patient studies." — J. J. Modi, Head Priest of the Parsis, Coiaba, Bombay, in the I'arsi of Bombay, 1900. "A wealth of learning and thought." — Nation. N. ST., Aug. 30, 1900. AVESTA ESCHATOLOGY COMPARED WITH DANIEL AND REVELATIONS, by L. H. MILLS, to be had of Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. SAGGI DI LETTURE, TENUTE ALL' UNIVERSITA DI OXFORD, SULLA RELIGIONE DELL' AVESTA, dal Prof. Mills, being sections of lectures delivered in the University of Oxford, with ZOROASTER AND THE BIBLE, by L. H. Mills (Nineteenth Century Review, 1894, first translated into Gujarati by N. D. Coorlawala, of Bombay, 1896), now translated into Italian by an accomplished Italian man of letters upon his own initiative, 1910. G. Sac- erdote, Turin, Italy. Pp. 75. Price 2s. Gratis to students of the Universities of Rome and Naples. OUR OWN RELIGION IN ANCIENT PERSIA, 1913, being a collection of Lectures delivered in Oxford, collating the pre-Christian Exilic Pharisaism with the dogmatik of the Avesta, so advancing the Persian Question to the foremost position in our Biblical Criticism, pp. 193+x, 1913. 6s. To be had of F. A. Brockhaus in Leipzig, of Booksellers in Oxford, and of the Open Court Publishing Company, $3. The Author holds that the Avesta contains approximately the Lore of Cyrus in its original form, but by no means traces all our Exilic orthodoxy to Its Influence, however great, while its lessons are urgently needed to-day as religious philosophy, and that its texts are imperatively necessary to the historical exegesis of Ezra, etc. "Professor Mills's name stands foremost in the ranks of those who have explored the fleld of Avestic literature." The Itast Goftar, Bombay, April 18, 1909. — "Beyond question our leading authority now living on the Gathas." The Nation, N. Y., Aug. 30, 1906 (Dr. Gray). — [Earlier] of Mills' Gathas) "Das Ergebniss einer erstaunlichen Arbeit sehr mannigfaltlger Art — unser Verstiindniss der Gathas machtig gefordert. Giitt. Gelehr. Am., May 13, 1893. — "Insbesondere von Mills, der diese schwierigen Gedichte in grUndlichster Weise behandelt hat." Preuasisches Jahrbuch, 1897, Prof. Justl (Lexicographer). — "Tous ceux qui s'occupent de l'interpretation des Gathas rendront hommage a l'immense labeur 6cientiflque de M. Mills . . . son livre reste un instrument indispensable pour l'etude." Prof. James Darmesteter, Revue Critique, Sept. 18, 1893. "Alles was fur die Erkliirung der Gathas nothwendlg 1st." (So also Dr. West in J.R.A.S., 1906). — "Immer wird es die Grundlage bllden, auf der slch jede weitere Forschung aufbauen muss . . einen hervorragenden Dienst." — "it will always form the foundation upon which all future research must be built — an eminent service." Zeitschrift der deutschen if. G., 1896 (the late) R. Pischel (first Sanskritist of Germany). — A new editlun has been Inquired for, and Is in progress. A few copies of the Gathas (Av., Pahl., Skt., Pers. texts, and Comm. pp. 622-t-xxx, 1892-4) nre still to be had for libraries. £3. Biiochkaus Leipzig. For further information address Professor LAWRENCE MILLS, OXFORD, ENGLAND JUST PUBLISHED SYNTAX OF EARLY LATIN Vol. II —THE CASES. 409 pp. Price $4.00 By CHARLES E. BENNETT, Goldwin Smith Professor of Latin in Cornell University EXTRACTS FROM THE REVIEWS OF VOL. I. {THE VERB): "Man darf dem zweiten Teil mit Spannung entgegensehen; fallt er eben so gediegen aus wie der erste, dann haben wir eine Syntax des Altlateins, welche alien billigen Anspriichen entsprechen kann." — J. H. Schmalz, in Ber- liner Philologische Wochenschrift. "Professor Bennett is to be congratulated on having accomplished a heavy and important task. The mass of material covered is large. The style is lucid, flowing, and interesting. The book deserves wide reading." — Wm. Gardner Hale, in Classical Philology. "Professor Bennett has discharged a huge task in a manner highly to his own credit and to that of Ameri- can scholarship, and has earned the thanks of all students of Latin for the rich array of facts presented and for the criticism to which he has so often subjected the views of others concerning them. We are a long step nearer to a real Historische Grammatik der lateinischen Sprache." — Charles Knapp, in American Journal of Philology. "Here at length we have for Early Latin a book containing a rich and convenient collection of the facts, together with a clear summary and honest critique of the theories put forth to explain the facts. Of the great usefulness of the book there can be no doubt." — Arthur L. Wheeler, in The Classical Weekly. "The book will stand as one of the most important products of American classical sctiolarship, and add much to our prestige in foreign circles." — The Nation. "Das Vorhaben wird mit Freude begriisst werden, zumal der erste vorliegende Band einen so guten Vorgeschmack gibt." — Gustav Landgraf, in Blatter fiir das Gymnasial-Schulwesen. "(Steht) auf der Hohe der Forschung. . . . Eine der erfreulichsten Erscheinungen auf altsprachlichem Gebiet."— Ignaz Golling, in Zeitschrift fiir ostcrreichische Gymnast in "(Der Verfasser) in scharfem syntaktischem Denken geubt."— Friedrich Leo, in Gottingische Gelehrte An- zeigen. "The work will prove indispensable to students of Early Latin syntax."— A'. A. Sonnenschrin. in The Year's Work in Classical Studies. VOL. I, THE VERB, 1910, SELLS FOR $4.00 ALLYN & BACON 180 Tremont St., BOSTON 36 W. 37th St., NEW YORK 1006 So. Michigan Ave., CHICAGO
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The Nation. MW YORK, THUKSDAY, MAY 21, 1914. Summary of the News The persistent rumors of the past two weeks that the fall of Gen. Huerta would not long be delayed have finally crystal- lized in a report, published on Monday, which is apparently well authenticated, that the Mexican delegates to the media- tion conference have power to submit the resignation of Huerta if that course Is found to be necessary to a settlement. The conditions on which Huerta will con- sent to be eliminated, it is said, may be expected also to eliminate Carranza and Villa from any personal share in the fu- ture government of Mexico, and the fur- ther suggestion is made that a commis- sion form of government may be adopted, consisting of representatives appointed by the Federal and Constitutional par- ties, and possibly also by the Zapatistas, acting with the support of the United States. Whether conditions of this character would commend themselves to the Con- stitutionalist leaders or to President Wil- son Is another matter. From recent dis- patches from Washington it appears cer- tain that the President has in contempla- tion a more far-reaching scheme of set- tlement than a mere temporary adjust- ment of the immediate problems of Mexi- can government, and that his aim will be to effect a radical reorganization of the present system of landholding in Mexico, which the Administration regards as the fundamental cause of the chroni- cally unsettled condition of the country. The attitude of Carranza and Villa, while increasingly friendly towards this country, remains, on the question of me- diation, uncompromising, their position apparently being that they will hear pro- posals for a general settlement of the question only in Mexico City itself. Few obstacles now bar their approach to the city,- although it is estimated that six weeks must elapse before they can reach it. Tampico fell on Wednesday of last week, and Tuxpan, a rich oil town, 128 miles north of Vera Cruz, on the follow- ing day. The attack on Saltillo was com- menced on Saturday or Sunday, Villa's forces have been reinforced from Torreon, and the town is gradually being hemmed in. It was reported from Washington on Monday that the Constitutionalists are exhibiting a disposition to exact money for their campaign from business interests at Tampico, and representations on the matter have been made by Sec- retary Bryan to Gen. Carranza. It was announced on Saturday that, in response to strong representations made through the Brazilian Minister in Mex- ico City, Gen. Huerta had undertaken to investigate the case of Parks, the Ameri- can private who, while insane, wandered into the Mexican lines at Vera Cruz and is reported to have been executed, and if murder was committed to punish those responsible. Other in- cidents of the week have been: the sud- den appearance of Zapata, the rebel lead- er in Morelos, in the suburbs of Mex- ico City; the confirmation by Gen. Fun- ston of the report published two weeks ago that Federals had destroyed the San Francisco bridge on the Interoceanic Railway near Vera Cruz, and the arrival at Vera Cruz on Monday of Dr. Aureliano Urrutia, formerly Huerta's Minister of the Interior, who had escaped from Mex- ico City on learning of a plot against his life. Notice was served on Chairman Clay- ton, of the House Judiciary Committee, on Monday that a fight would be made by organized labor to force the adoption in the Clayton Anti-Trust bill of a provi- sion exempting the labor unions from prosecution under the Sherman law. As we write, indications are that the Tolls Repeal bill will not come to a vote in the Senate until late next week. Sen- ator Thomas, of Colorado, whose position on the tolls question has been in doubt, announced on May 13 that he should vote against the measure in deference to what he conceives to have been the Baltimore platform, although personally he was in favor of the repeal. We deal elsewhere with the situation in Colorado, the most notable develop- ments in which have been the President's message to Gov. Ammons, on May 16, criticising the action of the latter in per- mitting the adjournment of the Legisla- ture without making adequate provision for the resumption by the State of con- trol of the situation, and the somewhat evasive reply of Gov. Ammons. Colonel Benavides, the acting head of the Government of Peru since the ex- pulsion of President Billinghurst, was elected Provisional President on May 15. Col. Benavides has taken the oath of office and has anpointed a Cabinet, but the followers of Roberto E. Leguia, the constitutional Vice-President, who was his opponent for the provisional Presi- dency, have protested against the elec- tion on the ground that it was held in an unconstitutional manner, and on Mon- day a group of 121 Senators and Depu- ties declared themselves a national Con- gress and proclaimed Leguia, Vice-Presi- dent of the republic. President Menocal in a special mes- sage to the Cuban Congress on May 13 recommended the chartering of a na- tional bank with a capital of $20,000,000, and the privilege of issuing twice this amount in bills against the Government, giving bonds as security. The last of the three boats containing the crew of the steamship Columbian, which was abandoned burning on May 4, was picked up by the revenue cutter Sen- eca on Sunday. Only five of the sixteen who were in the boat when she left the Columbian were rescued, and of these one died after being taken aboard the Seneca. The remaining eleven had perished of exposure and starvation. The boat when picked up was 140 miles north of the point where the Columbian was aban- doned. An interesting development in the Home Rule situation last week was the statement by Mr. Asquith that the Gov- ernment would introduce an amending bill to the Home Rule for Ireland mea- sure, in the hope that it would be passed by agreement between parties, in which case both the Home Rule bill and the amending bill would be passed simulta- neously. Mr. Redmond, on behalf of the Nationalists, declared that he would hold himself free to deal with the measure on its merits when it came up. The report of the Carnegie Commission on the Balkan wars, on the findings of which we comment elsewhere, was made public on Monday. The investigations of the Commissioners leave no room for doubt that abominable atrocities were perpetrated by the troops of all the coun- tries engaged in the two wars, the con- duct of the Christian armies in their in- ternecine struggle revealing no favorable comparison with that of the Turks. The reports circulated in this country that a German syndicate had been or- ganized, with the endorsement of the Government, to finance Hayti in return for a coaling station and other conces- sions, has been officially denied. The only step taken by Germany in the matter, it is stated, has been to enter a demand for a share in the control of Haytian finances, should they be reorganized. The celebrations in connection with the centenary of Norwegian independence from Denmark were inaugurated on Fri- day of last week by the opening of the exposition by King Haakon and Queen Maud. Count Okuma, the new Premier of Japan, in a statement of the policy to be pursued by his administration, issued on May 15, endeavored, apparently, to reconcile the conflicting claims of those who clamor for material increases in the country's armaments, and of the general public which is already crushed by a burden of over-taxation. While emphasizing the necessity for retrench- ment in the national finances, the Pre- mier promised increases in the army and navy "compatible with the resources of the empire." The Russian Duma last week rejected the budget by a majority of seventy. The arbitration treaty between the United States and Japan, which expired on August 24 last, was ratified on May 13 by the Privy Council of Japan. The deaths of the week include: Paul L. T. Heroult, May 12; Otto Magnus, Mrs. John R. Mayo, May 13; William Wainwright, May 14; Frederick D. Monk, May 15; Consul John L. Griffiths, May 17; Edward Burns, Admiral Sir Charles Mnity, Charles Sprague Pearce, May 18. irV\i** ^N \\r » u'Zr
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590 Tli e N" a t i o 11 [Vol. 98, No. 2551 The Week Signs that the Huerta regime is rap- idly crumbling are now so thick and ominous that no one longer doubts seri- ously that its end is near. It may not be literally true that the Provisional President has empowered his agents at the peace conference to present his resignation, on terms, as a part of the agreement they are to strive to reach; but it is evident that he cannot long maintain himself. That the Mexicans who have been his main support are now prepared to abandon his cause, and do the best they can for themselves and their interests, is hardly questioned. With the rebels passing from victory to victory, and with the United States Gov- ernment not relaxing its hostility to him, the result is inevitable. Huerta has held out longer than most people expected — certainly, much longer than President Wilson expected. He has displayed some admirable qualities. He has been tenacious and he has been calm. He has had skilled diplomatic advisers. But the great stakes for which they played are now hopelessly lost. The most at present hoped for by the large property-owners and the wealthy business men who have thus far stood by Huerta— the party known in Mexico as the "Cientificos"— is that some way may be found to safeguard them and avert the setting up of a pro- scriptive government by Villa and Car- ranza. Thus the problems upon which the peace commissioners are engaged have already passed far beyond the scope of the original questions contemplated. This is now the understanding of all parties to the conference. It is not merely to avert war between the United States and Mexico that the South Amer- ican diplomats have been exerting them- selves this month past. That end they may well believe has already been at- tained, or is plainly in sight. What they have been so zealously and so dis- interestedly working for is something much more far-reaching. It is known that the South Americans have been straining every diplomatic nerve to bring about a real concert of the Amer- ican Powers in dealing with this large question which so greatly concerns them all. That they clearly perceive the need of a broad policy of reconstruction in Mexico is obvious. They apparently contemplate some form of temporary government in that country, able to point to a mandate, as it were, from all the American republics, and containing the promise of order and upbuilding for Mexico. They will not stickle over nice distinctions about intervention. They must see, as all the world does, that the United States has long been actually intervening in Mexico; and the problem now is to make that interven- tion joint, effective, and constructive. It was never probable that the "emeute" of certain Democrats in the House over the side-tracking of the bill for rural credits, would grow into a rev- olution; and the thing has already calm- ed down. The gentlemen making the disturbance had the double motive of wishing to annoy Mr. Underwood and the President, and of striking an he- roic attitude in favor of the farmer. But their idea of the nature of the real legis- lation proposed is doubtless very shad- owy. They apparently have in mind something like the enactment of a pious wish that farm loans could be market- able at easier rates of interest. But we may be sure that if they were asked to go through the proposed bill in its en- tirety, and explain and defend all of its provisions, they would shrink from the task. It is, indeed, a formidable docu- ment, forty-eight pages long. That it bristles with financial and administra- tive difficulties is clear on simple in- spection; but its framers had the in- genious notion of referring the knottiest of these to the Federal Reserve Board for solution. This feature by itself would be enough to make it most un- wise to press it to passage at the pres- ent time. The Federal Reserve Board will be sufficiently loaded down with work during the months of organizing the new banking system, and setting it in operation, without having all these rural-credit puzzles thrust upon it. It has been confidently stated that Presi- dent Wilson is opposed to the bill in its present form because it involves a sub- sidy from the United States Treasury. The reference would seem to be to that section of the bill which authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to "purchase from Federal land banks farm-loan bonds, not previously issued or sold, in an amount not to exceed $50,000,000 dur- ing any one year." The Hon. James E. Gaffney, who is supposed to know something about the process which Mr. Mellen described as dealing with the devil, but which others know as doing business with Tammany, gives it as his expert opinion that the former president of the New Haven was "buncoed." If he thought he was buy- ing Tammany's favor he was deceived; and if anybody came to him, as from the Wigwam, bearing Westchester stock to be exchanged for New Haven stock, the man was simply an adventurer or impostor. Especially does Mr. Gaffney scorn the idea that the late Inspector Byrnes was, at the time Mr. Mellen made the bargain with him, in a posi- tion either to influence or to "deliver" Tammany. All this may have truth in it. Nothing is more probable than that, after it Became known that Mr. Mellen had "due-bills" to distribute in order to obtain "modifications" of the Westches- ter charter, his office was made the re- sort of many a gentleman who lives by his wits. Moreover, it is a well-known rule in the process of corruption, that when you have paid out $100 in bribery, you soon have to follow it up with $200 for blackmail. And it will be observed that none of these things go to the point of Mr. Mellen's willingness to sup with the devil, if he could find a spoon long enough to do it in safety. On his general proposition regarding the devil as a business agent, the Chicago Record-Herald interviewed a number of railway men and bankers. They all with one consent advised against enter- ing into transactions with his Satanic Majesty. Apart from moral scruples, there was always the strong probability that the devil would beat you in the trade! The Yankee enterprise implicit in the proposal reported to the Senate for a globe-wide system of commercial at- taches is another index of the rapid dis- appearance of our self-satisfied outlook upon foreign markets. Devoting their entire time to investigations and re- ports to which the Consuls have been able to give only hftH their energy, and having wider range of movement, these "trade-scouts" should InfUBe a more con
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May 21, 1914] T li e N" a t i o n 591 sistent energy into our rather fitful skirmishings for business. The enthu- siasm of commercial men for the "vir- gin fields" which they are vaguely as- sured await them has been observed to be largely spasmodic, rising highest when the home market is a bit dull. Communicating with them through the Department of Commerce, the attaches should help dissipate the persistent ob- stacles to North American trade — ignor- ance of language, customs, and market- demands, bad packing and transporta- tion, and indifference to foreign credit systems. The greatest stress is to be laid on the fact that, supplementary to our present foreign representation, any such corps of trade servants should be placed on a civil-service foundation. The one spot in the Mexican war zone on which the attention of the General Staffs of the German and British armies must be fixed is neither Vera Cruz, nor Saltillo, nor Tampico, but Mazatlan, on the Pacific Coast, where the aeroplane seems at last to be realizing its much- debated possibilities as an actual engine of warfare. It is true that Mazatlan is a beleaguered city, and that the reports of the havoc wrought by Constitutional- ist aeroplanes come from the Consti- tutionalists themselves. Nevertheless, there is no reason for questioning the main fact that flying machines have been dropping bombs into a fortified city with some effect. The aeroplane has been employed in Tripoli and Mo- rocco, but hurling bombs at ill-armed Arab cavalry is a different matter from attacking a fortified place presumably equipped with long-range artillery. In the Balkan War the aeroplane was em- ployed exclusively for reconnoitring purposes, and not very extensively at that. It is still a question whether a flying machine could venture with equal impunity over Metz or Strassburg as over Mazatlan. Liberal expenditures by a candidate for Congress from North Carolina have called attention to the severity of the corrupt-practices act of that State. The law allows campaign expenses amount- ing to 50 per cent, of the salary of the office sought, and this provision is strengthened by the regulation that all financial or similar service rendered in aid of a candidate must be reported to him. It would be a violation of this law for a friend of the candidate to give a cigar to a voter, with a view to influenc- ing him, without reporting the incident to the candidate. The candidate must make a report of receipts and expendi- tures, as must secretaries or chairmen of executive committees. The latter are required to make two reports, one not later than ten days before the election and the other within twenty days after it. To promise a job to any one in re- turn for electioneering services is a felony. The law goes into subtler mat- ters when it provides that no one may publish a derogatory charge against a candidate without signing his name, and the circulation of false reports is heav- ily penalized. All that is necessary, as the Charlotte Observer sagely remarks, is to see that these provisions are en- forced. In certain respects, the "supposed speech" by John Adams is now dis- placed. While school children will still be made to recite it, as representative at once of a state of mind that had a great Influence on our history and of Websterian oratory, their real wonder will be reserved for the supposed speech of La Follette, winding its leisurely way through 368 closely printed pages. In mere length there is no comparison be- tween the earlier and the later effort. Nor can the former be said to have the variety of the latter. It did not occur to the Massachusetts orator to stuff his remarks with editorials, interviews, let- ters, and comment of one sort and an- other; and telegrams, of course, were not yet. In all of these phases of ora- tory the Wisconsin Senator has outdis- tanced, not only his New England rival, but every other public speaker of any age or country. It is easy to imagine the smile of gratification that will light up the face of every Wisconsin farmer as he lifts his bulky Congressional Rec- ord into wagon or automobile, and has- tens home to begin at his earliest oppor- tunity upon the ample supply of sum- mer reading with which a generous Gov- ernment and a not too reticent Senator have provided him. In conclusion the letter [of the Rev. Bouck White] warns Dr. Woelfkin that, if his suggestion is rejected, "the wild element" will be stirred to "desperate means." and will attempt to "justify vio- lence by the assertion that an orderly exchange of views is not possible." Thus we see that the right to hold a "joint debate" in church is regarded by some of our advanced thinkers as one of the self-evident rights of man, and one so fundamental that its refusal fur- nishes a passably good justification for violence. And the queer thing is that not a few good people, who would be shocked at the idea that they had any- thing in common with "the wild ele- ment," see nothing absurd or intolerable in this notion. They don't quite sub- scribe to the view, but they think that "there is something to be said for it," that "it is not so very far wrong," or the like. Unfortunately, there is "some- thing to be said" for almost anything. There is something to be said for the abolition of property, for free love, for letting children grow up without disci- pline and without learning anything but what they have a fancy for. But we live in a world in which, in regard to any particular thing that is to be done or suffered, what we have to decide is not whether there is "something to be said for it" or not, but whether, in point of fact, it is wise or foolish, rational or ir- rational, tolerable or intolerable. If any one does not see that Bouck White's idea is foolish, irrational, and intolera- ble, perhaps he will be helped by trying to imagine the actual nature, number, and extent of the debates in Mr. Rocke- feller's church which would be neces- sary to satisfy "the wild element" that it had really got a square deal in the matter of "an orderly exchange of ideas." Baltimore's dropping of "Peace Day" from this year's schedule of school events seems hard to justify. The rea- son assigned for the action ia that a militant Colonel made a speech before the School Board, in which he attacked the policy of "peace at any price," and denounced the publications of the Amer- ican Peace Society, which in the past has supplied most of the material for the occasion, as "seditious." By its ac- tion, the Board virtually confesses eith- er that it does not care to have the ideal of peace emphasized before the school children, or that it does not know how to do it without weakening their spirit of patriotism. Neither alternative re- flects credit upon it. It ia quite safe to
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59*2 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2551 say that most persons manage to be pa- triotic and peace-loving at the same time, and that very few indeed believe in peace, or in much of anything else, for that matter, at "any ' price. To omit the usual observance of Peace Day at this particular time, moreover, is pecu- liarly unfortunate; it gives the impres- sion that advocacy of peace is proper only when there are no war clouds on the horizon. The first number of the Unpopular Re- view appeared at the opening of the year, and the publishers state, in an ad- vertisement, that a third impression of that issue, as well as a second impres- sion of the current issue, has just gone to press. It appears, then, that there are still among us some individuals who think it possible that a series of ar- ticles published in a quarterly review so far back as four and a half months ago may be worth reading to-day. This is most discouraging. We had supposed that the entire public had been educated to the point of recognizing that "timeli- ness" is the one cardinal virtue in a magazine or review, the lack of it the one capital sin. It may, indeed, be plead- ed, in behalf of these queer people who wish to read — and go so far as actually to buy — a review hoary with four months of age, that the articles in it deal with the larger questions of the time, and are not dependent for their value on the momentary mood of the public or the events of the day. ing, to-day a number can be enlisted. The sub-editors of the work are Profes- sor Erskine and Professor Van Doren, of Columbia, and Professor Sherman, of Illinois. Announcement has recently been made of "A Cambridge History of American Literature," in preparation for the Cam- bridge Press. In two volumes, it will deal with the subject from colonial times, after the model of "The Cam- bridge History of English Literature." The general editor, who is to have wide collaboration, is Professor Trent. Need- less to say, the work will fill a distinct gap. America no more has her Lan- son — her single compendious historian — than has England. The new history will show a range of specialized subjects investigated by experts. The forthcom- ing work should signalize a change in the rather cold spirit of American schol- arship towards our literature. Whereas twenty years ago scholars in this field with special training, Tylers and Cookes and ftcdmans, were rare if outstand- How radical is the temper of our time is shown by its effect upon that moss- encrusted conservative, the college un- dergraduate. Who had any great hope at the beginning of the public agitation two or three years ago that reform of Yale's Tap Day would be brought about before men then freshmen had attained to the dignity of seniors? Yet this has been achieved, and in just the way it should have been, without larger sacri- fice of the old than was necessary to re- move the abuses that had crept in. The senior secret societies last week se- lected forty of the fifty candidates pro- posed by the juniors. There is regret over the vanishing of the picturesque- ness of the historic ceremony, but one of the excrescences of the institution of Tap Day was its public character, with the consequent exaggeration of the tenseness and the disappointments con- nected with it. This feature of the occa- sion had given it an altogether false im- portance in the minds of those interest- ed, as if one's life, liberty, and happi- ness were bound up in what happened in that brief but momentous interval be- tween the first tapping and the last. Too much cannot be said in praise of the juniors, who took their social lives in their hands in demanding sweeping al- terations in the affair, or of the se- niors, upon whom rested the decision whether the day was to assume a some- what new and better significance. But does the Federal Parliament, or the Provincial Legislatures, or both, voice this will? When the North Amer- ica Act was amended in 1907, the unan- imous approval of the Dominion Parlia- ment and of eight Provinces determined the matter against British Columbia's objections. If the present contentious question should be pressed, however, it could find only small majorities in the Federal Parliament, and the support of five of the nine Provinces. Would this suffice? The issue, not now serious, is distinctly marked for the future; for no Constitution can remain satisfactory for all time. Our "House of Governors" would find interesting the opinion of one expert that, whatever the final de- termination, the proper agency to initi- ate an amendment is the Inter-Provin- cial Conference of Premiers. The decennial redistribution of seats in the Canadian Commons has not pass- ed without friction; and as protests of the Maritime Provinces against the old basis of distribution, on which their representation must increasingly be cut down, involve amendment of the Consti- tution, it is notable how vexed is the question of sovereignty thus raised. The anomalous uncertainty as to the amend- ing power in Canada is in marked con- tradistinction to the definite provisions on that head in South Africa and Aus- tralia. Though the British Parliament nominally retains this power, it would, of course, exercise it only in conformity with the will of the people of Canada. Of nearly ten thousand women who voted on the question submitted by the Parisian journal, Femina, "If you were not a woman, what man would you pre- fer to have been?" nearly all gave first preference to Napoleon. Next in order came Pasteur, Victor Hugo, Edison, Poincare, Rostand, Bleriot, Wagner, Beethoven, and De Musset. Here is an apparently shattering rebuttal for Olive Schreiner and other feminist-pacifists who have argued that the emancipation of women would bring about the cessa- tion of war because the mothers of men would refuse to be partners in the wast- age of lives. The answer, of course, is that the women who voted for the great- est war lord in history have done so be- cause they are still slaves to the ideals of masculinism. That is, provided the feminists do not prefer to turn the vote to their own purposes by showing that the ten thousand women voted very much as ten thousand men would have voted under the same circumstances, and that consequently there is no inher- ent difference in sex outlook upon the world. Nevertheless, it is rather dis- concerting, after so much has been writ- ten about the peculiar sensibility of the feminine soul to poetry and music, to find only one poet among the first five men, and more women who would rather have been a merely respectable poli- tician like Poincare than Wagner or Beethoven. Just what light tho contest throws on the value of the statistical method we decline to say.
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May 21, 1914J Tli e Nation 593 THE TWO VOICES. It is needless to dwell upon the great strategic and moral significance of the capture of Tampico by the Mexican rebels. It is the heaviest blow they have yet dealt Huerta. Their cause is now at high-water mark. With a seaport on the Atlantic in their possession, in con- trol of the chief fuel supply of Mexico, with Saltillo and its Federal garrison cut off and likely to fall any day, and the way open to a movement against the capital by short interior lines, it is not strange that they believe ultimate victory to be within their grasp. Diaz fled before Madero after suffering far fewer military reverses than those which have now been heap- ed on Huerta's head. But Huerta Is made of stern and obdurate stuff and presumably will not yield, even yet, without conditions. On the other hand, he would seem the less likely to take any aggressive step against the United States, or to interpose obstacles to the progress of the peace negotiations. The whole Mexican situation, in fact, as it stands after the fall of Tampico, ap- pears fitter than ever for mediation and adjustment in a broad and lasting way. At such a juncture, the American people and their Government are thrown back upon the question of the large and wise policy to be pursued. Troublesome details will have to be dealt with as they arise; but behind them we must ever look to guiding principles. What are they to be? Two voices are heard in ad- vocacy of two different courses. One of them is the voice made familiar to this country in slavery days: it preaches in- definite expansion, involving conquest and annexation, always echoing the words of Stephen A. Douglas: "Just as fast as our interests require more ter- ritory, in the North, in the South, or on the islands of the ocean, I am for it." A picturesque revival of this old fashion of American speech appears in the Louisville Courier-Journal. It has a characteristically flamboyant article headed "All Aboard for Panama!" Every foot of land to the Panama Canal, and as far beyond it as we may care to go, should be taken by the United States. Talk about peace with Mexico is hum- bug. It is mere "chatter" to say that we will not take Mexican territory. We cannot fool the South Americans by any such pretences. They do not like us; they suspect us; they will not trade with us; therefore there is nothing for it but to go and take their land away from them. And listen to this: Once more we are a united country. Slavery no longer stunts our growth, di- vides our counsels, and discredits our pre- tensions as a brave, enlightened, and free people. Behold the results. Alaska! Ha- waii! The Philippines! Puerto Rico! Cuba in abeyance. Mexico in anarchy. The Panama Canal right across Central America. And over all, suspended in the air, the shining sword of Damocles, ready to come down at the bidding of whatever ambitious President utters the word; the Monroe Doctrine; not as Monroe said it and meant it, but as Seward applied it to the French in Mexico, as Cleveland applied it to the English in Venezuela, as Roosevelt proclaimed it, and Wilson construes it; our right and might; arm- ed cap-a-pie; the army and navy to do the nervy act — Johnny on the spot to enforce it — and don't-let-any-of-you crowned heads of Europe, or Latin sons- of-guns in South America — greasers, mongrels, whelps, or hounds — forget it! This may be said to be only the Wat- tersonian dithyrambic style. But it has many echoers and imitators. At one with it in sentiment are all those who take the high and mighty tone of race superiority as regards the Mexicans; those who talk of settling their business with the rough hand of a soldier; of there being no way except Tor the Unit- ed States to go into Mexico and "clean it up" and then never come out. These voices have not been as numerous as might have been feared, nor have they swayed popular feeling; but they have been heard, and still may be. Fortunately, from the first we have had counter-voices. Early and weighty among them was the utterance best en- titled to catch the nation's ear because it came from the nation's chief. The speech which President Wilson made at Mobile last October enunciated the prin- ciple by which he is actuated in all our relations to the countries south of us, and it is a principle which, in every application, cuts athwart the raucous Jingoism exemplified in the Courier- Journal. More territory? "The United States will never again seek one addi- tional foot of territory by conquest." A brutal consulting of our wishes alone? "We must show ourselves friends by comprehending their interest, whether it squares with our own interest or not." Proud and fierce domination over the weaker republics of the Continent? "Our real relationship with tne rest of Amer- ica Is the relationship of a family of mankind." These sentiments have been, and are yet to be, put to a more severe test than Mr. Wilson could have imagined when he gave them expression. Whether they can be made regnant in the final Mex- ican settlement is the great question. We note only one point. They do not mean flabby acquiescence by this coun- try in whatever may occur or may be proposed. The United States has a duty to its own nationals In Mexico. It has, moreover, assumed an international obligation which will not permit it to be indifferent if merely Amurath to Amu- rath succeeds in Mexico, and if revolu- tion is piled on rapine. We have to strive for a complete and permanent solution. This is the great task laid upon the peace conference; and in at- tempting it, there is deep satisfaction in being assured that the Administration will be throughout guided by the deter- mination to work for justice along with healing, and to insist upon the righting of great wrongs at the same time that it is considerate and generous. COLORADO AND THE NATION. The adjournment of the Colorado Leg- islature leaves the situation in that State as full of doubt, perplexity, and the potentialities of grave trouble as it was when the Legislature was conven- ed. So long as the mining districts are under the control of the military forces of the United States, order will be pre- served; what may happen when the Fed- eral troops are withdrawn is matter of conjecture, but certainly matter for the gravest solicitude. The task for which the Legislature was assembled was to re- establish the State in its primary func- tion of the preservation of order and se- curity, and to restore confidence in its ability and determination to do so. In such a state of feeling as that now ex- isting in Colorado, as a result of the collapse of the home government, the restoration of confidence in that govern- ment is as essential to the reestablish- ment of order as is the mere provision of means for the execution of its imme- diate duties. Unfortunately, as matters stand, neither the material nor the mor- al elements needed for a cure of the State's disorder have been supplied in anything like adequate measure. It is stated — and we have seen no con- tradiction of the assertion — that Gov. Ammons had in his possession, some
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594 X h. e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2551 hours before the two houses of the Leg- islature had come to a final agreement to adjourn, the telegram which Presi- dent Wilson had sent him urging the duty of the State to resume its constitu- tional sovereignty. He did not commu- nicate this to the Legislature until it was on the point of adjourning sine die. His failure to present it in time to in- fluence action was most unfortunate; and if, as seems to be the case, it was deliberate and intentional, it was inex- cusable. In this telegram the President declares that his "constitutional obliga- tions with regard to the maintenance of order in Colorado are not to be indefi- nitely continued by the inaction of the State Legislature," that he "cannot con- ceive that the State is willing to forego her sovereignty or to throw herself en- tirely upon the Government of the United States," and "that it has no con- stitutional right to do so when It is within the power of her Legislature to take effective action." In his reply Gov. Ammons says that the President has been misinformed — that in point of fact the Legislature has taken action that will enable it soon to "control the situa- tion." But the things done by the Legis- lature do not, at this distance, appear to answer that description; and it seems plainer still that they are by no means so regarded at home. The provision of a $1,000,000 bond issue, all but $300,000 of which is to be absorbed in meeting past expenses for the militia; the con- ferring on the Governor of the power to close saloons in times of disorder; the enactment of a law prohibiting the car- rying of firearms at such times — these seem to constitute an extremely feeble apparatus for coping with a situation of such desperate character. The Governor speaks also of a "mediation" committee; but what that may accomplish is In the highest degree problematical — let alone the fact that opponents of the Governor describe what has been provided for, not as "mediation," but only investigation. Notwithstanding the emphasis of the President's words, we do not believe that he will entertain any idea of with- drawing the troops from Colorado until he has substantial assurance that the State can be counted on to preserve or- der. He is unquestionably sincere in his desire to end the present anomalous sit- uation at the earliest practicable mo- ment; but he cannot afford, and the country cannot afford, to throw away the benefits that have resulted from the Federal military occupation, and invite a recurrence of the trouble that gave rise to it. What the President will do, we have no doubt, is to apply — as he endeavored to do in his telegram to Gov. Ammons — such pressure as will make it morally impossible for Colorado to fail to do her duty; and in the application of such pressure he will be backed by the sentiment of the whole country. Unless all signs are deceptive, such a moral certainty cannot be brought about in Colorado without further ac- tion by the Legislature. That this ac- tion cannot be had without great diffi- culty, and that every question connect- ed with it is full of perplexity, is only too evident. But the thing with which Colorado has to grapple is no ordinary affair of routine. The present trouble is not a temporary or accidental trou- ble. It is but the latest manifestation of a deep-seated disease which has shown itself in various forms of lawlessness, both on the part of the mob and on the part of persons in authority, for many years. The melancholy thing about the emergency session of the Legislature that came to an end on Saturday is not so much its failure to accomplish all that was needed, but its failure to show any true realization of the greatness of the need, to manifest the spirit which should have been evoked by the humili- ating pass to which the State had come. But unless Colorado Is hopelessly de- ficient in the qualities that we believe are inherent in the citizenship of every State of this Union, means will yet be found of causing her government to rise to the demands of the situation. BALKAN ATROCITIES. The report of the International Com- mission of Inquiry into the causes and effects of the Balkan wars, made pub- lic on Monday, is a shocking addition to the literature of horror. Writers of fiction have been busy of late in depict- ing the devastations of war. Their ef- forts pale before the matter-of-fact re- cital produced by a body of investigat- ors who went at their task in a spirit of scientific impartiality and accuracy. Treachery, massacre, devastation, and pillage, culminating in Indescribable acts of bestiality inflicted upon men, women, and children — such is the sad tale of a struggle which in the begin- ning was hailed as a war in the cause of civilization. The International Commission was instituted largely upon the demand of the Bulgarian Government. Bulgaria, beaten to her knees in a war in which she found herself completely encircled by her enemies — Greece, Servia, Turkey, Rumania — compelled to sign a humili- ating treaty, deprived of the greater share of her conquests from the Turk, nevertheless refused to be quiet under the additional stigma that it was the inhuman conduct of her armies and ir- regular partisans which forced her Christian allies to turn upon her. The Greeks were particularly active in giv- ing publicity to the tale of Bulgarian excesses, and the march of the Greek army into the iEgean territories was de- scribed as a necessary act of reprisal against an enemy of civilization. On that point the Commission's re- port vindicates the Bulgarian Govern- ment and nation. The Bulgarians were not the first to begin the game of mas- sacre and pillage in the conquered ter- ritories. There is evidence that the Greek "reprisals" took place before the Bulgarian "provocations," and that in their nature they were more cruel than most of the acts the Bulgarians were guilty of. When so much is said— as in all fairness it must be said— it still remains true that the burden of respon- sibility for precipitating the second Bal- kan war does rest with the Bulgarian military party. While the Government at Sofia was earnestly trying to bring about arbitration of its quarrel with Servia and Greece, the military party took matters into its own hands. A Bul- garian peace representative was actual- ly on his way to St. Petersburg when Gen. Savoff gave orders for an advance that proved the undoing of his country and deluged Macedonia and Thrace for a second time with the blood of a peace- ful population. The very course of the Balkan wars, like the passions to which they gave rise, harks back to primitive condi- tions. Modern war usually passes over the countryside like a swift blast of destruction; the agony may be intense, but it is short. Here it was less a war than a grapple between drunken com- batants stumbling back and forth in their fury. The Inhabitants of Thrace and Macedonia had to endure the pas-
Page 686
May 21, 1914] The Nation 595 sage, not of an army, but of armies and bands. It was like the Thirty Years' War. In Thrace, for instance, the Bul- garian armies first swept the Turks be- fore them, burning the villages as they advanced, as the Commission's report describes. Then came the Bulgarian d6bacle and the Turkish return to Adrianople bearing a second crop of slaughter and pillage. So it was in eastern Macedonia, except that there the Bulgarians gave ground before the Greeks, whose vengeance was no less summary. It is not the regular troops against whom the worst atrocities are charged up, but the national militias— bashi-bazouks, comitadjis, and the Greek antartes— and the inhabitants them- selves, stirred to blood-fury by their own sufferings. What makes the story more painful is that such exhibitions of blood-lust were not altogether the outburst of pas- sion under the stimulus of war frenzy. Too often the atrocities enumerated by the Commission were the results of de- liberate policy, or at least the outcome, not of a normal racial antipathy, but of a racial hatred nurtured through years of civil warfare. One need only recall what the history of Macedonia had been for the decade preceding the Turkish revolution. Sooner or later Macedonia was to be lost to the Turk. While waiting for the heritage the Balkan nationalities set themselves to "nationalize" Macedonia in prepara- tion for the Sick Man's demise. The country was ravaged by guerrilla war- fare. Bulgarian, Greek, and Servian bands carried on the "conversion" of Macedonian villages with fire and sword. If such hideous practices were tolerated in times of peace, one can imagine what would come under open warfare. Here the Commission's report is damning against the Servians and Greeks, when the unexpected successes of the war against the Turk left them in control of large territories with a Bulgarian population. It became the business of the moment to convert these villagers to Greek and Servian allegiance before peace brought the partition of the Turk- ish provinces. The simplest way to cre- ate a status quo favorable to Servian or Greek pretensions in a village was to massacre the male inhabitants wherever they showed the slightest aversion to conversion— and not infrequently af- ter conversion. As the Commission's report says, it recalled the Assyrian method of conquest by extermination. The report, in its present form, lacks the introduction by Baron d'Estour- nelles de Constant, in which presumably the lessons of the inquiry are sum- marized. For the present the Commis- sion can only suggest the institution of some form of international supervision over the conduct of future warfare in the Balkans. How practical such a suggestion may be it is hard to say. Yet no endeavor should be omitted to pre- vent or mitigate a repetition of such barbarous fury. LEGISLATORS UNDER FIRE. The people's right to grumble at the men whom it has delegated to make its laws is an inalienable and continuously exercised privilege of democracy. Hav- ing Instructed a number cf men to come together and talk things over, it is only human nature that we should accuse them of talking too much. Having elect- ed such men from duly apportioned dis- tricts in order that from the clash and conciliation of local interests they might shape a just and equitable national pol- icy, we naturally proceed to complain of the parochial outlook that guides the conduct of the average legislator. Legis- lative bodies have far from mastered the art of pleasing all of the people all of the time, but as a rule they are too ag- gressive or too subservient, too ready to take orders from their constituents or too ready to take orders from anybody other than their constituents. Such pop- ular discontent with representative gov- ernment may find expression in the good-natured irony which is our own peculiar attitude towards things of im- portance, or may take the form of bitter criticism as it has done abroad. At the present moment "parliamentarism" is under heavy fire in the two principal European democracies, Great Britain and France. In France, which has just gone through a general election, the "crisis of parliamentarism" is chronic. This crisis is supposed to consist in the fact that the representatives of the people are misrepresentative. The Chamber of Deputies, in which the supreme legisla- tive and executive powers of the Repub- lic are vested, is described as a conglom- eration of groups and cabals, actuated solely by self-interest, by lust for Min- isterial office on the part of the lead- ers, by desire for minor advantages, po- litical and financial, on the part of the rank and file. The main object of the member of Parliament is to get himself elected and to stay elected. To that end he becomes largely a ward leader on a large scale, with the distribution of patronage as his principal function. France has been peculiarly prolific in, government scandals arising from the close affiliation between politics and high finance. To the opponents of the present regime the results of the parlia- mentary elections, coming so close on the heels of the Calmette tragedy and the latest Rochette revelations, are only another illustration of the evil grasp of parliamentarism on the life of the nation. In spite of the unsavory dis- coveries regarding the influence exer- cised by the swindler Rochette in the highest Government quarters, the Min- isters and ex-Ministers involved have obtained vindication from their constit- uents. At first sight such a vindication would disprove the charge that the represen- tatives of the people do not represent the popular will. But the reply is that parliamentarism, by its control of the electoral machinery, by the free use of patronage and directer forms of corrup- tion, is able to impose its own will on the electorate. Needless to say, that is the case as presented by the enemies not only of the parties now in power, but of the republican regime as a whole. It is the view recently formulated by that ingenious and learned Anglo- Frenchman, Hilaire Belloc, whose per- sonal sympathies are apparently in fa- vor of a Caesarean democracy or an im- perialism by plebiscite, whichever phrase we may prefer. The downfall of parlia- mentarism, says Mr. Belloc, is inevita- ble: The whole effort of the professional politician nowadays in every country is to prevent a direct appeal to the people, and the professionals in France have de- cided to meet the threat of it this tim* by a continued resistance. That resistance will prove their ruin. Their success in carrying the machine through these next elections will appear to the future his- torian much as the success of James II in forcing his schemes upon the English people appears to us now. But, I repeat. Governments upon the point of breaking down always act thus blindly. British parliamentarism does not come so sharply under the suspicion of
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596 T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2551 being corrupt; but the inefficiency of the House of Commons, its clutter, its end- less talk, its concern with petty issues, its elaborate staging of pseudo-hostili- ties between a Government and an Op- position that are one at heart, have been severely handled by the radical thinkers of the day. Mr. Galsworthy protests against the House of Commons from the humanitarian standpoint. Mr. Wells protests from the standpoint of modern scientific efficiency. Mr. Ches- terton clamors in the name of true de- mocracy. It is the spirit of the times. Sir William Harcourt declared that we are all Socialists. To-day it is true that we are all direct actionists; that in our zeal for getting done the things we are convinced ought to be done, we are im- patient of the means, and that the ab- stract principles of representative gov- ernment lose their validity in the face of the pressing need of the moment. It is true that representative government, as it functions to-day, is criticised in the name of a truer, more democratic rep- resentative system; but so far there has been little useful suggestion as to what form this newer representative govern- ment is to take. It may be, of course, that Mr. Belloc's ideal Catholic mon- arch, placed high above the petty inter- ests of the electioneering market, may more truly represent the aspirations and needs of the people. It is possible that Mr. Wells has in mind the ideal of a scientist-king, or perhaps a Board of Scientists, who could govern England more justly and more economically than the present debating club at Westmin- ster. But it is well to recognize that these are the things people mean when they speak of a perfected representative democracy. In other words, it is not representative at all, and it is a democ- racy only in the sense in which Na- poleon III might have used the word. The case against the unfortunate rep- resentatives of the people suffers, of course, from exaggeration. There is no need to minimize the wire-pulling and log-rolling activities of our representa- tive assemblies; but it is absurd to speak of parliamentary business as con- sisting solely of personal and petty local interests swimming in a sea of talk. The English radicals sneer at the Westmin- ster Debating Club at the very time that this debating club is grappling with a public question whose roots run back almost half a thousand years in English history, and whose reality is attested by the threat of civil war. The French Government, which we are asked to think of as a band of corruptionists, gave to the world in the Dreyfus case a magnificent example of justice and far-sighted patriotism. Undoubtedly par- liaments mingle broad issues with petty politics and great motives with mean ones. Undoubtedly the representatives of the people talk much more than they ought to. But in this mingling of mo- tives, in this blundering, wasteful meth- od of doing parliamentary business, the legislator is, after all, representative of our poor human way of going at things. LITERARY INFLUENCES FROM RUSSIA. An English reviewer, speaking of the recent revolution of the Russian the- atre, declared the other day that Mos- cow is now the theatrical capital of Eu- rope, and that soon it will be the liter- ary capital. The prophecy is extra- hazardous, but it does serve to empha- size the extent to which influences dra- matic and literary, emanating from Rus- sia, have been making themselves felt in the West and, of all countries, in England. The English writer just re- ferred to is by no means alone in de- scribing the Theatre of Arts in Mos- cow as the premier stage of Europe. The extraordinary development of the drama, during recent years, in the di- rection of that elaborate stage mana- gership with which the name of Max Reinhardt is most closely connected, has been carried to perfection in the an- cient Russian capital. It is highly prob- able that from Moscow Reinhardt drew his inspiration, indirectly perhaps, by way of the Russian ballet, which has swept both continents and emphasized the trend away from the spoken drama to spectacle. Moscow was the first to apply Gordon Craig's radical theories regarding the future of the theatre in which the drama will take the form of a sublimated puppet-show. The Rus- sians have not gone all the way with Gordon Craig; they have not yet abol- ished the actor. But they have pro- duced Shakespeare with Craig's Icono- clastic scenery, and they are now pro- ducing dramatizations of Dickens and Dostoievsky in elaborate spectacle with a predominant striving for atmosphere. It is now announced that the com- pany of the Moscow Theatre is to have a season in London. It is not unreason- able to suppose that if London shows itself appreciative, we may be able soon to see the latest ideas of Russian the- atre craft in this country. Reinhardt, with his "Sumurun" and his imitators, has prepared the way. The picture- play has been popular here for some time, suffering partial eclipse only dur- ing the late visitation of Tenderloin drama. The season just passing out saw two plays of this genre, "A Thou- sand Years Ago" and "Omar the Tent- maker," following in the wake of "Sumurun," "Kismet," "The Garden of Allah," "Joseph and his Brethren," and the less successful Chinese spectacle, "The Daughter of Heaven," by Pierre Loti. That London is not yet tired of the new dramatic form in which the actor's art has been subordinated to spectacle, music, and the dance is indi- cated by the latest play from the hand of Mr. Knoblauch, author of "Kismet." In "My Lady's Dress" he has written a series of what are virtually nine tab- leaux laid in pretty nearly every pic- turesque corner of the globe, thus at- taining the fluidity almost of the musi- cal comedy. Nor should the present rage for the dance fail to contribute to the success of a dramatic form which re- tains such close affiliations with the ballet. In the field of literature the Russian influence is not so marked — scarcely at all in this country. Yet in England there is growing up a school of young novelists in whom it is impossible not to discern the influence of the Russian realists. It is true that at first sight there is no need to go outside of Eng- land for the origins of the contemporary school of realism in fiction. The popu- larity of Arnold Bennett and H. G. Wells — but particularly the former — should be enough to explain the appear- ance of a large group of young English- men who write with their eyes cour- ageously fixed upon life. But Arnold Bennett's is not the intense, almost hys- terical probing into the tragedy of ex- istence for which the very newest men in England are now going in. A first book like J. MacDougall Hay's "Gil- lespie," recently reviewed in the Nation, by its volence, its insistence on nerve-
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May 21, 1914] The Nation 597 racking details, its groping into the anarchy of human motive and passion, points strongly to the influence of no less a master than Dostoievsky. So the London papers are now commenting upon a just-published play by D. H. Lawrence, who has to his credit at least one elaborate experiment in realism, the psychological novel, "Sons and Lovers." In his play, "The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd," just published in this coun- try by Mitchell Kennerley, the influence of Dostoievsky is easily discernible in the choice of a painful subject, the eschewing of the formally "dramatic" exposition, the drab atmosphere, the em- phasis on the ruthless details of the under side of life, and the tragic catas- trophe relieved by a flash of that ideal- ism of which the Russians have never lost sight in the ugliest depths of life. It may be too much to say that this new literature is being produced under the sole inspiration of the Russians. The contemporary English novel of trag- edy— if we must look beyond Bennett and Phillpotts — need not go further away than Thomas Hardy for its source. Only, youth has a way of going abroad for discoveries that it might make by delving into its own family history. The foreign commodity attracts where the domestic article is passed over as a matter of course. Dostoievsky is a nov- elty to the new generation. But in addi- tion, Thomas Hardy cannot offer meat strong enough for the present-day pal- ate. The native tradition — the Hardy tradition — is sufficiently apparent in the first stages of the present realistic ad- vance. The author of "The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd," like the late Stanley Houghton, author of "Hindle Wakes," like the author of the drab London play, "Chains," like the author of the Welsh play, "Change," began with the realism of gray tints and flat voices, with mo- notonous domestic interiors and unpre- tentious tragedy. But the advance has been rapid towards the combination of cold settings with hot passions, with tortuous soul analysis and harrowing detail. The problem of Mr. W. B. Max- well's "The Devil's Garden" is one the Russians would recognize for something of their own. Not that the parallel with the author of "Crime and Punishment" can be pressed too far, but the resem- blance is too close to be altogether ac- cidental. Foreign Correspondence ALCOHOL IN EUROPEAN COLONIES OF AFRICA— THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE— RUSSIA'S EFFORTS TOWARDS SOBRIETY. Paris, May 16. At the Mus6e Social, of Paris, the In- ternational Anti-Alcohol Conference has closed its sessions. From the preceding conference of Brussels, some good results have been obtained, and there is every reason to hope for similar results again, since the work of the conference has been directly practical. Now that the United States is a country with colonies and protectorates, this should be of interest to us. For the chief issue is, "Shall civil- ization and alcohol spread together?" Authorities of the French colonies took part in the conference, and Germany was represented. There was a good deal of plain speaking, which was well received. The main difficulty will be solved only when, from neighboring colonies of dif- ferent countries, dealers can no longer run their alcohol across frontiers for a get-rich-quick sale to natives. Progress is being made, although local governments are hampered both by for- eign antagonism and by political influ- ence on the part of liquor-sellers in their own central governments. England's policy towards opium in China and alco- hol among inferior races has not set a good example in the past. French and Germans and Belgians have all been at fault in the beginning of their colonies, by allowing too great liberty of trade, and by holding to the public revenue which flows from it. So this combined anti- alcohol movement of the African colonies of these nations is all the more encour- aging. In the past year, among French colo- nies, Dahomey has been subjected to ab- solute prohibition of alcohol-selling; and three-fourths of the Ivory Coast are un- der like restrictions. There is a special prohibition of absinthe in Upper Senegal and Niger, as well as in Dahomey and in the Ivory Coast. The new decree which Gen. Lyautey, as French Resident, has obtained from the Sultan of Morocco continues the same work. The Grand Vizier had al- ready forbidden Mussulmans, in accord- ance with their religion, to keep or fre- quent liquor shops of any kind. The native Municipal Council of Fez had ask- ed and obtained the prohibition of all liquor-selling in that capital, outside the closed Jewish quarter of the Mellah — "since alcohol is the principal cause of the physical and moral degeneracy of men, and brings with it scandal, strife, and murder." This was not enough to cope with the evil, for European traders were sending into every port of the coun- try quantities of alcoholic drinks, particu- larly of absinthe, already bottled, which were carried by caravans into the most remote parts. Just as was the case with the American Indian, the first contact with alcohol has become a danger to the Moorish race. Gen. Lyautey has once more shown himself the man of the situation. The importation, manufacture, circulation, and sale of absinthe are prohibited throughout the French protectorate. Other measures are being taken else- where. In the French colonies of West- ern Africa — Senegal, Upper Senegal and Niger, Mauretania, French Guinea, Ivory Coast, and Dahomey — and in French Equatorial Africa, the duty on alcohol is to be increased to $60 a hectolitre, that is, on every 26 American gallons. The Governor-General of Equatorial Africa, M. Merlin, assured the Conference that any seeming loss of time in con- certing such measures is not due to dis- agreement among the authorities. The general principle has been adopted for all the colonies. Its application Is to be followed out according to varying cir- cumstances, but steadily, as a condition essential to the well-being of the colo- nies. The French Colonial Administration employs three kinds of means: customs and excise duties, limitation and regu- lation of the sale and circulation of alco- hol products, and zones of prohibition where possible. Universal prohibition un- der present organization, and with the present number of officials available, is impracticable; and the authorities are unable to prevent entirely smuggling and clandestine distilling, or "moonshining." In neighboring colonies of different- European Powers there already exists ani agreement among the English Gold Coast* German Togo Land, and French Daho- mey. Dr. Zacher, director of the Im- perial Statistical Service of Germany, called the attention of the Conference to this point. These partial understandings among Powers having neighboring colo- nies have great advantages, when added to the more general international con- ventions, and good results may be ex- pected from them. It was the evident feeling of the conference that the entire future of European colonization depends on this struggle against alcohol. Russia is not a European colony, but it is Europe still struggling towards civ- ilization. There alcohol has been made a state monopoly — an instrument for good or evil, according to its manage- ment. The Imperial rescript to the new Finance Minister seems to show that the state has been too anxious to get reve- nue from its monopoly of alcohol. The Minister is pressed to find other sources of income for Government. He answers that temperance will be of slow growth, no matter what the state may do; and that, when temperance has diminished the present revenue from alcohol — why, then the state will have to catch up its- revenue from a monopoly of tobacco and matches. Meanwhile, he has instructed the excise officials in accordance with the Czar's wishes, which amount to a moral prohi- bition of vodka. They are first to do their best against clandestine sales of liquor. Next, communities are to be en- couraged to ask for the closing of a part or all the state liquor shops of their territory. Thirdly, a law is to give offi- cial quality and countenance to the tem- perance societies which have done sc much good work in the past twenty- years. It is acknowledged that no trior-
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598 Tli e N a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2551 ough reform can be made until legisla- tion secures three things: a reduction in the number of liquor shops; a reduction in the selling hours; and an increase in the price of the liquors sold. The Duma is in earnest in Its support of what the Emperor has declared to be his dearest wishes. The fear is that the Imperial Council, which can block or soften the force of the laws, may look at the question from the point of view of revenue for the state rather than of pro- tection for the citizens who make the state. S. D. COMPROMISE ON HOME RULE— THE UNIONIST LEADERSHIP — THE BUDGET. London, May 8. The most probable forecast of develop- ments in the political situation is that the Home Rule bill, unaltered, will short- ly pass through all its stages in the House of Commons; that it will be rejected by the Lords; that it will then become law by means of the Parliament act, and that thereupon an amending act will be carried which will grant the Ulster dis- sentients, as a reward for their display of force, what they would never have gained through constitutional agitation. Thus each party will have "saved its face." The Liberals will have prevented the Parliament act from becoming a dead- letter. The Conservatives will have saved "loyal Ulster" from coming under the control of a Parliament at Dublin. A compromise of this kind, presumably, will deserve to be hailed as an achieve- ment of consummate statesmanship. But there are likely to be a few awkward moments during the process. Ardent Lib- erals will want to know whether a vic- tory that is gained through surrender is worth calling a victory at all. And zeal- ous Tories will complain because their leaders have asked so little from a Gov- ernment that is obviously willing to make concessions under pressure. There is at least a possibility that at some stage of the process the scheme of a peaceful settlement may be wrecked by a revolt of one of these sections. The Radicals and Nationalists may decide that neither the Home Rule bill nor the Government is worth saving at such a price. Or the ex- tremists on the Unionist side may so increase their demands that a sense of ordinary self-respect will compel the Ministry to break off negotiations. There have been significant remind- ers lately that Bonar Law is not the leader of the Unionist party. Mr. Bal- four's retirement in November, 1911, was from the leadership of the party as a whole, as well as from its leadership in the House of Commons in particular. Mr. Law's election was to the latter post only. It was understood that the Mar- quis of Lansdowne, the leader of the party in the Lords, would presumably be called to the Premiership by the King In the event of a Unionist success at a general election. But the representative House, especially since the passing of the Parliament act, is so much more Im- portant a factor in the government of the country than the Lords that Mr. Law has come to be thought of by many as at the head of the Unionists aa a body. A corrective to this mistaken idea waa supplied by Lord Curzon, when he re- cently expressed the hope that Lord Lansdowne would live to fill the highest ollice in the gift of the Crown. He cer- tainly did not mean that Lord Lans- downe, now in his seventieth year, would succeed to the Premiership when Mr. Law, who is to-day only fifty-six, had completed his political career. The day after Lord Curzon's speech, the Times, in an editorial article, spoke definitely of Lord Lansdowne as "the leader of the Unionist party." These references be- come more significant still in view of a statement of Mr. Law's in the House of Commons debate on the vote of cen- sure. "If for any reason," he said, "the right honorable gentleman [Mr. Asquith] prefers to have negotiations either with Lord Lansdowne or with my right hon- orable friend [Sir E. Carson], whom he met before, no feeling of wounded amour propre will stand in the way, but I shall gladly welcome such a step." If Sir Edward Carson takes Mr. Law's place in "conversations" on the Irish question, and these "conversations" re- sult in a settlement between the parties, the logic of events will compel Sir Edward to undertake in permanence the lead- ership to which he has thus been promot- ed for the occasion. The budget comes conveniently for both parties to divert attention to other matters, while the leaders are occupied with their subterranean work on the Irish problem. On the political side, as distinguished from that phase of them that interests the Stock Exchange, the proposals of the Chancellor of the Ex- chequer mark a new departure as facili- tating the social activities of the local authorities. A good deal of recent social legislation has been comparatively inef- fective in practice, because the county and borough councils have been hamper- ed by the lack of funds to carry it out. As the Westminster Gazette puts it: "If we took all that the Legislature said ought to be done by local authorities, there could scarcely be a better code on paper, but a large part of it was like a motor without petrol in it. The present budget puts the petrol in, and should enable us to set in motion, with the aid of the local authorities, a great deal of machinery which has hitherto stood idle, and to speed up other machinery that has hitherto worked slowly." Mr. Lloyd George now offers the local authorities from the Imperial Exchequer additional grants for specific purposes — public health, education, etc. — condition- al on their activity and efficiency in car- rying out the Parliamentary schemes of social progress. As this money will have to be raised mainly by increased taxation of the rich, there will be an inevitable outcry against "spoliation." But the more prosperous classes will be compelled, sooner or later, to accept increased taxa- tion as inevitable — at any rate, as long as the present enormous expenditure on armaments continues; and in any case it will not be easy to arouse a popular revolution against the intolerable outrage of reducing the super-tax limit from in- comes of $25,000 a year to those of $15,- 000. II W. H. A Naughty Decade I'AltT TWO. IV. If Mr. Holbrook Jackson, in his study of the "Eighteen Nineties," has passed by the frail and almost incorporeal Muse of Ernest Dowson, he has given abun- dant illustrations from the artists and writers whose souls were infected with the malady of the flesh. It is not easy for a man to admit that he is simply fu- tile or vile, and when the decadent is not flaunting his corruption wantonly in the face of the world as a sign of superior vigor, you are likely to find him posing as a martyr of the spirit. This, indeed, is the very sign manual of decadence as distinguished from mere sensuality. So we have the aphorism of John David- son: "Decadence in any art is always the manure and root of a higher mani- festation of that art." So we have the illusion taken up in Mr. Jackson's apol- ogy: "All the cynicisms and petulances and flippancies of the decadence, the febrile self-assertion, the voluptuousness, the perversity, were, consciously or un- consciously, efforts towards the rehabili- tation of spiritual power." And it has been expanded with Celtic fluency by Mr. Yeats: I see, indeed, in the arts of every coun- try those faint lights and faint colors and faint outlines and faint energies which many call "the decadence," and which I, because I believe that the arts lie dreaming of things to come, prefer to call the autumn of the body. An Irish poet, whose rhythms are like the cry of a sea-bird in autumn twilight, has told its meaning in the line, "the very sunlight's weary, and it's time to quit the plough." Its importance is great be- cause it comes to us at the moment when we are beginning to be interested in many things which positive science, the interpreter of exterior law, has always denied: communion of mind with mind in thought and without words, fore- knowledge in dreams and in visions, and the coming among us of the dead, and of much else. We are, it may be, at a crowning crisis of the world, at the mo- ment when man is about to ascend, with the wealth he has been so long gather- ing upon his shoulders, the stairway he has been descending from the first days. That is very pretty and sweet, and no doubt our wings are growing, but it is hard to associate these beautiful hopes of progress with such a move- ment as that which was represented in the Nineties by the particular band of rebels of whom Mr. Yeats was the lead- ing mind, as he is the most distinguish- ed survivor. The little "Book of the Rhymers' Club," published in 1892, lies before me now, and as I turn its pages I discover nothing very wicked or star- tling, but of notable promise equally nothing. Are we to expect new life
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May 21, 1914] The Nation 599 from young men to whom "the very sun- light's weary"? Nor did this confusion of weariness and the spirit end here. It may be un- kind to say it, but one cannot study the lives of these men without feeling that the conversion of so many of them, in- cluding Aubrey Beardsley, to Catholi- cism was only another manifestation of the same profound illusion of the deca- dent which speaks in his theories of art. There is an unpleasant savor of truth, though not at all as Mr. Jackson meant it, in his saying of Francis Thompson, that "he took to poverty as he took to opium, as a sedative for the malady of spirit." Religion was not altogether for Thompson an opiate for malady of spir- it, but with some of his contemporaries the two were as closely associated as their art was dependent on opium and alcohol. Too often conversion meant the same thing as perversion. V. This is rather the personal aspect of the decadent paradox, but it wore a so- cial aspect which is more dangerous, as it is more deceptive. This was the dream of creating a gentle communism out of lawless individualism. "It will seem, then," observes Mr. Jackson, "that the two paths of the modern art move- ment resolved themselves into two very definite and very different aims: the communal and the individual, the pub- lic and the private." There is nothing unusual in this, but we enter into the region of paradox when we find that many of the votaries of the modern art saw no incompatibility at all in these different aims. "All really great works of art are public works — monumental, collective, generic — expressing the ideas of a race, a community, a united peo- ple; not the ideas of a class," says Mr. Walter Crane, speaking for himself and William Morris and other temperamen- tal socialists. Now, again, in a sense, that is true: art does spring naturally from a convention and a certain higher community of feeling; but it is at least questionable, in the face of the records, to define this convention as contrary to the ideas of class, for hitherto all "great art," as contrasted with popular art, whether in Greece or Italy or France or China or Japan, has been aristocrat- ic in its purpose and support. And, cer- tainly, to suppose, as so many of the artists of the fin de siicle did suppose, that there was any bond of sound com- munism in their search for the last re- finements of personality and in their theory of untrammelled expansiveness — certainly, there Is in this something almost grotesquely absurd. Here, too, Oscar Wilde is a type and exponent of his fellows. He was not jesting, but rather stating their sober practice, when he boasted that "there is nothing sane about the worship of Beauty," and that "the beautiful sterile emotions that art excites in us, are hateful to its (Soci- ety's) eyes": nor was it altogether a piece of idle persiflage when he took as his hero of the artistic temperament that master of "pen, pencil, and poi- son," Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, who, being reproaciied for the murder of Helen Abercrombie, merely shrugged his shoulders and said, "Yes, it was a dreadful thing to do, but she had very thick ankles." Were not the story too repulsive for print, I could parallel that seemingly childish effrontery with what I heard told only yesterday here in New York in perfect seriousness. But what shall we think of the sincerity of the author of "Salome" when he begins to indulge in humanitarian dreams, of this citizen of a Utopia for dandies when he undertakes to write solemnly of "The Soul of Man Under Socialism"? As a matter of fact, he was as sincere in this as in any other of his attitudes, and his inability to see anything incon- gruous in a humanitarian communism of totally undisciplined individualists was only one phase of the extraordinary illusion which held most of his com- rades. With his usual, and characteristic, combination of insight and blindness Mr. Jackson gives a vivid hint of what this excess of expansive emotionalism actually means when the people them- selves, "drunk with sight of power," "loose wild tongues": There was no turning back. The peo- ple, bitten by an unseeing pride, express- ing itself in a strangely inorganic pa- triotism, forgot art and letters and social regeneration, and marched headlong into Mafeking Night. Mr. Jackson sees the connection of this phrensy of inorganic imperialism with the movement of which he is the historian, yet can add, almost on the same page, that "the most strenuous and the most exalted individual emphasis was not necessarily antagonistic to a balanced communal feeling." No, when all Is said, it is not true that we must have chaos within us to give birth to a dancing star. The trained physician does not prescribe the dissipation of our bodily energies as a means to obtain health; the wise conductor of souls does not point to deliberate indulgence in vice as the way to the knowledge of vir- tue; the experienced statesman does not teach license as the road to lawful liberty; and probably Milton was near the truth when he announced that the poet who contemplated the production of a great enduring work should first learn to live greatly in the austere dis- cipline of character. VI. The particular movement of Mr. Jack- son's eulogy has come to its end, and most of the Rhymers who formed the little revolutionary club have fallen into one or the other silence. They were never a great force in English society, and I trust that the title of this essay will show how seriously I take the naughty decade in itself. But the twin illusion which formed the real creed of the decadents has by no means disap- peared with them, as it by no means began with them. It had its source in one of the great guiding movements of the nineteenth century, was caught up in self -justification and noisily bruited about by a band of men who were real- ly and physically diseased, and now it is becoming the common property of in- numerable good citizens of England and America who would shudder at its practical application. It is scarcely necessary to observe that the abundant fountain of the stream is in the Germany of the later decades of the eighteenth century. One of its earliest manifestations was Heinse's tale of "Ardinghello," in which "the evangel of art went hand in hand with naked, unveiled sensuality," and which announced with sufficient frank- ness that "the decency of our common prosaic life is not permitted in art. Add to this such maxims of Wacken- roder's as that "art is a seductive, for- bidden fruit, and he who has once tast- ed its Inmost sweetest sap is forever lost for the practical living world," and that "the fairest stream of life springs from the coming together of the streams of art and religion"; illustrate them with the identification in Novalis of beauty and sickliness, and crown them with Schleiermacher's glorification in the pulpit of the man who, "in the caprice of liberty, makes his personal view of the universe the centre of all religion" — combine these variously with a thousand other similar sentiments, de- velop them into a vast literature of prose and verse, and you will know whence the Continental artists of the nineteenth century learnt their creed of uncontrolled personal expansion, with the illusions that follow in its wake. Nor has the source dried up. One of our distinguished German professors has just lent his name to the propagandist publication in English of the morbid obscenities of Friedrich Schlegel's "Lu- cinde," and another well-known teach- er of German has made himself the public defender of a group of unwhole- some moderns who still believe that "de- cency is not permitted to art." But the main literary source of this perversion to-day is undoubtedly In the group of powerful Russian writers, with their congeners in Scandinavia and the other northern countries, whose works for some time past have been flooding the world in French and English trans- lations. How deeply this literature is tainted could be shown by Innumera- ble examples; one must suffice. If there is any book thoroughly typical of the Russian and Scandinavian ideal It Is "Crime and Punishment," and if there
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GOO T li e Natio ii (Vol. 98, No. 25 5 1 is a single passage in which the moral of that book is typified it is the scene selected by its latest editor in English, Mr. Laurence Irving, as the epitome of "the animating spirit of Dostoievsky": (His eyes gleamed, his lips trembled, and, resting his two hands on her shoul- ders, he cast an angry look on this face bathed in tears. In a moment, he bent downwards, kissing the girl's feet. She started back frightened, as she would have done from a madman. For Rash- kolnikoffs face at this moment was that of one. "What are you doing? And "to me?" stammered Sonia, growing pale with sor- row-smitten heart. Upon this he rose. "I did not bow down to you, personally, but to suffering- humanity in your person." Not long since, at a dinner with a philosopher and two professors of French and English literature, respectively, I observed casually that my summer had been darkened by dwelling in the night- mare of "Crime and Punishment" and other books of its class. At this my friends, better read in this literature than I, no doubt, admitted the night- mare, but clamorously rebuked me for not feeling uplifted by its spiritual im- plications. There it is. Somehow we are to be lifted up by sympathizing with a madman worshipping humanity in the person of a girl of the street. Filth, disease, morbid dreams, bestiality, in- sanity, sodden crime, these are the nat- ural pathway to the emancipation of the spirit; these in some mysterious way are spirituality. And the same lesson runs through Tolstoy and Strind- berg and a dozen other moralists who are, as it were, the Prophets of our young. In subdued form, befitting what remains of the reticence of the English temperament, it lurks among the pres- ent-day inheritors in London of the Yel- low Nineties. It will be found hidden in some of the writings of Mr. Galswor- thy, who is perhaps at this moment the most notable of the group — scarcely con- cealed at all in his latest novel, "The Dark Flower," with its sickly analysis of illicit emotion, its satirical desicca- tion of the intellectual life, its presen- tation of virtue as a kind of impotence, its constant insinuation that the only escape of the spirit from stolid defeat is through "the passionate obsessions that cannot decently be satisfied." One is re- minded of the old scornful saying of Swift: "The corruption of the senses is the generation of the spirit." What else is the meaning of the recent outburst of filth on the stage under the pretext of "social uplift"? Would any sane man, in the name of virtue, defend the representation before young men and maidens of the inner nastiness of the stews (made nastier by the dram- atist's imagination), or the exhibition of the revolting details of physical cor- ruption, if his understanding had not been obscured by the insidious theory that associates art and spirituality with license and disease? Alas, it is still true that the human heart is deceitful above all things. Some time ago a friend of mine was present at the Bos- ton opera when a certain morbid piece was sung. He was amused, and, being somewhat old-fashioned, was a little shocked, at seeing the dowagers of the town, in their conspicuous circle, clap- ping their hands at the exhibition of a theme of perverted sexuality. The next day he was less amused, and more shock- ed, to read the names of the same dow- agers among those who had met togeth- er to hear the horrors of "white slav- ery" discussed and to concert means for its repression. Even more pervasive is the illusion that through the very license of person- ality men are to be brought into the bond of social communism, and the kin- ship of this illusion with the other and their source are clearly implied in the typical scene from Dostoievsky already quoted. Or, if a stronger illustration of this theme in Russian is desired, it may be found in a tale of Leonid Andreyeff's which was the occasion of comment some ten or twelve years ago. In de- cency— shall I say, unfortunately? — I can do no more than hint at the narra- tion. We are to suppose, then, that a proper young man is walking through a lonely country with his betrothed. They are attacked by a party of tramps, and the girl is killed. After the depar- ture of the tramps the young man, by yielding to a like bestial instinct, comes to realize that he is essentially of the same stuff as the outcasts of society, and that in the lowest depths of the heart is the common meeting-place of humanity. It used to be held that the peculiar bond and unity or mankind was to be sought in the higher plane of reason, with its law of self-restraint, whereas by the passions we were united with the unreasoning beasts; it has re- mained for certain doctors of modern literature to teach us otherwise. There may seem to be a great gulf between such a writer as Andreyeff and the socialistic wits now entertaining London. There is, Indeed, a gulf — and yet! Strip off the rags of decorum which Bernard Shaw, despite his pro- tests, still wears as an Englishman; look at the real meaning of the thing, and you will find that the moral of "Fanny's First Play," for example, which our kindly good folk enjoy so in- nocently, is not very different from that of the more barbarously logical Rus- sians. What else does Bernard Shaw's laughter mean, when he represents a girl of modest upbringing as awakened to the hypocrisy of convention and the solidarity of mankind by getting ar- rested at night in the streets of London for disorderly conduct? It is the corn- median's way of saying that spirituality is the product of vice, and that the unit- ing bond of society is the revolt against restraint. Mr. Shaw is a delightful hu- morist. Some one should suggest to him, as a subject amazingly suited to his genius, the state of life in a com- munistic society made up of such ef- fronteries of egotism as himself. Per- haps I am myself eccentric in this, but, after all, I can read with less insult to my reason the rather childishly flaunted paradoxes of the naughty decade, and am inclined to think their perversion less insidiously dangerous, than the smug prurience of Mr. Galsworthy and Mr. Shaw and the other bourgeois wits who are to-day taken with a certain ser- iousness as critics of our social conven- tions. These men, and this is the whole charge against decadence whether old or new, forget that art, so long as It is human, must concern itself with the por- trayal of character — triumphant or de- feated, still character — just as surely as morality is concerned with the creation of character. The truth of it is sum- med up in a sentence of a great divine who was preaching when Milton was writing his poems: "For we all say, that which doth not proceed from the judg- ment of the mind, and the choice of the will, is not an human act, though the act of a man." P. E. M. Books and Men AN UNWRITTEN BOOK. * An entertaining book is notably miss- ing from the spring publications. It Is always missing, though never a publish- er seems to be aware of the fact, and no writer tries to supply the need. This book, so desirable and yet so shy about making its appearance, is a volume of essays on various outdoor amusements, treated strictly from the point of view of the amateur. You will object, immediately, that there are many such books, and many such essays. Your objection is noted — and disallowed. There is none to be had anywhere. The difficulty comes over the definition of the word "amateur." The original meaning of "lover" has, practically, been lost for ages, and Its secondary meaning of "non-profession- al" has been allowed to usurp too much importance. Except in wrangles between colleges the distinction between the amateur and the professional is of lit- tle interest to any one. The really Im- portant significance of the word lies In its connotation of lack of skill in this or that game or sport. And It Is seldom so used — sincerely. Therein lies the trouble. There IB no end of books on angling, on golf, 00 tennis, all purporting to be by "An Ama- teur." It is the sheerest affectation. You
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May 21, 1914] Tli e Nation 601 cannot read one of them for half an hour without discovering that this self- styled amateur, this gentleman of vio- let-like modesty (on his title-page) is a wizard at his special game. Only the fact that he does not take money for it distinguishes him from the out-and-out professional. And what do you care about that when you are reading his book? Indeed, there would be less ex- asperation in a book by a professional. You do not object if he outdistances you hopelessly. But this person who shrinkingly calls himself an amateur, and then proves, inside twenty-five pages, to have performed the most aston- ishing feats — he plunges you into a fit of depression from which you may well be hours in emerging. No; our book of athletic essays must be by undoubted amateurs. More than that, they must belong to the duffer class. Here again is a relative term — let it be understood, if the subject is golf, that they shall be duffers not only in the presence of the lords of the game, but duffers anywhere, duffers amongst the humblest. In tennis, it is better that they should never get beyond the second, or perhaps the third, round of a tournament. The yachtsman whose point of view is most to be desired is the one who tends the sheet, perhaps — never the one who comes to the wheel in a pinch. And so on through the sports. From these men, it is my contention, we should get new and refreshing work. They know the full joy of the game — and the full sorrow — and no more. Noth- ing of the mathematics of sport has cor- roded their souls — they do not bicker, overmuch, whether they took six or seven strokes at the fifth hole, but are content to cover the tragedy with a de- cent silence. Not that they are without a respecta- ble desire to win, if the sport is one in- volving contest. We want nothing mawkish in the book. Of course, they hope to beat their opponents. But this desire must be nicely measured; win- ning is an important ingredient in their pleasure, but not the whole of it. The contest is something, the surroundings are much. The man to whom it is of no importance whether the tennis court is in the midst of green meadows or be- tween brick walls in a city, and the man who leaps upon the court with an iron face and wields his racquet like an axe, will not be asked to contribute. Tennis, golf, angling, and yachting— these have already been named as sub- jects for the essays. To them should be added riding, motoring, with possi- bly an historical note on bicycling, mountain-climbing, plain walking, camp- ing— with an excursus on camp cookery, canoeing, and swimming, the most de- licious of all. One section might be devoted to croquet, provided that special stress was laid on the peculiarly disagreeable dis- positions of all persons who are expert in that game. This should be a soothing book, a book for summer days, one to be carried, by the way, in a canoe, and read on quiet streams. It should suggest the click of golf-balls, the smell of spring and au- tumn fires, and lengthening shadows upon the court. There should be a little of the heat of contest in it, but almost none of the wrath. The swimming should not be a five-mile race at top speed, but rather it should deal with floating lazily upon one's back, hung between earth and sky, watching the clouds, surely the position in which man shakes off more of the bodily limitations — but the swimming is to be described by some one else. Edmund Lester Pearsox. News for Bibliophiles "THE QUERIST." Bishop Berkeley's "The Querist, con- taining Several Queries, proposed to the Consideration of the Public," appeared originally in 1735 as an anonymous tract. By a typographical slip the title page was dated "MDCCXXV," and Joseph Massie, careful bibliographer that he was, actually included the work in the issues of that year in his "Catalogue of Com- mercial Tracts." A continuation, desig- nated as "Part II," was issued in 1736, and a further installment, "Part III," in 1737. All three parts were published in Dublin, being "printed by R. Reilly, on Cork-Hill,"— Parts I and II for "G. Risk, G. Ewing, and W. Smith, Booksellers in Dames-Street"; Part III for "Jos. Leath- ley, Bookseller, in Dames-Street." The brochures seem to have been issued in small editions and soon became scarce. In 1746 Dean Gervais could not procure a copy for the Lord Lieutenant of Ire- land, and the want could only be sup- plied by Berkeley's direct intervention. In 1750 Berkeley edited a second edition with "some few queries added, and many omitted," and this redaction was re- printed by Foulis in 1751. In this form it was again included by Berkeley in the "Miscellany" of his own writings in 1752, and these editions served as the basis of subsequent reprints. As to the original edition of 1735-37, even Professor Fraser — Berkeley's schol- arly biographer and editor — was unable to come upon a copy until the virtual completion of his labor, when the dis- covery of a copy in the library of the Royal Irish Academy permitted a va- riorum reference thereto in the Appendix to his edition (1871) of Berkeley's works; this was made more ample in the re- vised edition published in 1901. An ex- act reprint of the "Querist," as originally published, was included in Mr. George Sampson's excellent three-volume edition of Berkeley's writings, published in 1897- 98. More recently the work has been made available in "The Reprint of Eco- nomic Tracts," issued by the Johns Hop- kins Press. It has always been a matter of sur- prise to students of English economic thought that, despite its early rarity, the "Querist" should have been well known and should have exerted considerable in- fluence, apparently in its original form. This perplexity is somewhat reduced by the fact, heretofore unnoticed, that Parts I and II of the "Querist" were reprinted in London in 1736 by J. Roberts in War- wick-Lane— well known as a publisher of economic and commercial pamphlets. It is possible that Part III was likewise reprinted after its issue in Dublin in 1737; but I have no evidence as to this. The title page of Part I sets forth that the work is "Now first Re-printed from the Irish Edition, lately publish'd in Dublin. With an ADVERTISEMENT to the READER, on Occasion of Re-pub- lishing it." The title page of Part II adds to the publishers' imprint, "Where may be had Part I." The vignettes are omit- ted from both title pages, and a few significant changes are made in the text. In Query 144 (Part I) the word "good" is inserted before "Land"; In Query 304 (Part I) the phrase "when bound out in Apprentisship to Protestant Masters" is omitted; in Query 117 (Part II) the word "Overseers" after "Stock-jobbers" is omit- ted. The errata noted in the Dublin text are corrected and minor typographical variations occur. The "Advertisement on Occasion of Re- publishing the Querist" prefixed to Part I is unsigned, and I have come upon no clue as to possible authorship. It is of sufficient interest to justify citation in lull: It hath been a common Practice to re- print from Ireland, those several little Pieces of Wit and Entertainment, which of late Years are so frequently publish'd there. It must be confess'd, That many of those Pieces abound with Spirit and Humour; but, at the same Time, they often contain the most poignant Satire; which tho' it gives Delight to many Read- ers, yet, as it exasperates the Minds of Persons affected thereby, does not always manifest either the Policy or good Nature or the Authors; as this way of treating the Subject is more likely to frustrate than promote the good Ends for which perhaps the Piece was principally writ- ten. It would be therefore surely more to the Purpose of those who ra practicable Good to both Nations, to en- deavour to reconcile rather than provoke, and by removing Jealousies on both Sides, try to conciliate the Interests of tin- Brit- ish and Irish Nations: Which must needs have a better Effect, than to offer Schemes, which only tend to promote the Interests of the One at the Expence of the Other: The Consequence of which is, That the wished-for Benefit becomes im- practicable to Both. But the little Piece we now present to 1 hr Public from that Kingdom, carries with it a quite contrary View; It con- tains a Multitude of useful Hints, de- livered in the conclsesl and most Intel- ligible manner, by way of Query, which may be improved to the Prosperity and Happiness of the one Kingdom, >• its l>r[M-ndance upon, or in any manner hurting the Interests of, the Other; and that by such Means and Meth- ods as are intirely in its own Powi want nothing but Industry and Applica- tion to effectuate: For 'tis one of our Author's Queries, and the Sentiment by which he seems to be govern'd through-
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602 T li e Nation [Vol.98, No. 2551 out tho Whole, "Whether the hankering alter the Woollen Trade by the People ■ I hclaiul, 1)0 not the true and only Rea- son, which hath created a Jealousy in England towards Ireland? And whether any Thing can hurt the Irish more, than such a Jealousy?" This has induced the Republishers of this Piece (who are less sollicitous to amuse than to edify, and who have the Happiness of both Nations in view, in Cases where they cannot interfere with one another's Interests, but, like Chil- dren of the same Father, may be made to promote the general Good of the united Family), to present the same to the Pub- lic, as intirely worthy of its Consideration, and as affording useful Hints, as well to the Governors as Governed of both Nations, and pointing out Methods to be pursued by the Irish,* that instead of creating Jealousies in the English, will mutually endear each to the other, and knit both together by the firmest Ties of Interest, which alone can create and cultivate that good Understanding so nec- essary to the Welfare of both. Jacob H. Hollander. Johns Hopkins University. A NEW POEM OF SAPPHO. Dr. B. P. Grenfell and Mr. A. S. Hunt, directors of the Egypt Exploration Fund, have, it is said, discovered a new poem by Sappho at Oxyrhynchus, in Egypt. An account of the find, together with the text of the poem and a translation by Mr. J. M. Edmonds, is given in the Lon- don Times and the Classical Review. As the brackets in the text, which we re- print, will indicate, the papyrus has been damaged and is defective. In some places the context has made restoration easy; in others the words and letters supplied are entirely conjectural. 0]( fxtv lirKriuav crrporw, ot oe rrreaScoi, 01 oe vawv ai Se ktjv ot- 7W tt\](ov rof/fj/jwv fiaWop] €p.vd 'H/xk' euK]afXTTT0v yap [aet to 6ij\i> at Ke] tk Kov? r[o tfapov v]otycnj" ot']oe vvv, AvaKTopl[a, t]w pxfiva tu; J TrapeolaraSy +«]? Ke fioWotftav tparrov tc fta/ia K\a/iapir//j.a \a/nrpov toriv 7rpoxevTa avflpwirots' ircSexiv Br apuoQai \_tiov Treoetxov ecrri fiporofm Xwoi<] [} XeXa&ordai.] Mr. Edmonds's translation follows: The fairest thing in all the world some say is a host of horsemen, and some a •See particularly Qu. 69, 70, 71, 72, 76, 70, 79, 81, 83, 87, 88, 89, 121, 140, 144, 179, 195, do. host of foot, and some again a navy of ships, but to me 'tis the heart's beloved. And 'tis easy to make this understood by any. When Helen surveyed much mortal beauty she chose for best the destroyer of all the honour of Troy, and thought not so much either of child or parent dear, but was led astray by Love to bestow her heart afar; for woman is ever easy to be bent when she thinks lightly of what is near and dear. Even so you to-day, my Anactoria, remember not, it seems, when she is with you, one of whom I would rather the sweet sound of her footfall and the sight of the brightness of her beaming face than all the chariots and armoured footmen of Lydia. I know that in this world man cannot have the best; yet to pray for a share in what was once shared is better than to for- get it. . . . "The manuscript in which the poem ap- pears has the tantalizing subscription, 'The First Book of the Lyrics of Sappho, 1,332 Lines,' on the last of the fifty-six fragments from which barely a dozen stanzas, besides those quoted above, can be restored." Other discoveries made by the same expedition include fragments of Alcseus and the remains of an extra-canonical gospel. Correspondence THE TOLLS. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: In your issue of May 7, in a note commenting upon the letter of "New Englander," you state that the Panama Canal Act does not forbid vessels owned by railways to use the canal if the ships compete in rates with the roads. You add that all the railways have filed state- ments with the Commission testifying that their ships do compete, and you con- clude that the ships may consequently pass through the canal like any others. I am at a loss to reconcile this state- ment with the wording of the act, and would greatly appreciate a further ex- planation. The act reads as follows: "From and after the first day of July, nineteen hundred fourteen, it shall be unlawful for any railway company . . . to own, lease, operate, control, or have any interest whatsoever ... in any common carrier by water operated through the Panama Canal or elsewhere with which said railroad or other car- rier aforesaid does or may compete for traffic, or any vessel carrying freight or passengers upon said water route or else- where with which said railroad or other carrier aforesaid does or may compete for traffic." The Commission is given power to ex- tend the time of ownership of water routes by railways where such ownership proves to be of advantage to the public, but such specified service by water must be "other than through the Panama Canal." Frank Haioh Dixon. Hanover, N. H., May 11. [The language of the Panama Act is not as clear as could be desired. We Incline, however, to accept the opinion of Representative Stevens to the effect that, under the Act, "no railroad-owned ship can pass through the Canal, tolls or no tolls, unless the ownership Is a legitimate and proper one within the meaning of the law.'*— Ed. The Nation.] WILLIAM THORNTON AND JOHN FITCH. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: Allow me to add a few facts to the letter of Herbert Joseph Fitch in the Nation for December 25, 1913, and that of Martha Rumsey Simonds in your issue of April 30 last, and to bring into the circle of pioneers in steamboat invention a more remarkable man than either John Fitch or James Rumsey. William Thornton was the first Super- intendent of Patents, holding the office from 1802 until his death in 1828. He was educated to be a physician at the University of Edinburgh. He invented a system of lip-reading for deaf mutes, and of simplified spelling. He was a leader in the movement for emancipation of American negroes and their civilization in Africa twenty-five years before the American Colonization Society was form- ed. He designed the Capitol, and several other examples of his unique talent as an architect survive, notably the Octa- gon House, which is now one of the show places in Washington. The object of this communication, however, is not to speak of his versatility nor of the boldness of his intellect, but of his connection with John Fitch's steamboat and the part he had in making it go. I am able to do so because his papers are in the Library of Congress, having been given to that in- stitution by the late J. Henley Smith, who inherited them from his grand- mother, Mrs. Samuel Harrison Smith, to whom Thornton's widow had given them. Thornton himself had been the custodian of Fitch's papers, and deposited them with the Government before his death, and they, too, are in the National Li- brary, with the exception of Fitch's au- tobiography, which Fitch gave to the Philadelphia Library. Thornton was born in the Island of Tortola, one of the Virgin Isles in the Caribbean Sea, but he early determined to live in America; and when he was a young man, in 1787, went to Phila- delphia in search of a wife. There he met John Fitch, who had already built a steamboat and was soliciting financial aid for his invention. Thornton was then a man of property, and his bent was to- wards great enterprises. He had himself invented a steam cannon, of which a reasonably successful demonstration had been given, and he was not Ignorant of steam power. He regarded Fitch's ex- periments with enthusiasm, and gave him money, advice, and mechanical assistance. Fitch was the very opposite of Thornton. He had little education and no power of sustained industry. He never worked continuously at his trade of watchmaker and silversmith. He was always in debt, and did not support his wife and family, nor even himself, all the time. He liked to carouse at taverns, and he became a drunkard. He was an atheist who scoffed at death, and was not ashamed of his Ill-spent life. He was a man marked for
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May 21, 1914] The Nation 6O8 failure, and he never really deserved suc- cess. Thornton came into Fitch's steamboat company in the summer of 1788, and when a list of subscribers was drawn u] In January, 1789, he and Richard Stock- ton were put down as the two largest stockholders. From this time on he not only paid a considerable amount of money into the company, but frequently assist- ed Fitch personally with loans, varying in amount from a few shillings to ten pounds. The notes of hand which the Inventor gave him are among Thornton's papers, and now have some value as au- tographs. When he received them they had no value. Fitch had never seen a steam engine, and the first boat which he built failed at the most vital point. It crept through the wa- ter at the rate of three miles an hour, and the engine worked very irregu- larly, sometimes going so furiously that the boiler was in danger of bursting, and sometimes hardly going at all. Thorn- ton proposed that each shareholder in the Fitch Company should agree to re- linquish one-half of his shares to any one who should construct an engine that would send the boat through the water at the rate of eight miles an hour. This being agreed to, he himself made the engine, which showed many improve- ments over Fitch's, the most notable be- ing a boiler that was entirely surround- ed by fire. Early in the summer of 1790 a group of people gathered on Front or Water Street, in Philadelphia, to see the new steamboat tried, and a committee held watches in their hands to test its speed. A mile was flagged off on the river, and the boat swept over it at the rate of eight miles an hour. The boat sustained the speed, and in one day went eighty miles. This was the first successful steamboat, the invention of John Fitch made successful by William Thornton. The Fitch Company determined to build a new and better boat; and when it was under way Thornton answered the call of his old mother on the plantation in Tortola, and went thither with his bride, Anna Maria Brodeau, the daugh- ter of a widow who had been a success- ful school teacher in Philadelphia. All the time that he was in the West Indies he never ceased thinking of the boat that was building on the banks of the Delaware. He asked his mother-in-law to see Fitch and find out what was being done. She answered that Fitch reported unfavorably and wanted more money. "I find," she said, "that you are the vivifying spark that gives life and animation to the steamboat." Thornton sent money and encouragement to Fitch. The work went on, and in the autumn of 1791 the new boat was tested. The new engine spluttered and smoked, but it had not power to turn the paddles. The very thing which Thornton had caution- ed against had been done; the engine had been simplified and the boat lay mo- tionless in the stream. Mrs. Brodeau in- formed Thornton of the failure October 9, 1791, one year after he had left Phila- delphia. He felt certain that the boat would have been a success if he had been in Philadelphia to superintend the building. There was apathy in America towards the enterprise, so Fitch went to France. On February 12, 1793, ten days before he sailed, he executed a power of attor- ney in Thornton's favor giving him au- thority to sue all persons who might infringe on his inventions, and he wrote to Thornton: "I have never seen a man that I can place the same confidence in as I can in yourself," and added, "al- though you, sir, are a passionate man and frequently give your opinion before you consider the subject you are to de- termine." He gave Thornton a partial list of his debts and a few days later borrowed some more money from him. On February 21, on the eve of embark- ing, he wrote to him again about his disordered affairs. He said that if he never returned Thornton must be his executor. He corresponded with Thorn- ton while he was abroad, always about the steamboat. He returned to Ameri- ca, landing in Boston June 6, 1794, ab- solutely penniless, and the next day wrote to Thornton telling him of his suf- ferings and asking him to buy a half- interest in the Columbian Ready Reck- oner, a system of sea reckoning which he had invented and had dedicated to Thornton. He required money to pay for his homeward passage. Again on June 30 he appealed to Thornton in extreme distress. With the return to America Fitch's ca- reer as a steamboat inventor really end- ed. He made some further experiments, but they amounted to little. After linger- ing in the East with some relations for three years he went to Bardstown, Ky., where he had acquired lands. There a tavern keeper agreed to keep him in lodging, food, and drink as long as he lived in return for a bond for a portion of his land. On February 1, 1798, he wrote to Thornton that he had made his will, leaving him a thirteenth part of his land, and the remainder of his prop- erty in equal shares with four others. His greatest obligation, he said, was to Thornton and Aaron Vail, the American Consul at L'Orient, also a member of the Fitch Company, who had befriended him in France. He begged for one more let- ter from Thornton. "I am going fast to mother clay," he said; but alcohol did not carry him fast enough, and four months later, at the end of June, 1798, he killed himself by an overdose of the medicine which his doctor had left for him. On June 25, a few days before his death, he made another will, in which, after leaving his beaver hat, buckles, and walking-stick to one of his friends, he placed first in the list of his other bene- ficiaries the name of William Thornton, to whom with three others he bequeath- ed his entire estate, share and share alike. There was little that was tangible for them to inherit, but Thornton took over as his own the steamboat. No one had been as closely associated with Fitch in its invention as he, and no one was so competent as he to carry it forward now that Fitch was dead. Many years after- wards Thornton stated the fact — "that John Fitch, who was a poor, Ignorant, but worthy and ingenious man, was the true inventor of the steamboat, and that I had a principal hand in perfecting It." The connection of Thornton with sub- sequent events in steam navigation is too long a story for this communication. His negotiations with Fulton, when Ful- ton built a boat on Fitch's and his mod- el, as he declared; Fulton's offer to him of partnership; Thornton's subsequent ex- clusion from any participation in steam- boat building; his accusations against Fulton; their furious quarrel, and Ful- ton's death when Thornton's rage against him was at white heat — are an- other chapter in the history of the in- vention of the steamboat which was a tragedy in the life of Thornton as it had been in that of John Fitch. As late as 1819 he wrote to the Abbe Correa da Serra, the Portuguese Envoy at Wash- ington, applying for a patent for steam- boats in Brazil. "I am the person," he said, "who thirty years ago made a boat go at the rate of eight miles an hour," and up to the time of his death in January 28, 1828, he was still clam- oring for recognition as the man who had made John Fitch's boat a success. Gatllard Hunt. Washington, May 5. NATIONAL PREJUDICES. To the Editor op The Nation : Sir: When one reads the fiery speeches that have recently been delivered in Con- gress and the fierce diatribes that appear from time to time in some of our period- icals on the free tolls controversy, one can hardly help recognizing In such phrases as "truckling to England," "sur- rendering our good right to Great Bri- tain," and more of the same sort, expres- sions that are familiar to readers of the history of the United States. When President Washington inter- fered with the pernicious activities of Citizen Genet he was as bitterly de- nounced as his successor is now. When the Oregon boundary dispute was a live issue, a great many American patriots were ready to take up arms against Great Britain to the cry "Fifty-frur For- ty or Fight," albeit at that time such aery represented the acme of folly. When the news of the Trent affair was tele- graphed over the country, there was an- other clamor for a war with England in which a good many men joined who were opposed to coercing the South. The clamor was just as senseless as it had been fifteen years before. Not many years ago this country was reported to have been actually invaded by Great Britain. Although the invasion was a peaceful one conducted by the Cobden Club for the purpose of breaking down our high tariff wall, it was thoroughly characteristic of the insidious ways of that country. The Irish in America have had a good deal to do with keeping alive the spirit of 111 will against England; but they are not wholly responsible. When a boy, I was taught to believe that there was no act of injustice or of perfidy which the English Government was Incapable of committing. This belief was not engen- dered by Irishmen, but by the school his- tories. One would suppose that the pres- ent generation of Irishmen on both sides of the Atlantic would be generous enough
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604 The Natio 11 [Vol. 98, No. 2551 to give the party in power credit for doing all it can to make amends for the wrongs done to Ireland in past years. Nevertheless, one hears few expressions of appreciation in this country. Recent- ly the Germans have taken it upon them- selves to warn the American people against the wiles of perfidious Albion. One would suppose that the vast in- crease of information during the last few decades and the easy facilities for international intercourse would have well-nigh extinguished national preju- dices. But progress in this respect has been painfully slow, and it still holds good that "knowledge comes but wisdom lingers." While it is not true that people are "mostly fools," many men who are level-headed in all the common affairs of life come dangerously near to making fools of themselves when they are called upon to take a stand on a question of in- ternational politics. Charles W. Super. Athens, O., May 14. Literature JAPANESE GEOGRAPHY. Japan's Inheritance: The Country, Its People, and Their Destiny. By E. Bruce Mitford. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. $3 net. Mr. Mitford's book is a real contribu- tion to our knowledge of Japanese geography. He has gone far afield, north and south, knows the Alpine re- gions that lie to the northwest of Fuji- yama, the craters and solfataras of Kyushu, and the lakes, rivers, forests, and mountains of the Hokkaido. It is now several decades since another Mit- ford, known to-day as Lord Redesdale, gave the world the classic volume, "Tales of Old Japan," and to have as- sociated the name with something in- ferior in workmanship would have been a matter for keen regret. Happily, this book needs no apology. Mr. Mitford is at home in geology, and brings a scien- tific eye to his survey of the landscape; which in no way interferes with his aesthetic enjoyment. Even if the northern and southern islands had not recently been before the world because of famine and volcanic disasters, the author's detailed descrip- tions of the Hokkaido and of Kyushu would yet be of great value. In the south it is the midwinter season that is sunny and attractive; the summers are wet and cloudy. Consequently, the tourist is not likely to find his way thither. The Hokkaido in the north is still a field for the settler; in its foliage and natural attractions it differs radi- cally from the central island; during the early summer particularly the cli- mate is foggy and the air raw, though stimulating. And yet in southern Kyushu are found those "impossible mountains" which are so often depicted on Japanese screens, and which an art- ist must delight to behold in actual na- ture. And in the northern island, far beyond the tracks of Miss Isabella Bird, when she visited the Aino chief, nestles Shikotsu, "Japan's sublimest lake, . . . whose deep-hued waters give weird glimpses of submerged crags and pinnacles." Facing page 252 is a pho- togravure of Komagatake, an extinct vol- cano, with graceful curves, lying north of Hakodate and familiar to residents. The photograph was taken from Lake Onuma, close by, on the west, and bears a sub-line in italics, "The margin of the lake has been made into a 'landscape garden.' " Indeed, to follow Mr. Mit- ford in his rambles and expeditions is a constant stimulus to the lover of nat- ural scenery, both in its native form and as interpreted by the Japanese art- ist and gardener. Facing page 9 is a key map of Japanese scenery in col- ors, indicating granite, schist, and gneiss formations. Chapter xii, entitled The Gateway of the South, the author devotes to a de- tailed description of the island of Kyushu. Opposite page 238, he gives an excellent photogravure of the island vol- cano of Sakura-jima, which rises from Kagoshima Bay, only a few miles from the city, and recently worked such wo- ful havoc. The fine contour of its cone, alas, has been shattered. Our author has a good deal to say of it. "Sugar- cane," he remarks in his opening chap- ter, "is grown, and left standing all the year round, on the southward slopes of Sakura-jima — the only place, I believe, in Japan. That most malodorous rad- ish, the daikon, here grows as big as a man." And again at chapter xii: "I question whether Mother Earth has any- where a finer combination of land and sea scapes than this prospect from Sa- kura-jima's splintered crest." The fer- tility of this garden-spot has helped to remove the fallacy that the infertility that marks the soil of Japan in many districts is due to volcanic products. Our author ascribes it rather to disintegrat- ed granite and crystalline schists, see- ing that tobacco flourishes remarkably in soil derived from volcanic material. The lower half of the page that gives a picture of Sakura-jima has a still finer view of the active crater, known as "The Horse's Bone," of Takachiho, a mountain hardly less sacred than Fuji- yama, for here the grandson of the Sun- Goddess Amaterasu alighted when he came down from heaven to pave the way for the conquest of Japan. Thirty years ago it was dormant, but now it is, next to Asama, the most active in Japan; unless the recent activity of its neigh- bor to the south gives the second place to Sakura-jima. Sakura-jima has a bad record; an eruption in 177ft "was of such a nature that the people could walk from the island, a distance of eight to ten miles, on the floating pumice ejected from the crater." The distance to-day, by the way, is only about two miles. Mr. Mitford gives an excellent account of that dangerous volcano, Asamayama,. which has of late years shown such signs of activity that a cordon of police is stationed round its foot to keep sight- seers away. Its cone is peculiar in hav- ing a dome-like shape. "Its position at the intersection of two lines of volcanic activity doubtless accounts for the huge bulk of the cone, the unusual depth of the crater, and its long-continued activ- ity." Ten years ago the author subject- ed the crater to a close examination, and saw, from a projecting dike or promon- tory, the floor, lying some 600 feet be- low him, "a broken, rocky expanse of ground, strewn with big boulders and steaming pools." Counting up the out- bursts of the past five years, seventy in all, which mean a steady rise of the floor of the vent, he calculates that if this activity is kept up for the next twenty-five years the floor will be level with the lip of the crater. Seismolo- gists fear a really great eruption at any moment. The author's observations of the peo- ple in various parts of the empire have led him to the conclusion that the in- habitants of the mountain districts are superior to those of the lowlands; that the inhabitants of Northern Japan are superior to those of the south; and that the fisher-folk in general, but especial- ly in the north, are the best developed of all. The Japanese fisherman has earned for himself a reputation for quar- relsomeness, and the police have often difficulty in enforcing regulations in sea- side villages. The number of fishermen throughout the country shows a seri- ous decline of 15 per cent, in the last few years. They find it a hard task to earn a living, the monthly proceeds per head averaging less than three United States dollars; and this last winter, when extreme cold drove away the fish from the shores of Hokkaido and north- ern Hondo, will accelerate the ominous decline. In drawing his conclusions regarding the temper of modern Japan, Mr. Mit- ford has wisely gone to other cities than the commercialized, tourist-haunted cen- tres which are in everybody's mouth. To find cities that are neither ultra-mod- ern nor hopelessly behind the times, he has sought "those provincial centres which, not many years ago, were the headquarters of some great Daimyate, or clan, and thus retain amid the com- mercial activities a feudal aristocracy of their own. Of such are KagOBhllM and Kumamoto in the south, Kofu and Mito in the east, Sendai and Wakamatsu in the north. . . . Bach has Its Char- acteristic industry and its local color." His political conclusions regarding the
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May 21, 1914] T h. e INT a t i o 11 6Q5 people are discriminating and sound; and few weightier or more illuminating discussions, dealing with the Japanese question from the international side, have appeared than the closing three chapters, Japan as a Colonial Power, Where East Meets West, and A Peep Into the Future. As an ethnologist and historian Mr. Mitford is less satisfactory, and state- ments made on pages 315, 317, and again on pages 331, 332, need careful revision. Nor is he at his best as a stylist; his somewhat lavish use of French and Latin would at once bring him under the ban of the poet-laureate's Society for Pure English. Why la haute politique, grande passion, clien- tdr, fait accompli; or ad Onrcas calen- dar, terra firma, flagrante delicto, when quiet English equivalents would serve the purpose better? Especially objec- tionable are the intrusions when there was reason to use so many Japa- nese words, like soroban, andon, ya- doiia ; and with a little care lie might even get rid of many of these. But such defects are hardly worth mentioning, in a production that is full of solid worth from beginning to end, and is specially to be welcomed at this time when the places he portrays so vividly with pen and camera are attracting keen and sym- pathetic attention all over the world. CURRENT FICTION. The Wonderful Visit. By H. G. Wells. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. This is the kind of volume Mr. Wells writes as a diversion from the press of weightier endeavors; we can imagine him proud of it as a proof of his facil- ity, but scarcely for its intrinsic qual- ity. It is a sketchy bit of satire, built on the imagined dropping of an angel to this earth, and his painful efforts at readjustment to our warped and im- perfect scheme of things. As such, it has effective scenes. Mr. Angel (so he is called, and is regarded by the vulgar as a simple humpbacked creature) is taken under the protection of the scien- tific Vicar who shot him in the air, and who fully credits his supernatural origin, though he despairs of convincing others. The Vicar carries him about the countryside, and tries to initiate him into all the snobberies of local society. The satiric culmination comes at a mu- sicale, where the angel plays divinely, but is mercilessly crushed by the guests because of his inability to read notes. When he gallantly assists the maid in an awkward predicament, the whisper runs around that he is drunk. Having thus employed him as an agent to exhibit the vapidity of provincial life and the falseness of our conventions, Mr. Wells removes him by a simple, heroic expedient. Into a cottage fire the angel rushes to rescue a girl, the roof falls, and he disappears in flame and a burst of music. Truth to say, the celestial visitor is made too much of a prig and a visionary to give the story the im- pressiveness it might otherwise have. From, an Island Outpost. By Mary E. Waller. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. An appropriate sub-title to this vol- ume would be "Thoughts and Rhapso- dies of a Lady Novelist in the Country." The "island outpost" is Nantucket. The book seems to be made up of extracts from a diary of the last five years, writ- ten always with a view to publication. It contains random moralizings and theorizings on all sorts of subjects, well mixed with descriptions of Nantucket and a great variety of things of which Nantucket reminds Miss Waller. The descriptions, though rather exclamatory in style, are sometimes attractive. Read- ers of Miss Waller's novels will no doubt be interested in her opinions on educa- tion, the latest fashions in women's dress, Ibsen, the future of New England, etc. Some of these opinions are shrewd and sensible. Of the exploiters of sex, for instance, she writes: "There is a humorous side to these moderns' 'output' Reading their plays and novels we would receive the impres- sion that their creators are hardly yet fully awake to the fact that this earth has been peopled for thousands of years. . . . Looked at from the right angle, through a normal medium, there is no such problem as the 'sex-problem.' The facts in evidence do not constitute a 'problem.' . . . What is termed 'sex' is a force, and like gravitation it solves itself." a millionaire. For example, he does not fancy Italian counts, least of all rascally ones, but when his ambitious wife de- termines to marry Gwendolyn to one of them, there seems to be nothing to do but sigh. Norris's specialty is domestic self-sacrifice. As a youth he went to prison to save his father's name, and through manhood he paid blackmail to save his wife and daughter the anguish of knowing him for a jailbird. The blackmailer is a preposterous person, reformed in the last act, and married to a good and rich woman, who knows and forgives all. As for Gwendolyn's fate, it has to be determined largely by the ef- forts of Uncle Socrates. It involves, of course, the frustration of all possible counts, and the success of the good and athletic and handsome and prosperous young American who has been marked for Gwendolyn's mate from the very first page. The Marry ers. By Irving Bacheller. New York: Harper & Brothers. This is a little humorous sketch in the vein of "Keeping Up with Lizzie." Liz- zie, it will be recalled, nearly devastat- ed a countryside by infecting it with city fashions and extravagances. If we remember aright, the malady was taken in time, and there was a general return to the simple life and happiness ever after. The idea here is not more subtle. The "marryers" are the female title- hunters who have certainly lost noth- ing of their usefulness to novelists and playwrights during recent years. About the figure of the American heiress pur- suing her favorite big game abroad, Mr. Bacheller's carefully rustic humor plays with a good deal of effectiveness. The Hon. Socrates Potter, of Pointview, Con- necticut, is supposed to tell the story, and prefaces a brief: "In re America vs. Sundry Feudal Tendencies." His friend Norris, father of the heiress, is, like all American millionaires, helpless in the hands of his women-folk. He is, in fact, exceptionally inefficient in the management of his household, even for Viennese Idylls. By Arthur Schnitzler. Translated by Frederick Eisemann. Boston: John W. Luce & Co. Mr. Eisemann has brought together six of Arthur Schnitzler's short stories under a title little befitting their char- acter. These studies of mental obses- sion dealing with strange fits of passion, remorse, fright, and the disillusionment that follows upon great emotional crises are scarcely to be classed as idylls. Viennese these stories certainly are, in- asmuch as they embody that peculiar mixture of the tender and the ironic, that faculty of feeling and of contem- plating one's self at the same time which distinguishes the Young Austrian writers from their more single-minded North German contemporaries. Five of the stories are analyses 01 erotic experi- ences with a blend of mysticism. "Blind Geronimo and His Brother" is the tale of a brother's fidelity: a single episode in the life of two strolling musicians whom the carelessly spoken word of a stranger throws into a situation where each reveals his heart to each. The concentration and realism of the treat- ment remind one of Maupassant, but there is a warm note of compassion in Schnitzler that is far removed from the French writer's impersonality. The translation lacks the grace and distinc- tion of the original. Siocctapple Cove. By George Van Sehaick. Boston: Small, Maynard & Co. Sweetapple Cove is a Newfoundland fishing village, just inshore of the Grand Banks. It has a parson, but no physi- cian, till our John Grant, a doctorling just out of hospital service, comes there to cut his teeth as a practitioner, and to find out what he is good for "as a man among men." He quickly becomes the
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606 rTlie Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2551 idol of Sweetapple Cove. Two things might naturally happen: the American way would be to have him find in one of the humble cottages one of nature's noblewomen, and in the end take her to himself. The British way would be to have him, after proving himself a man to the Queen's taste, suddenly translated to a title and estates At Home. Quite another thing does happen. An Ameri- can millionaire brings his daughter to Sweetapple Cove, for salmon-fishing, and promptly breaks nis leg. She remains intact for Dr. John. Though city-bred and ignorant of the wilderness, she shows amazing ability under Dr. John's tutoring, lands a record salmon at her first cast, and a record caribou at her first shot. There are divers adventures, giving scope for the heroism of both young parties, and the end is all that could be desired. Though the "love-in- terest" is slight and rather common- place, the local atmosphere is well con- veyed. The patient old parson and his perfect wife are worth more than the young pair, at least to a middle-aged reader. THE PITFALLS OP PRECOCITY. The Early Life of John Howard Payne. With contemporary letters heretofore unpublished. By Willis T. Hanson, Jr. Boston: Privately printed. $13.50. The author of that bit of deathless doggerel, "Home, Sweet Home," has not lacked his biographers. They have in- clined to harp on the insufficiency of his reward for all the labor of his years. So sad to be remembered only for a casual lyric when one has written sixty- odd plays, many of them in blank verse! Still, there have been industrious and versatile writers who have not been re- membered at all. Lacking "Home, Sweet Home," Payne would not have been the first author with eleven tragedies, nine comedies, twenty-six dramas and melo- dramas, seven operas, and ten farces (or their equivalent) more or less to his credit — he would not have been the first hero of this species to vanish from this earthly scene and leave no trace behind. And to Payne's bit of doggerel must be granted one good line. In his own day, at least, he was an effective and picturesque, if never quite prosperous, figure. He was the first American to make an impression abroad as a dramatist. Two of his plays and two of his operas were very successful. His "Brutus" was produced by Edmund Kean in 1818, gained immense applause, and survived on the stage for fifty years; McCullough, Forrest, and Booth played it in America. As a boy, he had been a leading "American Roscius." His country eased his last decade by giving him the consulship at Tunis. Such a career cannot be called disastrous; its unhappiness (for it was unhappy) must have sprung from the nature of the man himself. This is made clear — though the chronicler does not seem to perceive it — by the present detailed ac- count of his early life. His father was a New Yorker, of the same family as Robert Treat Paine and Dolly Payne, wife of President Madison. His mother was a Jewess. The senior Payne was a schoolmaster of repute, and became head of an academy in Boston in 1796. There young Payne had his school- ing, with extraordinary results, on the surface, at least. He was not a scholar, but had a clever and acquisitive mind and the knack of turning all his acquisi- tion to display. It was a day of prodi- gies, and the most famous of them, young Betty, the "infant Roscius" of England, was just Payne's age. As it chanced, the Boston schoolmaster was a specialist in the teaching of elocution. The small son had already become an admired performer when the amazing tale of young Betty's exploits reached America. Young Payne determined to be an infant Roscius, too, and was en- couraged in the notion by a well-known Boston actor who had heard him speak. But this was too much for the father, who saw no essential relation between elocution and the stage. The eleven- year-old had to confine himself to writ- ing theatrical criticisms which the news- papers accepted, says our biographer, "on their merit." Through these criti- cisms he met a youth who, by a quaint chance, was to write the only American poem which approaches "Home, Sweet Home" in popularity — Samuel Wood- worth, cooper of "The Old Oaken Buck- et." Woodworth was not, as Mr. Han- son states, "a boy of about Payne's own age," but some five or six years older. He was a printer's apprentice, and amused himself by publishing a little paper of his own, The Fly. Payne con- tributed to it, and no doubt it sug- gested his own Thespian Mirror, which, a year or two later, we find him editing. He was then supposed to be working in a New York business office, and his em- ployer had been instructed to keep him away from the theatre. To undertake a theatrical weekly in these circumstances showed valor, if not discretion. The surprising thing is that the boy suc- ceeded not only in writing most of Its contents, but in getting it printed and pretty widely read. Mr. Hanson evi- dently thinks it remarkable as criticism, and prints several numbers in facsimile. It Is undoubtedly precocious, and prob- ably as good as most of what passed for criticism at the time. A paragraph from the preface to the first number may show the kind of thing: It cannot be denied that the Stage is (in ulated for purposes, at once the most laudable and useful. From its glowing iind impressive representations, the Ty- rant is Induced to relax his wonted se- verity, the hand of Avarice is opened to the generous influence of benevolence; the wantonness of the profligate is suc- ceeded by philosophic thoughtfulness; the asperity of Misanthropy is softened into charity and cheerfulness; the con- science of the criminal is struck to re- pentance, and those absurdities and fol- lies which pervade the "Living manners as they rise," and are not immediately cognizable by the criminal or canon laws, are made to shrink and retire before the lash of dra- matic satire: "Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne, Yet touched and shamed by ridicule alone." Such writing gained local fame for its young author. Coleman, editor of the New York Evening Post, asked him to tea, was greatly impressed, and wrote (in the Evening Post): "I found that it required an effort on my part to keep up the conversation in as choice a style as his own." Public curiosity about the remarkable boy grew sufficiently to jus- tify the production of a play by him in 1806, and its publication in the same year. Coleman projected a subscription to get Payne a college education; but a merchant named Seaman took the whole matter over. He seems to have been infatuated with the boy at first, and offered virtually to adopt him. But the prodigy was already spoiled. He felt that his acceptance of this gen- erosity was a condescension. His ge- nius gave him the right to do as he chose. After a year or two at Union College, where everything was done for him, his insolence and insubordination brought about a final breach with his patron. He then succeeded in getting his father's permission to try the stage. On his first appearance as young Norval in "Douglas" he scored a great success. With a little common-sense he might have won a permanent place in the thea- tre, but his bumptiousness soon embroil- ed him with managers and fellow actors, and after a brief season of triumph he found himself without backing. He had made a good deal of money, but it was gone. There were still friends to coddle him. They now raised a purse of $2,000 to give him a year abroad. He stayed nearly twenty years, toiling indefati- gably and always discontentedly at his plays and playing. He expected more of life than it gave him; the world was never quite at his feet. America feted him when he found time to return to her, and gave him a comfortable berth for his last years. But he had never realized the doubtful promises of his precocity, or admitted to himself that his relative failure was due to inward rather than outward causeB. Few men have been born to a more kindly earth, have been more generously dealt with In the body, or more gently (if vaguely) held in memory.
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May 21, 1914] T li e Nation 607 HASTY COMPOSITION. the Reign of Henry VII from Contem- porary Sources. Selected and arrang- ed in three volumes, with an Intro- duction by A. F. Pollard. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. $9 net. These three substantial volumes are the product, so Mr. Pollard informs us, "of the few leisure hours that have fall- en to him in the last fifteen months." A very cursory glance at them will suf- fice to explain why such an apparently imposing piece of work has been accom- plished in so brief a time. They con- sist, almost exclusively, of a selection of documents, bearing on the narrative, constitutional, social, and economic his- tory of the reign of Henry VII, reprint- ed for the most part from already pub- lished sources or transcripts, without collation with the original MSS. It is certainly convenient to have accessible in a single set documents hitherto scat- tered through such collections as Camp- bell's "Materials," Gairdner's "Letters and Papers," the "Paston Letters," Bentley's "Exoerpta Historica," etc. A few misprints and errors of chronology have been rectified, and an occasional helpful explanatory note has been addj ed. Save, however, for these very ob- vious merits, it is difficult to discover precisely wherein the present collection justifies its existence. The introduction, too, bears evidence of careless and hasty composition, and is in no sense worthy of Mr. Pollard's high reputation. It abounds in minor errors, and its statements and reason- ing are by no means always convincing. One does not see, for instance, why the mother of Charles V should be constant- ly referred to as "Juafia" (pp. lvii-lx passim), or the Great Captain as "Gon- salvo di Cordova" (p. lviii), or the infant son of Ferdinand's daughter Isa- bella and of Emmanuel, King of Por- tugal, as "Michael or Emmanuel" (Vol. Ill, p. 58, n); nor is it at all clear, in view of its subsequent fate, why Navarre would have escaped the Em- peror, if Ferdinand's child by Germaine de Foix had survived (p. lx). The au- thor's economic horizon would have been considerably broadened by a pe- rusal of Schanz, whose name, by the way, does not figure among "the fewer than half-a-dozen modern writers on Henry VII" who in Mr. Pollard's judg- ment "need be considered" (p. xv). Nor should he dwell twice on the results of Lord Bacon's mistaking Bernard An- dre's "Iwtanter" for "latenter" (pp. x; 11 n) without giving Dr. Gairdner cred- it for discovering them. The footnotes are often inaccurate and misleading, e. g., "Cely Papers, Camden Soc." (Vol. Ill, p. 321). The simple fact of the matter is that Mr. Pollard has not taken time or pains enough in the preparation of this last work. At his best he is exceedingly good; but when the slap-dash fit comes, he hurries and stumbles frequently; and the vigor, even dogmatism, of his style aggravates his defects, just as, in his more careful work, it enhances his mer- its. There is evidence of a deplorable tendency among some recent English historical scholars to regard the editing of documents as mere hack-work, and as a task demanding far less skill and precision than the writing of history. The present work is a case in point. In this respect, if not in others, English historical scholarship still lags far be- hind that of France, Germany, and the United States. CONGREGATIONALISM. Theodore Thornton Munger, New Eng- land Minister. By Benjamin Wisner Bacon. New Haven: Yale University Press. $3 net. It is appropriate that a life of Theo- dore Thornton Munger should have been written by the acting-pastor of Yale Uni- versity Church in the city of New Ha- ven, the ancient seat of New England theology, where Munger was for fifteen years pastor of the United Congrega- tional Church. There is a fitness also in its publication by the Yale Univer- sity Press on the morrow of the Kan- sas City Convention of Congregational Churches, where the Dean of the Yale Divinity School was highly honored, and the progressive platform of the Congre- gationalists was adopted. In Munger's life we have in biographical form a his- tory of the struggles of Congregational- ism during the last eighty years to throw off denominational exclusiveness, and to restate Congregational principles in terms of catholicity. This movement, finding its first expression at Boston in 1865, and at Oberlin in 1872, culminated at Kansas City in 1913 in the final re- jection of a denominational creed and excessive decentralization. That was a victory in which Munger, with reverent satisfaction, would have rejoiced, as de- fining Congregationalism in terms of principle and not of sect, and making for a progress in theology that would open the door more widely than before to the abiding presence of God. The early years of Munger's life were a time of religious restlessness and dis- content in New England. The Calvin- ism of Jonathan Edwards, with its doc- trine of the second birth and the need of a conscious experience of salvation, seemed a hopelessly deadening creed to many an earnest thinker of that day, and led to the withdrawal of many who were distressed by the sorry note of New England theology into more con- genial spiritual atmospheres. But Mun- ger, though congratulating his friend, Elisha Mulford, on his contentment in Episcopacy, and thoroughly dishearten- ed with the prevailing orthodoxy, found that he had too much of the Puritan in him to leave the church of his fathers, and sought for continuity and Catholi- cism within the fold of Congregational- ism. Therefore, while Mulford, content- ed with Episcopacy, was writing his great book, "The Nation," Munger was working out plans for the reconstruc- tion of the Republic, not of man, hut of God, under the inspiration of Robertson, Maurice, and especially Bushnell, and of the new forms of philosophic thought that were born of the doctrine of evolu- tion. In this effort Munger hecame the bear- er of the torch that Bushnell had light- ed. It is the great merit of Dr. Bacon's book that, while dealing with the simple annals of the quiet life of a New Eng- land minister, he has realized the sig- nificance of that life for the world at large. He writes of Munger as a man of more than ordinary talents, leading in the protest against the uncatholic, self- centred spirit of the denominationalists, who, taking advantage of "the unbound- ed liberty of independency," fought for the perpetuation of a congeries of local churches, each possessed of the inalien- able right to shape its own creed. Him- self of Munger's own school of theologi- cal thought, he has devoted many pages of his book to a discussion of the crisis of reconstruction of the church in the seventies, and with admirable candor, but with strong and sympathetic utterance has formulated a trenchant indictment of those who would have built up com- peting churches on the denominational plan. When he reaches Munger's pas- torates at North Adams and New Ha- ven, 1877-1900, he has entered the freer atmosphere of liberty and democracy In the church, and can turn to the more personal characteristics of Munger's in- fluence, as seen in the latter's writings, especially "The Freedom of Faith," "The Appeal to Life," and "Horace Bushnell, Preacher and Theologian." The last- named is in large measure but an un- conscious expression of Munger's person- ality. Yet even here Munger is seen as a typical New England minister of the "progressive" school, one whose cir- cle of influence was ever widening as recognition of his place in the theologi- cal world came from those to whom the New Theology made an irresistible ap- peal. Munger's call to New Haven was co- incident with the opening of a new era in the history of the Divinity School, and throughout his pastorate he was a pillar of strength to that younger gen- eration of the Divinity School which has since become its dominant influence. His election to membership in the Yale Corporation was deemed a triumph of liberalism, promising greater changes to come in the composition of that hith- erto exclusively ministerial body.
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60S T li e Natio n [Vol. 98, No. 2551 Notes The Century Company will publish "Henry of Navarre— Ohio," by Hol- worthy Hall, on June 12. The forthcoming- publication of "The Story of Duciehurst," by Charles Egbert Craddock, is announced by the Macmil- lan Company. "The Intervening Lady," by Edgar Jepson, is announced for publication on Saturday by the Bobbs-Merrill Company. John W. Luce & Co. announce the forthcoming publication of "The New Foolish Dictionary," by Gideon Wurdz (Charles Wayland Towne). Houghton Mifflin Company announces for publication early next month: "Clark's Field," by Robert Herrick; "What Is it to Be Educated?" by C. Hanford Henderson; "The Sister of the Wind," by Grace Fallow Norton- "Where Rolls the Oregon," by Dallas Lore Sharp. to! why not have this good thing al- ways? Why not sleep oul (>r doors every night?" Which is, of course, exactly the way in which human nature works: very reasonable, very sane, and convinc- ing, but unfortunately never quite so suc- cessful as it ought to be. That which has blessed us once must be secured for our souls to feast on perpetually; revela- tion must fold its wings and abide with us. That attitude towards revelation, accord- ing to the writer, betokens a lustful spirit and brings inevitable defeat. She proceeds to quote a stanza from Blake that sets forth one of her main beliefs: He who bends to himself a joy, Does the winged life destroy ; But he who kisses a joy as It flies. Lives in eternity's sunrise. And, with a characteristic quiet humor, she applies this idea to the matter in hand: "The stars and the dawn do not condescend to such paraphernalia for waylaying them as sleeping-bags, rubber blankets, air-pillows, and mosquito net- ting." SIXTY-ODD short essays, grouped un- der Nature, Man and Society, Art and Letters, Education, and Facetise, are included in "Little Essays in Literature and Life" (Century; $1.55 net), by Rich- ard Burton, professor of English litera- ture in the University of Minnesota. "The way of the familiar essay is one," says the "Foreword," "of the formal essay an- other. The latter is informational, it de- fines, proves; the former, seeking for friendlier and more personal relations with the reader, aims at suggestion, stim- ulation." In the essays that follow these aims are not strikingly fulfilled. The lan- uage, indeed, is remarkably neat, polish- ed, and flexible, and, as a matter of style, the essays are agreeable reading. But they suggest little and stimulate less. One feels throughout the cultivated intelligence of the scholar, but the exercise of thought is hardly sufficiently strenuous for in- sight, and neither "dives deeper than any plummet line of the intellect," nor rises above intellectual commonplace. Doubt- less, this is the outcome of the theory that the art of letters (though it should also be spiritually elevating) is "primarily for the pleasure of the world." In any case, the essays seem always to come to an end in an Aristotelian golden mean just when there is something to say. The difficulty is that they are too brief to say much, and they fall short of the wit and genius needed to make such "little essays" a success. FOR some time past Mr. William H. Ferris, a colored graduate of Yale University, has been promising to the world a scientific and philosophical work on the negro, to assist him in which un- dertaking he obtained financial aid from many friends of the race. The resultant work is now before us in two volumes under the title "The African Abroad" from the Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Press of New Haven, Conn. ($5 net). We regret to state that the work is without value, a mere jumble of opinion and quo- tation, without order of any kind, which would seem to point the moral that no sucb undertaking should be financed by those interested In the race without as- certaining first the competence of the writer. As it is, the book merely reflects upon the educated A rioan negro.
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May 21, 1914] T li e Nation 609 THE author of "The Tragedy of Mary Stuart" (Boston: Little, Brown; $3 net), Henry C. Shelley.gives as his excuse for adding to the already vast mass of literature on this topic the fact that ear- lier biographers of the Scottish Queen have not recognized that, though Mary's life exceeded forty-four years, the crucial events of it were compressed into a space of fifteen months — from February, 1567, when Darnley was murdered, to May, 1568, when Mary was defeated at Langside and fled to England. Save for a brief prologue and epilogue, then, Mr. Shelley's book deals exclusively with this brief period. It is not an argument for or against the Scottish Queen; the author is strictly non-partisan, and has simply striven to be a chronicler. In his preface he warns us that absence of footnotes and references does not indicate igno- rance of the literature of his subject: for twenty years past, so he assures us, he has read far and wide in the sources and secondary authorities of his subject, and visited the scenes which he describes. He is apparently absolutely convinced of the genuineness of the Casket Letters, and gives no hint that any one has ever maintained that they were forgeries. As Mr. Shelley does not observe the rules of ordinary historical writing, it would not be fair to judge his work as such. It gives, however, a truer picture of the time than many of the more minute, learned, and partisan treatises on the same subject, and, for the average read- er, is considerably more worth while. NOTES FROM ABROAD. AT the British Museum the first stage has been completed of an exten- sive series of additions to the main building. The top floor of the wing just opened has been allotted to the Depart- ment of Prints and Drawings. It is di- vided into an exhibition gallery, about 220 feet long, and a large room for students. A lower floor is occupied at present by the collection of Chinese paintings, manuscripts, etc., recovered by Sir Aurel Stein from the sands of Chinese Turkestan. Another part of this annex, the North Library, will take the place of the old supplementary reading- room, where in past years special stu- dents have had the privilege of special tables and their own collections of books. AN important move is about to be made in England for the promo- tion of training in art as applied to in- dustry. Hitherto the Royal Academy has confined its activities to the fine arts, and has officially kept aloof from the educational work in industrial arts car- ried on by the Government at South Kensington and the various provincial centres. Negotiations are now on foot between Mr. J. A. Pease, president of the Board of Education, and Sir Edward Poynter, president of the Royal Acade- my, to coordinate the work of the Gov- ernment schools with that of the Academy. A STIMULUS to the textual criticism of the Koran is likely to result from a discovery just made at Cambridge. Among the palimpsests in the possession of Mrs. Lewis is a document of which the ■underscript is a version of the Koran. An examination of this by Dr. Alphonse .Mingana has revealed the fact that it contains a large number of variations from the received text, many of them de- cided improvements. According to Brit- ish Museum experts, the handwriting is of the end of the ninth century. The whole document will be published shortly by the Cambridge University Press. THE new building of the University of Zurich, which is imposing by reason of its situation on a hill above the town, but architecturally is not beautiful, was badly needed. For Europe, the growth of the university has been very rapid. In 1833, it was merely a high school, with about 160 students. Since that time, the Government has liberally endowed it, and in 1903 the number enrolled was 1,507. While the school has counted among its professors many distinguished scholars, it has passed through some difficult days in seeking to insure academic freedom. When Strauss, after the publication of the "Leben Jesu," was called there to a chair of theology, the people of Zurich were so indignant that the authorities were obliged to cancel the appointment and to pay an indemnity to the profes- sor. The university was called a "hotbed of atheism." Another great light of the Tubingen school — Eduard Zeller — also lectured there, and among other names on the roll of professors in the past are those of Keller and Bluntschli, two of the most distinguished jurists of the nineteenth century; Oken, the naturalist- philosopher; Vischer, the sesthetician, and Lang, who declined the call to take Haeckel's place at Jena. In philosophy, Zurich has had upon its faculty Lange, the author of the "Geschichte des Mate- rialismus"; Wundt, and that singularly profound and ingenious metaphysician, Avenarius. VIRGILE ROSSEL, who not long ago published a complete but super- ficial history of Swiss literature, has written a less ambitious but much better book, "Histoire du Jura bernois," which has appeared at Geneva, to celebrate the centenary of the admission of that terri- tory into the Confederation. It is a cu- rious fact that this part of Switzerland should not have formed an independent canton, instead of being absorbed by Berne. The character of its people and its traditions make it one of the most homogeneous regions in Switzerland. It has been lately resisting the efforts of the Berne Government to impose the German language upon the people, many of whom prefer to hear and to speak French — of a certain kind. ONE of the legacies left to the Italian Premier, Signor Salandra, by his predecessor, Signor Giolitti, was the men- acing agitation of the state railway ser- vants. This had been encouraged by the dangerous policy followed during the last few years of giving way to demands, even if unreasonable, provided they were backed up by threats. The movement was organized by the Railwaymen's Syn- dicate, a union of a decidedly revolution- ary character, and the chief demands were an increase of wages to the tune of 90,000,000 lire and the suppression of pro- motion by merit, which would be tanta- mount to the triumph of the unfit. The Government has handled the situation with considerable firmness and skill. It declared itself ready to raise the wages of the least paid men, involving an ex- penditure of 15,000,000 lire, which is as much as the Exchequer can stand at present, but absolutely refused to abolish promotion by merit. At the same time, it was prepared to "militarize" all railway- men who had served in the army, i. e., to retain them at their posts on the rail- ways, but under military discipline, and to take all other measures necessary to carry on a reduced service and to pre- serve order. The Syndicate blustered, and threatened a general social revolu- tion, but public opinion, realizing that a railway strike meant the disorganization of the commercial life of the country, lent it no support, and the bulk of the railwaymen themselves saw that such a movement could have little chance of success. Finally, after a series of stormy meetings at Ancona, the general council of the Syndicate, while declaring itself dissatisfied with the Government's terms, adjourned the strike "to a more favorable occasion," i. e., sine die. The outcome has been welcomed with general satis- faction, but even the threat of a strike has caused the nation a loss of many millions from the reduced tourist traffic. Science HOUSEWIFERY AS A SCIENCE. Foods and Household Management. By Helen Kinne and Anna M. Cooley. New York: Macmillan Co. $1.10. The Efficient Kitchen. By Georgie Boynton Child. New York: McBride, Nast & Co. $1.25 net. English Cookery Books By Arnold Whitaker Oxford. London: Humphrey Milford. 5 shillings net. Eat and Groio Thin. By Mahdah and Vance Thompson. New York: E. P. Dutton Co. $1 net. Some of the extreme feminists main- tain that all women, even though mar- ried, should seek work in shops and factories and offices because there is so little left for them to do at home. The busy, ideal housewife smiles at this assertion, and any one can find out how foolish it is by reading the text- book of the household arts issued by two professors of the Teachers College, Columbia University, under the title of "Foods and Household Management." Here are 400 pages, many of them in small type, with every one of which the "compleat housewife" ought to be fa- miliar, and able to apply the knowledge it imparts as occasion arises. While -v considerable number of recipes are in- cluded, it is far more than merely a cook-book. Those of our housewives who have to do their own cooking — as eleven out of every dozen have to— should read
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GIO The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2551 it iu free moments while preparing the meals, because the information it im- parts will greatly increase their inter- est in their tasks, besides teaching meth- ods of economy and improved processes, while the more fortunate women who can afford servants should none the less know all the things Professors Kinne and Cooley are ready to tell them, because hired domestic helpers — as well as grocers and butchers — are much more likely to give satisfaction if they find out that the mistress knows what is right and good and what isn't. Among the topics discussed are rules for buy- ing goods, bargain sales, trading stamps and prizes, purchase of clothing and household textiles, care of rooms, house- hold insects, economics of laundering, savings and allowances, the cost and purchase of food, menus and dietaries, table service, water and other beverages, foodstuffs, kitchen furnishings, fuels and stoves, food preparation, disposal of waste food. The psychology of eating is briefly discussed (p. 12), with a closer approximation to the truth than is usual in culinary treatises; but in enumerating the flavors that are de- tected by the sense of taste the authors oddly omit the mention of those that are bitter, which are among the epi- cure's chief delights. Until recently cook-books consisted entirely of recipes. Gradually, miscel- laneous information useful to cooks was introduced, and to-day there is a ten- dency to give the recipes much less space (as in the book under discussion), or else to crowd them out altogether, as in another excellent volume before us, "The Efficient Kitchen," by Georgie Boynton Child, of the Housekeeping Ex- periment Station at Stamford, Conn. This is a monograph of 241 pages by one who "tried to do efficient work in kitchens diabolically contrived to waste every human effort," and then set to work to solve for herself and others the problems of practical kitchen planning and equipment. Among her topics are scientific grouping, built-in conve niences, heating the kitchen and keep- ing dishes warm, choice of fuel, time and labor-saving equipment, disposal of waste, dishwashing, the laundry prob- lem, the business side of the kitchen. Special attention should be called to the section on cooking by steam. While this method has been practiced in some form or other for many years, to most cooks and housewives its conveniences are unknown. "The greatest advan- tage of cooking by steam lies in the fact that it conserves in the food all the delicate flavors and mineral salts which are lost in boiling, and gives us a whole- some, delicious fare with a minimum of effort, expense, and work. All kinds of vegetables and fruits are delicious ■ h< 11 prepared in this way." Were it only for the timely hints regarding this labor-saving process, Miss Child's book ought to be in the hands of every pro- gressive housewife. From this last word on improved cooking it is interesting to turn back a few centuries to see what kind of books used to be written on this subject in those days. The list of Dr. Oxford's English cookery books begins with "This is the Boke of Cokery," dated 1500, and ends with "Common Sense for House- maids," dated 1850. The author's ob- ject has not been to provide a complete list of all the books on domestic art is- sued in that period, but to select those that offer some interesting peculiarity in title or content. The doctors of our day seem to have lately rediscovered the extreme importance of dieting in medical treatment. In the olden times doctors were expected to know a great deal about the science of cooking; to what extent, may be inferred from the author's remark in the preface that his real interest is in this "combination of cookery with medicine, which is found in most of the early books, and which, continuing through the first quarter of the nineteenth century, was gradually destroyed by the growth of railways." For quaintness of title these old books have few equals. Here are some sam- ples: "Hygiasticon," "A True Gentle- woman's Delight," "The Queen's Closet Opened," "The Compleat Servant-Maid," "A New Digester," "The Whole Duty of a Woman," "Adam's Luxury and Eve's Cookery." Somewhat in this antique style is the title of a book for which Vance Thomp- son has written 32 amusing pages of in- troduction: "Eat and Grow Thin." It shows how any one may, little by little, and without starving or sacrificing ta- ble joys, win back the winsome waist of youth; a matter of extreme impor- tance for health and for good looks, since "our ideal of plastic beauty is the panther and not the pig." All you have to do to become panther-like is to follow a few simple "don'ts": don't sleep too much, don't take a cab, don't drink with your meals, don't drink alcoholic bev- erages, don't eat bread, don't overeat, and, above all things, don't eat much food containing starch, sugar, or oil. A list is given of edibles that should be avoided; it looks formidable, yet the list of things that may be eaten is far longer. It is embodied in this book in a series of menus for every month in the year. There are also some recipes. Altogether, an admirable little book; and one of the best things about it is that it also serves as a guide to those who wish to eat and grow fatter. Brief mention must suffice for half-a- dozen other culinary books that have accumulated on our shelves. Edward Spencer's "Cakes and Ale" (Duffield & Co.), an anecdotic "dissertation on ban- quets," appears in its fourth edition, and its publishers Have jusl Issued a companion volume by the same author on drinks of all countries and periods, under the title of "The Flowing Bowl." The gentle art of concocting pure and delicious sweets is taught in Ellye How- ell Glover's "Dame Curtsey's Book of Candy-Making" (A. C. McClurg; 50 cents net). The Scribners add to the list two little books for which there ought to be a large demand: "One Hundred Salads" and "One Hundred Desserts," both by Linda Hull Larned (50 cents net each). "The One Maid Book of Cookery," by Mistress A. E. Congreve (E. P. Dutton & Co.; $1 net), is more comprehensive. It contains select recipes of all varie- ties, with plenty of the general informa- tion that is becoming essential in books of its kind. Drama POMPEY THE GREAT. The Tragedy of Pompey the Great. By John Masefield. New York: The Mac- millan Co. $1.20 net. When the author of the "Tragedy of Nan" revives the most turbulent days of the Roman republic, we anticipate a union like that of "fire and powder, which, as they kiss, consume." In Mr. Masefield's "Tragedy of Pompey the Great," reissued with modest alterations, the explosive mixture results in a drama startling only by its mildness. The author ignores plot, like a true scion of his century; so far from troubling him- self with the passions and situations that would have stirred our unexacting forefathers, he serves us with tactics and politics, administration and seaman- ship; in a word, with calculations and expedients. The final scene — Pompey's assassination — is so incorrigibly dra- matic that it resists all the author's efforts to tone it down to the prevalent colorlessness. The drama, however, stakes its all on the attempt to revivify and rehabilitate the character of Pom- pey. Take the solemn melancholy of Shake- speare's Brutus, the ceremonial ele- gance of Virgil's yEneas, add the reces- sive and insidious military tactics of Tolstoy's Kutuzof in "War and Peace," and the quality of Mr. Masefield's Pom- pey becomes clear. He is unassailably correct; towards his associates, re- proachfully, compassionately correct. He convicts every one else of bad form; beside him Metellus, the father-in-law, is a trooper, and Cajsar, in his neigh- borhood, sinks into a Jack Cade. The creation of prigs is the last mischance to which the author of the "Everlasting Mercy" should have been subject, but Pompey's plaintive (■..•nth-manliness nl- ',1 classes bin with tbal fraternity.
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May 21, 1914] The 1ST a t i o ri 611 This may be Nature's revenge on Mr. Masefield for creating desperadoes, or, possibly, the difference between the types has been overestimated. It is un- fortunate that the magnanimities of Pompey — retreats, refusals of battle, submissions, blindfold walkings into traps — are of the sort which are more defensible than attractive. Mr. Masefield often writes English of this brand: "Dead men's souls. They want blood. Licking. Licking blood in the night." This method was once con- fined to burlesque and there is nothing in Mr. Masefield's employment of the trifk to make us regret the forbearance of his predecessors. His diction is of- ten picturesque, magnetic, or haunting- ly suggestive, but a fine phrase will cajole him into falsifying a situation or a character. An experiment in temperance (even of comparatively early date) on the part of a man who has gained renown by audacities, is full of literary interest, but the present play suggests that when Mr. Masefield forsakes his violence, he is forsaken by his strength. He may hold new surprises for us in his inkpot, but at the present hour he ranks with poets and impressionists rather than with thinkers or creators. The whole tragedy moves us less than the two no- ble concluding lines of the brief lyric that closes the volume: (Sod make my brooding soul a rift Through which a meaning gleams. STAGE IMPRESSIONS. Second Nights. By Arthur Ruhl. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. $1.50. In this collection of papers, new and old, Mr. Arthur Ruhl, well known as a writer of facile skill and humorous observation, records his impressions of various theatrical entertainments, rang- ing from Shakespearean tragedy to the lowest forms of burlesque, offered in New York during the last ten years. They are, as a rule, entertaining rather than instructive reading, although by no means devoid of incisive comment. The sanity displayed in the more serious passages, all too rare, makes it matter for regret that so much space should be devoted to clever but flippant persi- flage concerning persons and things of no dramatic or artistic consequence. It may be granted, without reservation, that in his sketches of the cheaper and baser shows the superficial aspects of the performers and their audiences are delineated with a light and veracious touch and broadly comic suggestion, but It may be doubted whether this 13 just the mood in which some of these sub- jects, the viler burlesque exhibitions, for instance, ought to be treated. But if Mr. Ruhl is more often intent upon journalistic glitter than upon ar- tistic proportion or sound analysis, he shows himself possessed of shrewd in- sight and ample information. And if his appreciations are apt to be over-en- thusiastic, his summaries of plays and players are often marked by admirable discrimination. He is particularly fe- licitous in his treatment of Bernard Shaw, paying the fullest tribute to the brilliancy of his wit and to his phe- nomenal cleverness, while pointing out that his success is largely due to his astonishing faculty of putting the strongest argument on the wrong side of every question into effective dramat- ic form, and thus carrying momentary conviction in the theatre by a series of paradoxical strokes. This, doubtless, is part of the truth if not the whole of it, although it will not be accepted by those who still have faith in Mr. Shaw's sincerity as a philosophic thinker. Mr. Ruhl is happy also in his definition of the subtle charm of Miss Maude Adams, which has proved more than equivalent to histrionic genius, and of the artis- tic petrifaction of Mr. John Drew by the star system. His brief references to a number of other prominent actors of the day — Faversham, Sothern, Gil- lette, Miss Marlowe, and others — are deft little thumb-nail sketches, mainly true in outline, but too deficient in de- tail to justify consideration of them as actual portraitures. It may be remark- ed, however, that his inferential com- parison of them with the Italian Novelli is scarcely fair and not at all illumina- tive. Novelli was a good eccentric comedian, with an extraordinary gift of mimicry and the characteristic the- atrical skill of the school in which he was trained, but he was not in any sense a great actor. In actual conception, in- vention, or emotional power he was not comparable for a moment with Rossi, Ristori, Piamonti, Duse, or Salvini. The particular value of his representations lay in the demonstration by himself and his company of the superiority of the repertory system to any other as a school of acting. One of the best chapters in the book is that on The Great American Play. It contains an admirable appreciation of Moody's "The Great Divide," just in estimate and clear in comprehension, and an excellent, if cursory, review of the work of Augustus Thomas. The rest of it, dealing somewhat summarily with Sheldon, Booth Tarkington, Bronson Howard, Clyde Fitch, and other dram- atists, does full justice to their several excellences. His discussion of the "re- lentless" drama of Eugene Walter, in another essay, is also a notably sound bit of critical work, although some per- sons might employ less complimentary adjectives. It is a pity that the sober judgment in the book should be so dis- proportionate in amount to the purely journalistic matter. "Tout a Coup" is the name of a new play in which Sarah Bernhardt has just appeared in Paris. It is the first ef- fort of Paul and Guy de Cassagnae. sons of Paul and grandsons of Granier de Cassagnac. A dispatch from Paris to the London Times says: "M. Jean Richepin, the Academician and poet, is rehearsing 'Mac- beth' at the Comedie Francaise. His ver- sion in blank verse of the Shakespearean drama is said to be spirited, and at the same time remarkable in its fidelity. The play in its French dress will be superbly mounted by M. Albert Carr<§, the new di- rector of the Comddie Frangaise." M. Bulgakoff, formerly secretary of Count Tolstoy, has been lecturing in St. Petersburg on the contents of the great writer's library, which, he said, number- ed 6,950 works (10,000 volumes), in thir- ty-two languages. The Russian section comprised 3,505 works, the English 3,413, the French 1,045, and the German 602. Among the MSS. was the scenario of a play entiled "Peter Mytar." The chief character is a man who has devoted his life solely to the acquisition of wealth. He has performed no good works. He falls seriously ill, and one night in a dream sees himself being weighed in the scales on the Day of Judgment. The scales are turned in his favor by an old beggar man, who lays in them a loaf which he had thrown at his head to get rid of him. Peter recovers and becomes as open-handed as he was close-fisted before, although his wife and others en- deavor to persuade him that his gen- erosity only excites envy and jealousy among the beneficiaries. Eventually he allows himself to be sold into servitude. A friend discovers his whereabouts, and then he "flies away or disappears." "Chitra," a play in one act, was com- posed by Rabindranath Tagore some twenty-five years ago, and has been per- formed in India without scenery, the actors being surrounded by the audience. The author has now translated the little dramatic poem from the Bengali into English for the series of his books which Macmillan is bringing out in uniform style. The subject of the play was sug- gested by a scene in the great Sanskrit epic, the Mahabharata, but Mr. Tagore has developed the theme with entire free- dom, as was, of course, quite within his rights. Nor could any one censure him for changing the purport of the incident chosen to something very modern; only the unlearned reader should be advised that the inner spirit of the play is far removed from the ancient India, where the events are supposed to occur. Chitra, the • Princess of Manipur, lias been brought up in masculine exercises, wear- ing man's clothes, and has nothing soft or winsome about her. Despite her war- like mind, she has filled her heart with a passionate longing for Arjuna, the di- vine Prince of the Kurus, whom she has never seen. When Arjuna, in his wan- derings, comes to Manipur, Chitra ob- tains from the gods of Love and Spring a year of perfect beauty, and in that guise, in her proper female attire, she wins the Prince to her arms. But she is not satisfied. She knows that Arjuna is in love with the ephemeral beauty lent her by the gods, rather than with
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61° & Tli e Natio n tVol. 98, No. 2551 her real woman's heart, of which he has no knowledge. Meanwhile Arjuna, too, is dissatisfied — longing for action, cloyed witli mere feminine charms, and desir- ing in his wife a partner in his manly duties. It is a pretty situation, prettily worked out. And there is something pi- quant in the combination of the old Hindu metaphorical style, half mystical in allusion, with what is really a plea for the emancipation of women. William Greet, who died recently in England, was widely known in the the- atrical world, if not to the general public. He started life in the British navy, but soon tired of the sea. His first theatri- cal venture was as the business manager of Willie Edouin, but he soon formed a partnership with E. C. Engelbach, and was successful in the provinces with musical comedy. Finally, they got pos- session of the London Lyric, where they produced "The Sign of the Cross," shar- ing with Wilson Barrett, and made a fortune. Later, they were associated with the Garrick, Comedy, Adelphi, and other London theatres, and with a number of American enterprises. Music MODERN CHORAL CONDUCTING. Choral Technique and Interpretation. By Henry Coward. New York: H. W. Gray Co. Latin Songs with Music. Edited by Cal- vin S. Brown. New York: G. P. Put- nam's Sons. $2. Swedish Song Games. By Valborg Kast- mann and Greta Kohler. New York: Ginn & Co. 75 cents. Sixty Musical Games and Recreations. By Laura Rountree Smith. Boston: Oliver Ditson Co. 75 cents. Of the hundreds of choral conduc- tors in Great Britain none is more esteemed than Dr. Henry Coward, whose fame, according to Grove, "rests on his remarkable gifts as a trainer of choirs, in which his magnetic personality, poet- ic insight, boundless enthusiasm, and original methods find full scope." Of these "original methods" his book on choral technique and interpretation gives an account which must be fas- cinating as well as helpful, not only to conductors of choirs, but of bands and orchestras likewise — in fact, to all stu- dents of music who wish to keep abreast of the times. That times have chang- ed is a fact emphasized by Dr. Coward. The advanced and critical audiences of our day demand more dramatic expres- sion than used to characterize choral performances as late as two decades ago; they expect a body of singers to show the same refinement in tone pro- duction and shading as a string quar- tet; they insist on "good diction, that pearl of great price"; they are not satis- fied unless a chorus, besides singing beautifully, can also at times "exempli- fy the sob, the exclamation, the snarl, the laugh — playful, mocking, derisive, or fiendish — the shout of triumph, etc.'' Modern compositions exhaust the gamut of dramatic emotion. Such things are. difficult of execution, and until recent- ly both conductors and societies were inclined to treat them with scant cour- tesy. "The way difficulties were shirk- ed used to make my blood boil," the au- thor exclaims, "because many new, strange effects were never realized, and the works were consequently damned." To this state of affairs he attributes the fiasco, at its first performance, of El- gar's "Dream of Gerontius," which to him is a masterwork that marked an epoch in choral composition. Dr. Coward frankly confesses that he began his career as one of those who sought merely for technical finish. He was informed, by one who knew, that while his singers got through the music in a wonderful manner, they missed all the points of expression that go to make singing worth while. This cold douche set him to thinking, and altered his whole course. His chapter on musical ex- pression sums up what he learned. It is preceded by others, on methods of rehearsal, homogeneity, and power of voice, attack, nasal resonance, preserva- tion of voice, breath control, articulation, vowels, consonants; and followed by pages on the swell, climax, attack, char- acterization, onomatopoeic effects, dif- ferent styles of singing, facial expres- sion, etc. Under the last head he has some amusing comments on the difficul- ty of making British singers acquire the power of using their faces as a liv- ing commentary on the words spoken; a difficulty almost as great as that of obtaining agreeable voices. Dr. Coward informs his readers that in most choral societies, even in those where the voices have been tested, there are "a great ma- jority of untrained voices, which may be roughly classified as follows: Weak and quavery, worn and tinny, harsh and shrill, strident, metallic, shouty, throaty, cavernous, hooty, scoopy, and nonde- script." With such voices he has been wrestling for more than thirty years, achieving results that have been prais- ed in superlative terms. All honor to Dr. Coward! Maybe he eulogizes himself a little too loudly in the first chapter, in which he intimates that he was a pathfinder who raised the artistic stan- dard of singing throughout the world. It would be interesting to know if Sieg- fried Ochs and Dr. Voght, who have such wonderful choirs in Berlin and Toronto, were influenced by his method and example. Most of the numbers included in Cal- vin S. Brown's "Latin Songs" arc ar- ranged for choirs. He began to collect these songs merely for his own amuse- ment, but decided to publish them on becoming aware that no representative Latin song-book existed. The collection includes classical lyrics, mediaeval church hymns, Christmas carols, con- vivial songs, school songs, lullabies, nursery rhymes, love lyrics, folk-songs, and translations of popular English and German pieces. Those of the Latin poems which are translations are ac- companied by the original versions. More good specimens of melodious music are seldom brought between two covers. Many of them are folksongs. The lilt of folk music will also be found in the illustrations accompanying the Swedish song games devised for school, home, and playground by Val- borg Kastman and Greta Kohler. Miss Kohler has had a wide experience in teaching these games in Sweden, and many of them have already become pop- ular in this country. Some are simple enough for the kindergarten. A num- ber of full-page pictures illustrate the principal games. With the intention of making pupils' recitals interesting, Laura Rountree Smith has prepared a volume of a somewhat similar charac- ter to the foregoing, and equally com- mendable for its purpose. Some of the games have a distinct educational value, as they teach time and keys, and in oth- er ways awaken an interest in music. Henry T. Finck. Binding's "Der Heilige Berg," the Nor- wegian composer's first opera, was pro- duced on April 19 in the Hoftheater at Dessau in Anhalt. The work had a very good reception from the public, but critics did not praise it highly. Sinding's genius is much more lyrical than dra- matic. The music is said to be very beau- tiful in parts, and its workmanship thor- ough and scholarly; but it is deficient in real passion, and gives the impression that the composer is following his models too closely, and has not chosen a medium in which he is happy. In an interview in the London Daily News, Mr. Albert Visetti, the veteran music teacher, advises English singers against going to the Continent to be trained. Owing to the humidity of the climate the English voice is naturally weak, whereas the Italian voice is ro- bust. In Continental classes the Eng- lish pupils, being in a minority, have to conform to methods of training that are unsuitable for their needs. Further, the great aim of the Continental master is to produce an operatic star, but sing- ers who will have to earn their livelil- hood in England need especially to be taught oratorios and ballad singing. It is disastrous for English singers to go abroad to !"■ "finished." Having been trained for years to sing in one way, they are expected to learn in a few months to sing la a totalis different way, and the result is fatal. At the Bams time, Mr. Visetti strongly reeoninen.l ,, Course Of Continental travel for the sing- er who full) <ie\ eloped or "set."
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May 21, 1914J T li e Natio 11 t>!3 oint and refuge to pilgrims lost in far-off ways — their light- house to strike living eyes as far by day as Angelus-bell and tocsin could strike living ears by night. Are not these sovereign aims of archi- tecture those, too, of sculpture? . . . The sculptor attains great expression only by giving all his study to the harmonic plays of light and shade exactly as the architect does. . . . Sculpture is only a species in the measureless genus of architecture, and we ought never speak of that without subordinating it to this. How "masterpieces (chefs-d'amrrc)" are masterpieces I know — and I am glad to know. It is just the same as how great souls are great souls. . . . All masterpieces quite naturally would be open to the crowd if the crowd of men had not lost simplicity. But, even tn a time when crowds have become incapable of understanding, it is still with the popu- lar feeling — with an a me de foule — that the artist must live to be able to con- ceive and create the masterpiece Gothic architecture, which presupposes the crowd, and is intended for the crowd, speaks to it the great simple language of masterpieces. This is as it may be — and we have severely left out technical, yet quite ac- cessible, proofs from example — but this is enough to show we have here no com- mon voice crying in the wilderness of present art. Such living utterances must be taken in pages where they are found, for the most experienced index-maker would give over with Rodin. There Is a division on Nature in France and Notes on the Romanesque style; then, | for Gothic, there are notes at Etampes,
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G14 T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2551 Nantes, Nevers, Amiens, Le Mans, Sois- sons (at even-tide), Rheims (by night), Lao&, and Chartres (these worth com- paring with the prodigious volume of Huysmans). The plates — most Rodin- eSQUe, with illumination and visible darkness, and a resistless linking with Renaissance contours showing the art- ist's conversion is not exclusive — are scattered amiably without offensive con- nection with the text. A word remains to be said of Charles Morice's Introduc- tion, leading the Philistine by the hand from Middle Age and Renaissance through the life, death, and resurrection of the cathedral to Rodin's mission. It has missed only the seminal principle: Cathedra — the seat of the crowd's bish- op, his functions, prayer, and pomp. Finance PUBLIC OPINION AND THE NEW BANKING SYSTEM. With membership of the Federal Re- serve Board, which will supervise the new banking and currency system, near- ly completed, and with preliminary work for organizing the regional central banks already under way, the beginning of that highly important experiment is now in sight. The attitude of the pub- lic towards it, and particularly that of the financial community, has been al- ternately hopeful and doubtful, and with some reason for each attitude. That the passage, in December, of the amended bill was greeted with great enthusiasm, every one will remember. Following that outburst of cheerfulness came numerous disappointments (from the point of view of the financial mar- kets) in President Wilson's general pol- icy on the question of corporation legis- lation, and misgiving began to spread as to what class of appointees would be se- lected for the national board of the new banking system. This attitude of dis- trust was probably emphasized by the feelings with which the somewhat er- ratic assignments of regional banks and of the banking districts, by the Organ- ization Committee, were received. This in turn was dispelled by the excellence of the President's appointments to the Federal Reserve Board, announced two weeks ago. Three of the strongest of these five nominees have accepted the appointment; the other two have de- clined, but the general purpose shown In the selections seemed to guarantee that they would be replaced by equally competent men. Thus the matter stands, on the eve of the actual building-up of the machinery for the new banking system. As the time approaches for the inauguration of this country's experiment in banking and currency reform, which may prove to be epoch-making, the interest of the financial markets and of the people at large, in what is to be its actual bear- ing on the situation, naturally increas- es. The single wish of all classes in the community is that the new system may be wisely, prudently, and successfully introduced, and it is fully realized that the manner and spirit of its introduc- tion will have much to do with insuring a maximum of immediate usefulness. It hardly need be said that confidence in the wisdom, broadmindedness, and conservatism of the men who will ad- minister the system is a prerequisite of paramount importance. It is equally certain that the public speeches and public attitude of these men will do much to shape opinion as -to their prob- able policy in office. Whether last week's speech to the North Carolina bankers by the Controller of the Cur- rency, who will be ex-officio a member of the Federal Reserve Board, can be said to have contributed to such public con- fidence, may reasonably be doubted. Mr. Williams had some sensible things to say regarding the real purpose of the new plan of centralized banking. He pointed out its anticipated effect in ren- dering impossible, hereafter, just the kind of panics with which we have ha- bitually been confronted at the end of our cycles of prosperity, and indicated clearly what it can accomplish and what it cannot accomplish. Unfortunately, this was not the real burden of the speech. The financial or- ganism which centred in Wall Street, during the days of mad promotion and speculation, a dozen years ago, made It- self, through its excesses of the day, a proper target for vigorous public con- demnation and for effectual restrictive legislation. Sober critics pointed out the evil and attacked the practices — with eventual success in stopping their con- tinuance— at the time when they were in full tide of seeming success, and when it was not so popular a task to as- sail such abuses as it Is to-day, when every street-corner gossip has his own verdict of censure to set forth to his admiring associates. But those who fought the battles of 1901 and 1902 against the arrogance of the Captains are the very people who have been most impressed with impatience, verging on contempt, at the wild vituperations and wilder superstitions in which the La Follett.es, the Lindberghs, the Henrys, and their like, have been indulging, now that they find the public ready to ac- cept whatever any one has to say in de- nunciation of the Money Power. This is the reason why the Controller of the Currency's talk at Raleigh about "the walled city from which the harona levied tribute" (meaning New York); about the "sudden swoop of feudal mag- nntps" who could at will "precipitate a panic," and about this unhappy United States which "bleeds and sweats to the big financial centres," was something to be received with emphatic disapproval. One would not need to dispute the alle- gations of a vicious system, in order to feel very positive objection to this ro- domontade, proceeding, in a discussion of a great economic experiment, from a public official who will be on the na- tional board to conduct it. We are living, as every one knows, in times when extravagance of ideas on the one hand, and extravagance of speech on the other, have grown to be pretty much the order of the day. But people in charge of delicate and impor- tant experiments in public affairs are subject to particular requirements as to sobriety of speech and serious mastery of the subject. This latest incident com- pels the inquiry, whether it might not at least be more becoming, if men entrust- ed with great public responsibilities of this sort were to discuss such problems in the style of Walter Bagehot, and not of Thomas W. Lawson. BOOKS OF THE WEEK. FICTION. Arkwright, William. The Trend. Lane. $1.25 net. Dan by, F. Full Swing. Philadelphia: Lippincott. $1.35 net. Dreiser, T. The Titan. Lane. $1.40 net. Foster, D. S. The Road to London. Franklin Book Company. Hume, F. The Lost Parchment. Dil- lingham. $1.25 net. Lennox, A. G. A Girl's Marriage. Lane. $1.25 net. Mills Young, F. E. The Purple Mists. Lane. $1.30 net. Morris, G. The Incandescent Lady. Scribner. $1.25 net. Raine, W. Macleod. The Pirate of Pan- ama. Dillingham. $1.25 net. Tremlett, Mrs. H. Curing Christopher. Lane. $1.25 net. Wren, P. C. Snake and Sword. Long- mans. $1.35 net. BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY. Ashby, T. A. The Valley Campaigns. Neale. $2 net. Bowen, J. J. The Strategy of Robert E. Lee. Neale. $2 net. Dowd, J. The Negro Races. Neale. $2.50 net. Ihmlics, A. E. The Beginnings of Span- ish Settlement. Berkeley: University of California. Marina, J- P. Oliveira. The Golden Age of Prince Henry the Navigator. Dut- ton. $3.50 net. .Ylasson, D. Shakespeare Personally. Dutton. $2 net. Pitou, A. Masters of the Show. Neale. $2 net. Strindberg, A. The Growth of a Soul. McBride Nast. $1.25 net. Woodward, W. H. Cesare Borgia. Dut- ton. $3.50 net. QOVEBNMENT .\M> ECONOMICS Bailey, T. P. Race Orthodoxy In the South. Neale. $1.50 net. Brown, W. (.!. The New l'olitlca Hough- ton Mifllin. 11.76 net. Capen, ES. W. Sociological Progress In Revell. $1.50 net. Dowrle, ':. w. The Development of Banking in Illinois. Urbaoa.: Univer- sity Of Illinois. Klein. .). .1. Standard Oil or the IVople. Author, Tribune Bldj SO oanta. Miller, k. ui oT the 1 iouae o1 Bi Neale. J1.60 net
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616 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2551 New Catalogue AMERICANA \ N extensive collection of ■^^ books relating to early discoveries and explorations on the North American con- tinent, the Indians, the vari- ous states, Canada, Mexico, the settlement and develop- ment of the West, etc., in- cluding many rare volumes. Now Ready Copy sent free on request to Dept. N. A.C.McCLURG&CO. CHICAGO "If ever a hook was an affirmation of life, that book is CHALLENGE By Louis Untermeyer "He is a radical, but an affirmative radical; he is angry at certain traditions, but (like all true poets) he knows the greatness of faith. . . Love and democracy are his favorite themes, and few living poets are worthier to sing them." — The Literary Digest. "Excellent traditions of English verse, together with the impatient, protesting iconoclasm of the new century, impart dis- tinction and human interest to Mr. Unter- meyer's poems. . . 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Carriage extra. Being a Description of Their Sentiments and Foik-Lore, Superstitions, Symbolism, Mysticism, Use in Medicine, Protection, Prevention, Religion and Divination. On Crystal Gazing, Birth Stones and Royal Jewels. J. B. Llppincott Co., Philadelphia, Pa. IMPERIAL GERMANY THE STORY OF ITS DEVELOPMENT. By Prince BERNHARD von BULOW. Ex-Chancellor of tbe German Empire. Large Hvo. 342 pages. $3.00 net. DODD, MEAD & CO., Publishers, NEW YORK. ITALY IN NORTH AFRICA By W. K. McCLURE London Times Correspondent $2-50 Net. THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO., Phlla. (I'm;*!*'" ■ nil1; ,, ■ I;! BOSTON COMMONWEALTH AVE. 100 yards from Massachusetts Ave. ©Ijr Uttfitttrtuir tHiistmt 2jiui.bc A hotel 1 special^ atti ai 1 i\ e to ! ho n who d best and pn here. Single rooms from $2. Combined hilling room, bedroom un.i bathroom from $4. Self contained suites, Some globe 'trotteri havt been rood enough to call the Puritan one of the most inviting hotels in the world. Iin Illustrated booklet with go'de to Boston and vii mi it v on he lavoi oi t i an) N. A. COSTELLO, Manager The Masters of Modern French Criticism BY IRVING BABBITT A Survey of the Intellectual Life ot France During tbe Nineteenth Century. "One of the triumphant achievements of American scholarship and criticism." — Pro- fessor Edwin Mims in South Atlantic Quar- ter l u. "Un livre de premier ordre." — D. Mobnet in La Revue du Mois. "Un livre exceptionnellement remarquable tres docte, infiniment agreable, debordunt d'idees, dont beaucoup sont frap- pantes de juetesse." — A. Filon iu Le Jour- nal des Debate. "Le livre est d'un lettrg et d'uu penseur qui organise en ordre lumineux une masse imposante de materiaux. C'est aussi l'oeuvre d'un ecrivain vigoureux et fin qui trouve le mot juste, manie habilement les nuances, use de distinctions delicates et fortes, enferme la pensee dans des traits alertes et plttoresques, marques a. l'occasion d'une veine d'humour ou egayes d'une anecdote significative. La logique frangaise et la verdeur anglo-saxonne s'y unissent en une heureuse harmonie." — C. Cestre in La Revue Internationale de L' Enseignement. "Der hochbegabte Amerikaner I. Babbitt, dessen 'The New Laokoon' auch in der deutschen Krltik lebhafte Anerkennung ge- funden hat, bletet In seinem neuen Buche eine Reihe gedankenstrotzender Essays fiber frnnzbsische Krltiker von Frau vou Stael bis Brunetiere. . . . Der Hauptwert dieses prachtvollen Buches liegt in dem kiihnen Ideallsmus des Verfassers, der mit iiberlegenem Gelst der verhangnisvollen modernen Sucht, den Menschen als willenloa dctermlnlertes Naturprodukt aufzufassen, den Fehdehandschuh hlnzuschleudern wagt." — O. Hachtmann In Literarisches Zentralblatt. $2.50 net. Postage extra Boston HOUGHTON MIFFLIN CO. NewYork A Modern History of the English People By R. H. GRETTON "As brilliant as Mr. Herbert Paul at his best." — Glasgow Herald. "The development of England's prosperity since the early eighties has been treated with an en- grossing minuteness which Is only paralleled In the works of Mr. Arnold Bennett." — Scotsman. • 'So tonic il is, so extraordinarily sensible, bo bracing in its immediate effects." — Liverpool Cour- V. I., 1880-1898, 448 pp. V. II. 1899-1010. 368 pp. The Set #5.00 net, carriage extra. Small, Maynard & Company, Boston Social Forces in England and America By II. G. WUhLS. "In this honk Mr. Wells has evidently put bis bouse in order. He has set forth clearly Mini consecutively his thoughts upon human society, what It is now and what it promises tn be, or mar, by careful guidance, succeed i» becoming. 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FOREIGN NUMBER J' maas* The Nation ■j .' <# VOL. XCVIII— NO. 2552 THURSDAY, MAY 28, 1914 SffofflS: PRICE TEN CENTS Pat. Office. A BRIEF STATEMENT OF THE WORK OF THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING CO If one asked for a brief description of the work ably get the answer that the Company publishes books is not quite exact; for that describes the ideal to which ing rather than the actual work it is doing. The ideal Philosophy, and a Philosophy of Science: the only the detailed and careful study of sciences, religions, and It is this ideal that prompted the late Mr. Edward to publish books with the object of establishing ethics old as philosophy itself. Among modern philosophies explicit fashion of all, to found a religion on the basis to have a lasting success. But it is now quite plain neglect history or put itself into uncritical opposition of the dearest and highest aspirations of mankind, investigation — non-sectarian in the widest sense — in both any satisfactory synthesis. This is a great part of the of the Open Court Publishing Company, one would prob- and articles on Science, Religion, and Philosophy. That the Open Court Publishing Company is continually striv- is Religion on a firm basis of Science, a Science of path which can lead to this great ideal synthesis is philosophies. Carl Hegeler, of La Salle, Illinois, to found a company and religion upon a scientific basis. Such ideals are as , that founded by Comte tried, probably in the most of positive science; and at one time it appeared likely that no philosophy which hopes to be permanent can to the systems that have for centuries expressed some It is unprejudiced and fearless historical and critical religion, science, and philosophy, that must go before work of the Open Court Company. SOME IMPORTANT RECENT BOOKS OF THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING CO. PROBLEMS OF SCIENCE. By Federigo Enriques. Author- ized translation by Katharine Royce; with an intrcJuction by Josiah Royce. The author is professor of projec- tive geometry and geometric drawing in the University of Bologna, and one of the most conspicuous of contem- porary Italian scientists. Cloth, 375 pages, $2.50 net. THE PRINCIPLE OF RELA- TIVITY, in the Light of the Philosophy of Science. By Paul Carus. The author recognizes the correct- ness of the Principle of Relativity, but criticises the exaggerated state- ments which have done much to con- fuse students and to mystify the reading public. Cloth, 165 pages, $1-00. THE MECHANISTIC PRINCIPLE AND THE NON-MECHANICAL By Paul Carus. The essential feature of all higher organic life is the appearance of pur- pose, and the task which the author of the book sets himself is a careful investigation of the problem how purpose is possible in a mechanically regulated world. Cloth, 123 pages, $1.00. A HISTORY OF JAPANESE MATH- EMATICS. By David Eugene Smith and Yoshio Mikami. The scientific attainments of Japan during the nast four centuries is one of the marvels of history. This book will show to the West the nature of mathematics indigenous to Japan and serve to strengthen the bonds that unite the scholars of the world. The book is full of very interesting ma- terial even for the non-mathematical reader. Illustrated, Cloth, 300 pages, $3.00 net. ALGEBRA OF LOGIC. By Louis Couturat. Authorized trans- lation by L. G. Robinson; with a preface by Philip E. B. Jour- dain, of Cambridge. "Couturat's treatise is fitted to serve as an introduction to the study of mathematical logic. Mr. Jourdain's preface is of an historical character and gives a very thorough account of the development of the subject and the various phases of it especially emphasized by each of its different representatives." Cloth, 98 pp. $1.50. NIETZSCHE, and Other Ex- ponents of Individualism. By Paul Carus. "A two-fold purpose is served by this book — a study of philosophical anarchism and an interpretation of Nietzsche." — Brooklyn Eagle. "A brilliant refutation of the mad phil- osopher's doctrine." — Toronto Globe. "This exposition of Nietzsche's life and philosophy is probably both truthful and fair, and as nearly just as any that can be made." — Chicago Daily News. Cloth, 150 pages, $1.00 net. THE OPEN COURT A MONTHLY MAGAZINE. $1 per year Single copies 10 cents AMONG THE CONTENTS FOR JUNE FRONTISPIECE-The Earl of Shaftesbury. MEMO- RIES OF MONTENEGRO— By Marie Mach. NON OMMIS MORIAR; PROBABILITIES OF AN AFTEK LIFE-By F. W. Orde Ward. THE SUR- VIVAL OF PERSONALITY-Bv Charles H. Chase. MYSTICISM AND IMMORTALITY-Bv Paul Carus. THE BOLDEST OF THE ENGLISH PHILOSO- PHERS-By M. Jourdan. THOMAS a KEMPIS AS HYMNOGRAPHER-By Bernhard Pick. AN INTER- VIEW WITH MR. EDISON. AN ETERNITY LIM- ITED IN ONE DIRECTION. THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY has prepared special Bibliographies of the best books in the following fields of thought: ANTHROPOLOGY BIOLOGY ETHICS EVOLUTION LANGUAGE MATHEMATICS AND MECHANICS ORIENTAL WORKS PHILOSOPHY RELIGION Any or all of these will be mailed free on request. Our new complete Catalog and samples of our magazines "The Monist" and "The Open Court" sent free on request THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING CO., 122 SOUTH MICHIGAN AVE., CHICAGO
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11 The N~ a t i o 11 [Vol. 98, No. 2552 A WEEKLY JOURNAL [Entered at the New York City Post Office as second-class mail matter. ] The Nation is published and owned by the New York Evening Post Co. Oswald Garrison Villard, President; John Palmer Gavit, Sec. and Treas. Three dollars per year in advance, post- paid, in any part of the United States or Mexico: to Canada $3.50, and to foreign countries comprised m the Postal Union, $4.00. Address THE NATION, Box 794, New York. Publication Office, 20 Vesey Street. HAROLD de WOLF FULLER. Editor. STANLEY WENT, Assistant Editor. PAUL ELMER MORE, Advisory Editor. EMIL U. SCHOLZ, Business Manager. CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER. SUMMARY OF THE NEWS 017 THE WEEK 61S EDITORIAL ARTICLES: Platform Solemnities 621 Mr. Mellen's Testimony 621 Rights and Duties, this Side tbe Millen- nium 622 Europe on Who's Who in America 623 Golf "Invasions" 624 FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE: Mr. Asquith as Debater and Leader 625 Austria-Hungary's Relations with Russia.. .. 625 FRENCH WATERING PLACES 626 GOLF ON THE CAMPAGNA 627 POETRY : The White Slave 628 SOME MODERN PAINTERS 628 BOOKS AND MEN 630 NEWS FOR BIBLIOPHILES 631 CORRESPONDENCE C31 LITERATURE: Monarehs of the Manchu Dynasty (134 A Child of the Orient d-'W The Salamander 635 What Will People Say? 835 Tbe Real South Africa 630 Modern Mexico 637 The Two Americas 638 Picturesque New Zealand 638 The Faith of Japan 639 NOTES 640 SCIENCE: Prevailing Conceptions of Logic 643 DRAMA : "The Vultures" and Other Plays 644 MUSIC: Dramatic Opera in Paris 645 ART: The Spanish School 047 FINANCE: Mr. Morgan, Mr. Mellon, and tbe New Haven 648 BOOKS OF THE WEEK 648 • • • Copies of The Nation may be procured in Paris at Brentano's, 37 Avenn* da 1'OpSra; in London of B. 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The Best Large Type Library Editions BEAUTIFULLY BOUND BY RI- VIERE, in full crimson polished Le- vant morocco extra, with double 6-line panels on the sides, and 5-line panels on the backs, in gold; morocco joints, inside margins tooled with 6 gold lines, green watered-silk linings and ends, uncut, top edges gilt. Published During the Years 1831-1913 A BEAUTIFUL SET OF BOOKS. Price, $1250 HENRY SOTHERAN AND CO. Booksellers to H.M. the King 43 PICCADILLY, LONDON, W., ENGLAND BOOKS — All out-of-print books Bupplled, no matter on what subject ; write me, stating books wanted ; I can get you any book ever published ; when in England, call and Inspect my stock of 50.000 rare books. BAKER'S GREAT BOOK- SHOP, John Bright St., Birmingham, England. OLD MEDICAL BOOKS, INCUNABULA, ART OF ETCHING, PRINTING. Cata- logue post free E. WEYHE, Second-hand Book- seller, 64 Charing Cross Road, London, W.C. 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May 28, 1914] The Nation 111 By Important Appleton Books One of the Strongest Pleas for the Home that Has Yet Appeared LOVE AND THE SOUL MAKER MARY AUSTIN, Author of "The Land of Little Rain," etc. The author of this book looks upon love from a new point of view. Thinking men and women to-day are being brought face to face with problems that few have realized would ever exist, and Mrs. Austin shows how necessary a thorough understanding of the problems of love and marriage are to those who look forward to a future in which the home will become first in the interest of the individual and the nation. This book is bound to be one of the most discussed books of the season. $1.50 net. Postage extra. WITHIN PRISON WALLS By Thomas Mott Osborne This book contains an absolutely faithful account of the experiences of the author as a voluntary exile in Auburn Prison. It states the reasons for making the experi- ment and studying prison conditions from within instead of without, and it is a sympa- thetic document full of humor and pathos, unusual revelations, and suggestive of needed improvements. $1.50 net. Postage extra. HAIL AND FAREWELL "Ave," "Salve," and "Vale" By George Moore In these three volumes the author brings us into very close touch with many men and women who have helped to make the history of art and literature during the last decade. "It is a wonderful tour de force in literary art, with scarcely a parallel since Rousseau's Confessions." — North American, Philadelphia. Cloth, gilt top. $1.75 each volume. Postage extra. Vacation Camping for Girls By Jeanette Marks A book for the outdoor girl that tells everything one need to know about camp life. It devotes several chapters to physical train- ing out of doors and after creating an appetite for the delights of camp life it tells in detail the very methods to follow to satisfy it. Send for descriptive circular 16 pages of pictures. $1.00 net. Postage extra. FORTY YEARS OF IT By Brand Whitlock This is one of the most sympathetic, virile, and complete auto- biographies that has appeared in recent years. "It is an intensely graphic portrayal of American life and its social upheavals as viewed by a sturdy man who is not afmid to speak and write as he thinks." — Boston Transcript. Cloth. $1.50 net. Postage extra. BEATING BACK By Al Jennings and Will Irwin The startling autobiography of Al Jennings, who was at one time one of the most daring bandits and train robbers that ever infested the Southwest. This is a frank, straightforward account of his life as a train robber, his imprisonment and pardon, and his final determination to "come back." His success is strongly evi- denced in the fact that he is now candidate for Governor of Okla- homa, his native State. Illustrated by Charles M. Russell, and xtrith photographs. $1.50 net. Postage extra. THE LIFE OF ST. AUGUSTIN By Louis Bertrand A splendid, clear picture of the life of St. Augustin throughout his boyhood, youth, and manhood. The author also describes faith- fully the cities of Rome, Milan, Carthage in the early days of the Church, presenting many new, unfamiliar facts in the history of that period. 8vo. Cloth, gilt. top. $3.00 net. Postage extra. PSYCHOLOGY IN DAILY LIFE By Carl Emil Seashore Professor of Psychology and Dean of the Graduate College, University of Iowa. A clear, non-technical interpretation of the relation of psy- chology to everyday affairs. It offers an excellent method for cultivating a good memory and for obtaining the maximum mental and physical efficiency. "It may easily become as fascinating as a novel."— The Epworth Herald. $1.50 net. PosUxie cj-irn. D. Appleton and Company, Publishers, New York
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IV The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2552 New Books of Travel Hunting in the Arctic and Alaska By E. Marshall Scull, Author of "A Bit of Wild Africa," etc. Mr. Marshall Scull tells the story of nn adventurous big game hunt, of which the trophies included specimens of prac- tically all the game to be met with in Alaska, the western Arctic Ocean, and the shores of Siberia. Notable as an account of the first successful hunting expedition to the northeastern shores of Siberia. Crown octavo. 320 pages with 106 valuable illustrations and 10 new maps. $2.50 net. From the Congo to the Niger and the Nile By H. H. Adolf Friedrich, Duke of Mecklenburg An account of the German Central African Expedition of 1910-1911 — one of the most remarkable of all African ex- peditions in point of results. The de- scription of the native tribes, flora, and fauna has an interest no less absorbing because of its permanent value. 2 vols. Cloth. 526 pages, 514 illus- trations. $9.00 net. The Story of Mexico By Charles Morris, Author of "New Century History of the United States," etc. "A timely and comprehensive work." — New York Sun. Includes a history of this romantic and beautiful land, with a graphic de- scription of its civilization and its mag- nificent resources. The author Seals frankly with the present unrest of Mex- ico and Its causes. Octavo. Cloth. 400 pages, 100 illus- trations. $1.20 net. Italy in North Africa By W. K. McClure London "Times" Correspondent A full, fair account of Italy's war for a desert. The diplomatic history leading up to the occupation of Tripoli, to- gether with a careful review of the cam- paign, precedes interesting chapters on the Italian army, the Arabs, and the Turks. 67 half-tone illustrations. Five maps and a full index. Crown octavo. Cloth. $2.50 net. The Story of The Panama Canal By Logan Marshall Adopted by the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, for the course in Physical and Commercial Geography, because of tin? clearness a ml i-omploto- ness with which It covers the history of the Isthmus and the building of the canal. Appendix. Numerous illustrations and maps. 12mo. Cloth. $1.00 net. Order from itnv HookwH i«-r or from the PuhliftherN TBEJIHN C.WINSTON CO. Publishers Philadelphia A HOOK OF TIMELY tXTEREST. CALIFORNIA UNDER SPAIN AND MEXICO By Irving II. Richmin. "A valuable and Interesting addi- tion to the literature of a little known period of American history, beginning with Cortes's coming, con- tinuing through the rule of the Fran- ciscan and Dominican Missions and the establishment of Mexican Inde- pendence in 1821, to the war with the United States In 1847."— The A. L. A. Booklist. With maps, charts, and plant. $4.00 net. Postage extra. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN CO., 4 Park St, Boston A Modern History of the English People By R. H. GRETTON "As brilliant as Mr. Herbert Paul at his best." —Glasgow Herald. "The development of England's prosperity since the early eighties has been treated with an en- grossing minuteness wblch is only paralleled in the works of Mr. Arnold Bennett." — Scotsman. "So tonic it is, so extraordinarily sensible, »o bracing in its immediate effects." — Liverpool Cour- ier. V. I.. 18S0-189S. 448 pp. V. II. 1899-1910. 368 pp. The Set $5.00 net, carriage extra. Small, Maynard & Company, Boston THE MONROE DOCTRINE: An Obsolete Shibboleth By HIRAM BINGHAM A book of international Importance. Foreshadowing the mediation of A. B. C. power, the book has aroused favorable comment all over the world. THE BERLIN TAGEBLATT THE JAPAN DAILY MAIL THE SCOTSMAN THE NEW STATESMAN (London) have all devoted lengthy space to the book's review. Second printing almost exhausted. Price $1.10 postpaid. YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 135 Elm Street 325 Fifth Avenue New Haven, Conn. New York City BERGSON'S LATEST BOOK DREAMS AN EXPLANATION OF THE MECHANISM OF DREAMING IS NOW READY ALL BOOKSTORES 60 CENTS NET 225 Fifth avenue New York I B. W. Huebsch, NEW MAGAZINE ON EGYPT An illustrated quarterly magazine, beautifully illustrated, with news of late discoveries, edited by PROF. PETRIE, began with the January num- ber embellished with frontispiece of jewelry In colors. Price $2 a year. The discoveries by Petrie and others for the EGYPTIAN RESEARCH ACCOUNT (Society) relate to the arts of Ancient Egypt and to its predynastic age. An annual quarto volume, profusely illustrated, and the magazine should be In all public and many private libraries. Circulars of these publications freely furnished. Address REV. DR. W. 0. WINSLOW, 525 Beacon Street, Boston. The Vacation Problem The New York Evening Post Resort /ggv ZJureauispreparedtohelpyou. Please feel /|| free to ask its advice. Fill out the coupon. /§) The E/vening Post Resort Bureau ® 20 Vesey Street, New York City s? I am especially interested in (give section of Country preferred) \£/ There will be in the party. Our in- ^ tended stay will be weeks. Board should ^. not exceed an average of $ per week. ^v Underline things especially desired in a summer ^) vacation — seashore, mountains, golf, tennis, fishing, 42) boating, sailing, dancing, fashionable place, quiet place, /fib Name © Address ®
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May 28, 1914] The Nation v PROSE NARRATIVES Edited by Chauncey W. Wells e Professor of English in tile Uni- versity of California A volume supplying more than 20 models for the writing of simple nar- ration. It is a departure from the ordinary manual in that it excludes stories. It covers, however, a wide range of history, legend, and autobi- ography, from the Bible and the Sagas, Herodotus and Pliny, Benven- uto Cellini, Defoe, and Franklin, Ma- caulay, Carlyle, Froude, and Steven- son. An appendix gives supplemen- tary readings with the names of the more available editions. I.' mo, SOI pages, $1.25. GINN AND COMPANY Boston Now York Chicago London Atlanta Dallas Columbus .San Francisco Adventurings in the Psychical By H. ADDINGTON BRUCE Author of "Scientific Mental Healing," ete. A comprehensive review of results of modern and psychical research in the realm of the abnormal and the supernormal. Mr. Bruce has long been a student of the psychical, and his examples are gathered from a vast variety of sources, while his explanations are based on the latest scientific data. SIS Pages. Cloth. $1.35 net. LITTLE , BROWN & CO., Publishers.Boston The Curious Lore of Precious Stones BY GEORGE FREDERICK KCNZ. With numerous plates in color and double-tone. &vo. Cloth, Boxed, $5.00 net. ('arriaoe extra. Being a Description of Their Sentiments and Folk-Lore. Superstitions. Symbolism. Mysticism, Use In Medicine, Protection, Prevention. Religion and Divination. On Crystal Gazing, Birth Stones and Royal Jewels. J. B. Ldpplncott Co., Philadelphia, Pa. if" 9.1 .Tfl.Sl !fSI;r;n5i; mil, 1 fiJ ."iCHttPf'nn ;tj2g£SJe- BOSTON COMMONWEALTH AYE. 100 yards from Massachusetts Ave. ©be SiBtiurtiur Hnstim iimtsr A hotel especially attractive to those who demand the best and prefer a home-like atmosphere. Single rooms from $2. Combined sitting room, bedroom and bathroom from $4. Self contained suites. Some globe trotters have been good enough to call the Puritan one of the most inviting hotels in the world. Iti illnstrnt-.l t 00* I with R„ ,],. ,,, and Tidnityoa ihe (liver 01 your ran! N. A. COSTELLO, Manager McClurg's New Catalogue of Rare & Fine Imported BOOKS Selections from the finest collection in the country Copy sent free on request A. C. McCLURG & CO. Dept. P. 218-24 S. Wabash Avenue CHICAGO The Political and Sectional Influence of the Public Lands, 1828-1842 RAYNOR G.WELLINGTON, Assistant Pro- fessor in the University of South Dakota. JUST PUBLISHED. $1.00 net RIVERSIDE PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. THE NATION PRESS Stfeto ^orh £*cmn0 fost BuilMng. lOVESEY STRELT NEW YORK ON TOP For Quality Work ON For S? BOTTOM NEW LANE BOOKS The New Optimism By H. DeVere Stacpoole Author of "The Children of the Sea," "The Blue Lagoon," etc. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00 net. Dr. Stacpoole conjectures as to the heights to which man may yet climb, now that he has developed a mind that thinks collectively in- stead of individually. He argues in a strain which is in striking contrast to the lamentations of some of his contemporaries. What Sculpture to See in Europe By Mrs. L. M. Bryant Author of "What Pictures to See in Europe in One Summer," "Pictures and Their Painters." etc. Over 150 Illustrations. Cloth. $1.35 net. A concise guide to the best sculp- ture in Europe. The most repre- sentative pieces, both interior and exterior, have been chosen in the cities generally visited by travel- ers. The book is invaluable as a guide to European sculpture. "A Masterful Book by the Most Significant American Novelist " THE TITAN By Theodore Dreiser Author of "Sister Carrie." "Jennie Ger- hardt." "The Financier." Etc. "The Titan" is the story of a Mirabeau of finance — a born lead- er, unquenchably desirous of the applause of both men and women, and uncannily endowed with the faculty for attracting their loyalty. "Frank Cowperwood," genius of finance, protagonist of great busi- ness mergers, art patron, and light-o'-love, is the incurable indi- vidualist who has been produced by the business conditions of the last two decades, a man we con- demn, yet, for his hugeness, must admire. Cloth. 552 pages. $1.40 m t. The Best Selling Novel of the Year The Fortunate Ycuth William J. Locke's Glorious Success "The whole story is as light, as joyous, as Iridescent as a soap bubble; it glows, radiant with the very spirit of youth, of joy. and of adventure. But it has its philoso- phy, too. It is a charming tale, one that only Mr. i. write."--Xcw York Tin liliistniti <! by Keller, ('loth. $1.3.". net John Lane Company Publishers, New York
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VI The 1ST a t i o n (Vol. 98, No. 2552 Timely New Macmillan Books for Reading ■"One of the most famous of modern debates/'- SOCIALISM PROMISE or MENACE? A New Book by Morris Hillquit, LL.B. A John Augustine Ryan, D.D. Author of "History of Socialism in the United States," N Professor of Moral Theology and Economics, St. Paul "Socialism in Theory and Practice," etc. D Seminary; author of "A Living Wage," etc. The chapters which constitute this book originally appeared in " Everybody's Magazine." The large and generous interest with which the discussion was received by the reading public has called for its reproduction with slight revisions, in permanent book form. The novel feature of this work is that for the first time the opposing arguments are presented with the greatest completeness and highest competence, and side by side, in a form available for the immediate comparison of argument. The object of the discussion is to present to the reading public both sides of a much-mooted social problem, and to draw attention to the promise or menace of a movement which is yearly growing in influence and extension. Cloth, 12mo, $1.25 net. Mr. Waiting's New Book Progressivism and After. By WILLIAM ENGLISH WALLING. A forceful survey of radical political prog- ress with special reference to the practical, economic standpoint. $1.50 net Soul-Stirring Romance of Historical Interest The Story of Phaedrus: How We Got the Greatest Book in the World. By NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS. A charming romance of unfailing interest with the irre- sistible appeal which new light throws on life in the early years of the Christian Era. Illustrated. $1.25 net The Truth About the Philippines The Philippines: Past and Present. By DEAN C. WORCESTER (Secretary of the Interior, Philippines, 1901-13). A timely, accurate work on conditions in the Philippines by " the one man on earth who knows most about the subject." Two volt. Richly illustrated. $6.00 net A Novel of Life, Wit and Humor Sandy. By the late S. R. CROCKETT, author of "The Stickit Minister," "Patsy," etc. "Full of life, vigor, wit and humor, (the last and) as satisfactory a novel as Mr. Crockett ever wrote; the hero as captivating as his previous attractive heroine, 'Patsy.' " Illustrated. $1.35 net Mr. Hunter's New Book Violence and the Labor Movement. By ROBERT HUNTER. A dramatic, historical narrative of the labor conflicts of the last half century presented in vivid and well balanced pictures. $1.50 net The Development of Humanity The Childhood of the World. By EDWARD CLODD. A popular work in simple language which tells the story of man's progress from his appearance upon earth to the present day. Illustrated. $1.50 net The Most Readable Account of Mexico Mexico: The Wonderland of the South. By W. E. CARSON. A new, revised, enlarged edition, with addi- tional chapters on present conditions, bringing this stand- ard work up to date. "The most authoritative account of Mexico that we have." Illustrated. $2.50 net The Countryside Manuals I. The Suburban Garden Guide. By PARKER THAYER BARNES. "The best, most compact and handiest of the garden manuals published." 50 cents net II. Things Mother Used to Make. By LYDIA MARIA GURNEY. The good, old-fashioned, but ever new recipes for the best products of kitchen cookery. 50 cents net -"The one book that every American should read.'* Theodore Roosevelt: — An Autobiography With the return of Col. Roosevelt from the interior wilds of South America, renewed interest is aroused in his own story of his life which has been well described as "An American Standard for Right Living," "a straightforward account of a career which has always stimulated public confidence." Abounding in personal experiences of national interest, personal opinions and doctrines of world-wide significance, absorbing incidents, striking episodes, picturesque situations, this exceptional work from beginning to end is " a display of unbroken brilliance " which makes a special appeal to American citizenship both private and public. Decorated cover. Gilt top. Richly illustrated. Octavo. $2.50 net; postpaid, $2.75 Published at M-«6 Fifth Ave., N. Y. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY On Sale Wherever Books Are Sold
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The Nation. JfBW YORK, THURSDAY, HAY 28, 1914. Summary of the News The statement issued by Justice La- mar on Tuesday sums up fairly accu- rately the status of the Mexican media- tion proceedings: "We have begun to discuss the terms and details of a plan of pacification. On a number of them we find ourselves in substantial agree- ment. Others are still under discussion, and as to them there has been no dis- agreement." The most vital part of the statement is in the last sentence: so long as active disagreement is avoided there are good grounds to hope for a favor- able settlement. The crux of the mat- ter is the land question, it being under- stood that the American delegates are instructed to insist on a guarantee in some form that the land system will be reorganized. A statement on the matter was expected from the Mexican delegates on Tuesday, but at the last minute the information was given out that they con- sidered it would be unwise at the present juncture to issue any statement. Efforts were made last week to induce Gen. Carranza to participate in the media- tion proceedings, but without result, al- though it is stated that' at Washington some hope is still expressed that he may eventually join in the negotiations. The Constitutionalists advanced an- other step towards Mexico City by the capture of Saltillo on May 20. The Fed- eral garrison of 10,000 men, under Gen. Maas and Gen. De Moure, evacuated the city and retreated towards San Luis Po- tosi. Villa's forces have not followed up the retreating Federals, but are pre- paring to attack Zacatecas. Admiral Badger has reported that a large Consti- tutionalist force has also landed in Vera Cruz state, and it is understood that an- other force is marching south from Tux- pan. These movements are thought to be preparatory to a general advance on Mexico City, and also for the purpose of cutting off Huerta's retreat from the city to Vera Cruz. Huerta's position is rendered the more precarious in that Za- pata, the rebel leader, is at Cuernavaca, within striking distance of Mexico City, and has with him a force sufficiently large to block the railway to Puerto Mexico. al committee: "The Progressive party will nominate Mr. Roosevelt as its Presiden- tial candidate in 1916. If the Progressives of the Republican party are in control of that organization they will endorse Mr. Roosevelt." The jury in the second trial of Charles Becker, the New York police lieutenant, who was charged with having instigated the murder of the gambler Rosenthal on July 16, 1912, returned a verdict of guil- ty. The case will again be appealed. We comment in our financial col- umns on the testimony of Mr. Mellen in the New Haven investigation, in the course of which he gave evidence indi- cating that the late J. P. Morgan con- cealed from him, the president of the company, facts which he should have known. A statement was issued by Mr. Morgan on Monday denying Mr. Mellen's charges and explaining the part which his father had played in the affairs of the New Haven. A statement made by Mr. Asquith in the House of Commons on Monday dis- pelled the impression which has gained ground recently that Great Britain would reconsider her decision not to be officially represented at the San Francisco Ex- position. The Premier declared that in view of the representations made by a deputation of members of Parliament on May 5 the Government had carefully re- considered the question, but had come to the conclusion that it must adhere to its original determination. Since Col. Roosevelt's return from South America the air has been full of rumors concerning his future political activities. The report that he would accept the nom- ination for Governor of New York State has been disposed of by his own emphatic denials, and speculation since then has concentrated on the Presidential pros- pects for 1916. There has been much talk of a reunion of the Republicans and Pro- gressives, but the Progressive attitude does not appear to be particularly con- ciliatory, if we may judge by the dictum of Representative Hinebaugh, of Illinois, chairman of the Progressive Congression- The past week has seen remarkable demonstrations of militant hysteria in England. On Thursday of last week a ridiculous attempt to force a way into Buckingham Palace resulted in the arrest of several of the women, including Mrs. Pankhurst and her daughter, Sylvia. In retaliation for this more pictures were slashed in the National Gallery and at the Royal Academy, and a demonstration was made at a theatre where the King and Queen were attending a performance. On several recent occasions only the effi- ciency of the police has saved the women from severe treatment at the hands of the public. troduction of the Home Rule bill in the House of Lords, he said, the amending bill would embody in substance the pro- posals outlined by him on March 9 for the partial exclusion of Ulster. As we write, no disturbances have taken place in Ireland, but the situation is tense, and there is a general feeling of anxiety as to what the effect of the passage of the bill will be. The week has been a stormy one in the House of Commons, in which the final stages of the Home Rule debate have been enacted. On Thursday of last week the session was adjourned by the Speaker, on account of the uproar created by the rank and file of the Union- ist party, who were incensed by Mr. As- quith's refusal to disclose the terms of the bill amending the Home Rule bill, which he had undertaken to introduce. On Monday the final reading of the Home Rule bill was passed by a majority of 77 without debate, Mr. Bonar Law re- fusing to take part in what he charac- terized as "a contemptible farce." Mr Asquith, at the Speaker's request, in- formed the House as to the Govern- ment's plans for the amendment bill. Fail- ing any agreement at the time of the in- Two seats have been gained by the Unionists at by-elections recently. On May 20 the interposition of a labor can- didate caused the defeat of the Liberal at northeast Derbyshire; and on May 2? Mr. Masterman, who was recently promoted from Financial Secretary to the Treasury to a seat in the Cabinet as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, was defeated at Ipswich by a plurality of 532. The source from which the British Ad- miralty will obtain the oil for use as fuel on its new battleships, concerning which Mr. Winston Churchill has been frequently questioned, became known last week. The Admiralty proposes to obtain control of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which has a concession for nearly the whole of Persia. Parliament will be asked to subscribe for the purpose $110,000,000 of new capital. The Swedish Defence bill, which was the cause of the resignation of the last Government, was introduced in the Riks- dag on May 23. It provides for an ex- tension of the term of military service and for the construction of eight new battleships and sixteen destroyers, to pay for which there will be a special levy of $20,800,000. The difficulties of Prince William of Wied, the new Mpret of Albania, with his turbulent subjects are multiplying. Fol- lowing his resignation as Minister of War, Essad Pasha was accused of being at the head of a revolt against the Mpret and was banished, sailing on Wednesday of last week on an Italian steamship for Brindisi. His deportation was the signal for a revolt on the part of his followers, who prepared to attack Durazzo, after defeating a force of Government troops. The Mpret and his family took refuge on an Italian warship on Friday, but return- ed to the palace on the following day on the insurgents requesting permission to present a petition. Ihe International Committee of Control is attempting to treat with the insurgents with a view to adjusting matters, but the position of the Mpret is regarded as unstable. The deaths of the week include: Wil- liam Aldls Wright, May 19; U«ut-OoL Carlile P. Porter, Dr. Stephen Townsend, May 20; Rudolf Tombo, Jr., Sir Francis Henry Laking, May 21; Sir Thomas C. Rayner, May 22; Senator William O'Con- ncll Bradley, May 23; Gen. Clinton Du- gald MacDougall, Rev. Jerome Daugher- ty. M;iy »4: Francis Kossuth, Charles Goodwin Bennett, Sir Francis Flint Bel- sey, May 25; Jacob A. Riis, May 26.
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618 Tli e Natio n [Vol. 98, No. 2552 The Week rhe Wilson Administration has been attacked, and not without some justice, for its lack of intelligent and exact in- formation about Mexican affairs. But In on«> matter it has not been misled. This is the part which the land ques- tion has played in recent Mexican rev- olutions. Madero put it in the fore- front of his grievances, and had it on his programme of reforms after he had turned out Porfirio Diaz. That Madero failed miserably in satisfying the hopes he aroused, does not alter the fact that those hopes existed, and still exist, and that, some attempt will have to be made to meet the demands for a breaking-up of the large semi-feudal estates in Mex- ico. Nevertheless, it is impossible to read the President's entire interview on the Mexican question, in last week's Sat- urday Evening Post, without doubts of his wisdom in giving it. He has de- clined to speak on Decoration Day, on the sensible plea that this is no time for him to be discussing in public the mat- ters on which he would be expected to touch. And in his unburdening of his heart about Mexico, he gave occasion for his friends to pause as well as to admire. They might well fear that, at times, he was dealing with words rather than realities. Yet no one can fail to perceive, if not to applaud, the fine idealism of the man. In putting first the motives of justice and sympathy in our attitude towards a much-suffering people, he has indicated a policy and raised a standard of the highest honor both to himself and to his country. Interest in the Supreme Court's deci- sion on Monday regarding charges made by railways for carrying freight over "tap lines" connecting industrial plants with the railway's own line, arises chiefly from the bearing of the decision on the Interstate Commerce Commis- sion's conclusion in the rate case. The Commission last January ruled that "pro-rating" transportation charges over such connecting lines was unlawful, be- cause delivery to such a line was deliv- ery to the industrial plant with which it connected. On this ground, it had been recognized as possible that the Commission might reckon the savings, made through abolition of such special charges, as part of the grant of needed increase in railway revenue. The Su- preme Court, however, declares of cer- tain "tap lines," which were parties to an older suit, that they are really com- mon carriers, and as much entitled to "pro-rating," on through freight, as any other connecting railway. But it is not at all clear how far this decision will apply to the "tap lines" discussed by the Commission last January. Commission- er Harlan's opinion, in that matter, pointed out that some of the connecting lines in question had no locomotives of their own, and that transportation was supplied by the railways; that in others, the industrial line owned no physical property at all, but that the railway over which the freight of the industry passed performed free of charge the service on the "tap line." Apparently, the character and actual ownership of the "tap-line" and its equipment are still pertinent considerations; and the Supreme Court's opinion is careful to point out that the right and duty re- main to the Commission of determining if, under the circumstances of any given cases, "the divisions of joint rates are such as to amount to rebates or dis- criminations." Although Representative Henry de- clared last week that the anti-Trust bills would be so amended as complete- ly to exempt labor unions from their operation, he admitted that he was not authorized to speak for the President on that subject. But Mr. Wilson could not, without stultifying himself, sign any bill containing such an amendment. Indeed, the positive statement comes from Washington that the President has notified the American Federation of La- bor that he should be compelled to veto the anti-Trust bills if the clauses giv- ing labor unions immunity should be written into them. But Gompers and the other labor leaders are to keep up their fight in Congress. They can, no doubt, make a great deal of trouble; and there will be much demagoguery and dodging and insincerity on the part of members coming up so soon for re- election. But so long as the President stands firm for the principle, the mis- chief cannot be done. It would be a tiling partly tragic, partly comic, if the bills outlawing vicious practices by cor- porations and bankers and railways had to be vetoed because the labor unions had insisted upon their right to be al- lowed to indulge in those vicious prac- tices! The death of Senator Bradley leaves vacant a seat that in all probability would in any case have been filled by a Democrat after the fourth of next March. Bradley was elected to the Sen- ate by a Legislature that had a Demo- cratic majority of eight, a fact that at- tests at once the relative state of har- mony in the two parties in Kentucky in 1908, and his personal popularity. He was a picturesque figure, but it is the political aspect of his death that is of national significance. Even if he had no immediate successor, the Administra- tion forces would be strengthened upon the one measure that is to some extent dividing parties in the Senate, for Brad- ley was vigorously opposed to the re- peal of the tolls-exemption clause. But Kentucky has been forehanded enough, it appears, to pass a law since the adop- tion of the Seventeenth Amendment con- tinuing the power of the Governor to fill Senatorial vacancies temporarily. Con- sequently, we may expect the prompt appointment of a Democrat to take the place of almost the only Republican that Kentucky ever sent to the Senate. Nor is it likely that the Democrats will lose the seat thus gained in the popular elec- tion this autumn. The Hon. Joseph G. Cannon fell into his old habit last week of announcing his candidacy for Congress. It has been a trifle of forty years since he began this practice, and only twice in that time has he failed of election. Age cannot wither, nor custom stale, his hankering. But his latest announcement will be received as significant of some- thing more than the assertion of an old habit. It is evident that all the post- mortems that have been held over the Republican party have not convinced him, any more than they have convinced Penrose or Lorimer or Barnes, that the breath is out of its body. Accustomed to smell the battle afar off, these dis- credited but not discouraged chiefs are beginning to put on their armor, as if the conflict were to be between them and their hereditary foe instead of be- tween that foe and the infant prodigy, the Progressive party. And if return! from primaries and elections of 0110 Hurt
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May 28, 1914] The Nation 619 and another count for anything, the Danville Representative has an excel- lent fighting chance of returning to his familiar post. Despite a Progressive de- fection in his district which drew away a third of the Republican vote, he lost his seat in 1912 by less than 800 votes. The return of one-tenth of the Progres- sives to the Republican ranks would be sufficient to reelect the former Speaker, and in almost every test since 1912 a far larger proportion of Progressives than this has rejoined the Republican forces. The victory of Senator Penrose in the Republican primary is not surprising, although the increase in the Republican registration, with the corresponding falling off in that of the Progressives, gave hope that he might be defeated by the return of the latter to their former fold. His majority was more than double that by which Roosevelt carried the Presidential primaries over Taft. At the same time, he was evidently cut by a large number of Republicans, as the vote for Brumbaugh for Governor ex- ceeded his by 40,000 or more. The re- sult is to be ascribed to excellent organ- ization, the lack of an opponent of pop- ular appeal, and the inherent tendency of a Pennsylvania Republican to vote for the regular as against the insurgent. On the face of the election figures of 1912, Penrose's chances in the election are nil. Roosevelt had a plurality of 50,000 over Wilson, and Wilson was ahead of Taft by 120,000. It is hard to see how any voter who balked at Taft could swallow Penrose. But there is no underestimating the force of the pro- tection cry in Pennsylvania, and neither Representative Palmer nor Mr. Pinchot will be certain of defeating their dis- credited opponent in advance. It ought not to be necessary to warn intelligent persons that the stories now being so industriously circulated about the militia outrages in Colorado are to be viewed with the utmost skepticism. In regard to the chief accusation, that of the wanton slaughter, and worse than slaughter, of women and children in the Ludlow camp, there is no reason to believe that there is a shred of truth in it. In some cases, the form the story takes is in itself sufficient to stamp it as the result of cumulative distortions of the truth by excited or hysterical nar- rators. Speaking to Senators Kern, Kenyon, and Martine, says a Washing- ton dispatch, "Mrs. Jolly and Mrs. Thomas declared that mine guards were seen pouring oil on tents in Which wo- men and children were sleeping, and lat- er setting fire to the oil-soaked tents." The women and children were not "sleeping in tents," but were hidden in a covered pit under one of them; there is no reason to suppose that the militia had any suspicion that they were there at all. If Mrs. Jolly and Mrs. Thomas, who "acted as nurses after the conflict," are actually spreading this story, it only shows that a person may be very good and kind without having either sound judgment or a well-developed sense of responsibility. The recent statement by David Jayne Hill that "diplomacy has a technique not only as important as that of the law, but one more complicated and more dif- ficult to acquire," is in line with the pro- posals made by another ex-Ambassador. Curtis Guild's plan for a diplomatic training school, similar in administra- tion to West Point and Annapolis, may be impracticable; but it rests on a con- ception of diplomacy as a profession. None are more anxious to have it put on that plane than those who have them- selves served in high positions abroad. Originated, as Mr. Guild says, in con- ference with President Lowell of Har- vard, his plan implies that not only ability is wanted, but peculiar training, with a basis of foreign languages and technical knowledge. The fact that the regular promotion of Consuls serves much the same end may be an argu- ment against a special Government school; it is anything but an argument against the view that young men should be encouraged to fit themselves to enter the foreign service, confident of continu- ance and promotion by merit. The tendency to ride a free horse to death is exemplified in the demands that are made upon public libraries, or rather public librarians, as bureaus of general information. The woman who re- quests a recipe for "strudel kuchen" is followed by one who wants "books for my husband to get his papers" — natu- ralization papers? Then there are the curious individuals who wish to know whether any member of the English royal family ever committed suicide, whether Woodrow Wilson ever wrote "The Chinese make better citizens than Poles or Italians," the value of a cent dated 1860, a good profile view of Brig.- Gen. Horace Porter, the value of hat manufactures in the United States, the exact area of Chesapeake Bay, the iden- tification of a certain quotation from an opera, and a list of the leather manufac- turers of Cologne. All such inquiries give a new significance to the phrase "working library," which apparently ought to read "working librarian." That the public library and its guardians owe something to the public in the way of furnishing miscellaneous information may be granted, and the marking of metes and bounds to their duty in this regard is as necessary as it is difficult. The ideal would be for librarians to stop with directing the inquirer to the source of the information sought, leav- ing its actual finding to him as at once a time-saving and an educative process. But this would imply a kind of om- niscience in librarians as hard to come by as that with which their questioners tacitly credit them. Last week's primaries in Oregon for Senator and Governor — the first in which women voted — will scarcely jus- tify Progressive pride in the strength of their State organizations. In 1912, Oregon cast 37,600 votes for Roosevelt, as against 47,064 for Wilson, and 34,673 for Taft. Yet this year's primary regis- tration listed only 6,255 Progressives — compared with the enrolment of 59,986 Democrats and 134,687 Republicans. The women's vote, it may be assumed, would not affect the proportions of the par- ties except in a way favorable to the Progressives. The Republicans cast over 60 per cent, of their registered vote, and the Democrats and Progressives between 50 and 60, the Governorship being most hotly contested. Apart from this index of party strength, the primary is of chief interest as strengthening a senti- ment for the preferential voting system. One of the candidates was nominated on approximately 20 per cent, of his party vote. As the Portland Oregonian re- marks, the State has now had its pri- mary law ten years without amend- ment— an unconscionable period for a really progressive commonwealth.
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620 Tlie Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2552 Possibility of anything like the "Guth- rie rush" of 1889, or of the recurrence of that picturesque but unpleasing phase of our earlier development — speculation about the course of new railways — seems removed by the Government's ac- tion as regards the Alaska road. Along its three possible routes, fourteen town sites have already been picked out, and many more are to be chosen. When the country is opened, lots will be sold to actual settlers at reasonable prices. One kind of speculator is thus definitely pro- vided against — the speculator who is first on the ground for the simple pur- pose of levying tribute on late-comers #ho are the real builders of the com- munity. That the faith of men who come with the sincere motive of making homes may be rewarded with a just in- crement, will still exist as a spur to settlement. How far the Government will go in applying similar principles to the agricultural country adjoining, de- pendent for its value mainly upon the proximity of markets, remains to be seen. Canada faces a troublesome question in the arrival of 500 Hindus at Van- couver, and one of great interest to our own West. The answer to it will demand a careful balancing of Imperial and Dominion interests. Out of it may come final settlement of an issue which has been regularly postponed since 1907, when East Indian immigration first be- gan on a large scale. This the Indian Government then undertook to discour- age, and an Order-in-Council in Canada excluded any newcomer who arrived otherwise than by a continuous journey —a really effective barrier, as there has been no direct steamship communication between the two countries. This Order has been annulled by Chief Justice Hun- ter as ultra vires, and to obtain time for consideration Canada has temporarily suspended all labor immigration into British Columbia. The nature of the ultimate action seems inevitable, for not the most rabid Imperialist would aban- don a "white Canada" policy for a the- ory of Empire. But the method of evad- ing the dilemma will be instructive to Australia and South Africa, and will be watched on our Coast for its effect on the whole Oriental policy — Canada al- ready being alarmed at the number of Chinese who are entering under a head- tax of $500 each. The fight for Home Rule, in one form or another, has been going on for sev- enty-five years. It is thirty years since Gladstone, by making Home Rule an ar- ticle in the creed of the Liberal party, made an Irish Parliament a political possibility again. A weary path has in the meantime been traversed, and it would be idle to pretend that the con- troversy has not come to wear new aspects. Consider, for example, the question of Irish land. It was probably the greatest single driving power in the original movement for Home Rule. Ab- sentee landlords, rack-renting, the pea- sant insecure in his tiny holdings — these were among the bitterest of Ire- land's grievances. Home Rule was to give the land back to Irishmen. But it has been virtually given back without Home Rule. A series of Land Acts for Ireland, including a vast scheme of buy- ing out the landlords by Government aid to the tenants, have radically chang- ed the whole situation, and given new hope and prosperity to Irish agricul- ture. Yet the Home Rule movement had gained such momentum, and still spoke for such a genuine national aspi- ration, that it could not be killed by kindness. The Irish would represent a permanently discontented element un- less they had a chance to administer their own local affairs. Their age-long desire is now about to be granted. The passage on Monday of the Home Rule bill in the House of Commons, for the third time in this Parliament, virtually makes of it law; the labors of O'Con- nell and Butt and Parnell and Red- mond and Gladstone and Campbell-Ban- nerman and Asquith are crowned — so far as the end can crown the work. What remains to he done in Parlia- ment with the Home Rule bill seems a rather intricate process. But this is made necessary under the provisions of the Parliament Act. It has already been put into effect with the bill for disestab- lishing the Welsh Church, and it is to be soon with the Plural Voting bill. These two, with Irish Home Rule, were the chief measures which the Liberals were pledged up to the hilt to pass be- fore the present Parliament was dissolv- ed; and, in order to do it, they were compelled to proceed under the Parlia- ment Act. This makes it necessary to pass a bill three times in exactly the same form. The Lords can reject it twice, but the third time it becomes a law whether they reject or accept it. Yet it must come to the Lords each time in identical language. That is the reason why Mr. Asquith refused to permit in the House any amendment of the Home Rule bill whatever. He had to follow the strict procedure. It is well known, however, that amendment is intended. Two ways are possible. The bill may be amended in the Lords. Then it would go back to the Commons, and if the amendments were there accepted, they would become part of the law; if they were rejected, then the original bill would be put on the statute-books just as it stood. The other way is by a sep- arate amending bill. This, if once through the Commons, could be taken or left by the House of Lords. The prob- ability is, however, that it would be taken. Indeed, this seems the more likely way of throwing additional safe- guards about the Protestants of Ulster. A third Balkan war, over Albania, la not among the probabilities of the im- mediate future; but within the borders of the newly constituted state the out- look is for a continuous play of civil strife and diplomatic intrigue. Unrest is what the protecting Powers — Austria and Italy — most desire. The erection of a strong government would mean a postponement of hopes cherished at Vienna and Rome. So we are justified in regarding the unfortunate beginning of Prince William's reign as the first of a succession of episodes which will keep the pot boiling without actually causing it to spill over for some time to come. There will be small uprisings and civil wars, plots and counterplots, until the time seems ripe for a decisive stroke either from the north or from across the Adriatic. The elements of possible con- fusion are almost countless in Albania. Except for the tragic consequences, opera-bouffe would well describe It. A German prince ruling over a Mediter- ranean people, half-Christian, half-Mos- lem, under the protection of Powers hostile to each other, having for his Minister of War a rival claimant to the throne, and for the defence of his realm a native gendarmerie under a Dutch military offleer — here is a combination that should render Albania :i prolific source of news for some time to come.
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May 28, 1914] The Nation 621 PLATFORM SOLEMNITIES. I do not dread so much the vengeance o; the people against the party of which I am a humble follower as I do the dis- tnist that will be bred by such an open ]■• 1 mliation of a solemn covenant touch- ing the promises of all political parties and incidentally of representative govern- ment. Were it proposed by any man oth- er than the President of the United States, holding the high place he does in the confidence and affections of the people, we should all recoil from it with horror. To those who entertain any doubt of the exalted character of our political morality at the present time, we com- mend a thoughtful consideration of these impressive sentences from Sena- tor Walsh's speech on the Panama tolls question. At no previous time in the history of the Republic could anything like this lofty view of the nature of plat- form pledges have been uttered without provoking a smile. We say nothing of the cynics whose attitude was summed up in the epigram that political plat- forms, like car platforms, are made not to stand on, but to get in on; what we have in mind is the position of honor- able men, dealing in a patriotic spirit with public affairs. The idea that the whole document is to be regarded as a "solemn covenant," every part of which trust be held equally sacred with every other — that the violation of any single clause would be an act of perfidy from which every decent man must "recoil with horror" — this idea was virtually unknown in former times, and stamps the present day as one of almost super- human moral beauty. In their platform of 1888 the Repub- licans "demand the reduction of letter postage to one cent per ounce." They carried that election, and had full con- trol of both houses of Congress; but they have done nothing about the mat- ter from that day to this, chough they repeated the pledge in 1892. Mr. Walsh, as a good Democrat, may say that this is only what is to be expected of Re- publicans; but the point is that no human being, of either party, so far as known, has shown any symptoms of "recoiling with horror" from the per- formance. Moreover, the Democrats have at least as bad a record as the Re- publicans. In 1896 they declared against "life tenure in the public service" and in favor of "fixed terms of office" — in other words, they declared for the over- throw of the merit system as actually established in the civil service of the United States. But neither as a minor- ity nor as a majority in Congress has the Democratic party, from that day to this, made any attempt to pass a law carrying that declaration into effect. So much for matters not in the centre of the stage; but it would not be diffi- cult to point to bigger things. The plank in the 1864 platform declaring the war a failure, and demanding that a settlement be made by peaceful methods, was, of course, converted into pulp by military events; but long be- fore its destruction had been thus com- pletely effected, ninety-nine Democrats out of a hundred were glad enough to forget it. And the declaration four years later in favor of paying off the bonds in greenbacks was thrown on the scrap- heap in deference, not to the march of events, but to the general growth of san- ity and intelligence on the subject. No- body seems to have realized that such conduct, however rational and even nec- essary, was infamous or sacrilegious. And, indeed, much as we dislike to accept a moral rating lower than the best, we have to confess that to our mind practical realities preclude the ac- ceptance of the "solemn covenant" idea of a political platform. Take the par- ticular case at issue. Nobody pretends that the Convention considered the tolls question even for an instant; the plat- form was read in its expiring moments, after the close of the exhausting strug- gle over the nomination, and was "adopted with a shout." But, it may be said, the sub-committee of eleven, which drafted the platform, represented the Convention in the matter. If, for the sake of the argument, we grant this, what did the sub-committee do? Senator Walsh says that while the plank was doubtless, as usual, inserted by some one person, it was adopted without ob- jection in the sub-committee. He does not say that any person other than the proposer gave it any thought; he does not say that the fact that a majority of the Democrats in the House had voted against the tolls-exemption was mentioned; above all, he does not say that any consideration whatever was given to the crucial question of whether that exemption was a violation of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty. On the con- trary, his statement that it was adopted without objection is virtually a state- ment that it was adopted without dis- cussion, and that neither the record of the party nor the question of the treaty was brought up at all. To regard every sentence written in a platform as invested with sacred au- thority is, therefore, tantamount to turn- ing over to the decision of a few gen- tlemen sitting around a table, in the heat of a convention gathering, ques- tions which, in the natural course of things, are matter for extensive Congres- sional debate and investigation; and to accepting thtft decision as unchangeable, no matter how superficial or thoughtless may have been their consideration of it. What the country is to do, or ab- stain from doing, during four years, on a large range of questions, is determin- ed without recourse in a few hours, in a wholly haphazard manner, and by men not clothed with the responsibili- ties of either legislative or executive office. MR. M ELLEN'S TESTIMONY. It is natural that Mr. Mellen's story of last week, on the inside financial his- tory of the New Haven in the decade which ended with the panic of 1907, should be described as "amazing testi- mony" and "startling disclosures." Yet his narrative ought not to have caused the least surprise to any one who watch- ed the course of affairs in that strange financial period. On this occasion, as in the life-insurance inquiry of 1905, the real source of interest lies rather in the extraordinary frankness with which one of the participants in the performances of that day unburdens his mind when he gets the opportunity, and in the details which his testimony provides for a back- ground already familiar to intelligent observers. Mr. Mellen's account of the "humili- ating scene" in which, as the New Haven's president, he asked Mr. Morgan why the Westchester purchase should have cost the New Haven $11,155,000, when its tangible value did not exceed $4,000,000, and in which Mr. Morgan, according to Mellen's account, was "abrupt and very severe," and refused the information, has attracted the most attention. One obvious comment on it would have to do with the subservience of the president of a great corporation, in permitting what he declares he knew to be improper use of that corporation'3 funds. Yet we Imagine that a similar
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622 Tlie Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2552 •tory might be told of a dozen episodes of that period. Conditions in company finance which made possible the cornering of a $78,- 000,000 railway stock with borrowed money, by two competing financial au- tocrats; the using by inside financiers of $25,000,000 subscribed for the Steel Trust underwriting, and its repayment with 200 per cent, cash profit, but with- out a pretence of accounting; the toss- ing, to a group of stock-jobbers who had "held up" the Louisville & Nashville property, of ten or twenty millions prof- it, raised by mortgaging another rail- way; the demand that shareholders of a $52,000,000 city-railway property, when asked to lease it to a four-mile street- railway line, should "vote for it first and discuss it afterward"; the insist- ence, in the face of almost unanimous remonstrance by the Steel Corporation's shareholders, that $200,000,000 of its stock should be turned into mortgage bonds; the vote of the directors of a $200,000,000 railway company that their chairman be individually empowered to borrow such money as he should see fit, and "to execute in the name and on be- half of this company a note or notes for the amount so borrowed" — such a state of things, it appears to us, would lead very logically to "abruptness" and "severity" when some one not of the inner circle ventured to ask for a de- tailed statement of the amounts ex- pended. These were typical incidents of the times which Wall Street was accustom- ed to describe as the era of "thinking in hundred millions." It was, in fact, an era of complete infatuation, in which our great financiers had come to believe that the investor's money was theirs, to use as suited them. The old-fashioned notion that the directing of corporations was a trust, for whose proper exercise a strict accounting was the right of the investor, cut a negligible figure in the exploits of the period. If it so happen- ed that investors' interests were a nec- essary topic of discussion, the public was assured that its welfare depended altogether on control by self-perpetuat- ing directors, and on a capitalization so inflated that nobody could challenge or unseat them. We are setting forth, in this brief summary of the period, facts which have long been known to every observant reader of the news, and to which Mr. Mellen's testimony merely adds a few typical retrospective details. It is never- theless particularly instructive that the details should in this case concern a property whose treasury has been emp- tied and whose investment value has been shaken by the financial experi- ments of the autocrats. For nothing has come more clearly into view, with the progress of our financial history, than the fact that the judgment of the great financiers regarding the nature of a financial situation was repeatedly as bad, their methods as wasteful, and their use of capital as reckless, as might rea- sonably have been expected from men who were subject to delusions about American finance not less wild than any which now surround the social and political problems of the day. It is of the first importance that the public which reads such revelations as those of Mr. Mellen should not lose sight of the fact that the system which made possible these episodes in our company finance has completely broken down. It was bound to do so, from the seeds of destruction which it bore with- in itself, if not from the active interfer- ence of the law. The severe readjust- ment of 1903 and the panic of 1907 were directly and immediately a consequence of the kind of financiering that prevailed in the New Haven. Had it been pos- sible to resume and continue those finan- cial methods in the whole field of com- pany finance after 1907, the probability is that the system itself would have come to earth in a far more formidable collapse than had yet occurred. But as a matter of fact, the shattered machinery could not have been recon- structed, unless the delusions of 1901 and 1902 had been again instilled into the brains, not only of the financial auto- crats, but of the public at large — which, it should not be forgotten, shared en- thusiastically in the imaginations and superstitions of a dozen years ago. Dis- appearance from the scene of two such leaders as Mr. Harriman and Mr. Mor- gan was of itself sufficient to break the spell. When Mr. Mellen further testified that, in his judgment, the present trou- bles of the New Haven are due primar- ily to Mr. Morgan's death, he might as well have said that only Mr. Morgan's individual force and power had made; possible the rash experiments of the preceding decade. RIGHTS AND DUTIES, THIS SIDE THE MILLENNIUM. An editorial which appeared in the Nation under the title "The Right to Punish" has called forth a letter which we print in another column. Our cor- respondent appears to approve both the reasoning and the conclusions of our ar- ticle, but asks whether it would not have been just as well if the summariz- ing sentence had been changed so as to read: "It is necessary to hold, with clear conviction, without tremor or apol- ogy, that the right to protect society from the criminal rests on the solid foundation of the highest public expedi- ency."— the words italicized being substi- tuted for the words "to punish" in the original sentence. "Is it clear without apology or tremor," he inquires, "that we ever have the right deliberately, without his consent, to inflict pain on any human being?" Sincerely as we sympathize with the spirit of our correspondent's letter, thor- oughly as we approve the idea of mak- ing prison life conduce in all possible ways to the prisoner's own ultimate good, we have to answer the first ques- tion in the negative and the second in the affirmative. The point is simply this: If in order to protect society from the criminal — that is, from crime — it is necessary to punish the criminal, to in- flict pain or hardship on him, with or without reference to his own reforma- tion, then society has the right so to punish him. Whether this be necessary or not is a question of fact, upon which indeed we may not be able to arrive at absolute certainty, but regarding which we have to act according to the best wisdom we can command. If it should be found possible to have prisons such that every discharged prisoner should look back upon them as "the best thing that ever happened" to him, it would still be a question whether or not the protection of society required that a punitive element should enter into the conduct of those prisons. And lliat question society would have to answer from the standpoint of Its own needs. Supposing, for example, that it mlghi l>e possible to reform each individual pri- soner by giving him a perfectly delight- ful time during the whole period of his sentence, the Question would remain whether this would deter other persona from crime In such decree ;is w.is do-
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May 28, 1914] The Nation e>23 manded by the public welfare. If not, we should be bound, with our eyes open, and "without tremor or apology," to re- sort to punishment as punishment. The point is by no means "academic." It is in the highest degree practical. Throughout a large part of present-day humanitarian discussion, not only of punishment, but of all questions relat- ing to vice and crime and personal re- sponsibility, there runs an underlying idea of the relation of society to the in- dividual which must be firmly and fear- lessly rejected if we are to have sound thinking and sound action in this whole domain. The root of the error lies in a tacit assumption that society has no right to do anything which in a perfect condition of society would be unneces- sary; or, if you please, that it is the duty of society to be perfect, and unless that duty is fulfilled the responsibility for all transgressions of individuals rests on its shoulders and not on theirs. Whether avowed or not, this notion is at the bottom of the contention that when a poor boy becomes a ruffian, or a poor girl adopts a life of shame, it is not they, but society, that must be blam- ed. There ought to be no such thing as poverty, we are told; and doubtless if the idea of legislative eugenics should grow in strength and acceptance we should likewise be told that society is re- sponsible for the shortcomings of every person, rich or poor, whose parents were unwisely allowed to marry. The truth is, however, first, that no- body knows that it is practicable to abol- ish poverty or to establish a high stan- dard of eugenics for the race; secondly, that nobody knows that the accomplish- ment of either or both of these things would in point of fact put an end to vice and crime; and thirdly, that what- ever may be possible in some distant future, society must live in the mean- while. It cannot live, it cannot make life decent and tolerable for the great mass of its members, otherwise than through supporting by such means as it has actually at command the fundamen- tal institutions of morality and civiliza- tion. Of all those means, the most vital and indispensable is the enforcement of the idea of personal responsibility for personal conduct. It is this which oper- ates everywhere and all the time. The overt acts of Governors and Legisla- tures, of courts and juries, touch but here and there the salient points of hu- man conduct and misconduct. What keeps society whole is the play of char- acter and motive in the millions of in- dividuals composing it. Relax but by a small fraction the pervading sense of in- dividual responsibility, diminish but by a shade the efficacy of that force which strengthens the thousands who are weak or perverse against the manifold tempta- tions that beset them, and the injury will be beyond calculation, and beyond the power of any mere apparatus of reformation to remedy. EUROPE ON WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA. Sound literary criticism can hardly flourish on a Hoboken transatlantic pier in the presence of the United States Custom House inspectors. Yet in the case of a leader in criticism like Dr. Georg Brandes, we take it that even a hasty opinion uttered in the face of a battery of newspaper cameras is some- thing more than a happy thought. Un- til fuller evidence appears to the con- trary, we must assume that the emi- nent Danish critic's judgments on Amer- ican literature as recorded by the ship- news reporters represent his seasoned belief. It then appears that of contem- porary American novelists Jack London holds first place because he is so dis- tinctly American in ideas and spirit; that close to him stand the late Frank Norris and Mr. Upton Sinclair, for the same reasons; and that Edgar Allan Poe is the greatest American poet. This appraisal may differ in detail from the standard verdict upon American litera- ture by experts from abroad. The ob- servant reader will be struck, for in- stance, with the omission of Walt Whit- man, whose vogue among our foreign visitors is enormous. But as a whole, Dr. Brandes speaks quite in the tradi- tion. The roll of fame in American lit- erature drawn up for us by distinguish- ed students from abroad is striking in its inclusion of names that we should hardly look for, and its omission of names that we should expect as a mat- ter of course. Just what is the American spirit which finds fullest expression in Poe, Jack London, and Frank Norris is rath- er difficult to define. But all foreign es- timates of our literature until recently seem to be based on the assumption that, since we are a young, energetic, and rather barbarous nation, our literature ought to sound the note of youthful free- dom from convention, of lust of living, of zest in barbaric conflict and vic- tory. The "raw of life" is something quite appropriate to our genius. Our writers should be like our railways- swift, and disdainful of safety. Europe expected us to be reckless, spontaneous, original. American civilization, being young, ought always to be heretical and in revolt. "Be young, American poet and novelist, let those who will be so- ber." It sounds condescending, but it was often quite sincere. Such, one imagines, was the way for- eigners always reasoned and still do very frequently. But of late, visitors who land in Hoboken have begun to impose quite a different standard upon us. It resembles the first in being a standard which makes us rub our eyes. But it differs from the first in demand- ing just the opposite qualities in us. When Mr. H. G. Wells or Mr. Arnold Bennett lands in this country, he tells us that our greatest novelist or poet Is some one of whom few of us have heard, but who, in obscurity, has been produc- ing work quite in the spirit of European literature. That is, Messrs. Wells and Bennett, and a growing group of native critics who follow in their steps, con- gratulate us on the fact that we have outgrown the kindergarten stage of lit- erary appreciation which rejoices in blood-and-thunder adventure or choco- late-cream romance, congratulate us on the rise of novelists who envisage life soberly, objectively, and with the re- morseless honesty which characterizes the best realistic literature of Europe. When Dr. Brandes praises Jack London he speaks in the older tradition. When Mr. Bennett praises Theodore Dreiser and Robert Herrick he speaks in the new tradition. Now we are exhorted to remain young. Now we are reminded that we are grown-up, and must act and write accordingly. Between the two catalogues the ordi- nary American stands dazed. On the one list Poe and Jack London; on the other Robert Herrick and Theodore Dreiser; on neither apparently is there room for Hawthorne, Mark Twain, Wil- liam Dean Howells, Edith Wharton. The puzzled citizen is constrained to ask: How if we are not quite so youth-
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624: T h. e 1ST a t i o ii [Vol. 98, No. 2552 ful as some foreign critics imagine us to be and yet not so grown up as other foreign critics would have us be? How if we have outgrown the stage where Jack London can be said to express perfectly the American spirit and have not yet reached the stage where we rec- ognize in Mr. Dreiser's experiments in European realism the true expression of that spirit? How if the truest expres- sion of the national spirit is to be found, after all, in the man who combines the American humor, the American optim- ism, the American shrinking from the dregs of life and character, with a faith- ful study of the broad realities of the national life and character, of life as it is incorporated in the great mass of ordinary American men and women? Dr. Brandes as an expert in the corre- lation of literature and life could con- struct a much more real American type from the pages of "Silas Lapham," "A Modern Instance," "The Lady of the Aroostook," and "A Hazard of New For- tunes," than he will derive from the pages of Jack London on the one hand or Theodore Dreiser on the other. For- eign critics, having urged us to be our- selves, promptly pass over the books in which we have come nearest to showing ourselves as we are. GOLF "INVASIONS." American mortification over the in- glorious failure of our best amateur golfers to carry off the British cham- pionship may be tempered by the reflec- tion that, anyhow, we gave the English a good scare. This was perhaps the most ludicrous part of the whole matter. No one who has read the anticipatory comments of English golfing critics can doubt that the believers in the suprem- acy of the "British cleek" were in a good deal of a funk. Here was a carefully planned invasion. The Americans were not only sending over their finest golf- ers, but were applying scientific princi- ples to the game, were taking long weeks of practice, studying every point, ex- hibiting to the full the national genius for organization. Who was sufficient for these things? This was the alarmed question in English golfing circles when the American invasion "o'er pale Britan- nia passed." A gallant resistance was un- dertaken. But the prevailing trepidation was unmistakable; so that the result, with not one American contestant sur- viving to the last sixteen, is almost as much of a joke on the English as it is on us. But the joke of jokes is now seen to be the whole theory upon which this American invasion was planned. It was all fatally in the limelight, and accom- panied by a blare of trumpets. These means were certain to defeat the end. For not only the public, but the players themselves, were tremendously keyed up nervously by all the preliminary adver- tising and shouting. Their every step was dogged by reporters and camera- men. Every game they played, nearly every shot they made, was gasped at and exclaimed over and duly recorded. More- over, nearly all the best American play- ers engaged themselves to cable thrilling descriptions of the championship match- es, including their own sensations. Thus their tension was in every way made as great as possible. When Travers stepped to the tee a week ago last Monday he felt in every fibre the concentrated gaze of the world upon him. Is it any wonder that he played like a duffer? Could there have been, in fact, a more ingenious method devised to put our golfers off their game than to have surrounded them for all these weeks with an at- mosphere of clamor and puffery, and thus made them — what every experienc- ed golfer knows to be deadly — intensely self-conscious? Only contrast what happened this year with what took place in the 1913 ama- teur championship in England. Then we had a player entered of whom few in this country had ever heard. He quiet- ly slipped off his ship and, almost with- out any practice, began playing in the tournament. And this American, Hein- rich Schmidt, came very near winning. He went to the semi-finals, where Hil- ton beat bim only on the nineteenth hole. But Schmidt went over unherald- ed. When we began to read of his beat- ing Englishman after Englishman, peo- ple were everywhere asking, "Who on earth is Schmidt?" We were conduct- ing no "invasion" that year. A sturdy young golfer was simply let alone to do his best, his nerves not fluttered by loud thundering in the index, and his fingers left to grip his clubs instead of a pen. It is not pretended that the self-de- feating methods of our golf invasion of England tell the whole story of the American downfall at Sandwich. Some of our men pulled themselves together, notably Evans. He had the bad luck last week to be pitted against a man who, for nine holes, played superhuman golf, against which no man living, ama- teur or professional, could have stood. That the display was merely one of those magic intervals that sometimes come to a player and seem to make it impossible to miss a shot, is shown by the fact that the wonderful perform- er was only an ordinary mortal in his next round, where he was beaten. But the possibility of meeting such a man is always before the American who faces the whole British field, and it must en- ter into any sober calculation of his chances. So must the English custom of making the matches at eighteen holes, instead of our new plan of thirty-six. Evans might have beaten MacFarlane in thirty-six holes; nobody oould have beat- en him in eighteen. Our golfers should have learned some- thing from this year's experience. They ought not to repeat the folly of going to hunt the British cup with a brass band. Moreover, they must have discovered that the quality of English golf is high- er than ours. England has three or four times as many amateurs in the first flight as we have. It is this fact which makes the chances so heavily against any one man. Two English ex-cham- pions were put out at Sandwich, along with our men, besides several players whose winning was thought quite possi- ble. It is not only that the English have been longer at the game, but their golf- ers have more skill in adapting their style of play to the modern architecture of the links. This has imposed heavy penalties on a "pulled" ball. It used to be the favorite shot, when malign traps were not placed to catch it; but now the best English players have given it up. Americans, however, still have a weak- ness for it. James Braid warned Trav- ers against it, when he saw him play at Walton Heath. But at Sandwich Travers was pulling into bunkers on half the holes. And Ouimet actually "hooked" a ball into a trap on another hole than the one he was playing! We fancy that our golfers, returning on their clubs if not with them, will be frank to say that the English can yet teach us several things about the fine points of the game. One lesson is that golf cannot be played as Alfred Jingle played cricket— banging the ball one moment, the next twanging the lyre.
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May 28, 1914] The Nation 326 Foreign Correspondence MR. ASQUITH AS DEBATER AND LEADER— SUSPICIONS OF WEAK- NESS—A COMING TEST. London, May 15. It would be an interesting study for a psychologist to analyze the popular con- ceptions of the characteristics of political leaders. Public opinion has a strange way of affixing a label to prominent statesmen before they have advanced far in their career, and then of interpreting all their subsequent actions in such fash- ion as to conform to this premature judg- ment. It is conceivable that the reputation enjoyed by Mr. Asquith as the strong man of modern English politics, wise in judgment and firm in determination, may bo a case in point. In some respects, of course, the general opinion of his quali- ties is beyond the risk of any destructive criticism. When Lloyd George declared that the Prime Minister, in a single short address, had told his audience more of what was meant by the Government's land policy than he had himself been able to do in five speeches of an hour and a half each, he paid a just tribute to his chief's unrivalled gifts of concise and lucid exposition. In parliamentary de- bate to-day, both Mr. Asquith and Mr. Balfour are unapproachable in their re- spective styles. The Conservative ex- leader can take an apparently hopeless case and so play upon it with the sub- tleties of his dialectic as to make the most convincing objections to a certain course seem like irrefragable arguments in its favor. When he has ho longer a leg to stand on, he can stand on his head, and can almost persuade his hearers that that is the only proper attitude from which the world should be viewed. Mr. Asquith, on the other hand, is at his best when such clever minds as Mr. Balfour's have been at work on a great question, confusing the issues or distract- ing attention from main points to un- important details. When the House is getting muddled by this artificial com- plexity, Mr. Asquith will rise from the Treasury bench and, in a few sentences, straighten out the whole tangle. His manner is unemotional and unrhetorical, but his words have such an effect that his conclusion appears not only right, but inevitable. So far public opinion is agreed, nor is it likely that this estimate of Mr. As- quith's debating power will ever be dis- turbed. It is with regard to other quali- ties of his that the final verdict is still in the balance — to be decided, possibly, by the events of the next few months. "Trust Asquith" is the Liberal watch- word. "Wait and see" is his own counsel to those who are perplexed by his action or by his inaction. If he seems to be yielding, the retreat is only the prelim- inary to a victorious advance. If he ap- pears to have foolishly given an advan- tage to his oppopents, they will find pres- ently that they have not gained an oppor- tunity, but have walked into a trap. If you think he has been taken off his guard, his apparent inadvertence will be proved sooner or later to be a consum- mate stroke of tactics. An adherent of the accepted Asquith theory would probably quote the most sensational development of this year's army crisis in disproof of any reluctance to admit his hero's grasp of a difficult situation. The Prime Minister's dramatic resolve to take the War Office into his own hands was a coup that was both courageous and prudent. It did much to restore the shaken confidence of his followers, and to check the premature self-congratulations of the Opposition. But the story of his attitude on the Curragh affair as a whole can scarcely be put forward, on reflection, as illus- trating either shrewd judgment or prompt decision. The very necessity that sent Mr. Asquith to the War Office was a result, not by any means the first, of the loose rein that he had been giv- ing to Cabinet Ministers whose policy should have been under the control of their chief. It was a revelation of astounding slackness in a body whose members are supposed to be under a dis- cipline that is inconsistent with indi- vidual initiative of this wayward kind. The gun-running in Ulster, bringing to a head in open defiance of the King's authority the rebellion that had long been threatened, might have been ex- pected to arouse the most pusillanimous Prime Minister to the need of making a firm stand for law and order. Mr. As- quith expressed his opinion of these pro- ceedings and of his own duty in his characteristically direct style. "In view," he said, "of the grave and unprecedented outrage in Ulster, the Government will take without delay appropriate steps to vindicate the authority of the law." Three weeks have passed since the "out- rage." Nobody has been punished for it, and nobody is going to be punished. And now in this present week the Prime Minister has announced that the concessions which were originally offer- ed to the Opposition as the price of a "settlement by consent" are to be em- bodied in an amending bill whether the Opposition is willing to treat or not. The country has waited, and it has seen. It has seen the Government retreating, not inch by inch, but mile by mile, from the unassailable position it held under the Parliament act, and, with all its profes- sions of firmness, answering every insult to its authority by a fresh surrender. How long, some are asking, shall we have to wait before we see the collapse of the Government and of the Liberal party in an electoral debacle? So far they have been saved by the almost incredible in- eptitude of the Unionist official leadership. If Unionists had the wit to put Sir Ed- ward Carson in Bonar Law's place, the Ministry might no longer be able to pre- sume on the continuance of its good for- tune. At any rate, the test that is rapidly approaching is likely to settle, once and for all, whether the Prime Minister has really the stanchness and determination with which he is credited, or whether, as Bismarck said of an earlier British statesman, he is only "a lath painted to look like iron." H. W. H. AUSTRIA - HUNGARY'S RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA— EFFECTS OF THE NEW MILITARY SERVICE— DEAL- INGS WITH SERVIA. Vienna, May 12. The scene of political activity in Aus- tria-Hungary has been shifted from Vien- na to Budapest, the Hungarian capital, where the meetings of the Austrian and of the Hungarian delegations have been taking place. The most anxious question disturbing the tranquillity of the country is that of its relations with Russia. It has long been known that they are merely "cor- rect." Count Berchtold referred to the question in his expose, and in his courtly manner described them as "satisfactory." Count Berchtold is an old aristocrat, a travelled man of the world, and his diplo- matic language is ever carefully chosen, his words deliberated upon and smoothed down until they lose the force given to the communiques issued by his predeces- sor, Count Aehrenthal, who was a new man, the grandson of one who had risen from the ranks. Other utterances made by men with no authorization excepting their mandates as delegates plainly showed where the trouble between the two countries lies. The resentment felt in Austria-Hungary at the propaganda carried on so inces- santly by Russia on the frontier, among the Ruthenes and the Little Russians, who are Austro-Hungarian subjects, was plainly expressed, and the politicians on the Neva were given to understand that Austria-Hungary was well aware of the machinations of Russian political agents all along her frontier, whether as re- ligious enthusiasts anxious to obtain con- verts for political purposes, or as spies. Reference was also made to the rela- tions with Rumania. The news of the two alliances, with Greece and Russia, respectively, has caused considerable an- noyance here. A large number of Ru- manians have lived quietly and peaceably under the central government, and will continue to do so so long as there is a good understanding between Rumania and Austria-Hungary, but should Ruma- nia accept the overtures made by the Czar, there is likely to be trouble on the frontier. One of the most important subjects un- der discussion at the meeting of the delegations has been the results of the introduction of two years' military ser- vice in this country. The immediate ef- fect will be a considerable numerical in- crease in the effective force of the Aus- tro-Hungarian army. Under the three years' service system there was always a much larger number of recruits avail- able than could be trained with the ex- isting machinery. The standard of selec- tion for recruits was thus always kept high, the strongest and healthiest men being chosen. Even under these circum- stances a large number were sent home, as unwanted, the men being selected by lot. Under the new system the rtrengtll of the Austro-Hungarian army will be increased by a fifth. The new law has already begun to have a beneficent effect, which will be seen more clearly in the course of five or six years, parents being
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Gr^G Tlie Nation [Vol. 98, No 2552 less inclined to send their children to the gymnasium and university to prepare for a learned profession. This last course was necessary for all young men who wished to avoid the long' military ser- vice, as only youths who could produce a certificate from their gymnasium or college, showing that they had com- pleted the course, were allowed to serve as "volunteers," that is, for one year, at their own cost. [f the signs of the time may be trusted there will now be a great reaction against the common practice of educat- ing- boys for the learned professions. Parents, relieved of the three years' ser- vice bogey — for it has long been known that the new service rule would be in- troduced— send their sons to modern schools and business colleges. Employ- ers have long deplored the present state of affairs, which gives them a man with a degree, but no practical knowledge of business. They want a young man who is an expert at shorthand and typing, not an encyclopaedia of useful knowledge. Another factor, which will make parents welcome the change, is the great increase of cases of suicide in this country, es- pecially among boys who have been spur- red on to study too hard by parents, who considered that they were ruining their careers by failure to get through the course at a secondary school. Pressure was thus put upon boys who were quite unfitted for study. The diversion of some of the best brain power of the country and of the services of sons of the moneyed classes from the professions to trades and to ordinary business will have an excellent effect on commerce. The Austrian delegates left Vienna for Budapest, to attend the delegations with instructions from all and sundry to do their best to prevail on the Hungarians to deal with Servia in a neighborly man- ner, and to attempt to win back the territory lost during the war. It is real- ized that much toil and money must be put into commercial effort before the situation of supremacy enjoyed ten years ago can return. A large river shippin; company published its balance sheet some days ago, from which it was seen that the losses caused by the war and the cholera had been immense. Traffic on the lower part of the Danube was stop- ped during the war, and afterwards the precautions rendered necessary by the cholera maimed trade for months. The company has, however, now resolved to increase its capital and to put on a num- ber of new boats, to repair its losses, and this is the spirit shown everywhere in the country, just at present, instead of the former attitude of "it can't be helped." Meanwhile, the news that Servia and Greece have come to a decision that Salonica, the great port for the Levant shall become a free harbor for fifty years but slight satisfaction here. Greece is to administer the port, but all Servian goods may be loaded and unload- ed without payment of duty, and Servia instead of depending on Austria to take ricultural products and to pur- chase her superfluous meat, will seek new ■' Hie coasts of the Adii ad 1 he Mediterranean, 1,. it. French Watering Places CURES AND ARCHEOLOGY. Pakis, May 9. Some years ago I noticed in Govern- ment statistics that France had 1,026 li- censed watering places, each with its thermal or mineral springs. Looking through memories of many years, I found I had seen fifty-six of them. More have been licensed, and I have visited more since. Who has heard of Escou- loubre and Carcanieres, separated only by the river Aude, in the eastern Pyre- nees? Yet they have three establish- ments between them, furnishing board and lodging "with the use of the wa- ters" for seven francs ($1.20) a day if you eat at the first table, and five ($1) if you eat at the second! Last year I made an excursion to the magnificent ruins of the chateau of Beaucens, in the central Pyrenees. The straggling village below is away from the beaten track, and there was no hotel, though I noticed a large building going up. A black-coated man arrived and asked the farmer who was my guide why the "cabins" were not yet up at the spring. This was the primi- tive provision for bathers, of whom there are a few hundreds every year. It was a professor of the University who came for his annual cure. He told me he took a room with a peasant, and that the sulphate water was immensely strong for sciatica and varicose affections. It has been known through the region ever since the chateau was built, in the twelfth century; and the new building is a regulation establishment. A com- pany has at last taken hold of the springs, and will try to make money out of them. Medical authorities assure me the waters are really good in a few spe- cific complaints; and the low mountain air — more than 1,500 feet high, however — Is good, and the region picturesque up the valley from Lourdes. Why should not over-eating, un-exercising Americans find their way thither some day? But let them first learn if the accommoda- tions are possible to their exacting hab- its of life. There is no class of the French popu- lation, rich or poor, which does not "take the waters." It came to them with their civilization. It was the uni- versal remedy of the Romans, who tried always to set up their fortified camps where the soldiers could heat and steam away their ails in hot springs. At N6ris, in Auvergne, I have seen cheap bathers packed like sardines into a surviving Roman piscina excavated in the rock above one of the bicarbonate of soda springs— temperature 120 Fahren- heit, with steam never-ending. At Ax, fn the eastern Pyrenees, over towards Spain, there is still the "Bassin des Ladres" — a great open-air pool built by St. Louis, King of France, for his cru- saders, who came back with what they called leprosy. Light clouds of steam mount up from it; and I saw house- wives coming for the hot water ready to their hand. Business clerks, street-car men, school-teachers, domestics, all like to take their yearly few days off at such waters. Day laborers and miners are not shut out altogether, if some of these baths are within reach. I have seen coal miners from Commentry and factory workmen from Montlugon coming to Neris in their Sunday clothes. Michigan's proud device: "If you want to see a fine peninsula, look around you," might have its answer from France: "If you want to take waters, hot baths, or mineral drinks, all my roads lead to them!" The state licenses these watering places after the Acad- emy of Medicine has certified that the waters are profitable. The region of the locality always reserves their free use for its citizens, and often builds a hos- pice for them. At Cauterets they have clean beds, good food, and the best med- ical attention, besides stimulating mountain air, 3,000 feet up, for 40 or 50 cents a day. Dr. Meillon tells me that, with these patients, he never has any trouble in applying such modern meth- ods as weekly blood analysis, which he has great difficulty in proposing to the rich. The poor wish to get all that is going, and so he is able to acquire pre- cious results for medical science; but the rich are afraid he is going to im- pose some new expense on them for his own purposes. At least, the doctor's sen- sitiveness makes him think so. The use of mineral waters at their source, with their radioactivity at its full, and with possibilities of varied ap- plications, is rapidly becoming a sep- arate and fruitful branch of practical medicine. This has been recognized at recent congresses of hydrology; and a special professorship has been organiz- ed for it in the medical faculty of Pari.-;. What the life-loving Romans learned by experience, modern science with infinite- ly wider experience confirms and devel- ops. In England a national movement has begun to bring back the native pub- lic to such springs, which were far more frequented in less travelled times. At the German baths you are pretty sure to find Americans, whom I have seen as far afield as the Hercules Baths of Hun- gary, down by the Iron Gates. But I believe there is no country where hot springs and mineral springs, to soak the outside and rinse the inside, are applied to such a number of the whole popula- tion as in France. To one who has lime and is not look- ing for the cosmopolilan fashion of Vichy and Aix— and who has a little 111 1 of the language half the pleasure of aterlng placet Le In the history that crops up ail aboul and In the mi m
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May 28, 1914I The Nation (d27 ories of noted men and women who have passed that way. For these watering places are not limited to their "cure," which is universally and mathematical- ly twenty-one days. Nor are they mere resorts of summer travel, such as the mountains and seacoast have. As they are not new discoveries, most of them have a little or a great deal of archaeol- ogy to show. And, of course, any amount of literature has grown up around them as the centuries pass. Neris pretends to a visit from the Em- peror Nero. The terraces of the sol- diers' camp are still plain, overlooking the valley; and here is the pleasant main road along which remains are dug from their officers' villas. There the legions marched, cursing like an Eng- lishman, by Jove, or by Castor and Pol- lux— "Edepol!" — or by Hercules — "Hercle!" — as we learned in our gram- mars when Latin was studied. In a rose garden, which has more varieties than the Roseraie at Bagatelle in the Paris Bois de Boulogne, and sends cut- tings to New York and New Zealand, I saw a well of one of these rich Roman houses emptied of the debris of the ages. The rubbish must have accumu- lated until somewhere about a. d. 1000, as nothing was found that could be dat- ed after that time. This was genuine archaeology, for the gardener came on it in enlarging his watering pool. There was nothing of great value, but all was interesting. There was the handle of a jug, with the stamp in Greek letters of the maker, probably a Greek of Marseilles. There was a brooch with the antique safety-pin seen in Gallo-Roman remains of the French National Museum at Saint-Ger- main, worn by some young officer to fasten his cloak. And there was a long black spoon, like those used by Egyp- tians to extract aromatic unguents from bottles. At the other end of the town, In an old manor house of the time of Francis I, where the artistes of the lit- tle theatre troupe were lodged, I found the garden walks marked off with bits of broken sculpture of the Roman days. Not all these watering places go back so completely to the time when Gaul was a flourishing Roman province; but very many have their little ruins, and make the most of them. One of the ex- cursions of Luchon is to the quarry where the Column of Trajan, which is at Rome, was cut out of the perpendicu- lar face of the rock. It makes a very striking scene in the midst of a delight- ful mountain landscape; but I regret to say that last summer I found the vil- lage to which the quarry belongs has given permission to begin working it again. From the same rock marbles were taken for the Trianon at Versailles by Louis XIV. At Uriage, just outside the city of Grenoble, in a lovely valley overshadowed by the last western peaks of the French Alps, only vestiges remain to show Roman work. At Plombieres, in the Vosges Mountains, with twenty-seven springs whose temperature ranges from 59 to 160 degrees Fahrenheit, the an- cient "Etuves Romaines," or public va- por baths, are still in use below the level of the street; and you get to them by go- ing down from the "Bain Stanislas," which has its name from the Duke of Lorraine, whose daughter was the lonely, unloved Queen of Louis XV of France. Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie brought Plombieres into fashion again, as they did Vichy; and the French Re- public continues, as at Vichy, to control the use and sale of the waters by farm- ing them out to a company. Most of these places drop out of known history through the dark and middle ages, when people wrote little or else their writings about their do- ings have not survived or been studied. It would be a great mistake to take it for granted that there was any age when men abstained from the use of such evi- dent and easy healing. Neris has an unbroken record, with remains and tes- timonials of its cures for every century since Nero and before. The present property rights of the springs at Cau- terets are held by seven communes of the valley in virtue of deeds of a. d. 945; and even then one of the condi- tions which the local sovereign, Ray- mond I, Count of Bigorre, made to the monks of Saint Savin was that build- ings should be forever kept up for the baths. Here Marguerite of Navarre, sister of Francis I, wrote her tales of the Heptameron; and Rabelais came to talk them over. One of the excursions nowadays is to the farm up the hills where Queen Hortense, daughter of the Empress Josephine, rode horseback over the mountains to take the waters. There are twenty-two springs givingout 400,000 gallons of waters a day, variedly combining sulphur, sodium, and sili- con at still more varied, but not ex- treme, temperatures from cool to warm. Last summer I took the treatment whole and entire, scientific, severe, efficacious, and not unpleasant. At five o'clock in the morning, on an empty stomach, I started by an electric railway for a par- ticular spring a mile and a half up the mountain — drank and gargled. Then I walked on a half-mile to another spring, very powerful — and drank. Then fur- ther, to Swedish gymnastics and a douche. In the afternoon there was more drinking and gargling at a spring in another direction, with another good walk to get to it. Walking in high mountain air may help; but the wa- ters do surely work. And this is what Anne of Austria, mother of Louis XIV, said of Forges, and Madame de Sevigne — in plainer speech than Is customary nowadays — of the abundant drinking at Vichy. S. D. Golf on the Campagna The only way to see a country is to walk over it, and the only thing in these days that induces most people to walk is golf. The syllogism completes itself: to see the Roman Campagna it is necessary to play golf over it. It is curious how relatively few visitors to Rome have discovered this elementary truth. They may have heard that some- where on the outskirts of the city is a golf course, but somehow in popular estimation the game, however royal and ancient, does not seem to gibe with the eternity of the city, and golf is assumed to be one of the things that the Romans do not do. I have often, in point of fact, cried aloud my doctrine of the Campagna in a wilderness of superior and archaeologically minded persons, rec- ommending them by all means to in- clude their golf sticks among the im- pedimenta of travel which they intend- ed taking with them to Rome, and have only partially assuaged their scorn and saved my reputation as a person of mod- erate intelligence by assuring them that the learned head of the British Archaeo- logical School may not infrequently be surprised pursuing his accustomed work of excavation on the golf links of the Campagna. Some two miles from the Porta San Giovanni on the Via Appia Nuova two splendid fir trees stand out against the blue of the sky, forming a landmark that is seen for miles around. They are familiar objects in the foreground of many pictures of the Campagna, and they possess an added claim to distinc- tion in that they figure conspicuously on one side of the monthly medal of the Rome Golf Club, the design for which was made by an American, Mr. Breck, formerly the head of the American School at Rome. A little to the right of the trees is a small cluster of firs, among which nestles an unpretentious- looking farm building, which serves as the clubhouse. Roughly speaking, the golf courses which are now scattered over the Con- tinent of Europe may be divided into two classes. There is the one which partakes of the nature of a country club, with an elaborate clubhouse, furnished with showers and upholstered lounges and a French chef — and, incidentally, a links; and there is the other, a less prosperous and fashionable institution, which is the pride and joy of a small colony of English and American resi- dents who have banded themselves to- gether to play the game of golf on an alien soil. Of the former class the links at Cannes, where the Grand Duke Michael solaces his exile with the sem blance of a court, Is an excellent exam pie. There, until a few years ago, when some revolutionary souls of Anglo-Saxon
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(328 T1 li e JS" a t i o ri [Vol. 98, No. 2552 extraction insisted on a cold collation at a side table, from which they were per- mitted to rise without the august sanc- tion, the luncheon was a tedious pro- cess, which began only when the Grand Duke felt hungry and ended when his Imperial Highness gave the signal to rise. Not the least of the charms of the Roman club is its friendliness and in- formality. Spaghetti and omelettes are Within the resources of the smiling Hebe who presides over the clubhouse, but this fare is usually supplemented by the player himself, who brings with him from the city whatever form of sus- tenance his heart most desires — and pro- ceeds to share it with his neighbor. I notice these details of the domestic economy of the clubhouse only to em- phasize the fact that the spirit of Ro- man golf is in tune with the spirit of the Campagna. A modern clubhouse, with stretching lawns and spacious ve- randas dotted with the white expanse of waiters' shirts, would be anathema. Here is nothing that intrudes on the brooding peace of the Campagna. At the very start one is brought into tune with one's surroundings, so that even a drive topped into the yawning valley that should be carried, yet taxes the capacity of a short driver, may be ac- cepted in a philosophical spirit; for from the first tee is obtained a view of the whole expanse of the Campagna. To the left is the long line of the Aqua Marcia, stretching snake-like across the plain, still bringing water to the city from the Sabine Mountains as it did two thousand years ago, and nearer still two or three great arches stand out in ruin, the remains of the aqueduct that Claudius led from Subiaco. On the other side is the old Appian Way and the tomb of Csecilia Metella; and, fur- ther away, in the middle distance, looms up the great dome of St. Peter's, as ever, dominating the city. Straight ahead, over the plain, are the Alban hills, bright splashes of white marking the Castelli Romani, Tivoli and Fras- cati and Rocca di Papa; and on a clear day on the far horizon may be descried the gleaming peaks of the snow-capped Apennines. Along the Appian Way, the new one, which is already old, trudges a proces- sion of wine carts, gayly painted, on each a sleeping man and a wakeful dog, and dotted over the Campagna, and in- valuable to us in keeping down the grass of the course, are flocks of sheep with uncannily human Roman noses, and their picturesque but, except from the windward, somewhat unapproach- able guardians. The scene is not to be taken in at a passing glance from a hired carriage, but those who frequent the links at Acqua Santa (the name is from a min- eral spring near by which once had a considerable reputation for its curative properties) grow to know and under- stand it, and even the most irascible golfer, I think, finds himself insensibly mellowed by its influence. Remove the aqueducts and Csecilia Metella's tomb, the clubhouse and the red flags from the greens, and it is much the same scene that Numa Pompilius looked on when he made his way to the clump of oak trees, not a quarter of a mile from the links, now called the Bosco Sacro, to seek counsel or comfort from the nymph Egeria. It is not surprising to learn from Plutarch that he loved to pass his time "wandering about alone in the sacred groves and lawns," and per- haps, like the irascible golfer, he was assisted by the charm of his surround- ings to the exercise of "patience, disci- pline, and philosophy" (the ideal golf- ing temperament), which, we are told, were the means by which he still fur- ther subdued "a mind naturally dispos- ed to virtue." S. W. Poetry THE WHITE SLAVE. "Sincerely seeking to make the great Idea of universal peace triumph." — Nicholas II, August 24, 1898. With her mock-marriage still the heaven rings: The holy hope, the spousal flush she bore, The White Czar's kiss, the acquiescent Kings, And that bland hypocritic smile they wore While unplumbed knaves and cynic un- derlings To Croesus sold her privily behind the. door. Dragged in the ruined wake of war aghast, Mid drums and trumpets smothering her cries, Her wooed, unwedded, stricken life is passed; By corpses in the cold moonlight she lies; With all her soul abhors her lot is cast: I marvel how she keeps the love-light in her eyes. What profit tears? What profit count- less hands Held up in prayer? Or hearts that for her ache? Is not her sale-price known through all the lands? What others traffic for shall we not take? The White Slave of the Nations there she stands And waits — till we betray her for our honor's sake. Stuaet P. Sherman. Some Modern Painters PERSONAL NOTES IN TWO CHAP- TERS. By SIR HENRY LUCY. CHAPTER I— A PRIVATE ACADEMY BANQ1 EI —HORSLEY — SIR FREDERICK LEIGUTON — FRANK UOLL — HERKOMER. For some years previous to his death, Sir Henry Tate, the munificent donor of the picture gallery that will perpetuate his name, was little seen in London. He took his rest in his mansion at Streat- ham Common, with its far-reaching gar- den and its long glass corridor, filled with hothouse plants leading to his be- loved picture storehouse. He, neverthe- less, almost up to the last, made a point of coming to town for the private view of the Royal Academy, staying for the banquet, at which, for many years, he was an honored guest. His upright fig- ure, his ruddy countenance, his bright smile, and his cheery manner did not indicate the approach of the end. But he had passed the limits of four score, and was suffering from what Gladstone, talking of his own case, used to call the "incurable disease of old age." Every year, on the eve of the opening of the Royal Academy, he had his own private and peculiar Academy banquet. It is a far cry to Streatham Common, and a long drive back, more especially for those living in the painters' colony north of St. John's Wood. But the R.A.'s and the A.R.A.'s rarely missed foregathering at Sir Henry's hospitable board. On one occasion only I met Horsley at these pleasant gatherings. It was at the time when his crusade against painting from the nude or any- thing approaching that state of nature subjected him to good-natured badinage. I happened to sit at dinner between him and Boughton. Leaning across me Boughton said: "I was afraid, my dear Horsley, when I heard you were going to be on the Hanging Committee, that what I regard as my best picture of this year would be rejected." "Why?" asked Horsley, puzzled at such an apprehension. "Well, the scene is winter-time in Holland. I painted a tree in the back- ground and all its limbs are bare." With the exception of Sir William Agnew, head of the great house of pic- ture dealers, I was the only outsider habitually present at these delightful dinners. It is sad to think how many whom one used to meet there preceded their host on the journey into the si- lent land. The first to go was Frank Holl, leaving behind him in Sir Henry's gallery some of his earliest work, now the property of the nation. Then Lord Leighton, better known as Sir Freder-
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May 28, 1914] The Nation 629 ick, and Sir John Millais dying in the same year, and Stacy Marks, who sur- vived his old friend Leighton not quite two years. All these artists found their earlier selves reflected in work hanging on the walls of the picture gallery built in the garden at Streatham. Dinner over, the company assembled in the gallery for a smoke. To me nothing was more in- teresting than to see men like Millais, Leighton, Alma Tadema, Orchardson, Luke Fildes, Frank Dicksee, and Briton Riviere sitting contemplative before pic- tures painted at a time when they were still struggling into assured position. In the days of its fulness there was no private gallery containing so many mas- terpieces of modern British art as Sir Henry Tate's. His treasures are now on view in the Picture Palace on the Embankment with which he endowed the nation. What it must have cost him to strip his home walls of familiar and cherished treasures he only knew. But he made the sacrifice, as he did all things, cheerily. For the first time for many years the Academy banquet of 1894 lacked the grace of the presidency of Sir Freder- ick Leighton. Stricken by a fell dis- ease, he went off to Algiers, there to seek the absolute rest and quiet which the doctors peremptorily prescribed. A short time before he left I met him in Pall Mall, and was shocked at the al- tered appearance wrought in a brief in- terval. Up to within the last twelve months there was a breezy summer-day look about him, refreshing in the dusty world of London. His fresh-colored com- plexion, with the flowing necktie whose equally bright tint artistically contrast- ed whilst harmonizing, his bright eye, his brisk walk, his cheery talk, seemed to promise vigorous old age. He was not at this time sixty-five, as the al- manac reckons. But the previous twelve months added as many years to his life. Angina pectoris was the dread disease that clutched him at an age when he might have reckoned upon enjoying some years of further opportunity of work. Sir Frederick possibly plumed himself more on his banquet speeches than on any other section of his Acade- my work. Year after year for seventeen years he was obliged to propose the same round of toasts, no slight task for an orator even of Gladstone's versatility and resource. It is interesting to recall the fact that at the outset when there was talk of the imminence of a vacancy in the presiden- tial chair of the Academy, the name of Sir Frederick's actual successor was not mentioned. It appeared reasonable that Sir John Millais, who filled the chair at the Academy banquet In the rare absence of the president, might expect to be nominated permanently to occupy it. But Sir John was himself getting stiff in harness, and the prevailing idea among painters pointed to the selection of a younger man. The favorite was Val Prinsep, who, apart from his position in the art world, had some special quali- fications for the post. He was rich, well connected, and in personal appear- ance scarcely less decorative than Sir Frederick Leighton. He had not long been a full Academician. The circum- stances attending his election were at the time regarded as significant. J. W. Waterhouse was in the running, and was by many severe critics regarded as standing on a higher level than Prin- sep. His being set aside in favor of the latter when there was a vacant chair among the R.A.'s was regarded as part of an organized movement for bringing Prinsep to the front as candidate for the presidency. In the late 'eighties visitors to the Royal Academy on private-view days would come across a gentleman wheel- ed round the gallery in a bath chair. It was naturally presumed that this priv- ilege was reserved for a person of high distinction. As a matter of fact, the occupant of the chair was a gentleman in the tombstone line of business, hail- ing from far-off Aberdeen. He obtained this exceptional privilege of admission to the Academy as he won another and rarer possession, by sheer persistency. If he wanted a thing he asked for it, and kept on asking till he got it. The importunate widow was, by comparison, an unenterprising person of retiring manner. The worthy tombstone dealer's great- est triumph through a long and indus- trious life was the acquisition of a unique picture gallery. His idea was obviously founded on the Uffizi Gallery of Florence. Aberdeen isn't Florence, nor was Mr. Macdonald's modest mansion a gallery of world-wide renown. But following the line adopted by the directors of the Uffizi Gallery, he met with amazing success. He wrote to an artist offering for his portrait done with his own hand some small sum, varying, I believe, from £15 to £25, according as the work would be in oils or black and white. He ad- mitted the sum was inadequate, but he explained that he was forming the gal- lery with intent to bequeath it to Aber- deen. He rarely met with refusal, and when he died his collection was as val- uable as it was rare. He did not leave it to Aberdeen, but to his wife, who, upon her death, faithfully passed it on to the city. The last picture Frank Holl had in hand when death interrupted his work was a portrait of John Walter, of the Times. He had finished the head, mak- ing a striking likeness, but the rest of the canvas was a blank. It had been ar- ranged that the painter was to receive £600 for his work, but as it was not completed the contract fell through. Sir William Agnew, acting in the interests of Holl's family, took the matter in hand, and brought it to a happy con- clusion. At his suggestion Herkomer undertook to finish the picture. Mr. Wal- ter gave him a sitting for the hands and figure, and Herkomer filled in the canvas, which thus, in these rare cir- cumstances, embodies the work of two masters of their craft. Mr. Walter cheerfully paid £600, and Herkomer re- fusing to take a penny for his work, the whole of the sum went to Mrs. Holl. The picture is now in the possession of the chairman of the Times proprietorship, grandson of the subject. I saw Frank Holl only a few weeks before his death at his studio near Swiss Cottage. He was looking a lit- tle languid and over-tired, but spoke bravely of the amount of work he had done and had undertaken to do. Nine- teen portraits, he told me, he had paint- ed in the year. I suppose he was earn- ing more than any other living Eng- lish artist. He was a silent man as a rule, never a good talker, but, like every great painter, observant. While paint- ing his portrait of Gladstone he was much impressed by the magnitude of his head and by the pride he took in the size of his hat. He told me that Mr. G. made him feel his bumps, and pointed out how much more developed they were on the left side than the right. Like other great painters, he seemed an imperfect judge of his own work. I don't think he at all appreciated the merits of his portrait of Lord Spencer. He much preferred Sir Richard Web- ster's (now Lord Alverstone), which certainly is not among his successes. His house, called "The Three Gables," was one of the handsomest in that street of palaces, Fitzjohn's Avenue. It stood next door but one to Pettie's. I don't know how much it cost to build, but it is no secret that Holl paid the pur- chase money out of a single year's earn- ings, and houses of Norman Shaw ar- chitecture in Fitzjohn's Avenue are not cheap. In his early days, when he was a painter in Camden Town, he certainly had to battle with poverty, and the sad- ness of his first canvases was due to personal surroundings. Herkomer was a marvellous com- pound of vitality, genius, and variety. Master of the brush, he with equal suc- cess etched, engraved, and worked in metal. If he had not been a painter, he would have been a musician or an actor. Passion for the last profession assailed him midway in his career, and, as was usual with a new idea, took possession of him. In its pursuit he made a sacri- fice from which most men would shrink. For years he was known in society and in the studios as the possessor of shape- ly whiskers, beard, aad moustache. At a private view of the Academy some
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g;*o T li e N" a t i o 11 {Vol. 98, No. 2552 time m the early 'nineties I was looking at a picture when a man came up, shook hands with impressive friendliness, and Indicated some points in the canvas I had been studying. 1 turned and scan- ned the clean-shaven face without rec- ognition. There was something familiar in the voice, and as he proceeded it Hashed upon me that this was Herko- mer, like Bottom, but in different fash- ion, translated. He told me he had v, rit ten a play to be produced at his house at Bushey in which he would take the part of the principal character. As whiskers, beard, and moustache were incompatible with it, he ruthlessly sac- rificed them. Eighteen months before he died he wrote me a cheery letter on the state of his health: My Dear Lucy: It is too bad that we have met so sel- dom, but I was for years not able to go out. Now I am re-bom, with a newly made inside,* and after twenty years' constant suffering feel the perfection of health. I trust, therefore, after the holi- days, to see more of you and Lady Lucy. My wife joins me in all good greetings. Ever Yours, Hubert Von Herkomer. This reference indicates the perform- ance of a marvellous surgical operation of the kind which restored the French General Gallifet to life after fearful wounds received at Gravelotte. In anoth- er letter he told me that, like Sargent, he had resolved to give up the profitable work of portrait-painting and devote him- self to landscapes. With that object he drove about the country in his motor car sheltered from the inclemency of coming winter, and made sketches wher- ever he happed upon an attractive point of view. During my editorship of the London Daily News, Herkomer approached me with a characteristic suggestion. He proposed that he should, anonymously of course, perform the functions of art critic of the paper. For reasons I do not remember the piquant prospect was not realized. Dining with me some eight years later I reminded him of the inci- dent. He wrote on the following day: Mar. 3, '94. Dear Mr. Lucy: No, I fear I was rash when 1 suggest- ed to you the desire to criticise work of art — I do speak on art matters, and speech is my form of expression, and I always have opportunities to give vent to my feelings. Besides, signed articles would cripple my hands — speech is dif- ferent— Thank you all the same. Certainly send Mrs. Lucy's fan; after the 20lh. Yours ever, Hubert Herkomer. I had a most enjoyable evening with you. The fan alluded to was a birthday pres- ent to my wife on each blade of which some of the principal painters of the day drew an original sketch in black and ,/hite. .Books and Men MR, HOWELLS'S SHAKESPEAREAN FANTASY. Mr. Howells, attending an open-air performance of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at Cheltenham, had his atten- tion attracted by two men who sat in front of him. They were of good height, but one was bulkier than the other, and seemed of a more cheerful disposition. At the end of the scene in which Bot- tom and his men rehearse their play, the slighter of Mr. Howells's neighbors leaned towards the other, and said: "It always seemed to me that this was one of the places where you fell down." "I know it," the stout gentleman ac- knowledged. "But it always got a laugh." "From the groundlings." "From her Grace herself." "The taste of her Grace was not al- ways to be trusted. In matters of hu- mor, of fun, it was a little gross, no? A little rank?" "She certainly had a gust for the high-flavored in anecdote; but I don't know that this scene is exactly of that sort. Coom to think of it, Oi " "Coom? Oi?" the other challenged. "Come and I, Oi mane," the stout gen- tleman owned with a laugh. "I do for- get my London accent mostly, now that I've got permanently back to my War- wickshire; it's so easy; after a language a dialect is like slippers after tight shoes. . . ." •I «m a living Wonder of Burgle*! Art. It does not require a great deal of this conversation to convince Mr. How- ells, and the reader of his book, that he is in the presence of the author of "A Midsummer Night's Dream." He is in that presence whichever theory you hold about the authorship, for the other, the melancholy gentleman, turns out to be the ghost of Lord Bacon, as his com- panion of the Warwickshire dialect is the ghost of Shakespeare. The travels and adventures of the two Elizabethans with the American are de- scribed by Mr. Howells in his new, and slim, volume: "The Seen and Unseen at Stratford-on-Avon" (Harper; $1 net) — a title to which he honestly, and obvi- ously, adds the explanation, "A Fan- tasy." Together they go up to Stratford for the Shakespearean festivals, they ex- perience difficulties — especially the ghosts — in finding lodgings, they visit the sights of the town, and talk about many things. They talk about the Ba- conian theory — a delusion which nearly puts Lord Bacon into a frenzy. "Paucity of biographical material!" he roars, when Mr. Howells gently sug- gests that as a reason for the repeti- tion of unpleasant stories about Shake- speare, "let me tell you that there is comparatively a superabundance of ma- terial, as Andrew Lang shows in his ex- cellent book on 'Shakespeare, Bacon, and the Great Unknown.' " And he bangs the open page of the book in his hand. It is a copy of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, by the way. Bacon has been reading up on Virgil. He goes on about Shakespeare. "Far more is known of his life than of the lives of most other famous poets." "Shakespeare smiled at me," writes Mr. Howells, "with a shrug of helpless protest, as if he would say, 'He will do it.' " Later, Lord Bacon admits that he does not covet all of Shakespeare's fame. "I shouldn't mind having written the sonnets," he says, when their author was not by, "but the 'Venus and Adonis,' the 'Lucrece,' and some of the plays — excuse me! Honestly, would you like to have written 'Pericles, Prince of Tyre' or 'A Comedy of Errors'?" Lord Bacon delivers a considerable address on Virgil. It rather bores Shake- speare, who takes refuge in watching a gardener — they are in the garden of New Place — trying to destroy some wasps. "He watched with a scarcely conscious smile the antics of the much- carbuncled gardener who had been pour- ing hot water down the wasps' nest in his flower bed and was stiffly capering about with the kettle in his hand to avoid the pursuit of the exasperated in- sects. As he finally disappeared in the direction of the kitchen, Shakespeare burst into a shout of laughter. . . ." "May I ask," Bacon demanded, se- verely, "what is so very diverting in the suggestion I have made? We will not pursue it if you prefer not." "Oh, it isn't that," Shakespeare chok- ed out, "it's the ga-ga-gardener and the wa-wa-wasps!" "I hadn't noticed," Bacon returned, with dry offence. "You must excuse my inadvertence," and he moved towards the house. The ghost accompanies the living man to the Memorial Theatre, to the "Birth- place," and even to the church and grave. He talks most tenderly of his wife and of the son who died when a boy. In the intervals, when the two great phantoms are absent, Mr. Howells wan- ders by himself in and about Stratford, engages in a quietly amusing quest for tea, is beset by the wasps which make tea-time in England (when accompanied by jam) an hour of peril, and has other pleasant adventures. The book would have been an agreeable book even if no ghosts had come from the grave — but I am glad they did come. Edmund LiBSTBH I'kakson.
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May 28, 1914] The ]STation 631 News for Bibliophiles THE HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. I'm- several years Prof. Solon J. Buck, of the University of Illinois, has been Ing data for a comprehensive bib- ■ liy of the history of Illinois. A section of the work, in three parts, has 1 een published by the State Histori- cal Library. The first, and more inter- esting, portion is an account of the books of the earlier travellers and writ- I10 visited or described the coun- try now embraced within the limits of the State, from 1763, when the Illinois country was, by the treaty of Paris, transferred from France to Great Brit- ain, down to 1865. The earlier books of the first French explorers are reserved "iher volume covering the French In Illinois. The books of Travel and Description in the volume before us are arranged chronologically by date of writing, manu- scripts not printed until recent times bell entered under their original date, urnal of Col. George Croghan, who was sent out by the Government after the treaty of peace of 1763, is entered under 1765, though it was first printed in a magazine in 1831. It is interesting to note that the first English book con- taining an account of Illinois printed af- ter the British took possession is Major Robert Rogers's "Concise Account of North America" (London, 1765). The earliest book of real importance was Capt. Philip Pittman's "Present State of the European Settlements on the Mis- sissippi" (London, 1770) ; Pittman having been an English engineer who was in the Illinois country from 1765 to 1768. It contains a series of interesting maps. Most of the eighteenth century books in- cluded in the bibliography are general histories like Mitchell's "Present State of Great Britain aid North America" (1767); En tick's "Historical and Geograph- ical Description of the British Empire" (1770), and "The History of the British Dominions in North America" (1773) ; but there is one other important book by a captain in the British army, who spent several years in the Illinois country. This is Thomas Hutchins's "Topogra- phical Description of Virginia, Pennsyl- vania, Maryland, and North Carolina," of which two editions were" printed in 1778. A very rare pamphlet of fifteen pages, written in French, by a resident of Kas- kaskia, "Invitation Serieuse aux Habi- tants des Illinois," was printed in Phila- delphia in 1772. Only a single copy is known, but should another come into the market, it would probably prove to be the most expensive book on Illinois in print. In all, down to 1865, six hundred and sixty titles are given, generally with full transcripts and short collations, while numerous re-issues are recorded in the notes. Collectors of books on the Mis- sissippi Valley generally will find this a useful compilation of books by many Western travellers such as Pike, Ashe, Schulz, Melish, Flint, Darby, .Tamos Schoolcraft, Hall, and others who passed through Illinois, including also a large number of emigrants' guidebooks, ga- zetteers, and general works. With books it is generally the small pamphlets which are the most difficult to procure. Sabin records a work by George B. Douglas, with the title "Val- ley of the Mississippi and Customs of the Indians," published in Philadelphia in 1858, which, if ever printed, has to- tally disappeared. The book is only known from a German edition printed in Diisseldorf, probably in 1858, with the title "Das Illustrierte Mississippithal," which is itself very rare. It is a vol- ume of 431 pages, with eighty colored views, by H. Lewis, a landscape painter of St. Louis, showing cities and points of interest along the whole length of the river. It is generally entered under the name of the artist. While the book was certainly written in the English lan- guage, it is doubtful if it was ever print- ed. The second part of Professor Buck's volume describes no less than four hun- dred and fifty-nine county histories, at- lases, and local biographical collections. The third section records various is- sues of territorial and State laws of Il- linois from 1788 to 1913. The introduc- tory matter to each of the three sec- tions is interesting, and there is an elab- orate index. Correspondence COLUMBUS'S NEW CHARTER. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: In your editorial mention of the new charter of the city of Columbus, O., you say: "It is not easy to see why the principles of non-partisan election and preferential voting should not be applied to the Council as well as to the other elective officers." As to the first matter, allow me to quote from the charter itself: "The bal- lots used in all elections shall be without party marks or designations." (Sec. 201.) And again, "Candidates for the office of City Councilman shall be nominated only by a non-partisan primary election." (Sec. 202.) The charter further provides that those candidates receiving the highest number of votes at the primary are to be on the ballot at the regular election, in number not exceeding twice the num- ber of vacancies to be filled. (Sec. 205.) Whether this will secure the ablest Coun- cilmen is a question for experience to answer, but it is certainly non-partisan. It was felt by the Commission, and almost generally conceded, that to choose three or four men for Council by prefer- ential ballot would so complicate the bal- lot that it would be a veritable mathe- matical problem. Perhaps they believed that the problem of choosing five men to conduct the affairs of the city was a heavy enough burden for the electors. L. S. Paxton. ColombOS, <'.. May is. "THE RIGHT TO PUNISH." To the Editor op The Nation: Sir: In your discussion of the right attitude towards malefactors, would it subvert your conclusions if the summar- izing sentence were to read: ". . • It is necessary to hold, with clear convic- tion, without tremor or apology, that the right to protect society from the criminal rests on the solid foundation of the high- est public expediency"? "To punish" suggests to the average mind "An eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth" — in a word, revenge. Its meaning actually is, to inflict pain, to chastise, to castigate, to chasten. Is it clear, without apology or tremor, that we ever have the right, deliberately, without his consent, to inflict pain on any human being? So- ciety to exist certainly has the right to protect itself from everything that is nox- ious, harmful, or destructive; to segre- gate the contagiously diseased, the irre- sponsibly insane, and the criminal; to deprive them of their liberty until such a time, if ever, when they are no longer a menace to society. But that right does not imply the right to punish, in the old, familiar sense of the word. Without a trace of weak sentimental- ity, but out of the deepest fountains of wisdom, justice, and pity, based on ample experience, it is quite possible to contrive a prison, the counterpart of the modern hospital and insane asylum, of which the discharged prisoner shall say: "That is the best thing that ever happened to me!" Does the deliberate infliction of pain often win that reaction? S. Marshall Ilsley. Santa Barbara, Cal., May 11. [Our Information was obtained from Columbus newspapers. We are glad to have it corrected by reference to the charter. — Ed. The Nation.] "THE HONOR SYSTEM." To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: If among the various honor sys- tems of conducting examinations which have been adopted by the colleges of this country the definite article is to be ap- plied to one par excellence, it may fairly be claimed by the honor system of the University of Virginia — not only because of its seventy-odd years of successful w iking, but because it has served as a pattern for so raanv other institutions. I hope I may be pardoned, therefore, if I err when I understand Professor Firkins's article in the Nation of May 7 as intend- ed to apply to a system having the es- sential features of the one in use here. It this be the case, his misunderstanding, both of the spirit of the system and of the letter of its code, is almost complete. His misconception is shared by many college teachers who have not a first- hand acquaintance with the subj< - I believe it will be of interest to your readers to learn the essential features of the honor system of the University of Virginia. The absence of the instructor from Ine examination room is not an essential feature of the system. If Professor Fir- kins's view of it as a bargain between the faculty and the student body to abol- ish surveillance in return for a written pledge were a correct interpretation of its spirit, I fully agree that it would be
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632 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2552 "honesty by purchase"— and at too high a price. As a matter of fact, the In- structor is supposed to be present; not as a spy, but to give dignity and formal- ity to the occasion. Far from resenting lis presence, the students prefer it. Nor is the honor system primarily a method ot making honest men out of rogues. As I regard it, there are four conditions necessary for the successful working of the system: a student body made up of men with a keen sense of personal honor; a tradition of uniform working; the written pledge, and a single penalty of dismissal for infractions of the code. Let us consider these in order. In the first* place, an overwhelming majority of the student body must be personally honorable. The percentage of men who could even be tempted to cheat must be very small. The honor system makes each of these students throw the (leak of his personal honor about the fair name of the university and the class; it makes of the individual consciences of the honest men a corporate conscience, powerful in moulding public opinion and in enforcing the law of the code. Its es- sence is the soul of democratic govern- ment. It is well known that the average student prizes the rewards and honors which his fellow students bestow far more highly than the empty academic honors which emanate from faculty ap- proval. He is taught by the honor sys- tem to fear their judgments. The fac- ulty takes no part in this; if an in- structor has evidence of cheating, he lays it before the student "honor committee," which takes the matter out of his hands. The real gain to the university is not the honest examination. That is only a by- product. The gain is in the possession of a student body trained to self-govern- ment. Secondly, there must be no failures of justice. An undiscovered cheat does lit- tle harm to any but himself, but it is essential that punishment should fol- low detection as surely as night follows day. It is this tradition of uniform working which gives to the student opin- ion its assimilative character, so that it moulds the usually susceptible fresh- man spirit until it enters into its full share in the understanding and guar- dianship of the honor of the university. This feature is very hard to copy; it is what makes the adoption of the honor system rfc novo by an institution a dif- ferent matter from the adoption of a card-index system or the installation of a heating plant. Thirdly, no feature of the honor sys- tem is more misunderstood than the pledge, and I have heard criticisms sim- ilar to those of Professor Firkins from a number of college teachers. The effect of the pledge is to make the offence specific. "Cheating" is a vague term; a man may obtain or give aid in an ex- amination in various ways. It is hard lor a body of students to estimate the moral Obloquy attaching to this or that par- ticular line of conduct, and in no case should they be required to do so. The honor system is not a system of ethics. It is a code, and any breach of the code i be as Hear and definite as pos- sible. The pledge accomplishes this. The offending student can plead no ignor- ance after signing that pledge, can make no claim that he failed to understand the requirements. "I, A. B., do hereby certify upon honor that I have neither given nor received aid during the time of this examination, whether written, oral, or in print, in giving the above an- swers." Here is no room for interpre- tation— he is not supposed to interpret. Even if he gives aid unintentionally, or receives it unwillingly, he is required to state the fact, and failure to state it is a breach of honor. And not only to the offender, but to his fellow students the pledge supplies a basis of action. The requirement of the pledge makes of the honor committee, not a set of judges to interpret the law, but a jury to deter- mine the facts. The question is not, "Did A. B. do a dishonorable thing?" but "Did A. B. knowingly sign his name to a false pledge?" Honest men might differ as to the first question, but reasonable men would agree on the second. Finally, there is the single penalty. Just as the honor committee is not re- quired to interpret the law, it is not called upon to fix the sentence. The sentence is automatic and unchangeable. I hope I have succeeded in removing some of the misconceptions to which I have referred. I have tried to show that the honor system is not a device to save the faculty trouble, neither is it an ethical system holding before the stu- dents a collection of abstract principles and monitions. In its essence it is stu- dent self-government, and a government by law. Carroll Mason Sparrow. University of Virginia, May !). To the Editor of The Nation : Sir: In reply to my article on the "Hon- or System," Professor Sparrow suggests that my misunderstanding of the sys- tem now in force in Virginia is "almost complete." I regret my unfortunate condition the more because it casts a stigma of negligence upon an institution which I unite with Professor Sparrow in respecting. Some two months ago I wrote to the president of the University of Virginia, telling him that 1 had written an article on the honor system which I was unwilling to offer to the public with- out some first-hand official information as to its practical workings in his Uni- versity; I asked for printed matter, re- ports or bulletins, and begged him to add a single word of personal testimony to the effectiveness of the system in his own day. The president ignored my ap- peal to his private judgment, and con- tented himself with handing my letter to a graduate student of twenty years who shared with me in a very courteous and obliging way his personal experi- ence of the workings of the honor sys- tem. There was, it seemed, nothing documentary or official to be shared, lint let us see how far Professor Sparrow's interpretation of the system is subver- sive of my points. Me makes much of the insti presence in the room on test d Virginia. But the Instructor's departure from the room, l.olli in my article and in life itself, is merely a pictorial sym- bol, so to speak, for that renouncement of supervision in return for which the student undertakes to play the part of an honest man. While this understand- ing persists, the objection is valid, whether the instructor leaves the room or turns his back or shuts his eyes or merely shuts his mind and his mouth. Professor Sparrow lays down four con- ditions for the successful working of the system. The first two of these are "a student body made up of men with a keen sense of personal honor" and "a tradition of uniform working." These conditions restrict greatly the applica- tion of the system, and it is the ques- tion of suitability to schools in general rather than its prosperity in the parent institution that interests the public at large. The proposal to introduce the honor system into a given school dis- avows the existence of the tradition and hints pretty clearly that the standard of student honor is inadequate. In the absence of two of his indispensable con- ditions, Professor Sparrow's estimate of the probable fortunes of the honor sys- tem in these troubled institutions must be quite as lugubrious as mine. The most interesting and the most curious part of Professor Sparrow's ar- gument is the reason he assigns for the institution of the pledge. The jurisdic- tion of honor, it would seem, is univer- sally and reverently acknowledged in Virginia, but the meaning of honor is so elastic that the only way to bind the most honorable man to any particular act of virtue is to pledge him before- hand to that act. Honest men might differ as to whether A. B. did a dis- honorable thing when he gave or re- ceived aid in the examination; in other words, some honest men approve of cheating, others not, and the only way of circumventing the difficult class of honest men who endorse cheating is to pledge them at the outset not to cheat. These are logical, not actual, conse- quences: I am neither so unjust nor so stupid as to accuse our brothers in Vir- ginia— least of all the gentlemanly critic of my own views — of living up, or rather down, to the deductions from their phil- osophy. But I believe that the argu- ment in question discloses the existence of a real danger, the danger that con- centration on the merely verbal aspect of honor may diminish or confuse the sensibility to its other obligations. O. W. Firkins. University of Minnesota, May 1". "ONE OF THE GIANTS." To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: If those who go to press every week or so on the subjed or Medievalism In graduate English study have time for factBl i!,,. following, taken from the Of- luial Register of Harvard Cniversity, may be con inded to their attention. 1 1,: 1 t. ,1 primarily graduate 1 oui 1912-18, giving immediately after each thi jradui tglstration. The courses of special study arc placed bj them« selves. Romantic Poets, 84 ; Ke\ enteenth and Eighteenth Centuries, 21; Early Hng- i,; i, 1 i-ou 1 |50), i'.i; Early English Met- rlcal Romances, 19; Beovi ulf, L7; I !ai lyle, i:;, I )iama t It. till lo the ' 'losing of
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May 28, 1914J The ]STation 633 the Theatres, 12; Shakespeare, 12; Wordsworth and Coleridge, 11; Seven- teenth Century Prose, 9. Special study was pursued in Anglo-Saxon by three graduate students, in Middle English by two, in Modern English (under the direc- tion of Professors Greenough, Kittredge, and Neilson) by five, not counting the work in drama by two. Observing that Beowulf and the Early English courses fill comfortable berths between the seven- teenth and the eighteenth century course on the one hand and Carlyle on the other, should you say either that mediae- val studies are neglected or that they are cultivated at the expense of other sub- jects? The following list of doctoral thesis subjects is instructive: William God- win; Horace in English Literature from 1500 to 1800; Joseph Dennie and his Cir- cle: A Study in American Literature from 1792 to 1812; Illustrations of Chau- cer in the Life of the Fourteenth Cen- tury; Humanitarianism in the English Periodical Essay and English Poetry, 1700-1760; Dramatic Irony: Studies in its History, its Definition, and its Use Es- pecially in Shakespeare and Sophocles; Celtic Influences in the English Litera- ture of the Eighteenth Century; A His- tory of English Stage Conditions from 1S00 to 1870; English Pageantry: An Historical Outline. Note the subjects in- volving special study of the classics. And in this connection, should we not account it one of life's little ironies— not to say a piece of its general foolishness — that an accomplished classicist, whose English scholarship is based squarely upon classi- cal learning, should now be accused of casting his influence against the hu- manities? Indeed, the thing is ridiculous; and must seem so except to those who confuse the humanist on parade with the humanist of solid attainment. To such persons we can only say: Procul, O pro- cul, este profani. H. S. V. Jones. University of Illinois, May 15. SAINT-SAENS'S ESTIMATE OP GOU- NOD. To the Editor of The Nation : Sir: M. J. G. Prod'homrne, one of the best-known Parisian authorities on mu- sical matters, has recently issued two volumes of documents, nearly all here published for the first time, bearing on the life of Charles Gounod ("Gounod: Sa Vie et ses 03uvres"; Paris, Dela- grave). The work opens with a short Preface by M. Camille Saint-Saens, who gives this estimate of his fellow-com- poser: Gounod tenta de faire en France ce que Mozart avait deja effectue si heureuse- ment en Autriche, un opera tout ensem- ble vocal et instrumental, melodique et symphonique, laissant a la voix le role principal, recherchant avec soin la verite dans la declamation, cette verite, Principe fondamental de l'ancienne Ecole francaise, que l'Ecole moderne, legere, coquette, ne cherchant qu'a plaire, avait eu le tort de negliger. Quels obstacles il eut a surmonter, ceux-Ia seuls qui l'ont vu a l'ceuvre peu- vent en avoir connaissance. "Vous ne reussirez jamais," lui disait-on; "vos ceuvres ne sortlront pas d'un cercle d'ad- mirateurs intlmes." II laissait dire et marchalt dans sa voie. Les ceuvres pond6rees, discretes de Charles Gounod, si elles font hausser les epaules a nos modernes esthetes, n'ont pas pour cela demerite pres du grand public; celui-ci n'a pas cesse de se lais- ser prendre au charme de cette musique ou la saine raison s'allie si naturellement aux voluptes permises, celles qui ne bles- sent ni 1'oreille ni le gout. Est-ce a dire que les ceuvres de Gounod soient parfaites? Non. Nul n'est parfait. Mais ce qui manque k Gounod est si peu de chose! Possedant a fond l'art d'ecrire, cet art qui manquait a. Gluck et mgme a. Berlioz — deux g£nies! — il n'eut pas cette grande virtuosite de la plume dont certains maitres ont fait leur gloire, mais dont certains aussi n'ont pu se defendre d'abuser, au detriment de la clarte\ au detriment du bon sens. Dire simplement oe qu'on veut dire, le dire bien, le dire iuste, n'est-ce pas quelque chose? C'est assez, c'est exactement ce qu'il faut dans la musique d'eglise, aussi trouvera-t-on dans le Temple ce que Gounod a ecrit de plus pur et de meilleur; a certains 6gards, il est incomparable. Mais ce n'est pas la ce qui 1'eut rendu populaire; pour le grand public. Gounod, c'est "Faust," c'est "Romeo." II est bien a regretter que des scrupules, assure- ment respectables, aient empeche' les h6ritiers de Gounod de laisser repr^senter "Maitre Pierre," son ceuvre posthume; il y a la des pages exquises, apportant a sop ceuvre une note in£dite. Sa gloire peut s'en passer; ses admirateurs y auraient trouvc5 de nouveaux motifs d'ad- miration, de nouvelles raisons de cherir le maitre que ceux qui ont eu le bonheur d'entendre sa voix charmeresse. de gouter son enseignement, n'oublieront jamais. Theodore Stanton. Paris. Way 10. THE GOTHIC ROMANCE. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: Mr. Chesterton has somewhere defined a Socialist as a man who thinks an umbrella and a walking-stick are the same, because both go into an um- brella-stand. What shall we call the historians of the Gothic Romance who class Beckford's "Vathek" with Wal- pole's "Castle of Otranto," because both contain thrills? Frequently the classi- fication is made, explicitly or by impli- cation. Prof. Herford, for example, says. "The novel of terror, created in jest by Horace Walpole, had taken imposing shape in the Oriental imaginings of Beckford's 'Vathek.' " ("The Age of Wordsworth," p. 92.) Is there, as a matter of fact, any but the vaguest connection between the two, so far as either external or internal evi- dence shows? Shall we not, Indeed, clarify all our muddy discussion of the sophisticated romances written under the Gothic revival, and afterwards, If we first make even such simple distinc- tions among them as the older ro- mancers made among their writings? Ne sont que trols matieres a nul home entendant. De France, et de Bretagne, et de Rome le grant. The sophisticated romances of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, similarly, embrace matter of miracle, of chivalry, of magic, of myth, of pseudo- science. If we are to study creative im- pulse, contact with audience, and narra- tive workmanship in these romances (and little else in them Is worthy of in- terest), we need to study them in these divisions. To group together all f tales of wonder written in prose, as if they formed a school or carried on a tradition, leaves us with Chesterton's Socialist. Harry W. Hastings. Hanover, N. H., May 20. "ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMER- ICA." To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: Such marked publicity has been given to Mr. Henry Savage Landor's "Across Unknown South America," so many favorable reviews of it have been written by writers not conversant with the country discussed, and the two vol- umes are so imposing and attractive in appearance, that it seems desirable to call the attention of your readers to a review of this book written by Dr. J. C. Branner, which has just appeared in Science. Dr. Branner, who has recently become president of Stanford University, is prob- ably the foremost living authority on Brazilian geography. Any one can see by looking at Mr. Henry Savage Landor's volumes that the only part of South America which he covered in his journey that was at all "unknown" was in Brazil. As no one is better qualified to speak authoritative- ly on Brazilian exploitation than Dr. Branner, I should like to call your par- ticular attention to the following sen- tences from the review just referred to: After a few days in this "unknown" region he came out in the road leading from Rosario to Diamantino, and near the latter place took a canoe, without the necessary outfit, and descended the Ari- nos and Tapajos. Here again he seems to regard the re- gion as unknown. But the Arinos and Tapajos, in spite of their many and diffi- cult falls and rapids, have been navigated constantly for more than a hundred and fifty years. After referring to various accounts of this journey printed in the older works of travellers, Dr. Branner goes on to say: If it is too much to expect that the writer of such a book should take the trouble to acquaint himself with the old- er literature of the subject, surely it is not unreasonable to expect him to look through the indexes of the Royal Geo- graphical Society of London in order to find out whether the region he traversed was unknown. Volume thirty-two of the Journal of that society, pages 268-280, contains an account by Chandless of his trip down that river more than fifty years ago, together with his determina- tions of latitudes and longitudes. . . . Pages 181 to 230 of Volume I are de- voted to the Boror6 Indians, their cus- toms, and legends. One Is amazed at the great amount of material gathered by a person who knew nothing of the lan- guage. The length of his stay among thorn is not definitely given, but he left them before May 20 (p. 233). and as fce had entered Matto Grosso May 11. it is clear that he was with the Boror6s less than a week. . . . From a scientific point of view, such a book is not worthy of review space The cosmic and ethnologic theories propound- ed in the preface, and the evidence on almost every page of untrustworthlnoss of statement, put it quite out of the rank of books that rnn he regarded as eon- tributintr to any branch of science. It Is a great pity that so much energy and money should have been expended to such little purpose. Hiram Binoham. Yale T'ntvorslty. May 1 §
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684 T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2552 Literature MONARCHS OF THE MANCHU DYNASTY. Annals and Memoirs of the Court of Peking {from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century). By E. Back- house and J. O. P. Bland. Illustrated. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. $4 net. The authors of "China Under the Empress Dowager" laid the world under obligations by writing the life of a wo- man of the East whose appetite for pow- er was nearly equalled by her capacity for ruling; they present to us now a prologue and a sequel to their account of the "Old Buddha" in a review from contemporary sources of all the mon- archs of the dynasty. To Mr. Backhouse must be ascribed the selection and translation of the material. Mr. Bland's share in the book is apparently that of the "practiced writer" who has employ- ed his more experienced pen in the dis- cursive remarks connecting the various translations. Only those familiar with the abundance and diffuseness of the originals from which these excerpts are made can appreciate the skill that has welded them into a volume of such dra- matic interest as the one before us. To Mr. Bland are also probably due the reflections upon "the surface phenomena of Young China's political activities," echoing the opinions of his "Recent Events and Past Policies," reviewed in these columns last year. His skepti- cism as to the worth of the doctrinaire revolution of 1911 is fairly supported by its failure to transform a race atti- tude and political habits acquired by ages of experience. What he says sup- plies a proper corrective to sentimental- ists in our part of the world who have misinterpreted the signs in the recent upheaval in China and imagined a com- plete reversal in the secular operation of an antique governmental system. But while we cannot expect and ought not to desire a denial of China's inheritance on the part of her people, change of a drastic sort is necessary before she can assume her rightful place among na- tions; and such a change Young China has at least initiated. Even whilst we recognize that its shrill-voiced iconoclasm and loud beat- ing- of imported drums present but lit- tle justification for optimism, yet this, at least, must be placed to its credit, that its fervor of zeal for Western learn- ing- has been, and is, an intelligent pro- test— a conscious reaction — against the petrifaction of the Confucian system, against "the letter that killeth"; a whole- some breeze of dawn, stirring the dead darl ■ ■■■ lleys of Chim The lamp which they have light- ed can never again be extinguished; the old order must pass, giving place to the new. it. will be well for China and the troying the fetters of he past, the leaders of the people find raci and wisdom to seek once more 1 in pure vvell of moral philosophy from which the early sages drew their sweet- r.ess and their light. Those already familiar with the out- lines of Chinese history will be curious to learn if these new sources materially modify the standard accounts. Only one statement seems to call for com- ment here, mainly because the authors follow Manchu rather than Chinese au- thorities. The conventional story of the establishment of the Manchus upon the throne of Peking attributes their suc- cess to the heroic decision of Wu San- keui, that great Chinese commander preferring to invite the Manchus to the capital rather than to serve under the successful rebel Li, whose capture of Peking had driven the last Ming sov- ereign to suicide. Wu's moral great- ness at this crisis does not appear to be of quite the same sort as that ascrib- ed to him by Chinese historians. There is no question of his military genius; he must be placed high among the world's great captains, "but of his prin- ciples and patriotism," we are warned, "the less said the better. . . . His final decision, to throw in his lot with the Manchus against the rebel and vio- late his avowed allegiance to the Ming Heir Apparent, was due, not to love of his country, but to his passion for a certain singing-girl, of whom, after the fall of Peking, Li had deprived him." Upon the authority of a contemporary diary it appears that Wu first fought and defeated Li because the latter had taken the singing-girl into his harem; then, when Li in great straits sent him the girl, together with the acknowledged Ming Heir, lie agreed to an offensive and defensive alliance with the rebel commander against the common enemy, on the basis of dividing China into two empires; but upon Li's retreating toward Peking the general joined the Manchus, renouncing both his treaty and his al- legiance to the Mings. The situation was extremely critical for all parties, and it is scarcely sur- prising that the testimony should be conflicting, but the Manchus proved themselves to be superior politicians and won their success by the promptness with which they saw and seized their op- portunity. It was at this juncture that they showed their hand and gave Wu San-kwei no option but to throw in his lot with them, abandoning the Mings, or to fight against their superior forces. Wu hoped to be able to keep the Man- chus busy with pourparlers while he carried out his plans and took stock of the situation at Peking, but Prince Jul, the Manchu Regent, suspicious of his in- tentions, hurried on from Shan-hai-kwan to Chin-chou. There, hearing of Wu's 1 proclamations, he sent him an urgent message forbidding him to enter Peking in state and declaring that no Ming Emperor would be recognized. "Wu made his choice, and the Ming dynasty's chances of restoration went with it." Wu's military prowess subsequently aided the Manchus, when for seventeen years the Chinese resisted their domi- nation, but they paid dearly for it in the end. One of the few Chinese gen- erals consistently loyal to their service throughout the period of the conquest, he was rewarded with the satrapy of the two southwestern provinces, where he held royal state and maintained an army of his own. But he rebelled at last, when K'ang Hsi, in 1674, under- took to reduce his independent author- ity, and carried on a war against over- whelming odds, which for sheer cour- age and desperation was one of the most amazing adventures of modern Chinese history. He died unbeaten in the fourth year of a fierce but futile reaction against a dynasty that had already prov- ed its fitness to govern China. Wu is China's last great heroic figure. With the wars and policies of K'ang Hsi — made known long ago to Europe by the Jesuit missionaries— this volume has little to do. It is not a history, or it might be accused of offering us a dis- torted portrait of her greatest monarch. As an amplification of history it is, how- ever, both significant and thoroughly interesting. So graphic is the delinea- tion of these documents that the whole nature of the man is made plain, shift- ing from strength to silliness, from dig- nity to pettiness, until we see him at last stripped in the nakedness of truth. Such a view of an Oriental despot is rarely vouchsafed to Occidentals. He began his reign as a child under a re- gency appointed by his father, but at the end of five years, aided and abetted by a strong-minded grandmother, he dis- missed the regents, partly, we are told, through displeasure at their treatment of the Catholic fathers at the capital, and assumed the government at the age of thirteen. One of these regents, the Duke Ao Pai, was quite too powerful to be crushed off hand. While visiting the palace of his grandmother to consult her upon a safe method of dealing with the haughty Minister, K'ang Hsi found a eunuch throwing dice, and, taking them up, made a cast on his own ac- count. They fell, as it happened, "all different"— the highest possible throw in the Chinese game — upon which the old lady exclaimed, "You needn't fear him any longer!" The young Emperor was so heartened that he immediately got the Princes together to consult upon the proper punishment for the offending grandee. There is no one BO great, i! appears, as to be regardless of support. even en an Asiatic llinme. The Em peror of China has inner been sate 1111- could count upon the bad*
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May 28, 1914] Tli e 1ST a t i o n 635 the members of his family and the pal- ace officials. The authority of the old Dowager also calls for comment, here as in other incidents. No decisive step Mken in her lifetime without con- sulting her, and wisdom in the present instance seems to have been justified in her children, for by advising against Ao Pai's execution by the "lingering death" and in favor of a gracious per- mission to commit suicide, she prevent- ed a dangerous palace imeute on the part of his numerous henchmen. K'ang Hsi had thirty-five sons, twen- ty-four of whom attained to manhood. The domestic history of his long reign Is retailed here as a striking indict- ment of the results of polygamy partial- ly to "explain the failure of the East's patriarchal system as an integrating social force." The conclusion advanced Is not altogether obvious, for European history in the days of absolutism re- veals about as much discord within its dynastic houses as does Asiatic. The great Ottoman Sultans met this diffi- culty in a masterful manner by murder- ing their brothers before they could im- peril the succession by fomenting rebel- lion; polygamy cannot in their case be accused of producing a weak or incapa- ble line of rulers. Among the Man- chus, as among the Mongols who pre- ceded them in China, the decay of the family on the throne seems to have been due to the enervating influence of a culture higher than a semi-barbarous race could endure, while a continued peace deprived them of their normal oc- cupation of fighting. K'ang Hsi and Ch'ien Lung, its two great monarchs, wisely employed their warlike clans in extending the limits of empire, but when the task was accomplished by the conquest of every territory within reach of their arms, the Manchus displayed no ability in amplifying the institutions of an ancient state or in so ordering its economic life that it could profit by the commercial and industrial expansion made possible by intercourse with Eu- ropeans. While the inception of a "her- mit nation" policy, checking the normal advance of the country, cannot truthful- ly be imputed to the Manchus more than to their Chinese officials, we may see that the desire for isolation was inspir- ed in each of the two races by different motives. The Tartar was indifferent to trade and did not care to promote it; the Chinese, desiring trade intensely, feared the competition of new peoples. All this has been changed recently; but while the Chinese, abandoning his high- protection theories, is able to live and learn, the Tartar, deprived of his old vigor by two centuries of palace life, sinks helplessly into that stronger racial mass which has absorbed so many of the same masterful stock. To the disorders arising from family dissensions in the reigns of K'ang Hsi and his son was added the demoraliza- tion of government by favorites under his grandson, Ch'ien Lung. This Em- peror's Grand Secretary, Ho Shun, a Manchu guardsman raised to the high- est office in the empire, amassed by in- credible rascality a fortune roughly esti- mated at seventy million sterling, which was, of course, taken from him when the day of reckoning came at the acces- sion of Chia Ch'ing. The example of his prodigious and systematic corruption demoralized the whole official class of the empire under whom, as in every patriarchal government, the morals of the people suffered deterioration when they began to reflect the disorders of those in authority over them. So mat- ters passed from bad to worse in capi- tal and country during the whole nine- teenth century. With the ascendency of favorites at court came inevitably the return of eunuch influence, the pe- culiar curse of the Ming dynasty, and the canker which eats into the heart of all despotisms where the harem is main- tained. We know already something of this influence in the story of the Empress Dowager and her myrmidon, the eunuch Li Lien-Ying. Her succes- sor, Lung Yii, Kuang Hsu's widow, imi- tated her in establishing one Chang Yuan-Fu as head eunuch of the house- hold, and into his supple hands were gathered during the brief course of the regency powers so considerable as to make him in fact the Government of China. A story is told of this insolent parasite having a duke of the Imperial line publicly whipped by his retainers at a horse-race, and so completely did his mistress regard herself and her re- tainers above the law that no one was punished for the scandal. This occurred only a few months before the Manchu dynasty, their ill-gotten gains and their misbegotten issue, were swept from the throne. One cannot regret their fall. If this volume has a moral, it is that the Tartar clan, under which China has been so humiliated before the world, was in- corrigible, and that the first step in her regeneration necessitated their removal. Taken all together, we have in these pages a wonderful repository of the big and the little, the sublime and the stu- pid in old China. The book has a value, far transcending its interest as a series of stories and scenes, in relation to our estimate of the Chinese people and their ideas. It shows how far wrong we were a few years ago in our endeavors to in- terpret the motives of their conduct to- wards us, and to what an extent foreign speculation upon these matters was sheer guesswork. And when it came to guessing, the intuitions of some Ameri- cans, like Burlingame, who were laugh- ed at for their opinions, prove to have been nearer the truth than those of many merchants and diplomatists of other nations. CURRENT FICTION. A Child of the Orient. By Demetra Vaka (Mrs. Kenneth Brown). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. Under the thinnest disguise of fiction we have here another attractive volume of reminiscences dealing with domestic life in the Turkish capital, both Otto- man and Greek. Demetra Vaka is her- self a child of the Orient and of Greek parentage, and her narrative begins with memories of childhood. She recalls her fifth birthday when her uncle pre- sented her with a Greek flag and im- pressed it upon her that the flag stood for the highest civilization the world has known. He also reminded her of her duty to hate the Asiatic yoke and to rear sons for the great war of liber- ation. Convinced of the inferiority of Turkish civilization and of the false- ness of its Prophet, the child endeavor- ed to spread her views among her Turk- ish playmates. Nevertheless, the pas- sive quiet of the Mohammedan life won her, and to the moment of her depar- ture for America her closest friends were of the hated race. The book is rich in anecdote illustrative of the attitude of Turkey's Greek subjects to their mas- ters. Amusing are the author's own escapades of childhood, which brought her into touch with extraordinary per- sons and places. The Salamander. By Owen Johnson. In- dianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co. What Will People Say? By Rupert Hughes. New York: Harper & Bros. The meaning of a city is always writ- ten large in its women. The French understand this, and their language per- mits them a graceful expression of the correlation between Paris and the Pa- rlsienne. We have no name for New York's feminine product, nor has her existence been very fully recognized in our literature. This is the advantage that Mr. Johnson and Mr. Hughes shar- ed when it occurred to the former to write the drama of the Girl and the City, and to the latter to record afresh one of the ever-recurring fatalities of passion. In his choice of a heroine Mr. John- son was blessed with a bright idea — the idea alluringly developed in his "Foreword." The Salamander of the preface is a phenomenon we have all watched and wondered at — the inno- cent adventuress, precocious at substi- tuting the vivid enterprise of being a woman for the dull problem of self- support, who has acquired the rudi- ments of her curious art somewhere in tho obscure hinterland of the inte- rior and is drawn to New York like a moth to the flame. The degree to which she can safely make good looks servr in lieu of any other livelihood is, of course, the chief point upon which
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636 Tli e Natio 11 [Vol. 98, No. 2552 speculation centres. With some lack of discretion, it seems, Mr. Johnson has gone the full length, and represents his golden-haired Dodo as subsisting alto- gether upon the proceeds realized from the gifts of admirers (a whole host of these kept in a state of properly re- spectful subjugation), yet all untempt- ed by the powerful capitalist who wants her for his mistress, or the theatrical manager who proposes to marry and star her. A further moot point — what becomes of a Salamander? — is settled by letting an ex-inebriate (saved by her influence and possessed of a comforta- ble number of millions) marry her just in the nick of time to prevent her elope- ment with an unhappily married city magistrate. It will be seen that the, author himself has quickly put an end to all interest except that inherent in the development of an amusing absurd- ity. He recognizes the Salamander as the baffling little animal she is, sur- mises that hers is merely the brief im- punity of youth, but goes no further to- wards explaining her. In his anxiety to keep her lovable, he has reduced her to a dainty impossibility, a pretty ac- tress giving an exhibition of childish in- corrigibility in a stage picture ef New York. "What Will People Say?" is a much more vigorous pieee of work. The au- thor has seized upon the current dance craze as a mood of civil self-revela- tion. He has written with some ver- bal gesticulations that are truly extra- ordinary, not to say grotesque, yet af- ter all not inappropriate to a tale of the barbarous tango era. It is word-sling- ing, nothing less, and often of the rud- est sort, but surprisingly deft in con- veying a lively impression of New York, characteristic sights and sounds, sensa- tions of speed and danger, costly perfec- tions, ostentations, crudities, and always the smell of money in the air. His hero- ine is the cool-headed society girl who understands everything except the pas- sions latent in her own heart. A love- less marriage puts her at their mercy with no defence beyond an instinctive dread of scandal. She is the tragic ex- ponent of all this need of luxury and excitement bred by artificial conditions, very lovely in her exotic perfection, very pitiful in her helplessness before the tempest — a life lacking the beauty of any guiding principle, lived in a hurry without time to think. Wherever else the author's artistry fails him (and the plot is the oldest known to man and clumsily patched at that), the concep- tion of this character at least seems to us very fine. Not less interesting is the genuine thrill of enthusiasm with which Mr. Hughes communicates his discovery that an old cosmopolitan truism can flourish admirably in our own soil — "He only knows a city who has loved its soul in a woman." "AFRICA FOR THE AFRICANS." The Real South Africa. By Ambrose Pratt. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Mer- rill Co. $2.50 net. Whatever opinion may be held as to the general conclusions at which Mr. Pratt has arrived, there can be no doubt that he has written a book of extraordi- nary interest. In undertaking to give a picture of the "Real South Africa" he has essayed an ambitious task, and it is certain that, particularly in South Afri- ca itself, some of his conclusions will be bitterly criticised. Mr. Pratt accom- panied Mr. Andrew Fisher, the Prime Minister of Australia, when the latter visited South Afriea in 1910, "to convey to the people of the South African Union the fraternal greetings and good wishes of the people of the Common- wealth of Australia on their achieve- ment of union" (we quote from the in- troduction written by Mr. Fisher), and some ef the material included in the present volume was contributed orig- inally to the Melbourne Age. The author possesses the instinct for news of the trained journalist, and adds to an inde- fatigable industry in the acquiring of facts the gift of presenting them in an orderly and readable manner. Further- more, he has spared no pains in going to the first sources of information and his arguments are supported by liberal quotations from Government reports and statistics. On the other hand, it may be argued that it was hardly possi- ble in the course of a comparatively brief visit to gain an experience of the country sufficiently comprehensive to warrant as definite a statement of con- clusions as he gives us, and it will al- most certainly occur to these who dif- fer from him that his investigations, with however honest an intent they were undertaken, may to a eertain ex- tent have been influenced by preconceiv- ed ideas and by the sympathy with the point of view of labor that is to be looked for in an Australian. The British jingo who still considers the South African war to have been a just and holy enterprise and is fond of alluding to the new dominion as "the brightest jewel in the crown of empire," w'll find little comfortin these pages; but neither will those who used to be termed Pro-Boers. The two parties in South Af- rican politics are, in his view, playing the same game that Mr. Chesterton ac- cuses politicians in England of playing, but with a more sinister purpose. They have their petty differences and are sharply divided alorrg racial lines, these differences showing themselves princi- pally on questions of language and edu- cation, but "apart from that thoy aim at cognate goals, they profess the same ideals, and their policies are undistin- gulshahle. Both parties are essentially conservative." The business of the Dutch Nationalists is to look after the Boer farmer and to protect him from taxation, and in return for this they are willing to let the British Unionists have their way with the mines, whose inter- ests they represent. Both are banded to- gether to check the rise of the native from a position of virtual servitude. The native question is the crucial one in South Africa, and Mr. Pratt preaches from the text, "South Africa is a black man's country." The root of all the evils which afflict the land, as Mr. Pratt sees it, is in the pernicious caste sys- tem which has been substituted for slavery, and this system, while putting grievous injustice on the black, is work- ing even more insidious harm for the white population. Through it the black man has attained a practical monopoly of the unskilled labor of the country. Work that a Kaffir can do a white man must not do; that is the unwritten law of the land, and it has its consequence in an alarming spread of indigence among the white population. Those who have not been trained to skilled labor— and the enervating caste system tends to deny to most of the rising generation the opportunity of being so trained— are destined not to labor at all. Mr. Pratt sums up the situation pessimistically as follows: For the unskilled laborer, the farm hand, the moneyless agriculturist, the shop assistant, the clerk, and the pro- fessional man, South Africa has little to offer save a miserable existence and a pauper's grave. There are thousands of such people scattered all over the country seeking work and finding none; eating the bread of charity and living by crime. These are the people who, to quote from the report of a Royal Commission on ndigency, "are bound to join the ranks d" those who have already become the victims of the caste system— the poor whites." It is interesting, in this connection and in view of recent events in South Africa, to read Mr. Pratt's estimate of Tie Labor party, as he saw it, in the owly position of which at the time he ound "something infinitely pathetic": its ideals are broad-minded, progressive and democratic, without be- Ing tainted or defaced with rabid Social- istic doctrine. It aims at the establish- ment of a South African democracy; the opening up of the unskilled labor mar- ket to the whites; the destruction of caste prejudice; universal compulsory educa- tion; a standard living wage; an eight- hour day, and equality of opportunity for all. Yet, we learn, "the Dutch Nationalists ignore its existence, and the Unionists treat it as a joke." The joke recently narrowly missed being on the Unionists, and the Nationalist Government recog- nized the existence of the labor move- ment to such an extent that It put tho
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May 28, 1914] Tlie Nation 63? country under martial law and exported ten of the leaders. The black man, meanwhile, according to Mr. Pratt, is profiting by his oppor- tunities and is gradually insinuating himself more and more into the field of white labor. Two opposite solutions of the problem are offered: to repress the black man by every means, which is the method that most appeals to the aver- age South African, be he Boer or Brit- ish; or to assist the Kaffir in his ef- forts to rise by affording him increas- ing facilities for educating himself. Whichever method be adopted, the au- thor takes a gloomy view of the out- look for the white man. The South African natives are "naturally a ca- pable and gifted people," and it will be quite impossible to keep them down. They exhibit a passion for education, in marked contradistinction to the phlegmatic Boer of the veld, who op- poses education by every means in his power and even demands payment for allowing his children to attend school, and already there is a well-defined movement, centring in the Ethiopian Church, which has for its motto "Africa for the Africans." The hopes of the black people are foeussed on Basuto- land, the independent negro state, sub- ject only to the suzerainty of Great Britain, concerning the development and resources of which Mr. Pratt writes a chapter of extraordinary interest, con- taining information of a somewhat star- tling character. From here is expected to come the salvation of the race, and Mr. Pratt hardly disguises his convic- tion that the day will come when the question of the supremacy of black or white will have to be decided on the battlefield. For the Boer of the veld Mr. Pratt has little admiration. He is an anachronism, lazy, shiftless, dirty, and ignorant. His methods of farming are obsolete, and he is satisfied to produce a bare subsistence for himself and his family. The work of the farm, such as it is, is done by Kaffirs; the Boer lounges on his stoep and smokes. The veld Boer's ideals of life are sen- sual. He exists for the pleasures of the flesh. He eats hugely. He marries early. He lives in his wife's apron pocket. The woman who commands universal Boer admiration is the sturdily built, well- sexed house frau — the big feeder and big breeder. The fine physique of the race is a strik- ing illustration of Darwin's theory of the survival of the fittest: The truth is that the average Boer farm house is no nursery of weaklings. The surroundings are so filthy, insani- tary, and rough, and the Boer house- wife's ignorance of the simplest duties of motherhood is so dense, that, although many babies are born, few outlast their infancy. Child mortality on the veld is positively appalling, and were it not that the Boers are enormously prolific the race would have long since tapered towards extinction. On the other side of the picture, how- ever, is the small class of cultured Boers, of whom Mr. Pratt says: It would be impossible to discover, the wide world over, a stronger, and in every sense a more satisfactory, human type. The women are bright, intelligent, and witty. The men are little short of in- tellectual giants. Educate the average Boer, and the result is a man whose men- tality, strength of character, energy, in- itiative, and resource can compare favor- ably with the highest types of the Anglo- Saxon race. Subject to the reservations which we noted at the beginning of this review, Mr. Pratt has written a book of great value, one that should be read with careful attention by all who are inter- ested in the problems of the British empire, and one, too, that reflects in- finite credit on the school of Australian journalism. MEXICO VIEWED BY AN ENGLISH JOURNALIST. Modern Mexico. By R. J. MacHugh. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. $3.50 net. After accompanying the Servian army in the Balkan War, Mr. MacHugh was sent by the Daily Telegraph to inves- tigate Mexico. He has performed his task well, and his methodical handling of materials shows that, however brief his visit, judicious use of the best au- thorities available and the serious ef- forts of a trained and balanced writer have produced one of the most satis- factory of recent books on this subject. It is true that his work discloses no hitherto unrevealed solution of the Mex- ican problem; his style seldom rises very high, but neither does he betray the absurd ignorance of some journal- ists. He marches steadily forward; his fixed opinions, due to lack of sympathy with the American point of view, or to British prejudices, are entirely appar- ent, deceiving nobody; and he succeeds in preparing an informed report of the conditions which may be received as wholesome and sound. In introductory chapters the author outlines what is known or assumed of Mexico before the Spaniards came, and traces the transition from colonial de- pendence to independent disorder. In- dependent Mexico presents a difficult problem for summarizing. Mr. Mac- Hugh refers to such excellent sourc- es as Noll's "From Empire to Repub- lic" and Mme. Calderon de la Barca's "Life in Mexico," but his emphasis is sometimes mislaid, and insignificant points are presented when they deserve no place in so brief a review. His treat- ment of the Mexican War of 1846-48 is indeed more just than that which many American historians have accord- ed it. The discussion of Maximilian's empire is unusually able, coming from a writer evidently familiar with the history of European diplomacy and finance. He brings out the interesting point of the projected arrangement be- tween the Mexican leaders at that time and the seceding States of the Ameri- can Union. The most admirable writ- ing in the whole book is inspired by the unhappy end of Maximilian's rule. In the seventh chapter, Mr. MacHugh traces the gradual development of the present situation from conditions in the closing years of Porfirio Diaz's Presi- dency. The causes and relations here traced surpass in detail and logical se- quence most other accounts. He even mentions the recourse which President Madero had to spiritualism, and he takes into consideration many factors which have escaped the attention of oth- er writers. One must differ with him, however, in his refusal to allow the Zapata movement political significance. Agrarian troubles, which this movement represents, certainly constitute one of the most difficult and fundamental of Mexico's problems. A report on Mexico's resources — in- dustrial, mineral, and agricultural — is so glowing that it reads like a promot- er's prospectus, and yet it is all justi- fied and authoritative. British enter- prise and capital are mentioned rather often, but it is well to be reminded that there are other interests in Mexico besides ours. The development of elec- trical power from the falls at Necaxa by the Mexican Light & Power Company is a notable monument of such interest. In the concluding chapter on Mexico and the United States, Mr. MacHugh re- cords the large amount of opinion on his side in believing that "the policy of President Wilson is a mistake." He also notes the remarkable similarity be- tween the President's attitude and that of Gen. Carranza, in demanding the elimination not only of Huerta, but of his Government as well. He is plainly mistaken, however, in another assertion: One unpleasant feature of the situation as between the United States and Mex- ico— at least so far as Great Britain is concerned — is that thorp is a pnrty in the United Stat<s whose opposition to Gen. Huerta is based on the assumption that bis Government was rendered possible by the support of British interests in Mex- ico, ;md that they are bound, as a mat- policy, to oppose it. Mr. MacHugh, at the time of writing his book, feared that since the Ameri- can people are "subject to very remark- able outbursts of sentimental public opinion," if Americans were murdered
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68<S T la e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2552 in Mexico, "the United States Govern- ment would find itself face to face with a popular demand for intervention which it could not possibly refuse." The case for annexation is presented thus: From the European point of view, so far a.s the internal peace and welfare of Mexico and her people arc concerned, iii. 1 is little doubt but that United States intervention would, after a certain period, be the very best thing that could happen, especially if it were followed by the es- tablishment of something in the nature of a protectorate over the Mexican re- public, similar to that which is exercised over the republic of Cuba. The United States would then become a guarantor for the maintenance of peace and settled conditions, and whatever injury might be inilicted upon the national sentiments of Mexicans, the material prosperity of the country and her people as a whole would benefit enormously from the new order of things that would be bound to result. Yet Mr. MacHugh reminds us that the French under Napoleon III tried to sub- due Mexico with an army of 200,000 men, and he estimates that at least a quarter of a million men would have to be maintained by us in Mexico for a decade or longer, and that the cost would be incalculable. In view of the scope and detail of this work, the errors of fact and the mis- prints are comparatively few. "Licen- ciado" is often misspelled, however, as is the name of our former Minister, Mr. Poinsett. Although Sefior Lascurain enjoyed the Presidency for only twenty- six minutes, he does not deserve to have his name given as Lauriscan in one place and Laurican in another. Texas would rise in arms again at reading April 23 as the date of the battle of San Jacinto, instead of April 21, and Senator Bacon would scarcely have been pleased at the reference to him as "Sefior Bacon." Most interesting of the few genuine errors is the author's distortion of judg- ment regarding General Felix Diaz. Throughout he speaks of the General in terms of admiration. He even regards him as the possible "deus ex machina who can restore public order." Testi- mony to his character and ability is pre- sented in his record as Commissioner of Police for Mexico City. He is actu- ally credited with having been the real leader of the successful revolution against Madero. The support of Porflrio Diaz and the administrative ability of Governor Landa y Escanon were, how- ever, what maintained General Felix Diaz as Commissioner of Police, and General Mondragon far outstripped the younger man in the arts of conspiracy and revolution. The ease with which Gen. Huerta eliminated young Diaz from the situation, and the subsequent fail- ure of the latter's pretensions, seem to establish his weakness. GEN. REYES ON PANAMA. The Two Americas. By Rafael Reyes. Translated by L. Grahame. Freder- ick A. Stokes Co. $2.50. Gen. Rafael Reyes, ex-President of the Republic of Colombia, made a tour through the two Americas, in which he visited several of the larger republics. Numerous articles based on his experi- ences were published in the New York Times. Gen. Reyes speaks excellent Eng- lish himself, but was, nevertheless, for- tunate in having had his essays trans- lated from the Spanish original by Mr. Leopold Grahame, who was for many years the editor of an English journal in Buenos Ayres. These articles have now been considerably revised and put in the form of a book. Coming from an ex-President of that South American country which has been dealt with more harshly by the United States than has any other, this book is noteworthy for its moderate tone and its marked desire to increase, as far as practicable, that friendly recognition of the other na- tion's laws and usages commonly called international comity. Gen. Reyes makes some interesting animadversions on the now much-discussed Monroe Doctrine, in which, although assuming a very friendly attitude towards the United States, he says: President Monroe proclaimed the doc- trine of "America for the Americans," w hich surely implied that that eminent statesman included the Ibero-Americans as well as those of the north. The dev- otees of modern Imperialism in the United States appear to reject this view by their belief that the term "Ameri- cans" signifies only those born under the Stars and Stripes; and that they are the absolute owners of the two Americas, although, as I have already said, that spirit of mischievous exaggeration is, hap- pily, confined to very narrow limits. One wishes that these limits were so narrow as to leave no room for further misunderstanding on this subject. The portion of the book which covers some of the smaller republics that Gen. Reyes did not visit is rather dull. On the other hand, the chapters dealing with the author's own early explora- tions, and the paragraphs relating to the Panama Canal, will be found very profitable reading. Particularly strik- ing, In contrast with a certain recent Autobiography, Is Gen. Reyes's modest statement of the difficulty which he met in attempting to put down the revolu- tion in Panama in 1903: A few days later, when my Govern- ment placed me in command of a military force to reestablish order in the Isthmus, these cruisers prevented our landing, and, being then unaware of the causes of the attitude so taken up by the United States, I directed a note to the commanding of- ficer, Admiral Coghlan, requesting to be informed on the subject. The reply to that note by Admiral Coghlan simply stated that "his peremptory orders were to pie vent the disembarkation of Colom- bian troops with hostile intent within the limits of the State of Panama." . . . At that time the Colombian army consisted of 10,000 men under arms, a force more than sufficient to have suf- focated the rebellion in Panama if the Government of the United States had not prevented the embarkation at Puerto Co- lombia of the troops under my command, and at Buenaventura, in the Pacific, of others under the command of various general officers. To conclude this narrative of the cir- cumstances in which Colombia was de- prived of her sovereignty and her ter- ritory it is only necessary to add that, having prevented the Colombian Govern- ment from using the forces at its dis- posal for the suppression of the revo- lution, the United States Government, with unusual haste, within two days of the declaration of its independence, rec- ognized the republic of Panama as a sov- ereign and independent State, and four- teen days later entered into a treaty with that republic guaranteeing its indepen- dence, and providing for the construc- tion of the canal in that territory. Even to those unaccustomed to the methods adopted by the nations of the world in the recognition of newly formed States, the action of the United States in relation to the republic of Panama can leave no doubt in the minds of in- telligent persons that it was a wide de- parture from conventional custom. Rarely has an actor in a bitter politi- cal drama spoken so moderately of the deeds of his opponents. A LAND OF FASCINATION. Picturesque New Zealand. By Paul Good- ing. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. $3.50 net. We cannot be too grateful to the au- thor of this work for reminding the world that New Zealand is something more than an economic laboratory. Without minimizing in the least the importance of the colony's sociological and industrial innovations, we are glad to read that the main purpose of these chapters is to afford a panoramic view of the group of islands that form one of the outposts of the British Empire. New Zealand itself stretches a thou- sand miles along the Tasman Sea, which separates it from Australia, Its extreme breadth being only a fifth as great. Its governmental jurisdiction, however, cov- ers forty-two degrees of longitude and forty-five of latitude. Its northernmost possession, near the pearl-shell lagoon of l'cnrhyn, is only eight degrees be- low the Equator, while Its soul hern most limits, the mountainous Campbell Islands, are more than three thousand miles from Penrhyn's Shoals. The bug . ,1 land divisions of the colony are the North Island, aboul (he size of Penn- sylvania; the South [eland, approxi- mating the area of Florida; and Stew-
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May 28, 1914] Tine Nation 639 art Island, slightly more than half as large as Rhode Island. New Zealand Is largely mountainous; consequently less than half its surface is suitable for agriculture. In the South Island, the more mountainous of the two main isl- ands, elevations of from eight to ten thousand feet are common. In the North Island few of the mountains are more than four thousand feet high, and only on the loftiest of them, steaming Ruapehu, are glaciers found. Climatically, New Zealand has been likened to Italy, with which it closely corresponds in latitude. To a large ex- tent it is a rainy land, but as most of the precipitations are at night and in the early morning, parts of it have sun- shine records equal to some of the best obtained in Italy. The climate is va- ried and healthful; in the last twenty years the average annual death-rate has been less than ten per thousand, one of the lowest rates recorded anywhere. Obviously, this is a land of high des- tiny— and yet a destiny beset with dif- ficulties. In 1642 the Dutch navigator, Abel Tasman, got sight of it, only to shun it, three of his crew being mur- dered by the Maoris. One hundred and twenty-seven years later came Capt. Cook, who also sailed away after a sim- ilar disaster to one of his crew. For many years thereafter European navi- gators, terrified by these and other tales of deadly strife and often bloody feasts, feared to land on New Zealand's inhospitable coasts. In 1814 the mis- sionaries began to tame the Maoris, but white settlement did not really begin until seventy years ago. Troubles in- numerable occurred for many years, and it was not until the early nineties that anything approaching stability was reached. It would be hard to know where to be- gin or where to stop in noting the points of interest in these islands. Persons fa- miliar with the Yellowstone geysers will wonder if they compare with those of the thermal region of New Zealand. Weird caves also abound. Mr. Gooding thus describes the Glowworm Grotto: As we approached it in the darkness, for effect, we saw what looked like a roof of gems. These "gems" were the steady gleam of thousands of glowworms, shed- ding day and night a dim light suited only to goblin worlds. On this scene the guide flashed a magnesium light. The result was startling. Hanging closely together from the roof were countless tiny pen- dants resembling fine wire strands and weighted with millions of drops of moist- ure. The whole formed one glistening, gently swaying screen across the damp ceiling. These filaments were the threads of glowworms. Looking down, we saw the glittering canopy reflected in a dark expanse of water. He tells also of canons and depths matching those of the Yosemite and the Grand Canon of Arizona, and of. mountains that rival the Swiss Alps. "The German," he declares, "is proud of the castellated Rhine; the French- man's eyes sparkle at mention of the historic Seine; the Englishman grows poetical over the upper Thames; the American points to the palisaded Hud- son; and the New Zealander says, 'Be- hold the Wanganui.' " For the greater part of its length Wanganui flows through a deep gorge, with lichen-drap- ed cliffs and higher, forested slopes. It has many rapids, and in passing through these the voyager has exciting moments. In the southwestern part of the South Island lakes and sounds divide the land among themselves, and ramble irregu- larly over the country, cutting into the heart of the mountain ranges, forming islands, peninsulas, and promontories, and receiving the waters of innumera- ble streams. In this region is Milford Track, "the finest walk in the world." The tantalizing character of Mr. Good- ing's descriptions is enhanced by the ex- cellence of the numerous illustrations with which his book is enriched. CHRISTIAN FAITH IN A JAPANESE SETTING. The Faith of Japan. By T. Harada. New York: The Macmillan Co. $1.25. To insure a sane and well-balanced judgment of the Japanese personality and people it is imperative to inquire sympathetically into their religious ideals and proclivities. Hitherto the faiths of the East have been so asso- ciated with feebleness and folly as to produce in the progressive Occidental an attitude of indifference and con- tempt. But the real power shown by Japan in her national and international development during the last quarter of a century, and the growing appreciation of the tremendous latent power of China —power that must be interpreted in a spiritual way — have been changing this attitude; and the public is prepared to welcome a volume such as that of Dr. Harada. Of all the colleges founded under missionary auspices in Japan, the Doshisha of Kyoto, of which he is presi- dent, has been the most successful. It was the result of the junction of two in- tellectual currents: ardent young Samu- rai from the island of Kyushu and able Congregational missionaries from this country. The leader among these young men was Joseph Neesima, a real per- sonality, who has left his impress on the institution. It is pleasant to note that the present volume — essentially the "Lamson Lectures," delivered at Hart- ford Seminary several years ago — Is "In Memory of My Teacher and Prede- cessor, Joseph Hardy Neesima, Edu- cator, Patriot, and Christian." In the chapter on Mlchl: the Way of Humanity, the term used in translat- ing the Greek X670S of the Gospel of St. John, there is a significant para- graph. It is well known that modern Hegelianism, which has been of such aid in the reaction against materialism, has been fructified from the Orient. Dr. Harada says: As one studies the religious and ethi- cal ideas of the far East, it becomes in- creasingly evident that the Oriental mind is indeed intuitive, mystical, and poetic rather than strictly rational, scientific, and practical. . . . Certain scholars are disposed to make light of what does not submit to analysis or allow of ex- pression in scientific terms, failing thus to grasp its real, though elusive, content. Yet the unrationalised protoplasm of psy- chic life is coming to be recognized as the matrix of the greatest influences, the most far-reaching forces of soul control, exercising a power in the lives of the people far greater than that of any con- ceptions which are clearly defined and easily grasped by the intellect. None of the various faiths that have taken root in Japan, Shinto, Confucian- ism, Buddhism, has been monotheistic, insisting on what the Shorter Catechism calls in its opening statement "the chief end of man, to glorify God and enjoy Him for ever." Consequently, sin as something hateful to God and demand- ing a penalty as from a taskmaster, is alien to Japanese thought. Recogniz- ing no divine Judge, the Japanese have little dread of a coming punishment af- ter death. Pantheistic Buddhism, poly- theistic Shintoism, positivistic Confu- cianism are alike silent on this theme. Dr. Harada associates the absence of any clear perception of a personal God among Japanese with the lack of a clear perception of the personality of man himself. "It follows that they have never attained to an adequate concep- tion of the worth of the individual. Sometimes the idea of duty has been confused with the idea of submission to authority; blessedness has been iden- tified with happiness, and sin has been confused with crime. Hatred of sin and love of righteousness have been but feebly felt." Loyalty and filial piety, regarded as the two cardinal virtues by the Japa- nese, are at the heart of the teaching of Shinto and Confucianism. The seem- ing depreciation by Christianity of these virtues presents a great barrier to its reception in the Far East. Dr. Harada, in this connection, quotes the passage in St. Matthew where Christ declares that "He that loveth father and mother more than me is not worthy of me." Still less to the liking of con- servative Japanese is the more emphatic form of the saying in St. Luke, "If a man rometh to me, and hateth not his own father and mother . . . he can- not bo my disciple." The solution of the difficulty is aided by Buddhist ideals, where the principle of renunciation or self-sacrifice holds a vital place. In- deed, later on in the same chapter in
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640 T li e IN" ation [Vol. 98, No. 2552 St. Luke the saying is repeated in terms of renunciation. And the Cross, from tne standpoint of self-sacrifice, declares Dr. llarada, presents no special diffi- culty to his countrymen. "Though the cross may be a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks, it is not to the Japanese." Mr. Y. Okakura, in his recent "Life and Thought in Japan," concedes that his countrymen are revengeful. Yet Dr. Harada asserts that they have a spirit of magnanimity, which is incom- patible with revenge: and history seems to bear out his statement. The great- est of Japanese generals, low-born, "monkey-faced" Hideyoshi, was ever magnanimous to his foes. In the late war the Japanese treatment of their Russian prisoners was admirable. It is true that passionate loyalty, as in the case of the Forty-seven Ronins, often took the form of deadly revenge; but this may be regarded as the "defect of a virtue." Revenge has not been a ruling passion in the story of the people. The late Baron Kato, at one time president of the Imperial University in Tokio, grimly disliked the Christian faith and published a book entitled "The Evils of Christianity." Yet there he admits its age-long devotion to phili anthropic ministration, and its pre- eminence in this field. Dr. Harada would not, however, rest his defence of Christianity on what he terms "by- products" like these. He mentions five points where it seems to have appealed most strongly to his countrymen: a Father in heaven who completely meets their ideal; the personality of Christ Himself — pure, exalted, comprehensive; a positive, optimistic conception of life; a comparatively satisfactory world view which avoids, on the one hand, the extinction of personality, or Nirvana, taught by higher Buddhism, and, on the other hand, the physical paradise held out by popular Buddhism; and lastly, the innumerable examples Chris- tianity produces of its power to pro- duce repentance, transformation, and new life. The introductory chapter has some details regarding Shinto which will in- terest women particularly. Among the thirteen sects that it includes, there is one of recent origin which approaches a monotheistic faith and makes Amate- rasu, whose emblem is the sun, the Mother-God, whose sunny spirit per- vades the universe, giving birth to all things by her light and heat, and un- ceasingly nurturing them all. Two oth- er popular modern sects, Tenrikyo and Remmonkyo, have been established by women. It also contains an interesting account of the development of Buddhism in Japan, differing so markedly from its history elsewhere. Accepting the native gods or Kami as incarnate forms of one or other Buddha, the Indian faith was harmonized with the national conscious- ness and became secularized. But the chapter has nothing to say of the mili- tary type of Buddhist monk, which be- came a national menace in the sixteenth century. The author, who contributes the ar- ticle on God (Japanese) to Hastings's "Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics," has a wide and accurate knowledge of his subject, and furnishes ample foot- note references. It is a pity that the books mentioned, with details of place of publication, translations, and edi- tions, are not given in a bibliography at the close. Some of the poems he quotes, translations of Japanese uta, require re- vision. Twice the vulgarism "lay" for lie spoils the whole passage; and on page 120 "vice-regent" appears for vicegerent. The diction throughout, however, with a few exceptions, includ- ing an awkward use of "claim," is idio- matic and clear, and the whole is a weighty contribution to a live subject. JSfotes The forthcoming- publication of "The Great Society," by Graham Wallas, is an- nounced by the Macmillan Company. The Oxford University Press has in preparation an authorized translation, by G. McN. Rushforth, of Signor Rivoira's new book, "Architettura Mufulliana, sue Origini e suo Sviluppo." "Punch and Judy," by Edwin Pugh, will be published by the Bobbs-Merrill Com- pany on May 30. The Century Company announces for publication next month "The Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and the Catholic Revolution," by Edward M. Hulme. The same publishers are bring- ing out a one-volume edition of Shake- speare's "Principal Plays," edited with notes and introduction by J. W. Cunliffe and others. Houghton Mifflin Company will publish on June 13: "When Thoughts Will Soar," by Baroness Bertha von Suttner; "Broken Music," by Phyllis Bottome; "The Story of a Thousand-Year Pine," by Enos A. Mills. An English translation of Was- sili Kandinsky's "The Art of Spiritual Harmony" has been added to the list of Houghton Mifflin's publications announced for June 3. THE entertaining account of Thomas W. Wilby's attempt to cross Canada In an automobile from Halifax to Van- couver, contained in "A Motor Tour Through Canada" (Lane; $1.50 net), should help forward the movement for a national east-and-west road through the Dominion similar to the proposed Lin- coln Highway. The book may not in- cite others to emulate Mr. Wilby's feat at the present time, but it reveals most graphically the splendid possibilities of luch ' route. The author left Halifax in 1 , 1912, over roads reduced to the consistency of a batter pudding- as the result of weeks of rain. He drove h Truro and the beautiful Evan- g-eline country, around Minas Basin, and UP through the peninsula to the Tan- tramar Marshes on the New Brunswick border. From Moncton he followed the north shore of the Bay of Fundy to St. John, up the St. John River to Frederic- ton and Grand Falls, and on through Quebec to Riviere du Loup. The north shore of the St. Lawrence was taken from Quebec to Montreal, thence to Ot- tawa, through eastern Ontario to Toron- to by way of Kingston and the Thousand Islands, and north to Lake Simcoe and North Bay on Lake Nipissing, over un- speakable roads, and with many break- downs. AT North Bay the plucky traveller was faced with the fact that there was no road of any description to the westward. He was reluctantly compelled to ship his car by rail to Sudbury, from whence a road of sorts took him to Sault Ste. Marie. There the situation became hopeless. No road of any kind was avail- able around the north shore of Lake Su- perior. He must, therefore, take a steam- er up the Lake to Fort William, and traverse by rail the roadless country be- tween Fort William and Winnipeg. From Winnipeg it was comparatively good going over the prairie to Brandon, Mooso- mim, Regina, Moose Jaw, Lethbridge, and Macleod. Roads of very doubtful qual- ity took him through the Crow's Nest pass to British Columbia and down south to the International Boundary, where fourteen miles westward had to be ne- gotiated over the railway ties. Then came a zig-zag course up and down the beauti- ful British Columbian valleys, and final- ly down the Fraser to Vancouver. Some day it will no doubt be possible to cross the Dominion by a similar route and en- joy all the charms of the country with none of the discomforts. QUEBEC politics and the working of municipal and parliamentary in- stitutions are only slightly touched upon in Mr. Beckles Willson's book, "Quebec; The Lauren tian Province" (Stokes; $3 net). In describing Montreal he is inter- ested only in the best aspects of the city, and there is no suggestion that the city has also its slums. It is Sherbrooke Street and the St. James's Club that are emphasized. Moreover, while adequate attention is given to the iron, lumber, and wood pulp Industries, and to farming, the author quite ignores Valleyfield and Ste. Hyacinthe, where, better than in the industrial suburbs of Montreal, French-Canadians can be seen as work- ers in the textile mills. Apart from these defects, Mr. Willson's book Is one of the most comprehensive and satisfactory on the old French province that have been published in the last ten or fifteen years. His description of the place of the Catholic Church in the life of the prov- ,: , , has seldom i»'en excelled by a writ- er who was neither a French-Canadian nor a Roman Catholic, Mr. Wiil- on m not invariably In agreement with the church; but its adherenl not complain that he is unsympathetic. Similarly, the habitanl has aevei bad a iron- favorable Interpreter than Mr. Will- son. Occasionally it. would seem thai 1,1 1 admit atlon ol the characteristic* of
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May 28, 1914] The Nation 641 the French-Canadian carried him a little too far, as in his strictures on the au- thor of the "Tragedy of Quebec." This is the story, as told by Mr. Robert Sellar, who has lived for half a century in Huntingdon, of the gradual displacement at families of British stock in the East- ern Townships by French-Canadians, and of the part that the church has played in the transformation of what was two generations ago the only English-speak- ing area of rural Quebec. The chapter on the Eastern Townships is scanty; for there is no mention of the large immi- gration from Great Britain that was or- ganized by Edward Ellis — Bear Ellis, of Hudson's Bay and House of Commons fame — in the thirties of last century, at a time when in England it was deemed expedient that there should be a line of English-speaking colonists between the American border and the settlements of French-Canadians. A BRIGHTLY written manual of in- ** formation on the people, the mis- sions, the hunting and fishing, and the possibilities in commerce and exploration of a semi-Arctic land, Cuthbert Lee's "With Dr. Grenfell in Labrador" (Neale; $1.50 net) represents special knowledge gained in a year's work as volunteer aid among the "live- yeres," or white natives, the Eskimos, .the Indians, and the sailors of the coast. The author has a missionary pur- pose in what he writes; and hie account of two narrow escapes from drowning, of his clerkship in Labrador's one court (of which Dr. Grenfell is magistrate), of storms on sea and land, and of hunting adventure, together with his sense of hu- mor and color in native life, dissipates ef- fectively any conception of the country as dull and bleak. He represents the "live- yeres" — the descendants of English fish- ermen intermarrying with Eskimos — as a hardy, religious, and picturesque race, and the land as one by no means without stern natural attractions. Dr. Grenfell writes a chapter upon its economic pos- sibilities, with especial reference to his project, recently noticed in the daily press, of stocking Labrador with reindeer as a substitute for its fast-disappearing salmon and seals. Already a herd of twelve hundred of these animals is mul- tiplying in Alaska; and, with proper funds and legislative encouragement, he believes that the barren lands of the peninsula can be covered with many thousands. IF Mexico of to-day were only as charm- ing and delightful as Mexico of 1840 appears in the pages of Mme. Calderon de la Barca, there would be little need for us to worry about the future. Few American countries have given rise to volumes of travel that have, or will, be- come classics. Mexico is an exception, and the editors of Everyman's Library have done wisely in recognizing this fact, and in issuing as one of their latest num- bers that fascinating "Life in Mexico During a Residence of Two Years in that Country" (Button; 35 cents), whose first publication was largely due to the urgent recommendation of Prescott the historian. Originally published anony- mously in 1843, these letters of the Scot- tish wife of the first Spanish Minister to .Mexico achieved a deserved popularity. Even the critics received the book kindly, the Athenaeum remarking that Mexico had hitherto never been visited "by any one gifted with so keen an eye and so plea- sant a pen"; and the Edinburgh Review observing that the book has "all the nat- ural liveliness and tact and readiness of remark which are sure to distinguish the first production of a clever woman." It is, indeed, the kind of volume which one may open anywhere and dip into with perfect assurance of being entertained. IN "South America" (Macmillan; $2 net), Mr. W. H. Koebel, already fa- vorably known for his excellent books on Uruguay, Argentina, and Chili, has at- tempted to give a brief history of the continent. It is not a success, and yet there are so few books like it that until a better one is written it must be reck- oned with. There is no attempt at any analysis of the leading movements. Most readers will feel that too much space has been given to the Colonial period. There are too many names, and there is too lit- tle explanation of their significance. On the whole, the book is considerably be- Icw the standard set by the author's other works. It is one thing to be able to go into a country, analyze its present con- ditions, and give a faithful picture of prevailing tendencies, economic and po- litical; it is quite another to digest the complex and kaleidoscopic histories of a number of different republics. There is still room for a good one-volume his- tory, although the reader who has Mr. Koebel's latest work, for the early period, and Akers's "South America," for the lat- ter part of the nineteenth century, should be able to arrive at a fairly good under- standing of South American history. IN the field of travel and description, Mr. C. Reginald Enock is apparently endeavoring to emulate what the late Andrew Lang accomplished in literature and criticism. Hardly has one laid down what appears to be his annual volume when another suddenly appears. This time it is "Ecuador: Its Ancient and Mod- ern History, Topography and Natural Resources, Industries, and Social Devel- opment" (Scribner; $3 net). As an ex- cuse for his temerity the author rightly contends that there has hitherto been no comprehensive book in English dealing with this troublesome microcosm. To be sure, Whymper's highly prized "Travels in the Great Andes of the Equa- tor" will continue to be for most people a preferable means of getting the real flavor of the country. Whymper's vol- ume is, however, already difficult to pro- cure, and not at all comprehensive, so far as the republic is concerned, where- as Mr. Enock has endeavored to give a fair amount of space to history and geog- raphy, archaeology and politics, flora and fauna. This Andrew Lang of peripatetic writers has a facile pen ; he has procured some good pictures and a passable map, and he has tried to fill a real need. The demand for books about Ecuador is not so great as to make it likely that simi- lar volumes will be required in the near future. It would be ungracious to criticise too harshly the work of a compiler who so obviously depends for his information on his own explorations, his own books, and the ever-useful encyclopaedia, par- ticularly as he has taken the trouble to collect a mass of information not readily accessible. It is significant that while most of the volumes of Scribner's excel- lent South American series have working bibliographies, there is none in this case. Although Mr. Enock can make no pre- tence of being an authority on Ecuador, his latest book is better than some of his earlier productions. THE popular edition of Sir Ernest Shackleton's splendid account of his farthest south, "The Heart of the Ant- arctic" (Philadelphia: Lippincott; $1.50 net), calls for no special review, as it is merely a cheaper reprint of the au- thor's earlier, more comprehensive work. The scientific results are omitted, the narrative including all matters of gen- eral public interest. The conventional result of a modern trip of exploration is a twelve-dollar, two-volume publica- tion, which is beyond the purse of most persons; so that a less expensive reprint such as the present one is a real boon. Many of the excellent photographs of the other edition are scattered through the text. BRITISH self-complacency amusingly crops out in Anne Warwick's "The Meccas of the World" (New York: John Lane Co.; $2 net). Of course, "the world" means Europe and a very small part of America. Moreover, it includes only the parts of Europe the author happens to have been enough interested in to visit — not Berlin or Munich or Athens or Flor- ence or Rome, but Paris, Madrid, Vienna, and London. On turning the pages you discover that these oddly chosen cities are not meccas at all — they are a dramat- ic entertainment, in which, for example, Vienna is the children's performance and Madrid the broken-down actor. Under such varied and disconcerting figures does the writer present sketches and criti- cisms of the peoples she has eyed askance, of their manners and amuse- ments, of their morals and women. In her imperfect sympathies she finds some pleasure in the frank love-making of the Parisians, looks indulgently on the child- like gayety of the Viennese, but is in- 1 to frown on the traditional pride of the Spaniard. Of the two latter she seems to have taken more than fleeting glimpses, but in the United States she becomes rather supercilious. In New York, crude, vulgar, ugly New York, she cavils vigorously even at our providing for comfort and convenience, at our de- mand for efficiency, and also at our op- era. The further one reads the more convinced one becomes that the reason why England is perfect is that no other pt Spain has such respectful servants, and even in Spain they are apt to be suspicious. Yes, it must have been the domestics that inspired her to compose this unwillingly insular book. NOT a few travellers in Italy would gladly acknowledge their indebted- ness to the pleasant companionship of Mr. ton R. Williams, jr.'s, "Hill Towns of Italy" and "Plain Towns of Italy." Mr. Williams has now completed his trilogy with "Lombard Towns of Italy" (Dodd,
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642 The Natio n [Vol. 98, No. 2552 Mead; $1.75 net), which does for the dis- trict of Lombardy what the previous vol- umes have done for t lie cities of the Ap- penines and for Venetta. Those who, like the writer of this note, confess them- selves held by the spell of that flat, fer- tile country, intersected with great ea- vone, dust-laden in the burning heat of summer, snow-covered in winter, the architecture of whose cities reflects the stern, independent genius of its people, will acknowledge and accept Mr. Wil- liams's apology for seeming to rank this district as only "third in interest and fascination," and will agree with him that "there can be no real rank amongst those three most alluring provinces." In an admirable preface, the author summarizes so much of the general history of Lom- bardy as is indispensable to an intelligent interpretation of its art. A commend- ably clear map is in its right place, at the beginning of the book (facing the first page of Chapter I), and not at the end. As a matter of make-up, this map would be even more useful were it extended from a blank page, so that it might be consulted readily, without the necessity of turning back to it. All the cities of Lombardy are included in the volume with the exception of Milan, which, as the author explains, "would require a volume in itself," and of Como, which is omitted for the obvious reason that, as it is situated in a mountainous district, it does not properly belong to Lombardy. Mr. Williams follows the general method which he has found successful in his pre- vious volumes, prefacing his description of each city with an historical outline, and then giving an account of his own wanderings through the place, supple- mented by quotations from other writers and by references to the authorities. Some of the descriptive chapters are more like- ly to prove of practical value to the tour- ist than to sustain the interest of the general reader, but it is almost inevitable that a narrative of this kind should in places become somewhat pedestrian, and as a companion of a journey to supple- ment the severely businesslike Baedeker, this book can be cordially recommended. The index, so far as we have tested it, is full and accurate. THE reader of "Siciliana," sketches of Naples and Sicily by Ferdinand Gre- gorovius (London: G. Bell & Sons; $1.60 net), will wonder why such delightful and informing essays have waited sixty years for a transla- tor. Most of the material comes from the author's "Wanderjahre in Italien," published in 1853, though the con- cluding chapter, on Segesta, Selinus, and Mount Eryx, is from the "Kleine Schrif- ten," which appeared in 1888. Nearly half the volume deals with Naples and the re- gions round about. The treatment is both historical and descriptive, and the de- scription loses nothing in interest from the fact that so much of it applies to a Naples that has been swept out of exis- tence by philanthropic and sanitary mea- sures which can be commended more heartily for original good intentions than for intelligent execution and satisfactory results. His remarks on life in Santa Lucia, within the narrow limits of which tie spent six weeks, should be read in connection with Matilde Serao's "II Pel- legrino Appassionato," which voices in [in form of an excellent short story its author's feeling that the risanamento which followed the cholera epidemics of the eighties attained its maximum in the destruction of the charm of the old Na- ples and its minimum in enhancement of the welfare of the new. ANEW historical guide to Geneva, "La Geneve des Genevois," by Professor Doumerque, the author of the well-known biography of Calvin, has permanent value, and will be of especial interest to many of those who this summer attend the Geneva centenary, and Fete de la Reformation. WE have received Baedeker's "Rus- sia" ($5.40), "Southern France" (sixth edition, $2.40), and "Egypt" (seventh edition, $4.50). The "Russia," the first edition of this guidebook to be published in English, includes also Tehe- ran, Port Arthur, and Peking. The vol- ume is prepared with the same care for accuracy which habitually marks the Baedeker handbooks. In the introduction of sixty-two pages, besides special in- formation of a practical kind, are given excellent short sketches of the geographi- cal and ethnological history, and of the political, economic, and social history of Russia, as well as chapters on Govern- ment and Administration and on the Rus- sian Church. The book is accompanied by forty maps and seventy-eight plans. The "Southern France" and the "Egypt" are enlarged from the previous editions, the most noticeable additions being in the number of maps and plans. AS the sub-title informs us, "A Pepys of Mogul India" (Dutton; $3.50 net), translated by William Irvine and abridg- ed by Margaret L. Irvine, is an edition of the "Storia do Mogor" of Niccolao Ma- nucci, who ran away from home in Ven- ice at the age of fourteen and passed a life of adventure in India from 1653 to 1708 (1717?). He found employment under Shah Jahan's son Dara, till the lat- ter died, when he took other service and eventually, "turning himself into a phy- sician," obtained a position at court. Here, as elsewhere, regular employment soon began to fret his vivacious spirit and he escaped to Goa, where he was knighted for diplomatic success with the Mahrat- tas. Later he went to Madras, where he married and became a theologian, whose interest in the disputes between Capu- chins and Jesuits succeeds at last in ex- tinguishing the reader's interest in Ma- nned himself. For this reason the ed- itors have cut down the four volumes of the "Storia," by omitting theology and other tediosity, to one handy volume of three hundred pages, which has not a dill page in it. It is a delightful story id a scrupulous adventurer, whose piety and dare-devilry combine to make fascinat- ing his personal experiences, as his high position and the stirring times he lived in make his record of great historical value. He is in constant danger of his life and is robbed frequently, but with equanimity. He helps to save a woman limn committing suttee; he sees another hap into a pit of (lame instead of as- cending a pyre; he amuses himself with Btartlng a panic among the Emperor's elephants, etc., etc. These are chance items in a notable record. But why should "our Manuchy" be called a Pepys? He had few of Pepys's characteristics. THE death was announced on May 19, in London, of William Aldis Wright, vice-master of Trinity College, Cam- from 18S8-1012, and author of "The Bible Word Book" and works on Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, and Edward Fitzgerald, and a commentary on the Book of Job, from a Hebrew manuscript. Mr. Wright was editor of the Cambridge Shakespeare, and was a contributor to Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, 1860- 1803. He was also secretary to the Old Testament Revision Committee, 1870- 1885, and joint editor of the Journal of Philology from its commencement in 1868. RUDOLF TOMBO, JR., who died on May 21, was associate professor of Germanic languages and literature, and director of the Deutsches Haus at Co- lumbia University, and secretary of the Germanistic Society of America. Dr. Tombo graduated from the College of the City of New York in 1895, and later studied at Columbia, receiving the degree of master of arts in 1898, and of doctor of philosophy in 1901. In 1902 he was appointed to the position he held at his death, and at times he was also registrar of the University, and secretary of the Alumni Association, and editor of the Columbian Quarterly. He was also one of the editors of the Germanistic Society Quarterly. NOTES FROM ABROAD. THE secretary of the American circle of the Lyceum Club, Mrs. John Hartness, is advocating in the English press the erection of an American church in London as a permanent me- morial of the centenary of peace be- tween England and the United States. The building is to cost about $1,250,000. American churches, it is argued, have been successful in Paris and Berlin; why not, then, in London? The projector seems to overlook the difference that is made by the fact that in Continental cities the local churches do not provide services in the English language. The question of establishing in London a so- cial centre for American residents and visitors — which forms part of Mrs. 1-Iartness's scheme — is quite another matter. MR. BALFOUR'S English Association address on the comparative value of prose and verse as the vehicle of didactic argument has been widely com- mented on in the London press. The Times points his moral by urging the Association to help to enlarge the com- mon conception of literature, which ex- cludes great preachers and philosophical writers from Ihc circle to which pocls and essayists are admitted, "It Is per- plexing to think of the comparative tiegled of Jeremy Taylor and South, and many others who might he mentioned, and the unending care ami reverence With which BOBSUel and Massillnn and Bourdaloue arc studied in France." There ai e many preachers "who are 1 Ich in golden sentences, though their the-
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May 28, 1 9 14] T la e 1ST a t i o n 643 ology may be obsolete or dubious" and philosophical writers "who, when not busy with the technique of their sys- merit to be read as much as the (lassies of the age of Louis XIV." Till': same discussion has induced the editor of the Westminster Go to give his readers a peep inside his own una. He finds on his table, he says, every morning a pile of manuscripts in verse and prose. The verse contribu- te positively more numerous than the prose, and their level of accomplish- ment is on the whole higher. It is ap- tly more difficult for the majority le contributors, to produce a good prose article than to turn out a quite iplished set of verses. While really poetry remains as rare as ever, the power of rhyming, of writing to measure, of managing the sonnet form Made form without catastrophe, seems constantly on the increase. REFERENCE has already been made in the Nation to the discoveries and restorations in and around the Lausanne cathedral which have given that town an additional interest for the antiquary. The municipality has granted to the Mus6e du Vieux Lausanne the building with the square tower or dungeon near the old Episcopal palace, which is being reopened and restored by M. Otto Schmid, who ac- complished such good results at Chillon. The main part of the building is of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but it has been much concealed and disfigured by subsequent patchwork. Prior to the work of restoration, considerable excava- tions must be made. These have already revealed some interesting details as to the construction of the building, a part of which probably belongs to a much earlier date than the superstructure. THE famous manor of Steen, near Vil- voorden in Belgium, once the resi- dence of Rubens and his beautiful wife, Helene Fourment, was offered for sale the other day by its owner. The house as it stands is still the same that the artist inhabited; and in the country around, several views can be recognized by the amateur of art who is familiar with Rubens's landscapes. In the house the old massive table is still to be seen at which the painter used to work. Even a copy of the printed notice announcing the sale at which Rubens, in 1635, pur- chased the estate, is also extant. Senator de Becker-Remy, of Louvain, into whose possession the castle has passed, is a well-known lover of art, who will doubt- less take pride in preserving this won- derful record of a famous period in the history of Belgian painting. ANOTHER no less celebrated treasure of the Belgian nation, the Museum Plantijn-Moretus, at Antwerp, is to lose its director, Mr. Max Rooses, the well- known essayist and art critic. Mr. Rooses has completed his seventy-fifth year, and he feels that, at his age, he should cede his place to a younger man. American admirers of the Flemish school of art will remember his publications dealing with Rubens and the Antwerp painters. Since 1876 he has been in charge of the Museum Plantijn-Moretus, which has at- tained its world-wide renown, thanks largely to his devoted activity. Science PREVAILING CONCEPTIONS OF LOGIC. Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical nces. Vol. I: Logic. By Arnold Ruge, Wilhelm Windelband, Josiah Royce, Louis Couturat, Benedetto Croce, Federigo Enriques, and Nicolaj Losskij. Translated by B. Ethel Meyer. New York: The Macmillan Co. $2 net. The purpose of this encyclopaedia, as vaguely explained by the German edi- tor, Dr. Ruge, is to set forth the sys- tematic unity of the philosophical sci- ences, after the fashion of the "Ency- clopadie" of Hegel; only not, of course, the unity of a personal system, but the unity of tendency among philosophical thinkers; "unity with freedom," as ex- plained by the English editor, Sir Henry Jones. The unity seems to lie mainly in the fact that Royce, Couturat, and Enriques are all more or less interested in the symbolic logic; or, as Couturat prefers to call it, the algorithmic logic, or logistic. The freedom is represented by Croce, who likens the logisticians to peddlers crying up "specious and glit- tering wares" which no one wants. In- deed, what the volume chiefly teaches us is the variety, contrariety, if not the mutual irrelevance, of the prevailing conceptions of logic. According to Royce, logic is the theory of rational order. According to Croce, it is the process of history become self- conscious; the philosophy of philoso- phy; the finally critical process of all critical thought, for which poetry and ordinary experience supply the mate- rial. But more than his brief article is needed to make his Hegelian pragma- tism intelligible. Windelband presents a thoroughly Kantian scheme of logic, but he again is too condensed for one who is not at home with Kant, though full of suggestiveness for the student of philosophy; while the article by En- riques, in which logic is identified with scientific method, is so summary as to seem superficial. Losskij strikes an im- portant note in contending that the foun- dation of all logic is the principle of sufficient ground. How far this agrees with Windelband's recognition of the "principle of consequence," how far Royce rejects the principle of suffi- cient ground in calling it inadequate, is left for the reader to say. The truth is that logic, which, after many centuries of slumber, is only late- ly awake, and still rubbing its eyes, is a poor subject for the exhibition of unity. What the present volume offers is an interesting collection of personal views of distinguished writers, French, German, Russian, Italian, and Ameri- can; and, in the most satisfactory arti- cles by Royce and Couturat, an excel- lent introduction to the mysteries of the symbolic logic and to newer ideas about scientific method. Judging only from the English, we should say that the translation, a most difficult task, de- serves high praise. Couturat makes it clear to us that the symbolic logic (or logistic) is the nat- ural outcome of an attempt to remedy the defects of the Aristotelian logic of the syllogism. The syllogism deforms and, one might add, bleaches our mean- ings by reducing all their shades and complexities — their variety of terms and relations, as Couturat puts it — to rela- tions of inclusion or exclusion between classes. Thus the pregnant suggestion of Socrates that virtue is knowledge, which owes all its philosophical signifi- cance to the implication that all knowl- edge is likewise virtuous, is reduced to the insufficient and seemingly empty statement that virtue is but one of the kinds of knowledge. Logistic is to rem- edy this insufficiency, as Couturat ex- plains, by a "calculus" which will cover all kinds of terms and all kinds of rela- tions. Yet this, it might be urged in re- ply, is also the intention of the syllo- gism. But the syllogism, as we all know, is unable to handle a proposition until it is reduced to a statement of "extension," or range: all virtue is some knowledge. And it is this that rouses our suspicions. For when we discover that, for purposes of argument, "virtue is knowledge" can mean only that a little circle, named "virtue," lies within a (possibly) larger circle, named "know- ledge," we are led to wonder whether we are now talking about virtue and knowl- edge or only about circles, conveniently so named. To the reviewer it seems that suspi- cions of this character are suggested only more strongly by the algebraic formulae of logistic, if not confirmed by the explanation of the formula: — the sus- picion, namely, that logistic is, after all, only a calculus of symbols, or coun- ters. We are then justified in asking whether the symbolic logic, so far from covering a wider variety of re- lations, is not simply developing the category of extension to the crude and bitter end. To this question Cou- turat supplies no answer. Like most of the logisticians, he seems to care lit- tle about giving his science a founda- tion in the nature of thought. It Is worth noting, in passing, that his arti- cle closes with an appeal for a univer- sal language, though why he should seek to enlist the philologists is hard to say; for in a culture ruled by a perfect logis- tic we should expect the symbolic lan- guage to be sufficient for poetry and philosophy as well as for science. Royce undertakes to give the symbol- ic logic a local habitation and a respec- table name in the world of thought and being by showing that it reveals to us
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(54:4= rJ? li e N" a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2552 an "infinitely rich" realm of ideal ob- jects which is at the same time implied in all rational thinking, in the proced- ure of empirical science, if not also in the possibilities of rational conduct. The question may be asked, how, from cer- tain facts given, we may infer others; how we may know that the given facts are a "fair sample" of the whole. The principles of the uniformity of nature or of sufficient ground, which are usual- ly invoked here, Royce rejects as insuf- ficient, and holds that a certain deter- minate distribution, or order, in the con- stitution of the field studied is implied in the activity of any rational agent. Royce then uses the formulae of logistic to illustrate the principal types of or- der. From this point of view the sym- bolic logic becomes a further and more detailed extension of Kant's "deduction of the categories"; and, according to Royce, the theory of order will be a fundamental science in the philosophy of the future. Meanwhile he seeks to throw light upon the types of order by regarding them as necessary types of ra- tional action. And this seems to leave us with a pair of bitter alternatives: either our personal thought and conduct must attain to the seemingly pale im- personality of logistic, or they must abandon all claims to rationality and truth. Yet here, in the end, lies the problem of logic: to show how personal thinking may also be objectively true. Petermann's Mitteilungen for March contains a careful summary, by E. Banse, of what is known of an almost unexplored region of Africa, the Liby- an Desert and Tibesti. A study of the different seismological charts by Prof. Rudolph and Dr. Szirtes shows the geo- graphical distribution of earthquakes. All the known volcanoes, both active and extinct, are indicated on the accompany- ing maps. The military department treats of the strategic changes in Rus- sian Poland, the defences of the Gulf of Finland, and the inadequacy of the new boundaries of the Balkan States from the military and economical point of view. Among the contents of the same journal for April are an account of a journey by caravan from Mosul to Alep- po, the present condition of the Libyan Desert for exploration, and a treatise on the terminology and classification of mountains. The work of the air-ship in the exploration and service of the Ger- man colonies is also described, and, in the military department, an account is giv- en of the fortifications of the Algerian and Tunisian coast. The Geographical Journal for May opens with an account by J. Lied, director of the Siberian Company, of a voyage made last summer from Norway to the Yenisei River. Accompanying him was Dr. F. Nansen, who gives the results of his scientific observations on the ice conditions, showing the possibility of reg- ular navigation. This is essential to the development of central Siberia, and to assist it the Government has estab- lished three wireless telegraph stations on the Kara Sea, and will probably add an aeroplane sendee. It is not impossi- ble, as the Russian Consul-General in London maintained, that this region will become the granary of the world and the chief source of the timber supply. There are also accounts of journeys through central Arabia by Capt. Leach- man, and in northern Burma by the late Capt. Pritchard, and a description of Can- berra, the new capital of Australia, by G. Taylor. A valuable map of the Balkan States shows their boundaries, in accord- ance with recent treaties, and in the ac- companying text some of the frontiers are traced in detail. A congress of Spanish-American geog- raphy and history was held in Seville during April, in commemoration of the quadricentennial of the discovery of the Pacific Ocean by Vasco Nunez cie Bal- boa. An interesting and valuable col- lection of maps and documents was loaned by the Spanish Ministry of War to aid in the discussion of political, geo- graphical, and historical facts by special investigators from many countries. This first public exhibition of priceless Ameri- cana was due largely to the active in- terest taken in the celebration by King Alfonso. Sir Francis Henry Laking, M.D., phy- sician in ordinary and surgeon apoth- ecary to the King of England and the Prince of Wales, and apothecary to his Majesty's household, died in London on May 21. Sir Francis was born on Jan- uary 9, 1847. He was educated at Heidel- berg and at St. George's Hospital, Lon- don. He was a Knight Commander of the Bath and a Commander of the Legion of Honor, and was created a baronet in 1902. He also received the Grand Cross of the Crown of Italy, the Grand Cross of the Immaculate Conception, Portugal, and the Grand Cross of the Dannebrog Or- der. Paul Louis Toussaint Heroult, the sci- entist through whose research work the production of aluminum was first made commercially profitable, died recently in Paris. H. Heroult, who was of Norman stock, was born on April 10, 1863, at Thury-Harcourt, Cal- vados, France. As a boy he was educat- ed in London, later entering the Lyc<?e de Caen, Calvados, France, and his edu- cation was completed at the College Sainte Barbe and Ecole des Mines in Paris. He invented and patented the Eeroult aluminum process in April, 1886, and the following year became the tech- nical manager of the aluminum works at Neuhausen, Switzerland. In 1889 he came to the United States, and in 1890 he was made a director of the French Alum- inum Company, known as Society Elec- tro Mctallurgique Franchise. In 1899 M. Heroult invented the electric steel furnace and process, and in the appli- ance of his method he was officially con- nected with the United Slates Steel Cor- poration, and with many other companies In this and foreign countries. The re- sults of a survey which M. Heroull made of Canada's mineral deposits are em- bodied in a textbook on the sub Drama THE STAGE OF HENRI BECQUE. "TTie Vultures" and Other Plays. By Henri Becque. New York: Mitchell Kennerley. $1.50 net. There was a time, thirty or forty years ago, when the name of Henri Becque occupied a very prominent place in the list of contemporary French playwrights, but his works seem hope- lessly old-fashioned now, and it is not easy to divine the special reason which induced Mr. Edwin Bjdrkman to include these pieces in his Modern Drama se- ries. Still more difficult is it to ac- quiesce in the judgment of the transla- tor, Mr. Freeman Tilden, who, in his preface, acclaims Becque as an epoch- making revolutionary, the discoverer of the drama of the commonplace, and a pioneer for Ibsen. Admirers of the fa- mous Norwegian will not be pleased by the insinuation. Unquestionably, Becque, going to the masses for his subjects, was an innovator when compared with such writers as Augier, Feuillet, Sardou, and the younger Dumas, and was, in one sense, more of a realist than any of them. But he was essentially either a melodramatist or a farceur, and was in- ferior to his rivals in constructive skill, imagination, the composition of emo- tional climaxes, and polished dialogua He had wit, a good sense of situation, an honest indignation against public abuses, and the courage of his convic- tions, but in his illustrations he was not much nearer to the truth of nature than the romanticists themselves. This is the reason why "The Vul- tures" ("Les Corbeaux"), instead of be- ing an effective satire upon an iniqui- tous system and professional rascality, becomes a diffuse and conventional melo- drama of no particular significance. The subject — the opportunities afforded by then existing French regulations to greedy and unscrupulous practitioners to rob the widow and orphan under the cover of legal technicalities — is a good one, and it need not be doubted that, in selecting it, M. Becque was animated by sincere and philanthropic purpose. But he spoils a strong case by the extrava- gance and manifest artificiality of his premises and the complete theatricality of his personages. All the conditions of his story are prescribed, transparently, to insure a predestined issue, and would therefore be Impotent as a demonstra- tion, even if they could bo regarded as fairly typical. His lewd and usurious old financier, his grasping and scoun- drelly lawyer, his speculative architect, his dishonest tradesman, and t ho lesser vultures who batten upon the unfortu- nate Vigneron family, are one and all ancient puppets of the melodramatic. stage. Madame Vigneron ami tier daugn-
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May 28, 1914] The Nation 34,5 ters, and the fortune-hunting Madame de Saint-Genis are almost equally des- titute of originality or freshness. None of the characters, with the exception of dthfu] old nurse, convoys the im- pression of an actual living human be- ing. For their inveterate loquacity, which constantly clogs the action, the responsibility, of course, rests upon the author, who has made them the mouth- pieces of his explanations and protests; but the mixed literary quality of their discourse must be put to the credit of Mr. Tilden, who lias employed all sorts of current American colloquialisms which seem strangely inconsistent with the supposed plate and time, however Ingenious they may be as English equiv- alents of French phrases. "The Woman of Paris" ("La Pa- rlslenne"), which was vehemently de- nounced at the time of its first produc- tion as a gross libel upon the sex, is written with ;i certain cleverness and vivacity, but is no way brilliant either in form or in psychological analysis. It is a simple variation of a formula upon Which hundreds of farcical comedies have been built. The fickle wife, who deceives an abominably complacent or phenomenally stupid husband, has, in this case, two lovers. There is a do- mestic quadrangle instead of the usual triangle. The construction is arbitrary rather than plausible or ingenious, and the use of prolonged soliloquies is ex- cessive. Theatrically it is inferior, in sparkle, point, and essential veracity, to scores of pieces of a similar charac- ter, while as literature or drama it is of infinitesimal value. As for "The Mer- ry-Go-Round" ("La Navette"), described as a comedy in one act, that is an ordi- nary French farce, in which an unprin- cipled little baggage plays at fast and loose with three of her lovers at once, the first of whom she dismisses, only to take up with him again after she has failed to make satisfactory terms with either of the other two. It is a cynical trifle which skilled French comedians doubtless could make fairly amusing, but why it should be thought worthy of translation into English as a choice ex- ample of modern drama, French or oth- er, passes comprehension. In the Burlington Magazine, Mr. Wil- liam Grant Keith describes his discovery and identification of the original designs for the entire scenery of Sir William D'Avenant's "Siege of Rhodes," as well as the plan and section of the stage upon which it was mounted, when first pro- duced at Rutland House, Aldersgate Street, London, In 1656. The drawings are by John Webb, pupil of Inigo Jones, who was D'Avenant's collaborator in the production. The importance of the find lies in the fact that these drawings re- veal the staging of D'Avenant's opera (the first play produced on an English public stage mounted with movable scen- ery in a modern sense) as the hitherto missing link between the Court Theatre as developed by Inigo Jones during the reign of Charles I and the public theatre Of the Restoration; for Webb is shown to have modelled his work entirely on that of his master. The Irish Players from the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, begin their annual sea- son at the London Court Theatre on Monday, June 1, when Miss Sarah All- good rejoins the company. In addition to their regular repertory, two new plays, a one-act comedy by Lady Gregory, named "The Wrens," and a three-act piece, "The Supplanter," by an untried dramatist, J. Bernard McCarthy, will be presented. Lord Howard de Walden, who conceals many of his artistic activities under the pseudonym of "T. E. Ellis," has a scheme for providing Wales with a national thea- tre on wheels. As the Welsh, in the country towns at least, cannot go to the theatre, the theatre is to go to them. The "house" — including scenery, pit, gal- lery, pay-box, greenroom, and stage door all complete — is to be taken from one suitable pitch to another. As the Daily Citizen wittily remarks, "the Welsh na- tional theatre at any rate will be in the van of the movement." In an interview in London on his re- turn from his recent American tour — which drew receipts of over half a mil- lion dollars — Sir Johnston Forbes-Robert- son expresses his regret that nothing has come of his suggestion as to the Shake- speare Memorial National Theatre. He proposed that, instead of acquiring a fresh site and building a new theatre, the promoters of the project should pur- chase Drury Lane, "without exception the most beautiful and wonderful theatre I have ever played in." Even America, in his judgment, has no such stage for Shakespeare. Sir Johnston, who was a Royal Academy student in his boyhood, is likely to pursue painting as a hobby after his retirement. "I do not think," he says, "the colors ever become quite dry on the palette of the man who has once express- ed himself with the brush, no matter how absorbing the work set him by another Muse." The movement for a "People's Theatre Society" in England had an excellent send-off at a meeting held at Drury Lane on April 25. The condition of member- ship is to be the payment of a shilling subscription, which will entitle the sub- scriber to two reserved seats at any one performance given under the Society's auspices. The scheme is welcomed in the interest not only of the prospective audi- ences in the poorer districts of London, but also of actors and actresses, many of whom find themselves crowded out by the popularity of the picture palaces and music halls. It was a misfortune that some of the most prominent speakers at the Drury Lane meeting complicated the issue by introducing the vexed subjects of Sunday performances and restrictions on the employment of children. Some of the best friends of the new movement fear it will be seriously hampered if it is mix- ed up with other proposals on which there is a strongly marked division of opinion. Music DRAMATIC OPERA IN PARIS. ALFRED BAC'HELET'S NEW WORK— AN AT- TEMPT TO MAKE MUSIC A LIVING THING WITH THE TEXT— ANOTHER'S OPERA WITHOUT WORDS. Paris, May 16. "Scemo" is a "lyric drama" and a new piece at the Paris Opera; and it is new music. Its composer, Alfred Bache- let, carried off the Grand Prix de Rome and so has the right to three repre- sentations of one of his works at the Opera subsidized by the State which bestowed the prize on him. His piece has reached its fourth night, and, to all appearances, will go further. The simi- lar new piece of last year — "Le Sorti- lege," by Andre Gailhard— had five rep- resentations. "Scemo" has an interest independent of the musical impression on opera-goers, which has to determine its long or short life, and cannot be foreseen. The prize work of its com- poser was remarked at the time for its wonderful mastery of all that is modern in musical technic; and now he has tried to interpret a text and its dramatic action on the stage closely, completely, and by adequate music. In the old Italian opera the text was ridiculous for the most part, and, at best, was little more than an occasion for vocal flights. A like method was used in the poetry of serious tragedy, sometimes with undeserved felicity. At the end of the first scene of the third act of Metastasio's "Artaserse" the great King releases in profound secrecy his misunderstood Arbace from a prison cell. Not unaffectingly, he bids him escape. In the very nick and peril of time Arbace cannot be gone without first expressing dignified thanks. Then he risks more precious time for a few verses good enough as poetry, but of little pertinence: Water divided from the sea Bathes valley and mountain; A traveller in the river. A prisoner in the fountain; Murmuring ever and moaning Till it returns to the sea — To the sea of its birth Where its moisture arose, Whore from long wanderings It hopes to repose. 1 Thereupon "he departs," according to the author's parenthesis for stage di- rection. Such was Arbace's convention- al finale, Impressing on the public his previous solemn declaration: I hope not to find peace till the day I return to my country and friend. It pleased the audience at the Court theatre of Vienna mightily; and it
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646 T li e ]S" a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2552 pleased Sir Arthur Helps, quoting it in his "Friends in Council." After other long Intervals, historians of our own drama and opera may discover parallel instances in Maeterlinck and Debussy. To Wagner's devotee of Latin race, text comes as little more than a Vox Humana mingling with other instru- ments of nerve-swaying, soul-compelling harmonies — for he cares little to know the German legend, and the German's philosophy he does not respect. In "Scemo" the composer obviously tries to make the music one living thing with the text. Now, the text, with all its romantic violence, is a poem of literary merit. It is by Charles Mere, who wrote the text for "Les Trois Masques" of Lara — the last piece given by the un- lucky Theatre des Champs-Elysees, which has just been taken over for an American season in Paris. Here again the scene is laid in wildest Corsica, where Prosper Merimee, the author of "Car- men," also found the loves and hates of his "Colomba." "Scemo" — the Fool — is the nickname of a half-mad shepherd. Francesca, wife of the village great man and her- self daughter of the chief of the clan, loves Scemo because his eyes are so bright — remember we are in the land of the evil eye — and because he sings mys- terious songs, and doubtless for reasons of her heart which her reason does not know. The suspicious husband seeks her in the shepherd's hut and finds only Scemo, who calms him. When he is gone, Scemo brings Francesca from her hiding place and begs her with music and passion to go home. No, she will fly with him instead, over the hills and far away. Shepherds discover them and sing loud insults till the husband, who has not gone far away, hears — and that is the first act. Francesca's father, fearful of spells and devils, tries vainly to sleep amid wind and storm roaring and crashing to music. He dies, and the whole fam- ily, with Francesca's injured husband, set out for the hut of Scemo, whose eyes must have wrought the evil. Vainly he protests he has not left his hut; but the evil eye has that action at a dis- tance, which was denied by Sir Isaac Newton. The Corsican crowd gathers as for a Mississippi lynching; and they tie Scemo to a tree to burn him alive. Francesca shall light the avenging fire. They drag her, with torch in hand, be- fore the helpless Scemo. With a mighty effort, he frees an arm and with his own hands tears out the eyes which have done such evil — and this is the second act. It is Easter Eve, but the husband's house has no answer for the joyful bells. They wake Francesca from her long swoon, and she rises unremember- lng. All in white, she comes forth to the crowd, where it is singing and danc- ing. Suddenly, she cries out "Scemo!" The husband cries back in fury that the Fool is dead, burned alive. "Swear," says the wife, "and I kill myself!" The husband, with his Corsican knife in hand, leaps up the hill to the cave in the rocks where Scemo lives in blind- ness, and he hears the Fool praying for Francesca's healing in body and in heart. How can he kill him? He puts the knife into the hand of Scemo in- stead, to slay himself, the husband, whose wrongs were else without end. The Fool has the inspiration of a single mind — his living eyes have done the evil, his dead eyes shall undo it. He is led towards unbalanced Francesca, who rushes to meet him — till he turns to her his empty eye-sockets and chants musically that his heart, too, is empty from overmuch love and pain. The spell is loosed, and her love fever dies, leaving naught but great and mu- sical pity. And this is the end of the third act and the piece. To each circumstance and emotion Bachelet has written harmonies and orchestration, now violent, now full of subtle coloring. There is no secret of modern musical expression which he has not mastered; and for two years he has gone up and down Corsica, listening for local tone, striving to enter into the local soul. If critics did not block the way, it might be curious to know what an untutored Corsican would feel from this lyric drama — But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: "It's clever, but is it Art?" Along with these representations of a new composer's work, the Paris Opera, in virtue of the Russian Alliance, is giving another and broader synthesis of other arts with music. It is intro- duced by a name before which even critics stand in awe. It is the "Legend of Joseph," here first represented and personally conducted by the composer Richard Strauss. It is really an opera without words; and it is produced in the "Russian Ballet" season, only be- cause it is acted by those dancers. The composer is a German whom the Paris press persists in mixing up with Vienna and the Danube; the stage scenery is by one of the greatest decorative paint- ers in cathedrals and palaces, Sert, the Catalan Spaniard; and the costumes, which are essentials of such music, are by the not less celebrated Russian deco- rator, Leo Bakst. In this high tide or his success, the composer is said to have written "the work waited for and asked for ever since Wagner"; and in it he is sup- posed "to have found the modern for- mula of all the arts combined" — ex- cepting the vocal art. The result is "an arabesque of sixty legs and as many arms — gestures adapting themselves to the subtlest of rhythms and harmonies." The story, of course, is of the unfor- tunate Potiphar's wife; but the decora- tive art for the eye — pantomime and dance, scene painting and costumes- is Venetian of the Renaissance. A lit- tle, lithe young Russian, who acted in plays in his own country — Leonid Mi- assine — is the wordless but very active Joseph, and a very pretty one. His first dance — for it is not all acted pan- tomime, though it is certainly not bal- let, Russian or other — is "turn by turn mystic and pastoral." Kousnetzoff, who is a great prima donna in Paris opera, passes through this act without words, gowned and moving to music. Michel Fokine leads all the choregraphy and had his reward when Richard Strauss rushed down on him at the rehearsal, crying "Kolossal!" S. D. The list of operas from which the twenty offerings of the Century Opera Company for next season are to be select- ed include: "Madama Butterfly," "La Boheme," "The Jewels of the Madonna," "I Pagliacci," "Cavalleria Rusticana," "Louise," "Thais," "Faust," "The Tales of Hoffmann," "Samson and Delilah," "Romeo and Juliet," "A'ida," "Carmen," "Martha," "Hansel and Gretel," "William Tell," "La Gioconda," "Lucia di Lammer- moor," "The Barber of Seville," "Rigolet- to," "Lohengrin," "Tannhauser," "II Trov- atore," and "La Traviata," while the In- ternational Ballet will also be reproduced. The dates for the Bach festival per- formance at Bethlehem, Pa., are May 29 and 30. Dr. Wolle, who will direct the performances, is a Bach specialist, and his choir is admirably trained. At this festival the second number of the "Mass," the duet "Christ Eleison," for two so- pranos, will be sung by all of the first and second sopranos of the choir, eighty in number. The alto solos, "Qui Sedes" and "Agnus Dei," will be sung by all the altos, firsts, and seconds. The "Bene- dictus," a tenor solo, will be sung by all tho tenors. All of the basses will join in giving the two solos, "Quoniam Tu Solus Sanctus" and "Et in Spiritum." Concerning the performances of "Par- sifal" at this summer's Wagner Festival in Munich, we are informed officially that they will be conducted by Bruno Walter. The Grail Cup has been made of alabas- ter, with precious gems set in by one of tho most famous German goldsmiths (Theodor Heiden),and every other scenic detail is being attended to In the same artistic manner. Among the singe: gaged are Heinrlch Knote, Fritz Vogel strom, tho young Dresden tenor; Karl Erb, and Otto Wolf. For the role of Kundry, Frau Mottl-Fassbender, Berta m,,, , na, and Edith w ail.. i] ; Cor thai of Gurnemanz, Paul Bender; Cor the role oi Amfortas, Fritz Feinhals and Paul 1 tend it; for the EClingsor, Deslder Zftdor and Fritz Broderson. The leading pari of the chorus of the Bower gli Is will be entrust- ed to the celebrated singer, EJermlne 1 -.,,. , in. the ia\ orlte of the Berlin and M unlch ' ' 1 1 >pera The sts • m 1, miii win be In Hi" able hands of Prof, Anion FUChl.
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May 28, 1914] The Nation 64:7 A musical novel of which 200,000 copies have been sold — Ernst von Wolzogen's "Kraftmeyer" — has been issued by B. W. Huebsch in a good English translation, under the name of "Florian Mayr." In this book Liszt is vividly portrayed, to- gether with a number of his pupils and others, who subsequently became famous. A more extended notice of it will appear in our literary pages in due time. Art THE SPANISH SCHOOL. Geschichte der Spanischen Malerei. By August L. Mayer. In two volumes, with 286 Illustrations. Leipzig: Klink- hardt & Biermann. Until the appearance of Emile Ber- taux's work on Spanish art in Andr6 Michel's "Histoire de l'Art," no compre- hensive and authoritative work on the subject was available. Stirling-Maxwell's "Annals of the Artists of Spain" is a la- bor of love, but an uncritical compila- tion which, if not entirely, is at least very largely, based upon Cean Bermudez and Palomino; and Passavant's "Chris- tian Art in Spain" is little else than an appreciation. The work of Paul Lefort, a man of penetrating insight and the first serious critic of the subject, was of much importance when it appeared, but it has become antiquated and incom- plete, particularly in regard to the early schools. Within its limitations as a hand-book, Dieulafoy's recent "L'Art en Espagne et en Portugal" contains much important information regarding archi- tecture, but it treats of painting in an entirely superficial manner. The work of Bertaux constitutes a very able presentation of the subject. In regard to sculpture it is the great, one might say the sole, authority. Concern- ing painting it is sound throughout, and of the greatest interest for the study of certain schools which are the predilec- tion of the author, the Catalan and Valencian primitive schools, and also the painters of Valencia of the begin- ning of the sixteenth century, among them the Manchegans Ferrando de Llanos and Ferrando de L'Amedina. The work of Dr. August L. Mayer upon the Spanish school of painting, which has just been published in Leipzig, is the logical outcome of his previous books on Ribeira, Greco, Murillo, the Sevillan school, and of his articles in German and Spanish reviews. It is the work of a specialist who is a broad-minded man, interested in the whole field of art and having the knowledge of it which is nec- essary to give perspective, detachment, and a sense of the large relations- to the appreciation of any particular school. But the work involved much research and could only have been written by one who is thoroughly familiar with that rich mine of documents, throwing much light upon the different manifestations of the art of painting throughout the Peninsula, which are to be found scat- tered in books, and particularly in the innumerable small local reviews and pe- riodicals of Spain. The plan of the work has been to show the development of Spanish art from the tenth century to Goya, and to give a connected exposition of the art and not a series of artists' monographs. It is logically conceived on big lines. For example, unlike Bertaux, who studies the art of Spain from the standpoint of its foreign influences, Dr. Mayer starts by studying the works of art in them- selves before pointing out their rela- tions to foreign schools; a method which has the evident advantage of not dividing the schools, while that of Ber- taux complicates matters somewhat by dividing them into spheres of influence. As an introduction the author gives a general explanation of the importance of the Spanish school and of its relations to other European schools, and he shows that its character is based upon the mixture of Northern with Oriental ele- ments, and upon the peculiar, entirely racial, and most powerful, religious feel- ing. The chapter on the Catalan school of the eleventh and twelfth centuries treats of many works, hitherto little known, which are of the greatest im- portance because they are the very last evidences of the Byzantine influence in Western Europe. The chapter on that even less known Castilian school of the fifteenth century, of which virtually nothing can be seen in Madrid, brings out several artistic personalities and many typical works scattered in little places difficult of access. The tenebroso style of the Spanish school is defined and explained; and its differences from the Italian style, as well as the varied character of its manifestations in the provinces of the Castiles, of Valencia, and of Andalusia are clearly shown. Be- sides doing important pioneer work on special subjects, throughout the book the author coordinates the scattered ex- isting information. An excellent feature is the giving of comparatively little place to the few well-known artists upon whom there is an abundance of special literature, and the treating extensively of little-known men whose influence was great, such as the fifteenth-century Catalan Ferrer Bassa, and Jacomart, the master who superadded the Sienese and Giottesque elements of the early Italian Renais- sance to the influence of the Flemish primitives, and was the dominant per- sonality of the Valencian school of the fifteenth century. The author brings out clearly the intimate relation of Greco with Parmeggianino and the Bassanos, and explains how such an artist as Velasquez became a Castilian in his work; why Madrid became more and more the centre of Spanish art, and how it fell under the influence, inspir- ing at first but soon baneful, of the Venetians, of Rubens, and of Van Dyck. While scientific and discriminating, the book is not pedantic. Moreover, it has a refreshing human quality. In the chapter on Goya, for example, Dr. Mayer attempts, by a most interesting compari- son with Titian and Beethoven, to ex- plain the extraordinary change in an artist who had already passed middle life, from his first, what may be termed his rococo, style to his second, the real Goya style, so original, deeply hu- man, and superbly painter-like. It is to be hoped that a translation will make this useful and much-needed work avail- able to the English-speaking public. Spanish sculpture of the seventeenth century, despite the labors of Dieulafoy, Calvert, and Lafond, probably finds few admirers in America. It requires a reso- lute effort of detachment to put oneself into the mood of Jesuitical Romanism and the Inquisition. Yet this art is worthy of study, if only for its completely indigenous character. A young Spanish critic, Ricardo de Orueta y Duate, in his "La Vida y la Obra de Pedro de Mena y Medrano," offers much to attract both the specialist and the open-minded art lover. Pedro de Mena was born at Granada in 1628, and trained by Alonso Cano. Soon he relinquished the internationalism of Cano in favor of a drastic personal style wholly Andalusian. His most remark- able work is perhaps the forty wooden statues of saints for the choir of the Cathedral of Malaga. Many of the images are portraits of extraordinary intensity, shrewdness, or benignity. In the Virgen de Belen, in Santo Domingo, Malaga, he achieves almost a Venetian sweetness and dignity. The coloring of his statues is often very pleasing. He continued worthily the haggard St. Francis type. The most remarkable example is in the Cathedral at Toledo. Peculiarly his own is the series of Repentant Magdalens re- garding the Crucifix. The ecstatic con- centration of the Magdalen in the Con- vent of the Visitation at Madrid is justly celebrated. Poems were written in her honor. The forms are of great strength, delicacy, and beauty. These are perhaps the types that will most impress an art lover. For the rest there is much that is shocking to modern taste. Doll-like virgins to be dressed in real frocks, Dolorous Mother with real tears eternally caught on wan cheeks, sentimental martyrs. These are the un- questionable defects of an art that had great qualities of sincerity. It is all of a piece with the simplicity of Pedro's life. He owned no books, his four children be- came conventuals. He believed firmly, observed the humanity about him, and worked with a masterful hand. The re- freshing thing about an art that has its elements of pietistic overstrain is its na- tive idiom. Pedro with many of his fellow sculptors was free from the rather superficial cosmopolitanism of the ba-
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64S Tl± e 1ST a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2552 roque style. The fervor and veracity of his matter give it perfect authenticity if not high importance. Dr. Orueta has conducted his work with scholarly thor- oughness. There are a general essay, a catalogue raisonn<5 with excellent critical comments, and appendices of all accessible documents. The book is in quarto form with many illustrations, many from the author's negatives. It is published at Madrid by the Junta para Ampliation de estudias 6 investigationes cientificas. This careful work affords a favorable approach to an art just beginning to be duly ap- preciated, and gives an excellent impres- sion of the thoroughness with which the art of Spain is being studied by her younger scholars. Finance MR. MORGAN, MR. MELLEN, AND THE NEW HAVEN. The salient disclosures made by Mr. Mellen, in his testimony on the New Haven's past financing, were these: 8,000 shares of New Haven stock, worth $1,200,000, were exchanged for 24,000 shares of the Westchester Electric Road, worth in his judgment "about ten cents a pound." Under the auspices of the late Mr. J. P. Morgan, $11,000,000 was paid for the whole Westchester proper- ty, on which Mellen figured only $5,000,- 000 had been spent by its promoters; no accounting being made, and infor- mation as to why that price was paid being refused, according to Mellen, by Mr. Morgan when such information was requested. Up to date, $35,000,000 of New Haven's money had been put into the property, which has since been operated at an annual deficit of a mil- lion and a quarter. Through the me- dium of Senator Aldrich, the New Ha- ven paid $20,000,000 for the Rhode Isl- and trolley system, which Mellen esti- mated to be worth $8,000,000. It is only natural that, In Wall Street and in the country at large, the state- ments regarding Mr. Morgan should have made a profound impression This was not by any means because of their implication as to the rashness of policy and high-handed use of com- pany capital and credit by the leaders in high finance of a decade or more ago. That story has been told too often, in and out of the courts, to cause any new surprise or consternation. But there were two peculiar aspects of Mr. Mel- len's testimony. One of these was, that he represented Mr. Morgan's dictatorship in such a manner, and with such particulars, as to instil inevitably, in the minds of many people, the belief that Mr. Morgan actually diverted the New Ha- ven's money to his personal uses. The Other was that Mellen adroitly used this version of the case to represent himself as an Innocent and injured per- son, whereas every one in touch with the past ten years of the New Haven's history had been convinced, long ago, that Mellen avowedly promoted the pol- icy of reckless expansion which crip- pled the enterprise, and that his per- sonal dealings with the people, the courts, and the Legislatures of New England were of a nature to mark him out as the mischief-maker. It is quite true that, even if all this were to be proved, it would not clear up the record of Mr. Morgan's financial re- lations with the New Haven. But the fact that Mellen's story was so carefully framed to exonerate the man who told it, ought to leave the entire commu- nity anxious to have the version of the same events told by some one else who knew what actually happened. The general result of his testimony was to present a picture which might easily appear to show concerted and deliber- ate plundering of the property by other people, while Mellen, as its president, looked on with mild disapproval, shook his head when he heard of the misuse of the corporation's money, and some- times went so far as to ask the reason for it. Perhaps there is nothing to be added to this picture; but it must be describ- ed as somehow giving a sense of incom- pleteness. It is quite impossible to gath- er what Mr. Mellen really thought of the whole performance. So far as his testimony threw any light on how the New Haven's money had been wasted and its credit shaken, he was careful to place the full burden of blame on Mr. Morgan. Yet even here, his conclusions do not hang together. Having explained with great circumstantiality and detail how some fifty millions was, in his judgment as president of the road, en- tirely thrown away under Mr. Morgan's auspices, Mr. Mellen rounded up his testimony by declaring that he enter- tained the highest respect for Mr. Mor- gan's judgment, that the troubles of the company were due to Mr. Morgan's death, and that had he lived and con- tinued to control its policy, the New Haven would still be paying dividends. But this is manifestly nonsense. Either Mr. Mellen's testimony as to facts, or his inference from the facts, is unworthy of respect; for the two are wholly incompatible. If it meant that, had Mr. Morgan lived, the New Haven presidency would have remained in Mel- len's hands, and that Mellen, in the presidency, would have gone on paying dividends, that at least would have been intelligible. During the last six years in whiCh the company paid dividends, the annual reports confessed some $10,- 000,000 deficit, and the expert account- ant who examined its books for the In- terstate Commission held that, In all, $«0.00fl,000 unearned dividends had been paid. Undoubtedly Mellen, with a long- er term, might have continued to in- crease that deficit. This, however, would scarcely have solved the New Haven's problem. Nor would the funding into long-term bonds of what Mr. Mellen calls the New Ha- ven's $375,000,000 floating debt have helped, if the policy of reckless extrava- gance in capital expenditure, which was undeniably the characteristic of his whole regime, had been continued. His blunders in managing the company were certainly not all instigated by Wall Street banking influences, and they were not atoned for by his acceptance of a criminal indictment, with magnan- imous motives which he himself is care- ful to point out. What is most evident, at this juncture in the inquiry, is that the whole story of the wrecking of the New Haven property has not yet been told. That it was a shameful story, Mel- len's testimony would have proved, if it had not been known before. But the story will not be complete until the clear light has been turned on all the guilty parties — including executive officers who misused their trust. BOOKS OF THE WEEK. FICTION. Bennett, A. The Price of Love. Harper. $1.35 net. Comfort, W. L. Midstream. Doran. Forum Stories. Ed. by C. Vale. Ken- nerley. $1.50 net. Harris, P. Great Days. Kennerley. $1.35 net. Jepson, E. The Intervening Lady. In- dianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. $1.25 net. Lynn, M. A Stepdaughter of the Prairie. Macmillan. $1.25 net. Macgill, P. Children of the Dead End. Dutton. $1.35 net. Roberts, H. C. A Free Hand. Dutton. $1.35 net. Talbot, L. A. Jehane of the Forest. Philadelphia: Lippincott. The World's Classics: Selected Short Stories. Oxford University Press. 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May 28, 1914] The ]ST a t i o 11 649 Trimble, \V. J. The Mining Advance Into the Inland Empire. Madison: irsity of Wisconsin. Whitehouse, J. H. Essays on Political and Social Questions. Putnam. $1. RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY. Benson, A. C. Where No Fear Was. Put- nam. $1.50 net. Nunn, H. P. V. The Elements of New Testament Greek. Second Edition. Put- nam. $1. White, Douglas. Forgiveness and Suffer- ing. Putnam. $1. POETRY. Dargan, P. Ex Barbaria. Author. Haworth, E. P. Sunshine and Koses. Kansas City: Bockhill Art Publishers. $1.25. Martin, F. Ft. Poems and Translations. Boston: Sherman French. $1.50 net. West, J. H. Poems of Human Progress. Boston: Tufts College Press. $1.50 net. I ItAVEL. Adams, F. U. Conquest of the Tropics. Doubleday, Page. $2 net. Blunt, R. In Cheyne Walk and There- about. Philadelphia: Lippincott. $3 net. Maspero, G. Ruines et Paysages d'Egypte. Paris: Guilmoto. 7 fr. 50. Osgood, I. Where Pharaoh Dreams. Philadelphia: Lippincott. $1.75 net. Shackleton, E. H. 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3llesl The Nation v VOL. XCVIII— NO. 2553 THURSDAY, JUNE 4, 1914 ^-f- PRICE TEN CENTS Important Scribner Books Notes of a Son and Brother By HENRY JAMES. Illustrated, $2.50 net; postage extra. The early life of William and Henry James, and their association with their father, illustrated with drawings made by William James during his career as an art student. "Aa may be imagined, there is much more than William James in this volume. The atmosphere of it Is like a crowded tapestry, made of people, drawn all of them, great or small, with a delightful indifference to their greatness or smallness, and an unfailing sense of spiritual interest and what we may call their decor- ative effect. . . . 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11 Tlie Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2553 A WKKKLY [JOURNAL [Entered at the New York City Post Office us second-class mail matter.] The Nation is published and owned by the New York Evening Post Co. Oswald Garrison Villard, President; John Palmer Gavit, Sec. and Treas. Three dollars per year in advance, post- paid, in any part of the United States or Mexico; to Canada $3.50, and to foreign countries comprised in the Postal Onion, $4.00. Address THE NATION, Box 794, New York. Publication Office, 20 Vesey Btreet. HAROLD DE WOLF FULLER, Editor. STANLEY WENT, Assistant Editor. PAUL ELMER MORE, Advisory Editor. EMIL SI. SCHOLZ, Business Manager. CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER. 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June 4, 1914] The JSTation ill I HOOK OF TIMKLY 1\ TEliKST. CALIFORNIA UNDER SPAIN AND MEXICO By Irvine B. Rlchmin. "A valuable and Interesting addi- tion to the literature of a little known period of American history, beginning with Cortes's coming, con- tinuing through the rule of the Fran- ciscan and Dominican Missions and the establishment of Mexican Inde- pendence in 1821, to the war with the United States in 1847."— The A. L. A. BooklUt. With mapt, charm, and plant. Pottage extra. MOO net. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN CO., 4 Park St., Boston A Modern History of the English People Br K. H. GRBTTON "As brilliant as Mr. Herbert Paul at bis best." —4]laJ>Qov> Herald. "The deYelopment of England's prosperity since the early eighties has been treated with an en grossing minuteness which Is only paralleled In the works of Mr. Arnold Bennett." — Bcottman "So tonic it Is, so extraordinarily sensible, so bracing in Its Immediate effects." — Liverpool Cow Mr. V. I., 18RO-1R0S. 448 pp. V. II. ]R!>9.-1910, 368 pp The Set $.1.00 net, oarrlaare extra. Small, Mnynard & Company, Ronton A COMPREHENSIVE CIRCULAR OF Memorials of Eminent Yale Men By ANSON P. STOKES With a sample photogravure of John C. Calhoun forwarded upon rennent. YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 135 Bin St.. 225 Fifth Ave.. Rew Haven, C1 New York City. JUST PUBLISHED Arnold Bennett's New Novel THE PRICE OF LOVE An entirely new kind of who-stole-the money story, told at lightning speed. In the Bret pages the reader is brought face to face with an extraordinary situation. $1.35 net HARPER & nnnTUPiit SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS First Folio Edition. Edited by Char- lotte Porter. 40 vols. Cloth, 75c per vol.; leather, $1.00 per vol. "By all odds the best edition now accessible." — [The Living Age. THOMAS Y. CROWELL CO., New York i HOTEL POWHMN MMGM D.C. iLOr/WERKWI The Hotel Powhatan is the best, at the same time the new- est, hotel in Washington. Famous Pennsylvania Avenue, at the junction of 18th and H Streets, affords the site for this most luxurious and modern ha. reL Write for booklet with map. CLIFF01D M LEWIS, Niai(tr THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY has prepared special Bibliographies of the best books in the following fields of thought: MATHEMATICS AND MECHANICS ORIENTAL WORKS PHILOSOPHY RELIGION ANTHROPOLOGY BIOLOGY ETHICS EVOLUTION LANGUAGE Any or all of these will be mailed free on request. Our new complete Catalogue and samples of our magazines, "The Monist" and "The Open Court," sent free on request THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY 122 SOUTH MICHIGAN AVENUE, CHICAGO ' Hello, Agin Tommy Asks for A Square Deal HE lives in New Yoik's stuffy tenement district, the most congested spot in America. No trees, no grass, not even a whiff of fresh air, — in the only world Tommy knows. Ash cans are his background, and the rattle and roar of traffic his envi- ronment. Tommy's widowed mother is broken with worry ; his sisters and brothers are as pallid and frail as he. The winter struggle has sapped their vitality. They need to breathe some- thing pure and fresh, — a taste of sunshine and outdoor free- dom,— an outing in the country or at the seashore. But between Tommy and his needs stands poverty, the result of SUGGESTIONS .ni'fortune. He must suffer A lawn sociable by just as if it were all his fault. your claw, Sunday And this is why Tommy appeals for a square deal. Nor does he wish you to forget his mother, or his "pals" and their mothers, — all in the same plight. This Association every summer t sends thousands of "Tenement Tom- mies , mothers and babies to the country and to Sea Breeze, its fresh air home at Coney Island. A dollar bill, a five dollar check, or any amount you care to contribute, will help us to answer Tommy's appeal. Send contributions to Robert Shaw Minium, Treasurer, Room 200, 105 East 22nd Street! New York City. School or Club. A card party at your • ummer hotel or camp. A subscription among your friends. Tenement Tommy NEW YORK ASSOCIATION FOR IMPROVING THE CONDITION OF THE POOR CORNELIUS N. BUSS. JR., President R. FULTON CUTTING. Chairman. Finance Committer
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IV The ]NTation [Vol. 98, No. 2553 RECENT FICTION Jehane of the Forest Bj L. \. TALBOT. 12mo. $1.25 net; pontage extra. Since Maurice Hewlett's "The Forest Lovers" there has been no better tale of high romance than tills. Two in ihe Wilderness By STANLEY WASH- BURN. 12mo. $1.25 net; postage extra. Here is a story of rare natural- ness a tale which sweeps one through the splendid forest land Of liritisb Columbia. The Full of the Moon By CAROLINE LOCK- HART. Illustrated 'm color. $1.25 net; postage extra. "It is a book of strong contrast, and the life of the West is por- trayed with picturesque frank- ness."— Boston Globe. The Red Emerald By JOHN RE HID SCOTT. Illustrated in color. $1.25 net; postage extra. "A delightful compound of mystery and romance." — Jackson- ville Times-Union. The Best Man By GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL LUTZ. Illustrated in color. $1.25 net; postage extra. "A corking good yarn. Few novels are as full of clean adven- ture and romance." — Philadelphia Record. Anybody but Anne By CAROLYN WKJAJS. Il- lustrated in color. $1.25 net; postage extra. "A bewildering mystery which will test the intuitions of the most seasoned readers of detective stories. ' ' — Buffalo Commercial. A Remarkable Novel that will arouse much d\ tscusston MISCELLANEOUS WherePharaoh Drearr s Being the Impressions of aWoman- of-Moods in Egypt, By IRENE OSGOOD. Willi an introduction by Stephen Phillips. Illustrations and initial letters by \V. Gordon Mein. 334 pages. Svo. Cloth. $1.75. net; postage extra. This brilliant boob about Egypt is not a travel book, but a de- lightful volume of Egyptian fan- tasies. Among the various themes touched upon arc Illusion, Unrest, Hope, Temptation, Peace, etc., etc. In Cheyne Walk and Thereabout Containing Short Accounts of Some Ingenious People and Fa- mous Places that Were by tha Riverside at Chelsea. By REGINALD BLUNT. With many illustrations from scarce old photo- graphs and engravings. 322 pages. 8vo. Cloth. $3.00 net; postage extra. If you arc fond Of writers and painters and odd nooks and cor hits or old London and the gossip of that friendly town, you will want to read this delightful vol- ume. FRANK DANBY'S MASTERLY WORK FULL SWING Is a distinct advance over her other successes, THE HEART OF A CHILD and PIGS IN CLOVER. i2tno. Cloth, $1.35 net. Postage extra. NBW YORK TRIBUNE: "A true and understanding study of char- acter." NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW: "The study of Agatha Wan stead is unceasingly fine. The secondary love story, too, is full of sweetness and charm." NEW YORK WORLD: "Among the most notable presentations of the publishers' year. 'Full Swing' ends happily. . . . one closes the book with the satisfied feeling of having followed through a particularly coaiplete and polished work of fiction." A TIMELY LOWER PRICED EDITION The Heart of the Antarctic Being the Story of the British Antarctic Expedition. 1907-09 By SIR ERNEST H. SHACKLETON. New and Revised Popular Priced Edition. With a map and many illus- trations. $1.50 net. The people of this country have shown the keenest interest In the various British Polar Expeditions, anil it is for the many who could not purchase the original $10.00 edition that this moderate-priced vol- uaie has been prepared. The complete narrative of the expedition is given, with the scientific discoveries considerably condeused and de- scribed in a popular manner. THE HISTORY OF THE DWELLING-HOUSE AND ITS FUTURE By ROBERT ELLIS THOMPSON, LL.D., Principal Phila- delphia High School. 12mo. Cloth. $1.00 net; postage extra. So used are we to the conveniences of the modern residence that few of us have any conception of how astonishingly recent most of them are — how late, for Instance, came even such a development as the divisloa of upper stories into rooms, except In Southern Europe, and the more imposing edifices of northern nations. These developments are most in- terestingly depicted, and the author's ideas as to future modes of living are piquant and sometimes a bit startling. The awful waste of present- ly housekeeping and Its remedy Is a subject that will Interest everyone. BUSINESS AND FINANCE OPERATION OF THE NEW BANK ACT By THOMAS CONWAY, Jr., Ph.D., and ERNEST MINOR PATTERSON, Ph.D, of the Wharton School of Fi- nance and Commerce, University of Pennsylvania. 430 pages. 12mo. Cloth bound. $2.00 net; postage extra. NKW YORK JOURNAL OF COMMERCE: "A lnn.l-, book which is certain to prove of very extensive usefulness. It will be of exceptional value to all business Interests as well as bankers." THE CAREFUL INVESTOR By EDWARD SHERWOOD MEAD, Ph.D., Professor of Finance, University of Pennsylvania. 12mo. Cloth. $1.50 net; postage extra. PHILADELPHIA RECORD: "A work of the greatest importance aid its study will save the public many a dollar." THE CAUSE OF BUSINESS DEPRESSIONS A* Disclosed by an Analysis of the Basic Principles of Economics By HUGO BILGRAM, in collaboration with Louis Edward Levy. With 9 diagrams. 531 pages. Octavo. Cloth. $2.00 net; postage extra. NORTH AMERICAN . Philadelphia. Pa.! "Modem cpu-sllmis of irealth distribution and land tenure, rarelj considered bj earlier econc mists, are here di all with In opt u eyed, new cenl urj procei i es of. feai i thinking. The average citizen trill be a wl ei and more thoughtful fellow after perusing and studying the arguments adduced In this volume." TIMELY BOOKS The Practical Book of Garden Architecture Fountains, Gateways, Pergolas, Tennis Courts, Lakes and Baths, Arches, Cascades, Windmills, Tem- ples, Spring Houses, Bridges, Ter- races, Water Towers, etc., etc. By PHEBE WESTCOTT HUMPHREYS. Frontis- piece in color. 125 illustra- tions from actual examples of Garden Architecture and House surroundings. Square octavo. Ornamental cloth, in a box, $5.00 net; postage extra. "To the lorer of beauty, lay or professional, the Practical Book of Garden Architecture provides a springing fount of pure delight. The material is rich, and It Is treated with sympathetic and com- prehensive Intelligence . . . and as for the pictures — they'd lure mother birds from their aests!" — Chicago Record-Herald. The Flower- Finder By GEORGE LINCOLN WALTON, M.D. Frontis- piece in color. With 573 line drawings in the text. 16 full-page illustrations. Dec- orative lining paper. 12mo. Bound in limp leather, In a case. $2.00 net; postape ex- tra. "What's that flower over there li the field? You'll flud out in 'The newer- Finder.' Gives many color charts and sketches ; group- ed so that you can easily And what you are looking for; is bouad in leather that permits It to be slipped In the pocket." — Cleveland Plain Dealer. The Training of a Foreste r By GIFFORD PINCHOT. 8 illustrations. 12mo. Cloth. $1.00 net; postage c.jti'i. Mr. Plnehot has written an In- spiring volume on the profession which lie has brought so forcibly to public attention. it contains in brief compass the mest Taluable and ml. resting facts touchlag this most important work. The Meaning of Art Its Nature, Role and Value By PAUL GAULTIER. With 36 illustrations. $1.50 net. This w..rk was crowned b.v the French Academy of Mural and Po mi, -Mi Science. Ur Qaultler's work win delight ail lorei oi the Hue arts, ami to nmnv It will be the portal to a Ban enjoj menl md a deeper know its Nature, Hole, ami Value ! publishers J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY Philadelphia
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The Nation. XEW YORK, THURSDAY, JUNE 4, 1914. Summary of the News Rumor at Niagara Falls has been al- most as many-tongued as when, in a first fresh outburst of martial enthu- siasm, war correspondents fell to allud- ing to the water works at Vera Cruz as "the front." In last Thursday's papers there was an apparently well authenti- cated report, which subsequently proved groundless, that the terms of a settle- ment had actually been drawn up by the mediators, and had been submitted to President Wilson, while reports of in- superable obstacles in the way of a settlement have been of daily occurrence. The outstanding fact of the situation is that mediators and delegates continue to bend all their efforts towards finding a solution of the question, and the cau- tiously worded statements given out by Justice Lamar indicate that the margin dividing the various parties to the confer- ence is being gradually narrowed. The attitude of Carranza and Villa con- tinues the most berious difficulty. A message was delivered to the mediators by an agent of Carranza on Friday of last week expressing the willingness of the Constitutionalists to be represented in the peace proceedings, and it is un- derstood that negotiations to that end are still proceeding. The mediators, how- ever, are believed to have insisted on the declaration of an armistice as a first con- dition to representation, a condition which the Constitutionalists are hardly liKely to accept. The situation was some- what complicated when, on Sunday, Gen. Carranza declared himself provisional President of Mexico, naming Saltillo as the temporary seat of government, and proceeded to the selection of a Cabinet. The attitude of Villa towards his chief, despite rumors to the contrary, remains eminently "correct," and a statement was issued by him on Monday in which he again denied with an oath that he har- bored any political ambitions, but rather serious dissension seems to have devel- oped among the Constitutionalists in the state of Sonora, where there have been severe clashes betwen the civil Governor, Jose Maria Maytorena, supported by vol- unteers, and the military commander, Gen. Alfaro Obregon, and his troops. Meanwhile the southern campaign has been halted temporarily pending repairs to the railway between Gutierrez and Zacatecas. When these have been effect- ed, "Villa's forces will undertake the in- vestment of the latter city. At Guay- roas, the only place where the Federals have so far held their own, following some desperate fighting on May 28, an armistice was arranged, according to an official announcement made in Mexico City, pending the outcome of the media- tion proceedings. week at Puerto Mexico by the German liners Ypiranga and Bavaria. On the return of the ships to Vera Cruz fines amounting in the aggregate to some $500,- 000 were imposed on them by the Ameri- can collector of the port, acting in ac- cordance with Mexican law, on account of their having discharged their cargo at a port other than that which was des- ignated in their papers. The ships were released on the putting up of a bond by the Hamburg-American Line. It is an- ticipated that the matter may be the sub- ject of diplomatic discussion between Ger- many and the United States. A statement on Progressive policies, somewhat nebulous in character, was issued by Col. Roosevelt before his de- parture for Spain on Saturday, and was published in Sunday's papers. Comment on the statement will be found else- where. The treaty between the United States and Colombia has passed all three read- ings in the Colombian Senate, and is this week before the House, where it is ex- pected it will be passed without delay. The treaty will probably not come before the United States Congress until after the vote has been taken on the tolls re- peal. be held by the Canadian Government at Montreal, beginning on June 9. Time had one of its revenges last week, when Glenn H. Curtiss made a successful flight with the aeroplane built by Dr. Samuel P. Langley in 1903, which at its original trial fell into the Potomac River, and which has since been reposing in the Smithsonian Institution, pointed at as "Langley's folly." The taking of testimony at the court- martial of the officers and men of the Colorado State militia on charges of mur- der, arson, and larceny was brought to a conclusion on May 29, when the commis- sion adjourned until June 12. The most notable evidence given last week was that of Major Edward J. Boughton, who had conducted an investigation of the Ludlow affair, and warmly praised the conduct of the troops. By a unanimous vote the House of Representatives on Monday adopted the amendment to section 7 of the Clayton Anti-Trust bill exempting labor, agricul- tural, and other mutual help organiza- tions from the operation of the anti-Trust laws. We comment elsewhere upon the significance of this amendment, the word- ing of which is: "Nor shall such or- ganizations, orders, or associations, or the members thereof, be held or construed to be illegal combinations in restraint of trade under the anti-Trust laws." Arms for the Huerta Government, con- signed to Vera Cruz, were landed last A disaster second only to that of the Titanic occurred early on the morning of May 29, when the Canadian Pacific steam- ship Empress of Ireland was rammed amidships during a fog in the St. Law- rence River off Father Point by the col- lier Storstad, of the Dominion Coal Com- pany. The passenger ship sank within fifteen minutes of the collision. It was possible to launch only a few of the boats, and many of the passengers were unable to gain the deck before the vessel sank. Four hundred and fifty-two survivors were rescued by the Storstad and by the < anadian revenue cutters Eureka and Lady Evelyn. The number of those lost Is estimated at 1,024. An investigation to fix responsibility for the disaster will Reports that the battleships Idaho and Mississippi had been purchased by Greece have been denied from Athens, although it is admitted that negotiations for their purchase had been carried on. The idea of Greece in opening the negotiations was doubtless to offset the recent pur- chase by Turkey of two Brazilian war- ships building in the Armstrong yards in England. News was received on May 29 of the safety of Capt. Robert Bartlett, com- mander of the Canadian exploring ship Karluk with the Stefansson expedition, and of his company, concerning whose fate the gravest anxiety had been felt. Capt. Bartlett telegraphed from St. Michael, Alaska. The Karluk was crush- ed in the ice, near Herald Island, on January 16, 1913, but the company was able to disembark on the ice, and there was ample time to remove from the ship stores, sledges, dogs, and the greater part of the scientific equipment. Wrangell Island was reached, and a permanent camp made. Leaving his company in camp, where they are well provisioned, Capt. Bartlett undertook his solitary journey of 500 miles over the ice to ob- tain help for them. It is expected that a relief ship will be able to reach Wrangell Island by the early part of August. Premier Gaston Doumergue announced the resignation of the French Cabinet on Monday, and on Tuesday the resignations were handed collectively to the Presi- dent. The principal reason for the ac- tion of M. Doumergue, who formed his Cabinet last December, is said to be un- certainty as to his ability to control a majority in the new Chamber, which as- sembled on Tuesday, and in the composi- tion of which the recent elections have produced some changes. Differences are also said to exist in the Cabinet con- cerning the financial measures to be in- troduced in the new Parliament, and concerning the question of the three years' military service. The deaths of the week include: Sir Joseph Wilson Swan, the Right Rev. Charles Scadding, Dr. Joseph Edward Stubbs, May 27; E. Yamaza, May 28; Peter Paul von Mauser, Brig. -Gen. James E. Sawyer, Col. Leonard A. Lovering, Prince Peter Sviatopolk Mirsky. Euphe- mia van Rensselaer (Sister Dolores), Laurence Irving, Sir Henry Seton-Karr, R, B. McClure, May 29; the Rev. Samuel Henry Bishop, Dr. Emil Gruening, May 80; Henry Francois Joseph Roujon, June 1.
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652 The Natio n [Vol. 98, No. 2553 The Week The substitution of civil government tor military administration in the ter- ritory under Constitutionalist control, and the transformation of Gen. Carranza from "first chief of the revolution" to provisional President of Mexico, are now under way. The process has been ac- celerated by events in two places — Mex- ico and Niagara Falls. Both as against Huerta and as against those who are working for a peaceful settlement, Car- ranza takes a strategic position. It is to him that events point as Huerta's successor, whatever may be the machin- ery set up for effecting the transference of power; and in setting up his frame- work of cabinet and provincial govern- ment, Carranza is bidding the peace ne- gotiators take notice of this important fact. There is at first sight a certain sense of unreality about the absence from these negotiations of the party and the man that are virtually bound to emerge from the situation. But pre- cisely because of his strong position in the field, Carranza is represented at Niagara Falls. He is taken into reckon- ing by the negotiators, and his cause is defended by the logic of events — not to mention our own delegates. Whether the hopes now entertained as to a settlement of the Mexican problem are to be fully realized or not, great things have already been attained. The war-spirit in this country has been shown to be virtually non-existent. This mighty industrial democracy has made clear its unwillingness to be turned aside from its paths of peace by any provocation yet given it by Mexico. If the whole peace negotiation were now to fail, the country would be filled with chagrin, and it would be difficult to cause to flare up again even so much of Jingoism and zest for fighting as manifested themselves a month ago. To have thus tested the nation and found its response one of peace is by itself a wholesome reassuring. Add to this the recovery of good opinion of us abroad. Europe has dropped the first sneering tone which spoke of Yankee land-greed joined to hypocrisy. It begins to seem possible in France and Germany and England that the United States may not, after all, intend to overrun and an- nex Mexico. And the revulsion of feel- ing which has come, to our marked ben- efit, in South America, is something that years of diplomatic and trade inter- course could not have effected. Idealism in an American President is not such a bad thing, after all, when it gains the country instant recognition, and puts in the way of becoming a practical force the friendly cooperation of all the re- publics on this continent. It seems to have taken a "dreamer" to make this old dream come true. However complete our arrangements for preventing disasters at sea, disas- ters will still be possible through the imperfections of human beings. The great lesson of the Titanic was the vital importance of being so prepared as to reduce the loss of life to a mini- mum when the disaster comes. In her case, it was the shortage in the number of lifeboats that caused the loss of hundreds of lives which might have been saved; and the re- sult has been that ships are now re- quired to carry lifeboats enough to ac- commodate all on board. In the Empress of Ireland calamity, it was the shortness of time that made the loss of life so enormous. When a ship goes down in fourteen minutes after she is struck, ev- ery minute gained by any person on board may make the difference between life and death. And it would be ex- tremely easy £3 gain many of these pre- cious minutes. An electric bell might be placed in every stateroom, and close to every berth throughout the vessel, all of them controlled by a single switch on the bridge, the turning of which would cause them to ring, and to keep ringing indefinitely. The minutes saved by this mode of spreading an alarm might easily have meant the escape of scores, perhaps hundreds, of those who perished last week in the St. Lawrence. The St. Lawrence disaster ought to have at least one result: concentration of public interest upon the La Follettc bill pending in Congress, and the Inter- national Convention on Safety at Sea, also awaiting approval. Unfortunately, neither of these measures is unanimous- ly supported by those who have studied the subject. Thus, it is declared that if the treaty had been ratified, the rescu- ing vessels might not have appeared In aid of the Empress of Ireland, since It would relax the provision for contin- uous wireless service. As to the La Fol- lette bill, it is not satisfactory to ship- owners, and is obviously drawn chiefly in the interest of the labor unions. As it now stands, it would put out of busi- ness many steamers in inland waters, because of the provision that there must be two able seamen for each lifeboat. Here is a great chance for statesman- ship. Somebody, perhaps the Secretary of Commerce, might get all the interest- ed together and see if at least a satisfac- tory bill cannot be agreed upon. The President and the Senate must decide if the treaty constitutes a retrogression as a whole, or whether its good points do not outweigh the bad. Some action on it ought to be taken soon. It is a pity that President Wilson should have allowed himself to be ma- noeuvred into a false position in regard to his Memorial Day address, and then at the eleventh hour have reversed his decision not to speak. It will be remem- bered that he similarly vacillated in regard to his Gettysburg address. It would really seem as if the President were often in need of better advice than he is getting— advice that comes in such a way as to carry conviction with it. As a result of this blunder, he faced an almost hostile audience, and lays him- self open to the charge of having re- versed himself at the last moment for political reasons. Unfortunate as this is, his words of Saturday were golden. Not a Jingo sentiment came from his lips; he refused point blank to glorify war. He dwelt upon the nobler sacri- fices of peace, and yet he gave just and unstinted praise to the men of the Civil War, who are, as he said, above all others secure in their imperishable fame and the imperishable gratitude of the republic. Secretary Lane presents with great force, and with abundant detail, the case for the establishment of a centralized administration of everything relating to the natural resources of Alnsk.i. I lis communication is addressed to the chair- men of the Committees on Territories of the Senate and the House of IN pro sentatives, and is in support of the bills —substantially identical— pending in the two houses of Congress for the creation of a board or commission to have full charge of Alaskan development. The Sec-
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June 4, 1914I The Nation t>53 retary points out that "practically all the lands and natural resources of Alas- ka are still the property of the United States," and that the time is now ripe for the institution of a policy which shall go beyond the mere protection of that property from seizure by monopo- lists, and shall provide for its use by legitimate enterprise, in such manner as to combine the promotion of the wel- fare and development of Alaska with the retention by the whole people of the United States of their proper share of the benefits of this great possession. The Government railway has been decided on, and is to be built; in order that this should yield its natural fruit, it is es- sential that the tangle of archaic laws and of haphazard and unharmonized jurisdictions be replaced by a system of management directed clearly and intel- ligently to the special needs of the Alas- kan situation. Secretary Lane quotes President Wilson's reference to the sub- ject in his message of last December; it is not amiss to add that both the rail- way and the commission were strongly urged upon Congress by President Taft in February, 1912, in conformity with the recommendations made by Secretary Fisher after a visit of investigation to Alaska. The proposal which Prof. W. W. Wil- loughby, of Johns Hopkins University, made to the Mohonk Peace Conference is characteristic ot a teacher of politi- cal science; but it is not therefore less significant of the public change since the Conference first met twenty years ago. What he desires is a "case meth- od" of teaching peace. "He would have less reiteration of the principles and platitudes of arbitration, and a more de- tailed, technical discussion of it, its lim- itations and advantages." Something like this we have heard from President Eliot, who believes that education in pacificism is so far advanced that it is the constructive labors of peace, some- times very indirectly related to it, which may now be stressed. The view is ob- viously open to objection that, even if correct, the work of propaganda must still not be abandoned; a passionate and literary presentation being always required to maintain the heroisms of peace and fraternity against those of war. It need not Interfere, in bodies like the Mohonk Conference, with dis- cussion of concrete, present cases of in- ternational friction. But Professor Wil- loughby's plan is built, in the first place, on a diagnosis of popular feeling that would have been utterly impossi- ble twenty or fifteen years ago, as the Venezuela incident and Spanish War testify; and it indicates the emergence of an increasing number of men versed in international law, diplomats, and stu- dents interested in the problems and technique of arbitration. In Col. Roosevelt's actual address before the National Geographic Society last week, the data regarding the newly discovered river are less precise than those embodied in the telegram given out after the lecture, a telegram address- ed to the Brazilian Foreign Minister, Lauro Muller, by Mr. Roosevelt, and sent from Manaos. In this dispatch we have a definite record of degrees of latitude and longitude, with an enumeration of the affluents of the Roosevelt river, all of which should enable the recreant map- makers to redeem themselves. Confir- mation of the Colonel's telegram is con- tained in a dispatch addressed by Col. Rondon to the Brazilian Foreign Minis- ter, and evidently based on the same set of observations. It is printed in the Rio de Janeiro Jornal do Commercio for May 2. In parts the language in the two telegrams is almost identical. Col. Rondon states that in view of Mr. Roose- velt's health the party had no time to make an exact determination of where the new river enters the Madeira, but on the fact of the river being an affluent of the Madeira the Brazilian explorer is positive. Mr. Roosevelt has therefore done much more than put a new river on the map. He has shown the old maps to be utterly wrong, not only as to the obscure hinterland, but as to the main stream of the Madeira, on which there has been traffic for centuries. Thus on our best maps, the river Ari- puana is shown as entering the Madeira from the right near the fifth parallel of latitude. Cols. Roosevelt and Rondon make the Aripuana enter the new river from the left nearly two hundred miles further south. The affair still has puz- zling details for the experts to clear up. isting statute, is evident from figures given by her Industrial Accident Com- mission. To that body in 1913 were re- ported 24,177 accidents, 583 of which resulted in death, 864 in permanent dis- ability, and 10,659 in temporary dis- ability; showing that out of every thou- sand workmen injured 881 were tem- porarily and 71 permanently crippled, and 40 killed. The total wage loss was placed at $18,255,616. Set against these statistics there was a record, under the old law, of indemnity paid for 10,721 accidents, amounting to 5613,862. The new measure is compulsory upon all ex- cept employers of casual labor and those engaged in agriculture; it pro- vides, moreover, for a State compensa- tion insurance fund, which since the new year has become responsible for policies on pay-rolls of over $30,000,000. It will protect two men where one was protected before. It is already attaining one of its aims — to increase the pre- cautions which employers will volun- tarily take to promote safety; for the report of last year's accidents is accom- panied by testimony that the new act has resulted in greatly increased de- mands for the advisory services of safe- ty engineers, for stereopticon lectures on safety provided by the Commission, and for the establishment of safety mu- seums. How much California has needed her Workmen's Compensation act, describ- ed as a vast improvement over the ex- The American Medico-Psychological Association, in annual convention at Baltimore, rejected the resolutions pro- posed by the council of the Associa- tion recommending the enactment of laws requiring a clean bill of health and evidence of a normal mind before the issuance of a marriage license. Accord- ing to a report of the meeting, when the resolutions were presented, a vigor- ous onslaught was made upon them, and when the vote was put they found but few supporters. It is particularly grati- fying to see such evidence of soberness of thought on the part of a body of men whose absorption in their specialty would tend to make them magnify the evil to be remedied, and forget deep- er and broader considerations. In this sphere, as in others, one great reason why ill-considered notions so often make such rapid headway is that the people who are skeptical about them or op- posed to them do not make a "vigorous onslaught" upon them, but content
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654 T li e Natio n [Vol. 98, No. 2553 themselves with silence, leaving all the vigorous assertion to the other side. That resolutions recommending the segregation of the feeble-minded, im- beciles, and other mental delinquents, and the establishment of separate insti- tutions for their care, were adopted unanimously, only emphasizes the stand taken by the Association in the other matter. Between a do-nothing policy and a meddle-with-everything policy there is ample room for discriminating judgment. Ecclesiastical bodies are often betray- ed into adopting ill-considered resolu- tions, simply because they are presented by a committee. Last week at Chicago the Presbyterian General Assembly ac- cepted a report and recommendation on moral and social questions of the day, against one part of which many prom- inent Presbyterians are already up in arms. This was in the section dealing with temperance, and all Presbyterian ministers and church members were called upon to resign from clubs where liquor is or may be supplied. Doubtless the author of this recommendation sup- posed that he was merely proceeding in the spirit of "Come out from among them and be ye separate and touch not the unclean thing." He could scarcely have been aware of the rumpus which his counsel of perfection would kick up. Many Presbyterians are members of golf clubs, university clubs, social clubs, and are not at all disposed to give up their membership, merely because those who so wish can have drinks served to them. The Assembly's utterance goes beyond the matter of personal habits into that of personal associations. It will, no doubt, be generally disregarded. It is a year since the unveiling, under the auspices of the Smithsonian Insti- tution, of a tablet commemorating the services of Dr. S. P. Langley to avia- tion; a token of a recent general recog- nition, in at least the upper circles of science here and abroad, of the value of his labors. He has for some time been accorded the credit of being one of the first to study flying on scientific princi- ples, and to make practical application of his theories along the lines on which the art has since developed. Aviation has grown by the process of trial and error, and if his experiments seemingly ended in failure, he gave, nevertheless, a notable impulse. But in the demon- stration last week that he builded bet- ter than he knew, his practical claims are also completely vindicated. Not merely his fundamental idea, but his construction, is shown to be so sound that all that was lacking was skill in operation; when a Curtiss took his ma- chine, it rose successfully. To those who believe that the solution of the problems of mechanical and scientific progress will chiefly belong to men of exact scientific training and methods, like Dr. Langley, the flight at Lake Keuka will be highly encouraging. It need not detract from the achievement of other inventors, as the Wright broth- ers; but it vindicates courage and sin- cere effort founded on exact knowledge. The rusty aerodrome, which would look strange enough beside a finished aero- plane, is evidence that those who have virtually taken the citadel of flying have found, in Clough's phrase, the body of a first crusader before its walls. Miss Alice Brown's winning of the ten thousand dollar prize offered by Mr. Winthrop Ames for a play of popular appeal is an extraordinary achievement; extraordinary because of the fact that Miss Brown is a veteran writer of prov- ed talent and with a field and manner of her own. Prize contests nowadays are for the young and unknown, and not rarely for the unschooled. The ado- lescent victor in such contests wins by virtue of striking a fresh note, the fresh- ness on closer examination consisting in a brave echo of several dead authors and a dozen living successful ones. Since in the terms of the Ames contest it was specified that the play was to be one of popular appeal, there was room for fear- ing the worst — say, a knockabout farce with pistol-play attachment. The char- acter of the judges in the contest point- ed, to be sure, in the other direction. But experience has shown incredible se- lections made by men of apparently good judgment. Until the prize play is given to the public, the general belief will be that Messrs. Ames, Thomas, and Klau- ber have reason to congratulate them- selves that the anonymous contestant to whom they awarded the prize should turn out to be a writer of proved merit. A form of international courtesy in which Americans — from their sense of the value of foreign relics and docu- ments, and their wide acquisitions — ought to shine, has just been exempli- fied by a trustee of Wellesley College, in the return to King Alfonso of a MS. stolen from Seville, and offered for sale in Amsterdam. The notable prece- dent for the action, the late Mr. Mor- gan's restoration to Ascoli of the cope belonging to the cathedral, evoked a display of gratitude which should en- courage every similar act. On his re- cent visit to America Signor Ferrero re- marked upon it in connection with a general commendation of the much-slan- dered American taste for foreign trea- sures. But between citizens and govern- ments of Europe similar examples of courtesy have recently been displayed. King Alfonso himself, lately noting in the Louvre two suits of Moorish armor without duplicate at Salamanca, was promptly presented with them by the Republic. To apply fully the principle that all objects of art taken by force or stealth from their native surroundings should be returned, would cause one of the strangest migrations in history. But while retroactive measures are imprac- ticable, it is pleasant to see that lovers of art and history are setting their faces against a continuance of anything like sharp practice. In spite of Rudyard Kipling's bad lan- guage, the war in Ulster refuses to come off. Indeed, Mr. Kipling's bad language is to be explained by the fact that the war has refused to come off. This may, of course, be the lull before the storm, but no sultry atmosphere hangs over Great Britain. If one may judge from the general tenor of news and impres- sions, a great indifference has settled down upon the British islands, partly to be described as reaction from much talk and hope of a fight long deferred, partly as the reassertion of common sense in face of the outstanding fact that no immediate doom is confronting unhappy Ulster, with .six years and two general elections before she must submit to the yoke. There will be a resump- tion of verbal warfare after ten days or so, when the last formalities attending the enactment of Home Uule take place, and the Government's amendments are made public. But prospect of a mid- summer civil war there Is little.
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June 4, 1914] The JSTation <65o Tin: COLONEL'S UNCERTAIN TRUM- PET. Lord Rosebery has said that the rela- tions of a party leader to his followers have never been studied as they should be. One thing, affirmed Rosebery, is clear: the followers impose their will upon their chief as often as he imposes his upon them. Certainly it so seems in the matter of the political declaration which Col. Roosevelt left behind him as he sailed for Spain. It has internal marks which bear out the reports that his Progressive counsellors fairly de- manded of him that he publish a state- ment. They were only too conscious that they needed encouraging. A bugle blast from him would hearten their de- spondent party. The Colonel himself said that it was doubtful if he could find time to put the trumpet to his lips. But finally he yielded to the importunities of his friends, though it must be said that the result was that he gave a most un- certain sound. If it was meant as a sig- nal to the Progressive army to prepare for battle, it can only provoke compari- sons with the French Colonel of the Anti-Jacobin, of whom it was written: He fled full soon, on the first of June, But bade the rest keep fighting. We have had, of course, only a pre- liminary winding of Mr. Roosevelt's horn. He will be home again in a month, and will undoubtedly plunge into the political fray. To keep out of it would be impossible for him; and he would not be very fastidious about the point where he plunged in. He would sympathize with Gen. Kearney's direc- tion to go in anywhere, as there was "beautiful fighting" all along the line. But we think he ought to be warned against following up the plan of attack on the Wilson Administration which he indicated on Saturday. For by assault- ing in that way he would obviously be in danger of riding down more of his own soldiers than of the enemy, and even of unhorsing himself. He proposes to hold the President and the Democratic party responsible for bad times. "There is widespread appre- hension." "The pinch of poverty is felt." Well, if that is true in 1914, it was much more true in 1907. There has not yet been a Wilson panic, as there was alleged to be a Roosevelt panic seven years ago. The Nation can speak with the more frankness on this point be- cause we steadily contended in 1907 that it was unjust to charge up to the Roose- velt Administration the financial crash of that year. But if Roosevelt himself is now going over to the doctrine that the President is to blame for bad times, how can he possibly escape the deadly consequences of his own logic? If he now steps forward as a guarantor of "prosperity passed around," it will be incumbent on him to explain why he passed around distress and misery in 1907. It is plainly inadvisable for him to grasp a two-edged sword that is cer- tain to wound himself. Equally ill-judged is Mr. Roosevelt's assertion that the reduction of the tariff has not helped, and that nothing has been done to "solve the Trust question." A man who is on record as having been frightened out of his determination, as President, to urge Congress to reduce the tariff might with more grace leave that topic alone. Moreover, it can fair- ly be argued that the moderate lower- ing of the tariff by the Democrats is in line with the asserted purpose of the Progressives, as laid down in their 1912 platform. In fact, as Representative Palmer points out, nearly all the Pro- gressives in Congress voted for the Un- derwood bill. Were they right or wrong in doing so? And as for the Democrats being clear off the track as regards dealing with the Trusts, the Colonel might rather have accused them of steal- ing his own idea. For are they not act- ing as if bent on legislating in order to carry out one of the planks of the Pro- gressive platform? We mean the one promising "a strong Federal Adminis- trative Commission," which was to "maintain permanent active supervision over industrial corporations engaged in interstate commerce, . . . doing for them what the Government now does for the national banks, and what is now done for the railroads by the Interstate Commerce Commission." Why, the pend- ing Trade Commission bill is so palpa- bly in line with this that the Colonel might have called upon good Progres- sives to rally to its support! But that, we suppose, would not have been hitting the line hard. The net effect of Mr. Roosevelt's hur- ried and rather halting pronouncement will not be great. If It was intended to yield good cheer to the Progressives, a portion of that good cheer has plainly been "passed around" to the Democrats. They feel that their way will be made easy for them by a continuation of the split among their opponents. On the other hand, the Republicans are led to believe that the lack of vitriol thrown their way, in the Colonel's statement, prefigures his return to the party of his first devotion. He is, in any case, plain- ly waiting to see how the course of poll- tics — the true River of Doubt to him just now — will change, before taking a more vigorous and positive line of conduct. Meantime, those of his countrymen who think will be inclined closely to scruti- nize his implied programme of prosper- ity for the rich and a chicken in every workingman's pot. This would mean a combination of high protection with the doctrine of a division of goods — a sort of alliance between standpatism and sans-culottism. BLOWING HOT AND COLD WITH LABOR. If there were no other objection to the so-called compromise agreed on by the President and the Democratic lead- ers on the one hand, and the labor-union men on the other, and passed unan- imously by the House, its dishonesty would be sufficient to condemn the pro- posal. This dishonesty consists in some- thing far beyond any ordinary question of legislative obscurity or vagueness. The words which have been added to the clause in the Clayton Anti-Trust bill may be interpreted so as to add nothing at all to the meaning of that clause, and they may be interpreted so as to bring about that complete exemption from the operation of the anti-Trust laws which the labor-union men desire. And the proposal is being accepted by both sides not in spite of this extreme and funda- mental ambiguity, but because of it. We confess our own total inability to deter- mine which of the two interpretations would be most likely to be given to the words by the courts; and it is upon the general existence of such inability that the whole scheme is based. The labor mpii are to accept it because it may give the unions all they want: the oppo- nents of class legislation are to accept it because it may give the unions noth- ing at all. To write such a provision into the statute-books of the country, to do it deliberately and for the very pur- pose of conciliating each side by hold- ing forth the prospect that the other side will get the gold-brick— this can be
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G56 The Natio 11 [Vol. 98, No. 2553 characterized by 110 term less harsh than that of a degradation of the law- making function. The objection of ambiguity applied, indeed, to the labor-and-agricultural or- ganization clause as it stood in the first place. It was as follows: That nothing contained in the anti- Trust laws shall be construed to for- bid the existence and operation of frater- nal, labor, consumers', agricultural, or horticultural organizations, orders, or as- sociations, instituted for the purpose of mutual help and not having capital stock or conducted for profit, or to forbid or restrain individual members of such or- ganizations, orders, or associations from carrying out the legitimate objects there- of. If by "legitimate objects" was to be understood objects not in conflict with the general provisions of the law, this gave to the organizations in question no special privileges; if, on the other hand, the phrase were to cover all the pur- poses and practices which such organ- izations were in the habit of pursuing, it might go far towards exempting them wholly from the prohibition of the law. But assuming the first interpreta- tion to be correct, the provision would still have the effect of completely meet- ing the contention of Mr. Gompers that, under the Sherman act, it might be pos- sible for the courts to declare these or- ganizations illegal in their very nature. The words which have now been adopted by the House — nor shall such organizations, orders, or associations, or the members thereof, be held or construed to be illegal combin- ations in restraint of trade under the anti-Trust laws — either merely say the same thing over again, or go the whole length of tak- ing these organizations — and apparent- ly even individual members — out of the jurisdiction of the general law altogeth- er. It is therefore literally true that if this should be put into the law, nobody knows whether it would have no effect whatever, or whether it would give the labor unions the whole of their most ex- treme demand. What that demand is, everybody knows. There is no secret about it. La- bor unions desire a declaration that nothing in the anti-Trust laws shall ap- ply to them. That the President is op- posed to such class legislation, that he regards it as Intolerable, he has indi- cated in various ways, and on various occasions. It has been given out that Ik- would veto any bill that pmbodied .such a provision, or a provision coming near to this. When he gave his ap- proval to the amendment, it must have been with the expectation that it would not produce the effect which alone makes it acceptable to the labor-union men. We confess that we see no point of view from which this position is de- fensible. If the words mean nothing, the labor men ought not to be deceived into thinking they mean something. Moreover, the matter cannot end there. What they think they are getting, or may be getting, this time, they will de- mand next time as a matter of good faith. Oista principiis is the only rule in a question of this kind. The time to assert the integrity of the law is when that integrity is first attacked, not after a breach has been made in its defences. The case is that of the Sun- dry Civil rider over again, only worse. Mr. Wilson let that go through, on the express plea that it would make no dif- ference— that in any labor-union case he would use funds other than those forbid- den. That the principle of the rider was wrong, he plainly stated; he let it go because it would have no effect. In this present matter, it is not in his power to determine whether the effect will fol- low or not; yet he seems ready to waive the principle on the mere hope that the effect will not follow. Will not the nat- ural next step be to abandon the princi- ple outright? THE TRUST BILLS AND BUSINESS. In replying to the representatives of Western manufacturing interests who called upon him on Thursday of last week, President Wilson gave three rea- sons for thinking them mistaken in ask- ing for a postponement of most of the Administration's anti-Trust programme. They had urged that in the present un- satisfactory condition of the country's business it would be unwise to enact, on top of the tariff and currency acts so recently passed, a mass of new legisla- tion affecting the conduct of business generally; that action of this sort should not be taken until a thorough in- quiry had been made by a commission which should consider the actual facts of the situation and report what mea- sures would meet, it in a satisfactory manner. To this the President replied, in effect, first, that it was better to do the Hunt; now than to do it later, be- cause uncertainty is the worst thing that can happen to business; secondly, that it was better to pass the moderate bills proposed than to invite the danger of extreme measures through the accu- mulation of more radical forces; and thirdly, that the present business de- pression is "merely psychological," there being "no material condition or substan- tial reason why the business of the country should not be in the most pros- perous and expanding condition." There would be force in the first point if the business world were laboring un- der a kind of uncertainty similar to that which precedes the enactment of a tariff bill — uncertainty which affects the particular operations of specific busi- ness enterprises, and which the enact- ment of the law would remove. This resemblance, however, does not exist in either respect. If the tone of business is depressed by uncertainty as to legis- lation, it is not because a man does not know what goods he will be well-advised to buy, or sell, or make, because of pos- sible changes in the law which will affect their prices; it is because of a vague, but none the less important, feel- ing that business in general may be dis- arranged, in ways that nobody can de- fine, by the action of Congress. And, so far from this kind of uncertainty being eliminated by the carrying through of the Administration's legis- lative programme, it is quite within the possibilities — even the probabilities — that it will be increased. The Supreme Court decisions in the Standard Oil and Tobacco cases brought about a definite- ness, as well as an effectiveness, in the Sherman Anti-Trust law which had never before existed; the new legisla- tion bids fair to introduce new uncer- tainties, the extent of which no man can foretell. "If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done cjuickly" — but that "if" is of the es- sence of the matter. The second plea is one that can al- ways be urged for any measure to which conservatives object. In the present in stance, It is entitled to even 1 than usual, since, so far as regards a large part of the proposed programme, there la hardly any percept ibir prei 1 are from radical sources in Its favor; nor does it involve any clear principle which is being opposed by the business- world in a slandpaf spirit. In such a
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June 4, 1914I The Nation 657 matter as workmen's compensation, or the income tax, there is much validity in the argument that if the capitalist class opposes such a concession to the de- mands of the time, the resentment pro- voked by their attitude will result in the pressing of more radical measures; but it is difficult to see anything of this nature in the present situation relating to the Trust bills. What the business worlo says is that it does not want leg- islation for legislation's sake; that laws should not be passed on the subject without substantial assurance that they will accomplish great good; that there is no possibility, in the present session of Congress, of subjecting these bills to the kind of examination and amendment which would be necessary for such as- surance— the kind that converted the banking and currency bill from a dan- gerous and unworkable into a safe and workable law. To these arguments the reply that if we don't take what is of- fered we shall have to put up with worse is certainly not one that commends it- self to any man who has the courage of his convictions. Finally, we are told that the trouble with business Is psychological, that the material conditions are all favorable. Well, is not that precisely the point that Mr. Wilson's visitors were making? What they are asking is that one of the causes of that psychological condi- tion be removed. If the trouble were in things over which we have no con- trol— if it were in bad crops, or the exhaustion of capital through overcon- fident enterprise — the President might well say that his visitors were looking in the wrong direction for relief; but just in so far as the trouble is psycho- logical, they are justified in insisting on the importance of the effect of any- thing the Government may do, or leave undone, on the temper of the business world. If there were a clear case for these bills, a case grounded on their inherent merits and necessity, it would be right to pass them, whatever their immediate effect upon business. But since their case is highly doubtful in itself, since there is no time for their proper consideration or amendment, and no sign of genuine public demand for their enactment, the all but universal desire on the part of the business world for their postponement is, in the present condition of trade and industry, entitled to sprious consideration. AUSTRIA-HUNGARY AND THE SLAVS The death of Francis Kossuth, which we recorded last week, has come at a time when the fortunes of the Inde- pendent party, of which he was the leader, are on the decline. This has been brought about by internal political developments within the Dual Mon- archy, but to a greater extent by the re- markable changes in the international situation in the Near East. The Inde- pendent party, under the son of the great Kossuth, came prominently to the fore about a dozen years ago. Its aim was the reduction of the relations be- tween Hungary and Austria to a per- sonal union; and there were those who anticipated that even this slender tie would disappear with the death of the venerable Francis Joseph. This was the time when the break-up of the Haps- burg monarchy was so confidently pre- dicted. The great issue on which the Hun- garian patriot party carried on its cam- paign was the complete Magyarization of the Hungarian army. For years the battle raged over the so-called "words of command," the demand that the Magyar troops should be not only officered by men of their own race, but drilled and directed in their own tongue. Many con- cessions were made by the Emperor, but on this last point he has remained obdurate. The Independent party never came into power, but has been strong enough at times to prevent the long con- tinuance of orderly constitutional gov- ernment. Hungary during the last dec- ade has been ruled largely by bureau- crat Cabinets which have managed to do business by alternately bargaining with the Opposition and threatening it. At one time the Independent party con- trolled a majority of the Diet. To-day it hardly numbers a hundred followers, divided into two factions, led by Kos- suth and by Justh. The death of Fran- cis Kossuth seems to promise its further disintegration. A masterly counter-stroke to Magyar aspirations came in the year 1905 when the Fejervary Cabinet brought forward the proposal of universal suffrage for Hungary. This was carrying the war into the enemy's territory. It was the weak point in the case of the Magyar nationalists that, while striving to vin- dicate their privileges against Austria, they were themselves in a minoritv in Hungary and jeatfous of any concessions that might threaten the Magyar ascend- ency over the Slavs, Rumanians, and Ruthenes under the Hungarian crown. Universal suffrage would have badly shaken, if not totally undermined, this ascendency; and to the present day the project of universal suffrage has remain- ed in suspended animation. To the same degree it has remained an effec- tive weapon in the hands of Ministries nominated from Vienna. In Austria uni- versal suffrage became a fact in 1907, but in Hungary at the present day the electorate is only one-fourth of the male population over twenty years of age. To ward off the ever-present danger, the process of Magyarization has been car- ried on ruthlessly among the subject races; and with perceptible effect. In 1890 the Magyar element numbered 48 per cent, of the total population of Hun- gary. In 1910 it had risen to 55 per cent. Yet this is obviously no such over- whelming predominance but that uni- versal suffrage would bring about a radical redistribution of power among the races. The menace is present, and the comparative slackening of Magyar self-assertion as against Austria is part- ly the result. Developments in the Balkans have been working for harmony between the two parts of the Hapsburg monarchy. The high tension in international rela- tions which set in with the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina some five years ago made it more unlikely than ever that the Emperor would consent to any concessions that might weaken the ef- ficiency of the Dual army. The recur- rent crises that marked the progress of the Balkan wars accentuated this tendency. In earlier discussions regard- ing the possible break-up of the Dual Monarchy, the habit was to assume that Austria needed Hungary more than Hungary needed its partner. But the Balkan wars, and in particular the sec- ond war resulting in the aggrandize- ment of Servia, aroused disquiet at Budapest. Servian ambitions, fired by unanticipated success, are now directed towards the realization of the ideal of that Greater Servia which cannot be complete without the three million Serbs and Croats now under Hungarian rule. There is danger also on the Ru- manian frontier. Rumania, too, has profited by the Balkan wars, and nation-
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658 T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2553 alist aspirations are consequently turn- ing towards the three million Rumanians In Hungary. The danger may not be immediate, but what is, indeed, immedi- ate is the unrest created among the Slavs and other subject races in Hun- gary by the triumphs of their kinsmen to the south. Events have thus tended to remind the dominant Magyar element that their case is not so different from that of Austria, of which they have been in the habit of thinking as a conglomera- tion of peoples ready to fall apart. Pressure from the southern Slavs is bound to increase. There are Hunga- rians who take a pessimistic view of the final outcome. But even optimists are recognizing that the two partners in the Dual Monarchy have greater need of each other than ever. Under such cir- cumstances, it is not likely that they will waste their energies in quarrelling with each other. Of this, the decline of the Independent party in Hungary is a sign. A NOTABLE PUBLIC SERVANT. In an hour when we hear more com- plaints than ever about our State Legis- latures, and more than one Governor is proved unequal to his task, a recent happening in Massachusetts reminds us that there are some American public servants of most satisfactory type and service of whom the general public hears but little. We refer to the re- tirement from the office of chairman of the State Board of Health of Dr. Henry Pickering Walcott, after thirty-three years of devoted and enlightened ser- vice with that body. No less than 2,200 physicians and surgeons united in an address to him in which they recited his many and varied responsibilities of the past, recalled the fact that he was invariably reappointed by Republican and Democratic Governors, and declared that he had met all the duties as- sumed "with such wisdom, discretion, and rare modesty as to make the task of your successor who would uphold the standards bequeathed to him a difficult one indeed." Such "rare modesty"; so great was it that, although this useful public ser- vant had tolled thirty-three years for his State, it might almost he said, as in the Scripture, "Now there was found In it a poor wise man, and he by his wis- dom delivered the city; yet no man re- membered that same poor man." Dr. Walcott, were he less modest, might have claimed for himself a large part of the credit for the remarkable water sup- ply of Boston and its neighboring towns, in obtaining which he was a prime agent; just as he led in the work of establishing the North and South Met- ropolitan Sewerage systems, in improv- ing the Charles River estuary, and the Concord, Neponset, and Sudbury Rivers. Under his guidance the sanitary condi- tions of numerous towns and cities in the State have been vastly improved. Yet if he were asked as to his own share in it he would probably say that it was all done by sub-committees of the State Board. He would doubtless even deny that his own connection with the Board was a chief reason for its being wholly out of politics, and for its having such a high standing with the Legislature that, since 1886, when he became chairman, the State's lawmakers have invariably referred to it all important sanitary matters, instead of creating spe- cial commissions. Because of this the State has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars and takes front rank among American commonwealths for its han- dling of these questions. As the letter to Dr. Walcott states: "The investiga- tions and recommendations of the Board have commended themselves to the Leg- islature and in general have been car- ried out ultimately as presented. . . . You have borne the responsibilities both of recommendation and of execution." Meanwhile, Dr. Walcott has found time to be chairman of two State Com- missions to consider various important tuberculosis problems. During almost this entire period he has given, as an Overseer, and as a Fellow, since 1890, the same kind of administrative service to Harvard University, from which he graduated in 1858. At times he was acting president in Dr. Eliot's absence, and there are many who believe that his years alone prevented his being Dr. Eliot's successor. Always he has been a wise and judicial executive, weighing the evidence and deciding with care, and invariably abreast of the times in tils knowledge of progress in medicine, science, and the arts — rare traits these when reputations for acquiring all-em- kn owl edge overnight are so readily made! Such talents as his might early have won him distinction in many money-making iields. As a physi- cian he no doubt could have earned star- tling fees, and as a consulting sanitarian he might have made his fortune. He has deliberately chosen to be, if not a "poor wise man," a wise man who lives as modestly as befits a great one, and has rejoiced in a wealth of the "durable satisfactions of life," of the dividends that accrue to him who gives his life in keenest intellectual pursuits for the benefit of others and the general welfare of the community. What a rare taste Dr. Walcott's is; how out of tune with the time! He has flung away his talents, according to many. He should have written as an expert for our muckraking magazines, yet the columns of Collier's, Everybody's, and the Saturday Evening Post knew him not. He has had no press agent. He did not blurt out his views when the Lawrence strike was on and rush to the White House to tell the President what was his duty, nor seek the factory- owners to tell them theirs. He never rose in public hearings uninvited to say "Civis sum" and orate to the re- porters. In fact, he bore no resem- blance whatever to the type of the Lindseys, who can never be accused of hiding their lights under a bushel, and who can scent capitalistic conspiracies from afar. Dr. Walcott fought Beasts, too — beasts of ignorance, of disease, of neglect. By his quiet, constructive work he insured life to millions. Yet he never wrote a book about it, never call- ed himself a Progressive, or pronounc- ed himself a saviour of society, or boasted of a single achievement. He has merely gone on being a quiet, honest, high-minded gentleman, happy in his service to the State, content — though "no man remembered that same poor man" — in a patriotism that cannot be surpassed, certainly not on the field of battle. So long as Massachusetts or any other State can have such service as Dr. Walcott gave, no American need feel thai the science of government falls to advance within our nation. But it re- mains the <luty of all teachers of Our youth to bring out the lasting value of such greal constructive service as Di Walcott's and lis vast importance, de- iplte tin' absence of all flourish "i" trum- pets ami or ail methods of seW-adver" tlsement.
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June 4, 1914] The Nation (359 Foreign Correspondence "KILLING WITH THE MOUTH"— RUDYARD KIPLING'S ATTACK ON THE GOVERNMENT— PETITIONING THE KING. London, May 22. "Scathe: to injure, especially by blast- ing or withering up." So runs the dic- tionary definition.. When, therefore, one reads on the contents bills of a daily pa- per the line, "Hudyard Kipling's Scathing Attack on the Government," it would seem a safe inference that "the Laureate of the Empire," as his admirers call him, has achieved something that the Opposi- tion forces in Parliament have for eight years been attempting in vain. It is to the man of letters, we have been assured again and again, that we must look for lly statesmanlike solution of the problems of the modern world. While the party politicians — ignorant and stupid i es like Herbert Asquith and Vis- count. Morley and Arthur Balfour — are still occupied with their sordid wrangles, the poet or the novelist, from his van- tage-ground of unprejudiced detachment, can alone deliver the nation from its per- plexities by bringing his clear intellect and calm judgment to the redress of the people's needs. The utterance by which Mr. Kipling has thus revolutionized the political sit- uation took the form of a speech at a recent Unionist meeting on Tunbridge "Wells Common. He compared the pres- ent Cabinet to the embezzlers, murderers, and other criminals with whom his duties as a reporter used to bring him in contact in India. When a man got crooked, one thing led to another, until, at last, he had to put some one out of the way to ge' straight. That was just the history of the Cabinet. Their crooked work led to the passage of the Parliament act by which they assured themselves of a Straight run of at least five years' sal- ary. Then they had to give private mem- bers of Parliament a direct financial in- terest in voting for Cabinet measures, so the House embezzled public funds by voting itself £400 a year per head as salary. But, even then, their majority was not big enough, so they bought the Irish Na- tionalist vote by means of the Home Rule bill, which broke the faith of generations, and subsidized the secret forces of boy- cott, outrage, intimidation, and murder. It was to men with such a record of crime and hatred that the Cabinet pre- pared to hand over a portion of the Unit- ed Kingdom, for no other reason than that they might continue in enjoyment of their office. Mr. Kipling continued, in the same vein, to describe how one thing led to another, until, in order to get straight again, the Cabinet decided to put Ulster out of the way by organizing a killing on a large scale, but was foil- ed by the patriotism of the army, which, to its eternal honor and glory, saved the Empire. Once upon a time, a popular writer of verses poured scorn upon the people who thought they were making a real contribution to national defence by kill- ing Kruger with their mouth. Killing Asquith with one's mouth is just as easy and just as contemptible. Yet, after all, Hudyard Kipling's tirade of vulgar abuse is a valuable service to political history. In days to come the student of this pe- riod will dig it out from the newspaper reports with the same delight with which the archaeologist discovers in the sands of Egypt some authentic record of an- cient life. For this speech crystallizes, in half a column of print, the unthink- ing rage with which the present Govern- ment is regarded by an influential class of its opponents. For a generation Mr. Kipling has been "the high priest of Imperialism." This latest outburst is a sort of reductio ad absurdum of the Im- perialistic temper. It shows what a man of exceptional talent may come to when this madness begins to work in his brain. Not a few suffragists who do not ordi- narily endorse the "militant" programme have supported the plan for presenting a suffrage petition directly to the King. The idea is, of course, utterly prepos- terous, and could not be approved by any one who had the least glimmer of an understanding of the function of the Crown in the British Constitution. It is quite true that, technically, the King re- ceives petitions from his subjects, just as, technically, he personally appoints every captain in the army. But in con- stitutional practice petitions, and the dep- utations that present them, are received only through Ministers. The situation has been plainly put by Sir H. H. John- ston in a letter to the committee of a suffrage society, of which he is a vice- president. "For good or ill," he reminds them, "we have deprived the Sovereign of all initiative action in legislation, and it is as absurd to invoke the precedents of the seventeenth century in this respect as to petition the extinct Star Chamber. If suffragists are to invite the Sovereign to be unconstitutional over the woman's vote, they cannot complain if he is simi- larly unconstitutional in opposing or in- itiating other legislation they might ve- hemently desire or dislike. If the King is advised not to receive this deputation by his Ministers, how can he reject their advice? He might, on the same grounds, next year or in the next few years, re- fuse to sign his name under 'Le Roy le veult' at the foot of a great measure of female enfranchisement." The ceremony at what was to have been the opening of the Anglo-American Exhibition on May 14 was marred by an absurd fiasco. The invited guests had the pleasure of listening to the speeches that had been prepared by the Duke of Teck, the Earl of Kintore, and other dis- tinguished persons, but all they were permitted to see of the show itself was gained by peering through the dusty panes of locked doors. Disappointing as was this failure, the explanation of it is, in one respect, highly creditable. The doors of the halls were closed because the exhibition authorities had not satisfied the London County Council inspectors. The management complains that the in- spection was made so late that there was not time to comply with the official re- quirements before the day fixed for the opening ceremony. Be that as It may, it is satisfactory to know that no influence can deter the Council from insisting upon the precautions that it considers neces- sary to provide for the safety of the pub- lic. The purveyors of popular entertain- ment ought already, one would imagine, to have learned this lesson of the in- flexibility of the L. C. C. from what hap- pened in connection with the opening of Oscar Hammerstein's opera house in KiHgsway a few years ago. The first performance was advertised to be given on a certain Monday night. Up to the previous Saturday afternoon Mr. Ham- merstein was confident that he should be able to induce the Council to abate some of its conditions respecting exits, etc. Only then did he realize that he was up against an authority whose instructions were not meant to be a basis for dis- cussion, but were as absolute as the fiat of a Czar. When at last the truth dawned upon the astonished proprietor of the new building, he had to get to- gether, post haste, a staff of workmen and keep squads of them at it, night and day, until the structural alterations were luckily completed just before the first ticket-holders appeared at the doors. It was a narrow shave for Mr. Hammer- stein, but the reminiscence of -it is apt to be somewhat exhilarating to those who take a pride in the efficiency of the Council. H- w- H- JAPAN'S DEFENCES BY SEA— THE FIVE NAVAL PROGRAMMES SINCE THE WAR WITH CHINA. Tokio, May 12. So much has been said of late about the development of militarism in Japan, and her alleged naval programme of elaborate and even sinister proportions, that an ex- amination of the facts is but fair to Japan and may prove of considerable interest as a relief to apprehension, so far as it exists abroad. What actually is Japan's naval pro- gramme is an extremely difficult ques- tion to answer offhand; for not only is it wrapped up in the secrecy that naturally pertains to such questions, but it is ren- dered still more complicated for the out- sider to unravel by the fact that it con- sists of a series of programmes doubling upon one another. There are at present in force five na- val programmes, which have been in- augurated by the Imperial Navy and ap- proved by the Imperial Diet. The first one was inspired by experiences in the war with China, when Japan for the first time began to realize the importance and necessity of an adequate naval force. At the time that war broke out, Japan had a fleet of thirty-three ships, aggn a tonnage of only 61,000, and no battle- ships at all comparable to those pos- sessed by China. Only after Japan had succeeded in torpedoing and sinking at Wei-hal-wel China's two big ships was the intense anxiety of the nation relieved. No sooner had peace been resumed than Japan set about elaborating a na pansion programme of 211,000,000 yen, and this, her first, naval programme was carried to completion in 1911. What it did for the Imperial navy may be In- ferred from the fact that in 1903 Japan
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OGO T li e 1ST ation [Vol. 98, No. 2553 found herself in command of a lighting force of seventy-six ships, with a total tonnage of 258,000. In this year came anothernaval expan- sion programme authorizing- an expendi- ture of 99, 000,000 yen, spread over aspace of twelve years, ending in 1915. This pro- gramme involves the construction of a certain number of battleships, naval wea- pons, buildings, a replenishment of war craft, and repairs to naval ships. In 1904, another naval expansion programme was launched, involving an outlay of 123,000,- 000 yen, spread over seven years. Again, during the war with Russia, a further plan for laying out 76,000,000 yen on the navy was promulgated, the time required being seven years. In 1910 appeared a fourth programme for spending on the navy the sum of 80,000,000 yen in six years; and, lastly, in 1911, the Saionji Cabinet promoted a scheme calling for an expenditure of 90,000,000 yen, to be spread over a period of ten years. Since the war with Russia there have been added four battleships, eight first- class armored cruisers, six other cruis- ers, besides numerous smaller war craft — all these in addition to the twelve bat- tleships captured from Russia, having a displacement of some 103.500 tons. Some Modern Painters PERSONAL NOTES IN TBRS. TWO CHAP. By SIR HENRY LUCY. A comparison of the fleet that faced Russia with the present naval strength of Japan will further indicate to what extent the naval programmes have been executed, as well as the nation's position as a naval power on the Pacific. Japan met Russia with six battleships, eight armored cruisers, forty-four minor cruisers, as well as other warcraft, in- cluding eighty torpedo-boats and nine- teen destroyers, representing 157 ships, with a total tonnage of 283,743. To-day the Japanese Empire commands a fleet of fifteen battleships, three of which are of dreadnought strength; thirteen first-class armored cruisers; seven sec- ond-class cruisers; thirteen third-class cruisers, representing an aggregate ton- nage of no less than 453,115, to say noth- ing of her sixty destroyers, fifty-nine tor- pedo-boats, and thirteen submarines, as well as her efficient aerial corps. Under the fifth expansion programme of 1911-12, her naval strength is greatly enhanced, but this programme is as yet only on paper. It involves, however, an outlay of some 90,000,000 yen, much of which is to be devoted to heavy fighting units. The most deadly weapons of the Japanese fleet are not her dreadnoughts, so-called, but her magnificent array of fast armored cruisers, with a speed of over twenty-six knots, and heavy fight- ing equipment. The concluding naval programme of the Japanese authorities was seriously inter- fered with by the action of the House of Peers at the last session of the Diet in refusing to concur in the naval budget, deleting a sum of 70,000,000 yen from the estimates. This attitude ended in the downfall of the Cabinet. Japan asks and will Insist upon the same treatment as one civilized nation Is entitled to ask from another; and her navy stands as a wholesale warning to all who hesitate to accord her this com- mon justice. J. I. B. CHAPTER TWO — ALMA TADEMA — EDWIN ABBEY— LUKE F1LDES— AIR. COW— SYD- NEY COOPER. I happen to possess three master- pieces by Alma Tadema that never hung on the line at the Royal Acad- emy. At present they hang on the line in a corner of my dining-room, where, indeed, the work was executed. Dining with us one night, Tadema, pencil in hand, took up one of the menu cards and wrote on the back a group of caba- listic figures displayed thus: 21 21 15 15 138 31 31 Deftly turning the card to the left, he with a few swift strokes of the pencil clad the group of three figures with cap and kerchief, producing the comely faces of two country dames. With sim- ilar lightning-like treatment he trans- formed the figures 138 into the face and hatted head of a broth of an Irish boy. Among the guests was Archdeacon Wiberforce, Chaplain of the House of Commons. Closely watching the magi- cal process which seemed as simple as writing down the figures, he asked if he might reproduce it. "By all means," said the genial R.A. The Archdeacon got the figures all right, turned the card into the proper position, and painstakingly copied the drawings. The result was an unrecog- nizable blotch. The gentle reader will probably do better if he gives his mind to the experiment. his picture the moment when the Pri- mate raised aloft the crown with intent to place it on the King's head. Simul- taneously the cloaked peers, hitherto carrying their coronets in their hand, with one accord uplifted them, placing them upon their heads as the King was crowned. "At sight whereof," as the ancient office hath it, "the people, with loud and repeated shouts, cry 'God save the King!' The trumpets sound, and by a signal given, great guns at the Tower are shot off." Abbey told me that while various sit- ters of high estate gave him much trou- ble in the matter of sittings, Queen Alex- andra excelled all. The best sitter, al- ways urbane, thoughtful of the trou- bled artist's time and convenience, was King Edward. Punctually at appoint- ed hours he drove in a private brough- am to the artist's studio, solely accom- panied by an equerry in mufti. He listen- ed smilingly to the artist's instructions as to pose, and implicitly obeyed direc- tions. With the Queen all was differ- ent. Abbey attended upon her at com- mand, often waiting over an hour, when he was informed that he could not see her Majesty on that particular day. There were all kinds of trouble with the royal robes, culminating at a time when the artist believed his task was over in demand for alterations which upset all arrangements for the public exhibition of the picture, deferring its opening till the London season was over and the town empty. Edwin Abbey got a big price for his picture of the Coronation of King Ed- ward. The payment did not realize mon- ey value for time and labor expended. He was content to take the balance out in renown. As was shown in Sir George Hayter's picture of the Coronation of Queen Victoria the subject is not one to be mastered by ordinary art. Only su- preme genius could lift it above the col- ored woodiness reached by the court painter of sixty-six years. Abbey made a picture as well as a portrait gallery. The likenesses are in the main excel- lent. What strikes one first is the glory of the mass of color, the life and move- ment that pervades the scene. On Coronation day the artist was obligingly provided with convenient re- cess in a tomb in Westminster Abbey immediately facing King Edward's chair, In which the new sovereign was seated. There, while he looked on, came I to him the happy thought of seizing for At the date of the Coronation Mr. Balfour was the First Minister of the Crown, entrusted with direction of the destinies of the Empire. It would seem reasonable that in an historic picture of this kind he should figure prominently. Prolonged search discovers the Premier at the extreme edge of the crowd, abso- lutely the last man but one admitted within the charmed circle. Only a minor canon between him and the unnamed multitude outside. The incident throws a flood of light on one of those ordi- nances upon which, all unknown to the otherwise astute man in the street, the British Constitution rests. In the cere- mony of the Coronation the order of precedence, sacred and immutable as the laws of the Medes and Persians, is paramount. The Prime Minister, an of- ficial designation of comparatively mod- ern birth, had at the date of King Ed- ward's Coronation no place in the table. Consequently he could claim no prece- dence either at the Coronation or In or- dinary gatherings of official or social life. Accordingly In the Coronation picture, which now decorates one of the walls of Buckingham Palace, he, more or less humbly, stands on the out- skirts, a special Providence having set immediately before him the Lord Chan-
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June 4, 1914] r JO h. e N" a t i o n 661 ceilor (Lord Halsbury), over whose wig- ged head he can quite conveniently sur- vey the scene. Next to the King and Queen, stand- ing immediately behind her Majesty, the most striking figure in this pageant is that of the Bishop of Norwich. This is by reason of his robes, whereby hangs a tale. The Primate and other occu- pants of the Episcopal Bench were ar- rayed for the Coronation in their ordi- nary official robes. The Bishop of Nor- wich was gorgeous in cloth of gold and priceless tapestry. The raiment orig- inally belonged to quite another person- age, the Emir of Bokhara to wit. A Nor- folk man being on the spot when some upheaval in that far-off country led to the Emir's apparel coming on the mar- ket, he bought his robes of state, and on returning to his native country pre- sented them to the Dean and Chapter of Norwich. As the delectable thing would r.ot go round the full capitular company it was resolved to endow the Lord Bishop with its sole possession. It was accordingly, with the least possible al- teration, transformed into an episcopal robe, which the Bishop wore at the Cor- onation, and subsequently lent to Abbey for the uses of the picture. What his right reverend brethren thought of the little vanity was not spoken, at least not publicly. But the Bishop of Norwich decidedly had the best of it in the show. When Cecil Rhodes paid his last visit to London, he, at the request of a per- sonal friend, sat for his portrait to Luke Fildes. The great man, whose temper in mildest seasons was not lacking in peremptoriness, wholly failed to realize the dignity of an R.A. He refused to take up the position and pose suggest- ed by the artist. He would be painted as he chose to sit, and in no other way. If Fildes didn't like it, he must leave it. Fildes certainly did not like it. But in the end it was Rhodes who had to leave it, the studio doors being closed upon him, with order to the servants that they were not to be reopened. This was a sacrifice of some labor, and a fee of 500 guineas. But the situation had become unbearable. Fildes retained the portrait in its unfinished state, and the friend who commissioned it is inconsol- able. Mr. Gow, R.A., who is well known at the Arts and Garrick Clubs, never got rid of the status bestowed upon him by a former Lord Mayor of London. Un- veiling the Academician's Jubilee pic- ture at the Guildhall, his Lordship, ob- serving on the frame the magic letters "R.A." after the painter's name, eulo- gized him as "Mr. Gow, Royal Artil- lery." Like the owner of the Shamrock, the Lord Mayor (Sir John Voce Moore) was a tea merchant, though, unlike Sir Thom- as Lipton, he did not add bacon or oth- er comestibles to his stores. He laid the foundation of his fortune at Cam- bridge, where, years ago, he kept a grocer's shop. Overhead lodged an un- dergraduate, who since has made far- reaching fame in the world of letters. One night he gave a supper to celebrate some happy event. The guests stayed late, and began to grow uproarious. The worthy grocer remonstrated with only partial effect. As at the conclusion of his remarks he turned to descend the staircase, the sight of his bald head proved irresistible. The host, taking up the unfinished bowl of more than half hot punch, dropped it over the staircase on to the head of the future Lord Mayor of London. When the Cambridge grocer assumed the majesty of the Mansion House, the ex-undergraduate wrote him a letter of congratulation, reminding him of the pleasing incident. Strange to say, he received a chillingly cool acknowledg- ment. The Lord Mayor fully recalled the incident, but expressed no desire to renew the acquaintance. What was fun to the undergraduates was a bath of hot grog to him. Sydney Cooper, born in Canterbury four years before Waterloo, died there in the spring of 1901. He was at work almost up to the end, preparing to avail himself of his privilege as R.A. to have his latest masterpiece hung on the line at Burlington House. Talking to Sir William Agnew a short time before his death, he said he remembered that sixty years earlier Sir William's father had suggested to him the subject for a pic- ture. It was a herd of cattle standing knee-deep in a grassy pool at the foot of a verdurous hill. "And now," said the cheerful old gen- tleman, "I'm going to carry out the idea." To those familiar with the general character of Sydney Cooper's works, few of them excluding from their composi- tion three acres more or less and a cow, there is something delightful in the idea, which evidently possessed the vet- teran artist, that in his ninetieth year he was starting out upon quite a new style. To all appearances he was hap- pily unconscious of any declension of the popularity of his prime. In his eightieth year he endowed Canterbury with a gallery of art, in which many of his pictures are now on view. He hint- ed that there was a more precious legacy in store for the institution. He made no secret that in his will he had made provision that the work upon which he chanced to be engaged at the time of bis death should be added to the gallery, and that the brush falling from his hand and the palette he should never more use should be exhibited to coming generations. News for Bibliophiles "JOHN DUNTON'S LETTERS FROM NEW ENGLAND." Prof. Chester N. Greenough's critical study of "John Dunton's Letters from New England," which appears in the most recently printed volume (XIV, pp. 213- 257) of the Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, is of more than ordinary interest and value. For Mr. Greenough has settled for all time the question of the authenticity of a book that has hitherto held a place of some importance with the early works de- scriptive of seventeenth-century life in New England by producing evidence which compels us to catalogue the vol- ume anew and transfer it from the his- tory shelf to that devoted to early Eng- lish fiction. Mr. Greenough proves be- yond cavil that this erratic and irrespon- sible London bookseller is guilty of pla- giarism of the most flagrant sort. Dunton wrote many books, of which the best known is "The Life and Errors of John Dunton, Late Citizen of London," published in that city by S. Malthus (1705), in which he has given an account of his visit to New England in 1686. This part of the book was inadequately re- printed by the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1814. But it is as the author of a series of eight lively letters, pur- porting to have been written at various times during 1686, giving another and perhaps later version of his stay in New England, that Dunton chiefly commands our interest. These apparently authentic letters, from the pen of a not unfriendly observer, remained unpublished for more than a century and three-quarters, and first saw the light in 1867, when printed for the members of the Prince Society (Boston) from the original manuscript in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and edit- ed by William H. Whitmore. The edi- tion was limited to two hundred and ten copies (including twenty on large paper), and the book, much sought by collectors, has long been one of the scarcest of the Society's publications. John Dunton, the son of a clergyman and himself intended for the ministry, was born May 4-14, 1659. Beginning life in "fairly affluent circumstances," he did not escape the misery of poverty, largely the result of his own mad ventures. He has been not inaptly characterized by the elder Disraeli as "a crack-brained scrib- bling bookseller, who boasted he had a thousand projects, fancied he had meth- odized six hundred, and was ruined by the fifty he executed." Dunton came to Boston in the Susan- nah and Thomas, Capt. Thomas Jenner, bringing with him a considerable stock of books. Upon his arrival, after a per- ilous journey of nearly three months' duration, he consoled his wife, "dear Iris," by sending her many "letters of tender- ness." To his friend, George Larkin, he thua confides: "When Fairweather left Boston (which was a week ago) he hn directed to Iris." The bookselling venture did not pros- per. Dunton remarks, with some bitter-
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GG2 T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2553 ness, that the inhabitants of Boston are j-eady enough with promises, but slow in making their payments, and, in speaking of his "Brethren the Booksellers," he says: "I am satisfy'd that I'm as wel- come to 'em as Sowr Ale in Summer." For his account of the customs of the Indians, Dunton drew on Roger Wil- liams's "Key into the Language of Amer- ica" (1643), although he professes to have obtained his information "from a friend." \lso, his essay on John Eliot, whom he itly admired, is largely taken from 'niton Mather. These borrowings, to- gether with minor ones from Josselyn's 'Two Voyages" (lti74) and J. W.'s "Let- ter from New England" (1682), are noted by Mr. Whitmore in his Introduction to the Prince Society volume. Yet, "with ie imperfections," writes the Editor, 'the Letters must remain as unique sketches of New England life, honestly drawn, and defective rather than erro- neous." And, with the exceptions here given, the "Letters," as original productions, ap- pear to have remained unchallenged un- til Mr. Greenough made his searching study of them. The extent of Dunton's plagiarism is extraordinary. The evidence adduced by Mr. Greenough is conclusive, and has the effect almost of taking one's breath away. In pointing out our au- thor's propensity for borrowing without credit, he says: "That Josselyn actually was Dunton's Baedeker appears when we examine the short descriptions of the various towns which Dunton visited in his rambles. There are twelve of them in all, and the description of each is taken almost verbatim from Josselyn." More- over, Dunton was not content with taking his descriptions of places ready-made from earlier writers. The most interest- ing part of his "Letters"— that concern- ing the people he met in and about Bos- ton—is copied from several books of "characters," and is, therefore, worthless as characterizations of Dunton's ac- quaintances. No less than thirty-one passages have been traced to these sources— "fourteen from Overbury, seven from Fuller, four from Earle, three from Flecknoe, and three from the author of 'The Ladies Calling.' " Not only does Mr. Greenough quote many passages, in parallel columns, from Dunton and the authors from whom he plagiarized, but he has also compiled a very useful table of such borrowings as have been traced to their source by Mr. Whitmore and himself. It appears from this list that Dunton, in at least eig four cases, incorporated borrowed 1 rial in his "Letters." To Mr. Greenough'e industrious researches we are lnd Ik, Thai be never tage of ble chapman's warrant* any w«n- tor -Ignorance, chiefly If rr- good, BOl Wbal Is 0 In (erring himself to his deed. And the other, lionesty, where the sell- That be makes 110 Ad- er'a conscience is all the vantage of his Chap- buyer's skill, who makes mini's l^norunce, espe- iiim both seller and dally if be refers blm- iudge, so that he doth self to his Honesty, not so much ask as or- Where the Con der what he must pay. the Seller is all the .Skill of the Buyer, the Seller is made the Judge, so that he doth not so much ask as Order what he must pay. It is not a pleasant thing to have one's faith in an old worthy shaken, even if that worthy is of the Dunton type. But Mr. Oreenough has rendered a genuine service to the student of to-day and of to-morrow by pointing out that "John Dunton's Letters from New-England" must be accepted, if at all, only with the utmost caution. The book can never again be used as history. John Thomas Lee. Correspondence "THE CONSTITUTIONAL POWER OF THE COURTS." To the Editor of The Nation : Sir: In the correspondence printed in your issue of May 14, two communications appear in answer to my letter on the constitutional power of the courts. The first communication is from Mr. Rayner W. Kelsey, who objects to my statement that he offered two passages from the Constitution as "proof" of the contention that the Federal Constitution confers upon the Federal Judiciary the power to declare unconstitutional any enact- ments of the Federal Legislature which they may deem to be so. Mr. Kelsey says that he cited the passages not as "proof" of the contention, "but merely as the basis of the argument." If the passages do not furnish any such basis, the error is all the more serious. These two quotations from the Federal Consti- tution are the only quotations from that document to be found in Mr. Kelsey's first letter. Bearing this in mind, let us read once more this sentence from that first letter: "Most of us still venture to be- lieve that the above-quoted lines of the Constitution confer upon the Supreme Court the power to declare acts of Con- gress unconstitutional." If this be not the citation of those passages as "proof" of Mr. Kelsey's contention, I confess to an inability to make anything out of the letter. But let us come to the chief point in Mr. Kelsey's rebuttal. In my letter of April 23 I said: "Nowhere is such a power expressly given to the Judii the first Constitutions of the original Stales; nowhere is such a power ex- pressly given to the Federal Judiciary in the Federal Constitution." Mr. Kelsey taki issue with these statements, and he is kind enough to say that if I had only taken the precaution to read B Standard general history of the United Stales I should not have made the mis- take. Then he quotes from Prof. A. C. McLaughlin's volume in the American Nation series. In that quotation I find three instances of the assumption, or, if you prefer, exercise, by State courts of the power to declare laws passed by their respective State Legislatures unconsti- tutional. I find nothing else. Now, if possible, I should like to make my point clear. It is this: In no State Constitution in force before the adoption of our Federal Constitution is there an express grant to the judiciary of the power to declare acts of the Legislature unconstitutional. If Mr. Kelsey can find such an express grant of power I shall be pleased to have him quote the pas- sage in which it is embodied. Simply to quote instances of the exercise of that power by State courts is to beg the ques- tion. For the question is: Were those courts constitutionally endowed with such power, or did they merely assume it? The same question applies to our Fed- eral Supreme Court. I must pass over- much in Mr. Pearson's interesting and courteous letter that seems to me to be irrelevant, and much that seems to me to be a misunderstanding of my position. But in his letter of May 14 Mr. Pearson says, or implies, that the fact that the Federal Constitution limits the field in which the Federal Legislature may legis- late is proof of the contention that the framers of the Constitution intended the Federal Judiciary to be the judge of whe- ther, in any contested case, the Federal Legislature has overstepped the limits of its field. Surely the power to declare acts of the Legislature unconstitutional is a grave and far-reaching one. Was not the confiding of so great a power to the Federal Judiciary worthy of a distinct, definite, and unmistakable passage in the Constitution? And if it was the delibe- rate intention of a majority of the fram- ers of the Constitution to endow the Fed- eral Judiciary with such a power why did they not insert such a passage in the Constitution? E. M. H. Moscow, Idaho, May 20. THE IRISH IN AMERICA. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: In the Nation for April 16 an au- thority on immigration, Prof. Henry P. Fairchild, of Yale University, offers some melancholy reflections on the Irish ele- ment in America. In the interests of national reason, I hope I may be allow- ed to express a somewhat different view in a weekly famous for its Irish editor. It is as an hereditary American that Mr. Fairchild puts the case against (ho Irish element. With a delightful tact in classification, he says that when the Irish began to arrive in this country they suffered the antipathy that existed among the native stock for "paupers, criminals, diseased persons, and 1 Ionian Catholics." The question now is, w antipathy ill-founded? Mr. Fairchild de- clares 'hat the more friendly assumption "is open to serious question." He declares pecifically that "among criminals, the Irish stand at the bead Of the ton 1 "a horn as regards the total number of of- ences," and that "the numbei of Irish paupers In this country Is oul of till pro- portion to 1 tnii percentage of the total population." in addition, he contends that the original agitation raited on ■
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June 4, 1914] T h. e 1ST a t i o n 663 solid foundation, insisting that many so- called American evils are traceable to these early immigrants. He intimates that the Irish have had an evil influence ..n public affairs, and especially on ques- tions involving England. He expects the Irish to love England. His general con- clusions are vague, but he testifies that we owe a debt to the agitators of an earlier period, and he is certain that un- der new standards the America of 1914 would, if it had the chance, reject three- quarters of the great Irish migration of 1845-1855 — a migration which landed "swarms of miserable wretches on our dorks," an "indiscriminate dumping of foreign paupers and criminals on our shores." It is certainly true that the great Irish migration was largely composed of "mis- erable wretches." Between 1845 and 1855, 2,000,000 Irish suffered famine, and fam- ine does induce miserable wretchedness. Of these, one million died in Ireland. In the words of Mr. Fairchild himself, "the famine had passed the death-sentence up- on a large proportion of the people; emi- gration— to carry out the figure — merely commuted that sentence to exile. It fur- nished an outlet to thousands who were otherwise doomed to die." Had antipathy had its crabbed way, the rest of the mis- erable Wretches would, by his own show- ing, have been pent up for death in a land of death. Happily enough for these beneficiaries of English rule, immigra- tion had not yet come under the aegis of the Sacred Codfish. I do not wish to falsify. Perhaps the fact that the canals and railroads never could have been built without the sturdy Irishmen of 1830 and later, made the new arrivals not un- welcome, but I feel, also, that some mis- guided natives received them in the spirit of another hereditary American, who saw his land as the "Pole-star of light in Europe's night," a country where Each shall care for other And each to each shall bend, To the poor a noble brother, To the good an equal friend. Statistics, however, have no bowels of mercy, and Emerson is no answer to them. As the spokesman of native con- scientious selfishness, Mr. Fairchild is en- titled to make his case, and if the Irish have proved inordinately pauper, crim- inal, and diseased — in addition to being inflicted with a discreditable religion — they have certainly been a poor bargain for those to whom God gave a vested interest in this country. What are the actual facts? I shall quote against Mr. Fairchild nothing but his own work on "Immigration." From that book I should conclude that no scru- pulous person would venture to arraign any class of early immigrants on the data at hand. In regard to crime, for example, he asserts on page 331, "the utter inadequacy of the data for making any deductions as to the influence of immigration upon crime in the Unite States." In regard to pauperism, it is equally impossible to conclude. While basing his present contentions on lhe list of paupers in the almshouses, he ad- mits in his book that "these tables, taken by themselves, are wholly unreliable a indicating relative tendencies among races," and neither he nor any one else has as yet any exhaustive data to sup- plement these tables. In point of fact, the data as to outdoor relief indicate the preponderance of German pauperism To return to the allegation that the Irish take the leal among foreign-born criminals. In his valuable book Mr. Fair- child gives this allegation an entirely different complexion. There he says: "It appears that the Irish stand at the head as regards the total number of offences and the German next. In respect to ma- jor offences, however, the Germans stand first." On what principle should criminality be judged? Mr. Fairchild asserts very wisely that "tests of criminality, to be accurate, should include quality as well as quantity." On his own principle, then, he stands convicted of inaccuracy — the sort of inaccuracy which an Irishman would feel discreditable, since it woul' prove that he had not felt the full obli- gations of truth. What swells the Irish criminal total is the fact that "the Irish and Scotch are addicted to drunkenness." Crimes against property are, apparently, a German proclivity. And, so far as can be ascertained, "the Italians are pre- eminent in crimes of violence or crimes against the person." In view of the fact that the early Irish immigrants "were a destitute and help- less lot, and fell an easy prey to the machinations of [a] host of exploiters," I think it is reasonable to expect much pauperism, but I am inclined to believe that trfis is imported pauperism, and Mr. Fairchild has certainly not proved that it is notoriously inherent pauperism. As to criminality, his own words betray hitr as, in this instance, unsound and, in the strict sense, untruthful. There remains the question of the cor- rupt Irish vote. As to this, I shall ven- ture upon three admissions and three accusations: (1) The uneducated Irish came here without ever having had op- portunity in self-government, through no fault of their own, (2) they took advan- tage of the native spoils system, (3) they contributed to bad municipal politics. But (1) on its own side, the United States exploited the cheap Irish labor and failed to educate it politically, (2) the ma> "higher up," the big grafter, was not usually an Irishman but a corrupt Amer- ican, sometimes even a New Englander, and (3) the shame of the American cit- was attributable to causes far deeper than the existence of a convenient Irish medium. I do not defend the culpability, but seek to ascribe it to the proper cause. In public life, there is this to say: the Irish immigrants certainly have failed to accumulate property proportionately. But the accumulation of property is 11 the final test of human value. They have done the United States considerable ser- vice in such comparatively non-lucrative vocations as the army, the police, the great fire departments; as journalists, a educators, as lawyers, as contractors, as leaders in trade unionism, as clerics, evi as athletes, and also possibly as a Celtic qualification of Puritanism. The Irish immigration brought to this country the antecedents of many admir- able people. I can think of the unad- vertised Irish blood In Prof. William James, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Edwin L. Godkin, as well as the Irish blood in "Hinky Dink" and "Bathhouse John." I can credit Ireland with Mitchel, Mc- Aiieny, and Prendergast, as well as dis- credit it with Croker and Murphy. And when I think of the greatest political event of recent years — the smash-up of the Republican party — I see nothing Irish in the visages of Penrose, Barnes, Gug- genheim, Lorimer, "Big Steve," of Col- orado: It is pathetic to have a political commentator laying at the door of the immigrant evils which were inherent in the commercial intention of the last forty years and in a government imperfectly socialized. Restriction of immigrants may now be economically expedient; this is one of the genuine problems before us. But I urge that a narrow Americanism is bound to pervert us, as it has perverted Mr. Fair- child — and it can never be a possible basis for this democracy. To adopt the polite words of Gildas, we are all "whelps from the kennel of barbarism." To mount from barbarism, each to each must bend. Francis Hackett. New York, May 21. "THE HONOR SYSTEM." To the Editor of The Nation : Sir: The author of the interesting arti- cle on the honor system in the Nation of May 7 seems to be entirely ignorant of some of the most important provisions of this system. In the first place equal trust is not placed in every student. The system is simply a form of government by the students. In the University of Virginia and many other institutions which hold the same "patent of nobility" the management of this government is in the hands of a special student commit- tee. Each student pledges his honor, first to abide by the rules of the examination and secondly to report to the commit- tee any dishonesty which may come un- der his notice. Naturally "the skulking fellow, . . . with the abridged forehead and the saurian eye" (and he is to be found in every institution) would readily give and as readily violate the first pledge, but the presence of the second is a strong deterrent. How strong it is de- pends upon the honor of the students about him. If he knows that the honor system is thoroughly enforced, he is afraid to cheat. The virtuous student receives no quid pro quo. His honesty is not conditioned upon his teacher's absence or presence. There is no "obsequious withdrawal" of the teacher and the honor system has no proviso, stated or implied, as to which he shall do. Often the teacher remains to answer questions and to attend to details of the examination. Too much stress has perhaps been laid upon the "honor" of the system. It would perhaps better be called the common de- cency system. Exactly the same credit redounds to the individual member of the group as to a member of any other self-governed community — and no more. He has only done his duty when he obeys and upholds its laws. As to whether the honor system or some other should be used in a given institution depends upon circumstances.
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OG4 T li e Natio ri [Vol. 98, No. 2553 Certainly, if the honor system works, the sense of responsibility for one's self and for the group, which it develops, is worth much, and is a distinct advance over any system of inspection, but each sys- tem must of course be judged by its re- sults, and if the students do not enforce the honor system it becomes a wretchec farce and should be abandoned. Experience with college students in institutions from Nebraska to Massachu- setts leads me to believe that many are strongly influenced by their surroundings in matters of collegiate honesty. Many would not cheat under any circumstances, some would cheat whenever they thought detection or punishment unlikely, many, especially at the beginning, would chea if others did or if the group winked at such deceit and punishment was not like- ly to follow, but would not cheat if that were dangerous or unpopular. Under a well-enforced honor system this last se1 not only refrains from cheating, but grows to regard the practice with disgust. The student regards his teacher's code of mo- rals as a maximum of excellence which it is not necessarily a deep disgrace to fail to reach, but that of his fellows as a minimum to fall below which means ostracism. In a large institution where the indi- viduals of the group are known to rela- tively few and where no common inter- ests draw the group together in ways in which it may act upon the individuals powerfully, the honor system may be im- practicable, but in smaller, more closely knit institutions, the failure of the honor system when fairly tried would be a sad commentary on the sense of honesty and responsibility among the students. W. A. Colwell. Spartanburg, S. C, May 19. NON-UNION MINERS. To the Editor of The Nation : Sir: In your editorial entitled "The Colorado Puzzle," in the Nation of May 7, you say: "No one seems to be speak- ing for the non-union miners." Notwithstanding the strike, there are 10,000 men at work in the coal mines of Colorado. The strikers total not more than 2,000. Many of the leaders neve worked underground a day in their lives. Some of them are bartenders and sa- loon-keepers. The mine owners have sustained enor- mous losses and are risking the total destruction of their property to insure the non-union men the right to work without paying tribute to any set of sell-constituted bosses. is it quite true that "no one speaks for the non-union miners"? Charles w. Comstock. Denver, Col., May 16. [Yes. No one of their number speaks cfficially for them. — Ed. The Nation.] "HOWLERS." To THB Editor of The Nation: Sin: The following "howler" seems worthy to be added to the delightful col lection printed In your issue of May 14: An English schoolboy, confronted with the phrase, "Voici l'Anglais avec son sang froid," translated it, "Here comes the Englishman with his bloody coldness." S. R. T. Sharon, Conn., May 25. "LIBERTAS SUB REGE PIC" To the Editor of The Nation : Sir: By a curious coincidence, I hap- pened to be reading the biography of Sydney Smith only a short time ago and I find in my notebook one of the "howl- ers" to which the writer on the rationale of schoolboy blunders refers in his ar- ticle, page 564, May 14. It was the trans- lation of Viscount Sidmouth's motto, and the translation of it was by Sydney Smith's brother, nicknamed Bobus, who rendered it (significantly in the reign of George III), "Our pious King has got lib- erty under." B. R. Halifax, May 18. Literature CAVOURIANA. La Giovenezza di Cavour. Da Francesco Ruffini. 2 vols. Milan: Fratelli Boc- ca. Lire 10. Cavour Agricoltore. Lettere inedite di Camillo Cavour a Giacinto Corio; precedute da un Saggio di Ezio Vis- conti. Florence: Barbera. Lire 4. Cavour e la Formazione del Regno d'ltalia. Da Pietro Orsi. Turin: S. T. E. N. Lire 3.50. L'ltalia Moderna. 1750-1913. Quarta Edizione continuata fino alia Con- quista della Libia. Da Pietro Orsi. Milan: Hoepli. Lire 7.50. Cavour and the Making of Modern Italy. 1810-1861. By Pietro Orsi. Heroes of the Nations Series. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. $1.50 net. Since the centenary of Cavour's birth in 1910, two works of real importance concerning his life have appeared in Italy. In addition there have been vari- ous magazine articles and pamphlets, and some personal recollections scatter- ed here and there in newspapers. The most notable contribution is by Prof. Francesco Ruffini, recently rector of the University of Turin, who has made a very careful study of Cavour's youth. Having worked with the consent of the statesman's heirs, he has enjoyed free access to Cavour's papers. The re- sult is that he is able to supplement the information which Berti first gave in 'Cavour Before 1848," published in 1886, and in Cavour's "Diary," publish- ed in 1888. Many things which Berti found it discreet to omit thirty years ago, Professor Ruffini quite properly makes public now; and, besides new ma- terlal, he supplies names which Berti hid behind initials or asterisks, and he gives us in their entirety letters which Chiala, who also was hampered, print- ed in fragments only. Among new sourc- es which Professor Ruffini has tapped, the letters of Cavour to his cousin, Adele de Sellon, and her husband, Baron Mau- rice, are particularly rich. In general, this valuable study does not cause us to revise our opinion of Cavour's youth and early manhood; on the contrary, it confirms the impres- sions derived from preceding biograph- ers, and it makes us wonder all the more at the accuracy of outline and the justness of insight displayed by Wil- liam de La Rive in his beautiful mem- oir published in 1862. On many details, Professor Ruffini sheds new light, by which we realize how difficult Cavour's position was in a household sincerely devoted to Reaction and wholly persuaded that the young Liberal was either wilfully perverse, or crazy, or both. The depth of family affection among young and old alone prevented an irremediable explosion. Their toleration of the black sheep is perhaps more remarkable than is his own abiding affection for them. Of Cavour's rustication to Grinzane and management of the estate there, and of the steps which led to his undertak- ing to direct the still larger venture at Leri, Professor Ruffini has much to tell. We do not find, however, any further explanation of Cavour's banishment to the Fortress of Bard, or of his love af- fair with the Marchesa Giustiniani. As to the latter, the author states frankly that, until material which is known to exist is released, not much can be add- ed to Berti's chapter on the Incognita. On the other hand, the letters of Ca- vour and his father in reference to the son's "plunging" on the Paris Bourse and losing 45,000 francs are documents of capital interest. They show alike the fundamentally magnanimous na- ture of Camillo and the fair-minded, long-suffering (from his point of view) quality of his father. Our only regret is that the first letter has been lost. Professor Ruffini has taken great pains to investigate Cavour's relations with his Swiss kinsmen; and again he fills in many details. The importance of Cavour's connections with Switzer- land, which includes the fact that his mother was Swiss and born a Protes- tant, and that from his earliest child- hood his visits to Geneva brought htm into contact with Liberal and progres- sive minds, cannot be overestimated; and the editor is right in devoting much space to this factor in Cavour's devel- opment. His study extends even to an account of the Geneva revolution of 1841. So satisfactory is Professor Rufflni's work that it is to be desired that he may be allowed to bring out, as soon as possible, an unexpurgated edition ol Cavour's Diary and Juvenilia. That
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June 4, 1914J The 1ST a t i o r± <D&5 he is a member of the Commission, ap- pointed by the Italian Government, to issue a national, complete edition of Cavour's letters, documents, and speech- es, ought to be a guarantee of thorough- ness and fidelity. The volume, edited by Ezio Visconti, of 264 letters from Cavour to Giacinto Corio, who had the business manage- ment of the Leri estates, will be stud- ied by every one who wishes to see how solid and minute a training in agricul- ture the future statesman gave him- self. He knew the character of each acre of land, the value of each crop, the capacity of the laborers, the time to buy and the time to sell. Being ambi- tious that Leri should be a model for Piedmont, he tried experiments, borrow- ed suggestions from England and France, consulted agricultural chemists, and studied how to improve the system of transportation. One item illustrates many: he seems to have been the first large importer of guano into Piedmont. Besides the technical side, these let- ters reveal also Cavour's human side in dealing with his farm-hands — the acuteness with which he estimated their industry, his sense of justice, his con- siderateness towards the unfortunate and old. Occasionally, there is a pass- ing reference to political matters: as when he confides to Corio the "joyful news" of his resignation as Prime Min- ister. These letters, with the sixty al- ready published by Chiala, and the vol- ume edited by Berti containing Ca vour's correspondence on financial con- cerns with De La Rue, the Genoese banker, leave no doubt as to Cavour's ability as a master of business on a large scale. Some fifteen years ago Count Pietro Orsi, who has subsequently been a pro- fessor at the University of Padua, and is now a Deputy in the Italian Parlia- ment, compiled a useful short history of Italy from 1748 to 1898. This he has recently extended to cover recent events down to the Italian conquest of Libia. He has also written in Italian a popular life of Cavour, which appears in an English translation in the Heroes of the Nations series. The English ver- sion follows closely enough the Italian original, and has, besides, a large num- ber of illustrations. Count Orsi's "L'ltalia Moderna" is particularly serviceable on account of its supplementary chapters covering the reign of the present King, and giving a survey of the political, social, and indus- trial condition of Italy in 1913, and of its leaders in literature and the arts. In addition, a bibliography of sixty pages should be mentioned. Count Orsi is a "safe" historian: he refrains from criticism which might rasp partisans of any stripe, and possesses the elements which make him a popular and respect- ed writer. CURRENT FICTION. Drums House. By Ida Wild. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. Clever and mannered, by a writer who knows her Meredith and her Hew- ett, the story concerns a group of coun- ty people in "Bandyshire." Its prelimi- nary confession of faith is a trifle men- acing: The great physician does not scruple to look at your tongue and to ask (with reason) many a bold and pointed query. No more should the novelist limit him- sell to certain phases; he must go far, ask much, know much. . . . But this is a poor parallel. For though I may have my finger on the pulse of the world, that will not content me; I must be chucking and chucked under the chin. To be frank, I am the world's lover and mis- tress in one. After that, the reader is bound to look ior something extremely "modern" and disconcerting. If his nerves have not been too well dulled by contact with the current British novel, he will find it. These people are certainly not respecta- ble in the nineteenth-century sense, and that, we suppose, is an object. A mid- dle-aged couple who chiefly love gam- bling and those Continental resorts in which that form of activity is encourag- ed, return to England and Drum's House because they have two daughters to be married off. Both marry Bandyshire men. One achieves grass-widowhood in the course of a honeymoon. The other, after a secret marriage with a social in- ferior, becomes the mistress of a con- temptible parson, and the pair are slain n each other's arms — presumably by the njured husband; but that is artfully eft to guesswork. The parents, if not espectable, are thoroughly lovable, and tie devoted and neglected wife of the miserable parson is a warmly human igure. A good deal of ingenuity is em- ployed in developing the narrative. man is good enough to be another man's master. I hate all forms of tyranny, and the kicks of Joe Bennet and the weary hours spent in earning the first rent which I ever paid for my people's croft, were responsible for instilling that hatred into my being." He goes to Scot- land among a squad of potato-diggers, learns to gamble and drink and thieve for a meal, learns, above all, to use his fists. He is a better man than he looks, and at eighteen has made himself fear- ed along the roads and among the rail- way and mining camps. He is a fighter and gambler by nature, and has no shame in drink as a resource. "I know not whether drink and gambling are evils. I only know that they cheered many hours of my life, and caused me to forget the miseries of being. . . . To gamble and drink was part of my nature, and for nature I offer no ex- cuses. She knows what is best." He despises the church and her time-serv- ing officers, society and her false way with the poor. It is a gloomy book, re- bellious rather than powerful, though not without touches of power. Children of the Dead End. By Patrick MacGill. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. A pessimistic and melancholy Jack London might have told this story. The writer says that it is largely autobio- graphical. It is the tale of a fighting Irishman who became an English tramp and navvy and Socialist and, incidental- y, a writer. Dermod Flynn finds life unjust from the outset. Before he has entered his 'teens he is sent out of his peasant home by the parents who have thrust him into the world. He is ex- pected not only to make his own living, but to help meet the exactions of the landlord and priest at home. He learns his hard lesson of what is to be expect- ed between master and servant. "The covert sneers, the insulting jibes, the kicks and curses were good, because they moulded my character in the way that is best. To-day I assert that no A Stepdaughter of the Prairie. By Mar- garet Lynn. New York: The Macmil- lan Co. "I think my eyes were born tired of he prairie," writes Margaret Lynn in the first of these essay-narratives; but he affectionate appreciation diffused through the book leaves a far different nipression upon the reader. The author has observed well, she has caught from her childhood memories a senti- ment that warms and deepens her pic- tures, and she has a whimsical and sen- itive style. Those who think of rural life as barren, or the Western plains as monotonous, can find no more truthful orrection. The affairs of the farm fam- ly have humor, the school is described with animation, the woods and fields are invested with an adventurous glamour. For dramatic insight into a trivial mat- ter take the recurrent question of who should carry the dinner bucket to the ittle white cross-roads structure: Dramatic and emotional possibilities hovered about this problem, which was no simple one. It involved Intricate is- sues of precedence and succession and privilege and physical superiority and age and sex and who did it last and vigor of conscience and proportion of appetite and some occasional problems which no system could foresee or pro- vide for. Mary shamelessly pleaded privi- lege of sex and age. But I, being a suf- fragist by birth, accepted my turn as a matter of principle and only contended that I should not have more than my turn. Having brothers is a great quick - ener of morn! courage. One day Henry, who was at times sophistical beyond be- lief, proved by some masculine system of logic that If women ought to voto. I ought to carry the bucket as often as both he
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GGG T h e Natio n [Vol. 98, No. 2553 and John; and they set the lunch at my wrath-paralyzed feet. The author's experiences are, unfortu- nately, thoroughly feminine in point of view; the prairies, as a vast realm of outdoors, really belong to the boy. The bookishness of the childhood which passes before us in these pages is also unusual; although it is by no means rare, for, as Miss Lynn remarks, it is on the prairie that children have time to read, and an environment which whets, not dulls, their intellectual curi- osity. The book is a far cry from the uroan travesties of country life which stud the fiction shelves nowadays, and has many hints for any one who would treat a social phase in essay form. Keeping Up Appearances. By Maximil- ian Foster. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Jim Agnew, narrator of this story, galled by the fact that he is a mere clerk, though his ancestors lived on their income, decides to emigrate to New York. In the business community where he lived, "money," according to Mr. Fos- ter, "not only talked, but shouted; mon- ey was the only impulse in men's lives; all were rated by the standard of dol- lars and cents." New York then ap- pears as his only haven, the only place where he, too, can become rich and make a showing. Yet once in New York, Jim and his wife are engulfed in the costly whirl of an empty, pleasure-seek- ing, make-believe society which lives only in to-day, since to-morrow is uncer- tain. They fall victims to the life of restaurants and first-nights. Their re- sources are soon drained, and then they find that they cannot retreat, cannot cease making a show, that they must continue keeping up appearances or else be swamped by creditors. Squabs grace the board they offer their guests, bread- and-butter their own. The break does come, and they return to their home town and to a clerk's salary. The theme is, of course, not new, save that Mr. Foster introduces a worldly, ambitious husband to replace the usual dissatisfied wife. Both husband and wife are normal people. Mr. Foster also introduces a chorus of minor personages excellent in characterization. They are the common city types. There is Mrs. Hodge, whose one and only pursuit was enjoyment, which she got by whatever means was handiest; Mrs. Figler, who began each day with a feverish, con- suming study of the social columns and spent her husband's income on clothes and in Fifth Avenue public places; and Filler, the hanger-on, who "at forty had retained the buoyancy of a college fresh- man, a steady flow of high spirits to which was coupled the fawning man- ners of a lap-dog." The book presents a concise, straightforward narrative, with a minimum of sensationalism. NATURAL CRIME. Criminology. By Raffaele Garofalo. Translated by Robert Wyness Millar. With an Introduction by E. Ray Ste- vens. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. 1914. $4.50 net. The Nation's review of the first num- bers of the Criminal Science series (August 3, 1911) brought forth from the chairman of the committee on trans- lations a protest against the use of quo- tation marks in connection with crimi- nal "science." The translation of Garofalo's "Criminology" enables us to illustrate the necessity of these quota- tion marks by pointing to a typical case. There are two kinds of "scien- tists": the soft-headed variety, who will accept anything that appears to have an empirical origin, and the hard- headed, who attribute an empirical real- ity to anything that is perfectly tan- gible. Baron Garofalo belongs to the hard-headed kind. He is looking for a hard and fast criminal type; and when he finds what he wants he puts it down for a fact, whether it be taken from his own experience as a judge, from the prison records, from Dostoievsky's "House of the Dead," or from a tale by Poe (p. 103). On the other hand, this quality of hard-headedness makes him stimulating reading and introduces an element of stern common-sense, which helps to atone for a not too subtle psy- chology and gives to his treatment of crime a tone somewhat less sensational than that of his compatriot, Lombroso. In this connection we may mention his rather striking plan for enforced reparation and payment of damages on the part of those who are neither violent criminals nor confirmed thieves. Again, he insists that severity of punishment does deter, though his reference to English experience (p. 202) raises the question whether it is the severity of punish- ment that deters or its certainty. Garofalo's chief contribution to crimi- nology is the conception of "natural crime." According to him, the crimi- nal is not a man; hence, not a savage, for the savage is not deficient in love for his kind; nor a child, for many criminals are persons of mature intel- ligence— although most of those intro- duced by him seem rather strikingly naive. The criminal is a degenerate product of the human species, but in himself he constitutes a perfectly dis- tinct non-human type, with a psychol- ogy which is unintelligible from a hu- man point of view and a physical or- ganism that bears certain irrevocable "stigmata" of crime, such as the pro truding jaw and the retreating forehead. In reply to the objection that some who are not criminals bear those Lombrosan stigmata, Garofalo reminds us that not all the criminals are in jail; and if many of those in jail are without them — well, not all who are imprisoned are criminals. The mental "stigmata," if we may call them sucn, are compactly summarized as deficiencies in "altru- ism," which is divided into the two de- partments of "pity" and "probity." Evi- dently, in Garofalo's view, these are qualities — or, rather, quantities — which may be accurately weighed and mea- sured; a man either has them or has them not. Hence, as he repeatedly main- tains, there can be no casual criminals. No man not born a criminal can become a criminal. Criminality cannot be di- minished by social reform, by religion, or by education; nor, according to this view, can it be materially affected by alcoholism. Least of all can it be cured through reformation. Both the reforma- tory and the retributory theories of punishment presuppose moral responsi- bility, which Garofalo dismisses as so much folly and nonsense. His own rem- edies are repression, by enforced repa- ration—how this differs in theory from reformation is not quite clear— and the more consistent remedy of "elimina- tion," by banishment, when convenient, or by death, but not by life-imprison- ment. Here one asks why his selection- ist philosophy should not require a similar "elimination" of the insane. Garofalo replies by saying that this would do violence to the sentiment of pity, which, he boldly affirms, is not dis- turbed by the execution of the criminal "monster." Evidently, with moral re- sponsibility abandoned, this crucial dis- tinction is too much for him. In Garofalo, who is nothing if not definite and systematic, criminal "sci- ence" takes the form of a striking but deceptive simplicity. Taking from Spencer an iron-bound theory of natu- ral selection, which Spencer himself thought to be better adapted for the lower forms of life than for the higher, Garofalo carries the conception beyond the biological field into a region sup- posed to be touched, at least, by intel- ligence and moral responsibility; and then, to avoid complications, moral re- sponsibility is quietly dismissed. The result is the "natural criminal," a crea- ture neither animal nor human and so grotesque as to be inconceivable. Gar- ofalo claims, indeed, to be analyzing the "motives" of crime, but in his psy- chology a motive is indistinguishable from the thrust of a piston or a charge of electricity. He will not for a moment assume that criminal conduct may be made humanly intelligible. And it is noteworthy that, in spite of his own extensive experience, of which he makes liberal use, all of his more intimate de- BcrlptiOM of criminals are borrowed from Dostoievsky. For himself they are only uncanny specimens. There ap- p;,,:; to be but one "extenuating cir- cumstance." His book seems to show that in his own country, in the custom
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June 4, 1914I The Nation 667 of the vendetLa and in such organiza- tions as the Sicilian Mafia and the Nea- politan Camorra, he laces a regime ot crime, and especially of violent and vin- dictive crime, to which perhaps there is no complete parallel. Probably he is more than commonly familiar with types of peculiar moral insensibility, if not also with physical stigmata. THE COMING SOCIALISM. Progressivism — and After. By William English Walling. New York: The Macmillan Co. $1.50. In his latest book Mr. Walling de- scribes the steps by which the "Pro- gressive movement" will lead to "So- cialism," and gives it as his opinion that the journey will be completed in some twenty-five years. It is important to understand precisely what he means by "Socialism." "Socialism," he says, "does not mean that there will be no social groups — or classes, if we call all such groups by that name; it does mean the abolition of all group or class rule. Class rule implies that more or less fixed classes exist one above the other, and classes of this fixed character can, must, and will be abolished. The social groups that remain will not be superimposed one above the other. There will be no class rule" (p. 321). In brief, what he means by Socialism is complete politi- cal because complete economic equality. At present the author distinguishes four main groups or classes in society, viz., large capitalists, small capitalists, "privileged" non-capitalists, and non- privileged non-capitalists. The rule of the large capitalists has passed away, and under "Progressivism" the small capitalist is coming into power. When he does, a state of society will result which Mr. Walling calls "State Capital- ism." In due course power will fall into the hands of the "privileged" non-capi- talists, and then we shall have "State Socialism." The last stage of all will come with the overthrow of this rule by the non-privileged non-capitalist class, and then class-rule will cease and So- cialism be an accomplished fact. Only two of these three stages, Mr. Walling thinks, are at present ful!y recognized. The Progressive recognizes the contest between the small capitalist and the large capitalist, and the Socialist recog- nizes the struggle against the domi- nance of the small capitalist; but no one seems to recognize the necessity of the last struggle of all — viz., that of the non-privileged wage-earners against the privileged wage-earners, which ends in Socialism, as Mr. Walling understands — and desires — it. Chapter xvl, describing the transition to "Socialism," is one of the most in- teresting in the book. It Is not difficult to see even at the present day the trend towards "State Socialism," but it Is the unal stage that presents the main dif- ficulty, and in this chapter the author describes this stage. Under State So- cialism the non-privileged workers will be in a permanent minority in a numer- ical sense. Their efficiency in class-war- fare, however, and their power to in- jure the other class in society, will be much increased, and by a method of scientific "sabotage" and the "intermit- tent strike" they will be able to compel the final change, especially as the then ruling class will have but little to. lose by the change. And so we come to "So- cialism." Pragmatist as Mr. Walling has de- clared himself to be, he is at the root as much a determinist as was Marx. His formula is in its way as fixed as that which required the Marxian "catas- trophe"— which never came. And be- cause of its materialistic rigidity in con- ception this book is not very convincing, 'our true pragmatist can never be "cocksure" in his predictions — but, Mr. Walling is amazingly so. Yet he has done a genuine service in his writings in one respect, and that is in making clear the nature of the Socialist move- ment as it is to-day after abandonment of the Marxian hypothesis. If we un- derstand him rightly, Socialism is noth- ing but complete democracy — complete because it is economic and therefore political as well. All that he holds of the Marxian theory are the doctrines of "economic determinism" and the "class- struggle." A CAMPAIGN DOCUMENT. The Mexican People: Their Struggle for Freedom. By L. Gutierrez de Lara and Edgcumb Pinchon. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co. $1-50 net. As a campaign document this volume is particularly interesting; a calm, judi- cial history, containing trustworthy data regarding the progress of Mexico during the past one hundred years, this it is not. Commencing with the vig- orous, if somewhat exaggerated, state- ment that "the Mexican people have democratic traditions as grand, pure, and sane as those of any race in the world," it is not surprising to find many other exaggerated half-truths run- ning riot throughout the book. In their desire to deify the downtrodden Mexi- can peon, the authors have even gone to the ridiculous extremity of stating that "modern archaeological and philological research bear emphatic witness to the fact that they [the Mexican peons] are ethnologically as remote from the wild nomads of North America as are the so- called white races themselves." Coming on the first page of the book, this is cer- tainly fair warning of the kind of stuff that is to follow, and prepares the read- er to accept, without blinking, the next statement — that the Mexican peons at the time of the Spanish Conquest "were in full enjoyment of a civilization great- ly superior in many respects to that of Teutonic Europe, and certainly superior in every respect to that of the Spanish nation which subjugated and enslaved them." To the ardent enthusiast, bent only on achieving the end in view, mod- ern archaeological, philological, and his- torical researches are of little value if they do not furnish abundant proof of desired premises. The horrible features of the bloodthirsty religion of many of the native races of Mexico are brushed aside with a word as being simply the practices of a small and degenerate sec- tion of the master class, the priesthood, and as representing that "common bar- barity of priestcraft in all ages and climes." The authors assume that "all that we know of the evil that is Mexican is the product of a small, parasitic, and orig- inally alien section of the nation," and then in the blandest manner they go on to say: "Bearing these simple basic facts in mind, the maze of Mexican his- tory may be threaded with ease." Nat- urally, having established themselves on a broad basis of misstatement and mis- conception of historical truths, it is perfectly easy for the authors to "thread with ease" the maze of Mexican history in such a manner as to arrive at the desired results. The actual facts of his- tory have no terrors for these writers. Nothing can surprise the reader af- ter such a beginning, not even the statement in regard to our first Mexican War that it "was a preconcerted and pre- determined affair on the part of the ruling classes of both the nations in- volved." It may even be a comfort, to some, to be told by these Mexican apol- ogists that our first war with Mexico was due to a Mexican clerical con- spiracy, for "only amid the carnage and confusion of a foreign invasion could the church feel at all safe in the prose- cution of plans so bitterly distasteful to the great mass of the people." With constant bitterness rankling In their hearts against the ruling classes of both Mexico and the United States, the au- thors have succeeded in producing a book which can only be read without irritation by those already blinded by strong sympathy for their cause. On the other hand, great emphasis Is laid on the statement that the people of Mexico have little faith in their leaders. They had shouted at one time "Viva Madero!" but these cries became stilled when, "surrounded by the old element of corrupt politicians, conscienceless pecu- lators, brutal military and scheming prelates, Francisco Madoro lost every trace of his vaunted democratic ideals and became consciously or unconscious- ly the mere creature of that same ln- tolerable oppression and exploitation which had provoked the Revolution of
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668 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2553 1910." Now, we are told, they no long- er fight for a man, but their cry is "Viva la Tierra! Viva la Constitucion!" and "in this clarified attitude of the Mexican people lies the great hope of the present revolution. No man henceforth can ride on their backs into power. They will go forward unwaveringly, irresistibly, un- til they have established the new so- cial order. They have learned democ- racy's great lesson: that the individual cannot assume the junctions of the col- lectivity." The keynote of the conclu- sion is, "International capitalism can no longer throttle the freedom of the Mexican people with impunity." The book is simply a rabid campaign docu- ment, absolutely untrustworthy and without historical value. Notes IT is appropriate that in the year of the opening of the Panama Canal some slight tribute should be rendered to the memory of the discoverer of the Pacific. Keats, in a celebrated sonnet, credited "stout Cortez" with the achievement; but the world knows better. Quintana's "Vida de Vasco Nunez de Balboa," edited by Prof. G. G. Brownell (Ginn; 65 cents), has the merit of timeliness. Quintana has narrated the feats of his hero directly and concisely. The selection is admirably adapted for the purposes of a textbook. The romantic achievements of Spain's early navigators and conquistadores will never lose their charm. DURING the Hilary term of last year, Mr. Edwyn Bevan delivered four lectures in Oxford on "Stoics and Sceptics," and these have now been issued in a slender volume by the Ox- ford University Press; ($1.50 net), a good and not too technical study of a subject which has been undergoing a good deal of investigation of late. Mr. Bevan does not conceal the fact that, in exposing the illogical dogmatism of the followers of Zeno and the unsatisfying suspense of the Pyrrhonic school, he has in mind to show the world's need of that unreasoning loyalty to the "Friend be- hind the Universe" which the Greek phil- osophers failed to meet, and which was to become the faith of the Christian church. But he does not bear hard on this aspect of the question, and his attitude towards the teachers who were transforming the Socratic doctrine into something more malleable for the moulders of Christian- ity is thoroughly sympathetic. Perhaps the most valuable of the lectures is the third, which deals with Posidonius. Of recent years German scholars, out of the patches of that philosopher's works and the occasional references to him, have been building up a great figure which is to dominate the intellectual world of Cicero's time. Mr. Bevan examines the evidence for such a theory carefully, with the conclusion that Posidonius was no creative genius, but merely an influential .i the virtuous"; or in the definition of home: "My idea of a home la • beuae In wbiob each member of the family can, on the instant, kindle a flre in his or her prl vate room." The flair tor valuable odd- ments is perfect still, even llmur.li the creative moment aeenia aearl] pact. The ,M..,:i .in i.HiN iiii"i math 1 .-.i i,v an attentive reader, I
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June 4, I9H) The Nation 669 mend to psychical researchers the strange incident of a friend of Lowell's dreaming the substance of a famous line of the Commemoration Ode the night before Lowell first read it. Artists will welcome the anecdote of Turner seriously studying the nutrition of the whale be- fore he painted that most impressionistic canvas, The Whale Ship, now in the Metropolitan Museum. Educators will note an early and apparently successful experiment in student self-government at Antioch College. This volume closes the series worthily. From the ordeal of the revelation of this mass of private jot- tings Emerson reappears not only un- diminished, but substantially enhanced. Gratitude is due the editors for the thor- oughness and tact with which their task has been accomplished. A REPRINT of the volume of Henry Vaughan's "Sacred Poems" which was originally published as one of the Aldine Poets, in 1882, has been issued by G. Bell & Sons (New York: Macmillan; 35 cents net). In accordance with the prevailing mode the book is made of rather thin paper and is light to handle. The memoir by the Rev. H. F. Lyte is retained, which was itself not new when ed to the Aldine edition. He had prepared himself for the sketch by a careful examination into the traditions of Vaughan's life (though with scant success in the discovery of fresh facts), and little or nothing has since come to light — unless Miss Louise Imogen Guiney has in her possession material of the sort not yet made public. But of Vaughan's erratic and interesting twin brother, the mystical "Eugenius Philalethes," Mr. Lyte knew, or told, less than might have been expected. This, no doubt, makes a slight defect in his memoir of the poet, but his writing, from the criti- cal point of view, is decidedly thin, and might well have given place to a more adequate study of Vaughan's position as a follower of Herbert. Vaughan is cer- tainly best known for his religious poems, and all of these the new edition contains; but some of his secular pieces, especially his satires, are of excellent quality, and, as their bulk is small, it is not easy to understand why they should have been kept out of this re- print. As it is, for those desiring a cheap volume, Methuen's edition in the Little Library still offers a fuller collec- tion in more attractive form. <<DELIGION and Free Will" (Oxford: lv Clarendon Press; 7s. 6d.), by W. Benett, consists of nine essays, closely but not clearly connected, the aim of which, it seems, is to establish the prin- ciple of credo quia absurduin, or, in the author's corrected version, non credo quia non absurdum; i. e., in matters of re- ligion scientific intelligibility is a ground for suspicion rather than belief. Accord- ing to Mr. Benett, evolution is a process in which every forward step, every high- er satisfaction, only initiates a conflict with still higher needs. All that evolu- tion accomplishes is the strengthening and elevation of character. Its value and meaning are transcendental and must be sought beyond science in relig- ion. "Thus it comes that the foremost and most vital interest of religion is to keep itself aloof from science . . . see- ing that even the faintest infusion of scientific probability will impair its emo- tional effectiveness, and a complete ra- tionalization destroy it altogether." Re- ligion is bound to be incomprehensible if it is to elevate character. Precisely in this incomprehensibility, which secures it from controversy, lies the power of re- ligious dogma. This argument is car- ried so far that the reader is at times obliged to pause and wonder whether he is not being made the victim of a deep and subtle irony. But Mr. Benett is as sincere as he is also intellectually competent and original. His language and logic have a flavor of thirty years back, but he is fairly abreast of the times in his philosophy, and has evidently made a deep study of religion both in Europe and in the East. "P ATIENCE: An Alliterative Version of 'Jonah' by the Poet of 'Pearl' " (Oxford University Press; $1 net), edit- ed by Israel Gollancz, is the first of a series of Select Early English Poems which the editor has planned. He promises us in the near future sim- ilar editions of "The Parliament of the Three Ages," "Winner and Wast- er," "St. Erkenwald," etc. The pres- ent poem is preserved in the British Mu- seum MS. Nero A. x., which contains like- wise "Pearl," "Cleanness," and "Sir Ga- wayn and the Green Knight" — all most probably by the same author. This MS., it seems, came to Sir Robert Cotton from the library of Henry Savile (1568-1617), of Banke, in Yorkshire. It had belonged, no doubt, to one of the northern monas- teries at an earlier period, but passed into private hands after the dissolution of those bodies in the reign of Henry VIII. "Patience" was included in the editio princeps of the poems of this MS., which was prepared in 1864 by the late Richard Morris for the Early English Text So- ciety, and it was also brought out sep- arately by Hartley Bateson in 1912. Dr. Gollancz, however, had already edited "Pearl" and other poems of the same pe- riod and district, and had, besides, of re- cent years devoted several papers to the vocabulary of the group, so that he pos- sessed qualifications for dealing with this very difficult set of texts which render his edition of the present form the best that has appeared. The glossary, espe- cially, represents a decided advance on that of his predecessors. The notes, too, throw light on some of the worst of the linguistic puzzles. A special feature of the text is that the lines are arranged in quatrains, which seems to have been the intention of the author. In the Preface the editor merely summarizes what is known concerning the various problems that are suggested by the text. He does not discuss these problems at length, as we should expect in a definitive edition. The work includes a reproduction from the MS. of the first page of the poem; also reproductions of the accompanying illustrations, which are in the rudest style of mediaeval art. It closes with what appear to be the Latin sources of the poem, viz.: the Vulgate version of "Jonah," the beatitudes from St. Matthew's Gospel, and a part of the "Carmen de Jona et Ninive," which was formerly attributed to Tertullian. DR. JOSEPH EDWARD STUBBS, president of the University of Ne- vada, who died on May 27, was born in Ashland, O., on March 19, 1850. He graduated from the Ohio Wesleyan Uni- versity in 1873, and received an M.A. de- gree in 1876. In 1875 he graduated from Drew Seminary, and was ordained to the Methodist ministry in 1874. He studied at Berlin University from 1890 to 1891. Dr. Stubbs was president of Baldwin Univer- sity, Berea, O., from 1886 until 1894, and had since been president of the University of Nevada. He was a delegate to the Ecumenical Conference in London in 1901, and was president of the Ohio Collegiate Association, 1891-2, and of the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations, 1899-1900. NOTES FROM ABROAD. SOME of Mr. Herbert Jenkins's experi- ences during his first year as a Lon- don publisher have been given by him to an interviewer. Within that period he has had 834 manuscripts submitted to him. He admits that some of the books he has declined have reached a second edition after acceptance by other publishers. On the other hand, he has sold 17,000 copies of two novels that had been rejected elsewhere. In his opinion novices may often benefit by ad- vice from their publishers as to the best use of their material. "Young authors are frequently very bad architects, and as often as not tell two or three stories in one book." When he started his busi- ness Mr. Jenkins wanted to adopt "Barabbas" as his registered telegraphic address, but the Post Office authorities ruled it out as unsuitable. ON May 18, a new hall was inaugurat- ed in the Napoleonic museum which has been created in Empress Josephine's chateau of Malmaison, just outside Paris. It contains collections of interest in history and art and in the lo- cal color of a most interesting time. They are due to M. Charles Follot, president of the Chambre Syndicale of wall-paper manufacturers. There are various se- ries of colored wall-papers in the origi- nal designs, or as executed under the Directory, Consulate, and Empire. One series of thirty pieces is thought to be the only remaining example of the "Campaigns of the Army of Italy." There are also decorative draperies, printed on velvet backgrounds, between 1800 and 1810; and there is a panel of Psyche, after a composition of the great house decorator of the day, Laffitte. All these are good, and, for the most part, unique original examples of the brilliant years of Josephine's career. It should also be noted that the decorations which have been applied to the various rooms of the chateau in transforming it into a mu- seum, such as damask wall-hangings, have been carefully copied by modern manufacturers from fragments or designs of the originals used by Josephine. AMONG other recent notable gifts dat- ing from the time, there is the harp of Queen Hortense, who was not only Josephine's daughter and mother of Em-
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670 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2553 peror Napoleon III, but also composed sentimental songs, of which one, at least. has a fame as wide as the world — "Par- ian) pour la Syrie." As usual, where po- litical feeling- enters into historical criti- cism, her authorship, both of words and music, has been successively denied. They both came into the world under her name, and the alternative musical com- poser is Alvimare, Josephine's harp teacher — so the hai p is in its place. It comes from Empress Eugenie, who had it in her husband's inheritance from his mother. In memory of her bereavement, the aged Empress has also bought land to keep an open vista from Malmaison toward Rueil, where the remains of Jo- sephine and Hortense lie in the par- ish church, beneath sumptuous marble tombs, monuments of the filial piety of Hortenso and Eugene, her brother, and of Emperor Napoleon III. To this land, Empress Eugenie wishes to transfer the mausoleum erected by public subscription for her son, the ill-fated Prince Imperial. It is at present placed in a private garden of Paris; and it is probably her pious intention to have his remains transferred hither — and, who knows? — Napoleon the Third's as well — at some time propitious tc their memory. IN the April number of De Gids, one of the leading monthlies of Holland, Mr. Th. M. Roest van Limburg publishes some startling facts with regard to the housing problem in Rotterdam. The au- thor's statements carry weight, as they are based on an experience of years ac- quired as chief of the Rotterdam police. In this most prosperous of Dutch cities, 75 per cent, of the population lives on a yearly income of $400 or less, and of its half a million inhabitants, 30,000 live in single-room dwellings under the most unhygienic conditions. Queen Wilhel- mina has lately shown her interest in the housing of the poor by personally visiting some of the most miserable haunts in Amsterdam. Her Majesty's example is bound to give a stimulus to every one concerned in solving this difficult prob- lem. TRAVELLERS who have left a part of their souls in Granada will be glad to hear that the restoration of the Al- hambra, which is going on, is being done with due reserve and discretion. This is altogether to the credit of the Spanish architect, Cendoya. He has begun by unwearied researches in hitherto unex- plored archives, so that he might tread only in the footsteps of the original builders. He has discovered that there were three palaces successively occup the precincts, with mosques of the court and harem. He has also been able to ascertain the plan of the fortifications which shut in the precincts, and the his- tory of their forty towers. In a square hall at the top of the tower of Las Da- mas he discovered the first portrait p ings by Arabs (Moors) which have yet been found. These have been studied by Dr. Ivlmond-Vidal, who is sure that they wore painted by artists from Africa, and are not Ryzantine works. They repre sent knights armed cap-a-pie riding to war or the chase. The attitude of the persons Is that peculiar to Arabs and Is easily recognized by any one familiar with the North of Africa. Even the details show the Arabic orgin of these paintings: the features, cut of beard, movements, and garments — all belong to the Moors. The domestic animals — hunting hounds, mules, camels are African, The Arab horse is drawn with an exactness which shows perfect acquaintance. The wild beasts are full of life; and it would be impossible for a painter to represent so faithfully the at- titudes of such animals unless he bad taken part in a lion or panther hunt. Dr. Edmond-Vidal hopes to come on other finds of this little-known and long- doubted Arab art in Morocco. There the painters of the Alhambra took refuge when the Moors were expelled from Spain, and it is known that many palaces were decorated by them. Science EDUARD SUESS. A TRIBUTE TO ONE OF THE MOST VERSA- TILE AND STRIKING OF SCIENTIFIC MEN. The death of Prof. Eduard Suess, of Vienna, on the 24th of April, removed one of the most versatile and striking of scientific men. For over sixty years his writings have made him known beyond his immediate Viennese circle; his long and busy life brought to him recognition from all quarters of the globe. Few scientific bodies of prominence failed to place his name on the list of honorary or corresponding members. Professor Suess was born in London in March, 1831, and was the oldest son of a German merchant, an importer of wool from Bohemia. A few years la- ter the growing consignments of this staple from Australia destroyed the Bo- hemian business and forced the elder Suess to remove to Prague. The parents planned that their son Eduard should enter his father's business, but as the lad approached manhood his fondness for natural science became too strong to be checked, and his career was shap- ed in accordance with his bent. His first published work was a description of the Carlsbad Springs, prepared when he was nineteen for the use of foreign visitors. By an extraordinary coinci- dence we find him returning to this theme fifty-two years later, and deliver- ing in his seventy-first year an ad- dress, by invitation, to the Gesellschaft deutscher Naturforscher und Aerzte. The society was in convention at Carls- bad at the time and the theme of hot springs ("Ueber heisso Quellon") was selected by Professor Suess. The paper is practically a further study of tail: Itad, with some conclusions regarding the derivation of the waters from deep- seated igneous rocks. It exercised no small influence upon the discussions then very animated in this country about the source of those ground waters which rise from the depths of the earth. We may rank the contribution as one of the most influential among the many which came from the pen of the gifted author. In 1851, when twenty years of age, and after student years passed in the Universities of Prague and Vienna, Eduard Suess became assistant in the Imperial Museum at the latter city. Six years later he became Ausserordentlich- er Professor in the University. In 1862 he retired altogether from the Mu- seum, and five years later received the full professor's chair. The ten years from 1851 to 1861 were chiefly passed in studies in one form of fossil life and another. Professor Suess's interest in the affairs of his home city was, how- ever, deep and irrepressible. The wa- ter supply of the city was bad, and fevers were causes of grave anxiety. The great need of the community led him to prepare and to publish in 1862 a notable volume of 362 pages on the geological foundations of Vienna, their origin, structure, and relations to the life of the citizen ("Boden der Stadt Wien, nach seiner Bildungsweise, Be- schaffenheit und Beziehungen zum biir- gerlichen Leben"). The monograph led to the conclusion that a supply of pure drinking water from the Alps was nec- essary. Professor Suess at once sprang into prominence as an available adviser in these matters, and was elected to the Town Council and to the board hav- ing in charge the new aqueduct. When in 1873 the water was finally brought from a source over eighty miles away, the services of Professor Suess were rec- ognized by an election as honorary burgess of the city. In 1866 he entered the Austrian Par- liament and for thirty years was one of the strong men of the Liberal party. His skill in expressing his thoughts in epi- grammatic phrase gave several brief and terse sentences which became part of the common speech of the day. Par- liamentary experience led to interest in the great economic questions then de- bated. The matter of the gold stan- dard was becoming yearly more impor- tant. In consequence Professor Suess prepared in 1877 an essay on "The Fu- ture of Gold" which was widely read. In 1892, in the height of the silver agita- tion, he wrote a second brochure on "lli< Future of Silver." The conclu- : ions were so much in harmony with the views of a strong faction in the American Congress that, by direction of the Committee on Finance of the Unit- ed states Senate, the work was trans- lated, printed in the Government Print- ing Omec, and widely circulated. Pro- fessor Suess's conclusion, after a re- view of the mining industry for the precious metals, was summed up In these words (p. 100): "From this it fol- lows, furthermore, that, assuming that tin- eyetem of metallic coinage contin- ues to exist (and I see as yet no prac-
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June 4, 1914I T li e !NT a t i o n 671 ticable substitute), silver will become the standard metal of the earth." In this anticipation the course of events in the twenty-odd years since the pub- lication of the essay must have left Professor Suess somewhat the possessor of hopes and expectations deferred. One cannot avoid recalling the words of J. D. Whitney, our distinguished country- man and one of the foremost mining geologists of his time, who, in the "Metallic Wealth of the United States" in 1854, wrote as follows (p. 185) : Silver is In a geological point of view ital best adapted to a standard of value, sine 1 ig all the valuable ies of gold suitable for that pur- pose— it is not liable to those fluctuations in its production to which gold is ex- posed. There Is no discovery of a new continent to be looked forward to, whose mines will deluge the world with silver, and any increase in the amount of metal produced must come chiefly from the working of mining regions already known, by the application of increased skill, and capital. As it is obtained mostly from wrought in the solid rock, any ad- ditional development they may acquire must be gradual, while gold from the very nature of its occurrence can never be produced with that steadiness which characterizes the metals wrought chiefly in deep and permanent mines. Professor Whitney, no less than Profes- sor Suess, could not foresee the gold production of the Transvaal, nor the vast output of silver from our Western lead and copper mines. The greatest scientific services of Pro- fessor Suess were rendered in connec- tion with physiography. With his re- markable work in this department of geology his name will always be most closely associated. As early as 1862 we find evidence in his papers of a grow- ing interest in this special branch. He began by interpreting the strata of the past as a source of light on the geogra- phy of later time. In 1863 he advocated the former land connection of Africa with Southern Europe. Subsequent years of study and reading led to the preparation of his truly extraordinary book on "The Face of the Earth" ("Das Antlitz der Erde"). The first volume appeared in 1885, and passed through a second but unaltered edition in 1892. The second volume was issued in 1888. The first part of the third volume reach- ed its readers in 1901 and the second part in 1909. During the last decade of the nineteenth century and the open- ing decade of the twentieth, geological exploration was very active In Asia and Africa, and brought ever new stores of information to Professor Suess. Hap- pily they all came in time to be includ- ed in the closing volume of his mag- num opus. As one reads the pages of this thorough review of the earth's physical features, one is amazed at the extent of the author's learning and re- searches. Every language containing geological records seems to have been at his command, and no part of the globe escaped his watchful eye. Every mountain range of to-day is studied from the point of view of its geological history and structure and as the end- product in a long series of events which are recorded in its strata. Professor Suess became greatly im- pressed with the arc-like or crescentic outline of the ranges and emphasized this feature as had no previous observ- er. He also borrowed from the vocabu- lary of the miner the old-time word "Horst" for a block left in relief by down-dropping faults on each side. Both the terms, arcuate mountain ranges and Horsts, have in consequence become part of the common geological speech to-day. "Das Antlitz der Erde" has taken its place as a comprehensive com- pendium of the physical features of the earth and as the encyclopaedic book of ref- erence to which the physiographer and geologist naturally turn. It has been translated both into French and into English. Professor Suess married in 1855 the daughter of a prominent physician of Prague — Dr. Strauss. He is survived by five sons and one daughter. An ex- cellent portrait accompanies a sketch by Sir Archibald Geikie, in Nature, May 1, 1905. J. F. Kemp. Columbia University. A unique method in bird photography is described by Mr. Guy A. Bailey in Bird-Lore for March-April. By means of an electric current he releases the shutter of his camera at such a distance that he is able to obtain pictures of birds absolutely undisturbed by his presence. In a description of the whippoorwill, Mr. T. G. Pearson calls attention to the fact that this is one of the most valu- able of birds to the farmer, since it de- stroys many harmful insects. Pictures are given of the granite monument, unveiled last October, which was set up in Salt Lake City as a thank-offering to the gulls that saved the first settlers from famine. It is the work of a grand- son of Brigham Young, and is surround- ed by a fountain where birds may quench their thirst. The incident commemorated happened in the summer of 1848, when flocks of gulls made successful war on the grasshoppers that were destroying the crops. Peter Paul von Mauser, the inventor of the rifle bearing his name, died at Stuttgart, Germany, on May 29, at the age of seventy-six. Von Mauser was born on June 27, 1838, in Obendorf. While serving his time in the army he made a study of the technique of weapons, and in 1867 he went with his brother to Lut- tich, where, financed by an American named Morris, they perfected the Mauser rifle. Sir Joseph William Swan, who died in England on May 27, was the inventor of the first incandescent electric lamp, which was produced in 1879, and of various other electrical devices, including a miners' safety lamp and an electric meter. He also invented the carbon process for making permanent photographs, known as Autotype, and discovered the means of making rapid dry plates, which revolu- tionized the art of photography. Sir Jo- seph was born on October 1, 1828, and was privately educated. His honorary de- gree of D.Sc. was from Durham Uni- versity. He received the Hughes medal for his invention of the incandescent elec- tric lamp in 1904, and was knighted in the same year. In 1905 the Albert Medal of the Society of Arts was awarded him. He was past president of the Society of Chemical Industry, of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, and of the Faraday Society, and was a Chevalier of the Le- gion of Honor. Sir Henry Seton-Karr, who perished in the wreck of the Empress of Ireland on May 29, was born in India on February 5, 1853, the son of G. B. Seton-Karr, of the Indian Civil Service and Resident Com- missioner at Baroda during the Indian Mutiny. He was educated at Harftw and at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, wherer in 1876, he took second-class honors in law. He was called to the bar in 1879. Sir Henry had travelled and shot big game in Western America, British Co- lumbia, and Norway, and was interested in state colonization. He was a mem- ber of the Royal Commission on Food Supplies in Time of War. He was for- merly a Member of Parliament, repre- senting St. Helen's, Lancashire, from 1885-1906, in the Conservative interest. He was the author of "Call to Arms," 1900-1; "My Sporting Holidays," 1904, and various sporting articles and reviews. He was knighted in 1902. Dr. Emil Gruening, formerly president of the American Ophthalmological So- ciety and also of the American Otological Society, died in New York on May 30. He was born on October 2, 1842, in Ho- hensalva, Prussia, came to this country in 1862, and entered the College of Physi- cians and Surgeons at Columbia Univer- sity. His course was interrupted by ser- vice in the Civil War, but he gradu- ated in 1867. He studied abroad for three years under Virchow and Von Graefe in Berlin, Paris, and Vienna, and began practice in New York city in 1870. Dr. Gruening filled various positions in the hospitals of New York, and at the time of his death was consulting surgeon to the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, where he had served actively for thirty? five years, to the Mt. Sinai Hospital, the German Hospital, and to the New York Hospital for Women and Children. Dr. Gruening attained distinction in the two highly specialized branches of medicine, ophthalmology and otology. His most lasting achievement was the development of the mastoid operation as it is perform- ed in America to-day. He was also the first to call attention to the danger of blindness from wood-alcohol poisoning. He contributed voluminously to medical journals on the subject of the eye and ear, and in the Encyclopaedia of Diseases of the Eye, edited by Norris and Oliver, he wrote the chapter on Injuries to the Eyes.
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(J7£ T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2553 Drama CRITICISM BY INSTINCT. Studies in Stagecraft. By Clayton Ham- ilton. New York: Henry Holt & Co. $1.50 net. Mr. Clayton Hamilton Is a dramatic critic justly esteemed for information, alertness, coolness, sanity, and the com- mand of a forcible and pointed English. In his latest work, comprising twenty- four essays on topics that combine gen- erality with timeliness, he is ordinarily on the right side — the side of truth and seriousness against artifice and frivolity, of elasticity against rigor in the application of formulae, of catho- licity against exclusiveness, of imagi- native suggestion against aggregations of detail. He is liberal enough to tol- erate conventions, to admit farce and melodrama to the rights of legitimate drama, and to detect artistic possibili- ties in the moving-picture show; he even finds room in his text for a hu- mane wrord on the much-decried com- mercial manager. He exalts duly, per- haps unduly, the functions of mecha- nism and management, but even here he endorses simplicity and combines an ad- miration for Belasco with a preference for Reinhardt. His most obvious bias is a fondness for novelty, an excessive emphasis on those heterodoxies of yes- terday which have become the ortho- doxies of to-day. Synge and Brieux, in particular, are glorified with a fervor hardly consistent with the ascendency which drama proper, as distinct from poetry or didacticism, should hold in the mind of a dramatic critic. We may add that the author's cool intellectual- ism gives an effect of partial unreality to the frequent superlatives and avow- als of enthusiasm by which the march of the logic is rather checkered than checked. Mr. Hamilton, like other observers, has been struck and a little perplexed by the extent to which contemporary dramatic successes are associated with the rejection or reversal of establish- ed principles. In "The Undramatic Drama," after an admirable exposition of the bankruptcy of all the formulas from Aristotle to Brunetiere, he is dis- posed to fall back upon Mr. Archer's dictum that "the only really valid defi- nition of the dramatic is: Any repre- sentation of imaginary personages which is capable of interesting an average audience assembled in a theatre" — a definition in which the critics intrench themselves behind impregnable defences, but announce at the same time the abandonment of the campaign. In an interesting paper, "The Plays of Yester- year," the author puts forth a spirited Winter's* disparagement of the current theatre in the interest of the theatre of fifty years ago, and the younger critic has made out his case, if we concede his tacit assumptions that not repertoires, but products, and the best of the prod- ucts, shall be accepted as the ground of comparison for the two periods. Un- der the heading, "Organizing an Audi- ence," cordial and apparently merited endorsement is given to the work of the Drama League, though one suspects Mr. Hamilton of a vague idea that there exists somewhere a latent or potential audience, not included in the ninety-odd millions of the latest American census, which can be summoned from the vasty deep by the conjurations of an enterpris- ing society. Mr. Hamilton sets much store by analysis, but analysis is hardly his strong point. He is both fortunate and unfortunate in the mastery of a logical mechanism and cast of sentence which is equally well fitted to embody the clearness of his thinking or to disguise its obscurity. When he has fixed a thought in one of these logical moulds, his self-criticism ceases; his eye for relations of all kinds is quick, but he lacks the circumspection which converts acuteness into sagacity. For instance, on page 18, he talks about "expressing poetry" and defines poetry as "that sol- emn, tremulous happiness," etc., thus, in a single paragraph, confounding poetry, first, with the feeling out of which it springs, and, secondly, with the feeling which it awakens. On page 125 the "staggeringly admir- able" craftsmanship of Pinero's "Thun- derbolt" leads him to infer the necessity of a return to nature, obvious- ly on the theory that naturalness de- clines as art rises. But this generaliza- tion, true of certain phases of art, is not true of art as a whole, and that "The Thunderbolt" is not comprised in those phases is proved by the fact that its superiority in naturalness to a play like "The Profligate" or "The Mind-the- Paint Girl" is as noteworthy as its su- periority in art. The illustrations are sometimes partial. To compare the ef- fectiveness of appeals to the ear and eye, he cites (pages 34-35) as representa- tive of the two senses a single line from Alfred Noyes and the Venus of Milo. At this rate, conclusiveness is easy. Mr. Hamilton should retrench or reno- vate his philosophy; to philosophize for the uncritical is futile; and if, as we gladly concede, he has written a good book in spite of all deductions, it is be- cause his opinions are the outcome of his sound instincts rather than of his fallible analysis. •A reference to Mr. Winter's text shows that that gentleman Is aasalllng representations while and indignant reply to Mr. William1 M, Hamilton i» defending literature. An English version, by Federico Sardo and Carlos D. S. Wuppermann (Albert & Charles Boni), of Don Jos6 Echegaray's "Mariana" (75 cents net), does scant jus- tice to a work of notable imagi- nation and power. It is written grammatically and probably with lit- eral correctness, but the style is cramped and awkward, without fluen- cy or much sense of characterization. It may, however, serve to give Eng- lish readers some notion of the dramatic abilities of the Spanish dramatist. In its use of highly improbable coincidence and artificial mechanism, the piece doubtless belongs to the category of romantic melo- drama rather than true tragedy, but in the ingenuity of its plot, in deftness of construction, in the presentation of va- ried and well-balanced personalities, and in the intensely emotional climax, it is masterly. The workmanship is compar- able with that of some of the cleverest inventions of Sardou. The heroine is a beautiful young woman, rich, brilliant, and passionate, whose natural disposition has been warped by her experience in childhood of the tragic fate of her moth- er, the victim of a heartless and infamous seducer. Mistrustful of all men, she plays the part of an unscupulous coquette, al- ternately alluring and repulsing her ador- ers, until, in spite of herself, she falls in love with Daniel, whom she has tortured most of all. At the moment of surrender to him she discovers that he is the son of her mother's betrayer. In her despair she bestows her hand upon a rival and thus brings about the final tragedy. The two central characters of Mariana and her lover are veracious studies showing a rare gift of psychological analysis. They have a dramatic value altogether independent of the circumstances in which they are placed, and to which they contribute the necessary theatrical thrill. They are developed with consistency, are artistically supplementary to each other, and come logically to the catastrophe in which they are overwhelmed. And in these days of sexual realism it is worth noting how a genuine dramatist, telling a story of passion, can make it theatri- cally poignant without any approach to cheap vulgarity. Other personages in the cast, the chivalrous but stupid soldier; the purblind and semi-grotesque old ar- chaeologist; his fair and frail wife and her cavalicrc servente; the benevolent Joaquin, and the rest, are conventional types, on the English as on the Spanish stage, but are delineated with a sure and skilful touch, while each is worked adroitly into the general scheme. Their outlines are badly blurred in the present interpretation. Thanks to the investigations conducted by Dr. Mummenhoff, archivist of Nurem- berg, it has now been definitely ascer- tained that Hans Sachs, the poet and dramatist of the sixteenth century, was born at 23, Brunnengasse. This street used to be known as the Kotgasse. Un- fortunately, the original No. 23 wits part- ly demolished in 1874, and made one building with the next house. Hans bo- came proprietor of No. 23 when he mar- ried Kunlguiula, Kreu/.oiin In I51t\ and was still the owner in 1542, whfii h*
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June 4, 1914I The 1ST a t i o n 673 bought the well-known house In the pres- ent Hans Sachsgasse. Laurence Sydney Brodribb Irving, the actor and manager, who went down with his wife in the disaster to the Empress of Ireland on May 29, was the second son of the late Sir Henry Irving and Florence Fanny O'Callaghan. He was educated at Marlborough College, and at the College Rollin, in Paris. Originally intending to enter the diplomatic service, he was drawn towards the stage, and in 1893 made his first appearance at Dundee in F. R. Benson's Shakespearean company. After some experience in the provinces he joined his father, for whom he wrote "Peter the Great," a play of considerable merit, although unsuccessful. He was the translator of "Robespierre" which was written for Sir Henry by Sardou, and himself played Tallien. He continued to play various r61es in his father's company until he entered into management for himself, acting in England in "Bonnie Dundee" and "Richard Lovelace," and later in "Raffles." He had made great ad- vancement as an actor, proving himself an eccentric comedian of fine finish, when he and his wife (Mabel Hackney) appear- ed in New York in 1909-10 in "The In- cubus" ("Les Hannetons") and "The Three Daughters of M. Dupont." Recent- ly he was the Iago in Sir Herbert Tree's revival of "Othello." Music A book by Caruso entitled "Wie man singen soil" ("How to Sing") is to ap- pear soon in Germany. Some years ago, when Mark Twain gave a dinner to caricaturists, Caruso was greatly disappointed at not being invited. "Perhaps," he said, "he knows me only as a singer!" To his artistic col- leagues he is almost as well known as a caricaturist as he is as the leading tenor of the time. A day hardly passes when he does not sketch somebody. The Italian periodical La Follia prints many of these caricatures, and a revised collection is now offered in book form by the publish- ers of that journal. What strikes one as peculiar is that he hardly ever succeeds with women. The pictures of Geraldine Farrar, Lucrezia Bori, and some others are simply hideous, without even a faint resemblance as a redeeming feature. Far better are his caricatures of men ; some of them, indeed, are worthy of the great- est artists. Humperdinck, Leoncavallo, Massenet, Mahler, Gatti-Casazza, Alfonso XIII, are among these. His pictures of himself are among the funniest. Excel- lent also are the drawings of Toscanini. Polacco, and Hertz, whose gradual evolu- tion from a heart is particularly ludi- crous. "Who's Who in Music and Drama" (New York: H. P. Hanaford) is a vol- ume of 555 pages, edited by Dixie Hines and Harry Prescott Hanaford, which gives not only elaborate data regarding the careers of prominent artists of the dramatic and the musical stage, but con- tains also the casts of first performances in several cities and other useful fea- tures. Scherer and Dirks's "Deutsche Lieder" is a collection of German songs made by the supervisor of German in the public schools of Indianapolis (New York: American Book Company; 25 cents). The best German poets are represented. Some ot the songs are for one voice, with pi- ano accompaniment; others are provided with three or four-part music. "Petit Recueil de Chants Francais" is a collection of forty-eight French songs for use in schools and homes, made by H. Carter and G. Dyson (Oxford Univer- sity Press). Attention is called in the preface to the fact that, while France has produced fewer songs for high-school pupils, it has been fertile in songs for the younger children. Many of them are printed in Wekerlin's three volumes, entitled "Echos du Temps pass6"; the editors have borrowed some of these, sub- stituting other poems for those that were of an amorous nature. All these songs are very simple, both in melody and in harmony, and in character and style they are delightfully Gallic. The latest addition to the Musicians' Library of the Oliver Ditson Company is an "Anthology of German Piano Mu- sic" ($1.50), selected and edited by Moritz Moszkowsky. It begins with Froberger (who died in 1667), and ends with Beethoven. Other compos- ers included are: Pachelbel, Kuh- nau, Mattheson, Moffat, Handel, Graun, three Bachs, Krebs, Kirnberger, Haydn, Hiissler, and Mozart. Most of these com- posers are now forgotten, but Moszkow- sky has succeeeded in rescuing pieces of theirs which are decidedly worth hear- ing. The editor's pithy comments on these composers are printed in the origi- nal, as well as in a translation, by F. C. Burkart. The Dresden baritone, Scheidermantel, has received the prize of 10,000 marks of- fered by the German Stage Association for the best new translation, into Ger- man, of Mozart's "Don Giovanni." There were sixty-seven competitors. The great esteem in which this masterwork (neg- lected in New York) is held in Germany is shown by the great importance at- tached to this competition. Among the judges were such eminent men as Leo- pold Schmidt, Otto Neitzel, Schillings, Krebs. and Fuchs. Mr. Thomas Beecham has prepared a revised version of "The Magic Flute" for the opening of the opera season at Drury Lane this summer. He has not touched the music, but he has compressed and somewhat altered the various scenes, so as to speed the action up somewhat. Further, he is abolishing the usual spoken dialogue, and is substituting some special- ly written recitatives, in the Mozartian style, to be accompanied by a small band of nine stringed instruments and a harpsichord. In Mr. Beecham's opinion, the conventional condemnation of thjs opera, on the ground that its libretto is absurd, is in itself absurd. He cannot un- derstand why some people persist in re- garding opera as a species of real life upon the stage. The realists who intro- duce Into an opera such phrases as "Have a whiskey and soda" are doing something that is more ridiculous than the "Magic Flute" libretto. Art THE ROYAL ACADEMY. London, May 4, 1914. The Academy is always the Academy. Yet perhaps, if anything, there is less to arrest the attention this year than usual; but, on the other hand, as usual, little arrests it so successfully as the work of Sargent. A portrait of Henry James would be an event in any case. Sargent gives it the vitality and vigor so in contrast to the inanimate, wooden Academic por- traits surrounding it that you would stop to look at it, even if you did not know who was the sitter. It is small, a half-length, with no special distinc- tion of pose or design, but an admirable likeness, full of character in the shape of the head, the subtlety of the mouth, in the familiar attitude, one hand stuck in the armhole of the waistcoat, in the waistcoat itself; and then it gives the sense of life and power in the painter to which Sargent owes his too easy triumph in a lifeless exhibition. He scores with so slight a struggle that I never go to the Academy without wish- ing he could be tested by comparison with the masters, as he would be were his Henry James of this year placed by the side, for instance, of that beauti- ful head of the old Philip at the Na- tional Gallery. At the Academy he has no masters, and but one or two rivals. Few other portraits have any serious claim to consideration. He himself sends a second, for the moment break- ing through his resolve to have done with portraiture. But in his Lady Rock- savage, also a small half-length, he sug- gests more interest in reviving the old Lely formula than in studying the char- acter of his sitter, with the result that he gives a charm, a grace, not hereto- fore associated with his work, and lit- tle besides. After him the honors fall, curiously enough, to G. A. Storey, an Associate of many years' standing, who has seen a long succession of his contemporaries recognized by election to full member- ship, while he was passed by. He ha9 been content during all these years to exhibit rather colorless paintings no- body remembers, and then suddenly, last spring and this, he resurrected masterly little portraits, presumably done in his youth, that either were not shown or not understood at the time. One, this spring, is A Young Painter said to be himself; the other is Ed- ward Cressy, Architect and Savant, of whom the present generation, I fancy, now first hears, and in both, though the manner is a tribute to the Old Masters the beauty is in the expression of a distinct and arresting personality, in the careful and sensitive modelling, in
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674= T li e N" a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2553 the appreciation for the right placing of head or figure on the canvas. The expression of personality, hut in the painter rather than in her sitiers, makes Mrs. Swynnerton's David and Jonathan, Sons of H. Fenwick, Esq., stand out with undeniable force. The two small boys, in their childish white, have wandered along a straight path to the immediate foreground of a brilliant sun-drenched garden. Flowers and fo- liage have something of that metallic quality which Mrs. Swynnerton finds ev- erywhere in Nature, in the faces and little bare legs of the children as well as in the flowers; the children them- selves are merely subordinate details in the whole design; but she sees so frankly for herself and has evolved a way so frankly her own of putting down what she sees that she forces respect even when the violence of her vision may be deplored. It is extraordinary how the honesty with which she works out her scheme and the unity she achieves in working it out, strike one in a room where far more conspicuous places have been assigned to Mrs. Laura Knight's March Many-Weathers and John Lavery's The Studio of the Paint- er. The group of Mrs. Knight's canvas, a man on a horse with a child seated in front of him and the storm-agitated sky, fairly jump at you from the frame as if their ultimate object were to com- pete with the familiar big machines of a Paris Salon, and whatever merits of workmanship there may be are over- whelmed by the brutality of the tech- nique. Lavery pits himself against Velasquez on too huge a scale to re- main unnoticed. It is a dangerous game to play, and he cannot be said to come off with flags flying. As in Las Meni- nas, there is the group of figures in the Studio, there are the reflections in the mirror, there is the painter at work, there is the wide space above in the lofty room. But Velasquez filled this space in his room with atmosphere and made it an essential part of his com- position; in his Studio Lavery leaves it a vast expanse of canvas and is unable to conceal the difficulty he found in daubing it over with paint. Each figure in Velasquez's group is as perfect as the group itself. But perhaps the com- parison is unfair, too cruel, and no doubt Lavery is reserving his best things for his own show next month. In point of size Herkomer's Managers and Directors of the Firm of Krupp in Essen goes still further than Lavery's Studio. But the wilderness of canvas is no better than a coarse bit of scene- painting, the figures posing as if for the camera, in spite of a desperate de- termination to represent each one as doing something. Herkomer might have found out from Rembrandt and Hals that men and women may live on the painter's canvas when they sit or stand there doing nothing. However, if Her- komer never fulfilled the promise held out by some of his early work, like The Chelsea Pensioners, if his portraits again this year are without refinement, or grasp of character, or sensitiveness to the beauty of paint and the dignity of design, still with him the Academy loses one of its few members who had the courage of experiment and fearless- ness in tackling a large canvas. There is the inevitable annual crop of wooden royalties, judges and statesmen in their robes, well-known men and wo- men of the day, but nothing else of note. Sir James Guthrie paints with official restraint an official portrait of the Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh, but be him- self has surpassed it often when less weighed upon by the splendors and in- signia of office. Mr. J. J. Shannon's recent sitters have not succeeded in in- teresting him or providing for him the chance he made such fine use of in his Phil May. C. H. Shannon, when Miss Miriam Levy posed for him, was much more engrossed in her Embroidered Shawl, which he has the honesty to give as title to the portrait. To look at Or- pen's portraits is to suspect him of a cheerful willingness to rest on his laurels now that he has discovered, as most As- sociates and Academicians discover sooner or later in their career, that, an Academicial reputation once secured, the artist has but to keep to the broad and easy road to success for tne remainder of his life. With a trifle more subtlety Clausen might have captured the char- acter which he seems to have divined in Thomas Oakey, Esq., and then promptly lost in over-insisting upon it, and this is as true of Gerald Kelly in his study of Lady Gregory, for he em- phasizes her strongly marked features almost to the verge of caricature. George Henry prefers to sacrifice character to prettiness and veers more and more to the Christmas supplement and the fash- ion-plate, a tendency to be regretted in so able a painter. And for the rest, Academicians like Dicksee and Fildes, Ouless and Solomon repeat the perform- ances, each in his Academic way, which have rewarded them with a lifetime of popularity and prosperity. Where the public has grown accustomed to looking for them, there will their portraits be found. There also, where the public has long been trained to look, the Academic sub- ject picture dear to the Academic heart will not be searched for in vain. Some of the most popular painters of the Academical anecdote have gone forever with Leighton and Tadema, some show signs of weariness with Marcus Stone, who sends merely a study for another version of his young-ladyish sentimen- tal problem in costume. But the presi- dent, Sir E. J. Poynter, is faithful, bringing his old treaiment of laborious minuteness to his new subject, The Sea- Bath; and Academicians and Associates of the younger generation have quickly learned which way success lies. Indeed, the administrators of the Chantrey Fund could leave them no possibility of doubt in the matter. These administra- tors have been criticised during a long succession of springs, Royal Commis- sions have sat upon them, inquiries have been instituted. But they pay no heed, cheerfully going on their way undismay- ed, knowing what they want and getting it, whether or no it is what lovers of art want and what Chantrey left his money for. As they have bought Leigh- tons and Herkomers, Dicksees and Vicat Coles for large sums in the past, so this spring they have lavished fifteen hundred pounds on a manufactured anecdote by Cadogan Cowper, who, young Associate as he still is, already is represented in the collection at the Tate Gallery. Lucretia Borgia Reigns in the Vat- ican in the Absence of the Pope Alex- ander VI is the theme he has chosen as a peg on which to hang an infinity of detail and an orgy of crude scarlet paint. The Pinturicchio ceiling in the Vatican chamber is copied witn a pa- tience that has nothing to do with art; the cardinals and priests are rendered with an elaboration that is apt to be called Pre-Raphaelitic, though it has nothing to do with Pre-Raphaelitism, having none of the genuineness, the seri- ousness, the fervor that makes itself felt in the most immature achievements of the Brotherhood; symbols are scat- tered about, or I suppose they are sym- bols; mechanical gestures are relied upon for the dramatic effect; from be- ginning to end there is no study of Na- ture, no real observation — but, for that matter, after seeing the artist's portrait of a sportsman in the same show, I should question whether he bas ever yet managed to open his eyes in the face of Nature or men and women as they exist in life and not in the painted anecdote. The Lucretia is the sort of picture that always seems built up for exhibition centres and Chantrey collections, and that, even if it has driven hundreds to the excesses of Cubism and Futurism and other foolish isms, continues to set the standard for the Royal Academy. A much smaller sum of Chantrey money has been invested in Maurice Greiffenhagen's Women by a Lake; the three figures, with their draperies fall- ing in simple massive folds, set against the blue sky of aight that falls like a screen behind them. The design is a little artificial in its romanticism, a lit- tle empty; the color scheme is rather arbitrary. But the Huts and spacing have a rhythmical feeling; Grelffen- hagen is an artist who has done K»d work— better \\ri< which the Chantrey
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June 4, 1914] The Nation 675 trustees naturally disdained — and his Jewel certainly is the best thing of the kind in the Academy. To be sure, it is almost the only thing of the kind. I can name nothing else with it except perhaps Anning Bell's large Marriage at Cana, but this is so based on the old Italian painters that one sees in it chief- ly an intelligent and sympathetic echo. Near it hangs a dark and purposeless Winter by C. H. Shannon, in which the design is as hard to find as the mean- ing. Edward Stott's subjects have grad- ually been leading him from the labor- ers he once painted in the English coun- try he knew to the land of Biblical leg- end, where he must rely upon his own invention or the invention of others. The charm of his paintings was in their truth to Nature, the figures introduced in his landscape to give value to the gathering darkness at the close of day, to the mystery of the moon and star- lit night. But when he began to borrow them from the Bible, he began also to subordinate his landscape to them, to insist upon the legend, until this year his Motherhood is not only such a group of a woman and her children as Raphael painted, but has all the senti- ment and sugary sweetness of Raphael's made-to-order Madonnas. Charles Sims is losing himself almost as hope- lessly in the maze of allegory, for which his art has scarcely the elegance, the distinction, which alone could justify it. William Strang, in his group of Card- Players, continues to dally with Post- Impressionism, which, but for him and one other exhibitor, would show no trace of its influence at the Academy. This other exception is, unexpectedly, Clau- sen, but as yet, to judge from the nude he calls Primavera, it has led him mere- ly to simplification, not stridency, of tone and color. Many subjects besides these will claim admirers, but they are not worth even the easy task of expos- ing their triviality. The landscapes arouse no greater en- thusiasm. Here again Sargent towers by the sheer force of his impression and the vivacity with which he records it. He does not risk losing it by closer and more intimate study, nor improve upon it by deliberate arrangement. He gives what might be called the paint- er's snap-shot. It is amazingly clever, amazingly true. You feel the sun burn- ing the hillside below his Cypresses and Pines, you blink in the strong light, and you feel also — in this and his two smaller sketches — the enjoyment of the painter in his power to express him- self and his subject with each touch of his brush. Adrian Stokes is another landscape painter who, it is clear, en- joys himself while he is painting, but in a very different way. His is the close and intimate study of Nature. You see how faithfully he has followed the subtler effects of light on the sand- hills, the value of reeds and herons in the Marshes near the Sea, how tenderly he has noted the delicate gradations of color in the sky and on the dunes. His paintings are quiet, unobtrusive, but few others in the Academy convey such a sense of the painter's pleasure in his work and in his emotions before Na- ture. Clausen's large In the Fields in June explains the problem he set him- self— the impressive beauty of a great level stretch of land under a great sweep of cloud-laden sky, and the dignity of the tiller of the soil. But he gets no further than the explanation. Level and sky are empty, and the figures have no relation to them. Mr. Mark Fisher's landscapes always have quality and dig- nity; they are always well composed; they never betray one's confidence in him as an accomplished painter. It must be confessed, however, that they tend to monotony, so that to describe them would be to repeat the description of former years. But what a relief it is to turn to them from the landscapes of the average painter, whose canvases reveal nothing save his own discretion in cultivating the monotony of medi- ocrity upon which the Academy has once passed approval. Of the water-colors and the black-and- whites there is not much to say, except that the Academy, with an unwonted disregard of tradition, has removed them from their old sad quarters to two more spacious galleries, Nos. X and XI. Exhibitors will probably be alone in see- ing an improvement in a departure which means a gain in quantity, not quality. The sculpture barely rises above the same depressing level. The absence of Alfred Gilbert is the more regretted as the years go on. Nor does the pres- ence of Havard Thomas offer sufficient amends. The rejection of his Narcissus by the Academy was the year's scan- dal a few springs since; its acceptance now of his Thyrsis, a bronze, will cre- ate less talk. One can see in it but a careful study of a naked model. A bust of A. G. Ross, Esq., by John Tweed, has a rugged character; a bust of Lamia by Alfred J. Oakley and a tall, simple figure of Silence by W. Reid Dick are promising as the work of younger men. Americans will be interested to see Der- went Wood's Sketch Model for the Wil- liam Pitt statue for the Capitol, Wash- ington, simply because it is to go to Washington, while the same reason will make them wish it had more inherent dignity than the wig and costume of the period can give. In the architec- tural room one hesitates, as always, to pronounce an opinion, so overcrowd- ed are the walls, so technically dry are most of the drawings, so dull the gener- al effect. If John Russell Pope's Design for a Memorial to Lincoln in Washing- ton, "Authorized by U. S. Congress," was exhibited at all, surely it deserved a more honored place than a corner on the walls of the vestibule, where no- body ever looks for anything except the time on the clock over the central door. As I finish writing I hear the news of the attack upon Sargent's portrait of Henry James by a woman whose ex- cuse is her desire for the vote. It makes one think of Whistler's saying that even the fool may do harm. Her action has deprived the Academy of its chief interest and the National Portrait Gallery of a portrait which the friends and admirers of Henry James had tak- en pride and pleasure in presenting to it. N. N. Finance "PSYCHOLOGY" AND PROSPERITY. President Wilson laid stress, in his answer last week to the Western manu- facturers' delegation, on the theory that the present halt or depression in trade is psychological in its origin. He was not alone in that diagnosis of it; some of the most experienced financiers and manufacturers, especially in their private conversation, have described it in exactly the same way. But the ex- planation is rather unsatisfactory, for the several reasons that it is vague, that it leads nowhere very definitely, and that it may be made a pretext (as was the case in the famous "Sunshine move- ment" of 1908) for declaring obstinate- ly that conditions do not exist which every one knows are in visible opera- tion. "Psychology" has beyond any doubt a powerful influence in emphasizing ten- dencies, already operative for other rea- sons. Force of example is unquestion- ably contagious. In panic times, a great many people economize who do not need in the least to do so — precisely as, in "boom times," a good part of the com- munity lives beyond its means, because of the general atmosphere of prosperity. The man who is perpetually feeling his own pulse and taking his own tempera- ture may be really in good health, but he will sometimes develop the symptoms of disease by merely looking for them. It is not wholly different with "busi- ness." But in any case, some actual econom- ic influence, in the community at large, is always back of these imaginary move- ments. The psychological influence may merely have put a more striking color on the situation; or it may have pro- longed that situation, after the legiti- mate cause for it is past; but either sup- position assumes that a real cause is or has been in operation. The question at present is, In which of these two ways is the mental influence operating? If it is merely emphasizing real conditions,
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G7<3 T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2553 then the problem remains, as to what is causing those conditions. If it is arti- ficially prolonging a situation whose ac- tual cause has ceased to operate, then forces are accumulating which must greatly accelerate the movement of re- covery, when the truth of the matter is visible to every one. On Tuesday of last week, in the New York Stock Exchange, only 76,232 shares of stock changed hands. That suggest- ed interesting comparisons. It was barely one-fourth of the average full day's trading, even in recent years. It was low record for 1914 to date, and the smallest since the 57,600-share day on the 24th of last November, when the showing attracted wide attention. But what is still more in point, it was, with four exceptions, the smallest business of any five-hour day in eighteen years. Nor was it an isolated case. The to- tal Stock Exchange transactions of last month were the smallest of any May since 1897. The same was true of last February; and, in fact, to find a smaller twelve months' total than that of 1913 as a whole, one would have to go back upon the record to the same year 1897 — a year when the great financial and in- dustrial "boom" of the decade past had not yet begun. This is a rather extra- ordinary series of comparisons. It nat- urally suggests the inquiry, whether, now that the epoch-making financial and industrial boom that followed that interesting year is over, we have permanently relapsed, on the Stock Ex- change and elsewhere, into the era of small things which existed seventeen years ago. That question may be promptly an- swered in the negative. To take only three typical bases on which to measure the difference between the periods, we shall find that, although the sales of shares on the Stock Exchange last year were the smallest since 1897, the coun- try's clearing house exchanges in 1913 were $169,500,000,000, as against $57,- 400,000,000 in 1897; its iron production 30,966,000 tons, as against 9,652,000, and its population 98,700,000, as against 72,- 600,000. Comparison of bank deposits, production of manufactures, and total estimated wealth would show an equal or greater expansion during the inter- vening period, and those are the eco- nomic factors which, under normal cir- cumstances, regulate the legitimate vol- ume of both Investment and speculation in Stock Exchange securities. How are we, then, to explain this re- markable shrinkage in business on the Stock Exchange? One explanation is, that a great part of the huge transac- tions on the Stock Exchange, in the decade after 1897, was in reality fic- titious business. It largely represented sales and purchases made simultaneous- ly by the same customers; and, aside from that, an excessively rapid succes- sion of purchases and sales, made in great blocks by speculators who were following a violently manipulated mar- ket. That class of business has certain- ly disappeared from the market of the past two years; a very substantial part of it will never return, for the reason that it has fallen distinctly and rightly under the ban, both of the Stock Ex- change authorities and of the statute law. This would account for a substantial shrinkage from the activities of 1901 or 1906, for instance, but not for a fall to the small totals of 1897. It is supple- mented, therefore, by two other familiar explanations. One is, that the decade of enormously heavy dealing in stocks was a period of rapid and perpetual change of intrinsic values, due to a doz- en different causes, and that both spec- ulative and investment buying natural- ly followed it; whereas intrinsic values now are not changing with any such rapidity. The other is, that both in- vestors and speculators are perplexed and uncertain about numerous phenom- ena of the day. They believe general economic conditions in this country to be too sound to justify selling of such securities as they hold, but cannot see far enough and clearly enough ahead to persuade themselves to buy more. There remains another influence to consider — international in its scope — which the progress of time will eventual- ly remove. We had our great econom- ic boom; it culminated in the economic crisis; then came the long and trying era of liquidation and rehabilitation. In this country, that period has already been prolonged beyond the usual scope of the aftermath of great financial pan- ics. The one reason clearly in evidence for that prolongation has been the eco- nomic distress and the absolute tie-up of capital, on all the world's markets outside of the United States, due to their own extravagant experiments with capital, which came later than our own. Perhaps that liquidation also must be ended, before we can be sure that our own Stock Exchange activities, and with them the play of business confidence and credit, are again under wholly nor- mal influences. BOOKS OF THE WEEK FICTION. Bradley, M. H. The Palace of Darkened Windows. Appleton. $1.30 net. Bruce, Henry. The Eurasian. Lon- don: Long. Conrad, J. The Nigger of the Narcissus, Doubleday, Page. $1.20 net. DavleBB, M. T. The Tinder Box. Cen- tury Company. $1 net. O'Brien, H. V. New Men for Old. Ken- nerley. $1.25 net. Hugh, Edwin. Punch and Judy. Indian- apolis: Bobbs-MerrilL $1.35 net. T< hckoff, Anton. Stories of Russian Life. Bcrtbner, $1.50 net. Thome, <:. Chance in Chains. Sturgls & Walton. $1.10 net. UIOGRAl'IIY AND UTSTORY. Harrington, Mrs. Russell. The Life of Walter Bagehot. Longmans. $4 net. ( tesaris Commentarii de Bello Galileo. Ed. by T. Rice Holmes. London: War- ner. £1 Is. Carpenter, W. S. The Summer Paradise in History. The Delaware & Hudson Co. Count Liiteow. The Hussite Wars. Dut- ton. $4.50 net. Fitch, A. H. Junipero Serra. Chicage: McClurg. $1.50 net. Funston, F. Memories of Two Wars. Scribner. $1.50 net. Hall, E. H. Excavations in Eastern Crete, Vrokasto. Philadelphia: Univer- sity Museum. Innes, A. D. A Source Book of Eng- lish History. Vol. II. Putnam. $1.10 net. Moore, E. The Physician in English His- tory. Putnam. 65 cents net. Osborne, T. M. Within Prison Walls. Appleton. $1.50 net. Sanday, W. The Life Work of Samuel Rolles Driver. Oxford University Press. GOVERNMENT AND ECONOMICS. Taft, W. H. The United States and Peace. Scribner. $1 net. Wickersham, G. W. The Changing Order. Putnam. RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY. Carpenter, W. B. The Spiritual Message of Dante. Cambridge: Harvard Univer- sity Press. Carrington, H. The Problems of Psychi- cal Research. Rickey. $2 net. D'Eraines, J. Le Probleme des Origines et des Migrations. Brussels: Groen veldt. 7 fr. 50c. Grossmann, L. The Real Life. Bloch Publishing Co. Hibbert Lectures Series: The Early De- velopment of Mohammedanism, by D. G. Margoliouth. Scribner. Kerr, A. The Republic of Plato. Chica- go: Kerr. MISCELLANEOUS. Antrim, S. B. and E. I. The County Library. Van Wert: The Pioneer Press. Bennett, C. E. Syntax of Early Latin. Vol. II. The Cases. Allyn & Bacon. $4. Burke, Edmund. Present Discontents. Putnam. 80 cents net. Crippen, Layton. Clay and Fire. Holt. Fletcher, R. H. Principles of Composi- tion and Literature. Barnes. Manual of the Russian Language. Leip- zig: Baedeker. Scribner. Mencken, Nathan, and Wright. Europe After 8:15. Lane. $1.25 net. Monahan, Michael. At the Sign of the Van. Nova Hibernia. Kennerley. $2 net. $1.50 net. Montessori, Maria. Dr. Montossori's Own Handbook. Stokes. $1 net. Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America. Volume VII. Numbers 3-4. Chicago: University Press. Rand, B. Shaftesbury's Second Charac- ters. Putnam. $2.50 net. Sommer, H. O. The Structure of Le Livre d'Artus. London: Hachette. 80IBWOT. I5rown, W. Habit Interference in Sort- ing Cards. Berkeley: University of 1 California. Crocker, F. B., and Arendt, M. Electric Motors. Van Nostrand. $2.60 French, A.. The Beginner's Garden Book, Macmillan. $1. Hughes, A. L. Photo-Electricity. I'ut- nam. $2 net. Tease, A. E. The Book of the Lion, Scribner. 1 , It. L. Weeds. Putnam. 45 CI nts net. I li.WBL. Baedeker's Russia, Scribner. $5. -in pet J. F. The Amazing Argentine. Funk & Wngnalls. $1.50 net. Garnett, L M. J. Greece of the Hellenes. Scribner Ridger, a. i.<.t<.n. a Wanderer's Trail. Holt, $3 net.
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June 4, 1914I The ISTation 677 POETRY. Earls. M. Ballads of Childhood. Ben- ziger. $1 net. Howard, K. Candle Flame. Boston: Sherman, French. $1 net. Jacob, C. F. Driftwood and Foam. Bos- ton: Sherman, French. $1 net. ART. Bryant, L. M. What Sculpture to See in Europe. Lane. $1.35 net. Phillipps, L. M. Art and Environment. $2.25 net. Waldstein, Charles. Greek Sculpture and Modern Art. Putnam. $2.50 net. DRAMA. Hauptmann, G. The Sunken Bell. Dou- bleday, Page. 75 cents net. Jones, H. A. Mary Goes First. Double- day, Page. 75 cents net. Thomas, A. E. Her Husband's Wife. Doubleday, Page. 75 cents net. A Graduation Present THE HOME BOOK OF VERSE American and English 1580-1912 Compiled by BURTON E. STEVENSON Over 3,000 of the best poems, not neglecting humorous ones, or old fa- vorites, or the best verse of to-day, and with many long poems such as The Rubaiyat. 3842 pages, in one handy volume. India paper. Single column. Cloth, boxed, $7.50 net. Half-morocco, boxed, $12.50 net. "A collection so complete and dis- tinguished that it is difficult to find any other approaching it sufficient- ly for comparison." — New York Times Book Review. ft Henry Holt&Co.,N4ew* "0* "TO LIBRARIANS " It is of interest and importance to know that the books reviewed and advertised in this mag- azine can be purchased from us at advanta- geous prices by PUBLIC LIBRARIES, SCHOOLS, COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES A. C. McCLURG & CO., CHICAGO IMPERIAL GERMANY THE STORY OF ITS DEVELOPMENT. By Prince BERNHARD tod BUI.OW. Ex-Chancellor of the German Empire. Large Six). 342 pages. $3.00 net. DODD, MEAD & CO., Publishers, NEW YOKK. n..f, n ,y 1;. £»'*w.i si's ;.,}»;! tM m BOSTON COMMONWEALTH AYE. 100 yards from Massachusetts Ave. (£hr Eistmrtiur Unahut l^iuiar A hotel especially attractive to those who demand the best and prefer a home-like atmosphere. Single rooms from $2. Combined sitting room, bedroom and bathroom from $4. Self contained mites. Some globe trotters have been good enough to call the Puritan one of the most inviting hotels in the world. Iti illustrated booklet with guide to Boston ami vicinity on the iavor oi your card. N. A. COSTELLO, Manager CUSTOMARY ACRES AND THEIR HISTORICAL IM- PORTANCE: Being a Series of Unfinished Essays. By the late FREDERIC SEE- BOHM, Hon. LL.D. (Edin.), Litt.D. (Camb.), D.Litt. (Oxford). Author of "The English Village Community," etc. 8vo. $4.00 net (weight, 28 oz.). LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. Adventurings in the Psychical By H. ADDINGTON BRUCE Author of "Scientific Mental Healing," ete. A comprehensive review of results of modern and psychical research in the realm of the abnormal and the supernormal. Mr. Bruce has long been a student of the psychical, and his examples are gathered from a vast variety of sources, while his explanations are based on the latest scientific data. S18 Pages. Cloth. S1.S5 net. LITTLE , BROWN & CO., Pnblishers.Boston NEW MAGAZINE ON EGYPT An Illustrated quarterly magazine, beautifully illustrated, with news of late discoveries, edited by PROF. PETRIE, began with the January num- ber embellished with frontispiece of Jewelry In 1 colors. Price $2 a year. The discoveries by I Petrie and others for the EGYPTIAN RESEARCH I ACCOUNT (Society) relate to the arts of Ancient [ Egypt and to its predynastic age. An annual , quarto volume, profusely illustrated, and the I magazine should be in all public and many private libraries. Circulars of these publications freely furnished. Address REV. DR. W. 0. WINSLOW, 525 Beacon Street, Boston. HEINE'S ATTA TROLL Translated by Herman Scheffauer; with Intro- duction by Dr. Oscar Levy, and illustrations by Willy Pogfiny. A classic satire applicable to political condi- tions of all times and countries. B.W . 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678 The Nation (Vol. 98, No. 2553. ECONOMIC PRIZES ELEVENTH YEAR In order to arouse an interest in the study of topics relating to commerce and industry, and to stimulate those who have a college training to consider the problems of a business career, a committee composed of Professor J. Laurence Laughlin, University of Chicago, Chairman Professor J. B. Clark, Columbia University Professor Henry C. Adams, University of Michigan Horace White, Esq., New York City, and Professor Edwin F. Gay, Harvard University has been enabled, through the generosity of Messrs. Hart, Schaffner in 191 5 four prizes for the best studies in the economic field. Marx, of Chicago, to offer In addition to the subjects printed below, a list of available subjects proposed in past years may be had on request. Attention is expressly called to the rule that a competitor is not con- fined to topics proposed in the announcements of this committee, but any other subject chosen must first be approved by it. 1. A Local Study of the Immigration Problem. 2. A Study of the Protocol in the Needle-Trade Industry. 3. The Economic Validity of the Single Tax. 4. Price Maintenance. 5. Reciprocity and Retaliation in Foreign Trade. 6. Ship Subsidies by Indirection. 7. The Development of Trade with Latin America. Class B includes only those who, at the time the papers are sent in, are undergraduates of any American college. Class A includes any other Americans without restriction ; the possession of a degree is not required of any contestant in this class, nor is any age limit set. A First Prize of One Thousand Dollars, and A Second Prize of Five Hundred Dollars are offered to contestants in Class A. A First Prize of Three Hundred Dollars, and A Second Prize of Two Hundred Dollars are offered to contestants in Class B. The committee reserves to itself the right to award the two prizes of $1,000 and $500 of Class A to undergraduates in Class B, if the merits of the papers demand it. The committee also reserves the privilege of dividing the prizes offered, if justice can be best obtained thereby. The winner of a prize shall not receive the amount designated until he has prepared his manuscript for the printer to the satisfaction of the committee. The ownership of the copyright of successful studies will vest in the donors, and it is expected that, with- out precluding the use of these papers as theses for higher degrees, they will cause them to be issued in some permanent form. Competitors are advised that the studies should be thorough, expressed in good English, and although not limited as to length, they should not be needlessly expanded. They should be inscribed with an assumed name, the class in which they are presented, and accompanied by a sealed envelope giving the real name and address (if the competitor. No paper is eligible which shall have been printed or published in a form to disclose the Iden tity of the author before the award shall have been made. If the competitor Is in CLASS IS, the sealed envelope should contain the name of the institution in which he is studying. The papers should be sent on or before Tune 1, 1915, to J. Laurence Laughlin, Esq. The University of Chicago Chicago, Illinois
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Wellesley, Mass. The Nation VOL. XCVIII— NO. 2554 THURSDAY, JUNE 11, 1914 &?■&& PRICE TEN CENTS Pat. Office. THE YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS has pleasure in announcing the preparation of MEMORIALS OF EMINENT YALE MEN A Biographical Study of Student Life and Univer- sity Influences During the 18th and 19th Centuries By ANSON PHELPS STOKES Secretary of Yale University Two volumes. Royal Quarto. Library Edition, cloth binding, gilt top. Index. Boxed. Per set, $10.00 net. Carriage extra. Limited edition, on English handmade paper, with reproductions of rare ear- ly prints of Yale College. Facsimiles of signatures. Per set, $25.00 net. Carriage extra. These two large volumes recount the biographies of those seventy-nine Yale men who have rendered, in the judgment of the author, the most important contribution to American life. The selection embraces the biographies of such men as Jonathan Edwards, Nathan Hale, John C. Calhoun, Eli Whitney, James Kent, Samuel F. B. Morse, Noah Webster, James Dwight Dana, William M. Evarts, Fenimore Cooper, Theodore Dwight Woolsey, and William G. Sumner. The author emphasizes the story of the lives of these men with special reference to the factors of influence upon them as undergraduates. The records of the Yale Corporation, of the Faculty, of the Linonia and Brothers Debating Societies, and of many old-time student organizations, as well as diaries, letters, biographies, and histories, have been searched for the material employed. The books form a unique contribution to a little-worked field— the influence of our historic universities on the men who have moulded the thought and life of the nation. Autograph letters of all the graduates memorialized have been printed from the originals in the author's collection, and the volumes are enriched by handsome photogravures. Life and Letters of Nathan Smith, M.S., M.D. By Emily A. Smith, with an Introduction by Dr. William A. Welch. Few men have done more for education and for med- icine than did Nathan Smith, Professor and Sur- geon, 1762-1829. An emi- nent doctor perhaps best known as the founder of the medical schools at Dartmouth, Yale, and Bow- doin. This account of his life was written at the sugges- tion of Sir William Osier. Crown 8vo. Quarter Leather. Gilt top. 179 pages. 25 illustrations. Price, $2.25 net, delivered. The Mental Health of the School Child By J. E. Waixace Wal- lin, Ph.D. Director of Psycho - Educational Clinic, School of Educa- tion, University o f Pittsburgh. Employing original sta- tistical and experimental data — much of which is nowhere else available — the author presents scien- tific facts in regard to the mental health of school children in a form which is entirely comprehensible and practical. 8vo. Cloth binding. 450 pages. Diagrams, Charts, Index. Price, $2.00 net, delivered. Our Many-Sided Navy By Robert W. Neeseb, Au- thor of "A Landsman's Log." Developing even a far less interesting theme, Mr. Neeser's vivacious style and genuine enthu- siasm would make a read- able book. But with all the unsung powers of our Navy as a theme, he need fear no inattention from either naval or civil read- ers. 8vo. Cloth binding. 215 pages. End papers in col- or. 40 illustrations. 42 pages of appendix. Price, $2.50 net, delivered. The Department of State of the United States Its History aud Functions By Gaillard Hunt, Ph.D., LL.D. A n illuminating book, done in the style of a man who is bent upon stating historic truth without him- self making much com- ment. The work is unique, the first and only history of a department to be written by an expert. 8vo. Cloth binding. 448 pages. Price, $2.25 net, de- livered. YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 209 ELM STREET, NEW HAVEN, CONN. 225 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY
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11 Tlie Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2554 A WEEKLY JOURNAL [Entered at the New York City Post Office as second-class mail matter.] The Nation is published and owned by the New York Evening Post Co. Oswald Garrison Villard, President; John Palmer Gavit, Sec. and Treas. Three dollars per year in advance, post- paid, in any part of the United States or Mexico; to Canada $3.50, and to foreign countries comprised in the Postal Union, $4.60. Address THE NATION, Box 794, New York. Publication Office, 20 Vesey Street. HAROLD db WOLF FULLER, Editor. STANLEY WENT, Assistant Editor. i'AUL ELMER MORE, Advisory Editor. EMIL M. SCHOLZ, Business Manager. CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER. SUMMARY OF THE NEWS 679 THE WEEK 680 EDITORIAL ARTICLES: The Flux of Parties 683 Regulating the Regulators 683 Doubts About Dreadnoughts 684 Fathers and Sons in Ireland 685 As the Worker Sees Himself 686 The University and the Yardstick 686 FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE : The Effect of Militancy on Suffrage 687 The New French Chamber 688 POLO 689 AWAKENING OF INDIA 690 BOOKS AND MEN 692 NEWS FOR BIBLIOPHILES 692 CORRESPONDENCE 694 LITERATURE : Imperial Germany 696 The Titan 697 What a Man Wants 698 "Unto Caesar" 0J8 Life Is a Dream ".8 Saint Augnstin «£ Memories of My Youth «■*•> The Americans in the Philippines '00 NOTES 701 SCIENCE: Syriac Medicine 703 MUSIC AND DRAMA: Opera in Paris ™ Notes 705 ART: The Paris Salons 70G FINANCE: The Brighter Side of Things 707 BOOKS OF THE WEEK 70S • • • Copies of The Nmtion may be procured In Paris at Brentano's, 37 Avenue «e l'Opera; In Loadoa of B. F. Stevena * Brown. 4 Trafalgar Square, Charing Crosa. PUBLISHED JUNE 12. VITRUVIUS: THE TEN BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE Translated by the late Moreis H. Mobgan, Ph.D, LL.D., Professor of Classical Philol- ogy In Harvard University. Perpared for publication by A. A. noWABD, Pope Pro- fessor of Latin, and H, L. Wabben, Itobln son Professor of Architecture In narvanl University. Hvo. Cloth. 319 pages. $3.50. With numerous plans and illustrations. The treatise which has probably exercised more Influence on the history of achltecture than any other, Vltruvlus not only furnish'-* Ul the most important literary medium through which the principles of Greek and Roman arch itectnre have come down to tin, but wai the 00k "I' the Italian Renaissance. HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS eAMHIinx.r atASSACHUSETT* Educational UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM ENGLAND Faculty of Science Professorship of Physics. The Council of the University invites applica- tions for the Chair of Physics, vacant by the death of Dr. J. H. I'oynting, F.R.S. The stipend offered is £750 a year. Applications may be accompanied by testimonials, references, or other credentials, and should be received by the undersigned, on or before Thurs- day, the 15th October. Further particulars may be obtained from GEO. H. MORLEY, Secretary. THE DE MERITTE SCHOOL offers exceptional opportunities for boys and young men of character and ability to prepare for col- lege or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Address EDWIN DE MERITTE, 815 Boylaton Street, Boston, Mass. MORRISTOWN SCHOOL College Preparatory Boarding School for Boys. Small classes ; partial self-government. Supervised sports : new gymnasium. Lower school for boys, 10 to 14. Advisory Board — President Hibben, Princeton ; Dean Hurlbut, Harvard ; Dean Jones, Yale ; Dean Keppel, Columbia ; President Pritcbett, Car- negie Foundation. Morristown, New Jersey. The WOLCOTT SCHOOL, DENVER,COL Superior climate. Accredited with Eastern Colleges for girls. Fine music advantages. Gymnasium. The Misses Kirk's College Preparatory School Offers unique opportunities for Individual work In all college preparatory subjects, combined with the advantages of school life. Prepares especially for Bryn Mawr. Twelve boarders. Faculty of eight teachers. Outdoor gymnastics. P. O. Box 804, Bryn Mawr, Pa. 'THE FISK TEACHERS' AGENCIES, J. Evkrbtt O. Fisk & Co., Proprietors. Boston, 2a Park St. Denver, 317 Mas. Tem. New York,156FifthAv. Portland, 316 Journal Bd. Washington, 1S47 U St. Berkeley, 2101 Shatt'k Av. Chicago, 28E.JacksonBd. Los Angeles, 343DouglasBd. Send te any address above for Agency Manual. Harlan P. French, Pre*. Vincent B. Flsk, Sec'7. THE ALBANY TEACHERS' AGENCY knows how. Twenty-two years of successful ex- perience in bringing together good schools and good teachers. Send for Bulletin, 81 Chapel St., Albany. N. Y. PROVIDENT TEACHERS' AGENCY 120 TREMONT ST., BOSTON, MASS. TEACHERS AND OFFICERS WANTED FOR COLLEGES AND SCHOOLS Director, JAMES LEE LOVE, formerly of Harvard. ™eTeachers Exchange of gotten, 1 20 ffiovliten St. K-ECOMMENDS TEACHERS. TUTORS AND SCHOOLS GERMAN ROMANTICISM (1700-1800) By Allen Wilson Porterfleld, Barnard College, Columbia University. A comprehensive handbook, containing in readily accessible form much pertinent In- formation in regard to the German Roman- tie movement. In addition to a general discussion of the growth ami development of the movement and a treatise on the econo- mic background, there are twenty sections on t Ik- vniioiiH phases of Romanticism, In- cluding Its relation to contemporaneous Deleting, and philosophy. 1 :irh section contains an explanatory In- troduction and biographical sketches of the various writers, followed by carefully hc lected bibliographies and wading lisls of their chief works In chronological order. Where there Is anything peculiarly significant about a work, creative or critical, this Is always pointed out. The book will prove Invaluable to ad- vanced students In Gorman and to teachers. xxx + 263 pages, $1.00. GINN AND COMPANY, Pubbehers Boston New York Chicago London Atlanta Dallas Columbus Sail Kruni Imo Foreign Dealers in Rare Books, Prints, Etc. Just Published (No. 49) : AN ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE OF SCARCE AND INTERESTING OLD ENGRAVINGS AND BOOKS ON MARIE ANTOINETTE AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION THE PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT WHICH PRECEDED IT IN FRANCE. Its Effect on English Life and Thought THE IRISH REBELLION TRIALS FOR SEDITION AND SOME AUTOGRAPH LETTERS, etc. Post free on application, from HENRY SOTHERAN AND CO. 43 PICCADILLY, LONDON, W., ENGLAND BOOKS — All out-of-print books supplied, no matter on what subject ; write me, stating books wanted ; I can get you any book ever published ; when in England, call and Inspect my stock ef 50.000 rare books. 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June ii, 1914] The !N" a t i o 11 111 q If somebody offered you four big books for five cents, and they were full of interesting stories, humorous and philo- sophical sayings, useful facts, and plenty of pictures, you would think you had a bargain. &hje Kcto )|orK petting $M offers you precisely that every Saturday. Its four sections contain not only the day's news, but a valuable summing up of the week's events. JTT The Photographers who make the pictures for the j\ Kjein JJoxk Jtucmnij $0$ Saturday Magazine go everywhere and see things that no one individual possibly could. There are from 50 to 60 fine half-tones and other engravings in every issue, covering public life, society, sports, the theatre, the fashions and every other field. The Magazine is prepared solely for the New York Even- ing Post readers and is not the ordinary syndicated affair. Of the many regular features in the other sections, here are a sample half dozen : MUSIC: Henry T. Finck writes a column that keeps the Saturday reader in touch with the concerts, and contains timely anecdotes, news bits, and editorial utterances about musicians. His reports of concerts and operas are interesting even to the persons who don't know a semiquaver from a harpsichord. THE STAGE: J. Ranken Towse, veteran among the dramatic critics of New York, tells about the new things in the theatrical world and gives his estimate of plays and events in the dramatic world. CHURCHES AND ORGANISTS WOMEN AND Some one has said, apropos FEMINISM °f, The Evening Posts head What Women Are Doing, that, if it knows that, it knows more than Socrates, Napoleon, and Abraham Lincoln. Possibly those three didn't know — feminism is pretty new — but anyone would certainly admit getting a fairly good inkling who reads the very full accounts of suf- frage doings, fashions, shopping, sociological movements, and no-mere-man-knows-what-not, written by Clara Savage, Louise TOWNSEND NlCHOLL, JEANNE STEV- ens, and other specialists. FINANCE An entire Supplement is devoted to this sub- ject and Alexanper D. Noyes is its editor. It contains business diag- noses and letters from all the finan- cial centres, as well as full quota- Name tion tables. It is known as one of the most authoritative financial publi- cations of the daily newspaper world. Address Two full pages are given to these subjects. Hun- dreds of people take the paper for this one feature ; and letters come from all parts of the United States from church musi- cians who keep in touch with New York in this ^vay. E. N. Williamson edits this department. SOLDIERS and The page about Army, Navy SAILORS anc* Militia is known wher- ever a drum beats or a quar- termaster's whistle blows. It is a complete ency- clopaedia of the week's doings and of prospective happenings. The service everywhere reads this page. Of course, it is not necessary to say that the editorial page and the literary department are read by thinking people the world over and have been for upward of a century. What some people need to be told is that the price of this Saturday paper is ridiculously low : FIVE CENTS on the Newsstands. $2.50 a Year, by Mail, Out of Town. Gfte KeJQj ^orlt Pumhuj $M Please send me for one year the Saturday Edition of The New York Evening Pott, for which I enclose $2.50. I ■ I
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IV T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2554 Important Appleton Books Every question you can ask about Government, Federal, State, Local, and Municipal, is answered in this monumental work Cyclopedia of American Government Edited by Albert Bushnell Hart, Professor of the Science of Government. Harvard University, and Andrew C. McLaughlin, Professor of History, University of Chicago. S volumes. Cloth, $22.50 per set. Every question you can ask about government in the United States, or about even the vaguest influences that affect government, is answered in this great work. The history, principles and practice of the American legal and political systems are covered in minutest detail. The work is arranged alphabetically in cyclopedic fashion, and every article carries numerous cross references to others allied with it. From the earliest times to 1914 everything is here, and so easy to get at that you will find it is a real joy to look up and familiarize yourself with all those problems of government which have perplexed you so long. It is as important as a dictionary and should be in every private or public library. Love and the Soul-Maker By Mary Austin, Author of ''The Arrow Maker." Cloth, $1.50 net. Postage extra. In this new book the author makes one of the strongest pleas for the home that has ever been voiced. Mrs. Austin discusses frankly the problems of sex differences that are being encountered everywhere to-day in our social life, and proves that the balance of the social relations can be accomplished only by the same frank handling of the so-called problem of the double standard of morality. Every serious minded man and woman should read it. Within Prison Walls By Thoma§ Molt Osborne $1.50 net. Postage extra. The prison experiences of voluntary convict No. 33,333 X. A startlingly frank picture of the prison conditions such as exist in hundreds of penal institutions in the United States to- day, throwing a strong light on the great need for investigation that will have in mind the possibility of a cure of the criminal tendencies, rather than a punishment to fit the crime. The Wars of the Roses, 1377-1471 By R. B. Mowat 8vo. $2.00 mt. Postage extra. Excepting the history of our own United States, there is no history so full of interest to students of the world's social and economic advance as that of England during the four- teenth and fifteenth centuries, and this book has at last appeared to fill a long felt need for a complete and authentic account of this interesting period. Hail andFarewell-"Ave," "Salve" and "Vale" By George Moore Cloth, gilt top. $IJS each vol. Postage extra. In these three volumes the author brings us into very close touch with many men and women who have helped to make the history of art and literature during the last decade. "It is a wonderful tour de force in literary art, with scarcely a parallel since Rousseau's Confessions." — North American, Philadelphia. Occupational Diseases By \\ . (.ilniuii Thompson, M.D. Illustrated. $6.00 net. Employers of large numbers of people are now beginning to realize that the conservation of the health of the employee is an asset not to be overlooked, and that a business man who would be successful considers hygiene and sanitation as important as a regular income. Here is the first book published which covers completely the field of industrial and occupa- tional hygiene in America, and no manufac- turer or mill 1 employes III any field should be without it. Circulars or full description sent upon ri't/itcsl. D. APPLETON & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
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The Nation. TOBKj TSVJtBDAY, JUNE 11. 1914. Summary of the News Alarmist rumors have been freely cir- culated during the past week concerning the Mexican crisis, and have gained the more credence from the fact that the sittings of the mediation conference were Interrupted from Monday till Saturday of last week while awaiting a reply from Carranza to the last note sent him by the mediators. The "Tampico incident," which appeared at one time to hold the possibility of serious consequences, was happily settled on Monday, and its set- tlement leaves the conference at Niagara Falls in a stronger position than before. The incident arose from orders given by Gen. Huerta for the blockade of Tampico to prevent the entrance to the port of the steamship Antilla, which left New York on June 2 with a cargo of arms for the Constitutionalists. Rear-Admiral Badger was instructed to keep close watch on the Mexican gunboats, and the Ad- ministration announced that Tampico would be maintained as an open port. The situation appeared critical until it was announced on Monday that Gen. Huerta had countermanded the order for the blockade. Correspondence with the Constitution- alists on the question of their participa- tion in the conference is still being car- ried on, but the declaration of an armis- tice, the point on which the mediators continue to insist, remains the obstacle in the way of an agreement. Meanwhile, the United States has presented a further plan to the mediators, which, it is un- derstood, embodies essentially the same provisions as those on which the me- diators and the Mexican delegates re- cently agreed, and in which Gen. Huer- ta concurred; that is, it provides for a method of transferring the executive power in Mexico to a provisional govern- ment, which in a few months shall con- duct elections for President, Vice-Presi- dent, and Congress. It has also been in- timated to the Mexican delegates that the United States will not demand any rep- aration in the nature of a war indemnity. In Mexico Gen. Carranza was declared Provisional President at Saltillo on Mon- day to the accompaniment of a certain amount of pomp. The usual reports of differences between Villa and his chief have been circulated and denied, and it is stated that, whatever differences there may have been, an understanding has been reached between the two, and Villa is advancing on Zacatecas, the railway to which place has been repaired. There has been fighting in Sonora between the civil and the military authorities. Gov. Maytorena was besieged last week in the palace by the troops of the Obregon-Calles faction, but was rescued on Monday by the intervention of a band of Yaqui In- dians, and regained control of the situa- tion. The Administration's entire programme of anti-Trust bills, consisting of the Clayton Anti-Trudt bill, the Railway Capitalization bill, and the Interstate Trade Commission bill, was passed by the House on Friday of last week, and came before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on Monday. The opinion is expressed by leaders in the Senate that difficulty will be experienced in passing the Clayton bill, and the prediction is made that, if the President insists on the passage of all three bills before adjourn- ment, the session will be prolonged until far into the autumn. Juggling in the tolls debate in the Sen- ate resulted on Saturday in the intro- duction of an amendment intended as a compromise between the Simmons amendment, already accepted by the Ad- ministration, and one proposed by Sen- ator Norris, asserting more specifically the right of the United States to regulate the traffic passing through the Panama Canal. The effect of the amendment, if incorporated in the bill, will be to leave the treaty rights of the United States unprejudiced by the tolls repeal legisla- tion and their determination to be de- cided _in the future, presumably by arbi- tration. The United States Supreme Court on Monday handed down its decision in the Shreveport case asserting the au- thority of the Federal Government to regulate interstate commerce through the Interstate Commerce Commission. We deal elsewhere with the effects of the decision, which is of the utmost im- portance in the regulation of railways and which is welcomed by the railway companies as relieving them from the conflicting control of various State au- thorities. The investigation by the Interstate Commerce Commission of the affairs of the New Haven Railway were continued last week, and on Saturday the examina- tion of the books of the Morgan com- pany was concluded and the Commis- sion adjourned. It is generally believed that the public hearing of evidence is now finished, but at the end of Satur- day's session Commissioner McChord, who presided, stated that if it were deemed necessary to hold further pub- lic hearings, the persons whose evidence was desired would be notified. Despite his thrice repeated denial of Gubernatorial ambitions, Col. Roosevelt's friends continue in his absence to urge his candidacy for the Governorship of New York State. An elaborate canvass of the sentiment up-State is said to have been undertaken, and if the result of this prove favorable, it is pointed out that there is precedent for the Progres- sive leader, though all unwilling, ac- cepting a nomination. The sixth international congress of Chambers of Commerce and Commercial and Industrial Associations opened in Paris on June 8. Three hundred and sixty-nine associations, representative of thirty-seven nations, took part in the opening session. The most important question that will be discussed by the Congress is that of international com- mercial arbitration. Another of Italy's periodical general strikes was declared on Monday as a protest against the killing of two sup- posed anarchists by the police during a parade under the anarchist leader Ma- latesta at Ancona. Rioting has occur- red in various places, but elaborate pre- cautions have been taken by the Gov- ernment to protect public buildings and works, and it is stated that the authori- ties have the situation well in hand. Something in the nature of a Minis- terial strike appears to have been in progress in France. Following the resig- nation of the Cabinet of M. Doumergue on June 1, the President invited M. Viviani, Minister of Instruction, to form a Cabinet. The latter accepted tentative- ly, but on Saturday informed M. Poin- care that he had failed in his efforts, the difficulty being, apparently, to select a Ministry which should be in harmony on the question of the three years' mili- tary service. M. Paul Deschanel, the President of the Chamber, also refused the Premiership, as did M. Theophile Delcasse, former Minister of Marine, and until recently Ambassador to Russia; M. Dupuy, and M. Peytral. On Monday, M. Ribot, a veteran politician and an ex- Premier, undertook the task, and was able to announce the personnel of his Cabinet on Tuesday. M. Ribot himself takes the portfolio of Minister of Jus- tice, M. Bourgeois becomes Minister of Foreign Affairs, M. Delcasse is appoint- ed to the Ministry of War, and M. Clem- entel assumes the delicate position of Minister of Finance. A state almost of anarchy seems to exist in Albania. It is extremely diffi- cult to gain any exact information of what is happening, but one gathers from various contradictory reports as to a prospective change of sovereignty, what has been fairly patent throughout, that Prince William of Wied as Mpret of Albania fails to satisfy any considera- ble section of his subjects. The inter- esting question is whether any other ruler appointed from the outside by the great Powers would prove more success- ful in reconciling factions. It has been reported persistently that Prince Wil- liam's abdication is imminent, and the in- surgents have been threatening the cap- ital; but, according to a dispatch pub- lished on Tuesday, they have been check- ed by a defeat at the hands of the Gov- ernment forces at Tirana. The deaths of the week include: Sir Douglas Straight, June 3; Harris Charles Fahnestock, Sir William K. Anson, Rob- ert J. Redding, June 4; Dr. Amos Law- rence Mason, Earl of Lucan, June 5; Gabriel Ferrier, June 6; Walter Theodore Watts-Duncan, June 7; Chief Engineer George Edward Tower, U. S. N., June 8 ex-Judge Edgar J. Sherman, June 9.
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680 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2554 The Week The decision by the Supreme Court, on Monday, in the matter of conflicting exercise of power over railway rates by the Federal Interstate Commission and by a State Board of Commissioners, may fairly be called an epoch-making event. The substance of Justice Hughes's opin- ion, affirmed by the Court with two dis- senting votes, is that a State has no right to impose such rates, even for ser- vices performed wholly within its bor- ders, as shall interfere with the fair and equal operation of rates fixed by the Interstate Commission for similar ser- vices in traffic which crosses the State border. The decision therefore limits the power of a State in matters where- in such power has been constantly ex- ercised; consequently it strongly vindi- cates the national authority. But it does much more than this. It declares inferentially that in the mass of rate regulations, Federal and State, which have frequently imposed two flatly con- flicting orders on the railways, the in- structions of the National Board are hereafter to be obeyed in case of con- flict, and those of the State Commis- sions are to be ignored. The issue was raised by the State of Louisiana, which protested against conditions brought about by the State Railway Commission of Texas. It was indirect imposition of a protective tariff against a neighbor State. The reasoning of the Court is briefly this: Unjust discrimination in rates, unduly favoring one community over another under similar conditions of traf- fic, is an evil which Congress has power to prevent. It is immaterial that this discrimination was caused by a rate imposed on traffic wholly within one State. The Federal authority is not bound, for the purpose of removing in- equality, to reduce the interstate rate to the level of the rate within the State; if it did, it would merely protect inter- state commerce by imposing a rate low- er than it deemed fair and right. But since Congress has the power to inter- vene when the State Commission's rate involves discrimination; since it also may provide for exercise of such power through a subordinate agency, and since the Interstate Commerce Commission is the agency thus designated by the law— therefore the Interstate Commission's finding, as against the Texas State Com- mission's rates, is sustained by the high- est court. The principles laid down in this extremely important decision are clear; their practical consequences are perhaps less obvious. The noteworthy forward step which the Court has taken is in assuming that the right, under the given conditions, to overrule a State Commission's rate policy is already in- herent in the Federal Commission as an arm of Congress, and does not (as might have been inferred from the Minnesota rate opinion) have to await a new af- firmatory vote by Congress. The Supreme Court's decision that the Missouri Anti-Trust law is not in- validated by the fact that labor unions are exempted from its operation is of peculiar interest at this moment. It may not be conclusive evidence of what the Court would hold in regard to an act of Congress making a similar ex- emption, but it points strongly in the direction of the sustaining of the con- stitutionality of such an act. The Supreme Court holds that it was for the Legislature to decide whether the particular form of restraint of compe- tition, or restraint of trade, involved should or should not be exempted from the scope of the statute; and, though there may be points of difference in this regard between a Federal case and a State case, it is certainly, to say the least, not improbable that the same view would be taken of an ex- emption of labor unions from the scope of the anti-Trust laws of the nation. If the Clayton bill, as passed by the House, were to become a law, the question before the courts would, indeed, be different from this alto- gether; the question would be, pri- marily, at least, whether the intention- ally obscure language of the bill was to be understood as granting the ex- emption which the labor unions desire. But in voting for the bill like sheep following a bell-wether, many mem- bers made the excuse that there was no danger anyhow, since the courts would declare the provision unconsti- tutional if they found that it meant exemption. This refuge for cowardice no longer exists. The Missouri de- cision has come just in time to make unavailable in the Senate the excuse which was found so convenient in the House. Senators who are opposed to class legislation will be squarely call- ed upon to make their votes agree with their opinions. In his address at the unveiling of the Confederate monument in the Arling- ton National Cemetery — a fit pendant to his simple remarks before the veterans of the Civil War on Memorial Day — President Wilson happily pointed out those elements of the occasion signifi- cant of "a reunited people." The mon- ument was dedicated by officers of the United Confederate Veterans and the Grand Army of the Republic. It had been proposed by President McKinley, himself a commander on the Union side; its cornerstone had been laid by another President, "elevated to his posi- tion by the votes of the party which had chiefly prided itself upon sustaining the war for the Union." With fine delicacy, he refrained from any allusion to the facts which made his own acceptance significant. As he remarked, the absence of sectionalism has been so complete that any reading of the salient lesson of the dedication seemed not merely sim- ple, but commonplace; malice towards none, charity for all, had been a watch- word even before the close of the strug- gle, and it remained only to impress it as a personal maxim, making every citi- zen, in attitude towards public affairs, a replica of a harmonious and forward- looking nation. Mr. Ledyard's testimony at the New Haven Railroad inquiry does not leave Mr. Mellen in an enviable position. The point on which Mellen, in conclud- ing his testimony of three weeks ago, laid the greatest stress was that he had voluntarily accepted indictment for the Grand Trunk negotiations, solely in or- der to shield Mr. Morgan, and that his reward had been dismissal from the New Haven presidency. Now comes Mr. Ledyard, who was present at the confer- ences with Mellen about this same in- dictment, and who testifies that Mellen had discussed his personal apprehen- sion of being indicted; had declared his purpose "to waive immunity and tell the story," trusting thereby to escape indictment, and had dictated a letter to the District Attorney to that purport. There is surely no evidence of vica- rious sacrifice in this. As for the fur-
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June ii, 1914] The Nation 681 ther testimony of Mellen, to the general effect that he was dragged reluctantly Into the various questionable operations by Mr. Morgan, Mr. Ledyard testifies: In all my connection with the board, I never knew of any person but Mr. Mel- len taking the initiative in bringing busi- ness before the board or any of its com- mittees. ... He had at his finger ends all the inter-corporate relations, and as a presiding officer he had the ability to put before the board what he wished in the most convincing way. The board had the utmost confidence in Mr. Mellen, and he was in that sense a power in the board. He was in that sense the one who dominated its policy. It is only fair to say that Mr. Ledyard's statement is of general character, whereas Mellen's testimony, as to his own personal disapproval of the finan- cial terms on which the Westchester and Rhode Island "deals" were conduct- ed, was particular. It therefore remains to produce some further testimony which will bear on those special alle- gations. But as to the picture drawn by Mr. Ledyard of the general attitude of the New Haven's former president in its board, we are bound to say that it gives exactly the impression which rail- way men have always entertained. By them, at least, the notion of Mellen as being driven, a timid and unwilling par- ticipant, into the management's ambi- tious schemes, has from the first been greeted with incredulity. The question of international commer- cial arbitration, the most important be- fore the International Congress of Chambers of Commerce now meeting in Paris, is of sufficient moment to have received notice in several national leg- islative bodies. M. Max Leclerc, of the Paris Chamber of Commerce, recently submitted a comprehensive report upon the subject. So necessary is some rap- id, inexpensive, and technically com- petent method of settling disputes in world business that textile firms, grain merchants, and publishers have volun- tarily created boards of settlement. The Bourse of Paris has a model contract, for use in all centres of grain trade, and the executive committee of the Inter- national Congress of Publishers recent- ly adopted a rule organizing arbitration. What is lacking is legal sanction to the results of these professional agreements. The cabled reports of the plans submit- ted Monday by Mr. Bernheimer, of New York, and Dr. Pozzi, of Milan, state that they look to legislative provisions "to clothe foreign arbitrators with pow- ers to fulfil their functions, to provide for them legal protection, and to give executive force to the judgments pro- nounced by them." M. Leclerc proposed that the French Government call two conventions to consider the matter; the first of diplomats and business men, the second of diplomats alone, who might be relied on to reach a satisfactory solu- tion. Clearly desirable as such a con- summation is, beyond doubt it must come slowly. A law making interna- tional commercial decisions valid in France passed the Chamber in 1908, but has not yet been approved by the Sen- ate. In face of the large difficulties be- fore international action, business or- ganizations must continue doing what they can in an unofficial way. Rear-Admiral Fletcher's excellent rep- utation as an officer of judgment and humanity, free from jingoism or bla- tancy, is enhanced by his two reports on the operations at Vera Cruz. The first, admirably written, records his ef- forts to limit the loss of life and de- struction of property, and strongly con- firms the general impression that this unhappy enterprise was carried on with all possible skill, dispatch, and efficien- cy. The second lists an extraordinary number of officers and men who distin- guished themselves by their coolness and bravery. Here again the Admiral's reputation for calm judgment — so high- ly praised by President Wilson at An- napolis last week — guarantees that all these men really merit the honors he asks for them. As to some other offi- cers, the appearance of a list so un- usually long would merely awaken doubts; with Rear- Admiral Fletcher's word for it, the country can be sure that it has in its naval service a high percentage of fearless and devoted men. Though founded, It is said, on the same principle as that which initiated national aid to agricultural schools a half-century ago, the Hoke Smith vo- cational-aid bill, embodying the recom- mendations of the Vocational Education Commission appointed in January, may expect opposition from many sources jealous of the rapid extension of Feder- al functions. The Commission's plea that it will "help solve a problem too large to be worked out permanently save by the whole nation" seems rather speciously supported by the arguments that the migratory nature of labor makes the subject of interstate concern, and that the resources of the States vary widely in proportion to their bur- den. There is more force in the state- ment that the interest and prestige of Federal backing will give a needed im- petus to a subject treated too indiffer- ently. It is beyond doubt that State and municipal attention, though widely aroused, requires some further spur. The measure reported last week carries an ultimate expenditure of $7,334,000 a year, to be distributed among all States which will spend dollar for dollar, and submit their plans to Federal approv- al. Its supervising board would lay ex- tra burdens upon the Postmaster-Gen- eral and Secretaries of Commerce, La- bor, Agriculture, and the Interior, who — with the Commissioner of Education as chairman — would constitute it. The many who feel that local and State di- visions can most effectively solve the difficulties of this form of education will hope that debate may show clearly whether the Government would be wise to undertake it. In his commencement address at Co- lumbia, President Butler struck some- what the same note as that sounded in his address a year ago. What he then spoke of was the tendency towards making life a Flatland, a thing with- out depth and without permanent roots, which was an accompaniment of our extraordinary absorption in the imme- diate problems of the time. This year it was the remarkable growth of the idea of regulation, at the expense of the idea of liberty, to which he direct- ed the attention of his hearers. This is most emphatically a word in season. The prevailing tendency to accept regu- lation in place of personal liberty, in one field after another, is all the more dangerous because it is in large part due to changes in social conditions which justify regulation of many things formerly left to take care of them- selves. Social relations are more com- plex, the things that have to be done by men in masses and not as individuals are more numerous, than they were half a century ago. But that is no reason why the "self-regarding" acts — to use Mill's term — of men should be subject-
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(38^ o T li e Natio n [Vol. 98, No. 2554 ed to more restraint, but quite the con- trary. The habit of regulation, growing inevitably and rightly through the pres- Bure of certain plain social needs, threatens to invade every department of life. It is for university men, above all, to raise the voice of protest against this menace. When Swinburne, in 1909, was car- ried from the Pines to his grave, it seemed as if one of the doors of Ro- mance had been closed in England. And n w Theodore Watts-Dunton, who had occupied the same house with him on Putney Hill since 1879, has followed him on the way to the majority. The two were singularly well suited intellec- tually, and it would not be amiss to say that the later to die held a place as critic in the resuscitated romantic movement somewhat akin to that held by Swinburne as a poet. It is not our purpose to discuss now his powers and adventures as an accredited guide on the slopes of Parnassus. Those who care to read of these things may find them written out at length and in a manner somewhat fulsome in the biography pub- lished by his ardent disciple, Mr. James Douglas, while the master was still liv- ing. He was at his best, we are inclined to think, in those briefer articles, half personal reminiscence, half literary criticism, such as he wrote for the Athenwum on George Borrow, his friend and fellow in gypsy lore; or such as his note on "Rossetti and Charles Wells," printed as preface to a recent edition of "Joseph and His Brethren," with its charming glimpses of Rossetti's circle and especially of Wells himself, that adventurous failure in the romantic hazard. creator: it "merely indicates that there are two great impulses governing man, and probably not man only, but the en- tire world of conscious life: the im- pulse of acceptance — the impulse to take unchallenged and for granted all the phenomena of the outer world as they are — and the impulse to confront these phenomena with eyes of inquiry and wonder." His own novel, already named, and the rather complicated ser- ies of gypsy poems are exemplifications not so much of inquiry and wonder as of wonder and sentimentality, with an occasional flash of imaginative insight. In his more learned disquisitions Watts-Dunton easily lost himself in mag- nificent and vain generalizations, and the phrase, "the renascence of wonder," which has given him a kind of celeb- rity, has been the cause of no little loose thinking and large talking. That watchword of the so-called romantic re- vival is known to most readers from its place in the article on Rossetti in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, but as a matter of fact it was first used by its author in connection with his own won- der-mongering story of "Aylwin." Its meaning, so far as it conveys any very definite idea, has been explained by its Alexander Ribot, who has been suc- cessful in the difficult task of construct- ing a Ministry in the face of Radical and Socialist hostility, has presided in his time over Cabinets made up of diverse elements. But that was twenty years ago and more. Since then French Radicalism has taken on a much sharp- er edge, and M. Ribot, on the other hand, has drifted more and more to- wards the conservative side. Conse- quently, there is something anomalous in his being called to the head of the Government after an election in which the Socialist and Radical forces in Par- liament have been greatly strengthened. If the leaders of the majority groups find it hard to frame an acceptable pol- icy with regard to the three years' mili- tary service law and financial reform, an outsider like Ribot would seem to be confronting an absolutely hopeless task. But it may be that the leaders of the majority groups are not averse to an in- terim Ministry under a man of national prestige like Ribot — one of France's Elder Statesmen — while they are com- posing their own differences. Ribot himself is undoubtedly in favor of re- taining the service of three years. It was while he was Foreign Minister un- der Freycinet that the foundations were laid for the alliance with Russia. Any measure tending to weaken the coun- try's military position is obviously out of line with the policy of the Dual Alli- ance. to that end are resorting to the dissem- ination of private scandal. It may be that personal and factional spite dom- inates the situation. But it is also pos- sible that something of a constitutional issue is at stake. It will be recalled that when M. Poincare was elected Pres- ident he was hailed as the Strong Man who would check the absolutism of Par- liament by the reassertion of the dor- mant prerogatives of the Chief Execu- tive. His election was hailed as a set- back for Radicalism. Now that the Rad- icals are firmer than ever in the saddle, they may have chosen the moment to assert in unmistakable form the su- premacy of the Chamber of Deputies. By bringing M. Poincaire to his knees they would settle the question of the "prerogatives" of the President. One explanation of the prolonged Min- isterial crisis is that the leaders of the Radical and Socialist majority are on strike against M. Poincare\ There have been stories that his enemies are deter- mined to drive him from public life, and The terrible disasters which overtook the German navy's Zeppelin dirigibles have not in the least discouraged it from going on with other airships of this type. A new and more powerful one than either of the others, the "L — 3," has just completed a trial voy- age during which it stayed thirty-six consecutive hours in the air and sailed over a large part of Germany. Leav- ing Lake Constance early in the morn- ing, it went by way of Bale to Frank- fort-on-the-Main, and at nine o'clock in the evening was at Metz. Five hours later it was in Bremen, after which it went out to sea to Helgoland. Just twen- ty-four hours after leaving Lake Con- stance, it had come back from Helgoland to Berlin, greeting the workers of the city as they hurried to their tasks. It then returned to the North Sea before finally descending in Berlin at seven o'clock in the evening. On board was the new Inspection Commission of the Navy Department, whose predecessors perished so tragically on the trial trip of the "L — 2." While the weather con- ditions were on the whole favorable, there were some severe winds encoun- tered, but the ship had no difficulty in holding her course. The same craft re- cently established a new altitude rec- ord for Zeppelin dirigibles by rising to a height of ten thousand feet. It Is in every way the most powerful ship yet turned out by Zeppelin. Facts as to the engine power are not available, but as 10 size it is stated that in every dimen- sion she far outstrips tier predecessors.
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June ii, 1914] The Nation 683 THE FLUX OF PARTIES. An examination paper on political parties, set in a course on "civics," would nowadays ask questions which it would bother a book-trained student to answer. Do we have government by party in the United States? Are the differences among Democrats, Republi- cans, and Progressives clear-cut? Does the party out of power steadily oppose the measures of the party having con- trol of the Government, and vote solidly against its measures? We know what theory says on all these points. But what are the facts? Let the ingenuous youth who knows the paper account of party government go to Washington, and what would he see? If he had been In the House of Representatives on last Friday evening, when the anti-Trust bills were passed, he would have thought that our political parties were in a state of complete flux and hopeless con- fusion. Here were Democratic bills — and bills which had been attacked and denounced by the Republican and Pro- gressive leaders — yet Republicans and Progressives voted for them in battal- ions. For one bill all of the Progres- sives voted, while only eight Republi- cans were against it. For another for- ty-one Republicans and fifteen Progres- sives voted. A handful of Democrats were against both. Thus party lines were not merely crossed, but broken. Superficially, all this looks very like a great success for President Wilson's strategy. If the leader of the Demo- cratic party is able to devise legislation that keeps his own party intact while seriously dividing his opponents, who can stand against him? It is certainly the fact that Mr. Wilson has had, thus far, a series of triumphs of this kind. In this particular, he shines by con- trast with the bad luck of President Taft. The latter split his own party and solidified the Democrats. President Wil- son has exactly reversed the process. He has held his own followers togeth- er while splitting the Opposition. He did it to a certain degree last year with his tariff bill and with his banking and currency legislation. He is doing it with his Panama tolls-exemption repeal, for which many Republicans voted in the House, and for which eight or ten Republican Senators are going to vote. And with his Trust bills he scored ap- parently the most decisive victory of all. Things, however, are not always what they seem in politics. A little attention paid to the forces lying behind this seeming demonstration of the Presi- dent's complete domination over Con- gress will disclose uncertainties and perils on every hand. In the first place, the Democrats who stood by the Presi- dent did so without any great enthusi- asm. They are in a state of political apprehension. At the very moment when the power of their party appears to be highest, they fear that defeat is impending. The Republicans, more- over, who fell in behind the Wilson bills in the House, have not the slightest thought of relaxing their attacks upon him. Congress is one thing; a national campaign and the poll of the people are another. The fight for the control of the next Congress will be waged just as bitterly as if the Republicans had kept their ranks unbroken in the voting on the Trust bills. Into those measures were written provisions — especially the concessions to organized labor — which many of them dared not go on record as opposing. But the President who urged the bills they will go on opposing to the best of their ability. It was no "era of good feeling" which was indicated by the remarkable switching over of the Republican vote to the Wilson bills. What perplexes the ordinary citizen, in the presence of all this mixing-up of parties and their policies, goes deeper than anything having to do with elec- tions. In the prevailing deliquescence he seems to find nothing to tie to. The party of his own preference he repeated- ly discovers failing him, or leading him he knows not whither. Turning to the other side, he sees no better proofs of conviction and stability. If he looks to the third party, he perceives that the personally conducted Progressives are no more assured of themselves, or more clear in what they think and intend to do, than the others. A vast opportunism seems to have descended like a cloud upon American political parties. It is impossible to trace the old distinc- tions. For a man to call himself a Dem- ocrat or a Republican does not in the least signify any longer what his politi- cal convictions are. As for the tradi- tional desire to have two parties in the commonwealth, one conservative and the other radical, few are left to cherish it as possible of realization. Radical views — some say that there are no con- servatives left — permeate all parties. The result is obviously to weaken for the time being the standard conception of government by party. Doubtless the present flux will not indefinitely con- tinue. But at the moment, it must be confessed, the break-up and fusing in our political life leave many disconso- late Americans in search of a party. REGULATING THE REGULATORS. Is the next step in the social service programme to be the private regulation of Government regulation of private business? Last Thursday the Federal Commission on Industrial Relations was taking testimony on the subject of child labor in the tenements. The represen- tative of an association of garment man- ufacturers was asked what precautions were observed by employers in distrib- uting work to be done outside of the shop. He replied that such outside work was sent only to duly licensed places under inspection by the State. Thereupon counsel to the Industrial Commission put the following question: Isn't it a fact that you have not taken the trouble to inquire into conditions, and haven't you heard previously, as has been testified before this Commission, that the State's inspections are so im- perfect as to be unworthy of the name? We have not at hand the reply of the dazed business man to this amazing in- terrogation. That he was dazed we are morally certain. For the assumption here was that the business man who is subject to Government regulation is bound to see that the regulators do their duty. Possibly even he ought to lay a complaint against the inspectors for not being sufficiently severe with him. There was method, of course, in coun- sel's madness. As counsel for a Fed- eral Commission he was presumably in- terested in proving the futility of State inspection, as opposed to Federal In- spection. In order to score a tactical point he did not hesitate to imperil the entire case for Government regulation. It may be that the Federal Government is more efficient than this or that State government; after all, that Is a ques- tion of degree. It is by no means our intention here to deny the truth of the statement made by counsel for the In dustrial Commission. The case may be as he has described it. And whatever
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684 Tlie Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2554 may have been his immediate object, he has called attention to the fact that the difficulties inherent in the problems of public regulation are accentuated for us by the evil traditions of public in- efficiency and the spoils system. This need of a higher conscience and efficiency in the public service, wheth- er the service of the State or of the Federal Government, is bound to loom up among the pressing problems of our democracy. For democracy will be directly on trial in the working of our public service commissions, our work- men's compensation commissions, our factory and health and tenement and fire-prevention inspectorships; more di- rectly on trial, one imagines, than through the working of our direct pri- maries, direct elections, and reformed ballots. The difference is measured by the difference between the effort neces- sary to put a law on the statute books and putting it into practice. We are well into the process of legislation. "We are just entering on the process of ap- plication. We are now concerned with the human factor upon which the suc- cess or failure of remedial legislation depends. It will not do to demand the abolition or reconstruction of a Public Service Commission when we have lost faith in it. All the tinkering and re- building in the world will be of no avail if the new machine is to be cap- tured after a few years by the preda- tory political elements. The problem is to defend these new organs of the pub- lic welfare against seizure in the high places, and in all eventualities to pre- vent politics from laying a dead hand on the rank and file of the public ser- vice departments. These are the perils of the moment. Ultimately it is our belief that the prin- ciples of an honest and efficient civil service will establish themselves in the departments we are so rapidly creating. And this will come about precisely be- cause these new departments touch so intimately on the daily welfare of the population. The imagination of the average citizen is apt to remain cold to the more abstract ideals of civic activ- ity. It requires some effort to trans- late municipal economy or an honest Police Department into terms affecting the daily life of the ordinary non-tax- paying citizen. But no such effort of the imagination is necessary to recog- nize the difference between an efficient and an inefficient factory inspector or the difference between an honest tene- ment-house inspector and a tenement- house inspector who grafts. Where the difference between conscientious- ness and neglect on the part of a public servant can be measured up directly in the impaired health of the workers or in catastrophes like the Triangle fire, the demand for honesty and efficiency will sweep the politician out of power. DOUBTS ABOUT DREADNOUGHTS. From England comes the gratifying news that a foremost British naval au- thority, Admiral Sir Percy Scott, has come out against the building of battle- ships, not, it is true, on pacific grounds, but because in his judgment their day is over. It is the victory of the sub- marine which he reluctantly proclaims, for this is the officer who has done more probably than any other in the British service to develop the science of gun- nery. His gun-carriages, his appliances for big-gun firing and for night sig- nalling at sea, and, above all, the impetus he has given to target prac- tice, have all greatly increased the effi- ciency of the British navy, and given the heavy gun an advantage in the duel between armor and ordnance. But now he declares that armor and gun alike have to yield before the submarine, and that every other type of craft must eventually give way before it. Airships, aeroplanes, and submarines will consti- tute the fleets of the future, in his opin- ion; he even goes so far as to say that the Admiralty will be wasting the coun- try's money if it devotes another penny to battleship construction. It is devoutly to be hoped that naval experts in other countries will now come over to Sir Percy's views. With this precedent before them, tongues may be unlocked which are now tied by fear of the charge of disloyalty to an accepted naval theory, or to the profession. In naval matters experts are much like sheep. When England brought out its Dreadnought, all the world was ready to impoverish itself to follow suit. When she produced a turbine battleship, tur- bines became the rage; her battleship- cruisers were at once imitated by all of Europe, if not by the United States. Were she to produce a Diesel-engine bat- tleship to-morrow every designer in every Navy Department would hail the day of the coalless battleship. Now, we admit that while England sets naval fashions, no single expert, however emi- nent, can bring about so radical a change as Sir Percy foretells. Abandon the walls of steel which are the sole hope of Britannia? This Admiral may think himself lucky if he is allowed to remain in his service clubs. Yet his letter to the Times, if it is correctly re- ported here, is bound to set people, in and out of naval uniform, to thinking. For some time past the current has been running against the big battleship. The British Admiralty itself has been building smaller ships, though our own Navy Department plans larger and larger ones. There has been a reaction, too, against the monster gun, as well as against the horrible expense of the lat- est war-monsters. The two just being provided by Congress are to cost no less than fourteen millions apiece; at the same time the Secretary is to be au- thorized to sell the Mississippi, and Ida- ho, vessels but six years old, which cost only about six millions apiece, yet are now so antiquated as to be unfit, accord- ing to the Navy Department, for service in the first line of battle. If the price of such ships of war has risen from less than six millions six years ago to four- teen millions to-day, what will it be six years hence? And conservative naval officers have been asking themselves whether, after all, these monsters are worth building in numbers if thereby all other classes of ships are of neces- sity neglected. Vera Cruz has shown that in an emergency of this kind a battleship is of less value than an ar- mored transport or light-draught ves- sel, save that it houses more men and can send larger landing-parties ashore. Fourteen-inch guns on ships lying far out from shore are of no particular value against snipers; though they might have had some value if it had been nec- essary to help fight off an attack on American intrenchments far inland. Writing in the Army and Navy Jour- nal, a few weeks ago, a person who signed himself "Missouri," but is known to be one of the ablest of our recently retired admirals, asked no less than thirty-one searching questions in regard to the colossal battleship, the animus of which inquiry was plainly hostile. He wanted to know, for Instance: "What
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June II, 1914I The Nation 685 actual experience In battle can be quot- ed to justify this change of calibre from twelve to fourteen inches?" "Is," he inquired, "the increase in size of our newer battleships attended by any gain or loss in manoeuvring power? If so, how great is the gain or loss?" It is needless to point out that if there were a gain, and not a loss, this question would not have been put. Some other interrogatories by him were these: Do the newer ships carry as many rounds per gun as the older ones? Does the larger ship per se offer any military advantages over the smaller, save that she may prove a more stable gun plat- form? Granted that, in a single ship ac- tion, the more heavy guns a ship can carry the better, does this hold true as to fleets? Do big men make better sol- diers than small ones? With the same to- tal number of guns, is it not conceivable that an admiral might prefer to have them distributed on more rather than on fewer ships? In a line of battle would not the loss of one such smaller ship be less grave in its consequences than the loss of a leviathan? Is the development of the monster battleship of to-day pre- dicated on any study, however superficial, of what has actually occurred in naval warfare? Is it not rather due to a rival- ry which prompts us to "see" our pos- sible enemy and "go him one better"? If those leviathans are really what some people suppose them to be, why stop at a paltry displacement of 31,000 tons? Why not go at orice to 100,000 tons and forty twenty-inch guns? Now, to those who believe that the squandering of the people's money on these monsters is the most wanton waste of public funds in this day and generation, all these doubts are most encouraging. The battleship is certain to go in the long run, because its cost is ruinous, and because it mocks our Christianity; but it will go much faster — very soon, indeed — if other naval of- ficers admit the folly of it from the purely naval point of view. FATHERS AND SONS IN IRELAND. A good deal has been heard, in one way and another, of the younger gener- ation in Ireland, and of its impatience with the political ideas and some of the political procedures of its elders. Youth has the traditional privilege of rebelling against age; and it would be strange if Irish youth were an exception. Despite the pressure for solidarity which the Home Rule struggle has long exerted, there are many young Irishmen who do not assent to the political views of their fathers. A striking evidence of this is furnished by a play, "An Irishman's Home," recently published in London. It was written in collaboration by two young Irishmen, one of them the elder son of Sir Edward Carson, the other the nephew and adopted son of Mr. John Redmond. A Montague and a Capulet in agreement! Reviewers say that the play itself is no great thing, which may well be be- lieved. But the two authors have pre- fixed to it a "Preface for Politicians," in which they unfold their ideas about Ireland and Irish government in a way which would be noteworthy coming from any young writers, and which, coming from Messrs. Carson and Redmond, is really piquant. For these sons are in pretty thorough disagreement with their fathers. They are so in respect to personal attitude and action. Sir Ed- ward Carson's son is actually a member of the United Irish League! He does not believe in all of its objects, but he wishes to emphasize by his membership in it his protest against the separat- ism of Ulster. On the other hand, young Redmond has joined the Ulster Volun- teers! Not that he is not an ardent Home Ruler, but that he is strongly against the coercion of Ulster. He would not have Irishmen of any shade of po- litical opinion compelled by force to give it up, or to submit to those of a con- trary view. One rubs one's eyes as one reads of all this, and involuntarily asks, Is this Ireland? Is it merely a joke which freakish boys are playing? No; the youthful Carson and the youthful Redmond are as serious in their way as their sires. They merely assert the right to think for themselves. And some of their thinking, as they have written it down in their "Preface," is of a sort to make the Ulster leader and the chief of the Nationalists gasp as they read it, and wonder what has hap- pened to their own flesh and blood. Sir Edward Carson is told by his son that, if his convictions require it, he may keep up "an army of men in open rebellion" in Ulster, but "you must not call it 'Loyalty.' " Mr. John Redmond lights on a passage where his adopted son speaks of "Redmond, the political Syn- dicalist, bent on keeping the balance of power." But this is partly offset by a description of Sir Edward Carson as "the military dynamitard, whose exam- ple would turn every disputed election into a civil war." Almost might "King" Carson make his own echo the words of King Henry IV: I know not whether God will have it so, For some displeasing service I have done, That, in his secret doom, out of my blood He'll breed revengement and a scourge for me. These irreverent children of revered fathers are able to give a reason for the political faith that is in them. Critical of the standpoint, and contemptuous of the rhetoric, of the generation that pre- ceded them, they yet seek to build upon the labors of the past. They are obedi- ent to the injunction to "think Imperial- ly." So thinking, they would have Ire- land knit to the British Empire as the great self-governing colonies have been —that is, by granting full local control of local affairs. From this point of view, John Redmond is pronounced the finest example of an Imperial Unionist; whereas "Carsonism, as representing Castle government, will in a couple of generations be looked back upon as the last relic of a medievalism which, in our colonies, would have been sufficient to drive them into open rebellion in six months." Speaking of the immediate future, these sons of their fathers de- clare, with a moderation and sagacity that would not be amiss in the older generation: The measure of the concessions made by Nationalists to Orangemen will be the measure of the confidence and coopera- tion with which the men of the North will fall in with the men of the South to make the new Constitution a success. For the present situation has once and for all declared what every Irishman in his heart has already known — namely, that the Englishman does not and cannot understand the Irish problem. Nay, had we not lost our native sense of humor, we should recognize in one thunderous laugh that Sir Edward Carson's military demonstrations of Volunteers are the greatest declaration for Home Rule that has ever occurred in the great contro- versy, while the dragooning of Ulster would be the greatest piece of coercion since the rebellion of '98. Warning not to exaggerate the impor- tance of this deliverance of the younger Carson and Redmond is not necessary. The sons may lift their voices, but it is still the fathers who will have to dis- patch the business. The truly signifi- cant thing in the Ibsenish knocking at the door by the younger generation in Ireland is that, by young as by old, the national sentiment is recognized as a living thing that must be dealt with. By the voice of youth as well as of old
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686 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2554 men, Ireland still asks for an end of "the blundering past control," and de- mands that England, as George Meredith put it, "simply give her elbow-room." AS THE WORKER SEES HIMSELF. It may be chance, or it may be an- other sign of the quickened self-con- sciousness which has come to English workingmen in recent years, that two of the widely discussed books of the lit- erary season in England should be by workingmen and concerned with the life of the workers. Patrick MacGill is by this time a name not unfamiliar to the discriminating reader on this side of the Atlantic. The name Robert Tressall is quite new. Patrick MacGill, "the navvy poet," though only twenty-four, began his literary career five years ago with "Gleanings from a Navvy's Scrapbook," which led to his appointment on the editorial staff of a London newspaper. Within the present year he *has pub- lished an autobiographic novel, "Chil- dren of the Dead End," and a volume of poems, "Songs of the Dead End." Robert Tressall— if that is a real name- is an English house-painter of strong Socialist leanings, who died and left be- hind him a manuscript of 300,000 words which came into the hands of Miss Jes- sie Pope, of the staff of Punch. Miss Pope prepared the manuscript for pub- lication by liberal trimming, and has given it to the world as a remarkable human document, under the cumber- some but arresting title, "The Ragged- Trousered Philanthropists" (Frederick A. Stokes Co.). Fuller information than the editor of the book is willing or able to give re- garding the personality of Robert Tres- sall would have been of value. For in reading this minute record of the work and talk and sufferings and reactions of the English artisan, one is immedi- ately impelled to ask how typical of working-class existence was the writer's own experience. The book is a portrayal of the daily life of the British worker in a provincial town, done with a fine veracity so far as individual character- ization goes. But the picture of the life it presents is of such unrelieved gloom that at once the question rises whether this is indeed one of the masses describ- ing the life of the masses, or whether it is the impression created on a clever observer from the outside to whom the life is terrible because it is, after all, strange. This is aside from the author's obvious antagonism to the present or- ganization of society, which is always outspoken and frequently makes the book, in spite of its lifelike figures, a violent Socialist tract. The phrase which the editor has taken for a title is applied by the writer to the workers whose good-natured indifference makes the present system possible. An excess of pessimism in the depic- tion of the life of the masses always sug- gests a standpoint outside of the life of the workers. There may be intimate knowledge; there may be years of ac- 1 tual experience, as in the case of Pat- rick MacGill, the child of poverty- stricken Irish crofters, sent away to shift for himself when a mere lad and finding, before he was twenty, his full share of work, hard fighting, and drink. Yet MacGill did emerge early in life, and his recollections of the past are necessarily darkened by the inevitable comparison with his newer condition. One suspects the same forces at work in the case of the author of "The Ragged- Trousered Philanthropists." It is not only that his story is a disheartening record of toil, starvation, failure, dis- ease, and suicide, such as the mind rec- ognizes for a distorted picture of the normal life of the skilled worker. Worse than this insistence on the tragedy of the worker's existence, is the denial of value to such brighter phases as even the most disenchanted of chroniclers is bound to notice. The British artisan's pleasures are described as animal plea- sures, carried on in an atmosphere of beer and profanity. His ignorance of the political and social forces that shape his own destiny is pitiful. His powers of reasoning when applied to questions of the day are childish. This, our writ- er is constantly saying by implication or in so many words, is the brute condi- tion to which our iniquitous social sys- tem has reduced the worker. It is a method of observation which, applied to any class and any condition, is bound to show life empty and mean- ingless. Robert Tressall's house-paint- ers and ditchers, engaged in discourse over their tea and bloaters, are not strikingly more illogical, more ill-in- formed, more the creatures of preju- dice and superstition than many an au- dience of their betters. The same meth- od has been applied with predilection by the French realists to the "bour- geois," and with similar results. Mr. Wells has applied it to the English shop- clerk to the same effect. We dare say one might play eavesdropper on a com- pany of college professors at their ease and carry away a disheartening impres- sion of a painfully limited outlook, of halting logic, of undeveloped sympa- thies. The attitude of Mr. Tressall's house-painters towards politics may eas- ily find a parallel in the pages of the Congressional Record. And so with their pleasures. To the observer from the outside the atmosphere of the tav- ern to which the artisan repairs after his work may be painfully sordid, but, after all, there is no essential difference in moral or aesthetic value between the tavern and the bar of a Piccadilly ho- tel. If Piccadilly is ill at ease in the tavern, the tavern would be just as de- pressed in the Carlton. In this tendency to regard as degrad- ed in the worker's life what is only un- familiar, to accentuate his intellectual limitations which are less the limita- tions of a class than of the human mind, such books as Robert Tressall's are un- true. Valuable when they deal with specific wrongs, when they protest against the exploitation of the work- er, when they deal with the ever-pres- ent menace of unemployment and want, they depart from the truth when they seek to deny the worker a humanity which is his. THE UNIVERSITY AND THE YARD- STICK. There lies before us an extensive questionnaire, addressed "To the Facul- ty Members of the University of Wis- consin," by "The University Survey," acting on behalf of the State Board of Public Affairs. With the memory of the Harvard episode of a year and a half ago still fresh, one instinctively asks, first of all: Is this another out- break of the time-card notion of uni- versity management? There was no possibility of mistaking the matter in the Harvard case. No one who had any con- ception of the true nature and meaning of universities could tolerate for a mo- ment that remarkable manifestation of Philistine stupidity and arrogance, The Harvard faculty — or a BUfflcien! num- ber of Its members — showed BO plainly
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June II, 1914] The Nation 687 what it thought of the scheme that it was incontinently dropped, with the ex- planation that it had been put forward, without adequate authorization, by an administrative employee of the Univer- sity, the Assistant Controller. What that gentleman had in view was indicat- ed in his statement that the information was desired "as a basis for pro-rating salaries to the various classified func- tions"; and it was plain that the an- swering of the great network of ques- tions concerning the exact disposition of each professor's time was intended to be a regularly recurring performance, exacted of the faculty at such intervals as the managing powers might deem de- sirable for their purposes. The Wisconsin inquiry, we hasten to say, is, on its face at least, of a very different character. There is no indi- cation that it is designed to serve as a basis of action in regard to individ- ual professors; neither does it carry any intimation of being intended as a regular feature of university govern- ment. Its aim appears to be to gather together, and analyze, and tabulate data of a great many kinds bearing on the working of the university, for the purpose of introducing such changes of a general nature as a study of these data may show to be desirable. Many of the questions are not of the "time- card" variety at all. Thus one set of questions asks the professor what sug- gestions he has "for improving the pre- liminary preparation" of students plan- ning to enter his classes, and makes oth- er inquiries of a similar character. On another page we find the professor re- quested to "state specifically what need- ed equipment or supplies are so defi- cient as to handicap you in your teach- ing." To questions like these there can surely be no objection; and the same thing may be said of a number of the other questions. Nevertheless, there is enough in the questionnaire to warrant the gravest suspicion that we are to have in this Wisconsin move one more of those wrong-headed and deplorable applica- tions of the "efficiency" idea which have in recent years been threatening our universities from one quarter or an- other. There is much reason to fear that the time-card part of the inquiry will be held, by the State authorities to whom the report will be made, to be quite as important as any other part. The idea of management looms large in the whole thing. "Supervision of Your Class Room or Seminary Work" is one of the main heads; under it the profes- sor is asked to state "about how often" his work has been observed: (1.) By the chairman of your depart- ment. (2.) By other members of your de- partment. (3.) By representatives of the State Department of Public Instruction. (4.) By representatives of the Board of Visitors. (5. 1 By others (please indicate who). (6.) By regents. Similar questions are asked concerning the number of personal interviews re- garding his courses the faculty mem- ber has had with the president, with the chairman of his department, etc. And then of course there are the questions about the number of hours per week spent in the various lines of university work. In all this there lies a danger more serious than the obvious one of encour- aging the notion that the value of a uni- versity professor's work may be measur- ed by mechanical tests. The men who make the greatness of a university will be unspeakably repelled by this whole ap- paratus of observation, and inspection, and tabulation. What is it that draws to a university careermen of high spirit and of rare intellectual gifts? The material rewards in it are small. The one thing in which that career offers attractions not to be found in most other callings is the opportunity for the free play of one's individuality. The mere thought of being obliged to keep tab on his in- tercourse with his students and his colleagues, the mere idea that his work is to be not what his personality makes it but what some chairman or super- visor may find to his liking, would be enough to take the zest out of the life. What, has made the universities of Eu- rope illustrious is the independence of the professors. It is not more manage- ment, but less management, that is wanted in our universities; where we fall short is in the dignity of the pro- fessorate, and the intellectual power and personal inspiration which are attracted into it by that dignity. To press for more mechanical efficiency means to squeeze out that in which we are al- ready deficient, and increase the mere quantity of that in which we are, by comparison, amply supplied. Foreign Correspondence THE EFFECT OF MILITANCY ON SUFFRAGE— THE GROWING HOS- TILITY OF PUBLIC OPINION. London, May 29. It is admitted that the suffrage ques- tion in England is more prominent to-day than it was five or ten years ago. There- fore, say some of its more ardent sup- porters, the cause must be nearer vic- tory. Suffragists who do not share this invincible optimism yet derive much en- couragement from other evidence of pro- gress. They take, for instance, the atti- tude of the political parties. The House of Lords is generally regarded as typical of Conservative opinion, but a few weeks ago in that chamber Lord Selborne's Women's Enfranchisement bill was thrown out on second reading by a ma- jority of only 44. Turning to the Liberal party, we find that the movement is supported by sev- eral of the most influential organs of Lib- eralism in the daily and weekly press. Further, the refusal of the Women's Lib- eral Federation to make suffragism a test of Liberalism has been followed by the formation of a new society, the Liberal Women's Suffrage Union, whose mem- bers pledge themselves to assist no Lib- eral candidate who is not a suffragist. Again, the party that during the last few years has manifestly been making the greatest advances at the polls is the Labor party, and that party has definitely adopted woman suffrage as one of the planks in its platform. The policy is also being pursued, with no lit- tle success, of winning over women's societies that were originally organized for purposes outside of politics. The cap- ture of the Women Workers' Union by the suffragists is a case in point. In the Lords' debate the other day the Earl of Lytton went so far as to say that wher- ever women were organized for trade, profession, or occupation, their organiza- tions had expressed an opinion in favor of woman suffrage. A careful political meteorologist, how- ever, will hesitate to accept these ob- servations as above criticism. To take the last point first, the cap- ture of the women's organizations has not been effected without vehement opposition, followed in some cases by considerable and influential secessions. Then, the endorsement of the movement by trade and professional bodies of wo- men says nothing as to the views of wo- men who are not in receipt of salaries or wages. Besides, the real problem of the suffragists is not to persuade women, but to persuade men, for if a woman - suffrage enactment is ever carried it will have to be that much -despised product, which according to Mrs. Pankhurst has no binding force — a man-made law. So the only weather reports that amount to much are those registered In Parliament, where the suffrage cause has to face the really decisive tests. The recent House of Lords vote was a very poor basis for optimism. The bill was lost by a vote of nearly two to one — 104 against 60 — in a thin house. Nearly 400 peers make their appearance when
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6ss The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2554 there is a Home Rule bill to be voted on, and if Lord Selborne's bill had been tak- en seriously it would have been easy to double or treble the majority against it. As to the situation in the Commons, the estimate made last October by Mr. Lloyd George — one of the strongest and most earnest of suffragists — is even more conspicuously correct to-day. "In a Par- liamentary sense," he said, "the move- ment has gone back. In 1906 there was a huge majority in Parliament for it. In the last two sessions we have been beaten." And Parliament, he told his hearers, who were members of a suf- fragist deputation, had thrown the Suf- frage bill out more on its merits than they would imagine. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is not given to emphasizing the dark side of the causes he supports. But, in the speech to which reference was made above, he warned his fellow-suffragists that Parliament represented the mood of the nation. In every part of the country what was formerly indifference had been turned into hostility. The explanation of this change was "militancy." The Chancellor reminded his audience that no big proposal can be got through Parlia- ment merely through the energy of en- thusiasts. "You carry these things through, not merely with the assistance of the people who are thoroughly con- vinced, but with the aid of the people who merely assent." The harm that "militancy" had done was by turning this mass of possible assent into actual hostility. At the time, at any rate, Mr. Lloyd George regarded the discouraging fea- tures of the movement as mere passing clouds, and many other prominent suffra- gists share his conviction that their cause is suffering from no more than a momentary setback. They regard the change in popular feeling as simply a fit of natural irritation, which hinders the exercise of a calm judgment, and which will pass away as soon as people begin to understand that the terrorist outrages are really irrelevant. But are they irrelevant? That as- sumption begs the whole question at is- sue. They would be irrelevant, certainly, if these violent actions were the work of only an insignificant minority, and if they had no connection with the merits or demerits of the suffrage proposal. But those whose indifference to woman suffrage — or, in some instances, support of it — has been turned by the events of the last few years into definite hostility, hold that in the present case these two conditions do not apply. As regards the first of them, they point out — and they can quote Lord Lytton's recent speech in evidence — that the terrorists' society is one of the strongest, wealthiest, and most active of suffragist organizations; and that those suffragists who confine their own propaganda to constitutional meth- ods at the same time palliate, if they do not applaud, the violent courses of the extreme section. That is to say, the suf- fragist movement in England to-day is, as a whole, as truly a terrorist movement as Russian nihilism, one part by active cooperation and the other part by the reinforcement of its sympathy. These reluctant converts to the "anti" position say, further, that the character of the suffrage propaganda has a close and vital bearing upon the suffrage ques- tion in itself. They call attention to the fact that the worst of these outrages, striking at the very basis of civilized so- ciety, have been committed and approved by women of education and culture. These incidents, as well as the persistent attacks of many suffragists upon the best friends of their cause, have led them to the conviction that women, as a sex, are unfitted for political responsibil- ities, and that their admission to the franchise would mean the complication of national problems by the addition of a factor whose operation would be illogical, incalculable, and highly mischievous. H. W. H. THE NEW FRENCH CHAMBER— SO- CIALIST GAINS— THE POSSIBILITY OP REACTION. Paris, May 30. In the new French Chamber, 409 Dep- uties have been reelected from the old- s'nd no political change is to be foreseen so far as they are concerned. It is the 193 new members of Parliament whose actions and combinations have to be watched. It has already been trumpeted to the world — and it ought to have been expected — that Unified Socialists, that is, those who are under party discipline and follow their leader as one man, hold 102 seats in the new Parliament, as against 61 in the old. But this by no means in- dicates the total strength of bona-fide Socialism in the new Parliament. The four Deputies who have been elected, like Rriand, as Independent Socialists, may not count for much practical Socialism, on account of their political interests. But there are twenty-two Deputies who have frankly thrown overboard old party names and have been elected as "Repub- lican Socialists." It is better to translate their name in this way rather than more faithfully to grammar — Socialist Repub- licans. For the same reason, from M. Clemen - ceau's first invention of the party name twenty-five years ago, I have translated "Radical Socialists" rather than Socialist Radicals, like the London Times. He explained that he was not a Collectivist Socialist; but the political lot of those who have adopted his name has been more and more cast in with that oi So- cialists pure and simple. Now, in this new Parliament, these Radical Socialists, with the lately invented Unified Radicals who have promised to obey the same party discipline, number 192 Deputies, l-^vcn with wavering and defections among such Radicals when obliged to ac- cept or refuse frankly Socialist legisla- tion, there will be at all times more than 300 Deputies who have set out on the march towards the Socialist land of Ca- naan. The reason why Socialism has so prof- ited by the elections is not far to seek. It has always been so at every turning of the republic. Since Jules Guesde first organized French Socialists into a po- litical party and brought sixteen Social- ist Deputies into Parliament in 1893, their numbers have gone up by just such leaps and bounds in periods of uncertainty and agitation. Thus, the Dreyfus affair brought them to fifty, and now they pass the hundred. Each time, they take their chief increase from the Radicals, who have again lost more heavily to Social- ists than the other parties have done. A more curious phenomenon is that, each time, extreme Conservative voters help to elect Socialists in preference to Radicals. Such a coalition has just de- feated Claude Casimir-Perier, the son of the ex-President, and has elected an ex- treme Unified Socialist. Cardinal de Ca- brieres, one of the pronounced Royalist bishops, denied that he had anything to do with the electioneering; but the fact remains. A reason commonly assigned is that Catholics imagine that the sooner society goes to the bow-wows, the sooner a reaction will come like that which brought the first and the third Napoleon into power — and so they go in for the "worst" Republicans. This is certainly not the sole reason. Socialists, although they make a religion of their theories, are often very conciliatory in practice, whereas French Radicalism has been from the beginning a counter-religion. As M. Viviani expresses it, the work of the republic has been "to put out the lights of heaven." A natural question to ask is: How far do the elections express the will of the majority of French voters; that is, of adult male citizens? Jaures, who is fair- minded as well as ardent in his Social- ist leading, acknowledges that full 25 per cent, of the registered voters abstain- ed from voting at the late elections. Such citizens have evidently no will, and their opinions ought not to count. Indifferent or discouraged, they certainly do not belong to such revolutionary layers of society as the Socialists. For that mat- ter, only sixty-one Deputies were elect- ed by an absolute majority, that is, by half plus one or more of the registered voters of their district. Of these, only four were Radical Socialists, and there was no Socialist among them. In other words, in such constituencies, Conserva- tives must have managed to unite and put forward their whole strength. The relative defeat of Radicals and So- cialists in Paris may mean that reac- tion is coming in the country at large —since Paris usually leads by some years or simply that Paris is bored by Rad- ical talk and wants a change. The Na- tionalist spirit has long been powerful in Paris and counterbalances Socialism in off years. At any rate, nine-tenths of the Depu- ties in the coming Parliament have been elected by a minority of the voters of their districts. In the second turn, when no absolute majority of actual votes was cast at the first, a mere plurality is suffi- cient. Now very many of the Deputies successful at this second turn were elect- ed by only one-third, or even one-fourth, of the registered voters. Perhaps those accustomed only to the strict party divisions of American elec- tions will best understand the popular movement in France by the votes cast according to the main question which is uppermost. Deputies who had express- ly promised to uphold the three years'
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June ii, 1914] Tli e Nation 689 military service as it now is, and as it is thought to be necessary against the German danger, received 4,644,286 votes; and others who promised to modify it only in non-essential points had 612,767 more. On the contrary, Deputies who professed the strict Socialist and Radical Socialist policy of reducing military ser- vice to two years received only 2,936,044 votes — and only 133,712 votes went to those who refused to commit themselves. Altogether, 417 Deputies — a majority which should be safe — are pledged to the three years' service — and on this rock Socialists and Radicals may split, unless Jaures lets well enough alone, as he is quite capable of doing. S. D. Polo. THE GAME OF KINGS. Tbe Ball no question makes of Ayes ami Noes. But Right or Left as strikes the Player goes; And He that tossed you down into the Field, He knows about it all — He knows — He knows ! — Rubaiyat. A hundred years ago, Sir William Ouseley, our first chronicler of polo, saw it on his Persian travels. Quoting Pietro della Valle, who covered the same ground, he says: "It was a favorite recreation of kings and chiefs, and originally, I believe, considered as al- most peculiar to illustrious personages." The Italian in 1618 had found polo un- der the patronage of Shah Abbas. An- other traveller, Sir Anthony Shirley, found a well-kept meidan (field) out- side Ispahan; still another calls it "the game of canes." Chardin's Persian notes describe polo as a popular amuse- ment, with thirty or forty participants; but the usual number, four or five play- ers to a side, was then in vogue. Chugan (mallet), as the Persians call- ed polo, nourished under their Sassanid kings, under the Byzantine emperors at Constantinople, and under the invading dynasties that ruled India and introduc- ed the game. At the court of Akbar it helped in the training of cavalry offi- cers. From India it has spread through- out the world; in ancient times through Tibet into China and Japan; in modern times, adopted by the English, through the Western world. In Tibet polo lin- gered in a somewhat primitive form, and it was from the adjacent region, Mani- pur and Gilgit, that English tea- and indigo-planters first had knowledge of the game. The Tibetan pulu (ball) was the derivative Anglo-Indians used for the modern name. Since then Aus- tralia, South America, Egypt, South Africa, and the Philippines are among the countries familiar with what, in the twelfth century, the Greek Emperor Manuel Comnemus and his Byzantine princes played as TfrKarurTripiov, which retains the original Persian name, sug- gesting definite rules and a regular field for play. But it is to the Persian Homer, Fir- dousi (940-1020), and his immortal epic, the "Shahnama" ("Book of Kings") that we turn for glowing description, as well as for the first record of an international match. In 600 b. c. the exiled Prince Seavish, with seven Iranians, amazed Afrasiab, King of Turan, with whom he took refuge, by the ease with which they defeated his Turkish team. Firdousi lingers over the feats of the Persian players with the pen of a true lover of the game. In his epic we also learn that cJiugan was fit training for princes. Shapur was provided with tutors by his mother: But by his rapid progress he outstripped them; At seven years old he went upon the ground To learn the art of war, and play at polo. Likewise of Bahram, "that great Hunt- er" of the "Rubaiyat," we learn from Firdousi: When he was eighteen The valiant warrior was like the sun, He needed not archmages to instruct him In erudition, how to play at polo — The "Shahnama" also states that Gushtasp (Hydaspes) was expert at polo; his clouts caused the ball "to van- ish among the clouds." Besides these references, the "Shahnama" contains a delightful episode of recognition. Sha- pur was born during his mother's term of disfavor, and hearing that he has an heir, King Ardashir (226-241) com- mands a polo match, and from a num- ber of well-favored youths recognizes his son by the daring and brilliancy of his play. Ouseley thinks he saw this incident of Shapur's recognition in a ruined sculpture near Persepolis. Ni- zami, another Persian poet, records a game played by the Amazons of his time. The beautiful Shirin, dear to Per- sian romance, played with her hand- maidens against a team composed of the king and his courtiers. After the tradition of great Iranian poetry passed, the succeeding fiction and verse found polo a romantic theme. In our most popular example, the "Rubaiyat," Omar Khayyam has definite reference to the game of kings in the quatrain quoted above. The poloist cannot miss the happiness of Fitz- Gerald's references to the "throw-in" by the referee, whose duties to- day are unchanged; to the field, which in India to-day retains the Persian name meidan, and is innocent of "boards" (and the "board-play" useful in crises to Mr. Whitney's team a year ago, and first introduced at Hurling- ham in 1879); or to the fine sense of power and direction that makes perfect near- and off-side hitting. Skill in ad- dress to the ball was the Persian ideal, and Omar liked the symbol of a well- controlled ball. Anciently all things were equal in horseflesh: but since the pony has attained his modern price and importance, any player, backed up by Kipling's "Maltese Cat," will tell you that the pony is the game — though golf, cricket, and hockey are its offspring, and the Irish sport of hurling, an eques- trian descendant. Polo demands of its patrons a high standard of horseman- ship only rivalled by pigsticking. The ancient poets, however, ignored the pony's merits for the stick-work of the rider. How the game was popularized in an- cient times is uncertain, beyond the fact that chugan has been played in various forms in various countries. Probably hard-riding ambassadors were its chief missionaries; and Castiglione, had he known, would have prescribed polo for his courtier. Ouseley quotes Robert's "Cambrian Popular Antiquities" as the source for an Elizabethan MS. describ- ing knappen, a game played in Pem- brokeshire with several hundred on a side, mounted and foot, armed with cudgels 3y2 feet long. Sir Thomas Roe must have seen polo at Agra, in 1618, during his embassy to the Court of the Great Mogul, Jahangir. Although rules always obtained, it is certain that ex- igencies of temperament and place wrought many variations. It was Shah Bahram who found a player wearing a coat of mail under his polo shirt, and promptly slew him. Accounts handed down vary as to the number of players and their positions. There was a "back" or "goal-keep," whose duties, owing to the fast, open game, were flexible, if not so aggressive as those developed by Mr. Devereux Mil- burn. The ball was of sorts and to taste: of light wood or stuffed leather, varying from one in the Persian game to many in the Byzantine and Jap- anese. Many varieties of mallets were popular. Ouseley saw in a Persian il- luminated MS., about 300 years old, three different shapes. Usually semi-cir- cular and straight, transverse heads pre- vailed. Of rules "off-side" doubtless existed, and it is more than likely that the modern Anglo-Indian and American rules obtained. As the "Rubaiyat" sug- gests, the referee began play by "throw- ing-in"; also, as in the early Anglo-In- dian game, the ball may have been plac- ed mid-field, and both sides charged for possession, or the captains crossed sticks, as in hockey. Nearly all Per- sian illuminations show solid goal- posts, though an elaborate dribbling game, to test the rider's possession of the ball, was an early favorite. At least it was good practice, and applied in a goal-game, must have made passing and close-combination almost a science, which, In the commodious Held 170 by 300 yards, ideal for a fast, galloping contest, must have provided an inspiring sight. W. G. Tinckom-Fernandez.
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ODO The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2554 Awakening of India TIIK DEVELOPMENT OK INDIAN THOUGHT DNDBB THE INFLUENCE OF WESTEBN IDEAS. Matthew Arnold's well-known lines about the East watching the legions thunder past and then plunging into thought again rather understate the truth. Yet even India experiences some changes in philosophical interest; and our time is witnessing, in the East as well as in the West, a quickening and re-directing of thought which may make future generations regard it as epochal. This re-direction of thought in the East is of course chiefly due to the influence of Western science and philosophy and Western literary criti- cism, for though the West and the East have been in contact these many cen- turies, the philosophers of the Orient are only now beginning to realize that the West has anything to teach them beyond the merely practical and polit- ical. In fact, the great majority of the pundits even to-day continue to teach the Vedas and the Shastras in the way they learned them from their gurus, as the last word on all subjects really worth knowing. But the stimulus of Western thought has been felt by all the less orthodox thinkers not only of Hinduism but of the other religions of India as well. I. Thus the Parsees — those most "up-to- date" of Indians — feel bound as a mat- ter of course to show that their religion is in thorough accord with "the best of modern thought." And the new formula- tion of Zoroastrianism resulting (at least so some of us will think) is not altogether an improvement on the anti- quated ideas of the Founder. The fact seems to be that the Parsees who have read Western philosophical works are becoming very sensitive over the accu- sation of being dualists (what indeed could be worse?), and consequently are making over Ahura Mazda into a very proper and modern All-One, such as Zar- athustra would certainly quite fail to recognize. But what of that? — for the Parsees tell us that "men of science like Huxley, philosophers like Herbert Spen- cer, and poets like Tennyson, might all subscribe" to this religion of theirs, "to which the best modern thought is fast approximating."* In these days Herbert Spencer is a better name to conjure with than Zarathustra, and a religion which would be "up to date" must sure- ly be "monistic." Fortunately, however, this modernization of Zoroastrian the- ology has not gone much farther than the theologians, and the influence of the West upon this ancient religion, in all •Quoted will, approval Ijy Mr. JlvanJI JamshcdJ! Moiii fi-fnri Bamnel Long, respects but this, has certainly been for good. It is especially to be noted in the present movement among the Parsees for the systematic education of their children in the religion of their lathers — a movement which is resulting not only in benefit to the children, but in benefit to the religion as well. For the deliberate attempt which the Par- sees are making to teach their religion is naturally leading them to rationalize and purify it. Islam, of course, secure in the purity of the Koran and its teachings, will submit to no such influence from the modern West. The movements within it are mostly self-originated, and some of them, in fact, seem curiously remote from Europe and the twentieth century. Yet Western ideas and especially mis- sionary attack have not been without their influence on the popular theology of the Moslems. Particularly noticeable is this in connection with the views commonly maintained concerning God and man's relation to Him. I have questioned many Mohammedans on these points and find a very general insistence that God is pure spirit and has no body, and that man is free and in sinning acts against the will of God In vain have I cited the creed of Al Ashari to the contrary: most of them have never heard of him, and they all insist that on these points my quota- tions from the great authority do not represent the creed of Indian ' Islam. And in this I find them borne out by that aggressive Mohammedan review, Muslim India. For it should be understood that Is- lam is becoming aggressive. Not only is it arming with what intellectual wea- pons it can find against the attacks of Christian missionaries; it is seeking to carry the war into Africa — that is, into London, where its one professional and salaried missionary resides; and it has recently scored its first marked success, in the public conversion of Lord Head- ley to the "true faith" — a success which is acclaimed with great enthusiasm all over Moslem India. II. The renewed interest in religious thought and the general awakening of Indian self-consciousness have also had their effect upon that small but ancient religious body known as the Jains. For centuries most of the Jain scriptures have been hidden away in monasteries, guarded by conservative monks who, themselves too ignorant to read them, would allow no one else to try. As a result the laity, constantly losing in numbers to other religions have heen sadly ignorant of the faith which they professed. Within the last eight years, however, a new movement has been set on foot, and many rich and generous Jains are now persuaded to turn some of the money they have been accustomed to spend upon jewels for the images in Uicir temples to more practical pur- poses; and as a result a number of schools have been founded and a sys- tematic effort is making for the discov- ery, publication, and translation of their sacred and ancient texts. Several Jain periodicals have also been started, a Young Men's Jain Association found- ed, and considerable progress has been made towards uniting the two divisions into which Jainism has for so many cen- turies been divided, the Digambaras and Sventaamaras. At the end of De- cember last year an enthusiastic con- vention was held in Benares in which both schools joined, and in which a great deal of enthusiasm for the spread of Jain doctrine was exhibited. Re- ports were read and learned lectures given; but most of the speeches were of a hortatory nature, and the convention had somewhat the air of a protracted revival meeting. One of the most en- thusiastic speakers, a recent convert from Hinduism, declared, amid deafen- ing applause, that, just as there should be but one language in the world, and that the Sanskrit, so there should be but one religion, and that the Jain, for Jainism included all that was best in all other religions. At the end of the convention several large gifts for edu- cational purposes were announced, and plans were begun for building a Jain temple and rest house in the United States. III. But the great thinkers of India are to be found to-day (as has almost al- ways been the case) within the fold of Hinduism. And they, too, are feel- ing a new stimulus to thought as a re- sult of Western influence. In Macau- lay's time it looked as if European in- fluence might eventually have the effect of lessening the value of the Veda in the eyes of the Indians; but the advent of Max Muller and the Sanskritists marked a new era in the appreciation of the Sacred Books of the East, and not only opened the eyes of us Western- ers to their value, but kindled a new and almost fierce Veda-worship in the hearts of many an Indian. The result of this is a series of new battles by the modern pundits — Indian, English, Ger- man— on the old battlefields; and ques- tions which to most Americans would seem absurdly remote, or at least very dead, are matters of hot daily discus- sion in many a study, lecture room, and monastery throughout India. What is the real teaching of the Upanishads: are they monistic or pluralistic, panthe- istic or theistic — in fact, have they any one teaching at all? And the Bhagavad Gila, does it leach pantheism or theism, or both: and if both, which was the original doctrine and which InterpO lated? Most important of all. which is I he true Vi-danta? Can the monism
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June ii, 1914] The JSTation 691 and illusionism of Shankara be justified either by reference to the Upanishads and Brahma Sutras or by philosophical argument? The battle is still raging and is likely to continue to rage for many a year. One may perhaps discover a slight but growing tendency away from the extreme monism of Shankara, which up till now in northern India (and in one sense in Europe and Amer- ica as well) has had no rival. Many European scholars and some of the less hide-bound of the pundits are beginning to insist that the Upanishads are far less in unison — far less monistic and idealistic — than was supposed only a few years ago. While this is true, however, it must be said that the follow- ers of Shankara and his monism and illusionism still easily hold the field in northern India. I have talked with Sannyasis in their monasteries here in Benares, and they all insist upon the illusion doctrine — some merely because "it is written" in Shankara's Commen- tary, some for various philosophical rea- sons. There are, we are told, three kinds of reality: (1) Genuine reality which is Brahman alone, the undivided Self, the Subject without Object; (2) "practical reality," such as the material world; (3) "imagined reality" — pure il- lusion— such as the rope which one takes for a snake. Now "practical real- ity," we are assured, is really quite as imaginary and illusory as the- third kind; and just as we get rid of the lat- ter by greater insight, so we may cor- rect and get rid of "practical reality"— the material world, the multiplicity of finite selves, the variety of human ex- perience and of the changing and tem- poral, till only the knowing self re- mains which is identical with Brahman. But why, you ask, does this "practical," material, finite world seem to be here at all? — Ah, the Sannyasi will answer, that is mere illusion. — But whence the illusion? — Our ignorance. — And our ig- norance?— Once more, illusion. A more serious attempt at a genuine answer to the puzzle is made by the philosopher Bhagwan Das, who in his "Science of Peace" has endeavored to ex- press the Vedanta of Shankara in terms of European thought, and to bring it into line with Hegel and especially with Fichte. The idealistic point of view being taken for granted, the objective world is made to depend upon the One Knower. The consciousness of this One Spirit consists in recognizing the il- lusion of the phenomenal world which it posits. With it, positing and negat- ing form one simultaneous and timeless act. This is expressed by the logion, "I am not the not-I" or "I-tnis-not," — the not-I, in other words, is posited only to be at the same time opposed and negated. Thus the One and the Many, the Changeless and the Changing are united and reconciled. But why does the One thus posit and deny at all? To this there is no answer. IV. Besides rekindling the interest of the Indians in their own literature, the West has had a more direct influence on the thought of the East through the introduction of the concepts of modern science. These the more advanced of the Indian thinkers have seized upon and have tried to unite with the teach- ings of the Veda. The result has been at times a bit fantastic, for the Indian as a rule cannot admit that the con- cepts of the Veda should be in any way modified; hence his method of mix- ture is to read modern science and Western ideas of morality and social order into the Veda. The times of the Rishis, we are assured, formed the Gold- en Age, and all the admitted evils of modern Indian society are due to de- generation and relapse from those per- fect days. With few exceptions, the Indian scholars of to-day are as lacking in historical sense and critical skill as their predecessors were before them, and their idealization of the Indian Past is as untrustworthy as it is beautiful. The extreme limit of this sort of thing is reached by the Arya Somaj, whose at- titude forms a most interesting psycho- logical study. The members of the Somaj — if I may judge by those whom I have met — are men of learning, abil- ity, and liberal ideas; and yet they in- sist that the four Vedas are literally and infallibly inspired, and that there is not a line in one of them — not even in the Atharva — that is mistaken or superstitious or primitive. There are no magic formulas in the Atharva nor any hint of polytheism in the Rik. And in fact all the discoveries and inventions of modern science were well known in Vedic times and are plainly referred to in the Hymns! But the most systematic effort to unite ancient thought with "modern science" is due to Theosophy. Says Mrs. Besant in her "Defense of Hindu- ism": "In the great conflict between Science and Religion which has been waged in Europe since the sixteenth century, Religion had been steadily los- ing ground until the great spiritual im- pulse called Theosophy filled the hands of Religion with forgotten truths, and opened the eyes of Science to new realms awaiting conquest." Yet the "modern science" which The- osophy has brought into India and in- jected into Hinduism, is of a sort that every reputable scientist would repudi- ate. And it would be difficult to assess the harm that Theosophy has done to Hin- duism and the set-back it has given to the cause of real enlightenment, by teaching the Hindus to identify science with occultism. An ineradicable hanker- ing alter the occult has been the bane of Theosophy ever since its birth. One would have supposed that Richard Hodgeson's exposure of Mme. Blavat- sky's tricks would have been enough to sicken the theosophists of that sort of thing, but it really had but little influ- ence upon them. Mrs. Besant is no trickster, but she has the same longing for the superphysical that distinguished her predecessor. She is ambitious of developing telepathic powers, and in fact has become an adept (so one of her former admirers informs me) in read- ing the thoughts of the people in Mars. Very wisely she confines her efforts to Mars, and specializes only in long-dis- tance telepathy. In her address at the recent Jain convention in Benares I heard Mrs. Besant state quite soberly that Manu was the father of the race: and of course she bolted all twenty-four of the Jain Tirthakaras as historical personages. The next day, at the an- nual meeting of the Theosophical So- ciety she declared (with great solemn- ity and amid loud applause) that the Veda was eternal; that the Upanishads were brought into India by the "Tol- tecs" from the sunken continent of At- lantis at the time when India was rais- ed from the bed of the ocean; and that she knew this because "occult research" had "recovered" a large part of "the ancient Toltec literature." The influence of Theosophy upon Hin- duism had a steady growth up to about a year or two ago, since when it has been suffering a rather rapid and very noticeable decline. This is due to more causes than one, but chiefly to the at- tempt of Mrs. Besant to force upon Hin- duism a Messiah in the form of the rather common-place native boy whose father had entrusted him to her charge, and whom she had sent to England for education. Her surprising revelation that this young gentleman was the latest incarnation of the Deity carried occultism too far for even the much- believing Hindu. With this source of false science re- moved there is more hope for the nor- mal development of Indian thought under the influence of Western ideas. What the outcome will be, however, it would be hazardous to predict. Indian philosophy and European science both contain much of eternal value; but just how the two can be united is a question that only the future can answer. What- ever that answer may turn out to be, however, the critical state of Indian thought to-day presents a spectacle of absorbing interest. And the answer, when it comes, will not only have Its influence upon Tnrlia, but will have a hearing of considerable Importance upon the Philosophy and the R< of Europe and America as well. ■Iwiks BIURET Pratt.
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692 The N" a t i o ri [Vol. 98, No. 2554 Books and Men THE MISAPPROPRIATION OF AUTHORS— A BEQUEST TO QUEEN VICTORIA. Almost coincident with the publica- tion of dispatches in the London Times on "The Americanization of Canada," appears "The Year-Book of Canadian Art" (London: Dent), compiled by the Arts and Letters Club of Toronto. The reason for speaking of the two facts together will appear in a moment. For the present, let it be said that "The Year-Book of Canadian Art" is a pleas- ing and highly creditable volume, put forward, as one of those who are in- terested in it writes, to indicate that the Dominion's productions are not con- fined to wheat and cattle. The litera- ture, music, painting, sculpture, and architecture of Canada are described by a score of writers. Andrew MacPhail writes of Stephen Leacock, Leon Lor- rain of French-Canadian literature, George H. Locke contributes a chapter on Goldwin Smith and Sir George W. Ross, while Canadian poetry and fiction are dealt with by Newton MacTavish and Marjory MacMurchy, respectively. The plaint about Americanization in the Times finds a counterpart in this book. For instance, in a chapter devot- ed to musical composition appears this: "The people of the United States are apt at recognizing meritorious work done by those who happen to sojourn in that country. . . . They no sooner recognize the superior craft or art of a foreign sojourner than they appropriate it, label it American,' and exploit it as a strictly 'American' product." This is a perfectly natural feeling of resentment, and Americans who have seen so many of their artists and au- thors appropriated in just this fashion by England ought to sympathize with it. The "appropriation" is sometimes innocent enough. Perhaps many an English admirer of Whistler, and of Mr. Henry James, and Mr. John S. Sar- gent sincerely believes them to be Eng- lishmen. Surely, a great many of Mr. Bliss Carman's readers are quite un- aware that he is not a native of the United States — they are not really try- ing to steal him. It is, however, ironical that "The Year-Book of Canadian Art" should be- gin with an essay on Stephen Leacock. For if there is a humorist the spirit of whose writings is entirely American, Professor Leacock is the man. No Americans will need to "appropriate" him — he has Americanized himself com- pletely in his books. His English birth and Canadian residence must be discov- ered from external evidence. Compare, for instance, his volume of parodies, "Nonsense Novels," with Max Beerbohm's "A Christmas Garland." The first is immensely funny, hilarious, in fact, and might have been written in Chicago. "A Christmas Garland" is also funny, but super-subtle. It is a higher form of parody, without doubt, but a far less amusing book than Professor Leacock's. An extreme Anglomaniac of my ac- quaintance absolutely refused to see anything good in "Nonsense Novels." He listened to the sketches with a face like Buddha. Then somebody informed him of the author's English antecedents — whereupon he has continued ever since in a state of mirth at everything Mr. Leacock writes. For his book "In Cheyne Walk and Thereabout" ( Lippincott) Reginald Blunt had a mass of curious and interest- ing material. A district which has been the home of Sir Thomas More, of Henry VIII, of "the wicked Dukes of Buckingham," of Steele and Swift and Sir Hans Sloane, and then of Turner, Rossetti, Holman Hunt, and Whistler — to say nothing of Thomas Carlyle — is rich in opportunities for a writer like Mr. Blunt. He is quick to see the odd and bizarre no less than the charming aspects of the place, and his book is the better for dwelling on Don Saltero's Coffee House, on Dr. Dominiceti's Baths, and on the "Physick Garden," as much if not more than on the fa- miliar spots, legends, and associations of this part of Chelsea. The chapter on the Neilds is a case in point. How many know of Miser Neild, the son of James Neild, the prison re- former? Mr. Blunt pictures him, in his blue swallow-tail coat and gilt buttons, walking about the country to visit his estates, carrying a green cotton umbrel- la, and with all his baggage in a brown paper bundle. He lived an odd life, but most strange of all was what happened after his death. For when they opened his will — which disposed of about half a million pounds altogether — and had read his wish to be buried in the vault under Battersea Church, "as near unto the coffin of my dear father as the crowded state of the vault will readily admit," and the bequests to his execu- tors, and the provision for the payment of his trifling debts, they came upon a clause which insured him celebrity for many years thereafter. This was it: "I give, devise, and bequeath all real and all personal estate which I may be en- titled to either at law or in equity at the time of my death unto Her Most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, her heirs, executors, and assigns for her sole use and benefit, and I pray her Majesty to be most Graciously pleased to accept the same." The Queen was pleased, and did ac- cept it, and paid for a stained glass window to Mr. Neild's memory into the bargain. Edmund Lester Pearson. News for Bibliophiles WILLIAM PITTIS: THE DIFFICULTIES OF A PAMPHLETEER AND BIOGRAPHER. I. In the course of my work upon Defoe I have frequently crossed the trail of a certain William Pittis — the name is also found as "Pettis" and "Pettus" — who has aroused my interest, and about whom I have gathered information which seems in the main not to have been published hitherto. This I wish to give here in some detail, and I shall be indebted to any student of bibliography who will cor- rect or supplement it. Pittis is the subject of a short article by Miss C. Fell Smith in the Dictionary of National Biography — under his father, Thomas Pittis (1636-87), a clergyman of the Church of England — and he figures in Foster's "Alumni Oxonienses" and in the catalogues of the British Museum and other libraries. From these sources we learn that he was born at Southamp- ton in 1674; that he entered Winchester School in 1687 — Miss Fell Smith quotes Kirby's "Winchester Scholars," p. 208 — that he matriculated at New College, Ox- ford, on August 14, 1690, at the age of sixteen; that he was fellow of his col- lege from 1692 to 1695, graduating B.A., 1694; and that he was afterwards a mem- ber of the Inner Temple. In 1699 he ad- dressed to Dryden an epistolary poem on the death of James, Earl of Abingdon, and the manuscript of an elegy upon Sir Cloudesley Shovel (1708) is preserved in the British Museum (Addit. MSS. 23904, f. 516). On April 25, 1706 — so Hearne, not April 27, as Miss Fell Smith has it — he was sentenced by the Court of Queen's Bench to stand in the pillory and to pay a fine of 100 marks for writing "The Case of the Church of England's Memorial Fairly Stated" — not the "Memorial" it- self, as Miss Fell Smith erroneously says, or any "Vindication" of that famous pamphlet, as might be inferred from Hearne's language with regard to the affair (cf. Hearne, Collections, ed. Doble I, 235-6). Nearly eight years later — December 3, 1714 — he was committed to bail as the author of a tract entitled "Reasons against a War with France." Meanwhile he had compiled, besides a tract to be mentioned later, three vol- umes of Parliamentary history, to wit: "The History of the Present Parliament and Convocation" (July 11, 1711— cf. the Daily Courant); "The History of the Proceedings of the Second Session of Par- liament" (1712?), and "The History of the Third Session of the Last Parliament" (1713?). In 1715 he wrote "Memoirs of the Life of John Radcliffe, M.D.," which reached a third edition the next year, ami a fourth in 1736. The authenticity of the letters printed in this book was ques- tioned by William Singleton, Radcllffe'a servant, but Pittis defended their gen- uineness (cf. G. A. Aitken, art. Rad- cliffe in the Dictionary of National Biog- raphy). Prom the publication of those "Memoirs" to the death of the author in November, 1724, at Ills cliambors In the" Inner Temple over the i'mwn Of- fice, nothing of Importance with regard
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June II, 1914] The 3ST a t i o n 693 to Pittls's career seems to have been learned by the few students who have Investigated the subject. My notes ena- ble me to add the following particulars: The catalogue of the Earl of Craw- ford's library shows that in 1696, the year after he seems to have given up or lost his fellowship, Pittis published "An Epis- tolary Poem to N. Tate — Occasioned by the taking of Namur" (London, R. Bald- win, fol. 7 pp. + 1 p.). Three years later he addressed to Dryden the "Epistolary Poem" already mentioned (London, H. Walwyn, fol. 3 11. + 9 pp.). Under date of October 20, 1705, Hearne wrote that "Sr William Pittett" was in custody "for Writing ye Pamphlett call'd The Bonefire Web reflects on ye Burn- ing of The Memorial" (Collections, ed. Doble, I, 57). In the index to Hearne this "Sf William Pittett" is entered as "Pittis, T.," who figures also on pp. 235- 237, and is no other than our William Pittis, punished "for Writing the Vindi- cation of ye Memorial of ye Church of England." Near this entry Hearne wrote: "Mr. Pittis, who is prosecuted for writing In Vindication of ye Memorial was, I think, Fellow of New College, and has some Poems in print." Hearne's gossip was sometimes unfounded, but in this Instance, although it is certain that Pit- tis's main trouble was caused by his "Case of the Church of England's Me- morial Fairly Stated," we have the addi- tional testimony of Luttrell to confirm the statement of Hearne that Pittis was first arrested for a pamphlet protesting against the burning of "The Memorial." Luttrell's entry (Brief Hist. Rel. v. 600), under Thurs. 11 Octob. 1705, runs, "Mr. Pettis is committed for writing a half sheet call'd Fire and Faggot, being a re- flection upon burning the Memorial." I have not yet found this tract under eith- er title, but I shall later give a quotation from Pittis himself, which tends to sup- port the conclusion that his original ar- rest was caused by his writing some comparatively unimportant pamphlet. A few months after the publication of "The Case of the Church of England's Memorial," in the summer of 1705 (cf. the Works of the Learned for August, vii, 502 — really 512), Pittis issued, "while in Durance," on November 22, 1705 (cf. the Daily Courant), "A Hymn to Confine- ment." This was stated to be by the au- thor of "The Case of the Church of Eng- land's Memorial," but probably such in- terest as it aroused was due less to the prisoner's statements about himself, or to the poetical quality of his semi-pin- daric effusion, than to the fact that along with his own poem the pamphleteer pub- lished, apparently for the first time, the lines written under similar circumstances by Sir Roger L'Estrange, sometimes en- titled "The Liberty of the Imprisoned Loyalist" (cf. Hannah's "Courtly Poets," 1891, p. 199, where no reference is made to this appearance of the poem). Pittis stated that L'Estrange's stanzas had been given him in manuscript by a "Person of Honour," and that it was his belief that they had never before been printed. With regard to himself, he admitted that ho had made bad use of his advantages, but he claimed to be thoroughly loyal. He had defended Queen Anne while she was Princess, and he was one of the first to reply to the satire upon her Majesty and her Ministers, entitled "The Golden Age." Neither of these productions seems yet to have been identified. The only letter of Pittis's that I have found is one written to Robert Harley, Secretary of State, either late in 1705 or before the pamphleteer's trial in April, 1706: "You told me when I was under examination before you, that, rather than my necessities should make me comply with booksellers' requests in writing what they should put me upon, you would be assistant to me yourself. I have forborne as long as possible giving your honour the trouble; but, being with- out friends, without money, and under a very chargeable prosecution, I must beg leave to remind you that I have kept up to the tenour of your commands in writing but one little pamphlet since, which I made bold to present you bound up in blue Turkey leather, by the penny post, and is entitled 'Two Campaigns in One Panegyrical Essay' in honour of his Grace of Marlborough. "I pray this implicit obedience may pre- vail for some consideration per bearer." (Cf. Hist. MSS. Conn. Rep. on MSS. of the Duke of Portland, viii, 200—201.) The British Museum possesses a copy of this tract (8vo, dated 1706; E. 1980.4), the long title of which shows us that Pittis included with his own panegyric an imitation of Horace, Carm., IV, 5 — the "Divis orte bonis." What "consider- ation" the blue Turkey binding induced Harley, who loved books, to send by the messenger we do not know, but surely it is a pathetic little glimpse we get of the fallen scholar, who yet knew how he wished the offspring of his brain to ap- pear when it should greet the bibliophile. Luttrell tells us laconically under April 25, 1706, that the "consideration" Pittis received from the court was a fine of 100 marks and an order that he should stand three times in the pillory. But the offending pamphlet is given — erroneous- ly it would seem — as "the Memorial An- swered Paragraph by Paragraph." Boyer is more exact (cf. "Annals of Queen Anne's Reign," V, 486). He re- fers to "The Case of the Church of Eng- land's Memorial Fairly Stated" and shows that only two pilloryings were or- dered, one on April 26, at Charing Cross, and one on the 29 th, near the Royal Exchange. Before the prisoner was dis- charged he must furnish security for his good behavior for two years. After undergoing the indignities of the pillory Pittis may have turned to sub- jects less likely to incur the displeasure of the authorities. On December 31, 1707, the Daily Courant advertised as just pub- lished the "Funeral Poem" on Sir Clou- desley Shovel, "Dedicated to his Discon- solate Lady, by Will Pettis late Fellow of New College in Oxford," a copy of which, as we have seen, is among the manu- scripts in the British Museum. In 1709 he dedicated to the widow of another naval hero, "Nereo. A Funeral Poem sacred to the Immortal Memory of Sir George Rooke, Kt." (London, B. Bragge, fol. 16 pp.) "It must be read, because it sings of him," declared the poet, who was no prophet. Perhaps, the statement that he was personally acquainted with Rooke was inserted by the hack-writer to show that he had known better days. In 1710 he began the parliamentary series already mentioned with a tract, in- cluded by Miss Fell Smith, entitled "The Proceedings of Both Houses of Parlia- ment, in the Years 1702, 1703, 1704, Upon the Bill to prevent Occasional Conform- ity." (London, J.Baker, 8vo, 2 11.+ 72 pp.) The dedication is signed "W. P.," and the style and high Tory tone leave little doubt that the compilation is the work of the man who published with Baker during the next three years the volumes already named. The authorship of none of these is doubtful — indeed Pittis signed his name to the second and the third — and the characters of the persons to whom he addressed his dedications may indicate that he had not entirely lost caste. Doubtless he published between 1710 and 1714, besides these four compilations, not a few tracts, but the only ones I have been able definitely to fasten upon him are "Jus Sacrum, or, a Discourse Where- in is fully Proved and Demonstrated, that no Prince ought to be Deprived of his Natural Right on Account of Re- ligion, etc." (London, Baker, 1712, 8vo, 44 pp.), and "Dutch Generosity, and Eng- lish Gratitude, Exemplified in their Treatment of each other in Peace and War: with a Particular Account of the Entertainment the Dutch gave the Royal Family in their Exile; and how far they Contributed to the Restoration: with sev- eral secret Transactions." (London, 8vo, 48 pp.) The reasons for adding these two pamphlets to his bibliography — the first of them an extraordinarily bold plea for the Pretender — will be given later. The next publication that we can charge to Pittis is a tract in answer to Defoe's well-known defence of his patron, Lord Oxford, "The Secret History of the White Staff." Pittis's pamphlet was en- titled "The History of the Mitre and Purse, in Which the First and Second Parts of the Secret History of the White Staff are fully considered, and the Hy- pocrisy and Villanies of the Staff him- self are laid open and Detected" (Lon- don: J. Morphew, 8vo, 72 pp.). This attack on Oxford in defence of Harcourt and Atterbury was issued on November 9, 1714 (cf. the Post Boy), and two other editions — perhaps only reissues with new title-pages — were advertised within a week. On November 29 (cf. the Daily Courant) appeared "The History of the Mitre and Purse Continued — Part II," a second edition of which (8vo, 40 pp.) was advertised on December 11 (cf. the Post Boy). That these two pamphlets were by Pittis was asserted by the author of a rare tract entitled "The Secret History of the Secret History of the White Staff, Purse and Mitre. Written by a Person of Honour" (London: S. Keimer, 1715, 8vo, 40 pp.). But this "Person of Hon- our," according to Pittis himself in "Queen Anne Vindicated," a pamphlet soon to be mentioned, was no less a worthy than Daniel Defoe, who felt that he had for- feited Oxford's favor by indiscreet reve- lations in the original "Secret History of the White Staff," and was trying to per- suade the public that all the tracts in the controversy, his own as well as those by
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<;<)4 The ISTati on [Vol. 98, No. 2554 Pittis, were merely written by irrespon- sible hacks set on by mercenary publish- ers. Defoe's description of the methods employed by these scribblers and their hirers ought .some day to be republished in full. Here we have barely room for a few quotations. He declared that Pit- tis, after acknowledging himself the au- thor, had shown him— that is, Defoe, or, more strictly, the writer of "The Secret History of the Secret History" — part of the copy of the "Book, call'd the Mitre and Purse," in manuscript, "before the same was printed." He, Defoe, could also "prove, who employ'd the said Mr. Pittis, and what Hire, or Price he re ceiv'd for the Work." He mentioned this "with the more Plainness, because of a like Case, which has just now happen'd, and is made Publick by Pittis himself, and is as followeth; Mr. Pittis has been taken up for writing a Pamphlet, call'd Reasons for a War ivith France, which Book he has own'd, he was hir'd to write by that Conscientious Bookseller, so celebrated for his Honesty, Mr. Edmund Curl in Fleet Street, who was one of his Bail; upon which he gives out an Ad- vertisement in several of the News- papers, that a Book was preparing for the Press, entitled Reasons against a War with France; by the Author of the Mitre and Purse, which, as is said above, appears to be the same author, viz., Mr. Pittis. This so evidently proves the Prac- tice above of Mr. Curl, and his Asso- ciates, Writing for and against, that no Men can be so wilfully Obstinate, as not to be convine'd" (pp. 22-24). That it takes one turncoat hack to de- tect another was probably never better shown than in the relations between Defoe and Pittis at this time. "The Se- cret History of the Secret History" is written in Defoe's most idiosyncratic and unmistakable style ; hence Pittis, who had been a fellow mercenary in Baker's em- ploy, can have had no difficulty in rec- ognizing his assailant. On the other hand, Defoe had no difficulty in deter- mining who it was that in "The History of the Mitre and Purse" was hounding him and his patron, Lord Oxford. Fur- thermore, in the "Mitre and Purse" Pittis had completely unmasked himself, and had revealed the cause of his hostility to Oxford. We read in the first part of "The History of the Mitre and Purse" (p. 29) that the just fallen Prime Min- ister, after causing Dr. Drake to be ap- prehended for writing "The Memorial of the Church of England" — Harley was then one of the Secretaries of State — wheedled "another Person who was in Custody for a Triffling Matter, into a Confession of Writing the Case of the said Memorial fairly Slated, etc., and contrary to the most solemn Assurances, that such a Confession should be of no Prejudice to him, with bringing him to a Tryal at the Queen's Bench Bar, the consequences of which to his and the poor undone Gentleman's Disgrace, will appear upon Record." It may be added that it is not improbable that the "Trif- fling Matter" for which "the poor un- done gentleman" was originally taken in- to custody was the pamphlet entitled "The Boneflre," of which Hearne made mention, or else the "Fire and I' of Luttrell. W. P. Trent. Correspondence MR. MELLEN'S TESTIMONY. To the Editor op The Nation : Sir: Sincere thanks for your strikin and instructive article on Mr. Mellen's testimony as to the financial history of the "New Haven" Railroad Company. The late Mr. Morgan was not, apparent- ly, a student of the science of finance, although so great a banker and of such masterly capacity in executive ways. His "iron-clad reticence" suggests, perhaps, a resort to methods of procedure of which he was not proud, certainly, but which were in vogue. But "reticence" is the natural and usual characteristic of such vast autocratic power as nature endowed him with. And as between his profound belief in unification, as distinct from segregation (with its inevitable return to the competitive principle), the writer's sympathy is assuredly with him. If the Trusts have shown themselves a menace to the community — as they surely have — yet most amply are they now supervised from Washington. And this new (and most rightful) assumption of national power should, by good right, speedily and radically modify this aggressive cam- paign of "segregation." The necessity for it is being obviated — the path for a really beneficent habit of vast cooperation is being made plain. Mr. Morgan, so far from seeking personal gain, would seem to the writer a master idealist in his plan for unification in New England. As con- trasted with the criminal schemers of Wall Street, engaged in wrecking properties "for what there is in it," he stands on a pedestal of austere virtue. Mannering. Hartford, Conn., May 31. A REJOINDER REJOINED. To the Editor op The Nation : Sir: Since the subject is one of vital concern at the present time, I venture a word of reply to the rejoinder of E. M. H. on "The Constitutional Power of the Courts," printed in the Nation of June 4. As to the first paragraph in the article, I am quite willing to submit to the read- ers of the Nation whether it covers at all the point made in my article of May 14. The passages from the Constitution are "the basis of the argument." The argu- ment itself is based upon a train of his- torioal events that helps us to interpret the meaning of those passages. A few such events were mentioned in my first article and have been entirely overlook- ed by E. M. H. in both of his replies. And now to come again to what E. M. H. rightly insists is "the chief point." Unfortunately he does not mention at all the statement to which 1 objected and which I quoted, but rather quotes an- other sentence that was used much earlier in his former communication and was much more guarded. To recall lie real issue I quote again his statement that "nowhere at the time the Constitu- tion was framed was there a Judiciary endow 'I wit li :;ii.'|i ;, |,o\\ rr." I now Bubmll agal al the plain meaning of this statement, especially If it is to have any bearing on the historical problem involved, is that the custom of reversing unconstitutional laws was un- known at the time the Constitution was drawn up. On the contrary, that power had been exercised in several States, as E. M. H. admits in his last letter. Because the exercise of such a power was well known at the time the Constitu- tion was drawn up and in the light of many other historical facts, some of them mentioned in my first letter and many more stated by the authorities cited in my second letter, most people will continue to look askance at those who would con- tend that our whole judicial system has been building for over a century upon the basis of a flagrant usurpation. Rayner W. Kelset. Haverford College, Pa., June 4. "THE CONSTITUTIONAL POWER OF THE COURTS." To the Editor of The Nation : Sir: It is well to remember that a Su- preme Court with power to declare laws unconstitutional is not without precedent, as is pointed out by a writer in the Nation of May 14. It is even better to remember and to insist upon the fact that the framers and ratifiers of the Consti- tution intended that the Supreme Court should exercise this power. Madison, in his notes on the Federal Convention, reports several discussions of the subject. Mercer ("Madison's Jour- nal," Hunt ed., Vol. II, p. 73) "disap- proved of the Doctrine that the Judges, as expositors of the Constitution, should have authority to declare a law void." On the same page is noted Dickinson's op- position to the idea. Elbridge Gerry (ibid., Vol. I, p. 69) declared that judges would decide on the constitutionality of laws as they did in the States. James Wilson (ibid., Vol. II, p. 18) stated that the courts, as expositors of the Consti- tution, could set aside laws. It is evi- dent that the point was understood by the framers, and that they intended to confer the power which the Federal courts exercise. When the instrument was referred to the States, Hamilton wrote on the sub- ject in the Federalist, LXXVIII: The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar function of the courts. A Constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to asceitain its meaning as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irrecon- cilable variance between the two, that which has the superior obligation ami validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute; tie In tention of the people to the intention of their agents. In the Virginia convention John Mai shall asserted ("Eliot's Debates," Vol. Ill, p. 533) that if Congress made a law "nol warranted by any of the powers eni rated, it would be considered by the as an infringement of the Consti- tution which 1 hey are to guard. Thej would noi consider such a law as 00m mi, under their Jurisdiction. They would it void."
Page 800
June ii, 1914] The Nation 695 James Wilson had sat in the Federal Convention, and, as we have seen, had there expressed his views on the point at issue. Now he was in the Pennsyl- vania Convention, leading the fight for ratification. His statement on the ques- tion is explicit (McMaster and Stone, "Pennsylvania and the Federal Consti- tution," p. 354): If a law should be made inconsistent with those powers vested by this instru- ment in Congress, the judges, as a conse- quence of their independence, and the particular powers of government being defined, will declare such law to be null and void. For the power of the Consti- tution predominates. Anything, there- fore, that shall be enacted by Congress - y thereto will not have the force of law. The expressions noted were easily found in a search of less than an hour. I have no doubt that others equally con- vincing would reward continued investi- gation. These are enough to prove the point I am making. The fact itself can- not be urged too frequently or too strong- ly. The Federal courts did not arrogate power to themselves. "The Fathers," profiting by the experience of the colo- nies and of the States, purposely pro- vided the courts with the function of annulling unconstitutional laws. The point was clearly understood — opposed and defended with vigor. So far from the power not being conferred, it was ac- tually urged as an objectionable feature. In the State conventions, delegates with a fresh mandate from the people to ratify the instrument heard the question argued, and ratified with a full realization of what it meant. The annulling power of the courts rests upon the deliberate intention of the makers of our fundamental law. Robert Carter Rankin. Cambridge, Mass., May 1G. ULPHILAS. To the Editor op The Nation: Sir: Prof. Leo Wiener severely assails, in the Nation of May 7, what he asserts to be some present-day "philological fal- lacies." I am not able to judge the first one, which refers to Romance philology, but I cannot suppress my decided skepti- cism in regard to his second theory. Pro- fessor Wiener disagrees with the general belief that Ulphilas was the author of the Gothic Bible translation, and assigns that work to some West-Gothic transla- tor in Southern France at the end of the eighth century. He promises all the critical apparatus in a series of volumes which he is preparing for the press, and alludes to a mass of Provengal words, and even a Spanish and an Arabic word, that he found in Gothic. Germanic philologists will expect his publications with great interest, but, meanwhile, it must be stated that the sec- ond and third reasons that the author of- fers as a taste of what he has in store for us are utterly unsatisfactory. Even assuming the connection of Gothic dulths with Latin indulgere, (in)dultum to be correct, notwithstanding the difficulties that arise from the correspondence of Gothic th with Latin t, his contention would be doubtful, to say the least, ac- cording to his own statement, that the connecting idea of these words was form- ed after 367, and, therefore, the time al- lotted to Ulphilas to become acquainted with them (about fourteen years) was too short. The next etymology, however, is utter- ly beyond the limits of reasonable possi- bility. The author explains Gothic skulan as a loan word from late Latin culca, "scout." The idea of such an explana- ion for a preterite-present, i. e., for a verb of one of the oldest types of conjugation and one which is essentially the same in all Germanic languages, is grotesque. As to the third and last of Professor Wie- ner's reasons, viz., that the corruption of Greek vtrovSaios into Gothic siponeis required several centuries, and, therefore, the end of the eighth century was to be assumed as the date of the Gothic Bible, the reader must find it truly remarkable that this is asserted in the same article in which the wonderful preservation of the language of the Goths, after at least six centuries of migration and three cen- turies of life among Romanized people (if we were to accept Professor Wiener's statements), has been so entirely lost sight of. E. Prokosch. The University of Texas, May 18. To the Editor of The Nation : Sir: No better illustration is needed than Mr. Prokosch's letter to prove that my contention as to a philological fallacy in Gothic is correct. A theory which is based on belief only is fallacious. Mr. Prokosch adduces no proof that Auxen- tius was at fault in failing to say some- thing about Ulphilas's translation of the Bible; he simply knows it to be a fact that Ulphilas wrote it, because it is a "general belief." I adduced three groups of words in or- der to prove historiologically, not philo- logically, that Ulphilas could not have used them in his day. To the first, Mr. Prokosch objects, because dultum cannot give dulths, since Gothic th being equated to Latin t raises difficulties. This is inter- esting indeed. Mr. Prokosch denies the accepted correspondence of the two sounds (Gothic wairthan, Latin verto), and yet invokes his orthodox philology to prove my case "utterly unsatisfactory." But as th and t constantly interchange in Gothic, dulths may as well stand for dults, so after all, Mr. Prokosch might have had no trouble about the matter, if he had known his Gothic phonology more thoroughly. He objects to dulths on the ground that, according to my statement, fourteen years would have been ample time for the word to have got into the translation of Ulphilas. But I maintained nothing of the kind. I said that indulgere, in the particular sense, began to form in the time of Ulphilas, that dulgere was not recorded until 571 ; consequently, it is not fourteen, but minus one hundred and ninety, years, that Mr. Prokosch is operating with. In the same breath, he objects to Gothic skulan from Latin culca, because only four hundred years had passed since the first recorded appearance of cwlca and skulan, if the Bible was writ- ten at the end of the eighth century. The trouble is that Mr. Prokosch knows, that is, he shares the "general belief," that the Germanic preterite-present was created in time immemorial. If the strong verb schreiben in German is represented as the same strong verb in the Northern lan- guages, does this prove that Latin scri- bere entered into Germanic before the two separated? Why could not the Goth- ic skulan have been borrowed by the other Germanic languages, preterite- present and all ? This is exactly what has happened, as I shall show when I get to it. I cannot comprehend Mr. Prokosch's objection to siponeis, because the sentence as it stands makes no sense. Possibly he means that siponeis cannot be derived from spodeus. If so, I should like to direct his attention to the fact that in the Skeireins the reading is not siponeis, but sponeis, which Massmann emendated to siponeis. Nothing has contributed so much to the philological fallacy as these emendations and normalizations, for they disguise the possible truth. Now, sponeis and spodeus are no further apart than plapja and platea, yet sufficiently apart to have two centuries between them. To whet Mr. Prokosch's appetite until my book appears, I will give here a partial list of Burgundian French words In the so-called Gothic Bible which Ul- philas could only have known if he rose from the dead four centuries after his physical demise. Such words are: agis, aglaitei, agls, ah, ahma, aibr, asans, blo- tan, bloth, daupjan, dulgis, dulths, faihu, ftlharij gafrithon, gretan, idreigan, lisan, marzjan, mathl, missa-, ogan, sneithan, skatts, spilda, spill, sunja. I will, how- ever, caution Mr. Prokosch that it will not do for him to hunt these words up in Old French dictionaries. I quote for the purpose from 250,000 documents, of the existence of which Germanic schol- ars know precious little. Leo Wiener. North Sandwich, N. H., June 1. THE WORLD'S FAIR ART BUILDING. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: In the park which was once the World's Fair ground, in Chicago, is still standing the Art Museum, now used as the Field Columbian Museum for scien- tific exhibits. The building, while solid inside, has a covering of staff instead of marble, and as that is going to pieces, the building is to be torn down — a new scientific museum is now in process of building in the city. But this Art .Mu- seum is one of the most beautiful pieces of architecture that have ever been con- structed. Is there not some means by which it can be preserved, or reproduced? Could it not, for instance, be rebuilt in San Francisco, for the coming I tion, and of permanent material? The main fagade is all that is essential — it is not necessary to reproduce the immense building as a whole — but the structures that bear the fagade are, of course, enor- mous by themselves. To rebuild its ex- terior on its present site would be the least expensive plan, but on its present site it serves no very useful purpose — it is too far from the centre of the city. It is not likely that Chicago will do any-
Page 801
696 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2554 thing about it; but if Chicago does not, a national organization might well be formed to reproduce this magnificent specimen of American genius. If it should bo actually torn down, the archi- tect's plans would no doubt be preserved somewhere, but no one would ever real- ize, from plans, how beautiful the struc- ture is, even in its present state of decay. Saint-Gaudens declared it to be the most beautiful piece of architecture since the Parthenon. It is not too soon (nor is it too late) to begin a movement for its perpetuation. It would be a lasting mis- fortune if it should not be preserved. Christine Ladd Franklin. Chicago, May 18. THE CHURCH PEACE UNION. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: May I ask the hospitality of your columns to make known to the clergy of the United States that the Church Peace Union has authorized me to offer to the churches five thousand dollars ($5,000) in prizes for the best essays on international peace. The sum is appor- tioned as follows: (1.) A prize of one thousand dollars ($1,000) for the best monograph of be- tween 15,000 and 25,000 words on any phase of international peace by any pas- tor of any church in the United States. (2.) Three prizes, one of five hundred dollars ($500), one of three hundred dol- lars ($300), and one of two hundred dol- lars ($200), for the three best essays on international peace by students of the theological seminaries in the United States. (3.) One thousand dollars ($1,000) in ten prizes of one hundred dollars ($100) each to any church member between twenty (20) and thirty (30) years of age. (4.) Twenty (20) prizes of fifty dollars ($50) each to Sunday school pupils be- tween fifteen (15) and twenty (20) years of age. (5.) Fifty (50) prizes of twenty dollars ($20) each to Sunday school pupils be- tween ten (10) and fifteen (15) years of age. In the accomplishing of the desired re- sults among the church members and the Sunday school pupils, and in the awarding of the prizes, the Church Peace Union will have to depend largely upon the assistance which the pastors can render. It is earnestly hoped that the pastors will make the announcement of these prizes in all of the churches and Sunday schools of the United States. In the competition for the prizes, only one essay should be sent from each church and from each Sunday school, the essays of the local church and Sunday school being read by a local committee, and the one winning essay forwarded. All essays must be in by January 1, 1915. Further particulars about these prizes, as well as literature to be used in the preparation of the essays, and lists of books can be obtained by addressing the secretary of the Church Peace Union, Rev. Frederick Lynch, D.D., 70 Fifth Avenue, New York City. Frederick Lynch. New York, June 0. Literature REALPOLITIK. Imperial Germany. By Prince Bernhard von Biilow. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. $3 net. It is not every German ex-Chancellor that gives to the world pungent mem- oirs. Perhaps some day we shall have from or about Prince Biilow, too, il- luminating "Gedanken und Erinner- ungen," with the true truth about the causes of his retirement; meanwhile, being still below the patriarchal age, and perhaps looking forward to a fu- ture, as well as back upon a past, he writes, dispassionately and in the main cautiously, a treatise on "Imperial Ger- many" that is neither history, nor prophecy, nor apologia pro vita sua, but yet is a little of all this. In form, it is a series of detached chapters or paragraphs on a large variety of po- litical subjects, not unlike, both as to matter and manner, a Chancellor's man- ifesto before the Reichstag. The whole, in spite of the labored comprehensive- ness imposed upon the author by the circumstances under which he wrote, possesses considerable interest and a certain historiographic value. What is offered now in an English translation was in the original but part of a large work, by various hands, on "Deutsch- land unter Kaiser Wilhelm II," where it appeared under the heading of "Deutsche Politik." Prince Biilow writes as an admiring disciple of his great predecessor. Like Bismarck, he now and then takes his audience into his confidence. He speaks with perfect frankness of certain un- pleasant facts. Thus we read about Ger- man "colonization" among the Poles of East Prussia: "Our policy and the work of colonization must be considered to have failed"; and he admits that "the introduction of our last Army Bill, which had its origin in the change of situation effected by the Balkan War, shows that Turkey's collapse was a blow to us." Personally, he adds, "I never had any illusions about the limits of Turkish ability to act with effect." We seem to hear Bismarck's voice in this reference to Japan: "It is not to our in- terest to have that eminently capable and brave nation for an enemy. On the other hand, we have no intention, of course, of allowing Japan to use us as a catspaw"; and there is perhaps more than a touch of Bismarckian frankness in such a statement as this (in the chap- ter on Party Platforms) : "I never took the reproach of lack of political prin- ciple tragically; I have even, at times, felt it to savor of praise, for I saw In it appreciation of the fact that I was guided by reasons of state." Herr von Biilow does not conceal the fact that he is, first and foremost, a Realpolitiker. Anglo-German relations, as is usual in works on modern Germany, occupy a prominent place in the volume before us. The subject is closely interwoven with the naval requirements of the Em- pire, and Prince Biilow is a most out- spoken advocate of that policy to which William II "devoted all the power of the throne and all the strength of his own personality." The motives which actu- ate Germany in her relations with Eng- land have rarely been laid bare with such nonchalant unreserve: The fleet was to be built while we maintained our position on the Continent, without our coming into conflict with England, whom we could as yet not op- pose at sea, but also while we preserved intact our national honor and dignity. Parliamentary opposition, which at that time was considerable, could only be overcome if steady pressure were brought to bear on Parliament by public opinion. In view of the anxious and discouraged state of feeling that obtained in Germany during the ten years following Prince Bismarck's retirement, it was only pos- sible to rouse public opinion by harping on the string of nationalism and wak- ing the people to consciousness. A great oppression which weighed on the spirit of the nation had been occasioned by the rupture between the wearer of the Impe- rial crown and the mighty man who had brought it up from the depths of Kyff- hauser. This oppression could be lifted if the German Emperor could set before his people, who at that time were not united either by common hopes or de- mands, a new goal towards which to strive, and could indicate to them "a place under the sun" to which they had a right, and which they must try to at- tain. On the other hand, patriotic feeling must not be roused to such an extent as to damage irreparably our relations with England, against whom our sea power would for years still be insuffi- cient, and at whose mercy we lay in 1897, as a competent judge remarked at the time, like so much gutter before the knife. To make it possible to build a sufficient fleet was the foremost and greatest task of German policy after Bismarck's retirement, a task with which I also was immediately confront- ed, when on June 28, 1897, at Kiel, on board the Hohenzollern, I was entrust- ed by his Majesty the Emperor with the conduct of foreign affairs, on the same day and the same spot on which twelve years later I handed in my resignation. The reference to Parliamentary op- position is significant. A twelve years' struggle against party tactics has stiff- ened Billow's natural conservatism into rigidity. Inheriting Bismarck's latter- day bitterness towards Radical Social- ism and his lifelong distrust of Parlia- mentary freedom, he goes beyond him in his belief that both can be bent In obedience to the Imperial will, which, according to the gospel of the faithful, Is tantamount to the national good. "From first to last during my term of
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June ii, 1914] The !N~ a t i o 11 697 office," he writes, "I recognized that the Social Democratic movement con- stituted a great and serious danger. It is the duty of every German Ministry to combat this movement until it is defeated or materially changed." He admits that suppression by force "is no longer feasible," and is sufficiently en- lightened to recognize in the freedom of the press, and the right to form as- sociations and hold meetings, "safety- valves which are useful and have be- come indispensable"; but he nevertheless regards the Social Democratic party, as reinforced by the ranks of Liberalism, not as a political opponent to be van- quished by argument and votes, but as a public enemy to be crushed by all the means at the disposal of the Crown. Prince Biilow cherishes no illusion as to the relations between Germany and France. "The irreconcilability of France is a factor that we must reckon with in our political calculation." He concedes, however, that "it is a proof of a lively sense of honor if a nation suffers so keenly from a single injury to its pride that the desire for retribution becomes the ruling passion of the people." An interesting paragraph emphasizes the distinction between France and England in their attitude towards Germany: England is certainly seriously disquiet- ed by our rising power at sea, and our competition which incommodes her at many points. Without doubt there are still Englishmen who think that, on the principle expressed by Montaigne, "que le dommage de l'un est le profit de l'autre," if the troublesome German would disappear from the face of the earth, England would only gain by it. But between such sentiments in England and the funda- mental feeling in France there is a marked difference, which finds corre- sponding expression in politics. France would attack us if she thought she were strong enough; England would only do so if she thought she could not defend her vital economic and political interests against Germany except by force. The mainspring of English policy towards us is national egoism; that of French policy is national idealism. He who follows his interest will, however, mostly remain calmer than he who pursues an idea. The rhetoric of Prince Biilow in all this bears a curious resemblance to that of Bismarck, who used to indulge in "large views" and dismal interpreta- tions of world politics whenever the Na- tional Liberals in the Reichstag became particularly troublesome and the free- traders exposed his economic vagaries. The resemblance is heightened by Bii- low's own economic crudities, to which the chapters on Industry and Agricul- ture, The Protection of Agriculture, and Agriculture in Time of War bear ample witness. There is the familiar harping on the agrarian tariff string, the old sneer at professorial wisdom, in the as- sertion that "more can be learned from from books, however profound," the same plea for strong armaments as the ultimate cause of agricultural and indus- trial prosperity. Bulow's Realpolitik is broad enough to include Germans everywhere, and frank enough to brush aside whatever claims other nationalities might urge in coun- tries where the Germans are only one of the elements in the nation. How is it, he asks, "that in the struggle between dif- ferent nationalities the German has so often succumbed to the Czech and the Slovene, the Magyar and the Pole, the French and the Italian, and that he is still at a disadvantage to-day?" The answer is: We are not a political people. Not that we ever lacked penetration and under- standing for the sequence of political things, or for the essence and associa- tion of the religious, moral, social, legal, and industrial forces which condition pol- itics. We have always possessed this political knowledge to the same extent as our contemporaries, and even to a greater. We did not either fail to realize our own peculiar political shortcomings. But what we did lack, and what we still often lack, is the art of proceeding from insight to practical application, and the greater art of doing the right thing, politically, by a sure creative instinct, instead of only after much thought and considerable cogitation. If this is rather vague as to details, the meaning is obvious enough. The German everywhere must learn to as- sert himself, though not, as Biilow read- ily admits, at the expense of loyalty to the adopted country. In the United States, in particular, attachment to the fatherland is perfectly consistent with American patriotism, and Biilow be- lieves that, since the formation of the "Deutsch-AmerikanischerNationalbund" — whose importance he greatly exagger- ates— the Germans in the United States "are animated more and more by the desire to maintain and encourage a close connection" between the old home and the new. It is fair to add that Bulow's references to this country are thoroughly sympathetic and apprecia- tive. Indeed, with all the frequent rattling of the sabre, the ex-Chancel- lor is far from identifying himself with German chauvinists a la Bernhardi, and he more than once holds England up to the admiration of his countrymen. Nevertheless, the keynote of the en- tire volume is the expressed conviction of Germany's supremacy in m&st of the important manifestations of the human intellect. "We have achieved great things in all the sciences and arts; the greatest philosophers, the greatest poets and musicians are Germans." Perhaps it is timely not to allow the oft-repeat- ed phrase that Germany has produced the greatest poetry of all time to go unchallenged. Hermann Grimm has name, in his characterization of Goethe's "Faust" as "the greatest work of the greatest poet of all times and all nations"; yet we have the greater au- thority of Goethe himself to the con- trary. "Tieck," he said to Eckermann, "is a man of great talent, and no one can be more sensible of his great mer- its than myself, but it is a mistake to raise him beyond his own height and place him on the same level with me. I can say so plainly, for it matters nothing to me, inasmuch as I have not made myself. I should act similarly if I compared myself with Shakespeare, who also did not make himself, but who is nevertheless a being of a high- er order, to whom I look up with rever- ence." Germany and her literature are great enough to dispense with vainglory, and her patriots may profitably ponder the saying of a Frenchman, the wise Sainte- Beuve: "I should wish the lecturer dwelling on the beauties and the gran- deur of our literature and national his- tory to guard against repeating what is so constantly said, in colleges and even in academies on solemn occasions: that the French are the greatest and most sensible of all nations, and our litera- ture the greatest of all literatures. I should wish him to content himself with saying that it is one of the finest, and that the world did not begin and does not end with us." personal intercourse and from life than I lent this assertion the authority of his I CURRENT FICTION. The Titan. By Theodore Dreiser. New York: John Lane Co. Mr. Dreiser continues his notable study of the predatory genius of the market introduced in "The Financier." The present scene of operations is Chi- cago of the eighties and nineties, where gas and street railways spelled golden opportunities. Cowperwood, who in true outlaw fashion establishes and main- tains himself in the field by sheer craft and audacity, remains from first to last an interloper, waging his campaign sin- glehanded against the coalition of local capitalists. The spectacle has so fasci- nated Mr. Dreiser that he has turned Roman historian, sketching in every figure of any importance in this fight for plunder, following all the moves and countermoves with smiling pagan ve- racity. Witness the protestations of the two ward leaders who had sold out to the enemy everything but their own seats in the City Council: "Look at meself! I only won b" 300 votes," archly declared Mr. Kerrigan. "Bv God, I almost lost me own ward!" Mr. Tiernan was equally emphatic. "The police was no good to me," he declared firmly. "They let the other fel- lows beat up me men. I only polled 6,000 . . ." and the ferocious ultimatum of Cowper-
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bUH T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2554 wood in parley with bis enemies who have thought to take him unprepared on the eve of a financial crisis: "If you open the day by calling my loans, I'll gut every bank from here to the river." A whole epoch of American history could be reconstructed from these two incidents alone; its end, too, foretold from the night when a formidable army with banners camped round about the City Hall while boodling aldermen in- side, heckled by a galleryful of resolute constituents, reluctantly voted down the fifty-year renewal of Cowperwood's fran- chises. For it is not the superior strength of his antagonists or any weak- ening of his own powers that finally determines this battle of giants, but a change of popular temper so profound as to mark the dawning of a new social era. So much for the application of evo- lutionary principles by our social his- torian. In this volume, however, the empha- sis is no longer meant to be upon Cow- perwood's business operations, but upon his self-realization — rapacity is a plain- er word — in quite another line. " 'I sat- isfy myself,' was his private law," and the consistent individualist must be ex- pected to satisfy himself with many wo- men. These appear in due succession, this one requiring several chapters, that one accounted for in as many para- graphs, a half dozen others listed and disposed of in a line apiece — maids and matrons of outward respectability, all too willing to be properly classed as victims. Mr. Dreiser, who seldom un- derstands when the way to complete- ness is through elimination, has felt obliged to include them all in order to illustrate authentically the promis- cuity of the man who "had little faith in women aside from their value as ob- jects of art," and at the same time can afford to cultivate a very fine taste. It is a pity, since many readers are sure to judge the book entirely by their own disposition towards episodes of this character, whereas what Mr. Dreiser of- fers to our contemplation is in no sense a rake's progress, but the detailed pro- cess of the ripening of appetite into taste. After all, the whole story lies be- tween two women — the wife who had been the exuberant mistress of his youth and the fastidious girl whose exquisite- ness enchants the experienced connois- seur. Aileen, who in her day has satis- fied completely his capacity for sensual passion, is outgrown as she ages. To her the desertion is fatal. Her splendid animal vigor, her emotional vehemence and lavishness — all that had made her acceptable and loyal — now conspire to her undoing and contribute to her degradation. Berenice understands him: "His vife had not kept pace with him, or, rather, had not eluded him in his on- ward flight — had not run swiftly before, like a winged victory. Berenice reflect- ed that if she were dealing with such a man, lines of care and disappointment should never mar her face." Hers is a nature fit to cope with his, a faculty of calculation to match his own. Caught in the net of her own sordid necessities, she can maintain her prestige, and make her compromise with fate a little disdainfully, with her eyes wide open. She comes to him in the hour of his defeat, instinctively choosing the occa- sion that will enhance her value, when her yielding will be condescension, not capture. So in this direction, too, we finally come to the limits of individual- ism, and here we leave him, taken at last in the toils of "a personality which he cannot gainsay." Mr. Dreiser is no longer, as in "The Financier," an altogether scientific ana- lyst rejoicing in the striking exemplifi- cation of a natural law in an unusually fine specimen. He has become more the interpretive philosopher. And his conception of a nature emancipated from fear of consequences by its own exceptional capacities, and maintaining itself at the expense of others, in defi- ance of the social order, a triumphant though lonely outlaw, would have excit- ed a lesser moralist to indignation and an anxious haste to see justice done. What a Man Wants. By Charles Mar- riott. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co. Will some one please tell us why it is necessary to change the titles of Eng- lish novels for American consumption? Mr. Marriott seems to have called this story "Subsoil." "What a Man Wants" is undoubtedly more catchy, but it hap- pens to mean very little in connection with the narrative, which has to do rather with what a man ought to want — namely, to get beneath the surface of life and art, to the bottom of things. The last sentence in the story is only one of a hundred insisting upon this duty: "There's always new subsoil being turned up, and we can at least help to keep it sweet and wholesome." Mr. Marriott again has something to say. When we find ourself confronted by a painter-hero, we sigh perhaps. The famous temperament again? The hand- some and frowsy and irresponsible waster of paint and women? The fear is groundless; that person does appear in the story, but is merely, in a mild way, the villain, with barely a speaking part. Our painter is of sturdier sort, with a natural liking for decency, and a consequent contempt for long hair, velveteen, and the code apart. His love of order and gentle living have ranged him at the outset with "the best people," and we find him in the parlous state of fashionable portrait-painter, engaged to marry a girl of society. Follow tllB awakening to the hollowness and con- ventionality of his work, his new birth of will and purpose, his loss of prosper- ity, and finally, of his betrothed. Mean- while, another woman has crept into his life, a woman in full sympathy with his new work, and, as it seems, born to be his mate. The irony of the thing is — and it comes as a shock to the reader — that the frowsy nincompoop with the temperament has lounged his way into the hearts of both the women Hugh Sutherland might have married. It is only an irony, not a tragedy; for Suth- erland, as hapless Loveday sees, needs all himself for his work: "There are some men that no woman ought to have," and this man's escape from her half reconciles her to her own profitless folly. A real woman — more real, per- haps, than Sutherland is as a man. "Unto Cwsar." By Baroness Orczy. New York: George H. Doran Co. This is an unsuccessful example of the historico-romantic novel. The scene is Rome in the reign of Caligula. The author is lavish with local color, yet so ill-informed that she supposes "a few legions" would amount to less than a thousand men, and that a Roman war- ship could be carried across Gaul by "sixteen stalwart barbarians." The hero and heroine are, of course, impossible beings. Taurus Antenor, prefect of Rome, is in love with the Emperor's beautiful cousin, Dea Flavia. He is led by Christianity to such a pitch of Quixotism that on various occasions he exposes himself to almost certain death to save his worst enemies, and finally refuses the empire and the love of his mistress out of respect for the com- mand, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's." The style is floridly rhetorical, rejoicing in such words as "bousculading" and "plit." Life Is a Dream. By Richard Curie. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co. To read four or five of the nine short stories in this volume is to be impress- ed with the writer's obvious disqualifica- tions for the form as Americans know it; and, at the same time, with the truth and naturalness of his little slices of life. Constructively, his tales want imag- ination, plot, surprise; there is scarce a situation in the lot of real dramatic quality. All, however, have merit of style and unity of theme, and shadow forth a character of convincing vivid- ness. One is the story of Old Hoskyns, who cherishes for years a dream of Par travels, and when finally he musters all courage to ask for a furlough from the office, is pathetically convinced thai li»> is a doddering old fool with an empty whim in hie head; another of little George, who, condemned to appear at a garden party in ;i blue valval suit, tears it up and runs away, to be carried Bleep
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June II, 1914J The Nation t>99 ily home at dead of night by scared and penitent parents; another of Reeves, who resided tor fifteen years on a tropi- cal island, took the steamer for England in high jubilation at the thought of a Christmas at home, and was so over- come by loneliness and sense of exile on seeing the familiar lights of South- ampton that he resolved to take the next packet back; another of a book- collector who falls in love with a young woman interested in the sale of books at auction, invites her to appraise his library in order to continue his court- ship, and presses it successfully over his first editions. In all these there might be much emotional stress, if there were profound analysis; but the narrative is sober and of objective, unvarnished qual- ity. THE BISHOP OF HIPPO. Saint Augustin. By Louis Bertrand. Translated by Vincent O'Sullivan. New York: D. Appleton & Co. $3 net. M. Bertrand's life of St. Augustine at- tracted so much attention when it ap- peared in the Revue des Deux Mondes, in the course of the year 1913, that a translation of it into English was as much expected as it was desired. Mr. O'Sullivan's version is close and accu- rate, fitting the original like a glove. It is readable, too, and for the most part fairly idiomatic; but somehow the flavor of the French seems rather to have evaporated in the transition, as is so often the case. Occasionally he errs from over-familiarity, as when he re- produces M. Bertrand's description of the epoch, "feconde en aventuriers de grande envergure," as "prolific of dar- ing and high-flying adventurers"; less seldom he is caught by the snare of etymological sound, as when he turns "ames dedicates" into "delicate souls." But the absorbing interest and some of the charm of the original narrative remain intact. The life of the great champion of Christianity against a re- luctantly dying civilization, the creator of autobiography and of the poignant romantic style which literature has never since forgotten, the ardent soul who made his emotions the deepest spir- itual nurture of many generations of men — such a life could not be dull un- der any hand, and, in fact, we already possessed a good popular biography from Mr. Joseph McCabe, written with- out the anti-Catholic bias which might have been expected from that bitter pen. But Mr. McCabe's work has nothing like the art and the human insight which distinguish M. Bertrand's almost pas- sionate pages. From the first para- graph, bringing before us Thagaste, the birthplace of Augustine, with its "little streets, quite white, which climb up to clay-formed hills deeply furrowed by | the heavy winter rains," we are in the I guidance ot an author who knows every ioot 01 the Atrican and Italian soil once trodden by the Saint, and who has made the people of antiquity live again in his imagination. And to the very last par- agraph we feel that our modern inter- preter writes in the spirit of Augustine's first biographer, with whose words the book closes: "Pray for me and with me, that I may try here below to follow in the steps of this peerless man, whom, by God's goodness, I have had the hap- piness of living with for such a long time." It would not be honest to say that M. Bertrand never stretches his documentary rights. Conjecture some- times takes the place of knowledge, with- out giving the reader fair intimation of the line where one ends and the other begins; as, for instance, in the attempt to revivify Augustine's father, Patri- cius, who might well enough have been left in the obscurity really surrounding him. These are the faults of enthusi- asm, and will trouble only the very crit- ical reader. The one serious objection to them is that they throw a little too much of the modern atmosphere of sen- timentality about the manners of the age. Perhaps the most interesting chapter is that which gives an account of Au- gustine's life at Cassicium, not far from Milan, whither he went after his con- version to rest in the country house of a friend. Some of the talks of the mas- ter with his mother and pupils were taken down at the time in shorthand, and these, with the "Soliloquies," ena- ble the biographer to reproduce the friendly ways of the little group with charming precision. There are not many things in history more beautiful than this interlude in Augustine's days be- tween the anxious inner conflict of his conversion and the hard fighting that came upon him as bulwark of the church. "Let us remark in passing," says M. Bertrand, with some justifiable exaggeration, it may be, "that this is the last time, before those centuries which are coming of universal intellec- tual silence or arid scholasticism — the last time that high questions will be dis- cussed in this graceful light way, and with the same freedom of mind. The tradition begun by Socrates under the plane-trees on the banks of the Ilissus is ending with Augustine under the chestnuts of Cassicium." M. Bertrand has succeeded notably in what was evidently his main design, the endeavor to reconstruct a sympathetic image of a man, of like mind with our- selves, living in an age which, in its conflict of religious ideals, shows cer- tain striking resemblances to our own. Of Augustine's philosophical opinions and dogmatic contentions he has little to say, and that little not always well- grounded. The reader who is looking primarily for such discussions may be warned away; and, indeed, M. Bertrand, witnout lessening the human character of his work, might well have been some- what more precise and incisive in re- gard to the Bishop's battles against Pelagianism and Donatism and the oth- er fierce heresies of the day, which, af- ter all, under their cortex of hard words, touch very deep issues of mortal con- duct. Even more misleading, perhaps, is the over-emphasis placed on the Pla- tonic side of Augustine and the slurring over the Manichaean influence which was perpetuated through his theology. "He was this [a Platonist] by nature," observes M. Bertrand. "His Christian- ity will be a religion all of light and beauty." Such a statement, in the opin- ion of this reviewer, by its one-sidedness profoundly misrepresents the real office of Augustine in the evolution of human thought and emotion. There was shad- ow that went along with the light. The great opportunity of M. Bertrand was to show how the dualism of Plato, in pass- ing through the hands of the Bishop of Hippo, took on a deep tinge of the dual- ism of Mani. Here subtle distinctions are needed, and these the author of this otherwise excellent book has failed to make. GEORGE HAVEN PUTNAM. Memories of My Youth, 1844-1865. By George Haven Putnam. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. $2 net. Mr. Putnam's skilful pen has return- ed to the days of his youth, a part of which it had already covered. In this attractive volume he tells of his boy- hood, of the migration to this country of the Putnam family, which has meant so much to the American publishing world, and of his early schooling. Resi- dents of old New York will find a great deal here to refresh their memories of the city of the middle of the nineteenth century, with which so few New York- ers of to-day have any connection or acquaintance. Mr. Putnam's education was affected by his lack of normal eye- sight, which led to the abandonment of his plan to enter Columbia and to his studying abroad when American stu- dents in Europe were by no means so numerous or so welcome as to-day. His experiences in France and in Germany, at the outbreak of the Civil War, are set forth at length and with much charm, interspersed with a running history of the progress of the war and of our rela- tions with the great nations of Europe during this period. By 1862 Mr. Put- nam could stand it abroad no longer, and he returned to enlist in the 176th New York Volunteers. A part of his military service Mr. Putnam has written down in his earlier book, "A Prisoner of War in Virginia." but the present volume gives in greater detail the story of a regiment which
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7GO The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2554 met disaster early in the history of its service in the Southwest, then fought as a battalion in Louisiana and Arkansas, and later lost many of its men, captur- ed at the Battle of Cedar Creek, among whom was its boy adjutant, Major Put- nam. All of his experiences he now re- lates in an absorbing narrative of last- ing value. It ought to be the duty of all survivors of this great struggle who can write well to recount, ere it is too late, their experience in this epoch-making struggle. The great history of our Civil War is still to be written. So, too, is a real interpretation on a large canvas of the true spirit which actuated the volunteers of 1861 on both sides. When a masterly, moving picture of the under- lying currents of that time comes to be written, such narratives as Major Put- nam's will constitute most trustworthy groundwork. Of particular interest is his tribute to the work of the adjutants of regiments, brigade divisions, and corps who so often did the work of oth- ers having the rank and authority. A later volume dealing with his experi- ences as a publisher is promised by the author. SPECIAL PLEADING. The Americans in the Philippines: A History of the Conquest and First Years of the Occupation, with an In- troductory Account of the Spanish Rule. By James A. LeRoy. With an Introduction by William Howard Taft. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. $10 net. Mr. LeRoy when a young man went to the Philippines as secretary to one of the members of the Taft Philippine Com- mission during its first visit in the Isl- ands. He remained there two years and, having fallen a victim to tuber- culosis, received a place in the consular service, but died in 1909. During the six years or so of his incumbency of the office of Consul, he wrote many con- troversial articles in defence of the pol- icy of Mr. Taft and of the existing scheme of American government in the Philippines. Like former Commission- er Dean C. Worcester, he early deter- mined to publish a "monumental" work on the subject. At his death he left, in addition to his published articles, a mass of incomplete manuscripts. This material, or a considerable portion of it, is now published with an introductory tribute by Mr. Taft and a biography by Harry Coleman, an early friend and as- sociate. Mr. Taft, who ought to know, says that Mr. LeRoy was "not free from some prejudices," and Mr. Coleman says that in his writings on Philippine ques- tions he allowed "no argument in favor of Philippine independence to go un- challenged." These statements are ob- viously very moderate, and place Mr. LeRoy's two heavy volumes in their correct position. They are to be put in the same category as the volumes of former Commissioner Dean C. Worces- ter. Both are animated by a single spirit — the disposition to discredit the native inhabitants and to demonstrate the inability of the Filipinos to govern themselves. Although the first three chapters — 147 pages — are devoted to the Spanish occupation, only one of these (about 40 pages) gives an account of events prior to 1890, the remaining two being occupied with developments shortly pre- ceding the coming of the Americans. They are patently intended to make out the worst possible case against the Spanish method of ruling the archi- pelago. Having drawn a conventionally dark picture of a state of misrule so extreme as to arouse the natives to al- most united opposition, the author turns to the conditions under which Dewey appeared in Manila Bay. Here there is a rather careful examination of documentary evidence with respect to the actual position of the American leaders and their relationship to Agui- naldo and his followers. It is interesting to compare the con- clusions arrived at with those reached by Mr. Worcester. Doubtless the opin- ion will be formed that Mr. LeRoy eith- er had not access to some of the "ma- terial" quoted by Worcester, or else that he regarded it as of no importance or as being untrustworthy. Mr. LeRoy at all events admits the cooperation of the natives with the United States forces for the purpose of obtaining indepen- dence, and concedes that this purpose was thoroughly well understood by all, although he is careful to state that the "alliance" said to have existed between the two is a "fiction" (Vol. I, page 191). A recital of the familiar incidents in the taking of Manila is then followed by a description of the government or- ganized at Malolos under Aguinaldo. This description is filled with bitter criticism of the methods and machinery employed by the natives and with con- temptuous characterization of their chief representatives. An excursion taken by the author into non-Philippine fields is found in a chapter on the Treaty of Paris, which is somewhat dis- appointing, as it adds nothing to ma- terial already available in fairly good form, and merely restates the conven- tional view of those who regard the treaty as the outcome of necessity, di- vine compulsion, manifest destiny, or some unknown influence of the sort. Mr. LeRoy turns to a recital of the minor engagements, skirmishes, guer- rilla warfare, and general destruction of property which constituted the sta- ple of events during the two years af- ter 1898. The chief interest of this somewhat tedious recapitulation Is the author's attitude towards certain controversial points in our military method in the Philippines. Because Mr. Taft has said that "nowhere can a clear- er and more judicial statement be found than in these chapters," the position of the writer has something of an official character. Mr. LeRoy admits the use of torture and of cruel and barbarous methods, although he defends such prac- tices on the ground that they were "in- evitable by way of retaliation for Fili- pino barbarities." He concedes the use of deceit both at Washington and in Manila in regard to the events of the war, as well as the resort to double- dealing in connection with a news cen- sorship established by the military com- manders; and the burning of villages and devastation of fields. Later on, Mr. LeRoy adopts a more critical atti- tude towards the military. When the Taft Philippine Commission arrives, he, like Mr. Worcester, is quite ready to attack the existing regime and to charge the generals in command, by direct implication at least, with ar- rogance, autocratic tendencies, and in- disposition to restore civil rule. The author has little to say of the actual effects of the war, except as they are inferable from his account of the meth- ods of warfare employed. If his story of these methods is correct, the Philip- pines must have been a devastated and disorganized territory when "pacifica- tion" had been accomplished. It is only fair to the author to say that he seems to struggle desperately in his own mind between regret that such practices could have been tolerated by Americans and satisfaction that Aguinaldo and his followers and rivals were so thorough- ly broken. How any human being can grant what Mr. LeRoy has to, and does, grant, yet adhere to the view that American occupation of the Philippines has been a wonderful benefit to that dis- tressed land, must remain a mystery in human psychology. The effort to give a "scientific" cast to these volumes is fruitless because of the manifest bias of the treatment, even where the language is moderate, and because of the evident intent to sup- ply "material" for use against those who have urged a more humane and liberal policy. When the reader lays down either this work or that of Mr. Worces- ter he can hardly help being overcome by the feeling that the real state of the case has exceeded his worst fears, and that if these be the true accounts of those who were responsible for or con- nected with the management of Phil- ippine affairs during the crucial period, the situation must have been bad in- deed. Mr. Taft's introductory words are simple, frank, and to the point, but he has certainly taken a bold step in setting the seal of his approval upon this story of the "Americans in the Philippines."
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June ii, 1914J The ]STation 701 Notes "A History of Connecticut: Its People and Institutions," by George L. Clark, is announced for publication by G. P. Put- nam's Sons. Longmans, Green & Co. announce the forthcoming publication of: "The Eco- nomic Organization of England," by W. J. Ashley; "Lourdes," by Johannes Jorgensen, translated by Ingeborg Lund; "German Municipal Life and Govern- ment," by William Harbutt Dawson. The Century Company will publish shortly "Forces Mining and Undermining China," by Capt. Rowland R. Gibson. "The Great Secret," by Graham Wallas, will be published on June 17 by the Mac- millan Company. Frederick A. Stokes Company an- nounces that the publication of "My Autobiography," by S. S. McClure, has been postponed till early in the autumn. Among the books announced for im- mediate publication by the Harvard Uni- versity Press are the succeeding vol- umes of Wambaugh's "Constitutional Law"; "The Secondary Teacher in Ger- many," by William Setchel Learned; "Preservatives for Food: Their Use and Abuse," by Otto Folin; "Scientific Man- agement," by Clarence Bertrand Thomp- son. A PROPOSAL has been made to put up a memorial brass to Sir Henry Vane the Younger in the church of Belleau, Lincolnshire, England. In the circular that we have received concern- ing the proposal it is noted as "somewhat remarkable that while a noble statue has been erected to Vane in Boston, there is no memorial to him in England except a tablet on the wall of his house in Hampstead." The wording of the pro- posed inscription will be: "To the mem- ory of Sir Henry Vane the Younger, Lord of the Manor of Beileau, Defender of Civil and Religious Liberty, 'Than whom a bet- ter Senator ne'er held The helm of Rome', Governor of Massachusetts, 'A man of noble and generous mind': Born 1613 — Beheaded 1662." Contributions towards the expense of the memorial, which it is expected will not exceed $96, may be sent to the Rev. James Foster, Tathwell Vicarage, near Louth, Lincolnshire, Eng- land, or to the Rev. John Willcock, Ler- wick, Shetland, Scotland. A REPRINT of "French Novelists of To-day," by Winifred Stevens (Lane; $1.50 net), first published six years ago, contains no fresh material except a new preface and the necessary additions to the bibliographies which precede each of the studies. Of the eight novelists treat- ed, two, Edouard Rod and "Pierre" de Coulevain, have died since the appearance of the first edition. Since then, also, many of the novels of Madame de Coule- vain, Anatole France, and Pierre Loti have been given to English readers. "Though the contemporary French novel is experiencing many changes," says the new preface, "its three kings of six years ago — Anatole France, Maurice Barres, Pierre Loti — remain enthroned to-day." Each of them has added something distinctive to his work. M. France ha.s entered the field of history. His "Vie de Jeanne d'Arc" has been accepted as "a monument of historical knowledge"; and in his novel "Les Dieux ont Soif" he has told a story of the Revolution from an unusual point of view. M. Loti, at the end of his outlandish journeying, has discovered England. M. Barres has been steadily advancing from the cham- pionship of agnosticism towards a cham- pionship of Rome. These facts are noted in the preface, but the essays proper, be- ing left as they were, are already a trifle antiquated. In themselves they are painstaking and serious rather than il- luminating. Their republication is no doubt connected with the fact that the author has in hand a second series of studies under the same title. A PENCHANT for the great ones of the earth and a tremendous earn- estness in the pursuit of his hobby ap- pear to have combined to induce Mr. Thornton Hall to write "Romances of the Peerage" (Brentano's; $3.75 net). The subject might have been made of considerable interest, for there is no lack of romantic episodes in the history of many whose names are enshrined in the pages of Debrett. Mr. Hall's narrative, however, is a prosaic document. The romances that he selects are for the most part fairly well known and many of them have been much better told before. Some of the episodes, one would have imagined, must have tempted even the most decorous writer to a touch of raciness, but the present author is before all things sol- emn, and at the end of any particularly inglorious record can safely be relied upon to point the obvious moral, if not to adorn the tale. THE "Penn's Country" of E. S. Roscoe, as issued by Longmans in a re- vised and enlarged edition (90 cents net), is still a small book, nor is it yet a very important book; but it contains a pleasant account of the literary associa- tions of South Buckinghamshire, from the northern edge of the Chiltern Hills to the River Colne. There is no particu- lar reason why it should be called the country of Penn any more than of Dis- raeli or Burke or Milton or Gray or some other of the worthies who were born here or made this part of the country their home; but that, again, is a matter of no importance. The chapters can be recommended to any one who enjoys nat- ural description and literary and political anecdotes tastefully combined. IT would be hard to understand the pur- pose of Mr. Carl Crow's "America and the Philippines" (Doubleday; $2 net), with its curious hodge-podge of fulsome praise for American policies in the Isl- ands, its defence of wrongs and cruelties practiced by our representatives, and its apparently unintentional admission of the existence of conditions whose very be- ing suggests the failure of our colonial experiment in any large sense of the term, were it not for the closing chapter of the book, which is entitled Philippine Independence. Here is developed a bit- ter attack on the proposal to give the native home rule or independence, on the ground that many "tribes" exist, that there is "no Filipino nation," that the native inhabitants have no ability and nave never produced statesmen (while excluded from a place in the govern- ment), artists or scientific men in large numbers (while excluded from opportuni- ties for training), capitalists (while robbed by taxation and discriminating tariffs), or churchmen (while excluded from the religious orders). For these con- clusive and satisfying reasons, "it would be tragic for the Filipino people, and hu- miliating for America, to stop before success is certain" — notwithstanding that two hundred or more pages of brilliant success have just been detailed by the writer. Mr. Crow seems to have written his work while complacently listening to the placeholders and exploiters in the Philippines during a brief trip to Manila, It is unfortunate that he did not do the job more artistically and with greater at- tention to detail. There are already too many books of this sort on the market, and too few that give American readers the slightest real notion of existing con- ditions in the Philippines, or of the act- ual work accomplished or neglected there. Incidentally, Mr. Crow ought to have learned to spell Philippine names after some one of the several more or less recognized methods now in use. PAGET TOYNBEE'S "Dictionary of Proper Names and Notable Matters in the Works of Dante" (reviewed in the Nation for January 12, 1899), which has been out of print for some years, is now republished under the title "Concise Dante Dictionary" (Oxford University Press; 7s. 6d. net). The reduction in length indicated in the new name has been ef- fected chiefly by the omission of contro- versial matter. The old articles have been revised and brought up to date, and a number of new ones have been added. The thoroughness and trustworthiness of the earlier form of the work are well known; the new and more convenient form will be very welcome to students of Dante. THE various diplomatic steps by which Russia, during the last three years, has moved towards the establishment of its paramount influence in Mongolia, as Chinese influence has receded, are re- corded with great detail in Perry-Ays- cough and Otter-Barry's "With the Rus- sians in Mongolia" (Lane, $4.50). That, however, is material which is probably available in a goodly number of publi- cations. Particular interest attaches to the diaries of a trip across Inner and Outer Mongolia by the two authors, set down with no attempt whatever at lit- erature or sensation. Capt. Otter-P.arry made the trip on horseback from Kalgan to Urga. Mr. Perry-Ayscough set out from Urga, and by wagon and boat trav- elled westward into Turkestan. Between the two, they have gathered a large mass of precise information for the geographer and the international trader. ONE of the many literary reviews of Young France, and specifically "a review of grace, letters, and art," Is La Flora. It publishes verses of a new poet, Josel Le Marchant. They are unusually original In their "modernism," which is as ancient in recorded verse as Pindar
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702 Th.e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2554 and the Greek chorus. They would par- ticularly shock that ex-magistrate, Raoul de La Grasserie, who wrote a treatise to prove that the Verb is "the generator of the parts of speech." The following translations are literal and keep to line divisions and punctuation; and they aim at reproducing the jingle, but without much hope of catching up the lightsome phrase: I. — Two blond sisters — one and the other blond of face. — Springtime — the moon, the World's grace. — From two yellow roses to two girls blond of face — The moon — Autumn, the World's grace. — The grace a-tremhling of two roses blond of face, and smiling — together — — the World's grace. II. — The moon up above — — Girls are coming home, telling their trouble — — The moon up above : — Their trouble or their joy — — You know not well which — — Know you ever anything? 'Tis what tbey believe it. — The moon up above — — The brier and the rose — — 'Tis one and the same : — The moon up above looks down the road : — But you do not hear their voice and their steps, — and at evening you doubt. — The moon up above — — All things are vain — Girls are coming home — — The moon up above. Andre Beaunier, though an old-fashioned critic and a scholar and philosopher, ob- serves: "You ought not to say — I don't understand! For a moment's pleasure, profit by the pretty, well-ordered words which do not mean one thing more than another, and only invite you to dream at your own will. Perhaps a discreet invi- tation to dream ;s not all of poetry — and yet there is poetry here." THE philosophy of "The Ego and its Place in the World" (Macmillan; $3.75 net), by Prof. Charles G. Shaw, of New York University, is a romantic idealism after the fashion of Rudolf Eucken, but differs from the philosophy of Eucken in being more of a romantic individualism. The adventures of Mr. Shaw's ego recall those of Pichte's. Neither compels us to realize vividly that "the ego" means you and me. Mr. Shaw's philosophical drama begins in the world of appearance, from which the ego's first task is to escape, and in which it is then to find a place for itself. The second act is laid in the world of activity, where the ego asserts itself as immanent causality over against the apparently transient causality of the world. Here we see the meaning of Euckenian and Shavian "activism." But the independence of the ego is not made secure until, in the third act, in the world of reality, it reaches the full di- mensions of selfhood, and, in gentleman- ly Hegelian fashion, becomes reconciled to the world in discovering that the world is also a self. Mr. Shaw's philosophy is not destitute of ideas, but, as becomes a romantic philosophy, the ideas :i i the style and the reasoning are loose and superficial, while the attempt to be striking and original often leads him astray. It is purely gratuitous, for ex- ample, to derive from Spinoza's statement, that the order and connection of things are the same as the order and connection of ideas, an admission that the ideas are the patterns for the things. Three times, at least, Mr. Shaw uses valeur in the sense of "valuer," misled, evidently, by the analogy of amateur, and after this we know that he is innocent in constru- ing in vino Veritas to mean that "in the wine of genuine enjoyment the essence of truth can be perceived." N the Left of a Throne" (Lane; $3 net) is a study by Mrs. Evan "O Nepean of the personality — the good looks, religion, and amours — of that un- fortunate son of Charles II and Lucy Walters who is known to history as the Duke of Monmouth. He fought at Sedge- moor, and was executed for it. Mrs. Nepean's style is not quite like that of the ordinary historian. "The spirit of fair play has been roused by Monmouth's story! Let him, in colloquial phrase, at least, 'have a run for his money' " (p. 6). Enraptured by her hero's "comely young figure," "just under six feet, the perfect male height," by the "swift flash of his brilliant smile," by his warm coloring, his hazel eyes, and his other charms, and stirred romantically by the tragedy of his birth and death, Mrs. Nepean fills many feminine pages with gushing senti- ment and exclamatory sentences. The value of her book lies chiefly in the ex- cellent reproduction of twenty-eight por- traits, five of which have never before been published; these she has searched out with pains and interpreted with sym- pathy. There are also some other il- lustrations. WALTER THEODORE WATTS-DUN- TON, who died suddenly in London on June 7, was born at St. Ives, Hunting- donshire, on October 12, 1832. His family name was Watts, but in 1897 he added to it his mother's name of Dunton. He was educated at Cambridge as a natural- ist, but he soon abandoned natural his- tory for law, and practiced as a solicitor in London for a number of years be- fore devoting himself to literature. In 1874 he became a critic on the Examiner, and from 1875 until 1898 he was the lead- ing critic on the Athenaeum. He con- tributed to the Encyclopaedia Britannica the treatise on poetry and the first prin- ciples of poetic art, as well as articles on the sonnet and rondeau and the mon- ograph on Rossetti. He also wrote mono- graphs in the same encyclopaedia on Vanbrugh, Wycherley, Matthew Arnold, and George Borrow, and was a contribu- tor of literary essays to various maga- zines and reviews. "The Coming of Love," a collection of poems, appeared in 1897, and his poetic romance, "Aylwin," was published in the following year. Mr. Watts-Dunton had also edited various works, including Borrow's "Lavengro," "Romany Rye," and "Wild Wales." THE Right Hon. Sir William Reynell Anson, Unionist member of the House of Commons for Oxford University since 1899, died in London on June 4. He was born in W albert on on November 14, 1843, the son of the second baronet and Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Denis Pack. He was educated at Eton and at Balliol College, Oxford. He succeeded to the title in 1873. Sir William was elected a fellow of All Souls', Oxford, in 1867, and two years later was called to the bar. In 1900 be became a Bencher of the Inner Temple. He was Vinerian reader in English law from 1874-81, and in 1880 he contested West Staffordshire. He was vice-chancellor of the University of Ox- ford, 1898-99; parliamentary secretary to the Board of Education, 1902-5, and trustee of the British Museum, 1911. He was considered one of the foremost au- thorities on English law. Among the books which he had written on this sub- ject were: "Principles of the English Law of Contract" and "Law and Custom of the Constitution." He also edited the "Memoirs of the Third Duke of Grafton, K. G." He had been a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery since 1904, was the warden of All Souls' College from 1SS1 until the time of his death, and from 1899 to 1912 was chancellor of the diocese of Oxford. NOTES FROM ABROAD. SOME of the London papers just now appear to think that details of their own circulation are of almost as much interest to their readers as the Ulster crisis. The game was started by the Times in a triumphant outburst at the sudden jump in its numbers from 53,000 to 170,000 copies a day when its price was reduced to two cents. The Daily Telegraph immediately replied with ac- countants' certificates showing a still greater circulation. The Times rejoined by pointing out that its own figures were those of net sales, and added that "those of our readers upon whom free copies of the Daily Telegraph are being generously showered by post daily will more clearly understand the manner in which the Daily Telegraph evades the important point as to net sales vs. circulation." The dispute becomes the more piquant when one remembers how, less than six months ago, Lord Northcliffe took the lead in a congratulatory presentation to Lord Burnham. HAPPY days are still in store for col- lectors of armor, antiquated, if not antique. On June 12 the French War Ministry sells at auction 4,300 cuirasses. They are of the Bourbon Restoration model, and they have been worn succes- sively by the cuirassiers of the Royal Guard of Charles X and the Imperial Guard of Napoleon III. They saw sei vice last in the war of 1870, at the lit- tles of Relchehoffen and Mars-la-Tour. Their polished waists, encircling chosen cavalrymen, riding in numerous ranks, still make an impression when the Presi- dent of the republic goes out to welcome solemnly foreign kings ami Queens; but they no longer offer sufficient resistance to the balls of modern rifles, though they are still valid against a revolver or sabre out.sicie of France. European armies have abandoned their use, except Cor parade, The War Office has also .sold two supei animated bronze cannons at Kontnlne- bleau for about Ave dollars each They
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June ii, 1914] The Nation 703 were at once bought up for more than seventy times that price for the sake of the material; and it seems the mere dis- integrating of them and transportation will cost as much more. Cannon of ar- tistic or historic interest have been usual- ly placed of late years on the Esplanade des Invalides, at Paris. Tourists too often pass them by without notice, as they do the rich Museum of Armor and Artillery inside the Invalides. MOST American students at the Paris National Library make the ac- quaintance of M. Schalck de la Faverie, one of the officials, who not only speaks English with ease, but has made persons and things American his special study. A few years ago he published a thought- ful historical and literary essay on "The Evolution of Puritanism in the United States," and more recently one on the part played by the Vikings in the pre- Columbian voyages, wherein he declares that "the glory of having discovered America in the tenth century belongs un- questionably to the Normans." M. Schalck is now engaged on another American vol- ume, which will have the rather odd title, "Napoleon et 1'Amerique." His intention Is to bring out the reciprocal influ- ences exerted by Prance and the United States from the moment of the out- break of the French Revolution down to the fall of the First Empire, "influences which were often latent," the author re- marks, "but which, I think, are of great importance, and which, whether direct or indirect, have as their starting point the rivalry between France and England." So in order to trace these influences from their source down, M. Schalck goes back to the seventeenth century, when the co- lonial power of France began to decline in the New World. "The subject is a vast one," continues the author modestly, "and I sometimes ask myself the question whether I am equal to the task of treat- ing it as it deserves to be treated. I can- not say how this is, but I will do my best, and if I fail my excuse will be that I am opening a new route, unless I ar- rive too late; for there does not exist in France, unless I am greatly mistaken, a book of this kind." IN SPITE of a burning love of national independence, the race divisions of Continental Europe have not been with- out their influence in Swiss politics. This lends timeliness to the declaration made by the editor of the new French-Swiss review, Les Cahiers Vaudois: "We must resign ourselves to it — we arc not a na- tion as others are. There are things which — nationally — we shall never have. We are 'constituted' into a nation, we are not so 'by nature.' We have an organ- ization, we are not an organism. We are not 'necessarily'; we are by virtue of a contract. Everything with us is in a civic agreement. A nation is not neces- sarily a state. A nation is a being; a state is a form. To be a Frenchman or Italian or German is to be oneself; to be a Swiss is to be a citizen. And to be a Swiss citizen does not prevent one re- maining oneself in race, which is not Swiss — there is no Swiss race. I am a Swiss only by a certain fashion of being French ; just as a man of Zurich is Swiss only by a certain fashion of being Ger- man and a man of Ticino by a certain fashion of being Italian. French is my language — I have, I can have but one, I love but one, I live by one, the language of my place. It is the language of in- stinct for me, my substance, that by which I assert that I am from a particu- lar country, which is mine, and that I am a person, myself. We French Swiss shall never have creative Swiss strength if we have not French creative force." This significant manifesto may be com- pared usefully with the situation of many and diverse nationalities in the United States, all by way of melting into one well-defined nation. Is language, then, the secret of the melting pot? Switzer- land, with three languages strongly lo- calized, has succeeded in living as one nation for many centuries by "civic agreement." Science AN ANCIENT PHARMACOPCEIA. Syriac Medicine: Syriac Anatomy, Pa- thology, and Therapeutics, or "The Book of Medicines." By E. A. Wallis Budge. New York: Oxford Univer- sity Press. $16.75. Mr. Budge, the indefatigable scholar and Keeper of the Egyptian and As- syrian Antiquities in the British Mu- seum, has done a valuable service for the history of medicine and the students of Oriental antiquities in publishing an elaborate Syriac manuscript which treats in an exhaustive manner the med- ical knowledge of the day as developed in ancient and mediaeval Syria. The text is edited from a manuscript copied at the direction of Mr. Budge at Al- kosh, about thirty miles from Mosul on the Tigris, by a certain Isa bar-Eshaya. The original manuscript consists of 289 leaves and is written in a fine Nestor- ian hand, with numerous vowel points. While the manuscript does not appear to be very old, it is a copy of a compila- tion that goes back, according to Mr. Budge's researches, to the second cen- tury before this era. The author, who does not give his name, was a native of Alexandria, and there is every reason to believe that, in addition to the indi- vidual who wrote the major portion of the work, there are other compilers rep- resented in the vast collection of rec- ipes and in the discussions of human anatomy and of symptoms of diseases. Medicine in the East in the second or third centuries before Christ was entire- ly dependent upon the investigations of the great Greek physicians of the fifth and fourth centuries b. c, notably Hip- pocrates and Galen, with whom, indeed, scientific medicine may be said to have begun. Before the Greeks took hold of the subject, medicine was still entangled with magic and divination practices. The ancient Egyptian medicine appears, indeed, at one time to have cut loose from such leading-strings, but later suc- cumbed to the overpowering influence of divination methods which developed in Babylonia and spread throughout the ancient world. The interesting feature of the text published by Mr. Budge is, on the one hand, its dependence upon Greek medicine, and, on the other, the numerous survivals it contains of the earlier magical aspects of medical treat- ment, which may be traced directly back to the medicine of the Babylonians and Assyrians. As already suggested, the text bears distinct indications of being a compila- tion made from various sources, to which probably one copyist after the other added further material. Despite the complicated nature of the composi- tion, one can detect a certain system in the order of subjects. The beginning is made with diseases whose source is found in the head. This is followed by injuries to the respiratory organs, the eyes, tongue, and ears, after which there follow several chapters of a somewhat miscellaneous character. A definite or- der appears again in the sequence of diseases of the lungs, heart, stomach, liver, bowels, colon, and kidneys. The dependence upon the theory and prac- tice of the Greek physicians is not only apparent in every page, but it is direct- ly indicated by references to Galen, Hip- pocrates, Theodoros, Archigenes, and others. Two chapters are missing at the beginning, and there are a number of gaps towards the end of the text, but the survey just given shows the large scope of the work, which is evidently in- tended to cover all diseases incident to the human frame. The theoretical dis- cussion of each disease occupies only a small place in comparison with the rem- edies proposed, which are heaped up with the intention of providing for all contingencies. In this respect Greek medicine still shows its dependence upon that of Egypt, Babylonia, and As- syria, for the characteristic feature of the medical texts found on Egyptian papyri and on cuneiform tablets is the large number of prescriptions register- ed for every disease, and, in fact, for every symptom of a disease. Whatever experience had shown to be of value was noted, and so, in the course of time, there grew up an enormous amount of traditional medical lore to which con- stant additions were made. To take a single example, for difficulty of breath- ing (including asthma), over twenty different prescriptions are given, differ- ing so considerably from one another as to leave no doubt of their having been compiled from a variety of sources. But perhaps the most interesting fea- ture of the text published by Mr. Budge is the proof furnished that by the side of the more scientific Greek medicine, the older method of treating diseases.
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704 Tlie Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2554 on the assumption that the bodily trou- ble was due to the presence of a demon that had found its way into the body, continued to prevail in Syria, and no doubt throughout the ancient East. Af- ter exhausting the knowledge that our compilers derived from Greek sources, there is added a long chapter of what the author calls "The Book of Medicines of the Country." By this he means the old native prescriptions which survived the introduction of more scientific med- ical treatment. It is amazing to note the close parallel that these prescrip- tions form to what we find in the medi- cal texts of Babylonia and Assyria. The parallel is so close at times that one is tempted to suspect a direct translation into Syriac from the Babylonian orig- inal. At all events, the basic idea is identical with the purpose of the rem- edies found in Babylonian-Assyrian texts, which was to drive out the demon through ill-smelling concoctions or to coax him out through pleasant odors. The cure of the patient followed as a corollary, but the real aim towards which medical treatment was directed was against the demon supposed to be the cause of the disease. Accordingly, we find in these Syriac texts the same strange mixtures, such as pig's fat, the gall of an ox, urine of goats or of young boys, and even the excrement of man or beast, as well as alkali, myrrh, sesame, oil of roses, onions, etc. As an indication of the purely magi- cal character of such prescriptions, it will suffice to call attention to the di- rections for curing clouded vision. A young dove is to be taken, its eyes dug out, and it is to be left in the nest for three days. When the mother comes back and sees that its young is blind she will go and bring a certain root, to be laid upon the eyes. Then the head of the young bird is cut off and burnt, and with the ashes the eyes of the patient are to be smeared. A better specimen of the old Babylonian-Assyrian method of treating disease could hardly be found, and the further proof for the direct link uniting this native medicine of Syria with that which was developed in the Euphrates Valley is to be seen in such details as the frequent injunction to take the concoction in wine, which is almost invariably introduced as an in- gredient in the prescriptions of Baby- lonian-Assyrian physicians. To cap the argument for the curious mixture of old and new in Mr. Budge's text, the compilers have added fore- casts and astrological omens precisely after the manner of Babylonian divina- tion texts, in which all kinds of predic- tions are made from the direction of the wind, the movement of the clouds, the position of the planets, from shooting stars, eclipses of the sun and moon, and the like. Lists of lucky and unlucky days are added, and while the bearing upon disease is in most cases only inci- dental, yet the evident purpose of the compiler in adding these forecasts and omens was to furnish the physician with the ability to answer questions re- garding the outcome of bodily troubles which were put to him. In many cases direct statements regarding this out- come are added according to the phe- nomena observed in the heavens at the time of the disease, or according to the day of the month in which the symp- toms manifested themselves. All this again takes us back directly to the Babylonian-Assyrian methods, so that apart from its intrinsic value the text published by Mr. Budge has an unusual significance for the history of human culture. Mr. Budge himself, in an elaborate introduction, calls attention to this aspect of the manuscript, without, how- ever, by any means exhausting the ma- terial that it furnishes to students of the history of medicine. A valuable part of this material is to be found in the names of the hundreds of drugs, plants, roots, powders, etc., in the pre- scriptions. Many of these are of Greek origin, but a large number are native terms, and in not a few cases do we find these terms to be the same that we encounter in cuneiform texts. Indeed, with the help of the Syriac names we can interpret in a more satisfactory manner some of the expressions in many of the compilations of Babylonia. It would have added greatly to the value of the work if Mr. Budge had discussed some of the names for drugs and plants occurring in the texts, the meaning of which is not altogether clear. We have noted a number of cases in which Mr. Budge translates the same term in two different ways. A more careful study of the medical nomenclature is thus called for, and no doubt the appearance of this important text will stimulate students in this subject. There are also a num- ber of passages in the Syriac text which present difficulties that are not solved by the translation which the editor of- fers, but it would be ungrateful to carp at minor matters in view of the pro- found debt which scholars owe to Mr. Budge for this unique publication. Music and Drama Probably no more complete pictorial or written life history of any bird has ever been prepared than "Antarctic Penguins" (McBride, Nast; $1.75 net), by G. Murray Levick. The anthropomorphic appear- ance and ways of these most curious birds make such an account more than popular — it is sensational, and yet scien- tific as regards truth. The author feele lint little the tremendous dramatic possi- bilities of his subject, but his narrative is clear and pleasing, and the photographs are superb. Perhaps the most memorable shows a black line of toddling little forms, many miles in length, laboring with short steps over the vast field of ice en route to the distant rookery. OPERA IN PARIS. A COATLESS JOSEPH— LIBERTIES IN LI- BRETTO — WAGNER IN PARIS — TRIAL STAGES. Richard Strauss and his "Legend of Joseph" have taken their departure from the Paris Opera. The first succes d'es- time had degenerated into a succes de curiosite, of which the least factor was music. More even than the extraordi- nary mingling of Venetian scene-paint- ing and Renaissance costume of some of the characters, light flashing on the lack of costume of the young Joseph made an impression, not all of art. Al- most exactly a century ago, a like im- pression was described by the Irish melodist, fresh to Paris: Here Daniel, in pantomime, bids bold de- fiance To Nebuchadnezzar and all his stuffed lions, While pretty young Israelites dance round the Prophet, In very thin clothing, and but little of it. This time gender is changed and the young Israelite is the hero, Oriental enough, but more Babylonish than Egyp- tian and dished up for weak decadent Romans rather than Venetians such as Nietzsche loved — "willing for Might." The prima donna who consented to hush her voice in the pantomime of Poti- phar's wife was clad, and she did her best to reduce her Russian beauty to the required type: Daughter of Egypt, veil thine eyes, I cannot bear their fire! Nijinski, who had his departure last year after a gesture conventional to no ballet, Russian or otherwise, looked on from his box at the unclothed, unim- passioned, and slow Joseph, while the orchestra crashed its accompaniment of inextricable counterpoint to the deafen- ing cymbals. The efforts made in the libretto of re- cent French opera to give only words expressing adequately the musical emo- tion have brought to light contrasting examples from a century ago. Until 1830, Mozart's "Don Juan" (known in France only by his Spanish name) sang the most unexpected French words — and often to music Mozart never knew. The action being at Naples, an eruption of Vesuvius destroyed the palace of Don Juan. Three "cavaliers of the Marshal- sea (horse police)" sang convincedly the trio of the Masques: Await in silonco The moment of vengeance, Or the least imprudence Upsets our plans! Don Juan kills comfortably the com- mander behind the scenes and straight- way comes forward, with an emotion
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June II, 1914] The 1ST a t i o n 705 not foreseen by Mozart, and sings to music of Kalkbrenner: Let's gather young roses Which Zephyr uncloses — Love's fresh flower unclosing To Pleasure belongs! This was unscrupulous enough, but not so much so as the arrangement of the "Magic Flute," which needed mor- ceaux de succcs, according to the Paris director. He inserted what he liked of "Don Juan," including Kalkbrenner — and Haydn — and changed the name to "The Mysteries of Isis." The musicians of the orchestra promptly modified this to "The Miseries of Isis." English li- bretto at least aimed at translation and rhythm, as in "Le Nozze di Figaro": Vn caso: Madama La notte ti chiama — din! din! Suppose it befall you The Countess should call you — ding! ding! The anonymous French writer known as "Foemina" — only beginning to be known to English readers — moralizes with her usual penetration and from her own experience on the influence of Wag- ner in France: The music of Wagner came to us at a moment when need of liberty and room and horror of constraint, a thirst for novelty and a burning, nervous sense of pity and vast, vague hopes were working in us. The will "to live one's life" and the certainty of the "right to happiness" were contemporary with our first enthu- siasms for the magician of Bayreuth, along with respect for no matter what passion; with palpitating tenderness for the guilty ones suffering; ardent faith in the results of Socialism; a keener taste for generosity than for justice — and many a tendency, hesitating or precise, toward Anarchy. Tnose who are coming after us re- semble us not at all. They must have other emotions. When Mozart is played at concerts, it is curious to see what sincere, passionate pleasure is taken by the hearers. You would say his light orchestration, deep peace, and well-or- dered reverie are suited to secret needs. Perhaps after the failing of many hopes and the abortion of more than one dream, even those who were in Anarchy begin to find it irritating and seek for rules. Li- cense brings the need of constraint and extreme agitation the need of calm. Wag- ner, who Unbridles passions and deifies them and exalts liberty to frenzy, will no doubt not be the herald of the generation now getting to work. No doubt, too, the generation now get- ting to work has not yet begun at the Paris Opera, where "Parsifal" has the best receipts this year, while last year eight different pieces of Wagner were given at forty-eight representations. The greatest single receipt of 1913, how- ever, was for Gounod's "Faust," on March 24—22,363.29 francs, or about $4,500. The strenuous theatrical life — more dramatic than musical — of the French people may be gathered from the num- ber of new pieces represented in a sin- gle year. It was 980 in 1913— and this was 164 less than the number for 1912. It should be said that 511 of these pieces in Paris were performed in special or popular theatres or cafe-concerts, and not in the known twenty-three theatres frequented by critics. There are 103 theatres of the quartiers of Paris, music- halls, and summer cafes — and a dozen or so small theatres where a good deal of the new drama is elaborated. Thus the coming director of the Paris Opera has earned his experience at the little Theatre des Arts in drama. Three hun- dred and fifty of the new pieces were produced in 119 provincial theatres, which might be classified for large cit- ies in much the same manner, and with these have to be counted the very nu- merous casino halls in watering places. This gives more than 800 new pieces which are not expected to go further than the place and season of their birth. A very few come up to the higher the- atres and opera houses by survival of the fittest, and, doubtless, some will please finally the great public. After all, it is something for a country to have all these trial stages devoted to more or less legitimate theatrical and operatic art. Of the four state theatres of Paris, the Op6ra gave two pieces performed for the first time anywhere, "Le Sortilege," by Andre Gailhard, who had the right to a representation, having carried off the Grand Prix de Rome; and a belated "Suite de Danses" of Chopin. The Opera Comique produced five recent pieces, of which only "Julien," by Charpen- tier, of "Louise," is yet known abroad. The Comedie Franchise had six, and the Odeon nine new pieces. And An- toine of the Odeon has not been able to continue. Mr. Krall's scheme for organizing all classes of British professional musicians, composers and executants alike, in a powerful trade union, is meeting a good deal of adverse criticism in the English press. It is pointed out, for instance, that, in the event of an industrial strug- gle, society can dispense more easily with the services of professional violinists and pianists than with those of miners or railwaymen, or even lawyers and doc- tors. An important factor, by the way, in increasing the cost of orchestral con- certs in England is said to be the de- mand of the picture palaces for instru- mentalists. Players prefer the regular engagements and assured incomes that this new opportunity places within their reach. Dr. Muck, Michael Balling, and Sieg- fried Wagner are to be the conductors of this summer's Wagner Festival at Bay- reuth, which will last from July 22 to Au- gust 20. The operatic event of the season in Italy was Wagner's "Parsifal." In Milan it had twenty-seven and in Rome twen- ty-two performances. Verdi was repre- sented by four operas in Milan ("Nabu- co," "Aida," "Otello," and "Falstaff"), and the total number of performances was 115. Twelve of these were of Mas- cagni's new opera, "Parisina," which was also heard in Rome, but only seven times. Sarah Bernhardt will begin her "fare- well" American tour in October. Among other characterizations she promises to appear as Shylock in the trial scene of "The Merchant of Venice." Her reper- tory will include: "Jeanne DoreV' "Lucre- tia Borgia," "Resurrection," "Phedre," "Camille," "Madame X," "Le Mort de Tintagile," "A Night Before Christmas," and "The Death of Cleopatra." At the termination of his present en- gagement with the Theatre Gymnase, in Paris, M. Lucien Guitry will join MM. Coquelin and Hertz, directors of the Pcrte-Saint-Martin and the Nouvel Am- bigu Theatres, whose company already includes M. Le Bargy, formerly of the Ccmedie Frangaise, and other well-known artists. He is to appear next October in the leading part in a play of his own. His first experiment in producing plays in weekly instalments, like serial stories, has convinced the proprietor of the Lon- don Coliseum that the new method is worth continuing. In one instance a man who, after seeing the first, second, and third acts on successive Mondays, had been unable to obtain a seat for the fourth, came to the pay-box and begged to be told how the play ended. The proprietor suggests that the time may come when three provincial or sub- urban theatres, conveniently near one another, will combine to split up a drama, an opera, and a comedy, and by giving an act of each at each house will make a triple appeal to the playgoing public. The first week Theatre A would give Act I of a drama, filling up the rest of its bill with varieties. The second week it would give Act II of the same drama and Act I of an opera, while at the same time Act I of the drama would be at Theatre B. By this process all three theatres would be running drama, opera, and comedy within a few weeks'. It all sounds rather confusing, but many plays have been produced in recent seasons which might with advantage have been taken in small doses. "Sanctuary," the bird masque of Percy MacKaye, which was performed before the President of the United States, at Meriden, N. H., last September, has oeen published in a dainty volume, well print- ed and prettily illustrated (Stokes; $1). The superior literary, poetic, and imagi- native qualities of the little work can be better appreciated, perhaps, in type than in actual representation. Mr. Mac- Kaye has acquitted himself of a difficult task with delicate fancy and much verbal skill. His sylvan parable, with its wise and humane moral, is admirable in design and workmanship, and demonstrates the educational and artistic possibilities of that civic theatre of which he is so en- thusiastic an advocate.
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7Q6 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2554 Ait THE PARIS SALONS. Paris, May 24. New rooms for paintings have been opened this year in the Salon of the Societ6 Nationale des Beaux-Arts. Ru- mors are about of new regulations in both Salons which will make it possible for a greater number of exhibitors to be admitted. This is reform in the wrong direction. What is needed is to close rooms, to keep out exhibitors, to cut down, reject ruthlessly, or else the whole business of giving art exhibitions will degenerate into an empty farce. It is almost that already. What with the Salon d'Automne, the Salon des In- dependants, the Salon des Artistes Fran- gais, the Salon de la Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts, innumerable small shows here, there, and everywhere, in Paris alone, more is exhibited in a year than it is possible for any human being to see or digest, to criticise or enjoy. It is part of the irony of the whole situation that the year for opening the new rooms downstairs in the new Salon should happen to be one when an un- usually large number of the members and exhibitors who give distinction or interest to the galleries have stayed away. Rodin sends nothing, nor does Cottet, nor Caro-Delvaille; Willette, Louis Legrand, Jean Veber, Renouard, Jean Beraud, are among the absent; Anglada, Walter Gay, Zorn, Morrice, are four of the many foreigners for whom one looks in vain. Two rooms have been devoted to Gaston La Touche, one side of another room to Gaston Hochard, both of whom, distinguished members of the Society, have died within the year. I need not point out how severe is the test of a one-man show. It can hardly be said that La Touche stands it to great advantage, especially as there has been no effort to find the right background for the decorative panels most of his paintings really are, or to frame them appropriately. However, af- ter making every allowance for the loss when panels of this kind are hung as pictures, it is certain that so many shown together do not produce the same impression as the few shown year by year — above all, if these few belong- ed to one series. In such a large mis- cellaneous collection there seems some- thing almost meretricious in the splen- dor of light and fantasy of color so often repeated. The clever painting of the water, the dramatic use of the splotches of golden sunlight, even the subjects, the reappearance of his swans, the irresponsible medley of realism and allegory, take on the tedium of a for- mula, an immensely accomplished trick. Hochard suffers less from the ordeal. His paintings are pictures to be framed, and not decorations. No allegory breaks in upon his stern naturalism; he deals with facts and reduces them to their bare essentials stated in the simplest terms. It is extraordinary how he can fill a marketplace with a crowd or set up the intricate, ornate facade of a Gothic church, with an economy of means that would lead other painters to emptiness; extraordinary how he can get from his bare facts so bluntly stated a color and quality, now in the copes of priests waiting for the cere- mony, now in a provincial procession, that a carefully arranged harmony often fails to yield. I may criticise Gaston« La Touche, but it is fair to admit that in neither Salon are there many decorative arrangements to be compared to his. In the new Salon one passes by Roll's big ceiling for the Petit Palais, almost vulgar in de- sign and color, by Weerts's bigger panel for the Hotel de Ville at Roubaine, by other expanses of dull canvas, to turn with relief to a series of decorative pan- els by Maurice Denis, though I must confess it is not easy to discover in them the theme of Nausicaa with which they are credited in the catalogue. The bathers and the ball-players are very modern, perhaps seem all the more mod- ern because the painter's method, his extreme simplification of form and line, color and tone, has been accepted as a model by many a would-be young genius who poses as Post-Impressionist. The deliberate archaism savors at times of affectation, but Maurice Denis is an artist, and there is rhythm in the large flowing lines of sea and shore, balance in the spaces of drapery and sand and hillside and nude figures, while it is evi- dent that he has studied the color of the old fresco-painters, to his own profit. In the old Salon, the big machins are fewer than of old, and there Zo's enor- mous outdoor group of Bonnat et ses eleves Basques et Bearnais for the Musee Bonnat at Bayonne, and Jamet's amusingly realistic ceiling for the Salle des Mariages in the Mairie at Mon- trouge, and the others by more or less well-known painters, may cheerfully be passed for Henri Martin's huge Le Travail painted for the Palais de Jus- tice. He has shown us laborers before now, but they have usually been labor- ers in the field; now they are the la- borers more typical of what we mean by work to-day: men busy putting up a mighty building, architects, builders, masons, plasterers, all toiling in the brilliant sunshine expressed In the scientific scheme of dots that he has accustomed us to on his canvases, big and little — a brilliant performance, if without the suavity and rhythm that Denis has at his command. Perhaps the most notable event in either Salon is the appearance of Zu- loaga (in the Beaux Arts Salon, of course), who has refrained from ex- hibiting only too often of recent years. He brings with him a spirit of life, an enthusiasm, a genuine interest in things for their own sake. He has his unmis- takable style, but it has not degener- ated into a cut-and-dried recipe; he does not give you the same picture every year, as Pointelin gives you the same landscape and Bonnat the same portrait in the old Salon, or as Lher- mitte and Carolus-Duran in the new. You could not mistake Zuloaga for any other painter, but he has always some- thing new to say in his own way, and his own way is invariably stimulating in its directness and its freedom from technical fads and movements. He has painted groups of bull-fighters before, but with what inexhaustible zest he again renders the different types, this time found in the village bull-ring! With what delicacy and splendor he gives the detail of their brilliant cos- tume! Who could get as he does the right value of the gold embroidery on a cloak without a touch of crudity or gaudiness? It is true that in the por- trait of Maurice Barres, the figure of the author, dark and sinister, his own yellow-covered book in his hand, is all but lost in the extreme left of the can- vas, which is filled instead with the sombre dignity of Toledo, the town Barres loved and feared and described; true that in the portrait of The Car- dinal, the red of the wide-spreading robes Is reflected in the face with un- necessary brutality; but from what oth- er portrait is there to be had such a sensation of life, of the thing seen and rejoiced in, of sheer exultation in the sureness and swagger obtained with every stroke of the brush? The only other portraits that seemed to me to give this sensation of life, though with all the difference in the world, are those of Boldini. He comes dangerously near the fashion-plate him- self. One of his two small canvases, the portrait of a lady in the last eccen- tricities of an eccentric mode, which reduces her, as she lounges in her chair, to scarcely more than a twist of silk and two slender black legs, is almost not so much a fashion-plate as a cari- cature of a fashion-plate. But Boldini never fails to redeem the absurdities and exaggerations of his sitters by the painter's joy in them, by the wonder- ful vivacity and accomplishment of his technique, by the beauty of detail- in this portrait the beauty of the velvet and gilding of a chair, the glint of the silver tea service. As compositions, also, Zuloaga's three large canvases have few rivals. Op- posite are three large paintings by Simon and in the largest, Le Qual, there is an obvious endeavor to work out an arrangement in blue in the toll-
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June II, 1 9 1 4] The Nation 707 liant blouses of the men loafing there. Simon's talent, too, is supposed to be for straightforwardness of vision and strength of treatment. But Simon's ar- rangement becomes as impersonal as a camera's by comparison. Feeling for design must be sought rather in work that has as little in common with Zuloaga's as Frieseke's and Barlow's in the new Salon, Richard Miller's in the old. Few keep more scrupulously than Barlow to the same themes. He sees such beauty in his quiet women in their quiet dress, still and tranquil as they go about their domestic tasks, that he never tires of painting them, usual- ly in the same simple interiors, though this spring one of the women has wan- dered out into a shadowy garden filled with rose-colored flowers growing close to the white walls of a house, and it is evident that the painter placed her just there for pure delight in the value of the blue of the shutters against the white of the simple walls. It is in the subtle, evanescent changes wrought hy light and color that he gets variety in his endless repetition of the same theme, just as the old Dutch masters did when they painted again and again the same gray room or the same sunlit court. Frieseke is another American who is absorbed in the study of light, but, in his case, brilliant glowing light. If he paints a Venus, it is for the beau- ty and tenderness of flesh tints in strong sunlight; if a group sitting to- gether out of doors in the summer time, it Is because of the way light summer stuffs reflect and absorb the light; if an interior, it is because of the play of sunlight falling and filtering through the window; and always, with the help of the passing light, he weaves figures and background into a perfect harmony. Richard Miller, who remains faithful to the Artistes Frangais, is also an ardent student of light in its infinite variety. You cannot doubt his pleasure in rendering the beautiful woman, who in one of his paintings sits low by the window sewing — there for no other rea- son than that he might study the new value of flesh and hair and draperies against the open window, protected by a half-drawn green blind from the fierce sunshine outside; it is marvellous with what truth the mingling of the cool and hot lights as they stream into the room has been observed, and with what beauty the artist's impression has been recorded. For some years past it was from Le Sidaner many of the most sympathetic impressions and studies of light came. But there are signs of fatigue, of indifference, in his latest work, in his large empty harbor and his colorless, characterless church in the moonlight. I should have something to say of Luigini, Menard, Louis Picard, Charles Guerin, had I not said it often before. And there are many things that in a smaller show could not be overlooked. One fact worth the noting is that more Americans contribute every year to the two Salons, and that they maintain as high a level of accomplishment as any other group, and, in many cases, more distinct character. Alexander Harrison, Ullmann, George Elmer Browne, Edwin Scott, Hawthorne, Rolshoven, Elizabeth Nourse, Hermann Webster are among those at the new Salon; and at the old are Mura, Van der Weyden, Walter Griffin, Warren Eaton, Max Bohm, Tan- ner, Raymond Neilson, and J. McLure Hamilton, the most distinguished, send- ing, however, but one pastel, a sensi- tive and masterly study. In the department of prints and draw- ings both Salons have fallen away sad- ly in interest and achievement. It was here at one time that the most impor- tant and representative work was found. To-day, little rewards the most careful search. The old Salon reserves its rec- ognition more rigorously than ever for the reproductive etching and litho- graph, Bauer's strong and dignified etchings the most conspicuous excep- tions. Men like Louis Legrand and Leandre have ceased to contribute to the new Salon. Illustration is passing through a lean interval after its fat years at the end of the last century. In France the tendency at present is to make it do just what it should not — the tendency, that is, to use color drawings in the text and to make them elaborate beyond the reach of modern methods of reproduction, as well as inappropriate and out of harmony on the printed page. The sculpture continues to astound one by the high level of workmanship attained. Whenever sculpture is needed as decoration, there is always the French sculptor ready to supply it. But the genius is as rare among the sculp- tors as among the painters. Rodin's absence is a loss to the new Salon, where Bartholome is purely academic in a nude life-size figure of a woman, and adds little to his new version of his bust of La Gloire from Rousseau's tomb at the Pantheon. For character noth- ing surpasses the bronze head of a man by Bourdelle. From the sculpture court of the old Salon one carries away the usual impression of a wilderness of flamboyant tombs and strident monu- ments and endless rows of busts, where it is useless to do more than look for the things in which one has a special interest, the bronze of Paul Bartlett's Lafayette it may be, or MacMonnies's two groups, La Pensee and La Philoso- phic, for the New York Library. These are placed on either side of the main entrance. Whatever strikes one as crowded and awkward in the arrange- ment now will probably explain itself when they eventually All the spaces for which they are designed. N. N. C. F. Bell's "Drawings by the Old Mas- ters in the Library of Christ Church, Oxford" (The Clarendon Press), is an excellent little handlist and pictorial guide. The small, square volume is avowedly modelled on the useful Milan- ese manuals of old drawings. Something like a thousand drawings, the entire mounted series, are registered alphabet- ically. About seven hundred more re- pose unmounted in portfolios, in a prob- ably deserved oblivion. Mr. Bell con- tributes a brief introduction on the his- tory of the collection tracing many sheets to their older owners. Among these are Vasari, Ridolfi, Lely, and the two Richardsons. The original bequest to Christ Church was made in 1765 by Gen. John Guise, and for years the use of the collection was hampered by the testamentary command that the draw- ings should be examined only in the presence of an M. A. Colvin, Berenson, and others have published and described the most important sheets — Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, etc. — but Mr. Bell's 125 cuts present many surprises and problems to students. Among the novelties may be signalized a magnificent Tintoretto sketch for the Stoning of St. Stephen. Many learned visitors have helped in the matter of attributions. Gen- erally these are cautious and credible. The reviewer's especial skepticism is aroused by the interesting series as- cribed to Parmigianino, the best of which have more the look of early Schia- vone. The book is in every way a boon to the straitened student. Finance THE BRIGHTER SIDE OF THINGS. What has for some little time been described as a "turn for the better in sentiment" — a change which, until very lately, seemed to be based on nothing tangible — has begun to be supported by actual developments. One of them is the continued and highly remarkable grain crop outlook, reflected last Mon- day by the Government's own forecast of a total wheat yield, under present indications, of no less than 900,000,000 bushels. Last year's crop, which broke all previous records in our history, was 763,000,000. A second consideration, offsetting the gold-export movement which has continued so persistently, Is the strong position of the banks; the surplus over required percentage of re- serve to liabilities, at the New York in- stitutions, having last Saturday over- topped the showing at this date of any year since 1898. At last week's end, news of percepti- ble quickening of business in the cot- ton trade, and of the placing with the steel mills of several railway orders larger than any received in many weeks, added to the good impression. The Supreme Court's decision, last Mon- day, upholding the Interstate Commerce Commission's contention that State
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70S The 1ST a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2554 Commissions have no right to discrim- inate against approved interstate rates by requiring lower charges for the cor- responding service within the borders of the State, was a victory for fair and even-handed railway supervision. Yet to all this the Stock Exchange has re- sponded only faintly, if at all. On Wall Street, at any rate, the atmosphere of uncertainty and hesitation has contin- ued. In so far as the movement on the Stock Exchange reflects the sober judg- ment of experienced men on the gener- al tendencies of the day — and a stock market, in the long run, may usually be relied upon to do that — the present world-wide halt in activity is not illogi- cal. When people do know what is go- ing to happen next, and have been pre- pared for startling occurrences, their ordinary instinct is to stand still. If they can see danger immediately ahead, they will retreat; if there is nothing to disturb them, they will move ahead. Neither of the two situations exists at the present moment. The financial mar- kets had recognized the fact, and prac- tically ceased to move. The truth seems to be, that every great financial centre has had appre- hensions of its own as to what may hap- pen. But the apprehensions are vague, and do not lend themselves to definite predictions. The French market, for instance, is utterly perplexed as to what its new national legislature is likely to do with certain large public questions; but it does not know of any legislation with a powerful following which would threaten private or public credit. The London market has before it what might be regarded as an absolutely unprece- dented picture of social and political disorder. The attacks of the English female maniacs on property and persons have created on the one hand an im- possible social position, and on the oth- er hand, the activities of the Ulster mal- contents are those which would natur- ally precede the rebellion of a province. But England has not been able to per- suade itself to take either demonstration as a real and formidable turn in the march of public affairs. Any one can imagine or predict what may actually result from such extraor- dinary movements; but the prediction does not inspire belief, and serious men will not base their business plans even on the possibility of civil war in Ulster. It may in fact be suggested that not only the lack of excitement with which these incidents are regarded, but the easy-going manner in which their worst possible outcome is discussed, is proof of the community's disbelief in such an outcome. The time when such a thing as civil war, for instance, is actually about to happen, is apt to be a time when all interested people are insisting that its occurrence is impossible. The position in the United States is curiously different from that in any of these great foreign centres — so much so, that one is sometimes tempted to won- der why we do not hear of this coun- try's peculiar immunity from their troubles. We have our public demon- strations by bands of individuals who object to the present social order; but when the I. W. W. invades the rights of private individuals we put them in jail, and do not release them because they threaten a "hunger strike." We have defiant sections of the country; but the defiance of California and Texas is not of the Ulster sort. It is true that we have unpleasant uncertainties of Congressional legisla- tion; at the moment, we are confronted with the passage, by one house, of "sup- plementary anti-Trust bills" which the business community dislikes. These measures undoubtedly have certain grave defects; they are mischievously insincere in their dealing with "labor," they are clumsily drawn, and they can scarcely be described as fulfilling at all President Wilson's promise of legisla- tion which should "limit the debatable area" around the original Anti-Trust act. All this is true; yet there remain three important facts, which the history of this Congress up to date has clearly proved, and which should be remember- ed in connection with this latest group of bills. One is, that the radicals of the wilder sort, whom Wall Street, fifteen months ago, apprehensively expected to control this Congress, have not had con- trol at all. The second is, that legisla- tion has been orderly, and the third, that no proposed measure of really objec- tionable character has yet passed into the statute books this session, without such thorough and careful overhauling as eliminated most or all of its serious defects. The question of granting increased railway rates is a different and no doubt a paramount problem in the minds of most American business men, and it is right enough that it should be so. But it is not so often considered that even refusal of an advance would at least do nothing more than retain the status quo with present rates maintained, whereas under the older order of things a pe- riod of dull trade, as prolonged as that through which the country has been passing, would undoubtedly have meant savage "rate wars," cutting of transpor- tation charges below cost, and wide- spread railway insolvency. ' That situa- tion, perfectly familiar in the seventies and eighties, is to-day wholly out of the question, and that is perhaps one reason why investors in our railway securities, even when they hesitate to buy more, appear to be in no hurry to sell what i they have. BOOKS OF THE WEEK FICTION. Broster, D. K., and Taylor, G. W. The Vision Splendid. Brentano. $1.35 net. Buford, E. P. An Earthen Mold. Boston: Badger. $1.25 net. Horn, Kate. Frivole. Brentano. $1.35 net. Janvier, Thomas A. At the Casa Na- poleon. Harper. $1.25 net. London, Jack. The Strength of the Strong1. Macmillan. $1.25 net. Parker, Gilbert. You Never Know Your Buck. Doran. $1.25 net. Stewart, E. P. Letters of a Woman Homesteader. Houghton Mifflin. $1.25 net. Ulfers, S. Idylls of a Dutch Village. Dut- ton. $1.75 net. Whitaker, Herman. Cross Trails. Har- per. $1.20 net. MISCELLANEOUS. Anecdotes of the Hour by Famous Men. H. I. L. Co. 50 cents net. Carr, J. F. Immigrant and Library: Italian Helps. 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June II, 1914] T li e N" a t i o n 709 Spargo, John. Socialism and Mother- hood. Huebsch. 60 cents net. BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY. Burton, R. G. Napoleon's Invasion of Russia. Macmillan. $1.60 net. Davis, W. S. A History of Mediaeval and Modern Europe. Houghton Mifflin. $1.50 net. Hall, Thornton. Romances of the Peer- age. Brentano. $3.75 net. Ives, George. A History of Penal Meth- ods. Stokes. Les Origines Diplomatiques de la Guerre de 1870-1871. Tomes VII and VIII. Paris: Ficker. 1, O. V. Memoirs of my Youth, is. by the Rev. W. Pratt. Houghton Mifflin. $4 net. TRAVEL. New, E. H. Highways and Byways In Shakespeare's Country. Macmillan. $2 net. Smith, W. Spooner. Travel Notes of an Octogenarian. Boston: Gorham Press. $1.50 net. Woodroffe, J. F. The Upper Reaches of the Amazon. Macmillan. $3 net. POETRY. Castello, A. M. Wild Animal Verses. Broadway Publishing Co. Frost, Robert. North of Boston. London: Nutt. 3s. 6d. net. Gale, Norman. Collected Poems. Mac- millan. $2 net. Keet, A. E. Hands Across the Equator. Author. Rentoul, J. L. From Far Lands. Mac- millan. $1.50 net. SCIENCE. Comrie, J. D. Black's Medical Dictionary. Macmillan. $2.50 net. Lynde, C. J. Physics of the Household. Macmillan. Rogers, J. E. Tree Guide. Doubleday, Page. $1 net. Worcester, A. Nurses for Our Neighbors. Houghton Mifflin. $1.25 net. Wright, W. B. The Quaternary Ice Age. Macmillan. $5 net DRAMA. Shaw, Bernard. Misalliance, Fanny's First Play, and The Dark Lady of the Sonnets. Brentano. $1.50 net. ART. Cram, R. A. The Ministry of Art. Hough- ton Mifflin. $1.50 net. Deane, A. C. Great Malvern Priory Church. Macmillan. 50 cents net. Pageant of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, 1389-1439, edited by Viscount Dillon and W. H. St. John Hope. Long- mans. $7 net. Prior, W. S., and Gardner, M. A. An Ac- count of Medieval Figure-Sculpture in England. Putnam. Thompson, R. E. The History of the Dwelling House. Philadelphia: Lippin- cott. $1 net. William De Morgan's WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST "Another book like 'Jo- seph Vance' and 'Alice.' "— New York Sun. "An admirable and typi- cal De Morgan novel." — The Outlook. Third printing. $1.60 net Henry Holt &Co., New York The new forces in the labor move- ment of the world vividly expounded in Dr. Louis Levine's Syndicalism in France. "Most comprehensive and illuminating study of revolutionary syndicalism in the English language." — American Economic Review. At all bookstores. $1.50 net, Paper covers; $2.00 net, Cloth. LONGMANS, GREEN, &CO. THE NATION PRESS ^fcto ^(n* fEttning £0?! Building. 20VE.SEY STREET NEWYORK. All That's Good In Printing ■»*$= =€««■ A HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT Its People and Institutions By GEORGE L. CLARK Author of "Silas Deane," etc. 100 illustrations. $3.50 The purpose of this work is to give a view of Connecticut in its history of two hundred and eighty years ; to review the migration hither; glance at the hardships of settlement and re- peated wars; look at the cour- age, problems and idealismj" admire the thrift, shrewdness and common sense ; notice what the farmers had for breakfast, and how the people dressed, fought, objected, be- lieved and built. The Curious Lore of Precious Stones BY GEORGE FREDERICK KCTfZ. With numerous plates in color and double-tone. Bvo. Cloth, Boxed, $5.00 net. Carriage extra. Being a Description of Their Sentiments ind Folk-Lore, Superstitions. Symbolism, Mysticism, Use In Medicine, Protection, Prevention, Rpligton and Divination. On Crystal Gazing, Birth Stones and Royal Jewels. J. B. Llppincott Co., Philadelphia, Pa. The London office of THE NATION is at No. 3 Regent St., London, W. C, where travellers may find copies on file. 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710 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2554 THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY has prepared special Bibliographies of the best books in the following fields of thought: ANTHROPOLOGY BIOLOGY ETHICS EVOLUTION LANGUAGE MATHEMATICS AND MECHANICS ORIENTAL WORKS PHILOSOPHY RELIGION Any or all of these will be mailed free on request. Our new complete Catalogue and samples of our magazines, "The Monist" and "The Open Court," sent free on request THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY 122 SOUTH MICHIGAN AVENUE, CHICAGO A BOOK OF TIMELY INTEREST, CALIFORNIA UNDER SPAIN AND MEXICO By Irvine B. Richman. "A valuable and interesting addi- tion to the literature of a little known period of American history, beginning with Cortes's coming, con- tinuing through the rule of the Fran- ciscan and Dominican Missions and the establishment of Mexican Inde- pendence in 1821, to the war with the United States In 1847."— The A. L. A. Booklist. With map*, chartt, and plant. $4.09 net. Pottage extra. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN CO., 4 Park St, Boston The Political and Sectional Influence of the Public Lands, 1828-1842 RAYNOR G. WELLINGTON, Assistant Pro- fessor in the University of South Dakota. JUST PUBLISHED. $1.00 net RIVERSIDE PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. Adventurings in the Psychical By H. ADDINGTON BRUCE Author of "Scientific Mental Healing," etc. A comprehensive review of results of modern and psychical research in the realm of the abnormal and the supernormal. Mr. Bruce has long been a student of the psychical, and his examples are gathered from a vast variety of sources, while his explanations are based on the latest scientific data. S18 Pages. Cloth. $1.35 net. LITTLE, BROWN & CO., Publishers, Boston A new book by EDWARD HOWARD GRIGGS. THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART The meaning and relation of sculpture, painting, poetry and music. The author's most Important work so far published. 12mo, cloth, $1.50 net; by mall, $1.60 B.W.Huebsch.Publisher, 225 Fifth avenue, New York The Detroit "Saturday Night" says of The Post-Impressionist: "Only now and then do we find a writer who sees the laughable side of life and pictures it to us so that we can see it too. Dooley is one of these elect. Another is Stephen Leacock, the Canadian Mark Twain. . . . But we think quite as much of Simeon Strunsky's humorous essays, which we are now publishing. Strunsky is more subtle. He de- lights in turning up the foolish edge of the most serious situations. But he, too, makes people laugh, God bless him. Unless we cultivate that saving sense of humor which helps us to see life in its proper proportions we are bound to take some things too seriously and so intensify our own misery and the misery of those who have to live with us." In The New York Evening Post Saturday Magazine every week McClurg's New Catalogue of Rare & Fine Imported BOOKS Selections from the finest collection in the country Copy sent free on request A. C. McCLURG & CO. Dept. P. 218-24 S. Wabash Avenue CHICAGO Foreign Books and Magazines Correspondence Solicited E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 681 Fifth Avenue, near 54th Street NEW YORK A Modern History of the English People By R. H. GRETTON "As brilliant 08 Mr. Herbert Paul at bla beat." — Glatgow Herald. "The deTelopment of England's prosperity since the early eighties has been treated with an ea- groKsiDj; minuteness which Is only paralleled In the works of Mr. Arnold Bennett." — Boottman. "So tonic It Is, so extraordinarily sensible, so bracing In its Immediate elTects." — Liverpool Cour- ier. V. I., 1880-1898, 448 pp. V. II. 1899-1910, 398 pp. The Set $5.00 net, carriage extra. Small, Miijnnrd A Company, Iloatoa LI V Y — Books i, xxi, and xxii Edited by EMORY B. LEASE, Ph.D., College of the City of New York. A new edition made especially for freshman classes, and containing many unique features, Cloth. Numerous maps (in color) and Illustra- tions. $1. 25. D. C. HEATH & CO., FnbllnherM BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO BROWNING'S COMPLETE WORKS Thin paper, large-type Pocket Edition. Edited by Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke. 12 vols. Cloth, $1.00 per vol.; leather, $1.50 per vol. "By far the most desirable edition yet published." — [The Dial. THOMAS Y. CRO WELL CO., New York What Will People Say? By RUPERT HUGHES "It Is seldi.m that literary CXI ami iiie element! of ■ popular luoceai are io bappllj combined u Is tbli lane and trencb nil i ty written story." Philadelphia Pren. $1.86 net ii a it Pirn A iiiin i inr.it*
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The Nation V __ VOL. XCVI1I— NO. 2555 THURSDAY, JUNE 18, 1914 pIf:offlcSe. PRh->'BN CENTS The Works of JACOB A. RIIS The recent death of Jacob A. Wis, social reformer and civic worker, "New York's most useful citizen," as he was deservedly called, renews interest in the works of this "ideal American," whose books should find a place in every home. THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN An Autobiography "In this volume Jacob A. Riis tells the strange story of his varied career and the work which gained him a national reputation." Illustrated, $1.50 net Also in The Macmillan Standard Library edition, SO cents net THE BATTLE WITH THE SLUM "A story of grim struggle and ennobling victory." Illustrated, $2.00 net CHILDREN OF THE TENEMENTS "Deeply human, sympathetic stories of juvenile life on the East Side of New York." Illustrated, $1.50 net THEODORE ROOSEVELT, THE CITIZEN "A refreshing and stimulating picture of a man's fight against civic corruption and political op- pression." Illustrated, $2.00 net Also in The Macmillan Standard Library edition, 50 cents net THE OLD TOWN "A delightful description of Ribe, Mr. Riis's birthplace in Denmark, full of the charm of Old World as- sociations and the origins of an interesting' personality." Illustrated, $2.00 net HERO TALES OF THE FAR NORTH "True stories of the famous he- roes of Scandinavia, stirring and exciting." Illustrated, $1.35 net IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS ? "A classic of childhood — an at- tractive book for boys and girls." Cloth, 75 cents net IMPORTANT NEW MACMILLAN BOOKS The Soul of America By STANTON COIT A convincing plea for nation- al and spiritual unification. $2.00 net Work and Wealth By J. A. HOBSON "A human valuation" and survey of individual and social welfare. $2.00 net The Great Society By GRAHAM WALLAS A keen, readable analysis of life's modern problems. Ready June 17 The Income Tax By EDWIN R. A. SELIGMAN A second revised and enlarged edition of this valuable standard work. $3.00 net NEW MACMILLAN FICTION FOR SUMMER READING Jack London's New Book The Strength of the Strong By JACK LONDON A new book of life and adventure in this popular author's beJt style. $1.25 net Eden Phillpotts's New Novel Faith Tresilion By EDEN PHILLPOTTS An attractive story of early nine- teenth-century life in a remote village in Cornwall. $1.35 net A Novel of Mystery The Story of Duciehurst Bj CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK (Miss Murfree) A story of Mississippi just after the Civil War. Ready shortly May Sinclair's New Book The Return of the Prodigal By MAY SINCLAIR A new book rich in chara ter study bv the well-known author of "The Di- vine Fire." $1.35 net A Novel of Vigorous Life A Lad of Kent By HERBERT HARRISON A stirring novel full of life, adventure and bubbling humor. $1.25 net A Dramatic Love Story They Who Question ? ANONYMOUS An unusually fine novel woven around a world-old theme of universal appeal. Ready shortly Published at 64-66 Fifth Ave., N. Y. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY On Sale Wherever Books Are S Jd
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11 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2555 A WEEKLY JOURNAL [Entered at the New York City Post Office CU second-class mail matter.] The Nation is published and owned by the New York Evening Post Co. Oswald Garrison Villard, President; John Palmer Gavit, Sec. and Treas. Three dollars per year in advance, post- paid, in any part of the United States or Ueaieo; to Canada $3.50, and to foreign countries cotnprised in the Postal Union, $4.00. Address THE NATION, Box 794, New York. Publication Office, 20 Vesey Street. HAROLD db WOLF FULLER, Editor. STANLEY WENT, Assistant Editor. PAUL ELMER MORE, Advisory Editor. EM1L M. SCHOLZ, Business Manager. WILLIAM G. PRESTON, Advertising Mgr. CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER. SUMMARY OF THE NEWS 711 THE WEEK 712 EDITORIAL ARTICLES: The Washington Quandary 715 The Treaty tor Safety at Sea 715 Our Precarious Public Careers 716 The Italian Disorders 717 Canada and Our Magazines 718 FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE: The Plan to Reform the Thames 719 The Insurrection in Albania 719 The New French Chamber 720 THE ERRANT MUSHROOM 720 BOOKS AND MEN 721 NEWS FOR BIBLIOPHILES 722 CORRESPONDENCE 724 LITERATURE : Bull Run, Its Strategy and Tactics 726 Great Days 727 The Inrandoscent Lily 728 New Men for Old 72s Cordelia Blossom 728 Snake and Sword 728 With Walt Whitman in Camden 728 The Romance of Fraud 729 The Press-Gaug Afloat and Ashore 729 NOTES 730 SCIENCE : Life-Histories of African Game Animals... 733 DRAMA AND MUSIC: The Comedies of Holberg 734 Notes 734 ART: New Guides to Old Masters 735 Notes .' 736 FINANCE: The Large Gold Exports 736 BOOKS OF Till". WEEK 737 * * * Copies of The Nation may be procured In Paris at Brentano's, 37 Avenue de i'Opera; in London of B. F. Stevens & Brown, 4 Trafalgar Square, Charina Cross. PUBLISHED JUNE lft. VITRUVIUS: THE TEN BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE Translated by the late MonRis H. Morgan, Pb.D, LL.D., Professor of Classical Philol- ogy In Harvard University. Perparcd for publication by A. A. IIowabd, Pope Pro- fessor of Latin, and II. I,. Wauhbn, Robin son Professor of Architecture In Harvard University. Hvo. Cloth. 319 pages. $3.50. With numerous plans and Illustrations. The treatise which has probably exercised more Influence on the history of achltecture than any other. Vltruvlus not only furnishes us the most important literary medium tl whlcn the principle* of Sreek nn PYLE, KATE OKEUNAWAY, WALTER ('KANE and others. Also Curlosa, Incunabula, Early Printing, As- Boclatlon Books and tnanj other Interesting Items in FREE 1 PON BDQUEST. SCHULTE'S BOOK STORE iaa hast aad ST., NISW YORK, n. y. SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS First Folio Edition. Edited by Char- lotte Porter. 40 to1«. Cloth, 76c p«r toI.; leather, $1.00 per toI. "By all odds the beet edition now accessible."— {The Living Age. THOMAS Y. CROWELL CO., New York CON ORE88IONAX INFORMATION mi|p|ilicd. Fifteen yi-»r« ooetluMiie uftviai employment, imi«iini (lon- grMetonal ltn'onl. For |>«rtl<-ular» address, Wif. maoon oolkman. Brans Building, Wishlngtoo, D. C
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June 18, 1914] The N" a t i o 11 111 Adventurings in the Psychical By H. ADDINGTON BRUCE Author of "BdentiflC Mental Healing." etc. A comprehensive review of results of modern and psychical research in the realm of the abnormal and the supernormal. Mr. Bruce has been " student of the psychical, and his examples are gathered from a vast variety of sources, while his explanations are based on the latest scientific data. 318 Pages. Cloth. $1.S5 net. LITTLE BROWN & CO., Publishers, Boston Foreign Books and Magazines Correapond.nc* Solicited E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 6S1 Fifth Avenue, near 54th Street NEW YORK NEW MAGAZINE ON EGYPT An Illustrated quarterly magazine, beautifully Illustrated, with Dews of late discoveries, edited by PROF. PETBIB, began with the January num- ber embellished with frontispiece of jewelry In colors. Price $2 a year. The discoveries by Petrle and others for the EGYPTIAN RESEARCH ACCOUNT (Society) relate to the arts of Ancient Egypt and to Its predynastic age. An annual quarto volume, profusely Illustrated, and the magazine should be In all public and many private libraries. Circulars of these publications freely furnished. Address REV. DR. W. C. WINSLOW, 525 Beacon Street, Boston. The Curious Lore of Precious Stones BY GEORGE FREDERICK KU1VZ. With numerous plates in color and double-tone. 8vo. Cloth, Boxed, $5.00 net. Carriage extra. Being a Description of Their Sentiments and Folk-Lore, Superstitions, Symbolism, Mysticism, Use In Medicine, Protection, Prevention, Religion and Divination. On Crystal Gazing, Birth Stones and Royal Jewels. J. B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, Pa. ;r ».ii UCfc^JW *rt'i?»nT'iiji ~-a *'',! *f:f S'l'.n r qui; '"■'^i.'n'l^O^ BOSTON COMMONWEALTH AVE. 100 yardsjfrom Massachusetts Ave. 5ty j? StBttnrttur Unsiun limis* A hotel especially attractive to those who demand the best and prefer a home-like atmosphere. Single rooms from $2. Combined sitting room, bedroom ami bathroom from $4. Self contained mites. Some globe trotters have been rood enough to call the Puritan one of the most tnvitxvg hotels in the world. IU illustrated booklet with guide to Boiton •n<i TiciDity on the lavor of your r.rd N. A. COSTELLO, Manager MOST INSPIRING BOOK OF THE YEAR ALIFE STORV-N0TALOVE STORY -r^ The actual Story^'W^ of aWomeoVs 9i/m ABSORBING COMPELLING Price*1.50 ^0^ JSTZ^^fl^f^ W THEBOOKF0RYOUTOREAD vn MOFFAT YARD 8 CCPUBLISHERS, NEW YORK: THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY has prepared special Bibliographies of the best books in the following fields of thought: ANTHROPOLOGY BIOLOGY ETHICS EVOLUTION LANGUAGE MATHEMATICS AND MECHANICS ORIENTAL WORKS PHILOSOPHY RELIGION Any or all of these will be mailed free on request. Our new complete Catalogue and samples of our magazines, "The Monist" and "The Open Court," sent free on request THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY 122 SOUTH MICHIGAN AVENUE, CHICAGO Just Published CROSS TRAILS By HERMAN WHITAKER. A stirring novel of the Canadian North- west. In the white world of a Hudson Bay lumber-camp turbulent scenes and chivalry surround the only woman snowbound there. A vivid transcription of the life the author knows so well. $1.20 net llAKPER * BROTHERS, THE LITTLE RED BOOK 1914 EDITION NOW READY Manhattan Real Estate Values... Every Executor, Trustee, Attorney and Banker with Funds to Invest in Real Estate and Mortgages has, or should have, the Red Book of Manhattan Real Estate Values. Gives accurate considerations paid for property in every avenue and street in the city sold in the last six years. INVALUABLE REFERENCE BOOK Price, 25 Cents. By Mall, 30 Cent* rUBLISHKl) BY Gfhc Nttor Hprk ftoerang Jo|i 20 VESEY STREET NEW YORK WHAT IS IT TO BE EDUCATED? By C. HANFORD HENDERSON A valuable contribution both to the art of education and to the art of reasonable living. At all bookstores. $1.50 net. Postage extra. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN CO., 4 Park St., Boston The London office of THE NATION is at No. 3 Regent St., London, W. C, where travellers may find copies on file. 1 i HOTEL POWMM MilNGTOfl T3.C. I tl OF AMERICAN II The Hotel Powhatan is the best, at the same time the new- est, hotel in Washington. Famous Pennsylvania Avenue, at the junction of 18th and H Streets, affords the site for this most luxurious and modern ha. tcL Write for booklet with map. CLIFFORD M. LEWIS. Mini(»r WlllHIIDIIIIIIIIIlHIIIIHIllima
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IV The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2555 I ■ /:; w -,? 'F IOVFS PUC — Puck' ^- vn rel^}ntvr^uvenai:edi —a quip from the newest play, the story that Is going the rounds of the dobs, a Judgement upon the season's saton, a aitlcal.-'eestirnate'of the book just off the press — - — a staff that includes Hy Mayer, Joseph Kapp!er, Lawson Wood, / / Barribal, Strimpi, Qackepvs, Fornaro artists-:- — -James Huneker, [his, Tc de Casseres, Perciva! Wilde, Dart Freeman Tilden amoi criticism and satire- small wonder, indeed, that Puc to-day is voted America's cleverest weekly by those who know. among the • .-hide Bangs, net and rA humor, ♦ 301 Lafayette St. New York # Enclosed find one dollar * (Canadian $1.13, Foreign ^ $1.26), for whicli send Puck, for three months, to ♦ jf One Year $5.00 Canadian $5.50 Foreign $6.00
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The Nation. SBW YORK, THURSDAY, JUNE 18, 1914. Summary of the News The most important event in Mexico has been the defeat of the Constitution- alists at Zacatecas. According to dis- patches from Mexico City and El Paso, dated June 15, an eight days' battle has been in progress, in which the Constitu- tionalists, under Gen. Natera, were final- ly defeated. Later dispatches explain the defeat by the absence of Gen. Villa, who remained at Torreon, having, it is stated, resigned as Carranza's lieutenant. income tax for the first ten months )f its operation will fall short of the Trea- sury's estimate by $23,000,000. Announcement was made on Sunday that Rear-Admiral Fletcher will succeed Rear-Admiral Badger as Commander-in- Chief of the Atlantic fleet on the termi- nation of the latter's command. Prospects for a successful issue of the mediation conference continue to im- prove. On Friday of last week the first part of the peace plan, providing for the Installation of a provisional government In Mexico, which had already been agreed on, was reduced to writing. Since then the conference has devoted its attention to a consideration of names, from among which a successor to Gen. Huerta may be chosen. The delegates of the United States have submitted a list of names which are understood to be acceptable to the Constitutionalists, but among which that of Carranza is not included. The text of a further note sent by Gen. Car- ranza to the mediators was published on Tuesday, together with the reply of the mediators. Gen. Carranza ignored com- pletely the main issue of an armistice, and the mediators' note merely pointed out this omission. On Saturday, at the biennial convention of the Federation of Women's Clubs in Chicago, a resolution was adopted affirm- ing the Federation's belief in the princi- ple of political equality for men and wo- men. The wearisome debate on the Tolls Re- peal bill was brought to an end on Thurs- day of last week when the bill was passed by the Senate by a vote of 50 to 35. On Saturday the Simmons-Norris amendment to the bill was accepted by the House by a vote of 216 to 71. The bill was signed by the President on Monday. A further effort to promote class legisla- tion in behalf of the labor unions was seen last week, when the same prohibition that was written into the Sundry Civil Appropriation bill last year, and accepted by the President, was again introduced. The amendment provides that no part of the $300,000 that is voted to the Depart- ment of Justice for the enforcement of the anti-Trust laws shall be used for the prosecution of any labor union or farmers' organization. The President on Monday sent to the Senate the complete list of nominations for the Federal Reserve Board. The names are: Charles S. Hamlin, of Bos- ton, Mass., for a term of two years; Paul M. Warburg, of New York, for a term of four years; Thomas D. Jones, of Chi- cago, 111., for a term of six years; W. F. G. Harding, of Birmingham, Ala., for a terra of eight years; A. C. Miller, of San Fran- cisco, Cal., for a term of ten years. Another serious collision in fog, hap- pily unattended by loss of life, oc- curred early on Saturday morning, 400 miles east of Ambrose Lightship. The Hamburg-American Liner Pretoria, east bound, ran into the American Liner New York, west bound, tearing a large hole in her port side forward, but well above the water line. The bulkheads of the New York had been ordered closed and the engines stopped shortly before the collision, on the fog siren of the Pre- toria being heard. The damage to the Pretoria was slight and she proceeded on her course. The New York came into port safely on Sunday. We deal elsewhere with the general as- pects of the strike in Italy, which last week assumed serious proportions in- volving considerable loss of life and much destruction of property. A curious report was published in the New York Times on Tuesday of a "union of the small nations of Europe," con- sisting presumably of Holland, Switzer- land, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Belgium. The object of the union is stated to be "to preserve the effective neutrality of the constituent states and to unite their military and naval forces for common action in the event of any one of them being attacked by a great Power." Mr. Asquith announced in the House of Commons on June 11 that he would introduce the amending bill to the Irish Home Rule bill before further progress was made by the House of Lords with the second reading of the main measure. The Premier's undertaking is regarded as a concession to the Unionists. Mean- while, Mr. Redmond has issued a state- ment giving the official support of the Nationalist party to the Nationalist Vol- unteer movement. The Cabinet formed last week by M. Ribot was short-lived. On Friday it was defeated on a vote of confidence by 306 to 262, and imediately resigned. On Sat- urday M. Viviani, who had failed to form a Government after the resignation of that of M. Doumergue, was again invited by M. Poincar<§ to attempt the task, and was able to announce the personnel of his Ministry within a few hours. M. Vi- viani himself assumes the portfolio of Minister of Foreign Affairs. Not a little significance must be at- tached to the meeting at Kustenje on Sunday of the Czar and King Charles of Rumania, emphasizing as it does the gradual drifting away of Rumania from the Dreibund and her adoption of a Rus- sophile and anti-Austrian policy. The meeting is interesting, too, in view of the present situation between Greece and Turkey and of the reports of a triple alliance of Greece, Servia, and Rumania. We deal elsewhere with the statement made by Secretary of the Treasury Mc- Adoo on June 13 that the yield of the Another step was taken in the contro- versy in Denmark over the Electoral Re- form bill, when King Christian, on June 15, dissolved the upper house, stipulating, however, that the dissolution should not include the twelve members nominated by himself. The bill, which abolishes all property qualifications for electors of members of the upper house and takes away from the Crown its present right to nominate twelve members, passed the lower house on June 9. When it reached the upper house the Conservatives brought about a deadlock by absenting themselves, thus making it impossible to form a quorum. The lower house has been prorogued until after the elections for the upper house. The tension that has existed for some time between Greece and Turkey has be- come acute during the last few days. On June 12 Premier Venizelos made a statement in the Greek Chamber of Deputies which almost amounted to a declaration of war, warning Turkey that the ill treatment of Greek subjects in the Ottoman Empire would not be tol- erated. A strongly worded note to the same effect was sent to Constantinople. Prospects for peace have not been im- proved by the announcement of the formal annexation to Greece of the isl- ands of Chios and Mytilene, historic trouble-makers, which were assigned to her by the treaty of Berlin, but had not hitherto been handed over, Turkey pro- testing that the islands were essential strategic points for the defence of the coast of Asia Minor. The situation in Albania continues ser- ious, but news came on Monday of a Government victory over the Insure* nts. The latter made an unexpected attack on the capital early on Monday morn- ing, but were repulsed with considerable loss by the Government troops under he Mpret. It is stated that the Govern- ment forces number some 8,000, and the insurgents 25,000, but Durazzo, as our Vienna correspondent points out else- where, is strategically easy to defend. All of the great Powers now have ves- sels lying off Durazzo, and bluejackets have been landed to protect the respec- tive embassies. The deaths of the week include: Wil- liam Hammerstein, June 10; Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, June 11; Thomas Dolan, James Campbell, Barclay Vincent Head, Dr. Otto Gustaf Ramsay, June 12; Adlai E. Stevenson, June 14; William Butler Hornblower, June 16.
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712 T li e 1ST a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2555 The Week The sense of hurt national honor, at last healed, Is the chief thing in the minds of those who have followed the long fight for repeal in a kind of agon- ized hope that the end of the struggle, now so happily reached, would leave the good name and the good faith of the United States shining clear again before the whole world. This was all along the great issue. Our ears were filled with a din about ships and tolls and commerce and subsidies and rail- ways; but all the time the one question was pressing for an answer: Was this nation to adhere to its solemn compact? De Tocqueville doubted whether the American democracy would display a scrupulous honor in the conduct of its foreign relations. Here was a test case. Was our democracy to show that it was capable of making a great effort in the cause of international justice? The unmistakable answer was given In the Senate last Thursday. It may not be appreciated at its full significance just now and here, but there is no doubt what history will say of it, no doubt at all of the profound effect which it will immediately have on foreign opinion. The United States has swept away the suspicion that, simply because it had the power, it would play fast and loose with the words of a treaty, and make its pledged word of no more value than a dicer's oath. Indignant protest against such an assumption, which he nevertheless knew that all the world was making, was expressed in Presi- dent Wilson's appeal to Congress. If our honor was questioned, all that we held dear was questioned; and no exer- tion must be spared to set ourselves right. This has now been done; and everybody knows to whom the chief credit must be given. But for Presi- dent Wilson's bold initiative, but for the exercise of all his authority as Chief Executive and leader of his party, but for the skill and tenacity with which he pressed the fight, we should not now be rejoicing in the removal of a nation- al stain. than $23,000,000 below the Treasury's own estimate of last December, is in some respects surprising and in some not. It certainly indicates a smaller yield, for the ten months on which the tax was assessed, than many people had anticipated; for the Treasury's $54,000,000 forecast, with its heavy reduction from the estimate of more than $80,000,000 by the Congressman who drew up tlie income tax bill, seem- ed in line with conservatism. But on the other hand, the productiveness of an income tax, when the experiment is tried for the first time by a government, is always and necessarily conjectural. The income tax of 1894 was never col- lected; the law imposing it having been declared unconstitutional by the courts. It was therefore no guide to es- timates on the present law's produc- tiveness. But the Treasury estimate on the proceeds for the first twelve months under that tax — which was 2 per cent, on all incomes over $4,000 — was only $15,000,000, and the Chief of the Bureau of Statistics, after a carefully prepared special report, cut down the first-year estimate to $12,000,000. No "collection at the source" was imposed in 1894; therefore the chances for eva- sion were greater. There was also no "super-tax" imposed. The Secretary of the Treasury's statement that receipts from the in- come tax on persons, payable on or before June 30, will fall slightly more Mr. McAdoo's explanation, that "the Department is convinced that many lia- ble to the income tax have failed to make returns, and that many have made inaccurate returns," is entirely plausible. There was probably never an income tax, imposed by any govern- ment in the world, to which that state- ment would not apply. But whether the familiar evasions or suppressions would account in this case for a yield 44 per cent, less than what was actual- ly warranted and determinable, is an- other question. Even the Treasury must recognize the alternative possibility that its estimates were overdrawn. It is gratifying at all events to learn that the yield from customs revenue will be $21,000,000 above the estimate, and that the surplus of ordinary receipts over ordinary disbursements will bo $30,000,- 000, or only about $11,000,000 under the fiscal year 1913. Prom one point of view, moreover, the disappointing pro- ductiveness of the income tax removes a danger which, in the minds of many thoughtful students of public affairs, threatened evil consequences if the yield had turned out to be as large as the estimates of the Congressional commit- tee. What kind of policy, in public ap- propriations and public expenditure, follows an unexpectedly large windfall of public revenue, we know by unpleas- ant experience. Now that the membership of the Fed- eral Reserve Board has been completed by the President's selection of Mr. Charles S. Hamlin, and the nominations for the five appointive members have been sent to the Senate, this important experiment in banking should before many weeks be fairly under way. Un- til that Board was named and organ- ized, it was impossible for the construc- tive machinery of the new banking sys- tem to move. The directorates of the eight regional banks cannot organize until the national Board has named the three directors of each regional board whose selection is entrusted to it. The Federal Reserve Board nominations are, in our opinion, such as to meet in a re- markable degree the essential qualifica- tions. Outside of the Secretary of the Treasury and the Controller of the Cur- rency, who are members ex-officio, the Board as named contains two practical bankers of high standing, one of them perhaps the best authority on the eco- nomic problems of the system. It con- tains one other member with large ex- perience in government finances and with a reputation for conservative judgment, and a fourth who has given the close and practical study of an ex- pert to the banking law. It now re- mains, in order to insure the efficien- cy of the new system of note issues, re- discounting of commercial paper, and control of home and foreign exchanges, that competent managements be chosen for the regional banks. A weak or in- experienced national Board would have invited irritating conflict between the regional banks and the Federal Reserve Board, and perhaps among the regional banks themselves. But second-rate man- agements for the Federal Reserve banks would invite and perhaps necessitate such use and extension of the national Board's arbitrary powers as In our Judg- ment would be most harmful Thli would not be any less probable with a strong and efficient Hoard at VVa. hlng ton. The true ideal of this somewhat
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June 1 8, 1914I The ISTation 713 novel system of centralized banking, as President Wilson has personally recog- nized, is that it should parallel the scheme of our State and national gov- ernments— each supreme in its own proper sphere, and each supplementing, but never interfering with, the legiti- mate functions of the other. By a vote of 27 to 24— with 44 Sena- tors not voting — the Senate on Satur- day decided to retain in the Legislative and Judicial bill the words "with- out examination under the civil-service rules," referring to the appointment of "commercial attaches," a new class of officials to be sent abroad under the De- partment of Commerce. This continues a record in regard to newly created openings in the civil service of the Gov- ernment, of which the Democratic par- ty has reason to be ashamed. There is always some kind of excuse for keep- ing out of the merit system the par- ticular class of posts in question at any given moment; but the excuses are usually very thin. In the present in- stance, the case for the exemption was chiefly represented by Senator Martin, of Virginia, who kept saying over and over again simply that "we believe" that "better men" can be got "for this par- ticular service" without examination than with it. He deprecated any ex- tended discussion of the question, say- ing that "the only thing which will serve the country now is a vote"; to which Mr. Brandegee very naturally re- plied that it was doubtless prudent for a man taking his position not to en- gage in any discussion of the merits of the matter. Five Democrats stood with the minority against the exemption; and it seems just to mention that among them were two Senators whom we are by no means in the habit of commend- ing, Martine of New Jersey and Varda- man of Mississippi. The labor-union proviso in the ap- propriation bill, which President Wil- son "side-stepped" last year, is to con- front him again in this year's bill — the proviso forbidding the use of any part of the anti-Trust appropriation for the prosecution of combinations of working- men or farmers. Mr. Taft had refused to approve a bill containing this pro- viso; Mr. Wilson signed it, with the explanation that he did so "without in fact limiting the operation of justice to prosecute violations of law by whomso- ever committed." The process, thus be- gun, of whipping the devil round the stump has been continued on a spec- tacular scale in the framing of the Clay- ton Anti-Trust bill, passed a little while ago by the House. You begin by pro- hibiting the use of a certain fund, mak- ing the excuse that, while it pleases the labor people it really has no effect what- ever, because there is plenty of money elsewhere for the enforcement of the law. Well, say the labor people, if that is your game, we don't propose to let you off with the first move. We will put our exemption into the law itself. All right, say the side-steppers, we can accommodate you; we will get up an exemption that will look to you like a real exemption but which we will as- sure the country is no exemption at all. Very good, say the labor men, if that is all we can get this year, we'll take it and be more or less thankful; but if it turns out that we have been gold- bricked, we shall be up and at you in the very next Congress — and in the meanwhile, observe that we are not for- getting to keep up that appropriation- bill proviso, and we'll work it for all it is worth. Outsiders with any sense of delicacy at all will shrink from meddling with the Progressive family quarrel. But in this cynical age one ought not lightly to pass by the evidence which Mr. Pinchot adduces that we still have among us a Man of Feeling. He is so rare and precious a being that Mr. Per- kins felt justified in circulating by the crate in 1912 a document setting forth the proof of his own extreme tenderness of heart. It is true that Beveridge "la- bored under emotion" as he read his own eloquence, and that Col. Roosevelt was "visibly moved," but it was George W. Perkins on whose cheeks "the tears were coursing," and who "with a sob he could not stifle hastily left the room and paced the corridors to regain his self-control." Nothing so affecting has been written, to our knowledge, since the veracious account of the deep emo- tion which the Walrus displayed in the presence of the oysters: "I weep for you," the Walrus said; "I deeply sympathize." With sobs and tears he sorted out Those of the largest size, Holding his pocket-handkerchief Before his streaming eyes. It will be noted that Mr. Perkins was like the Walrus, not only in weeping, but in a decided preference for what Mr. Perkins calls "the large units." The collision between the New York and the Pretoria, coming on top of that in the St. Lawrence, shows anew the necessity of prompt action, not only in ratifying the Safety at Sea treaty, but in joint additional regulations as to navigation during a fog. This accident recalls a long list of similar ones, such as the collision between the Britannic and Germanic, and the sinking of the Republic and of the Oregon. The New York is one of the oldest vessels in the transatlantic trade, completing her twenty-sixth year of consecutive ser- vice— an almost record-breaking length. Had she been fairly struck, she must have foundered promptly; but her cap- tain's skill and good judgment and his prompt stopping indubitably saved the lives of many passengers. Official inves- tigation will show whether the respon- sibility rests on the Pretoria, as it ap- pears, or whether it was an unavoid- able happening. But our Government could well take the lead in grappling with this the most serious of ocean problems by convening a board of its own officials. It is easy, as Alice Meynell once wrote, to replace man, and, when Na- ture has once lapsed, to replace Na- ture; to replace man's work is the dif- ficult task. Connecticut has just taken over her oldest timbered structure, the "Thomas Lee House" of Bride- Brook. It was erected by a gentleman who left England for Saybrook in 1641. Its builder was in his old age member of the Legislature of 1676, was constable under Sir Edmund Andros, and held a justice's court in one of the rooms of the house. His direct descen- dants still lived in it when Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, and Lee at Appomattox; and it was the marriage of one of them which gave Bride-Brook its name, and a theme to one of the earlier of New England woman poets. Two Colonial organizations and the So- ciety for the Preservation of New Eng- land Antiquities lent their aid to the local historical bodies in restoring a landmark which, as one speaker re- marked, should give every visitor "a
Page 823
714 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2555 quickened sense of the high message of those ancestors who felled the forests and planted the vines of Connecticut." The promise of Mr. Julius Rosenwald to duplicate all gifts for negro rural public schools in the South is no less notable for its wisdom than for its gen- erosity. It is not clear from the dis- patches whether this refers only to sums raised by colored people or by others; in either event, it is munificent enough. But Mr. Rosenwald is accus- tomed to bestowing his benefactions both wisely and generously, as witness what he has done for the Y. M. C. A. movement among the colored people. A number of impressive and useful build- ings have arisen because of his aid and inspiration. So disheartening has been the condition of the negro rural schools — in many counties they offer a mere mockery of education — that the Slater and General Education Boards, as well as the Jeanes Fund which applies itself exclusively to the colored rural public schools, have been devoting themselves to the task of obtaining better super- vision, better teachers, and better con- ditions. If Mr. Rosenwald will now duplicate every dollar raised by the col- ored people to improve their cross-roads schools, a splendid spur for their ac- tivities has been provided. to work in the closest cooperation with him. Financial matters, however, are under the control of a Board of Esti- mate, composed of the three elective officials; and there is an appointive Ef- ficiency Board to draft civil-service reg- ulations. Mr. Asquith's promise to introduce his amending bill to the Home Rule measure before the original bill comes up for consideration in the House of Lords, is more a concession in form than matter. Should an agreement be reached on the amending bill, the Lords might incorporate its substance into the Home Rule bill in the form of amendments. Concessions from Mr. As- quith will consist in the manner in which the amending bill is introduced, not in its contents. On the latter point there is no reason to suppose that the draft of the amending bill as presented will differ from what Mr. Asquith has repeatedly announced — the exclusion, for a period of six years, of such coun- ties of Ulster as shall by a popular vote desire to be exempted from the opera- tions of the bill. What the Unionists will strive for is, in the first place, to make the exemption include all of Ul- ster, and, secondly and more important, to make the exemption run for all time. On the first point it is certain that the Government will not yield, and it is not certain that the Unionists will insist. St. Louis proposes to adopt the in itiative, referendum, and recall. In- deed, by means of initiative and refer- endum she would decide on non-parti-; san elections and preferential voting. Her new charter, which has been greet- ed with an approval foreshadowing its adoption in November, has for its con- trolling idea the reduction of elective of- fices. This marks a turning of the worm in a State whose citizens have grievous- ly needed the short ballot. A pamphlet recently issued by the Civic League showed a condition only less bad than Chicago's, where the elector fills 144 offices. Hereafter, according to the pro- posed St. Louis charter, the voter would have but four city offices to consider — Mayor, Controller, President of the Board of Aldermen, and Alderman. The Mayor's appointive power is not limit- ed. His official family — the Directors of Public Utilities, of Streets and Sewers, of Public Welfare, and of Public Safety — constitute a Board of Public Service Mr. Redmond has lent his sanction to the scheme for organizing a National- ist Volunteer force, 300,000 strong. Os- tensibly, this is a move in self-defence against Ulster. Actually, it is intended as a hint to Mr. Asquith that Ireland believes in him, but prefers to keep her powder dry. The men of Ulster have a reason for organizing. They are op- posed to a bill that is soon to go on the statute books, and they are prepared to go to the point of taking up arms against that law. Irish Home Rulers, having the Government with them — and the armed forces of the Government — are hardly in need of minute-men, ex- cept on the supposition that the Ulster Protestants will immediately set to mas- sacring Ulster Catholics, who must look for succor to their fellow Home Rulers from the south. But that is absurd. There may be doubt whether the army will obey orders to thrust Home Rule down the throat of Ulster. There can be no doubt that the army will do its duty when it comes to preventing civil war between Orangemen and National- ists. To the extent, therefore, that the Nationalist Volunteers are a reality, they are intended as warning that if the Government is frightened into un- due conciliation by the prospect of vio- lence in Ulster, it will have to face vio- lence in the rest of Ireland. Englishmen may soon be asking for a Carnegie Commission to investigate the outrages — on political decency — and massacres — of the English language — now almost daily occurring in their none too fortunate island. Until recent- ly, Mr. Lloyd George was supposed to hold the record for violent speaking, but the Tories, with the aid of Kipling and Lord Esher, have recently been pressing him hard. Indeed, Punch per- ceived the natural affiliation, and wrote a letter to Mr. Kipling to tell him what a great opening there was for him as assistant-reviler to Lloyd George. The latter appears to have been made a bit jealous by the late outbursts of black- guarding by Conservative speakers and writers; and the other day returned to his favorite pastime of slaying "the dukes" with his mouth. He scored pretty high when he warned "the Brit- ish aristocracy" that "the very dung- hill on which they are perched is being undermined." In one respect the Ribot Ministry, which fell on Friday, must come pretty near holding the record, even for the short-lived Cabinets of France. It vir- tually died in the act of being born. Even weak Ministries, formed by a coalition among the various "groups" in the Chamber, usually have time to show what they can do, the programme of the Prime Minister being accepted by the Chamber as a matter of course. That Senator Ribot was voted out at the very start, is clear proof of the extent to which political passions are now aroused in the French republic. Ribot was evidently rejected because he was not radical enough, though it is also plain that the extreme Left and the Socialists are aiming their blow at the President himself. Already the organ of Jaures, VHumaniU, is reviving against M. Poincare the old Gambetta formula, and calling upon him to sub- mit or demit.
Page 824
June 1 8, 1914] The Nation 715 THE WASHINGTON QUANDARY. All the available evidence goes to show that Congress, if left to itself, would adjourn in a few weeks, without passing any more contentious bills. Rep- resentative Underwood speaks for many when he declares for adjournment not later than August 1. But by that time, it is obvious, the entire legislative pro- gramme of the Administration could not be completed. It certainly could not be unless the Senate should take the high- ly improbable course of adopting, in President Wilson's phrase, an "express schedule" instead of a "freight" run- ning time. Even so, the question would remain whether it is desirable to enact laws at forty-five miles an hour. High speed, in such matters, means great hazards. It is hasty legislation which gives point to the saying of Voltaire that Parliaments make laws and are then astonished to find how badly they work. And the alternatives at Wash- ington really reduce themselves to very simple terms. If the anti-Trust legisla- tion is to be pushed, it should be ma- turely considered by the Senate. If there is to be an early adjournment, a good part of it will have to be dropped for this session. Congress can't have it both ways. Neither can the President. It is admitted that Mr. Wilson still has sufficient authority to hold Con- gress to its work all summer, if he so desires. Mr. Underwood proposes a com- promise. This is to adjourn Congress on August 1, with the understanding that it is to be summoned in extra ses- sion directly after the November elec- tions. The idea is that all the left-over bills could then be acted upon before next January, leaving nothing but rou- tine work for the "short" session. How this will appeal to the President does not yet appear. He is reported as con- tinuing in an unyielding mood; and Congress has by this time found out that, lacking Falstaff's size, he lacks Falstaff's "alacrity in sinking." So that those Senators and Representatives who are sadly making up their minds to spend another summer in Washing- ton, are doing it on the supposition that the President will not let them off. He unquestionably has the power to com- pel them to keep at work, but is it wise and best for him to exercise it? In finally answering that question, Mr. Wilson will have many things to take into the account. He must consid- er the attitude of his party. He must reckon with the state of mind of the country. It is all very well to say that prevailing doubts and fears are only "psychological," but that does not make them any the less serious material to be dealt with. It does not make them any less formidable politically. A party leader may have many forces opposed to him and yet triumph; but if the popular psychology is against him, let him beware. And in duly weighing this as it affects the Trust bills now sent to the Senate, the President should not overlook the fact that those bills do not live up to the description of their na- ture which he gave in advance last Jan- uary. They were announced, that is to say, as a plan to remove "uncertain- ties" from the interpretation and en- forcement of the Sherman act; they were to furnish a kind of plain-sailing chart for all the honest business men of the country. But it cannot be said that this promise has been kept by the Clayton bill and the other measures that hare passed the House. Instead of removing old uncertainties, they create new ones. It is true that the added at- tempts at definition of what corpora- tions may do and may not do are guard- ed by many a "Provided." There is great merit in your provided. The word is scattered all through these bills, part- ly in an effort to draw their teeth, part- ly in a kind of pious hope that the good may be done and the harm avoided. But the net result is only to produce, not a clearing-up of the Sherman Act, not a careful delimiting of its debatable areas, but a series of new administra- tive measures, themselves stuffed with ambiguities and containing matter to furnish forth a thousand lawsuits. The need of a certain change of front on these bills has already been made apparent. Several sections of the Clay- ton bill have been abandoned, and the Trade Commission bill was reported to the Senate on Saturday, changed both in name and in nature. The Commis- sion is hereafter to be called the Fed- eral Trade Commission, and to it is to be confided power to proceed against corporations guilty of unfair or oppres- sive competition. This term is not de- fined, as the attempt was rather futllely made by the Clayton bill to define it. Presumably, the Commission will be guided by the doctrines on this subject laid down by the Supreme Court. We do not deny that such a Commission might prove efficient and useful; but there is certainly no such case made out for its urgency as to warrant great efforts, and justify the cruel and unusual punishment of Congress, in order to cre- ate it speedily. One general consideration, affecting this whole question, remains to be men- tioned. It is that laws of this nature never meet expectations. They do not do so actually, and least of all political- ly. It seems to be the thought at Wash- ington that the enactment of the Trust bills would close the entire chapter of that kind of legislation. But it would be folly to imagine anything of the kind. Behind the panacea-man there always lurks another to affirm that this particular nostrum is valueless, and that the country will never be happy until he gets a chance to put his nos- trum on the statute-book. The bills re- ferred to are plainly a pretty large bor- rowing from the Progressive platform. But does Mr. Wilson fancy that the Pro- gressives will stop there? Already some of their leaders are agitating for the Government ownership of railways. That sort of appetite is simply whetted by giving it only a part of its bill-of- fare. THE TREATY FOR SAFETY AT SEA. There are grave differences of opin- ion as to the desirability of confirming the pending treaty accepting the re- sults of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, as well as in regard to the merits of the La Fol- lette Shipping bill. There are those, like Mrs. Florence Kelley, who declare that the treaty marks a step backward; and her evidence has peculiar value not only because of her record of pub- lic service, but because she speaks for the travellers, while so many others who are discussing the measure do so from the point of view of the ship- owner or of the labor-unionist, like An- drew Furuseth. He resigned as a dele- gate to the London Conference because it would not follow his views in every- thing, attacked it and its proceedings whole, and came back long before it had ended its conferences. Naturally, he finds nothing in the London agree- ment to interest him. But the question which remains for the unbiassed is
Page 825
716 The IsTation [Vol. 98, No. 2555 whether the sum total of good in the treaty outweighs the evil, or whether the Senate should be counselled to re- ject the treaty in the hope that in a couple of years a new and more radical Conference will go further than this one did in the matter of safeguarding ocean travel. What are the criticisms of the treaty? Mr. Furuseth says that if it had been in effect it would in no wise have pre- vented the loss of the Empress of Ire- land; the only change would have been that a lot of her cooks, waiters, coal- passers, etc., would have been rechris- tened "certificated lifeboatmen," and might not have been able to understand the language of their officers save through an interpreter. Mrs. Kelley insists that the treaty will supersede and relax existing laws for seven years — until 1921 — in the matter of a contin- uous wireless watch, the substitution of life-rafts for one-fourth of the life-boats, and by compelling one country to ac- cept the safety certificate of another even though the laws of the latter are far below our own in safety require- ments. In other words, the stringent American laws will be of no avail if the treaty is passed, and a ship from Nor- way, let us say, comes in with what is under our own laws inadequate equip- ment or a defective wireless watch. Other objections are that the treaty does not compel cargo boats to have wire- less service; that its requirements as to structural changes affect no craft save those whose keels are laid down on or after July 1, 1915. It is also ask- ed what guarantee has the United States that the inspection service in other countries guaranteed by the treaty will be efficient? Now, it is obviously true that, as the structural changes, such as double bot- toms, required by the treaty, apply only to vessels built after July 1, 1915, the Empress of Ireland would not have been affected by its adoption. To suggest, as Mr. Furuseth does, that all ocean steamers now afloat should be compelled to add additional bottoms and bulkheads is, on its face, so absurd as to need no comment. It is as if one should sug- gest that every factory building in New York that is not built according to the latest devices should be taken down and rebuilt. In such cases, whether on sea or on land, no one thinks of doing oth- er than to safeguard the old as well as possible and to prescribe the strictest rules for new construction. Again, Mr. Furuseth's sneer as to the "certificated lifeboatmen" seems to us unjustified, save from the labor-union point of view of creating the maximum number of jobs, needless or otherwise. That sailors should know the lan- guage of their officers we heartily agree; the Conference should have seen to this. As for the life-rafts to which Mrs. Kel- ley objects, had there been more on the Empress and the Titanic, many lives would have been saved, for they would bave floated off. They do not, more- over, capsize in rough seas. But we are with her in thinking that every passen- ger is entitled to a seat in a boat; there should be plenty of life-rafts besides, even if a ballroom or a swimming tank has to be sacrificed. We should even go so far as to require non-capsizable life-boats. As for the wireless, there is sharp difference between Mrs. Kelley and the Commissioner of Navigation, Mr. Chamberlain, who was a delegate to the London Conference and insists that the treaty does not relax any of the existing United States statutes. We are inclined to think that Mrs. Kelley is correct as to her wireless contention. But the real question at issue is wheth- er, even if she is correct in all her crit- icisms, the treaty should therefore be rejected. To this we answer an emphatic no. As our readers are aware, we were crit- icising the Government and the steam- ship companies in this matter years before the Republic and the Titanic sank, and we are not overmuch given to advocating compromises. But here a three-quarter loaf is far better than no bread. Mrs. Kelley, we think, overlooks the fact that our American ocean pas- senger ships are but few; that even the English are in a minority, and that this treaty affects German, French, Ca- nadian, Scandinavian, and Dutch ship- ping as well as our own. It is a tre- mendous gain to have all the seagoing world agree as to structural rules for all ships after July 1, 1915; but it is an even greater gain to have got the nations together to legislate on this sub- ject. That we can only hope that the other nations will live up to their obli- gations, there being no central power to compel them, is true; but it is also true of all other similar international obligations. OUR PRECARIOUS PUBLIC CAREERS The appointment of Representative Covington to a life-tenure judgeship, and his acceptance of it, are made the sub- ject of regretful comment by the Balti- more Sun, in an editorial entitled "Keeping Our Covingtons in Public Life." It finds that the Maryland Con- gressman could hardly do otherwise than accept, owing to the uncertainties of politics, particularly in the case of a man independent of political machines and not possessed of such means as would make the heavy expense of a di- rect-primary contest a matter of indif- ference. "Mr. Covington," says the Sun, "is possibly the most useful man hold- ing political office in this State; cer- tainly he is numbered among the three or four most useful." But if he had looked forward to a continuance of his career in the House, he would have been confronted with the plain fact that if at any time he failed either of nomi- nation or election, he would have to "re- turn to Easton and take up there the practice of law which was interrupted when he first went to Congress." The trouble is one that confronts us all along the line. So far as Congress is concerned, much might be accom- plished in mitigation of it if we could break down the tradition limiting eligi- bility for the representation of a dis- trict to residents of that district. There is no Constitutional limitation of this kind; the requirement of the Constitu- tion being only that every Representa- tive shall, "when elected, be an inhabi- tant of the State in which he shall be chosen." But sentiment in favor of strictly local representation has, thus far, been so fixed and so universal that there have been hardly any exceptions anywhere to the rule of district repre- sentation by district residents. Even if the authority of this rule were broken down, however, the difficulties in the way of keeping a man in Congress when his home district failed him would be very great; perhaps greater under the direct-primary system than under the old-time methods of nomination. In- deed, in view of the deep-seated preju- dice in favor of local representation, the Question is hardly more than academic. Of more practical importance Is the question of making primary elections in- expensive!, in which direction our Ital- timore contemporary looks for the pos-
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June 1 8, 1914] The Nation 717 slbility of a real betterment. There is no doubt that this is one of the most serious difficulties connected with the direct-primary system. If we are to get and keep good men In our political life, we must make it possible for them to remain in it without facing an exhaust- ing and expensive struggle every few years. It would be idle, however, to imagine that the trouble can be met by any spe- cific remedy. It Is right to try what can be done by this means or that; but the difficulty is so many-sided, the elements entering into it so pervasive and sub- tle, that hope for any great betterment must rest rather on a general advance of thought and feeling upon the whole subject of public life than on any par- ticular contrivance. And towards such advance an indispensable requisite is a recognition of the loss we suffer when our political life is deprived of any man whose service is of particular value or importance. One of the most notable instances of such a loss that the country has known in many years was when Gov. Hughes ceased to be a factor in the politics of New York State and of the nation. His high usefulness in the exalted judicial position to which he transferred his labors, no one will ques- tion; but it was felt, not only in New York, but throughout the Union, that a vital factor which could ill be spared had gone out of our political life when he withdrew from it. How deep that loss was, the history of the Republican National Convention of 1912 was destin- ed speedily to show, in a most dramat- ic manner. In less obvious ways, and in less marked degree, but nevertheless with consequences most potent in the aggregate, this draining away of much of what is best and finest in our politics and government is going on all the time. But the draining off of able and high- minded men who have found their way into political life, important as it is, is but a minor indication of a much broad- er and more important phenomenon. If those who have actually gone into this career and made a notable impression are so often diverted into other paths, how many must there be who ought to be in political life, whom the State or the country needs, whose own inclina- tions would direct them towards it un- der favorable conditions, and yet who never enter it at all? It is a mistake to suppose that there are not in Con- gress, and even in the State Legisla- tures, a certain number of men of a high order of ability and character, and zealously devoted to their legislative du- ties. But where there is one of this kind, there ought to be ten. In the State Legislatures particularly, the dearth of men of this type is deplorable. Nobody expects any large question of public policy to receive at the hands of u Legislature the kind of consideration which is its due; and this is a state of things which carries with it the seeds of its own perpetuation. Nothing tends more to keep high-class men out of a Legislature than a general understand- ing that high-class men do not go there. There are always, fortunately, some ex- ceptions; but it gives one a pang to think how different the story of our Government would be if we could some- how contrive to make the exceptions the rule. THE ITALIAN DISORDERS. Extreme self-restraint on the part of the troops and the police in the face of popular disturbances is apparently a tradition of internal Italian policy. Dur- ing the present troubles, as on several occasions since the great riots of 1898 in northern Italy ushered in an era of economic unrest, soldiers and police have held back under provocation. It is a policy which may be dangerous in the long run, but which is justified in its immediate effects. The "revolution- ary" movement which began with last week's rioting at Ancona is pretty near its end, and the village "republics" which sprang up here and there under Socialist and Anarchist auspices will have ceased doing business before many days. Possibly it is part of Govern- ment tactics to let the rural populace satisfy its yearnings for the dramatic by setting up "republics" under ama- teur Robespierres and forcing the hated "aristocrats" to salute the red flag. The role played by the peasantry constitutes a peculiar feature of the Italian dis- turbances. In all other countries it is among the urban workers that unrest flares up first, with the rural popula- tion indifferent, if not hostile. But northern Italy has its peasants' asso- ciations, who have conducted obstinate strikes with more or less success, and so have offered a fertile field for Social- ist and Anarchist propaganda. The task of the Italian Government was unquestionably made easier by the refusal of the railway workers to pro- claim a general strike. This must have been a sore disappointment to the ma- nipulators of the local uprisings in the northern districts, since only a few weeks ago there seemed danger that the railway workers would proclaim a strike on their own account. But since then the Government has taken action to meet in part the demands of the rail- way men, while letting it be known that in the case of a strike it would make use of the weapon first brought into play with such effectiveness by Premier Briand during the French railway strike of four years ago. This consists in summoning the strikers to the col- ors as part of the army reserve and working the railways under military discipline. But fear of such a move must have been only one consideration. Italian workingmen have experimented liber- ally with the general strike during the last ten years, and have met with fail- ure. They made the mistake which cautious Socialist leaders in other coun- tries have feared, of dulling the edge of a weapon which should be used only in the most pressing emergencies, and with assurance of support from the great mass of the population. Experience has shown that only when the general strike assumes the proportions of a national upheaval, as it did in Russia in 1905 and more recently in Belgium, is there any chance of success. General strikes conducted by labor alone, as in Sweden, or general strikes that are not general, as in Italy, have ended in defeat. The failure of the Socialist-Republi- can movement in the Romagna does not, however, rob that movement of signifi- cance. One operating cause must have been the revival of Socialist energies, of which we find another illustration in the present political situation in France following a Parliamentary election in which the Socialists have made notable gains and the Radicals, more or less In alliance with them, have also added to their strength. If we look for the further cause behind this reassertion of Socialist aggressiveness we may find It in the reaction from the militarist Ideals which have been dominant In Europe during the last five years, or, roughly, since the Turkish revolution set the European balance of power
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71H The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 25ss a-wavering. Italy's war in Tripoli, and the Balkan conflicts, brought Europe face to face with the possibility of a general war, with a consequent en- hancement of the nationalist spirit all over the Continent. In Italy itself the Tripoli tan conquest created a wave of patriotic enthusiasm which for a time threatened the integrity of the Social- ist party in that country. With the relaxation of international tension has come a subsidence in na- tionalist feeling and a corresponding recrudescence of the older Socialist pressure. In France this has been made manifest in the present campaign for the abandonment of the three years' military service law. In Italy the riot- ing points in the same direction. At no time did the monarchy seem so safe as after the Tripolitan conquest; and while an aggressive Italian policy in Albania was being carried on. The uprisings at Ancona and elsewhere are only another instance of the recurrent popular pro- test against the costs of militarism. CANADA AND OUR MAGAZINES. It is less than three years since the people of Canada, by rejecting reci- procity and Sir Wilfrid Laurier, defeat- ed our insidious attempt to annex them, but already another American scare is taking shape — at least in the columns of the London Times. That paper has been much concerned with the forces working for the "Americanization" of the Dominion, if not in a political sense, then in a cultural sense. A process of "pacific penetration" is under way which may not threaten the absorption of Canada by the United States, but does threaten the integrity of the Em- pire by loosening the bonds of a com- mon outlook and common tastes with the mother country. Is it certain, asks the Times correspondent, that the peo- ple of Canada will never be attracted "by the vision of an independent Cana- dian Republic"? American immigration into the Western provinces is bringing American tastes and connections. Ca- nadian labor organizations are branch- es of international organizations with headquarters in the United States. American manufacturers have branch factories in Canada manned largely by American workmen. The newspaper syn- dicates recognize no 49th degree of lati- tude. English news Intended primarily for consumption in the United States and reflecting the American attitude to English problems is retailed to Cana- dian newspapers, on the apparent as- sumption that Alberta or Saskatchewan feels about the House of Lords or Ul- ster as Iowa or Massachusetts does. A striking example of how uncon- sciously the Canadian journalist drops into un-Imperialist modes of thinking is pointed out in a letter by the head of the Canadian branch of Macmillans: Much, if not most, of our syndicated material for newspapers comes from New York and Chicago, and only recently a large Winnipeg paper in its Sunday edi- tion had a page story of "How We De- velop Our Navy." The account was all concerned with the American navy, and eulogized "Our great Admiral Farragut," for his victory over "the British Navy" in Lake Erie. [It may be remarked that a victory by Farragut over the British on Lake Erie rather represents a Cana- dization of American history.] There are daily syndicated articles in most of our papers, in which "we Americans" and "our starry flag" and "our United States" and "our trouble with Mexico" figure just as freely as, if not more freely than, gen- eralities about Great Britain. Not to mention the waning of cricket and lacrosse before American baseball! But, in particular, it is the cheaper American magazines that are undermin- ing Imperialist sentiment in Canada. "For every English weekly or monthly publication one sees here ten Ameri- can." The evil effects are not merely sentimental. More pernicious even than the reading matter in the American magazines are the advertising pages, with their highly artistic and psycho- logical appeal. The influx of American magazines thus means an influx of American trade, which in turn binds the two countries more closely together and so completes the vicious circle. Yet how is the danger to be averted? Favorable postal rates by the British Government are advocated as one way of checking the invasion of American periodicals. But it is not likely that anything short of a prohibitive rate on American periodi- cals would show results. For it is plain that not only is there in Canada a de- mand for our magazines, but there is in England no rival supply. It has be- come a commonplace that in Great Brit- ain, for obvious geographical reasons, the newspapers play the part which our own vast distances — and Canada's — have reserved for the weekly and monthly magazines. England hai Itl high-class political and literary reviews of comparatively limited appeal. But its cheap magazines stand far below our own. They concentrate on fiction and diverting matter of a distinctly elemen- tary nature. They are not in the least concerned with the social and political questions which — no matter how free- and-easy their treatment — have never- theless given our own magazines their enormous vogue. If American maga- zines were to be excluded from Canada, that country would have to develop a substitute. England has hardly one to offer. To the extent that the "Americaniza- tion" of Canada is a fact, the sole cause is not to be found in mere geographi- cal contiguity, though that, of course, counts greatly. It is the similarity of conditions on either side of the border that works for a similarity in reading tastes. One might keep American mag- azines out of Canada; one might even keep American farmers out of Canada, and yet tastes and habits of thought would gravitate to the same level on both sides of the boundary. We have spoken of geographical distances. The enormous prairies of Western Canada, with a well-scattered farming popula- tion, reproduce our own West as a mar- ket for the periodical as opposed to the metropolitan newspaper. Canada's farming population is bound to develop —and, for that matter, has already de- veloped— much the same interest as our own in the problem of railways and ex- press companies and Trusts, and ulti- mately in the questions of conservation and the relation between government control and private ownership — in oth- er words, those social-political ques- tions to which our own magazines de- vote so much attention. And yet it is doubtful if Imperial in- terests are as seriously endangered in Canada as the Times imagines in its pessimistic moods. The points of con- tact between us and Canada are many. But, after all, there are differences which might be emphasized. It is not necessary to go into detail. It is enough that Americans, when they enter Can- ada, especially the older provinces, do feel that there is a difference — a differ- ence in the pace of life, in the higher cultural interests, in the importance of ml caste. These (llti'ereiieeM from us and resemblances i England are of sufficient vitality to keep the Imperial feeling alive for somo time to come.
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June 18, 1914] The Nation 719 Foreign Correspondence THE PLAN TO REFORM THE THAMES— AN ABORTIVE SCHEME —"LIQUID HISTORY." London, June 8. Old Father Thames has suffered many indignities in his time, but there has been nothing quite so shocking as the present proposal to put him into a strait waistcoat. The plan sent out for the consideration of the local authorities has been prepared by C. J. Griffiths, the en- gineer to the Thames Conservancy, a board which controls the river above Teddington, the lower part of it being the domain of the Port of London Au- thority. It is a plan for bringing down to the sea much more rapidly than at present the water which falls in the 3,500 square miles of the Thames Val- ley. Its principal features include the cutting of seventeen new channels, the destruction of the islands that interrupt the current, and the removal of the ma- sonry bridges at Henley, Maidenhead, Windsor, and elsewhere. The cost of it would be not less than $15,000,000, an outlay equivalent to $500 per acre of land relieved from inundation. The project has only been made public a day or two, but it is already as dead as a doornail. One objection comes from the farmers, in whose interests it has largely been prepared. To be protected from the floods which cause trouble for a few days in the year would be worth something, but it would not be worth the sacrifice of a great part of the value of the river all the rest of the time. What the farmer is asking for is not a river-bank with a gradient of one in three, which would make it impossible for cattle to drink of the stream and would compel him to fence off his fields as a protection of his stock from danger. But the protest of the farmers is as nothing to that which has been immedi- ately made on behalf of the vast multi- tude of persons to whom the Thames is every summer a means of healthful recreation. There is probably no other river in the world that contributes so much to the greatest happiness of the greatest number. The nearness of the pleasure part of the river to London makes it one of the most accessible, as well as delightful, resorts for a half-day holiday. "It is no exaggeration," says one of its admirers, "to state that the Thames is a model river for boating, of- fering as it does not only the perfec- tions of rowing and the quintessence of sculling, but also exceptional facilities for punting and canoeing, in the shape of long reaches of moderate depth, with good gravelly bottom and endless side streams and backwaters offering all t^e solitude and natural charm of an Arca- dian stream." To those who can afford to spare more than half a day. at a time, the Thames has far more to offer. No foreign visitor to England, however short his stay in the country, should miss the two days' excursion by launch from Oxford to Kingston, or vice versa. Grander scen- ery, of course, can be found on many other rivers, but for its endless variety of simple, restful loveliness, where can be found the rival of this ever-changing, ever-pleasing panorama? These natural charms are heightened by another fea- ture that appeals forcibly to any stranger who has a sense of things past as well as things present. One day a colonial politician, standing on the terrace of the House of Commons, was bragging loudly about the glories of some big river in his own region. It was a much finer river than the Thames — cleaner, wider, and so on. John Burns happened to be close by, and could not stand it. "Do you know what that brown river is, sir?" he ex- claimed indignantly. "It's liquid his- tory ! " At Brentford, opposite Kew Gardens, there stands a stone monument commem- orating the fact that near that spot Julius Caesar took his Roman soldiers across. Since that time what a story is linked with the towns and villages along these banks — with Oxford, and Windsor, and ftunnymede, and Wallingford, and Hamp- ton Court, and Richmond! Apart alto- gether from its historical associations, there, is something characteristically English about the whole environment of this stream — about the hamlets, and meadows, and country houses that stud its banks. "There is no single spot on the Thames," it has been said, "that could be situated anywhere but in Eng- land." That is perhaps an exaggeration, but it remains true that the two days' leisurely journey down its reaches will tell the stranger more about the soul of the country than any other expenditure of the same time. And "this glorious river," as Izaac Walton called it, twentieth-century van- dalism proposes to turn into a canal! The scheme would so reduce the summer level of the stream that, in many stretches of it, about as much of the surrounding scenery would be visible from a boat as if one were passing through a perpetual lock at low water. The destruction of the small islands, or "eyots," as they are generally called, would remove a feature that contributes not a little to the charm of the land- scape. In fact, as the Mayor of Reading, himself a member of the Conservancy, has stated, the plan would ruin the Thames as a pleasure resort. And all to get rid of what the report speaks of as "a certain amount of inconvenience" that occasionally follows an exceptionally heavy rainfall. In this case the aesthetic and sentimen- tal objections are happily reinforced by the very practical consideration of pounds, shillings, and pence. To destroy the "amenities" of the Thames would be to take away the livelihood of thousands of persons dwelling permanently along its banks. There is a reasonable suspicion that the real purpose of the scheme is not what appears upon its face The local author- ities along the river have been complain- ing for years that the Thames Conserv- ancy does not take adequate measures to prevent inundations. "Very well." replies the Conservancy, "we will look into the matter, and see what can be done." It sets its engineer to work upon the prob- lem, and, after an elaborate survey, he produces this solution. "If you really want to escape your occasional floods," says the Board to the local authorities to-day, "you will not get any efficient preventive short of such a scheme as this. It is now for you to decide whether you prefer an inundation now and then or the reconstruction of the river as plan- ned by our engineer." H. W. H. THE INSURRECTION IN ALBANIA- AUSTRIA AND PRUSSIA — THE WEAKNESS OF THE MPRET. Vienna, June 6. The troubles in Albania have suddenly assumed threatening proportions, and the new ruler's capacity has been put to the test in a very severe manner. The Mpret has not stood the test. Sudden danger showed him to be a man of no character, and the Austrians, who have had to bear much from the Prussians in the way of criticism during the last few years of trouble in the Balkans, when the Austro- Hungarian foreign policy has too fre- quently been wavering in character, are watching events in Albania with great interest. They see a German prince, a model military man, the pattern mem- ber of the general staff, suddenly placed in strange circumstances, where events unforeseen in the drill book must be met, at once and with decision, and find him wanting. The joy felt in Austria-Hungary is shared by the Serbs, who say, "All Eu- rope blamed us for our want of diplo- macy in keeping the Albanians in the newly annexed regions in order; now the pattern German, the soldier par excel- lence, cannot keep a handful of Albanian insurgents at bay." The Serbs point out a fact that has long been forgotten in regard to Albania — they say that even the Romans could not inspire respect in this wild people. They built a road right through the country, to reach the Near East, and shipped their goods over Du- razzo, but they never attempted to domi- nate the Albanians in the mountains. The Turks have never been able to do anything in the wilds of Mallisoria, nor has a Turkish tax collector ever succeed- ed in getting money from the inhabitants of the mountains. The Albanians have been accustomed to live by plunder and robbery, and now that this source of sup- ply has been cut off, partly by the work of civilization carried on by the Serbs, partly by the advance of the Greeks, they are without means of living. The land which was cultivated before the war has fallen into barrenness during the incursions made by troops and brigands, and the Albanian has absolutely no means of living. "How shall he pay taxes?" a diplomatist who knows the Bal- kans asked me. The new Prince cannot as yet expect the poverty-stricken Alba- nian to contribute anything to the funds required to administer the new country, although funds for the reorganization of M10 state are urgently needed. Besides the mistake of knowing no- thing of the people over whom he rules, the Prince von Wied made a great initial
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720 The N"atioii [Vol. 98, No. 2555 error. He ought to have insisted on the loan guaranteed by the Great Powers being' made over to him before he set sail for Durazzo. Turkey has always man- aged to keep comparative order in Al- bania by means of distributing money where it was needed and taking men to defend her palaces and public buildings in return for the immediate relief given in the country. The people there are ac- customed to being ruled by men with their hands full of ready money. The Prince arrived in Albania almost alone, without money, without a proper guard which would have inspired his new sub- jects with proper respect, and the final and most fatal mistake of all was taking the Princess and the children with him. The Prince's unconsidered flight on board the Italian warship was only made at the instance of the Princess, who refused to leave her husband's side. The diplo- matists of Europe now recognize that the new ruler was most ill-advised in ham- pering himself with women and children at such a juncture. Alone, his first task on arriving at Durazzo would doubtless have been to study the military aspect of the place, and he would have seen that Durazzo, lying as it does on a peninsula, was very easy of defence. It is separated from the mainland by swamps, further on a deep river in a ravine separates it from Schiak, the place where the malcontents were assembled. Twenty soldiers posted with rifles on the banks of the ravine could have made the advance of hun- dreds of men impossible, as, carefully placed, they would have commanded every approach to Durazzo. The Prince appears not even to have contemplated this means of defending the capital, and his future in his adopted country is regarded with great pessimism in Vienna. Here they consider that a Turkish pasha would be the right ruler for Albania. He would understand the difficult character of the people, would be able to communi- cate with them in a language that they knew, and would only lend a deaf ear to the opposing counsels of Italy and Austria. The rivalry between Austria-Hungary and Italy, both at home and abroad, has become very keen. Both nations wish to contravene any action taken by the other in Albania, and every forward effort made by Austria is followed by a check from Italy. It is very doubtful whether even the greatest politician could prevail against the multitude of counsels offered to Wilhelm von Wied. And the Mpret never passed as a politician. The battle- ships hovering outside Durazzo are no doubt a moral support to the Prince, but it is certain that he could press his policy upon his subjects better without the visi- ble sign of the power of the two nations, whose interests in the country are en- tirely opposed, just outside. The Albanians ask the Prince to dis- possess the beys, and to take away the land from the twelve great ruling fam- ilies, who require a third of its produce as rent. The great nationalist party Is agitating for Albania for the Albanians, and calls upon the Prince to free himself from the trammels of conflicting inter- ests, and to save the country for Its people. There is a great work for the right man in this unfortunate country, which is overrun with agents, all with some ulterior object. The ideal ruler, however, must be a man of somewhat rough methods, not the last word of civilization. Meanwhile the country remains in a state of uproar; discontent is everywhere rampant, and the seeds of insurrection, which have bet.n so largely sown by for- eign agents, are bearing fruit. L. R. "POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY" APPLIED TO THE NEW FRENCH CHAMBER —SOCIALIST LEADERSHIP. Paris, June 6. Dr. Gustave Le Bon is applying to "po- litical psychology" that scientific method which won the consideration of Henri Poincar<§ for the "Evolution of Forces," and the eulogy of Gumplowicz for the "Psychology of Crowds" as genial und tahnbrechend. Now he gives us a "psy- chological dissection" of the new French Parliament. "A member of Parliament is not an invariable being of fixed mind. He constitutes a collective personality with the mobility and inconstancy of all collective beings. His value depends for a little on himself, but much more on the group to which he attaches himself. We may compare him to a figure whose im- portance depends solely on the numbers which precede or follow it. "The present Parliament seems dis- quieting because it numbers a hundred Revolutionary Socialists. In truth, their projects are revolutionary enough. A member of their group has just formu- lated them as follows: 'To expropriate the individual and take from him the means of production which he now holds, so as to socialize them.' Socialists know very well that to ruin the rich industrial and commercial classes would fatally strike back and ruin the other classes also; but that is precisely the end they pursue in order to come to a revolution which they imagine must turn to profit for themselves. Revolutionary in their talk, these apostles of a new faith are much less so in their thoughts. They do not always know how to govern their tongues, but masters whom they fear oblige them to govern their actions. They have a solid hierarchy, and accept timid- ly and reverently the programmes im- posed by their chiefs, committees, and congresses. ... In the lump, they constitute a docile mass whose gregar- ious soul is easily handled by their leaders. Their feeble personality is en- veloped with a very strong collective soul. "Revolutionary Socialists are danger- ous most of all on account of the fear they inspire. The timid always stand back before the violent. The history of our great Revolutionary assemblies has constantly verified the law. . . . For :;u< li psychological reasons, it is to be feared that the United Radical party will be absorbed by the Socialists. The weak- ness of the Radical party is great be- Cftuae its convictions are uncertain. It will follow Socialists through fear, Just as the Plain followed Robespierre through fear of the guillotine — which, moreover, it did not escape. . . . Surely, Socialists have not more charac- ter than their adversaries, but the habit of obeying despotic chiefs gives them the power which disciplined troops always have. ". . . The present difficulty is to find out whether, from this crowd of legislators with opinions all afloat, there will arise a few men of tenacious will, capable of continuous effort and possessing judg- ment enough to distinguish possibilities from chimeras. . . . These will know — since their judgment is supposed to be sure — that the true statesman ought not to govern for a class of persons, but for all classes of citizens. They will know also that vexations imagined by fanatics to satisfy their jealousy and rancor would lead to the worst of reactions. They must have the will to substitute the widest tolerance for those low religious perse- cutions on which so many Ministries have lived till now. ... I am not unmindful that the realization of such a programme is very difficult in a house of Parliament divided among ten groups. . . . A task like this demands the heart of Hercules and the brain of Machiavelli. Yes, it is a difficult hour. Socialism unites the discontented as Bou- langism did. It has for itself the nu- merous army of the beaten in life, the ambitious, and the unfit." S. D. The Errant Mushroom EXCURSIONS OF AN EPICURE. To the true mushroom-lover there are dozens of varieties far superior to the canned "buttons" that are supposed to add flavor to a beefsteak; much better than the dried funghi, mostly Boleti, of the Italians which are supposed to give a sprightly touch to the limp spag- hetti of the fixed-price Bohemian din- ner; and more delicious than the do- mesticated Campestris bought out of the grape-baskets at the grocer's. They must be sought for in their oftentimes shy and seemingly capricious habitats, and eaten as soon as gathered; and here begins the lure of the mushroom. An ardent and persistent hunter will find at least thirty edible kinds of mush- rooms during a season beginning in May and ending only when the snow flies. His trained eye detects them during rambles in fields and woods, In village streets, on fallen logs, or, as Meredith says, on "the rubble of woody wreck." Within a short time I gath- ered a goodly mess of the little Micace- dus In Washington Square, Manhattan. The lawn of a Unitarian church near Boston yielded a supply of At mm 01- tarius for a whole autumn. I rarely reached home from my train without filling my evening paper with Mica- cedu8, Apitrndirulntum, Atramentariut, or some other delectable mushroom
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June 1 8, 1914] The Nation 721 whose habitat, perhaps for that summer only, I had learned to Know. The season begins in May with the Morels, which may be looked for around the decaying roots of apple trees. It was only after several years' search that I came upon enough to enable me to test their admirable quality. As au- tumn begins one still looks for the faith- ful Campestris, the Comatus, or "shag- gy mane," some of the Hypholoma, and the "smoky" Hygrophorous. All through the summer, especially after frequent rains, the mushroom lover is rewarded, somewhat capriciously it must be ad- mitted, by finding many species that not only delight his discoverer's instinct, but furnish also a delicious feast. If there is a growth of hemlock he looks for the Chanterelles — funnel-shaped, the color of yellow ochre, and of an aro- matic flavor. He is fortunate if in late August he finds in a mown field a dozen or more Procera, or "parasol" mush- rooms; and the little white Naucina, which must be carefully distinguished from the Amanitas, which it somewhat resembles. The seemingly haphazard manner of growth of many mushrooms has for me a large part of the attraction that lies in searching for them. They are "as shy as the squirrel, and as wayward as the swallow." Even the staid and in- dustrious Campestris cannot be relied upon to appear in successive years in the same pasture, though it is less like- ly to fail you than many other nomadic varieties, which are here one year and flown the next. The explanation of this is quite simple. The mycelium, a thread-like network slowly formed un- derground, out of which the mushroom shoots up in a night, has become ex- hausted. But to most persons an ex- planation at such times is an unsatis- factory substitute for mushrooms. I spent a whole afternoon rambling through some New Hampshire pastures and woods where the conditions appear- ed to be perfect for certain summer mushrooms. But nothing came of it. On my way home I did not like the looks of a mongrel dog that seemed ready to dispute the road leading by a farm-house. To avoid him I took a turn through an apple orchard and leaped over a stone wall into the larg- est and finest growth of the Lepiota Procera I had ever seen. The next sum- mer I returned with fond anticipation, but my friends were gone, like gypsies to set up their tents on some other fa- vored grounds. One morning In the old village where I chanced to be living I looked out of my window for an observation of the weather. The little lawn in front of my neighbor's house was thickly studded with what might have been fallen blos- soms of the dogwood tree. Where, the night before, was a neatly shaven lawn, was now a profuse outbreak of Appen- diculatum — "a thousand saw I at a glance." Farther down the street two old maiden ladies lived in the peaceful retirement of a shaded cottage, a little in from the street. There one morning was another and most beautiful visita- tion of the same mushroom, which I confess to have gathered without leave. In Boston there is a Mycological So- ciety that holds weekly exhibitions dur- ing the summer season. There every form of "toadstool," however unusual or unimportant, is brought in for wise inspection. The "rose-flush'd mush- rooms, undivulged last evening," ap- pear there next day to be "named and known." Here I would say a word in praise of some of the modest, true, but unrecognized scholars of Nature, whom I have known in and about that city. There was one Davenport, who spent his working days at a frame-gilder's bench, and who yet in forty years had become so great an authority on ferns that to him Professor Gray often sent very rare specimens to be named. Hitchings, a paperhanger, through years of pa- tient devotion became an authority on native flowers. It was he who found a white cardinal flower, and was said to have discovered a wild flower in blossom in every month of the year. At the ex- hibitions of this society one was sure to come across these unassuming and patient observers, from whom the shy- est of fungi could not hide away. I once had occasion to test the en- thusiasm and closeness of observation of some of these "sharps," whose know- ledge of the subject is far better than mine. Henry, a colored boy in my em- ploy, once brought to me a large "toad- stool" which he had found growing in the backyard of the squalid quarters where he lived, just outside Boston. At a glance I thought I recognized it as the Arvensis, or horse mushroom, but on looking further down the stem I no- ticed differences that made me doubt. I sought the higher authority of Mrs. Blackford, at the Museum of Fine Arts, who promptly said, "Arvensis"; but her trained eye at once noted variations that put it into another class. She then referred me to another authority, who likewise said, "Arvensis." But wiser counsel prevailed. "Call up the presi- dent of the Mycological Society!" I was next advised. As I had expected, he ex- claimed, "Arvensis." But Henry's "toadstool" was as puz- zling to him as it had proved to the other experts. Finally it went to Pro- fessor Farlow, at Harvard, who could only say that to his knowledge no such variety had been found in America, though it was known in England. One loves to wonder by what mysterious agency the spores of this mushroom were borne to that little yard In Ja- maica Plain. J. Eastmait Chase. Books and Men REMEDIAL LEGISLATION WORDS. FOR A tax on words is proposed by a mag- azine writer. He would have Govern- ment tax collectors read the newspa- pers, periodicals, and books, and haunt lecture-rooms, churches, public meet- ings, clubs, and afternoon teas — wher- ever talk is uttered. Short words should be exempt, but polysyllables liable to the tax. To speak of the "poor-house" should cost you nothing, but "eleemo- synary institution" might, in the end, send you there. It is hard to discover the reason for this assault upon long words, or for the belief that a tax of this kind would pay the enormous cost of its collection. Are long words — except in the rural news- papers, and as a kind of heavy jest — in such high favor? Not, surely, in the days of "big" novels, full of "good red blood," that "grip" the reader! It was not long ago that a fad travelled through the schools to the effect that only short words, of Saxon origin, were to be encouraged. We were to ignore the variety and richness of the language and pretend that it had not many, but few, sources. A ban lay upon "com- mence"; pupils were to say "begin" in- stead. Not a few boys and girls went forth into the world with a hazy notion that "commence" was in some sort of evil repute, that it was bad form, like "cute," "nice," and "elegant" in their popular significance. Although there seems no pressing need to discourage long words, there is every reason for the foundation of a society for the prevention of cruelty to words — short or long. Take, for in- stance, that word "big." Can any one doubt that it longs for shorter hours, easier work, longer vacations? It is abominably abused. Once it led a peace- ful existence, employed almost wholly (and in its superlative degree) by cir- cus men. Now, the political reporter, the writer of publishers' advertise- ments, the literary critic, and even the university professor, keep the poor word busy every minute. About "proposition" one hesitates to speak. It has settled upon the land like a blight. Perhaps it is too late to say anything on the subject, just as it is too late to regret the extermination of the passenger pigeon. Why "proposi- tion" exercises this siren charm, what secret melody dwells in its syllables, let those who can, declare. There is a type of man upon whose lips it eternal- ly hovers. You watch him with a dreadful fascination— he will utter the word every one hundred and twenty seconds, as punctual as the "Old Faith-
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72 r. John Radcllffe. it baa long been known thai Pittla wan the author of thin hasty and not very interesting compilation, which speedily passed, according to ad'
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June 18, 1914] The Nation 723 vertisements, into a second edition, reached a third in 1716, and a fourth in 1736. What has escaped attention al- most completely is the fact that there is fuirly convincing evidence that Pittis was also the first biographer of Charles Mon- tagu, Karl of Halifax; of Dr. South, and of Sir Stephen Fox. In the preface to the "Memoirs of the Life" of the worthy last named (London, John Sackfield and J. Roberts, 1717, 8vo, riii + 104 pp.; fol. 1807; oct. 1811) we find the following paragraph: "As for the Author, howsoever mis- hy a certain Person, whom he could nai .'line Disadvantage to his Profession and Character, for one of Mr. Curll's Hacks, he is not asham'd of having it known, that he is the very Man that wrote Dr. Radcliff's, the Earl of Halifax, and Dr. South's Life, which have not met xoith so ill a Reception (nofoithstanding Things have been crowded into the last for Posthumous Works, which he does not hold himself mnswerable for) as to fling him into the List of Triobularian Scriblers." Although I do not know who the "cer- tain Person" was and although I should not like to have to parse the phrase, "for one of Mr. Curll s Hacks," I think that the gist of this paragraph is suf- ficiently clear, and after an examination •f the four biographies in question, I am strongly inclined to give them all to Pittis. This has not been done by the writers of the articles on Fox, Hali- fax, and South in the Dictionary of Na- tional Biography, although the Rev. Al- exander Gordon, writing on South, was, as the children say in their game, "burning," when he referred to William Pittis's ballad, "The Battle Royal." These verses, which dealt with the So- cinian controversy between Dr. South and Dr. William Sherlock, had also sa- tirized Dr. Thomas Burnet, Master of the Charterhouse, and they have been quoted in part, without attribution to Pittis, in Leslie Stephen's article on Dr. Burnet in the great Dictionary. Stephen quoted from the copy printed in Nich- ols's edition of "The Original Works of William King, LL.D., Advocate of Doc- tors Commons" (I, 221-222), but, if one may judge from the note on p. 210, the name of the author of the ballad was un- known to King's editor in 1776. The in- sertion, however, of the entire poem in those "Memoirs" of South, which Pittis claims to have written (pp. 128-129), and the comments there made upon it, sug- gest the suspicion that the author of the ballad was also the author of the "Memoirs," especially as the approxi- mate date of the satiric verses, 1695, corresponds with the period when Pittis was still moving in church and univer- sity circles. What definite authority Mr. Gordon had for his attribution of the verses to Pittis has thus far escaped me, and I have not been in a position to determine when they first appeared in print, but it is reasonable to hold that the insertion of a poem somehow con- nected with Pittis in the volume dealing with South helps to strengthen the for- mer writer's claim to the authorship of the "Memoirs" of the latter. If there waa one thing Pittis was more likely to do than another thing, it was to quote himself. The earliest indication I have found of attention being paid to the statement by the writer of the "Memoirs" of Sir Ste- phen Fox that he was also the biog- rapher of Dr. Radcliffe, the Earl of Hali- fax, and Dr. South is given in the "Notes on Men and Books" jotted down by Edward Harley, second Earl of Ox- ford, and published in Notes and Quer- ies (2nd Ser., ix, 417 seq.). Under the head of Montagu, however, the Earl gave a note contradicting in part the in- formation given under the head of Fox, drawn from the paragraph in the pre- face to the "Memoirs" quoted above. He wrote, "His Life [i. e., that of Halifax] wrote by a very indifferent hand, even that scoundrel John Oldmixon. Printed for Curll, 8vo, 1715." It is not my busi- ness to defend Oldmixon's character, nor can I pretend to be an expert on his writings, but from my knowledge of him and of Pittis, I am morally certain that it was the latter, not the former, who wrote the memoir and collected the poems of Halifax, despite the fact that a Whig would have been a fitter person to undertake such a task than a man bred a Tory. My reasons are briefly as follows: We know that Pittis wrote the biography of Uadcliffe for Curll and that by 1715 he had become something of a renegade to his High Church and Tory sentiments. We find in all the four biographies a some- what affected and academic style and a free use of padding, which seem to support the claim made in the "Memoirs" of Fox that they were written by one man, and to point back to the style and methods of compilation used by Pittis before 1715. Moreover, we discover that the "Memoirs" of Halifax appropriates some pages from Pittis's "History of the Third Session of the Last Parliament," although so Tory a performance is a strange source of information for a bi- ographer of a Whig statesman, and that there is reason to think that the author of the life of Halifax utilized, with con- siderable abridgment, Pittis's "History of the Present Parliament and Convoca- tion." One or two special touches seem to connect the biography of Halifax with that of South, and other touches appear to connect the latter with that of Fox, e. g., the extravagant denunciation of the Cromwellians. Finally, in the "Memoirs" of Fox we find a long quotation from 'The Case of the Church of England's Memorial Fairly Stated," a pamphlet by Pittis to which he was wont to recur. My own conviction that he was Fox's biographer is strengthened also by the fact that in the "Memoirs" of that states- man an unconscionably long quotation is made from a pamphlet already men- tioned in this discussion of Pittis's works, viz., "Dutch Generosity and English Gratitude" (1712). It is, of course, a haz- ardous, not to say a reprehensible, pro- cedure to make the attribution of this tract to Pittis depend in part upon its wholesale exploitation in the "Memoirs" of Fox, and then to urge that exploita- tion as additional confirmation of the view that the "Memoirs" of Fox were compiled by Pittis; but I have been strongly impressed by Pittis's tendency to pad his writings with quotations from his own former productions, and I find much in the tract and in the book to make one assign them to the same hand, and that the hand of a journalist trained in the School of Defoe, but with an aca- demic background denied to that monarch of the Fourth Estate. At the very least, given the facts that Pittis was the bi- ographer of Radcliffe and that the writer of the life of Fox claimed to be the biographer of Radcliffe, Halifax, and South, and taking into consideration the similarities of style, substance, and meth- ods of compilation to be discovered in the four works, the first three of which were enterprises of one publisher, Curll, we seem able to make out a fairly strong case for ranking Pittis as one of the most important of the biographers of his day, and we are warranted in asking whether a closer study of his writings nnd of other anonymous biographies of the period might not yield valuable re- sults. My remaining information with regard to Pittis is very meagre. In the weekly published by Read we find on October 25, 1718, some doggerel intended to be spoken at the bonfire of November the Fifth. Two of the lines were: "Weekly Medley and Heraclitus, With other Works of Drunken Pettus." This couplet would have meant little to me if I had not, before encountering it, made some investigation of two small newspapers — Heraclitus Ridens, a sheet in the dialogue form of L'Estrange, which began a short career at the end of January, 1718, and the Weekly Med- ley, which started its slightly more im- portant course at the end of July. The Tory politics of the former and some of its stylistic features made me quite confident that the writer in Read's was not mistaken in pointing to Pittis as its editor or "author." If he wrote the number for May 1 (No. 14), he was then at the seat of Lord Delaware in Hamp- shire, and it would seem that the bad habits to which Read's bears witness had not caused him to lose all his re- spectable acquaintances. I am quite sure that he wrote the number for July 24, which attempts — vainly — to defend Defoe from the charge of editing a monthly compilation for the Tories, Mercurius Po- liticus, and at the same time utilizing his material in another monthly design- ed for the Whigs, Mercurius Brtton- nicus. The two journalists, both of whom worked for a publisher named William Boreham, had probably become recon- ciled, and I strongly suspect that Pittla was responsible for the fact that the Weekly Medley for January 10, 1719, con- tained a long extract from a pamphlet by Defoe against Bishop Iloadly, with fulsome praise of the performance. Still, it is hazardous to draw inferences from facts that so readily lend themselves to other Interpretations — Defoe himself might have been in temporary charge of the Weekly Medley. He had nothing to ■ lo with it in October, 1719, however, for on the third of that month the paper was attacking the then famous author of "Robinson Crusoe" In a way that con- trasted strangely with the attitude tak-
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724, The N" a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2555 en towards him in January. There is reason to suspect that Pittis had been supplanted as editor, in or about June. 1719, by a certain William Bond, known to close students of Addison and Aaron Hill, an intimate of Duncan Campbell's circle, and perhaps a collaborator with Defoe in the biography of the deaf and dumb conjurer that usually passes with- out question as the work of the better- known writer. But Bond's relations with Defoe form another story, and Pit- tis's editorial career in 1718-19 must, I fear, remain obscure, unless some one is able to spend a good deal of time in- vestigating the unimportant matter. I have only one other entry with re- gard to Pittis. The St. James Evening Post for November 21-24, 1724, contain- ed a short notice of his death, referring to him as "a noted writer" who had been punished in Queen Anne's reign. The biographer of Defoe cannot but regret that no more is known of the life of a man whose career touched that Of the arch-journalist of the period at so many points; but perhaps a lover of his kind will be unable to find in the sordid facts brought out by research sufficient ex- cuse for this attempt to disturb the kind- ly dust that has covered for two cen- turies an almost forgotten name. W. P. Trent. Correspondence DEMOCRACY AND DIRECT LEGISLA- TION. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: Those who clamor for more de- mocracy as a cure for the ills of democ- racy as we have it, need to consider whe- ther the means proposed — direct legisla- tion— obtain the end sought. This phase of the question was emphasized in my mind by a recent experience. A high- school boy — a pupil of mine — called at my house lately to solicit my signature to an initiative petition proposing an amend- ment to the State Constitution. I at once asked him how he came to be cir- culating- this petition, since the initiative provision of the Constitution contem- plates that this shall be done only by qualified electors. The boy explained thai a person, whom he mentioned by name, had offered him and several other boys three cents per name for all the names to this petition they could obtain. He- was doing pretty well, he said. At a neighboring store several men had sign- ed without reading the petition, saying that "it was all right." He was not aware that he might be violating the law. He was interested only In the three cents per name. The law requires him to make affidavit that he is himself a qualified elector and that he knows the signers to be such. How this boy of sixteen could make such affidavit was not clear. He supposed that the man, who lived in another town, would have him do this just as if he were really qualified, or that the man, after getting the names, would himself make affidavit that he him- self circulated the petition and obtained the names. He said that the father of another boy had been asked to sign foi his son, making his affidavit for him. He said that he had "got wise" that all was not right and that he had dropped the matter. This last came to me in a con- versation on the following day. The point that I wish to emphasize here is not the illegality of the proceed- ing— that would probably have been look- ed after sooner or later. I am compelled to ask — sympathetic as I am towards complete democracy — just how the ills of democracy are cured by such "democrat- ic" procedure as the foregoing? Yet the possibility of this sort of thing inheres at all times in direct legislation. It points again to our great fallacy of re- form through legislation. L. A. CHASE, Hancock High School. Hancock, Mich., May 26. IMMIGRATION FROM THE ORIENT. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: The problem of Oriental immigra- tion is so complex that it will be a mis- fortune of the first magnitude if this question is allowed to go by default, or any attempt is made to settle it without thorough, painstaking, and sympathetic investigation. The writer is a native and long resi- dent of New York, but for some years has been an "adopted" Californian. Real- izing how hard it. is for people who live at a distance to appreciate fully this great problem, it has seemed to me worth while to present my views, which are those of an Easterner on the ground. The first point that needs to be made clear is the matter of relative density of population. People know, of course, in a general way, that the Atlantic seaboard is more densely populated than the Paci- fic; but few actually realize that the combined census returns for the great States of Washington, Oregon, and Cali- fornia show a population only a little larger than one-half that of the city of New York. Without further argument, it will be at once evident to any thought- ful reader that the Pacific States are not in a position to desire any considerable alien population. The Eastern States may be able to welcome, by the hundred thousand, foreigners of a type that can- not be assimilated; but at present the Pacific States cannot with safety assume such a burden. For any real understanding of the situation, it should be noted, in the sec- ond place, that the people of the Coast States are in a measure isolated from the thickly populated districts of the United States. To the east lies Nevada, with an area exceeding that of New York State and Pennsylvania combined, yet support- ing a population of only about fifty thou- sand in all; and adjoining it on the south is the vast State of Arizona, with approximately three times as many in- habitants. It thus happens that the three million people who thinly fringe the Pacific slope are separated from the more densely populated centres by hun- dreds of miles of mountain and desert, spanned at great intervals by long: stretches of lonely, single-track railway. Over against this somewhat Isolated outpost of Caucasian civilization lies China with a population of 450,000,000 crowded into an area but little larger than that of the United States, and Ja- pan, supporting its 50,000,000 inhabitants upon a territory about the size of Cali- fornia. That these prolific Eastern na- tions greatly need an outlet for surplus population is obvious; and it is equally clear that they would ultimately overflow our inviting shores in great waves were there no barriers to prevent. A careful investigation could not fail to discredit the offhand judgment (now, doubtless, prevalent in some quarters) that the restiveness of the people of the Coast is the result of race prejudice merely. Some race prejudice there no doubt is; but that is not the factor which has brought the immigration question to an issue. The Chinese have long been on the Coast; but their retiring ways and the fact that their business activity is limited for the most part to a few special fields has made their presence little felt. The coming of the Japanese has put an entirely new face upon the matter. At least four factors have contributed to this result: (1) The numbers in which the Japanese have come; (2) the fact that immigration from Japan is not con- trolled by our Federal Government; (3) the economic disturbance caused by this immigration, and (4) the attitude taken by the Japanese themselves. The thing of prime importance In this whole question is that a definite understanding regarding Oriental immi- gration be reached while matters are yet in the incipient stage. Now is the time to settle the matter, while the situation is well within our control. If it is al- lowed to drift along, there is grave dan- ger that we shall bequeath to the next generation a problem which they will be unable to handle. The Chinese alone could repeople the United States two or three times over without depopulating their own country. And those who have seen at first hand conditions In the Southern States, where two races come into daily contact and yet may not amalgamate, will surely agree that it would be little short of a crime to allow an analogous situation to develop in an- other large section of our country — a sit- uation which in this case would be fur- ther complicated by the attitude of the home governments of the alien peo- ples. Dr. S. L. Gullck, who has recently been lecturing in the United States in the interest of the Japanese, has de- scribed in an interesting way the elaborate bureau of information main- tained by the Japanese, whereby agents in every country gather accurate information bearing on all Important >na for the use of the home Gov- ernment. It is very probable, therefore, that conditions on the Pacific Coaal BM better known in Tokio than in Wash- ington. If this be a fact, the moral Ifl obvious. In conclusion I would add B IU) ei Hon or two: (1) That it ought not to bo re- garded as an evidence of lll-wlll toward! any nation iiuii the people of th« United StatM dealre thai the Paclno Goal i
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June 18, 1914] The Nation 725 remain in the unquestioned possession of Caucasians, and (2) that it is not by any means inevitable that a righteous solu- tion of this question can be reached only through an adjustment which requires a wholesale sacrifice of the well-being of our own citizens. It would not be un- natural, of course, that the nations of the Orient, as they develop and push for- ward to places in the world family, should at first fall to realize that manhood's es- tate brings with it responsibilities and re- straints as well as honors and privileges. But it may ultimately become clear to all that, in questions such as the one now under discussion, it may be the duty of an Oriental people to submit cheerfully, to restrictions that are essential to the social and economic well-being of a friendly neighbor. H. C. Nutting. Berkeley, Cal., June 1. so much in the insistence on philology as in the nature of the non-philological courses into which students are crowded. George A. Smithson. Berkeley, Cal., June 9. "ONE OF THE GIANTS." To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: "One of the Giants" in your Edu- cational Number shocks me somewhat, because it pictures vividly a state of affairs to which I am a stranger. The writer who casts a stone at one of the Giants asks, "What has the English de- partment done to help this union (of English with the classics) ? Are they (the instructors) ready to give up a sin- gle one of their remaining requirements in philology and medisevalism so as to allow the English student time to do a small amount of work in the classics?" The second question he answers with an emphatic no. If he would turn to the far Western edge of this big continent, he would find an institution of some 5,000 students with a department which permits and encourages future teachers of English to smile sweetly at Ulphilas and the other Giant grinning at the gate and to pass them by. The department of English of the University of California is glad to accept certain units of university credit in Latin and Greek in place of credit in English philology. It does not demand specifically an acquaintance with either one of the Giants even for the degree of Ph.D. Some time ago a waggish student of mine defined philology as the love of mere talk, the love of logs or dry sticks. But he added that in truth he had de- rived a benefit from his courses in Old English, Beowulf, Middle English, and Chaucer which was far greater than the benefit derived from all other courses. Frequently philology offers the student a definite serious mental drill which is too often lacking in the courses in Eng- lish literature and the classics. Doesn't philology serve well to offset the pleas- ing entertainments offered as courses of instruction in Tennyson, Dryden, and Johnson? Wouldn't it be well for the gushing student of "Hamlet" or "The Everlasting Mercy" to follow the method pursued in the course of Beowulf or Chaucer? Isn't the history of the Eng- lish language perhaps more valuably than the mechanical substitution of Eng- lish for Latin words in what is called a course of instruction in Virgil? The grave weakness seems to lie not THOMAS SPENCER JEROME. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: In your issue of May 14 appeared an extended notice of the untimely death of Thomas Spencer Jerome. Few will ever know how much the world of clas- sical scholarship has lost by the sudden arrest of his pen at the very moment when many years of careful, critical study of the Latin historians were com- ing to their fruitage. Among those who have followed Mr. Jerome's career with deep interest was Prof. Charles Mills Gayley, now head of the department of English literature in the University of California. It was in the early eighties, while the latter was assistant professor of Latin in the University of Michigan, that Mr. Jerome came under his stimu- lating influence. The friendship then formed was never interrupted. It was to experience the renewal of personal converse during the coming summer. The following letter, written by Mr. Je- rome to his former instructor, explains itself. It is dated a week before his death, and was overtaken by the notice that Villa Castello and its choice historical treasures had lost their master — "Master Tom," as those about him affectionately called him. The letter is so piquant in flavor, and touches so interestingly upon the great work which Jerome had in hand, that I make no apology for hav- ing prevailed upon Professor Gayley to furnish it for publication. The "chap- ters of the Potboiler," to which allusion is made, are reprints from "Roman Mem- ories in the Landscape Seen from Capri." It is, perhaps, too much to hope that the deft and experienced literary hand of Professor Gayley may be freed suffi- ciently from other tasks to attempt an adequate salvage from the notes and other literary materials left by his one- time pupil. William Frederic Bade. Berkeley, Cal., June 1. Villa Castello, Capri, Italy. 5 April, 1914. My dear Gayley: It's a long time since your letter came and my silence may suggest a phlegmatic attitude towards your really delightful announcement of the projected sojourn of the Gayley family in these parts. But such an inference, however specious, would be a shocking inversion of the truth, and I look forward with the great- est pleasure to seeing you much and often. Furthermore, I hope that Madam Sallie — if my advanced age permits this familiarity — will not hold herself aloof from Capri this time. . . . There are circumstances which mitigate my appar- ent moroseness, such as Gastralgic Aneu- roses and the like, but they have dwelt in me too much for me to wish to dwell on them. They had this effect on the course of historical criticism, however, that they kept me from getting out more than a Pot-Boiler last winter; and the Magnum Opus (handled after the manner of the famous discussion of the Snakes in Iceland, to a considerable extent) withholds itself from a waiting world for the present. It seems to need a substi- tution of Scandal for Sawdust before it makes its appeal to those who are stimu- lated by the meretricious character of it3 title. (Old , however, shies the title, attributing to the many a vir- tue too meticulous to endure or embrace a treatise with the strange device — say — "Institutes of Roman Vice.") I am sending you under another cover as many chapters (reprints) of the Pot- Boiler as it seems decent to inflict on you. Were it not that some lynx-eyed post-office official might call on you for letter postage, I'd inscribe a dedication in something like these terms: To C. M. G.: Recollecting his facility in embodying wit in erudition and informing erudition with wit, whereby the dichotomy is syn- thesized into the higher unity of true scholarship, and relying on the soundness of the aim to excuse the imperfection of the results, the author bespeaks his be- nevolent toleration of these derivatives of "Freshman Latin" "Memories." Well, let me know when to look for you. The summer in this part of the world is generally delightful, and made additionally so by the absence of "trip- pers" and morbific chills in churches, museums, and everywhere else. But, no doubt, I am supplying my grandmother with certain superfluous dietetic instruc- tions. With pleasant anticipations of the Coming of the Gayleys, and with warm- est regards, I remain most sincerely yours, Thomas Spencer Jerome. A FRENCH SCHOLAR. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: Attention should be called in America to a very scholarly contempo- rary French writer on eighteenth-century histrionics in France and Germany, who, even in his own country, is known only to an ilite. We refer to M. Jean Jacques Olivier (Francillon), who writes under a pseudonym formed by discarding his family name and preserving his three Christian names. M. Emile Faguet has called him "the Theseus of all the li- brary and archive labyrinths." In 1900, when scarcely more than a boy, his first volume appeared, "Voltaire et les Com6- diens interpretes de son Theatre," based on the newspapers, correspondence, me- moirs, engravings, and unpublished docu- ments of the period. This work was fol- lowed the next year by the first volume of a de luxe series, richly illustrated, numbered, and limited to 250 copies, "Les Comt?diens fran^ais dans les Cours d'Al- lemagne au XVIIIe siecle." In order to carry on more easily his researches in this connection in the German libraries and archives, M. Jean Jacques Olivier es- tablished himself for several years at Heidelberg, where he even found time to act as reader in French literature at the University, and bo acquired a talent as lecturer which has placed him in the front rank of graceful Parisian conf6rencier». The initial volume in this series is en- titled "La Cour Glectorale palatine" and opens with a very complimentary preface
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726 T h. e ]NT a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2555 from the pen of M. Faguet. The next year, 1902, came "La Cour Royale de Prusse"; in 1903, "Les Cours de Rheins- berg, de Bayreuth, et d'Ansbach," and in 1905, "La Cour de Hesse-Cassel." This beautiful series is to be continued by volumes devoted to the French actors and plays at the courts of Wiirtemberg, Bavaria, Saxony, and Austria. In fact, the materials for the first of these vol- umes is already in an advanced stage of preparation. Since 1905 M. Jean Jacques Olivier has momentarily abandoned the history of French actors in Germany and come home to study them in France, and with good results. Thus, in 1907, he published "Henri-Louis Le Kain, de la Com<§die- Francaise, 1729-1778," a richly printed and illustrated quarto of nearly 350 pages, giving the private and artistic life of the man who was, perhaps, the best interpreter of the theatre of Vol- taire, "a miracle of nature," as Grimm called him. In 1910 came "Une Etoile de la Danse au XVIIIe siecle," a curious and thoroughly documented biography of La Barberina Campaninl, whose wonder- ful dancing once charmed the opera-goers of Paris, London, and Berlin. This no- table series was closed last year by an- other biographical and critical study of a past celebrity of the French stage, "Pierre-Louis Dubus Preville, de la Come- die-Francaise, 1721-1799." At the present moment M. Jean Jacques Olivier is busy on a volume de- voted to Mme. Dugazon, a celebrated prima donna of the Opera Comlque dur- ing the reign of Louis XVI. Like all of this author's books, it will be fully illustrated, and he says that he hopes "to make it somewhat easier to read than any of its predecessors, if for no other reason than because the subject is an amiable smiling figure, a real heroine of romance." Theodore Stanton. Paris. May 30. HOWLERS. To the Editor of The Nation : Sir: Splenrlide mendax, "lying in state," cited by you in your issue of May 14 as a somewhat incredibly good specimen of a howler, is much better allocated, to my poor mind, In the following quota- tion from the Rev. Mr. Tuckwell's "Rem- iniscences of Oxford," chapter 8: "Clever as Blaydes in epigram and pun, though not in sustained satire, was Arthur Rid- ding of New College, elder brother of the present Bishop of Southwell. When every one was celebrating in Latin verse the Duke of Wellington's funeral he was asked how to render 'lying in state.' Splendide mendax was the answer." A. D. Smith. Sackrtlle, N. B., June 2. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: Since the Nation condescends at times to wear the cap and bells, pos- sibly its readers might be amused by the translation by the Oxford student of the French terpsichorean phrase, pan dc deux, which he rendered "father of twins." Edward Brbcs. Annapolla Royal, n. s., Jom 11. Literature UNION AND CONFEDERATE STRAT- EGY. Bull Run, Its Strategy and Tactics. By R. M. Johnston. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. $2.50 net. A satisfactory account of any mili- tary operation consists essentially in an exposition, with respect to each of the opposing forces, of plans, of re- sources, and of execution. These three phases cannot be sharply separated one from another. There is necessarily an overlapping of plans and resources, for the statement of a plan includes the specification and some description of an objective; and this involves ordinarily an indication, however incomplete and indefinite, of resources. The details of the latter come as a preliminary to the movements. In the work before us the author in- dicates the strategic attitude of the Union and Confederate forces with re- spect not only to the campaign of Bull Run, but also and very properly to the war in general. Treating of the cam- paign, he places himself first on the side of the North, mentions with brief, judicious description the prominent of- ficers on that side, discusses the stra- tegic situation, and describes the plan adopted for a Federal advance. He designates Harper's Ferry and Manas- sas Junction as two points next to Washington and Richmond in strategic importance — Harper's Ferry as an ad- vance depot and the point where the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad crosses the Potomac, passing from Federal into Confederate territory; and Manassas Junction as the point where the one railway coming eastward from the Shenandoah Valley joins the one con- necting Washington with Richmond. "An offensive movement," he says, "from Washington towards Richmond was, from the first moment, clearly indicated, flanked by a subsidiary movement to seize Harper's Ferry, and thence possi- bly to operate south along the Valley of the Shenandoah, or southeast across the Blue Ridge, to the Valley of the Rap- pahannock, in direct support of the main advance." With respect to the enemy he adds: "The Southern outlook was de- fensive, for the Southern States claim- ed merely to remain outside the Union; they had no policy of repression, that is, of invasion or the offensive." Under President Lincoln, Lieut-Gen. Scott ranked as general-in-chief, Brig.- Gen. Mansfield commanded the troops In agton, and Brig.-Gen. McDowell commanded the Department, of North- eastern Virginia. Major-Gen. Patterson, of the Pennsylvania militia, command- ing Uie Department of Pennsylvania, was slowly pushing down "towards the Potomac with a considerable mass of infantry and artillery." On the side of the Confederates, R. E. Lee, with the rank of major-general, commanded all the forces in Virginia, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston commanded at Harper's Ferry, and Gen. Beauregard at Manassas Junction. From Washing- ton troops were pushed across the Po- tomac to Arlington Heights, opposite the capital, and to Alexandria, the start- ing point of the railway to Richmond. These movements, together with the dis- positions in Washington and the march of Patterson's column, may be consid- ered as the strategic deployment, which was completed by the arrival of Patter- son on the Potomac about the first of June. The plan originally formed or adopted by Gen. Scott appears in a dis- patch which he addressed to Gen. Mc- Dowell on June 3, calling for "an esti- mate of the number and composition of a column to be pushed towards Manassas Junction, and perhaps the Gap [west- ward along the railway], say, in four or five days, to favor Patterson's attack on Harper's Ferry." To this communi- cation McDowell replied on the follow- ing day, to the effect that "the actual entire force at the head of the column should, for the purpose of carrying the position of Manassas," number about 18,000 men of all arms. From this ex- change of correspondence it appears that "to favor Patterson's attack on Harper's Ferry it was intended to make what was viewed as a subordinate at- tack at Manassas Junction." On June 14 Gen. Johnston withdrew from Har- per's Ferry towards Winchester. His force numbered about 5,000 men, includ- ing among its officers the modest, indif- ferent-looking colonel who was to come out of the campaign as Brig.-Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson. Patterson had the news of Johnston's withdrawal on the afternoon of the 15th, but so great was his prudence, so cumbersome his army, that it was not till forty-eight hours lat- er that he crossed the Potomac. He thereupon exhibited such inertness that by the middle of July the idea of his executing any decisive operation had to be abandoned and the plan was chang- ed so as to make the principal move- ment an advance upon Manassas, to be conducted by Gen. McDowell, Patterson being relegated to the secondary r61e of keeping Johnston from going to the support of Beauregard at Manassas Junction. Before describing the execu- tion of this plan, the author gives a de- tailed description of the forces on each side. Two Chapters are then given to the advance to the field of battle, three chapters to the battle, and the three last chapters to the Federal retreat, statis- tics, and conclusion. The work is judiciously proportioned and Is based upon the 1 il authentic sources of Information, Including the
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June 18, 1914] Th.e Nation 727 battlefield itself, which the author stud- ied in company with army officers. The reader will be inspired by the author's deep and intelligent interest in his sub- ject. He will understand without dif- ficulty his exposition of the plans of the opposing commanders and his statement of the forces at their command, except as regards the artillery. On the Fed- eral side the largest unit was the di- vision. For each division the strength is given in number of men, including ar- tillery and cavalry. The artillery at- tached to the several divisions is indi- cated only by units of organization, not by number of pieces. That number is treated separately, without reference to the tactical units to which the pieces are attached. On the Confederate side the largest unit is the brigade. As in the case of the Federals, the reader is left to determine for himself the num- ber of pieces attached to the battle units; but he finds himself unable to do it. With reference to the I Corps, Beauregard's, the Artillery Reserve is represented as commanded by Major Walton, but neither the organizations nor the number of pieces composing it appear. After the artillery reserve (p. 108) comes what is designated as artillery. One supposes that this is an additional force, a sort of general re- serve, until one discovers that most of it is included in the artillery already mentioned as assigned to brigades. It then appears to be a summary of the artillery, but an incorrect one, inas- much as it does not include the artillery reserve and does include four six-pound- ers under Capt. Rogers which do not ap- pear as assigned to any larger unit. The total number of guns in the I Corps is represented as 29, "of which 18 were smooth-bore six-pounders, 9 were six- pounders rifled, and 4 were twelve- pounder howitzers." These items foot up to 31, instead of 29. The error is apparently in the number of smooth- bore six-pounders. There are eleven maps, but in the whole text there is but one reference to a map (p. 168). The reader will find himself often at a loss which way to turn for the one, if there be one, that affords the aid that he wants. Only the first two maps bear a number by which they may be designated. The other nine can be referred to only by their title or by the page which they immediately precede. Only five maps are provided with a scale. Only one (p. 33) shows the points of the compass, and on that one they are not needed. On the seven succeeding maps on which they are needed, since they are re- ferred to in the text, the reader must orient himself as best he can. On maps 1 and 2, showing the country be- tween Manassas Station and Centre- ville, a railway runs from the former point to within a mile of the latter. On the six other maps showing the same country no such railway appears. The railways coming from the south and west and uniting at Manassas Junction are shown on four maps as forming an acute angle, and on two as forming an obtuse angle. Troops, or tactical units, are represented on six maps. It goes without saying that the desig- nation for the several units that is adopted for the maps should be used in the text, or vice versa. In three of the six maps referred to, this obvious principle is violated. In one of them (facing p. 114) the unconven- tional signs and peculiar numerical des- ignations call for a legend which is lacking. On several of the maps the names of roads and watercourses re- ferred to are not given. Thus, on page 168, one reads of "two regiments facing east on either side of the Warrenton Turnpike." On the map to which this refers the Warrenton Turnpike, though snown, is not recognizable by name or other designation, nor, as already stated, are the points of the compass. The regi- ments, not being specified in the text, cannot be identified on the map. The reader is unnecessarily confused by the use of such various names for the same or practically the same point as Manas- sas, Manassas Station, Manassas Junc- tion, and Manassas Gap Junction. Among the important points referred to which are not shown, or, if shown, are not named on any map, are Manassas Gap, Snicker's Gap, Culpeper, Warrenton, Berryville, Arlington. A general order of Gen. McDowell's on pages 114-116 appears to be illustrated by a map fac- ing page 114. The order refers to Fair- fax Court House and to Fairfax Station. Both places are on the map. One is marked with its name, the other is not. On page 57 we learn that Gen. Pat- terson crossed from the north to the south side of the Potomac on June 17 and that he subsequently "decided to retire" to the north side. We are not told whether he acted on this decision or not, but on page 67 we are allowed to infer that by June 25 he was back on the north side of the river. Further on (p. 79) we read that "on the second of July, as we have already seen, Pat- terson for the second time crossed the Potomac [to the south side]." The fact is we have not seen Patterson crossing the Potomac on July 2. The nearest we have come to it was to learn (pp. 71- 72) that he "finally ventured across the Potomac" and that "he occupied Mar- tinsburg on the 3d of July." So with respect to the statement on page 181, "information reached him [Gen. Evans], as we have already seen, that the Fed- erals were in large force on his left in the direction of Sudley Spring." We cannot admit having seen this particu- lar occurrence. There is here and there a lack of date or hour. The time covered by the battle is divided into periods, but not as clearly and explicitly as a proper co- ordination of the movements calls for. We have said enough to indicate the sort of strain to which the reader's mind will be put in trying to follow the au- thor through his description of the movements, and with that we return to the commendation of the work as a com- plete, unbiassed account of the cam- paign and battle, useful to the student and necessary to tne historian. We regret that it is not more readable, not the standard work which the author makes us feel that he might, with more care and labor, have made of it. An appendix furnishes a valuable bibliog- raphy of books and maps. The index is restricted to proper names, and not free from error. CURRENT FICTION. Great Days. By Frank Harris. New York: Mitchell Kennerley. It is hard to guess at what sort of audience the author has meant to aim this book. It might have been taken as an adventure book for boys but for the passages of sexual realism which leap here and there from a perfectly inoffensive context. The English Jack who is its hero is son of a smuggling innkeeper. War with France breaks out, and there are more profitable chances than smuggling. Jack becomes master of a privateer, has his success- es, becomes a prisoner in France, wins a French mistress whom he later mar- ries, although he really loves another. That other is, not unnaturally, a mai- den of high lineage, and they are not destined to be apart forever, since it is the easiest thing in the world for the author to kill off the wife at the con- venient moment. There is a good deal of spirited writing in the book, sea-fray and land adventure. Napoleon is much in the scene, and not more travestied than the reader of romance may endure to have him. As for the innkeeper and his son, compound of romantic feeling and fleshly lusts, hard sense and gener- ous impulse, they are really human and engaging, as is the trollop Nancy, who ought to be quite despicable. It is the fashion just now to admit that we are clever, and nothing else; that the "average workmanship" of our fiction is extraordinarily high, and that we have little or nothing more to boast of. The present reviewer is struck with the number of novels which have come under his eye during the past year or two of which he has felt that the fault lay with the amateurish or uncertain handling of really strong materials. This book is one of them, though of Mr. Harris uncertain is the safer word to use. A former editor of the Fortnight- ly and Saturday Reviews, and an au-
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72S The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2555 thor of numerous books of Action, can- not be called a tyro. But he has experi- mented in several fields, realism among them, and the trail of the serpent cross- es this byway of historical romance. The Incandescent Lily. By Gouverneur Morris. New York: Charles Scrib- ner's Sons. The story which gives this volume its title is the only one of the eight which does not fall under a single clas- sification. That classification is the short story of New York society, its theme either love or the ordinary so- cial, sportsmanlike, or avocational am- bitions of the upper and fashionable stratum. Now it is the tale of hope deferred in the heart of a would-be ten- nis champion; now of a rich man who found in a youthful tango teacher a worthy object of his benevolence; now of a gentleman of too exquisite refine- ment whose courage before a gang of escaped convicts gives his sweetheart the desiderate faith in his manliness; now of a second Mrs. Tanqueray, of Manhattan Island, whose tragic life is fittingly labelled: "You Can't Get Away With It." An apparent exception is the account of the casting away of Red Monday and the Ryan Girl on an Island in the Sound, and of Red's attempt to swim off to save her reputation; but its inspiration is obviously caught from the central incident of Octave Feuillet's best-known tale of French society. The stories are without exception interest- ing, finished in execution, unmarred by smartness, and undistinguished in final effect. New Men for Old. By Howard Vincent O'Brien. New York: Mitchell Ken- nerley. From its appearance throughout as a page heading, "The Joy of Working" would seem to have been the original title. It is certainly better than that which figures on title-page and cover. The whole purpose of the story is to show that the only real satisfaction in life lies in work. We begin with a con- ventional situation rather crudely pre- sented, the pampered son of wealth sum- moned from his idle years abroad to find himself penniless. The Chandos of this tale is not a wastrel, but a dilet- tante. He has dabbled in philosophy, and learned to paint "in an excellently amateurish way." His father's death brings him from Paris to Chicago, and we are asked to believe that the news that his father has had nothing to leave comes to him a complete surprise. We are also asked to believe that he lives in Chicago for some years there- after before he learns that his father wa:j a rascal. Young ChandoB revolts at the notion of earning his living but, when he has buckled down to it, dis- covers that the best thing possible has happened to him. His labors have ex- traordinary results — no wonder they make him cheerful. Few exiles from the studios of Paris would be able, in a matter of months, to make themselves the heads of an established Chicago manufacturing enterprise. It is true that another familiar element comes in, in the person of the employer's daugh- ter, of whom also, in due season, Chandos becomes the head. "It is life itself that has really made you, my artist-business man!" she tells him on the last page. "Artist!" he cries; "that's it! I cannot paint, but, oh, my darling, with time for my canvas, and flesh and blood for my pigments, and life itself for subject, I will make a picture, a real picture." With all its rawness of detail, the story is told with vigor and sincerity. Cordelia Blossom. By George Randolph Chester. New York: Hearst's Inter- national Library Co. Mr. Chester's mechanical rapid-fire cleverness is in good working order in this story. He offers an unintermittent series of small explosions, hardly no- ticeable separately, but collectively amounting to rather a nuisance. The theme is the social career of a clever woman. Cordelia Blossom uses with equal skill and success her doting old Kentucky colonel of a husband, and his political opponent, Jim Fleecer, the State boss. She manages the latter through his wife, whom she makes her chief lieutenant and rewards with the jack- al's share of her social triumphs. She proceeds on the sound old political max- im that one hand washes the other. By skilful wire-pulling and good luck she at length makes the worthy colonel a Senator, and herself president of the National Federation of Isis Clubs. Her methods are so cynically unscrupulous that they make the veteran Fleecer feel like a novice; yet it is clear that Mr. Chester's readers are expected to sym- pathize with her and admire her. The book expresses a cheap and vulgar atti- tude towards life in an appropriate style. Two or three of the characters, however, and notably the old colonel, are vigorously sketched. Snake and Sword. By P. C. Wren. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. This study in mental pathology is unique in that its ghastly passages lead not down, but up, and to a happy con- clusion; and in the vivid reality of its Indian background. Its fundamental conception is of an orphaned hero, Damocles de Warenne, who by reason of pre-natal influence has a morbid hor- ror of snakes. His strange malady preys upon his mind as a boy in In- dia; it labels him as a coward at his English school; a spasmodic attack at sight of a snake on a golf-course ruins his engagement to Lucile Gavestone, and results in the cutting off of his sup- port from his relatives, forcing him into the army as private; while, to crown all, service in Hindustan, where every day supplies some fresh motive for his unnatural horror, seems to be driving him slowly into the madhouse. It is to Lucile's restored faith, and to a weird situation in which, willy-nilly, he must fight for his life against a cobra, that he owes his ultimate salvation from the obsession. The psychology of the book, though carefully studied, is not as suc- cessful as its crowded incident. The microcosmic social conventions and persecutions of Sandhurst and of Wel- lingborough School, the vulgarity and the rough give-and-take of military life, are reflected with apparent fidelity and with certain spirit To the Indian scenes Mr. Wren brings a pen of long experience. The dignity of his style is sometimes painfully inadequate to the task he has here essayed. "SHIRT-SLEEVE MEMOIRS." With Walt Whitman in Camden. (March 28 — July 14, 1888; November 1, 1888— January 20, 1889.) By Horace Trau- bel. New York: Mitchell Kennerley. $3.50. The first volume of Mr. Traubel's "shirt-sleeve memoirs" was published in 1906 by Small, Maynard & Co., the second in 1908 by D. Appleton & Co., and now the third comes six years later from another house. There is a certain significance in this hard-luck tale, as they would say in Mickle Street, Cam- den. Mr. Traubel has adhered to his original plan to leave his story as he wrote it, taking nothing off, and with no attempt to improve it. The result is not altogether happy. Its defects, ap- parent enough before, are now made glaring by the inevitable comparison with the "Journals" of Emerson, which have run their course between the sec- ond and third volumes of the present work. One can, indeed, see the genius of Walt Whitman in the Camden memoirs as one sees the genius of Emerson in the "Journals"; but here the similarity ends. In the "Journals," one is always in the company of a man who, even in his hours of relaxation, showed that his thoughts were habitually with noble things and that he was used to refined language. But about the occasional flashes in the talk of Whitman and the occasional good letter Mr. Traubel's record flows like a vast ocean of frothy commonplace, with reaches of positive vulgarity. It is a pity. The author of "Leaves of Grass" needed no one to In- crease the mass of flat triviality about him, but there was that in the man which to a recorder of insight might have furnished material for a 110I.1M0
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June 18, 1914] The Nation 729 biography. The least pleasant aspect of Whitman's life is the society of the "Petes" and Buckes who surrounded him, and the tone of Mr. Traubel's book is theirs. So much for protest. But naturally it would be possible out of the six hun- dred pages (nearly) of the present vol- ume to fill a long review with bits of conversation and fragments of corre- spondence which picture the man to the life, or are otherwise interesting. Not the least valuable of these is the exact report of Lincoln's words about Whit- man, as given in a letter from A. Van Rensselaer, dated July 30, 1865. The Sage of Camden was "rather cranky" one evening, and some harsh words had passed between him and his young friend. The conversation continues thus: I [Traubel] was a bit mad myself. We don't have many tiffs. Finally he said: "Don't let's go on in that vein: I've got something pleasanter here; what do you think of it?" He reached smilingly to the table, picked up a letter, and handed it to me. [This sudden and seeming- ly accidental appearance of all sorts of documents gives Whitman's room the happy character of a magician's box, and is really the most extraordinary feature of the narrative.] I read the letter. . . . "What can I say? Only that I never expected to see the letter: you know you said a bit ago that you didn't think it would ever turn up again." He: "Well, it did turn up. Read it to me." I said: "I bet you know it by heart." "So I do: but I can listen to it again coming to me in your voice." I read. Then follows the letter, of which this is the heart: Mr. Lincoln was . . . looking out of the window, when you went by, quite slow, with your hands in the breast pockets of your overcoat, and a sizeable felt hat on your head pretty well up, just as I have often seen you on Broad- way. Mr. Lincoln asked who you were, or something like that. I spoke up and said, mentioning your name, that you had written "Leaves of Grass," etc. Mr. Lincoln didn't say anything, but took a good long look till you were quite gone by. Then he says (I can't give you his waj of saying it, but it was quite emphatic, and odd), "Well," he says, "he looks like a man." He said it pretty loud, but in a sort of absent way and with the emphasis on the words I have under- scored. The language is almost precisely that of Napoleon to Goethe, and the scene it- self is impressive. What follows is im- pressive, too, in its own way: "This is the real thing," I said: "This puts the Lincoln story on ice." W. was heartily amused. "You are a damned impertinent snip after all: you 'wouldn't believe until you were convinced,' as you say: you held off; you half thought I was lying: William too — all the fellows." . . . We laughed together. I kissed him good night There is pith and meaning in Lin- coln's words; but what shall we think of a literary critic such as the late Pro- fessor Dowden, who couples Walt Whit- man with Shakespeare? It is like coup- ling Traubel with Boswell. Such are the strange contrasts of sense and folly that seem to be evoked inevitably by association with Mickle Street. We read through long, dreary sections which merely repeat ad nauseam how the sage wanted to "frivol" his evenings away, and then suddenly we come upon a pas- sage such as that on page 485, which gives as marvellously vivid a story of Carlyle as one is likely to have read anywhere — and, incidentally, of Whit- man himself. Here, and occasionally elsewhere in Mr. Traubel's narrative, one recognizes the power and the in- describable note of genius which brought some of the most highly educated Eng- lishmen of the day to make the long pilgrimage to Camden, and which sent them away feeling that they had been in the presence of something great and sacred. AN AMATEUR OF CRIME. The Romance of Fraud. By Tighe Hop- kins. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. $2.50 net. The title is merely suggestive, but It serves as well as another for this mis- cellany about criminals, their character- istics, methods, haunts, and punish- ments. The author is an English nov- elist who appears to have become a penologist as it were by second intent. "Wards of the State," published in Eng- land two years ago, gave "an unoffi- cial view of prison and prisoner" — un- official but relatively formal. This vol- ume represents, one may say, the diver- sions of a reformer. Its chapters treat of all sorts of themes, from the popular- sensational to the curious-recondite. They give an extraordinary amount of information, which the reader feels to be merely dipped from a great store of erudition in this particular field. In the fifteen pages on "the trail," more light is thrown on the actual methods of trackers and sleuths than in a dozen de- tective stories. Chapters on The Mas- ter Thief, The Criminal Tattooed, Crime and Superstition, assemble a large num- ber of odd and little-known facts about the real ways of the underworld. Oth- er papers, like the ones on Newgate, on pirates, on The Man in the Iron Mask, are of more general historical interest. The famous escape of Rose and Hamil- ton from Libby Prison is rehearsed with uncommon vividness; and A Citation Before the Inquisition makes quite suf- ficiently concrete the horrors of the Holy Office. The author is qualified by nature as well as learning for this kind of writing. It is true, he has a good deal to say, first and last, in denial of the senti- mental attitude towards crime and the criminal. Criminals, he says, are a businesslike but not heroic class. The picaresque glamour of the eighteenth- century highwayman was a creation of popular fancy. In fact, "there is little to be said for him, except that he usu- ally died game. Alike at his trial and on his last journey, the highwayman was usually in his glory." The romance of piracy also is chiefly figment, based upon a few astounding feats by three or four outlaws of the sea. The race of pirates was a squalid mass of human vermin. To understand the pirate's calling as it actually was is to understand how foolishly impossible is the halo of romance with which some very delightful writers (the author of "The Pilot" is one of them) have striven to surround it. The task is not to be accomplished. The halo of romance is to the head of the pirate what Cinderella's slipper was to the feet of her sisters, or Mambrino's helmet to the skull of Sancho. This is all very well; but it is quite clear that our writer is fully under the strange and common spell which crime and the criminal throws upon all or- ders of men. His theme fascinates him, delights him, as it did Dumas and De Quincey and Dickens. The adroitness of thievery is incense to his nostrils. He beholds a murderer with the rapture of a girl poring upon a rose. He dis- courses of his loves with the enthusi- asm of a lover; and, luckily, remem- bers to be a criminologist only now and then. THE PRICE OF EMPIRE. The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore. By J. R. Hutchinson. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. $3.00. Mr. Hutchinson has told us in great detail, with knowledge based upon the best sources of information, and in a lively and interesting manner which makes the tale seem just a strain less repulsive than it really is, all that any one needs to know about the Press- Gang; how it came in, what it did, and how it went out. The practice of press- ing for the navy existed from early times; it first became prominent in the reign of John; was always revived when- ever there was special call for the ser- vice of the navy, and became the per- manent and regular method of recruit- ing during the period from the Revolu- tion of 1688 to the second quarter of the nineteenth century. This last was precisely the period when the state was given over to the keeping of a land and moneyed aristocracy, whose interests, bound up with the commercial and maritime expansion of the empire, re- quired the sacrifice of much of the gen- eral welfare and many of the tradition- al rights of the nation as a whole. In
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730 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2555 L815 English prestige was great, and it was supposed by many, Englishmen and foreigners alike, that the success of England was accompanied by, if it was not tbe result of, "the most splendid freedom a nation ever enjoyed." But in fact the price of empire was a mark- ed loss, for the immense majority, of well-being and of liberty alike. The price was certainly a heavy one; and it was paid by the small farmer, the shop- keeper, the artisan, and the industrial laborer, and above all perhaps by the nameless thousands who were compelled, against their will, to live the life of galley slaves on board the vessels of the navy. In England itself the fruits of empire came to full bloom in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. They are familiar to all who have studied that period, a period strongly characterized by the insular egoism of the classes and by the incredible increase of poverty, vice, and crime among the masses. The share of the Press-Gang in producing this result has not been emphasized by Mr. Hutchinson as fully as it might have been; but we may quote one para- graph in which he makes it clear enough: The simplest calculation, had she [M'Gugan's wife] cared to make it, would have shown her the utter futility of hoping- to live on the munificent wage which a grateful country allowed to M'Gugan, less certain deductions for M'Gugan's slops and contingent sick- benefit, in return for his aid in protect- ing it from its enemies; and almost any parish official could have told her that she was no longer merely M'Gugan's wife, dependent upon his exertions for the bread she ate, but a Daughter of the State and own sister to thousands of women to whom the gang in its pas- sage brought toil and poverty, tears and shame. . . . You could not take forci- bly 100 husbands and fathers out of a community of 500 souls, and pay that hundred the barest pittance instead of a living wage, without condemning 100 wives and mothers to hard labor on be- half of the 300 children who hungered. Out of this hundred wives and mothers a certain percentage lacked the ability to work, while a certain percentage lack- ed the will. These recruited the ranks of the outcast, or with their families burdened the parish. The direct social and economic outcome of this mode of manning the Navy, coupled with the pay- ment of a starvation wage, was thus threefold. it reversed the natural sex- incidence of labor; it fostered vice; it bred paupers. The first was a calamity personal to those who suffered it. The other two were national in their calami- tous effects. The Press-Gang "went out" because of its "demoralizing effects upon the fleet, Its injurious effects upon trade, its antagonizing effects upon the nation, and Its enormous cost as com- pared with recruiting by the good-will of the people." And yet Mr. Hutchison thinks that, without the Press-Gang, the fleet, for a hundred and fifty years, "could in all human probability never have been manned at all." To say that a method, which was so bad that it destroyed itself in the end by its very viciousness, was necessary for a cen- tury, is to fall back upon the comfort- able historical doctrine that since things were as they were they could not have been otherwise. The question is, of course, a "purely academic" one; but common-sense is apt to suppose that the naval authorities, if they had wished to do so, might readily have accorded decent treatment and decent pay to the men who manned the fleet; and it is apt to suppose that if this had been done the worst evils of the Press-Gang would have been avoided. Notes Houghton Mifflin Company will pub- lish on Saturday: "No. 13 Washington Square," by Leroy Scott; "William Gray, of Salem, Merchant," by Edward Gray; "The House of Cecil," by G. Ravenscroft Dennis; "The Seymour Family," by A. Audrey Locke; "The La Tremouille Fam- ily," by Winifred Stephens. Among books announced for publica- tion shortly by the Harvard Univer- sity Press are: A reprint of President Lowell's "Government of France, Italy, and Germany"; "Municipal Charters," by Nathan Matthews; "Metempsychosis," the Ingersoll lecture for this year, by George Foot Moore, and new editions of Yerkes's "Study of the Self" and of E. A. Sophocles's Hellenistic Greek Lexicon. A new series is also in preparation, entitled Harvard Studies in Romance Languages, edited by Professors Sheldon, Grandgent, Ford, and Potter, the first volume of which will be a critical edition of the poetry of Giacomo da Lentino, by Ernest Felix Langley. The Oxford University Press has an- nounced the forthcoming publication of the following books: "Court Hand," by Hilary Jenkinson and Charles John- son; "The Legislative Union of England and Scotland," by P. Hume Brown ; "Homogeneous Linear Substitutions," by Harold Hilton; "The Works of Henry Vaughan," edited by L. C. Martin ; "The Poetical Works of Robert Herrick," edit- ed by F. W. Moorman; "The Auxilia of the Roman Imperial Army," by G. L. Cheesman; "The Letters of Sidonius," translated by O. M. Dalton; "The Gods of Northern Buddhism," by A. Getty; "English University Drama, 1540-1 003, " liy F. S. Boaa; "Map's De Nugis Curiali- um," edited by M. R. James; "Apulei Apologia," with introduction and com- mentary by H. E. Butler and S. G. Owen; "The Beneventan Script," by E. A. Loew; "Studies in the Odyssey," by J. A. K. Thomson; "The Oxford Survey of the British Empire," edited by A. J. Herbert- son and O. J. K. Howarth. Volume IV Is announced of the Oxford Studies In Social and Legal History, containing "The Early History of Contract," by W. Harbour, and "The Abbey of Saint-Ber- lin," by G. W. Coopland. To the series of Oxford Historical and Literary Studies are added: "Unpublished Selections from Henry Tubbe," edited by G. C. Moore Smith; "Bibliography of Dr. Johnson," by P. W. Courtney; "Selkirk's Colony in Canada," by Chester Martin. THE second volume of Dio's "Roman History" has now appeared in the Loeb Classical Library (Macmillan; $1.50 net). As we have already noted, the translation of this edition is a thor- ough revision by Dr. Earnest Cary of the version by Herbert Baldwin Foster. IN "The Secret Book" (Macmillan; $1.25 net), the author of "The Old Li- brarian's Almanack" and "The Librarian at Play" has made another book full of fancy and humor out of the materials of his dusty trade. To the lay mind a libra- rian is a person who, like an undertaker, may be piously cheerful on occasion, may compass "decent mirth," but is inca- pable of real jollity. Mr. E. L. Pearson, seriously interested in books and men, is depressed by neither; mirthfulness, not painfully decent, is the atmosphere of these pages. The chapters are supposed to be articles read by the members of a little informal club. According to excel- lent precedents — the Autocrat and others —a slight thread of story is thus sup- plied for the stringing together of what is virtually a series of familiar essays. A librarian or two, a bibliographer, a short- story writer, a genealogist, a couple of journalists, a schoolmaster — these are the club. It meets at irregular intervals for Welsh rabbits, talk, and "papers" about books new and old, popular and recondite. Nor are appropriate ditties mute; there are some excellent bits of familiar verse scattered through these pages. What the "secret book" is and how Lauriston finds it at last are tri- fling matters. Mr. Pearson's new book is to be read and enjoyed as an amusing and engaging commentary on all sorts of things bookish and human by a writer high-spirited enough to rejoice in his work and its rewards, major and minor. IN "The Queens of Aragon: Their Lives and Times" (Brentano's; $3.75 net), E. L. Miron writes entertainingly, and with much information, of bygone days In Spain's eastern kingdom. Aragon existed as a separate political entity from 1035 to 1468 a. r>. During this period twenty-six queens shared the throne. History has sketched the portraits of most of these helpmeets of Aragon's warlike kings In the most shadowy outline; but the author has turned to contemporary literature to supply those intimate details lacking in the arid chronicles of the time. A for- midable bibliography published as an ap- pendix testifies to his acquaintance with the period. From the most diverse sources he has brought together a multi- tude of facts presenting an interesting picture of Aragonese culture during the 1 enturles In question. Much Information |g riven concerning the troubadours In Spain; but curiously enough the author Iiiih failed to utilize the ant limitative work on the subject: Mlla y KontanalH's "Troubadours in Spain," not to mention
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June 18, 1914] The Nation. 731 later studies by Menendez y Pelayo and Menendez Pidal. This failure to consult obvious sources is unaccountable in one who gives evidence of much wide and curious reading in works difficult of ac- cess. A knowledge of these books would have prevented a blunder like that on page 74, where he says: "Between the troubadour and the trouvere, there was a considerable difference." The distinction, of course, is merely one of dialect and geography, but the context plainly shows that he thinks the troubadour, like the jongleur, to have been merely a min- strel who recited poems written by the trouvere. Such errors are infrequent. The book is an interesting contribution to the culture history of mediaeval Spain. THE author of "How to See the Vati- can" (Pott; $2 net), Mr. Douglas Sladen, is known as an indefatigable com- piler of travel literature. Some years ago he published "The Secrets of the Vatican," a book which is now out of print, and the present volume, we are informed in a publisher's note, is mainly a revised edition of parts of that work. The aim of the book is to give the ordinary read- er some acquaintance with the history of the Vatican and to describe for him those parts of the palace which are least familiar to the average tourist. The au- thor, as will readily be seen by a glance at the authorities to whom he acknow- ledges indebtedness, makes no pretence to any profound scholarship, nor is his writing adorned with many elegancies of style, but as a plain workaday guide to the Vatican, covering some ground which is not covered elsewhere, this book should have its value. FOR fulness of treatment the "Interna- tional Year Book" (Dodd, Mead), under the editorship of Frank Moore Colby and Allen . Leon Churchill, re- mains the most useful of annual handbooks. The volume for 1913, like its predecessors, will be found in- dispensable by .students of contem- porary events in search of infor- mation too recent to be incorporated in the encyclopaedias and in much greater detail than the newspaper almanacs offer. It would be difficult to specify the fea- tures of a book which sets out to be a complete encyclopaedia for the year; but, as with earlier volumes, we are glad to point out the valuable record of legisla- tion under the History of the different States, material which is nowhere ac- cessible in condensed form. The out- standing events of the year — Mexico, the Balkans, China, the beginnings of the "Wilson Administration, Irish Home Rule — receive adequate attention. The record of books and plays of the year in this country and England is perforce largely in the nature of a catalogue, but here, again, the lists come in very handily for speedy reference. We notice in the his- tory of the Balkan troubles one curious misstatement. With regard to the out- break of hostilities between Bulgaria and her allies we are told: "It was a remark- able fact that Gen. Savoff, the hero of the past campaign against the Turks, op- posed the truculent attitude of Dr. Da- neff's Government and took no part in the second war." The facts are just the other way. It was the militarist party that forced the hands of the Ministry, and it was Gen. Savoff's unauthorized orders for an advance that precipitated the general fighting which ended so dis- astrously for Bulgaria. IN "Napoleon at Bay, 1814" (Lane; $2.50 net), F. Loraine Petre continues the detailed military study which he has been making of Napoleon's later campaigns. The present volume discusses the battles of La Rothiere, Craonne, Arcis-sur-Aube, and the other engagements in the course of the quick and hazardous marches by which he tried to move to the rear of the allied armies, cut their lines of com- munication, and frighten them off from closing in on Paris. Like Carlyle, when writing his "Frederick the Great," th9 author has personally been over the bat- tle-fields; he also recently had the ad- vantage of seeing 10,000 French troops of the present day manoeuvring in part of this theatre of war, according to ideas very similar to those of Napoleon just a hundred years ago. He gives a detailed military narrative, but not too techni- cal for the layman, and adds general re- marks and conclusions interesting to the military historian and the professional soldier. Both Bliicher and Napoleon re- ceive rather more credit than from most historians who are not distinctly parti- san. Bliicher was right in urging an immediate pursuit of Napoleon after the French disaster at Leipzig; had his ad- vice been followed, "the Empire of Na- poleon would probably have fallen be- fore the end of December, 181S." Bliicher was not "a heaven-born genius, but he was full of common-sense, and did not hesitate to rely for brain-work on his more talented subordinate Gneisenau. If Gneisenau supplied the brains, it was Bliicher who supplied the relentless ener- gy, the fierce patriotism, and the strong will which pushed his army forward and kept peace between Russians and Prussians." On the other hand, Napoleon's attempt at Schwarzenberg's rear was not "a mere gambler's desperate throw," but might properly be regarded by Napoleon as hav- ing some probability of success, in view of his knowledge of "Schwarzenberg's al- most insane nervousness regarding his communications." The author has not drawn upon any hitherto unknown mate- rial, but makes good use of Napoleon's correspondence, of the old accounts of Clausewitz and Muffling, and of the ex- cellent recent studies of Houssaye, Weil, Hulot, Danilewski, Janson, and others — though not of Fave and Foch. TO write a satisfactory history of Mor- mons in Utah, or a satisfactory life of its great leader, one must deny one's self the pleasure of disliking Mormonism. One must be willing to ask if plural mar- riages lessen unchastity and if co- operative control under church direction is worse than cooperation under the di- rection of able and fortunate individuals. "Brigham Young and his Mormon Em- pire," by Frank J. Cannon and George S. Knapp (Revell: $1.50 net), is cer- tainly not an impartially scientific his- tory. The authors seem desirous of de- scribing the economic aspects of the Latter Day Saints, but they are not suf- ficiently detached to attempt it. Their task is to tell what they think about Brigham Young. It is evident that they think he was a bad man, and a conve- nient butt for ridicule. They are willing to grant his great achievements, but they do not tell how they came about, and there is no disposition to concede to him worthy motives. The book is written in an easy and vivacious manner; but it bristles with the antipathy which fills the religious and political controversy into which most non-Mormons in Utah have been drawn. It is not a book for one who wishes to gain trustworthy information, and it has the further defect of falling into slovenly and offensive language. We are told, for example, that Brigham had the habit of "jawing Zion into order," and that a certain one of Joseph Smith's widows "was the last of that sorrowing sisterhood to be comforted on the broad bosom of the prophet's successor." The illustrations are good, but they would be better if they included maps of Utah. NEWSPAPER experiences make up almost the whole of Charles Ed- ward Russell's "These Shifting Scenes" (Doran; $1.50 net). As they touch upon some of the most interesting events in the time they cover, and are told with the skill of a trained newspaper man, the book is most readable. Beginning with the old days of the "tramp" printers, the reader is taken through the harrowing episode of finding work on a New York newspaper, and then through incidents large and small, but never dull, ranging from the Haymarket tumult in Chicago, the Johnstown flood, and a group of na- tional political conventions to murder mysteries and lesser journalistic fry. Mr. Russell has had the opportunity of look- ing on at some history-making, and he takes full advantage of the fact. Now and then he obtrudes his economic no- tions, as when he remarks that he "began to see that poverty was the condition of the majority of the people," but on the whole the narrative is unencumbered with irrelevant comment. It does not constitute an autobiography, but rather is a presentation of a large section of the writer's life. Its distinction is that it gives that intimate view of a news- paper man's work that people in gen- eral are apt to find fascinating. JOSEPH PULITZER as a cross-ex- aminer is the central figure of Al- leyne Ireland's "Joseph Pulitzer: Remi- niscences of a Secretary" (Kennerley; $1.25 net). The book is largely taken up with an account of the way in which the masterful editor tested the qualifica- tions of candidates for the difficult post of secretary to him when blindness and nervousness had driven him to seclusion. "Secretary" is a very inadequate word for what "J. P.," as his entourage called him among themselves, required. His rest- less mind demanded to be fed and enter- tained continuously, and this, owing to his apparent knowledge of everything under the sun, was a huge task. In his examination of candidates, which might last for two or three months, he roved "from country to country, from century to century, through history, art, litera- ture, biography, economics, music, the drama, and current politics." Not un- naturally, he placed great emphasis upon
Page 841
732 memory. Prominent among his traits were his sudden changes of plan, regard- less of the trouble Involved, for those who shared with him his yacht or villa. The book gives a close view of one of the most interesting personalities of our time. SOME months ago Lord Curzon cre- ated a ripple of comment by prais- ing Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural as superior to any other oratory in English In the nine- teenth century. "I escape the task of deciding which is the masterpiece of modern English eloquence," he said, "by awarding the prize to an American." The lecture in which these words were spoken was prepared for the University of Cam- bridge, but abbreviated in delivery. It is now printed in full (Macmillan; $1), and bears the title, "Modern English Elo- quence." The bulk of the little volume is devoted to personal recollections of Parliamentary speakers, including Glad- stone, Disraeli, Salisbury, Rosebery, Bal- four, and Asqwith, with some analysis of their methods and effectiveness. These are preceded by a thought-provoking consideration of the changes that have come over Parliamentary eloquence since the days of Pitt and Pox. Theirs was "the art of an aristocratic society, prac- ticed under aristocratic conditions, in an aristocratic age." The coming of democ- racy has transformed the art by making it less elaborate, less learned, less ornate, a transformation hastened and intensi- fied by the appearance of a new type of eloquence — that of the platform. Lord Curzon holds that eloquence still affects votes in Parliament, and that, far from losing its old political importance, "the gift of speech in political leaders has become a greater necessity — it is really a condition of existence." HISTORIANS, genealogists, ethnolo- gists, and the lawyers of his State will be deeply grateful to Mr. Ralph Emerson Twitchell for the service he has rendered in making accessible the more interesting of New Mexico's historical documents. The first volume of "The Spanish Archives of New Mexico" (Cedar Rapids: Torch Press; $12) contains a complete catalogue of the records of the court of private land claims now in the custody of the Surveyor-General at Santa F6. These documents, 1,384 in number, are chronologically arranged, the earliest starting with the year 1685, and the latest bearing the date 1846. The less important are merely listed by title, but those of greater interest are fully translated or described. Volume II contains notice of the far more interesting archives now de- posited in the Congressional Library. They cover the years 1621-1821. The au- thor has not sought to compete with the Congressional Library's catalogue of the 20,000 New Mexican documents in its possession, but has, rather, preferred to select the more important of these for translation or fuller description. He no- tices 3,097. It will be observed that none of the records here published goes back to the sixteenth century exploration pe- riod. Much supplemental material might be gathered at Seville In the Archives of the Indies. The records of the seven- teenth century are interesting for the The Nation light they cast on the mode of life pre- vailing at remote Spanish outposts, and for much information concerning the Pueblo Indians. IN a somewhat truculent preface, Mr. Twitchell defends himself in advance from the attacks which he feels sure will be made upon him by the "scholastic Pharisee" for venturing to introduce a little interesting reading into an other- wise arid catalogue. Equally superflu- ous are the author's ungenerous remarks about the labors of his predecessor, the late A. P. Bandelier, whose much despised list he has closely followed. He further- more roundly attacks the national au- thorities who in 1903 removed a portion of the New Mexican archives to Wash- ington. The author admits that these documents are now admirably cared for, and are being catalogued in the most scientific manner; and by his own show- ing it appears that, while stored in Santa Fe\ many were stolen, and the whole collection was in imminent danger of de- struction. The burning of the historical collection at Albany and recent revela- tions regarding the sorry condition of the archives in many Southern States give cause for congratulation that at least one valuable collection of documents is safely housed and cared for. NOTES FROM ABROAD. THAT blessed word "federalism" is the catchword of the moment in Brit- ish politics. Enthusiasm for the federal panacea has almost persuaded Mrs. Hum- phry Ward to be a suffragist. She has, in fact, publicly avowed her belief that the solution of the woman suffrage prob- lem may come through a division of functions between local legislative assem- blies and a central imperial Parliament. The latter would remain in the control of men, but women would have equality with them in "the whole social and do- mestic sphere of delegated power cover- ed by these local assemblies of the fu- ture." It is evident that Mrs. Ward pic- tures these assemblies as no more than magnified county councils, and has no idea of the gravity of the issues that would be subject to their decision in any scheme of federalism that deserved the name. THE cold truth about the so-called fed- eral solution of the Home Rule con- troversy has been set forth in the Man- chester Guardian by Prof. J. H. Morgan, of University College, London, who is rapidly becoming one of the leading au- thorities on British constitutional prob- lems. He warns the admirers of this short cut to peace that to federalize the United Kingdom would involve the crea- tion of a written Constitution, and would tax all the energies of all the jurists in England for months, if not for years, be- fore anything could be put in a draughts- man's hands. It would Involve the re- peal of hundreds of statutes, Innumerable administrative readjustments, and the i e reform of the House of Lords. It would mean, to begin with, the total abandonment of the Home Rule bill, which is not suited, and never was in- tended, to be the cornerstone of a federal system. [Vol. 98, No. 2555 A SCHEME is in progress for recog- nizing Dr. J. G. Frazer's services to research. The proposal is to establish a Frazer Fund for Social Anthropology, from which grants will be made to trav- elling students of either sex, with a view to their investigating problems in the culture and social organization of prim- itive peoples. In order to secure con- tinuity of administration, the fund is to be held in trust by the University of Cambridge. The signatures to the me- morial issued in connection with the scheme are mainly those of English scholars, but a few American names ap- pear, including that of Prof. B. L. Gilder- sleeve, and the Continent of Europe is also represented on the list. Mr. F. M. Cornford, of Trinity College, Cambridge, is secretary of the committee of sub- scribers. THE "National Office of French Uni- versities and Schools" — a wheel of Government — publishes a little book whose object is "to make known abroad the higher French education as it is to- day, with the resources it offers." It is quite apart from the well-known "Liv- ret des Etudiants," which catalogues French universities and higher schools, with their courses year by year. This explains to foreign students that, in point of fact, French universities and schools are open to them and welcome them — "on the sole condition that they prove they are in a state to receive the teach- ing." It is intended to do away with the idea that many administrative dif- ficulties stand in the way of foreign stu- dents wishing to enter French universi- ties. The conditions of attendance and of previous requirements for studying with a view to diplomas and degrees are brought out in particular. The publica- tion is a part of the effort made for several years to turn towards French in- stitutions the stream of higher foreign students. Statistics show that this has already met with success. In 1900 there were all told 1,770 foreign students in French universities, and in 1913 there were 5,560, or nearly one-seventh of the total number matriculated. THE history of the 602 Deputies who have recently been elected to hold rule over France during their four years in Parliament is of some interest. One of the chief reproaches made against re- publics, particularly Latin republics, is the predominance of the lawyer and pro- fessional politician. Now, in this new French Parliament there are 142 barris- ters and twelve solicitors, between whom the habit of public speaking muBl m J i the difference; and there are ten former judges, three notaries, and twenty-seven who have been office-holders in the civil administration. To these may be proper- ly added forty-six journalists and forty- three university professors, fifty-three doctors, and three vetertnarlei (Oambetta once said in lii.s batta thai the of election sent up ;i Parliament ot "eub- veterinarles"), eleven apothecarli twenty-five employee! "i buelneea ah these would naturally be Radical and Socialist element!, or "wate-earnera," »« against wage-payer.;, although thla divi- sion is fur from being verified In the
Page 842
June 1 8, 1914] The Nation 733 political reality. On the other, and nat- urally Conservative or Moderate, side we have forty-six "rentiers," or Deputies liv- ing from their own personal incomes as Mors, thirty-two manufactur- ers, and twenty-seven merchants, three •hipbuildera and six professional finan- ciers, sixteen farmers, and twenty-one ex- officers of army or navy. There are one publisher, six keepers of hotels and cafes, and twenty-two workmen, who are not all Socialists. Jaures, the leader of the Socialist party, is an ex-university pro- fessor of philosophy. THE French Academy has delegated its "perpetual secretary," M. Etienne Lamy, who took part in our own Cham- plain celebration, to represent it at the seventh centenary of the battle of Bou- vines. The ode crowned for the occasion has been written by Henri de Lecre, a laureate of the Floral Games of Langue- doc. This reminds one irresistibly of Lady Ambrose's arraignment of the new republic's "part of culture that comes from a knowledge of history or parts of history." She was supposed at the time to have related a true story of the Eng- lish historian Freeman: "I sat at dinner by some one who had not only read heaven knows how much history, but had written, I believe, even more than he had read. At last he said to me, in a very solemn voice, 'What a terrible de- feat that was which we had at Bouvincs!' I answered timidly — not thinking we were at war with any one — that I had seen nothing about it in the papers. 'H'm!' he said, giving a sort of a grunt that made me feel dreadfully ignorant, 'Why, I had an excursus on it myself in the Archae- ological Gazette only last week.' And, do you know, it turned out that the battle of Bouvines was fought in the thirteenth century, and had, as far as I could make out, something to do with Magna Charta." HERE in France it is generally chroni- cled as a victory over the German Emperor Otho rv. It was certainly won by Philip Augustus, King of France, over the combined forces of the Emperor of Germany, the King of England, and the Count of Flanders. Koehler, its German historian, says: "The victory of Bouvines had for France this important result — it awakened a national sentiment, and it strengthened the feeling of common soli- darity to such a degree that we may say modern France issued from that event." A monument was erected in 1863 on the battle-field, which is within easy reach of tourists, about seven miles from Lille. The village of Bouvines has 600 inhabi- tants, lost amid the monotonous indus- tries now dominating the region. A FORMER student of the French School of Athens, Eugene Cavai- gnac, has presented to the Academie des Sciences Morales an exhaustive documen- tary report on the duration and obliga- tions of military service in the Roman Republic when it was pouring out its soldiers with the Scipios for the conquest first of Carthage and then of the world. He starts from the indications of Poly- bius, who was a member of the Achaean League and saw the Roman soldiers at work in the conquest of Macedonia, and was afterwards sixteen years at Rome in the family of the later Scipios. At that time, the Roman idea of the sovereignty of the State — Majestas — had grown to that conception which still directs the relations of governments towards the community in Continental Europe. There, too, it has resulted in obligatory military service. Without going into this ques- tion, which belongs to philosophical his- tory, M. Cavaignac establishes these facts: Roman citizens owed military ser- vice from seventeen to forty-six years of age, with a maximum of twenty cam- paigns. The minimum has been disputed, but M. Cavaignac decides for six cam- paigns, which could hardly be crowded into the three years of the present dis- puted law of the French Republic. PLANS for the Italian pavilion at the San Francisco Exposition, which have just been published in the papers, have aroused much interest in artistic circles. They are the work of Sig. Piacentini, one of the most popular and successful Italian architects, who is a specialist in buildings of this kind. He has designed for the great world fair a scheme which shall reproduce on the shores of the Pacific a typical Italian mediaeval town, with its works of art, its fountains, its gardens, and its quaint houses. There will be two piazzas, a larger one dominated by the Palazzo Pub- blico, or town hall, recalling the glories of Italian municipal life, and surround- ed by other public and private buildings, forming the centre of the life of the com- munity; and a smaller one with the Log- gia dei Mercanti, or merchants' exchange, and surrounded by shops and warehouses, reminiscent of the commercial activities of the Italian city republics. The two will be united by narrow streets and por- ticos like those of Siena, "Verona, or Perugia. The general effect, if the plans are well executed, should be interesting and attractive, but intelligent public opinion rightly insists that the contents of the various buildings should be prop- erly representative of Italian work, and not consist of the usual Neapolitan coral and sham tortoise-shell objects, Sorrento woodwork, the hideous Vol- terra alabaster ware and Venetian atrocities in spun glass, which have fig- ured in other Italian exhibitions abroad, and which give an entirely false idea of what the country produces. Italy has now so much to show in the way of high-class industrial and artistic produc- tion that there is no need to expose such trumpery and wholly out-of-date trash. THE latest Italian labor strikes are associated to an unusual degree with classical memories and poetry. The dis- pute is whether Sicilian sulphur shall be exported by way of Catania or Porto Empedocle, which is the seaport of Gir- genti — the ancient Agrigentum on the other side of the island. Now Empe- docles himself, philosopher, and poet, and physiologist of the heart, from whom the port has its name, went forth from Ca- tania to climb up and throw himself into the crater of ^Etna, and so died in sulphurous glory. In the slow revolutions of the work) I shall come many times to Catnnn — Matthew Arnold makes him promise. Science COL. ROOSEVELT'S SCIENTIFIC OB- SERVATIONS. Life-Histories of African Game Animals. By Theodore Roosevelt and Edmund Heller. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. $10 net. Instead of publishing the scientific observations of his trip as appendices to the narrative volumes, "African Game Trails," or scattered through various zoological publications, Col. Roosevelt has collected them in these two vol- umes. The method of presentation is in the form of chapter monographs deal- ing in some cases with a single species, as The Lion, or with groups, as The Gazelles and their Allies. Again we have proof that science in the future is to derive its chief support from the field work of trained observers. The day of mere museum collecting is past, and there is no excuse for any system- atic gathering of specimens unless notes are taken on their life-history. To take the lion monograph as a type, we find a short introduction on the Felidse in general, followed by an equal- ly brief summary of the characters of the lion and its sub-species. Then fol- low almost sixty pages of notes from the life, treating successively of dis- tribution, family and cub life, voice, coloration, method of killing and char- acter of kills, man-eaters, enemies, and method of hunting. The style is straightforward, lucid, and succinct, with unusually short sentences and no attempt at fine phrasing or involved description. In the section on sport, the account of the killing of George Grey is one of the most detailed and vivid narratives which has been written in the annals of hunting. A detailed de- scription of the races of Felis leo closes the chapter. The paragraph on the habits of the wart-hog will give an idea of the gener- al style of treatment: They were never found in thick forest. When persecuted by man they became nocturnal; but we often saw them abroad at midday, although their favorite times for roaming and feeding were in the morning and afternoon. They frequently rooted up the ground, going down on their knees; but even more frequently they cropped grass like a zebra or harte- beest. Their food is purely vegetable. They live in burrows, which they inva- riably enter backward, so as to present to any enemy a front of teeth which would daunt the most ferocious. No matter how headlong the speed of a hunted pip it will always turn and slip backward into its hole, with jack-in-the-box ability. Once we saw a young boar thus disappear, and immediately afterward reappear as if shot out of a catapult; evidently the bur- row was already inhabited by another pig, which had savagely assailed the hind
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734 T li e 3ST a t i o ii [Vol. 98, No. 2555 quarters of the intruder. When close pressed they will charge valiantly; but they are certainly nothing like as savage as peccaries. We found a sow with very young pigs in November on the Uasin Gishu; but apparently they breed at all seasons. In galloping after a boar we noticed that in trying to look back at his pursuer he lifted his snout, not turning his head to one side. When in motion wart-hogs always carry the tail straight up, the tassel perhaps falling forward. They are easily tamed, and make amusing pets, owing to their continuous grotesque starts and grunts. They often become exceedingly attached to their owners. At the McMillans' place the cheetahs and wart-hogs were as safe companions as the gazelles; whereas nobody could touch the leopards; and elsewhere we found that the zebras and hartebeests were apt to be dangerous when they became tame. A preface explains the use of species and genera as adopted throughout the book, showing that a middle position has been taken, trinomials being admit- ted, but not all the hair-splitting indulg- ed in by closet naturalists. The first five chapters make interesting reading, and collectively form an admirable in- troduction to the general subject. They deal respectively with The Country and Its History, Derivation of the Fauna, The Flora, Concealing and Revealing Coloration, and Game Preserves. The most important and valuable of these is that dealing with the origin of the fauna, colored maps of the faunal areas and life zones providing vivid illustra- tions of the facts recorded in the text. The most thorough treatment is that accorded to coloration, though but lit- tle of this is new, Col. Roosevelt's the- ories having been published elsewhere. The careful student will see that he is apt to swing a little too much to the opposite side of the Thayer protective question, as in the lion chapter, where he says: ". . . . the undoubtedly con- cealing quality of the lion's coloration is of interest chiefly as a coloristic fact, and plays little real part, and probably no part at all, in the animal's success as a hunter, and has not been developed by natural selection or other- wise for this particular utilitarian pur- pose." But in general he assumes a moderate point of view, thereby reveal- ing the ideas of extremists and of men who have had little experience in actual field work in their true light of exag- geration and false premise. The final chapter is concerned with Equipment, Arms, and the Preservation of Specimens, and a very full bibliogra- phy and index round out the work. The illustrations are excellent. solar physics to be known as the Caw- thron Observatory, from its founder, Mr. Thomas Cawthron. of Nelson, who has given a fund of $250,000 for its equipment and maintenance. Dr. Otto Gustaf Ramsay, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Yale Medi- cal School, who died on June 12, was born in New York city in 1870. He grad- uated from the University of Vir- ginia in 1890, and received the degree of M.A. from Yale in 1901. Later he studied in Germany, and served as interne and associate in gynecology at Johns Hop- kins. For several years he had been a member of the Yale faculty. Drama and Music Mr. J. Evershed, director of the Madras & Kodaikanal Observatories, who recent- ly visited New Zealand, has advised plac- ing at Nelson, as a highly suitable place cllmatologically as well as geographical- ly, the new institution for research in THE FATHER OF DANISH COMEDY. The Comedies of Holberg. By Oscar James Campbell, Jr. Harvard Stud- ies in Comparative Literature, Vol. III. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. $2.50 net. It is appropriate at a time when, thanks to the assiduity of Mr. Bjork- man and others, the American reading public is becoming more and more ac- quainted with Scandinavian writers, that a work of genuine scientific and cultural value should be produced by an American scholar upon a classic Scandinavian author. Though Profes- sor Campbell is primarily an English rather than a Scandinavian specialist, he has nevertheless in this book made America's most significant contribution to the study of the Scandinavian liter- atures. His book is the third in the series of Harvard Studies in Compara- tive Literature. The author's method of treating his subject is purely comparative. A suc- cinct sketch of Holberg's life and a con- venient classification of his plays under four heads precede the main portion of the book, which consists of more than two hundred pages upon the relation of Holberg to earlier writers of comedy. Holberg is a peculiarly fit subject for comparative treatment. A Norwegian by birth, a Dane by adoption, an inces- sant traveller by predilection, he did his utmost to become an intellectual citi- zen of Europe as a whole. Finding in the Denmark of his day no traditions of culture, he made himself wisely cosmo- politan and diligently sought out the best which other countries could supply. He thus became the father of Danish comedy; indeed, one may say, of Dan- ish literature in general. Mr. Campbell traces clearly his indebtedness to Mo- liere in the grouping and exposition of character, to the commedia dell' arte for much of the comedy of his plots, to- gether with the figures that served as vehicles for it, and to the spirit of Eng- lish satire, which was in many ways so congenial to his own temper. All this was already somewhat familiar matter to students of comparative literature. The author has, however, made a fresh presentation of the whole subject, and has set many facts in a new light. The chapters on the relations of Holberg to French literature other than Moliere and on his scantier indebtedness to Ger- man and Latin literature furnish much new material. The parallels which Mr. Campbell draws are always reasonably convincing. He proves his case, as "proof" goes in such matters, of liter- ary influence. And thorough as his in- vestigation is, it carries no weight of superfluous learning. The quotations from Holberg, and even the titles of the plays, are translated into English — and wisely so, since a knowledge of Danish is not a part of the equipment of the ordinary scholar. The critical apparatus is put into the unobtrusive notes at the end of the book. One can- not speak too highly of the way in which the material has been digested and perspicuously arranged. Mr. Campbell has made no attempt to discuss Holberg's influence on subse- quent writers of comedy in different countries. That subject would require a separate book. If there is any lack in the present volume, it is the absence of a brief and clear indication as to the relative merits of the various plays. The wayfaring man has no guide for the reading of Holberg. And in that con- nection it is well to call attention to the need of a good English translation of the better-known comedies. Until it is provided, Holberg's laughter, which, ac- cording to Mr. Campbell, "bids fair to become immortal," can never be proper- ly reechoed from our shores. The fifth volume of the Dramatic In- dex (Boston Book Company), covering the year 1913, is modelled upon the pat- tern of its predecessors. As a list of the performers who have appeared upon the musical or dramatic stage in that period, the plays in which they appeared, and the notices accorded to them in the books and periodicals (not the daily press) of the English-speaking world, it seems to be a full and accurate record, achieved at a great cost of systematic labor. The rec- ords of the five volumes cover the period 1906-1913. Beyond question, the work, with its convenient alphabetical refer- ences, will prove Interesting and useful to all persons directly or Indirectly con- cerned in theatrical affairs, while its cat- alogues of new plays and books on dra- matic subjects have a special value; but It should be noted that the critical au- thorities referred to are not always of the most dependable order. A Paris letter published in a London journal says: "So It Is finally decided that Daudet's play 'L'Arlcslenne' shall be withdrawn from the repertory of tho Odeon, where it has been In Antolne's hands a never-fnlllng trump «'iti<l, till- ing the house as often aw ffivCO. and re-
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June 18, 1914] The Nation 735 taint ng as the years go by all Its charm and Its grace. Mme. Daudet, in declining to leave the play to M. Antoine's suc- cessor, observes that she considers it right that the Daudet masterpiece should not be allowed to 'vegetate' eternally in the same playhouse, to be ever produced before the same public, and she is in treaty with a boulevard theatre that pro- poses to take over the acting rights." Jean Richepin's version of "Macbeth" was produced recently at the Comedie Franchise, Duncan being played by Mounet-Sully, Macbeth by Paul Mon- net, Macduff by Fenoux, and Banquo by Alexandre. Lady Macbeth was taken by the "divine" Bartet, the only artist who currently shares the epithet with Bern- hardt, Lady Macduff by Remy, and the three witches by Madeleine Roch, Silvain, and Devoyod. "M. Richepin's translation is wonderfully dexterous and true," an English critic says, "and while very near- ly literal he manages to infuse into the French much of the force, fibre, and color of the original. Anybody familiar with the Shakespeare text could follow easily and smoothly the Richepin 'Macbeth,' but much of it, particularly the witches' in- cantations, must have been taken on credit by the public as something very fine and powerful, but in an unknown tongue. M. Richepin, in his admirable lectures, showed that he blamed Lady Macbeth more than the Thane of Caw- dor for the murders, but in the play at the Comeclie Bartet is far from incar- nating the savage Queen. This mag- nificent artist has conceived a coquet- tish, supple temptress rather than an im- perious plotter, and makes a very curious Lady Macbeth. It is not until the last scene that she is at all like the conven- tional impersonation of the part. She is scarcely Richepin's conception — at least, that is the impression she must leave on those who heard the lecture — but she is an arch-fiend in feminine form, and, if I may be allowed to say so, too French for a wild Scottish laird's wife." A work that was warmly applauded at the Altenburg Festival was Kelley's quartet in C major. Altogether, Mr. Kelley's music has found much favor in Germany. It would not be a bad idea to introduce it to concert audiences in seme of the large cities of his native country. Texas, it may not be generally known, has produced one of the leading American musicians, Frank Van der Stucken, a composer whose works are awaiting the recognition they deserve. As a conductor he has made the public, es- pecially in New York and Cincinnati, ac- quainted with many good novelties, in- cluding not a few by American compos- ers. His latest achievement has been cordially praised in Antwerp, where he conducted two concerts in commemora- tion of the bicentenary of Gluck. The composers represented on the pro- grammes, besides Gluck, were Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Berlioz, Wagner, Ver- di. Chabrier, Strauss, Benoit, Grieg, Sme- tana, and Moussorgsky. Strauss's new "opera without words," "The Legend of Joseph," is not likely to add to his fame. According to Dr. M61- ler, of the Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung, it falls short of expectations, being little more than a pot-boiler, with some tonal dainties that will attract attention for a little while. Dr. Mbller also points out that there is nothing new in the genre of the "Legend of Joseph," which Strauss's followers heralded as an innovation. So far as Germany is concerned, it is; but in France the "dance-drama," or "mimo- diama," flourished as long ago as the sev- enteenth century. Distinguished musi- cians like Lully, Rameau, and Couperin cultivated it. In the nineteenth cen- tury another Frenchman, Noverre, en- deavored to elevate the degenerated oper- atic ballet to a sort of "Gesammtkunst- vverk," or combination of the arts. Dr. Moller might have referred also to the iJacchanale which Wagner added to the Paris version of "Tannhauser." In more recent times the "mimodrama" has been cultivated by a number of Frenchmen and Russians, among them Lalo, Dukas, . iavel, Hahn, Debussy, Arensky, Tcher- epnin, Rimsky-Korsakoff, and Stravin- Bky. In the days of Mapleson it used to be "Grand Italian Opera." Maurice Grau en- larged that to "Grand Opera in Italian, French, and German." The latest combi- nation is now on trial in London — Mr. Beecham's season of "German, Russian, and English Opera and Russian Ballet." His repertory includes: "Rosenkavalier," "Die Zauberfibte," "Boris Godounoff," "Ivan le Terrible," "Prince Igor," "Daph- nis and Chloe," "Papillons," "Coq d'Or," "L'Oiseau de Feu," "Le Rossignol," "Midas," "Scheherazade," "La Legende de Joseph," "Cleopatra," "Nuit de Mai," "Petrouchka," "La Spectre de la Rose," "La Khovantchina," "Dylan," "Le Lac Des Cygnes," "Thamar," "Carnaval." A hundred years ago, in the month of May, and only three days apart, were born two pianist composers, both famous in their time, but now almost entirely neglected by musicians and amateurs — undeservedly so. One was Adolf von ttenselt, a Bavarian, who spent most of his life in St. Petersburg; the other, Stephen Heller, a Hungarian, who made his home in Paris, where he came into contact with Chopin, Liszt, Berlioz, and other eminent masters. Though a much- admired pianist, he soon gave up playing and devoted his time to teaching and composing. Many of his short pieces are gems which concert audiences of our day would be sure to admire if they got a chance to hear them. Unique among his works are a set of technical .studies based on difficult passages in Chopin's etudes. His transcriptions of Schubert's songs equal those made by Liszt. Adolf von Henselt likewise ended his brilliant career as pianist prema- turely in order to teach and compose, lollowing the examples of Liszt and Chopin, as well as of Heller. For peda- gogic purposes his eludes are still in- \ aluable, and, like those of his three col- leagues just named, they also have gen- uine artistic value. Hi? arrangements for piano of the overtures to "Frei- .schiitz," "Euryanthe,v "Oberon," "Eg- mont," and "Coriolan" are considered mo- dels. Art GUIDE-BOOKS OF PAINTING. New Guides to Old Masters. By John C. Van Dyke. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. London, ?1; Paris, 75 cents. These nicely printed and feather-light guide-books of painting escape the com- monplace in every detail of literary style and mechanical make-up. Mr. Van Dyke undertakes the difficult task of a close qualitative appraisal of well- known pictures. Often he tells why a famous picture is bad, believing that the analysis of artistic error is only less instructive than that of beauty itself. By a system of stars the pictures are divided into four classes. Mere men- tion means a picture of merit, three stars indicate a great masterpiece. At London only Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne and Holbein's Duchess of Milan receive this distinction. We should be glad to find added in a new edition Leonardo's cartoon in the Diploma Gal- lery, which is ignored. At Paris, the three stars are affixed to four pictures, the Mona Lisa, Mantegna's St. Sebas- tian, Titian's Entombment, and Paolo Veronese's Marriage at Cana. It is al- ways valuable to find the issue of qual- ity raised sharply by a highly trained and independent mind. There are shocks as well as gratifications in the process — perhaps equally salutary. The writer, for example, is recovering but slowly from the shock of learning that Raphael's Castiglione portrait is but so so. Mr. Van Dyke goes very thoroughly into the matter of condition and of at- tribution. On the latter score his pro- nouncements are, indeed, startling. Only six out of the fifteen titular Rem- brandts in the National Gallery and twelve out of the nineteen in the Louvre survive his scrutiny unchallenged. In the general introduction he admits only ten Rembrandts at St. Petersburg, to forty in the official catalogue. As Mr. Van Dyke insists, such questions should be met with his guide in hand before the pictures. Evidently a Nation re- view is not the place for such conten- tions, but we think Mr. Van Dyke's radi- calism as excessive as the conservatism of the museum cataloguers. The term "old masters" is interpreted pretty narrowly. All the eighteenth- century artists are regarded as modern. Generally, the guides seem to address only the well-informed public. There are no dates of any sort and few mate- rial explanations of subject-matter, etc. In short, we have the kind of crisp critical comment to the fellow expert which European scholars are wont to bury in the pages of some Repertorium or Zeitschrift. Mr. Van Dyke's desire
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736 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2555 to say this sort of thing to the larger public that buys gallery guides is inex- plicable. The little books, which soon will cover the chief European galleries, will do more to perturb than enlighten. Frankly, we fear the effect and the suc- cess of confiding to the "tripping" pub- lic the sort of expressions that are usual- ly hazarded only inter amicos. "Ruines et Paysages d'Egypte," by G. Maspero (Paris: E. Guilmoto; 7 fr. 50) Is a collection of popular articles by a famous archaeologist and accomplished man of letters. The dates of the articles run from 1899 to 1909, and the places vary from the Delta to Philae. M. Mas- pero is equally sympathetic with the life of the modern peasant and the ritual of old Egypt. Interesting bits of folk-lore are interwoven with the narrative of finds and restorations. A chapter is de- voted to superstition still persistent in Karnak. There is an admirable essay on Luxor as typical of Egyptian architec- ture and cult. The Coptic monasteries are not forgotten. In every way this is a delightful and instructive work. Nothing could do more to quicken the landscape for the tourist, while the layman will find nowhere else so vivid an account of the actual methods and difficulties of archaeological research and conservation. It is especially interesting to note how many of the incidents of an excavating expedition exactly reproduce the scenes sculptured on ancient walls — the replac- ing of a Pharaoh in his sepulchre, the embarkation of mummies, and their por- terage across the sands by workmen who have changed little in garb or looks since the early dynasties. The "City of David," his tomb, and the burying place of his successors have been brought to the light of day, so far as is possible after the night of so many cen- turies. The excavations were made dur- ing the past winter in Jerusalem, at the expense of Baron Edmond de Rothschild, the octogenarian head of the French branch of the banking family. An ac- count of the results obtained to date was given to the Academie des Inscrip- tions, May 29, by M. Raymond Weil, who has charge of the work. The ground ex- cavated is the abandoned site of the "stronghold of Zion," which David took by storm from the Jebusites. "So David dwelt in the fort, and called it the city of David. And David built round about from Millo and inward." . . . "So David slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David" (II Samuel v, 7, 9 — I Kings ii, 10). The permanence of the Jewish tradition is shown by the first preaching of Peter: "Let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day" (Acts ii, 29). The part which has been cleared contains all that remains of the ancient tombs, which suffered devastation at a very remote period. It has also been pos- sible to trace the walls of the primitive precincts crowning the ravines, and to discover the remarkable organization of the stronghold's defence. The spring which supplied water has been disen- gaged; and study has been made of the subterranean aqueducts which brought the water to a bastion sheltered from at- tack. These excavations on so large a scale have furnished documents of the history of the Jewish city much later un- der the Romans, shortly after Christ. There is notably a Greek inscription of a "strangers' synagogue," with baths and hostel. For 160 years the Royal Society of Arts has led an honorable and useful exist- ence, and its record as presented by its secretary, Sir Henry Trueman Wood (Dutton; $5 net), has various points of interest. Started in 1753 through the in- itiative of a rather obscure painter-phil- anthropist, William Shipley, the society set before itself the simple aim, from which it has never deviated, of promoting invention in the fine and useful arts through awarding medals and other pre- miums. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the agita- tor John Wilkes, Benjamin Franklin, were early members. The society en- couraged the introduction of useful plants into Jamaica and other colonies, gave many awards for agricultural machinery, among others for the earliest straw cut- ters, threshers, planters, and reapers; in- terested itself in the improvement of col- ors and dyes; valiantly but none too suc- cessfully encouraged the silk industry in England and the colonies, and in later times dealt with such problems as street lighting. Its chief concern for more than a generation has been technical educa- tion. For the processes of the fine arts it has always had a peculiar care, award- ing besides other premiums annually a silver palette for work or invention. So various an achievement does not lend itself to epitome. Possibly the most im- portant single service of the society was the promotion of the Great Exhibition of 1851, the precedent for countless in- ternational exhibitions ever since. Among artists honored by the society we may note Bewick, Cosway, Cotman, Flaxman (at the age of eleven), Landseer, Law- rence, Millais, Mulready, Coventry Pat- more, Romney, Schiavonetti. Perhaps the most distinguished non-English med- allists are Senefelder, for his book on lithography, and Edison. In its long career the society has had only eleven presidents, including Prince Consort Al- bert, and Edward VII and George V, both while Prince of Wales. Sir Henry Wood's clear and unaffected chronicle of the more important happenings in the life of the society is a kind of running commentary on the course of modern in- vention, and offers something of interest to every sort of reader. Malcolm S. Salaman's "The Great Painter-Etchers from Rembrandt to Whistler" (Lane) is the third in the Studio volumes on etching, the other two (1902 and 1913) having been devoted to modern work. The text forms ;i pleasant accompaniment to the 188 illus- trations, which, considering that they are half-tones, are very satisfactory repro- ductions. Realization of the necessity for compression has resulted in the win omission of the anecdotal embroidery which is often considered an essential feature of the "popular" stylo. The criti- cism is sound without being dry, and Is marked by sympathetic understanding. Perhaps the reader may be surprised at the omission of all mention of certain etchers, and at the lack of more definite characterization in the case of others; but, granting the author his right of choice, we find it is generally based on good reasons. One gets vistas of in- teresting by-paths in the field of etching, as, for instance, in the comparison of Waterloo and Roghman, or in the unex- pected introduction of the quiet charm of the Rev. E. T. Daniell. It is pleas- ant, too, to find old Breenberg in this company; a little plate by him, hardly more than three inches by two, purpose- ly placed in juxtaposition with one of Brangwyn's big decorative pieces in the present exhibition in the print gallery of the New York Public Library, shows how he could be delicate and broad at the same time. Near the end of the text, in the sane appreciation of Whistler, the American notes with satisfaction the graceful tribute to Mr. E. G. Kennedy's Whistler catalogue issued a few years ago by the Grolier Club. The tone of the book and the selection of etchers to be included indicate a critical spirit joined to catholicity — a combination ever wel- come. Finance THE LARGE GOLD EXPORTS. There are two reasons why last week's exceptionally large gold export move- ment has taken front rank among the phenomena of the period. One is, that the $20,000,000 gold, sent out last week to Europe, exceeds all previous records of weekly exports; the other, that the rate of foreign exchange which made this possible is the highest touched in the New York market during nineteen years. The second fact is less signifi- cant than might be supposed; for these shipments were made in United States gold coin, whereas shipments of other recent years have been in the form of bullion; and since abrasion through use makes the intrinsic value of $1,000,000 coin less than that of a similar sum in gold bars, the normal "gold export point" is necessarily higher. Where the bars would assay in Europe at $4.88 y2 to the pound sterling, it may possibly require $4.89, face value, in the coin to meet the same foreign valua- tion. The magnitude of the export move- ment is a more notable phenomenon. Until last week's shipment of $20,000,- 000 gold, the $17,000,000 shipped in the last week of April, 1910, when our mar- ket was relieving London's special re- quirement, was the record, and before that date the high mark was the $13,- 900,000 outgo of the second week of May, 1904, when the reaction from this country's great "trade boom" of the period was under way. It has been a little singular that discussion of tho
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June 1 8, 1914] The 3ST a t i o n 737 movement has been more vigorous and agitated in Congress than in Wall Street; in fact, it has been difficult to get the financial market to pay great attention to it, except in so far as it established one of those "new high rec- ords" which always attract the interest of financial markets. It is also worth pointing out that, although last week's gold shipments made the total move- ment, for the year to date, no less than $60,000,000, that substantial sum was equalled in the corresponding period of 1913, and exceeded by $4,000,000 in 1904. But neither fact proves that the present movement is not an economic phenomenon of importance. The unusual volume of the present outflow may be ascribed to the coinci- dence of several separate causes. Euro- pean markets have been seeking ener- getically to draw gold; once or twice this season, they have gone some dis- tance along the road which we our- selves entered with such violent activ- ity when we were bidding for Europe's gold in 1907. That is one main cause. As to why the foreign markets have been able to get gold here, rather than elsewhere, there are special reasons. One is, that a number of our short-term corporation notes placed in the last few years with Europe are maturing, and that we are paying them off; in other words, that our market is volun- tarily buying back its own securities. But another important reason is, that no other country than our own has been in a position to give up gold in quantity without disturbance to its mon- ey markets. Our regular annual gold imports, chiefly from the Mexican and Cana- dian mining camps, are so great as to counterbalance a very large gold ex- port; in the ten months of the fiscal year which are dealt with by the Gov- ernment's latest figures, we exported $47,000,000 gold, but imported $60,000,- 000 — only a trifling part of which was received from Europe. One must also allow for our own country's annual gold production, which is $88,000,000. De- spite the heavy gold exports of the year to date, the New York banks last Sat- urday held far more gold in their re- serves than they held on January 1. These evidences of ability to spare the recent gold remittances must be considered also in the light of a slack- ened trade activity, which reduces home requirements for gold; of the decrease In our merchandise exports for the sea- son— due to exhaustion of the held-over supplies of grain and cotton, and to re- duced demand for goods from foreign communities where times are harder — and of the increase in our merchandise imports, due in part, but not entirely, to the tariff. Granting these numerous coinci- dences, the fact remains that the un- usual magnitude of this month's gold exports, and the quite abnormal height of the foreign exchange market, which has made them possible, do not indicate a satisfactory state of things at home. The indication was not satisfactory when, in 1908 and 1904, we were ship- ping gold at much the same rate as now. But the reason why the heavy outward movement of gold was disliked on those occasions was the evidence it presented of home trade depression, and not because we could not spare the gold, or because its outflow threatened the Government's reserve against its legal- tender notes, or because it indicated, for that and other reasons, a drift to- wards depreciated money. Those were the inferences, correctly drawn at the time, which converged on the gold ex- ports of 1892 and 1894 all the attention and misgiving of the markets — a very different state of mind from the calm- ness with which even the stock ex- changes watched the gold movement of 1904 and 1908, and with which they are watching that of 1914. With the Gold Standard Act of 1900, gold exports ceas- ed, once and for all, to threaten the soundness of our currency. Markets were perfectly aware, six years and ten years ago, that when the trade depression, of which the large gold shipments were an evidence, should reach its end, the gold movement would end with them. The present problem, therefore, is how soon we shall witness a reawakening of activity in trade. The usual answer which one gets from ex- perienced men in the different indus- tries is that all really fundamental con- ditions favor such revival — notably, the grain crops; that the recovery ought to come, but that as yet there is no trust- worthy sign of it. Usually, that is the kind of situation in which people fa- miliar with American business history look for surprises. BOOKS OF THE WEEK FICTION. Begbie, Harold. The Happy Irish. The Day that Changed the World. Doran. $1.25 net each. Bell, J. J. Bobby. Doran. $1 net. Bindloss, Harold. The League of the Leopard. Stokes. $1.30 net. Bottome, Phyllis. Broken Music. Hough- ton Mifflin. $1.86 net. Hall, H. Henry of Navarre, Ohio. 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Maemillan. 3s. net. Varisco, B. The Great Problems. Trans, by R. C. Lodge. Maemillan. $2.75 net. GOVERNMENT AND ECONOMICS. Adams, Charles F. The Monroe Doc- trine. Houghton Mifflin. 50 cents net. Dicey, A. V. Law and Opinion in Eng- land. Maemillan. 10s. 6d. net. Freeman, Arnold. Boy Life and Labour. London: King. 3s. 6d. net. Gibson, R. R. Forces Mining and Un- dermining China. Century Company. $2 net. Orage, A. R. National Guilds. Mae- millan. $1.60 net. Smith, W. C. The Business of Farming. Cincinnati: Stewart Kidd. $1.25 net. Westermarck, Edward. Marriage Cere- monies in Morocco. Maemillan. $3 net. BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY. Clark, G. L. A History of Connecticut. Putnam. $3.50 net. Escott, T. H. S. Club Makers and Club Members. Sturgis & Walton. $3 net. Holland, A. W. Germany. Maemillan. $2 net. Loew, E. A. The Beneventan Script. Ox- ford University Press. 21s. net. McKee, J. V. and Roemer, L. S. The Pe- riod of Discovery. Century Company. 50 cents net. Terry, S. B. The Financing of the Hun- dred Years' War. London: Constable. 6s. net. Trexler, H. A. Slavery in Missouri. Bal- timore: Johns Hopkins Press. Turner, G. Lyon. Original Records of Nonconformity. London: Fisher Un- win. £1 5s. net. Turquan, J., and D'Auriac, J. A Great Adventuress. Brentano. Vassili, Count Paul. France from Behind the Veil. Funk & Wagnalls. $3.75 net. Waddington, Richard. La Guerre de Sept Ans. Tome V. Paris: Flrmin- Didot. Wellington. R. G. The Political and Sec- tional Influence on the Public Lands. Cambridge: Riverside Press. $1 net.
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738 The 1ST a t i o ri [Vol. 98, No. 2555 POETRY. A Cluster of Grapes, edited by G. Kyle. London: Erskine Macdonald. Buck, M. S. Syrinx. Claire Marie. $1.25. Emerson, k. VV. Poems. Oxford Univer- sity Press. Is. 6d. net. Hathaway, Maurice. Affinity. Barsa & Hopkins. Macgjll, Patrick. Songs of the Dead End. Kennerley. $1.25 net. Moffatt, Warneford. Canadian Poems. Toronto: Briggs. $1.25. Newman, J. H. The Dream of Geron- tius. Oxford University Press. Is. 6d. net. Schiitze, Martin. Fongs and Poems. Chi- cago: Daurentian Company. Wagstaflt, B. S. Eris. Moffat, Yard. SCIENCE. Shand, A. F. The Foundations of Char- acter. Macmillan. 12s. net. DRAMA. Belles Lettres Series: Section III. George Farquhar's Discourse on Comedy- Plays. Boston: Heath. 60 cents. Peck, H. W. The Magnetic Lady, by Ben Johnson. Holt. Sell, H. B. What Is It All About? Chi- cago: Laurentian Co. 25 cents net. ART. Bulley, M. Ancient and Mediaeval Art. Macmillan. $1.75 net. Kandinsky, W. The Art of Spiritual Har- mony. Trans, by M. T. H. Sadler. Houghton Mifflin. $1.75 net. Kankin, W., and Brown, A. V. V. A Short History of Italian Painting. Dut- ton. $2.25 net. TEXTBOOKS. Calisch, E. N. Methods of Teaching Bib- lical History. Philadelphia: Jewish Chautauqua Society. Cheyney, E. G., and Wentling, J. P. The Farm Woodlot. Macmillan. $1.50 net. Mclsaac, Isabel. Bacteriology for Nurses. Second Edition. Macmillan. $1.25 net. Martini, F. L. First German Reader. Boston: Ginn. 70 cents net. Needham, J. G. The Natural History of the Farm. Ithaca: Comstock Publish- ing Co. $1.50 net. Pellissier, A. Idiomatic French Composi- tion. Boston: Heath. The Home University Library Cloth bound, good paper, clear type, 256 pages per Ef^% cts. volume. Each complete and sold separately. Each tubies in ^istorp, economics ano public Hato Edited by the Faculty of Political Science of Columbia University. The Development of Modern Turkey as Measured by Its Press By AHMED EMIN, Ph.D. 8vo. Paper covers. Pp. 142. $1.00.* L'. NGYiANS, GREEN. & CO. BERGSON'S LATEST BOOK DREAMS AN EXPLANATION OF THE MECHANISM OF DREAMING IS NOW READY ALL BOOKSTORES 60 CENTS NET 225 Fifth avenue New York B. W. Huebsch, A COMPREHENSIVE CIRCULAR OF Memorials of Eminent Yale Men Ily ANSON P. STOKES Wltl) a sample photogravure of John C. Calhoun forwji r cents. D. C. HEATH .v CO., l*nI>Hnhern BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO "TO LIBRARIANS"- /( is of interest and importance to know that the iioo s reviewed and advertised in this may- •i ■ literature offered at reasonable prices. A Catalogue just issued and sent free on request. [THE TORCH PRESS BOOK SHOP CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA NOW READY THE AMERICAN YEAR BOOK FOR 1913 B. APPLKTON A COMPANY, Publishers IMPERIAL GERMANY THE BTOBY OF its DEVELOPMENT. Br Prince BERNHARD ton Blil.OW. K\ Chancellor of tin- Qerman Empire, Large Hvo B42 naaet 18 no net. UODI), Ml AD * CO., Publishers, NltW YORK. Too Much Fiction is often found to be a fault in the selection of Summer Books. A Suggestion — Court Masques of James I. By Mary Sullivan, Ph.D. 8vo. Illustrated. $2.50 net Here is matter, pleas- antly edited, full of ref- erences to the pomp and circumstance of the pre- sentation of masques. In flashes one discovers, now a hint of the rivalries and piques of statesmen; now, the inordinate vanity of the noble performers; now, the wanton extravagance of the English in jewels, costumes, and scenery. These precise facts about King James, Queen Anne, Prince Charles, and the allusions to the "Masque of Blackness" or to the "Masque of Queens" and others, give the reader a keen sense of being a wit- ness of the performances, and observing in person the men and manners and masquers. — The Dial. ? w?«st!G. P. Putnam's SonBaiBedtordSt. '.HE ST0RV OF THK 9' AN AM A CANAL Itv !.r Chicago Press, Ohloago, Illinois.
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VOL. XCVIII— NO. 2556 THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 1914 ?£:&&. PRICE TEN CENTS SOME NOTEWORTHY BOOKS FROM THE HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture JUST PUBLISHED Translated by the late Morris H. Morgan, Professor of Classical Philology in Harvard University, and published under the editorship of Albert Andrew Howard, Pope Professor of Latin, and Herbert Lancford Warren, Robinson Professor of Architecture in Harvard University. 4to. Bound in library buckram. Sixty-one plans and illustrations. 319 pages. $3.50 net. No other architectural treatise has ever exercised such an influence as the De Architectura of Vitru- vius— our chief source-book for the principles of Roman building-, the final authority to Bramante, Michelangelo, Vignola, and Palladio, and the other great artists of the Renaissance, and a commen- tary not only on the methods of Roman engineering, but on the ideals and inspiration of the whole European Renaissance. i he Spiritual Message of Dante By the Right Reverend William Boyd Carpenter, Canon of Westminster Abbey and Clerk of the Closet to the King, and late Bishop of Ripon. 8vo. Cloth. 230 pages. $1.50 net. Seldom have the William Belden Noble Lec- tures made so wide and happy an impression as these delivered by Bishop Boyd Carpenter in 1913. With a rare combination of literary charm and insight, and a scholarly love of Dante, which, though well known, has never before borne fruit, he treats of Dante's life and masterpiece as a Drama of the Soul. The book is illustrated with the four ancient por- traits of Dante, and drawings from Lord Vernon's Inferno. The Comedies of Holberg By Oscar James Campbell, Jr., Assistant Professor of English in the University of Wisconsin. Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature, Volume III. i2mo. Cloth. 363 pages. $2.50 net. Holberg, although perhaps the greatest of Danish writers, and ranking in interest with his contemporaries, the great eighteenth-cen- tury dramatists of France, has until now been almost unknown to English readers. Af- ter a complete biography of Holberg, the au- thor traces the relations to French, Italian, English, German, and classical works, which made him a notable focus of influence. Corporate Promotions and Reorganizations SECOND IMPRESSION By Arthur Stone Dewing, Assistant Professor of Political Economy in Yale University. Harvard Eco- nomic Studies, Volume X. 8vo. Cloth. 615 pages, with charts. $2.50 net. Giving detailed accounts of the promotion, failure, and successful reorganization of fourteen large trusts of recent date, this book furnishes a searching study of modern "big business" in both its eco- nomic and its legal aspects. Much of the material is not available elsewhere. Among the prominent companies treated are the Westinghouse Company, United States Shipbuilding, National Cordage, Na- tional Salt, United States Realty and Construction, and American Bicycle and American Malting Com- panies. The Year Books of Richard II (1388-1389) Edited under the auspices of the Ames Foundation by George F. Deiser, of the Philadelphia Bar, Li- brarian of the Hirst Free Law Library. 4to. Cloth. xxi+440 pages, with four facsimiles. $5.00 net. This book is the first step toward filling the only gap in the English Common Law Re- ports, and in typographical arrangement is similar to the well-known volumes of the Selden Society— viz.: the French text on one side of the page and the corresponding trans- lation opposite, together with such notes from the record as can be supplied. Lectures on Legal History and Miscellaneous Essays By the late James Barr Ames, Dean of the Harvard Law School. 4to. Cloth. 552 pages, with portrait. $3.00 net. The experience of Dean Ames in developing the case-system of teaching law, and his abil- ity both in philosophic interpretation and in the application of a vast collection of actual precedents, gave unusual value to his eluci- dation of legal principles. The bulk of his written work is to be found in this volume, with a joint memoir of the author by a num- ber of his friends, and a Table of Cases and Authorities quoted. Harvard Health Talks Being the substance of popular lectures delivered at the Harvard Medical School, to provide every ?£% T the most recent and authoritative information on medical subjects of general importance. Each, i6mo. Cloth. 50 cents net. I. THE CARE AND FEEDING OF CHILDREN. By Dr. J. L. Morse. (Just out.) To be published tliis summer: lllSr^WME^l°a\,l9°^ THEIR USE AND ABUSE. By Dr. Otto Folin. Vol. Vol. II. Vol. III. Vol. IV. Vol. V. THE CARE OF THE SKIN. By Dr. C J Whi THE CARE OF THE TEETH. By Dr. C. A Bra'ckett THE CARE OF THE SICK ROOM. By Dr. E. G Cutler CAMBRIDGE A Complete Catalogue will be sent upon application HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS Massachusetts
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11 T li e 1ST ation [Vol. 98, No. 2556 A WEEKLY JOURNAL [Entered at the yew York City Post Office as second-class mail matter.] The Nation is published and owned by the New York Evening Post Co. Oswald Garrison Villard, President; John Palmer Gavit, Sec. and Treas. Three dollars per year in advance, post- paid. i» any part of the United States or Mexico; to Canada $3.50. and to foreipn countries comprised in the Postal Union, $4.00. Address THE NATION, Box 794. New York. Publication Office, 20 Vesey Street. HAROLD DE WOLF FULLER. Editor. STANLEY WENT. Assistant Editor. PAUL ELMER MORE, Advisory Editor. KMIL M. SCHOLZ. Business Manager. WILLIAM G. PRESTON, Advertising Mgr. CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER. 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June 25, 1914] The ]SJ~ a t i o 11 111 HUGO MUNSTERBERG'S NEW BOOK PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL SANITY lly the Author of "The Americans," "On the WHnrnn Stand." etc. The application of psychology to some of the problems of our time. I'rof. Miinsterbern ehoies hotr false are our ideas of advertising; the 11 11 II 1 11 <• s h of women for jury duty; predict* where the modern craze for dancing trill eventually lead us, and ilisriiHsc* other important topics of the day. What " The Bookman " says: A mere glance at his table of con- tents is refreshing to such of us as had considered psychology a sort of abstruse mental solitaire. To find psychology dealing with investment, advertising, and the modern dance gives the whole subject a queer new ;• i t of reality. It is before all else prac- tical, and about practical things; there is not a word nor a sentence in it but the veriest layman may understand; and many a native writer might envy this German scholar's clear and easy command of English. There is the sense, too, that in such chapters as that on Sex Education and Modern Dancing a wiser and better balanced mind than heretofore, as well as one deeplier informed and as thoroughly abreast of events, has here spoken something like an authoritative last word on the subject. Net $1.25. Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City, N. Y. Read At the Casa Napoleon By THOMAS A. JANVIER A New York new and full of exotic flavor. With a life almost as foreign as that of some small European town, is descrihed in this honk by the writer, who knew how to find the most picturesque scenes of the metropo'ls. $1.25 net. " * »■"■» A IIROTHBKS „ A SUMMER SALE Bargains in good books. Standard literature offered at reasonable prices. A Catalogue just issued and sent free on request. [THE TORCH PRESS BOOK SHOP CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA MODERN MEXECO By R. J. MacHUGH A clear, impartial, sane account. Illustrated. 93.o0 net. DOM), MEAD & COMPANY, NEW YORK NOW READY THE AMERICAN YEAR BOOK FOR 1913 D. ArPLETON & COMPANY, Publishers 'Reading Case for the Nation, To receive the current numbers In a conven- ient (temporary) form. Substantially made, bound in cloth, with The Nation stamped on the side in gold. Holds about one volume. Papers easily and neatly adjusted. Sent, postpaid, on receipt of 75 cents. Important Forthcoming Books BLANCHARD AND WADE'S FOUNDATIONS OF CHEMISTRY By A. A. Blanchard, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Inorganic Chem- istry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Frank B. Wade, B.S., Head of the Department of Chemistry, Shortridge High School, Indianapolis. CONLEY'S PRINCIPLES OF COOKING By I inm.i Conley, Director of Domestic Science, State Normal School, Oshkosh, Wis. DECKER AND MARKISCH'S DEUTSCHLAND UND DIE DEUTSCHEN By W. C. Decker, A.M., Pd.B., Department of German, New York State Normal College, Albany, N. Y., and Robert Markisch, Ober- lehrer at the Royal Victoria Gymnasium, Potsdam, Germany. HARRINGTON'S ROMAN ELEGIAC POETS Edited by Karl Pomeroy Harrington, Professor of the Latin Lan- guage and Literature, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn. HARRY'S FRENCH ANECDOTES, WITH SOME FAMILIAR PHRASES AND IDIOMS Edited by Philip W. Harry, Assistant Professor of Romance Lan- guages, University of Pittsburgh. HUNTER'S CIVIC BIOLOGY By George William Hunter, A.M., Head of Department of Biology, De Witt Clinton High School, New York City. RAYMOND'S PLANE SURVEYING-REVISED By William G. Raymond, C.E., Professor of Civil Engineering, State University of Iowa. RIESS AND JANES'S CAESAR'S GALLIC WAR Books I and II Edited by Ernst Riess, Head of Department of Classics, and Arthur L. Janes, Instructor in Latin, Boys' High School, Brooklyn, N. Y. SMILEY AND STORKE'S FIRST YEAR LATIN COURSE By James B. Smiley, A.M., Principal, Lincoln High School, Cleve- land, and Helen L. Storke, A.B., Assistant Principal, West High School, Cleveland, Ohio. STERN AND ARROWSMITH'S AUS DEUTSCHEN DORFERN By Menco Stern, of Stern's School of Languages, New York, and Robert Arrowsmith, Ph.D., formerly Professor of Greek and Latin, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York. FURTHER INFORMATION SENT ON REQUEST AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY NEW YORK CINCINNATI CHICAGO AN IMPORTANT KEW WORK IN CLIMATOLOGY The Weather and Climate of Chicago. (Bulletin No. 4, Geo- graphic Society of Chicago.) By Henry J. Cox, Professor of Me- teorology, United States Weather Bureau, and JohntH. Armington, Local Forecaster, United States Weather Bureau. 396 pages, 8vo, cloth; $3.00, postage extra (weight 49 oz.) This book, at general interest because of Its character and authority, will naturally be if peculiar interest to residents of Chicago ami the Middle West, its Importance is Indicated hy the (art that it is issued under the auspices or the Geographic Society of Chicago, and has been prepared bj two f tie hest kno.ui weather experts in the country, it includes discussions .f a great variety of suhjerts sm-h as temperature, precipitation, atmospheric moisture, cloudiness and sunshine, wind direction and velocity, pressure, and storm tracks: and an. .my the Interesting appendixes t" the hook arc OTC on the weather of holidays and another containing Journal entries relative to she great Chicago Irtre of 1871, The volume contains also a remarkable series "i tables with reference to temperature, precipitation, atmospheric mclatnre, and atmospheric pressure- one hundred and forty-seven In all, with more than one hundred figures and plates. Of <'speeial Interest and Importance to teachers in connection «ith The Wmlhi-r ami Climate of Chicano is the preceding Bulletin of the Qe graphic Society edited bj Pro tv--. ■■ Cox, and hy Professor .1 Paul (Jo.de of the University of Chicago, it was prepared by a committee of the Geographic Society •( Cbleags and is cntit'e.1 Lantern Ml<le IlliiKtrntlmiM f«,r the Teaching of Meteorology. It "ill lie found an adndrable aid in Interesting students in the phenomena of weather and ellm THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, CHICAGO, ILL. AGENT! {THE BAKER .V TAYLOR COMPANY. NEW iORK THE CAMBRIDGE INI VKItSITY PRESS, I.' VDON AMI KDINRPRCII KARL W HIERSEMANM. LEIPZIG THE M.WtlZKN KAI'.I SHIM KA1SIIA. TOKYO. OSAKA, ANT) KYOTO.
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IV T 1 1 e 1ST ation [Vol. 98, No. 2556 THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY has prepared special Bibliographies of the best books in the following fields of thought: ANTHROPOLOGY BIOLOGY ETHICS EVOLUTION LANGUAGE MATHEMATICS AND MECHANICS ORIENTAL WORKS PHILOSOPHY RELIGION Any or all of these will be mailed free on request. Our new complete Catalogue and samples of our magazines, "The Monist" and "The Open Court," sent free on request THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY 122 SOUTH MICHIGAN AVENUE, CHICAGO HAZUTT: SELECTIONS Edited by WILL DAVID HOWE, In- diana University These essays, each complete in itself, show nazlitt at his best as a critic of point- ing, of poetry, of books, and of men. They take us back to the theatre in the tlays of Kean, Siddons, and the Kembles ; they give us the fine flavor of the evenings at the rooms of Charles and Mary Lamb, where one might hear the best talk of the day. No volume of selections contains more instruc- tive criticism, more brilliant writing, a more stimulating philosophy of life than is In- cluded in the representative essays here gathered together. The present volume is provided with a charming biographical sketch, anl with critl cal and explanatory notes which add ma- terially to its value. lxix-L398 pages, $1.20 GINN AND COMPANY Boston New York Chicago London Atlanta Dallas Columbus San Francisco THE LITTLE RED BOOK 1914 EDITION NOW READY Manhattan Real Estate Values... Every Executor, Trustee, Attorney and Banker with Funds to Invest in Real Estate and Mortgages has, or should have, the Red Book of Manhattan Real Estate Values. Gives accurate considerations paid for property in every avenue and street in the city sold in the last six years. INVALUABLE REFERENCE BOOK Price, 2.1 Cent*. By Mall, 30 Cent* PUBLISHED Bx Wot Nittor ^0rk picrxinq $*u*l Everybody Loves Puck! . ' AMERICA'S CLEVEREST WEEKLY Try U-Buy It- Just for Fun Hy Mayer Edgar Saltus Barribal Lawson Wood James Huneker De Casseres John Kendrick 10 Cents— Everywhere 20 VESEY STREET NEW YORK SHAW'S NEW ?!£ BOOK OF PLAYS MISALLIANCE FANNY'S FIRST PLAY THE DARK LADY J&.OFTHE SONNETS With a Preface on PARENTS AND CHILDREN Price $1.50 net. Postage extra «J The PREFACE to this book of Plays, entitled "Parents and Chil- dren," is one of the most important contributions to one of the vital problems of Social Life, namely, the training and education of Children by their Parents. r our Navy, illus- trated with forts photograph*. Price $2.50 net ; carriage extra, YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 209 Elm St., 225 Fifth Are., New Haven, Ct. New York City. The Curious Lore of Precious Stones BY GEORGE FREDEHKK KUNZ. With numrroM plates in color and double-tone. >" Co., Phllndrlphlu, Pn. The London office of THE NATION is at No. 3 Regent St., London, W. C, where travellers may find copies on file.
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The Nation. W.u YORK, THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 1914. Summary of the News Prospects for a satisfactory outcome of the mediation proceedings, which at the end of last week appeared somewhat gloomy, have brightened considerably. The papers of June 18 published the Statement of the Huerta delegates ex- plaining their opposition to the proposal United States for the appointment of a Provisional President of Constitu- tionalist sympathies. The main conten- tion of the Huerta delegates was that, for the very reason advanced by the United States that the Government in Mexico controlled elections, it would be impossi- ble, with a Constitutionalist as Provisional President, and with a majority of Con- stitutionalists on the Advisory Commis- sion, to hold impartial elections. The Administration's reply, insisting on the choice of a Constitutionalist, was made known on Friday, and a deadlock ap- peared to have been reached. A hurried visit to Washington of Dr. Naon, the Argentine representative at the mediation conference, resulted in the formulation of a new plan of procedure, on which we comment elsewhere, the principal feature of which is that representatives of the Constitutionalists will confer informally with the Huerta delegates, with a view to reaching an agreement as to the Provi- sional Presidency. There will thus be, as it were, a conference within the confer- ence. It is assumed that the formal me- diation proceedings, meanwhile, will be confined to the international aspects of the problem. The break between Villa and Carranza, which has been so often reported and contradicted, appears to have actually occurred last week, when Villa dispos- sessed the civil authorities in the north- ern part of the territory under Constitu- tionalist control and substituted military appointees of his own. The difference, however, seems to have been adjusted, for the time being, at least, and Villa has taken over the supreme command in the attack on Zacatecas, superseding Gen. Natera, whose attack last week was repulsed, with severe loss. The Nicaraguan and Colombian trea- ties have been before the Foreign Rela- tions Committee of the Senate during the past week. Giving evidence before the Committee on Monday Mr. Bryan brought forward the Dubois memoran- dum, made during the last Administra- tion and stating that "the people of the United States honestly regret anything should have occurred to mar, in any way, the long and sincere friendship that ex- isted for nearly a century between Co- lombia and the United States," as evi- dence that the clause in the Colombian treaty which has been interpreted as an apology by the United States had, in ef- fect, the sanction of the Taft Adminis- tration. The nomination of William G. Sharp, of Ohio, as Ambassador to France, was confirmed by the Senate on June 19. The Clayton Anti-Trust bill has been under consideration by the Judiciary Committee of the Senate, and it seems probable that it may be reported by the end of this week. It is stated that con- siderable modifications have been made in the bill and that, in particular, the clause exempting labor unions from in- junctions or restraining orders issued by the courts to prevent picketing at or near the premises of employers has been stricken out. Following his discovery that the re- turns of the income tax will fall short of the Treasury estimate by some $23,- 000,000, Secretary McAdoo on June 18 addressed a communication to Congress recommending an amendment to the law which should give the revenue collectors broader inquisitorial powers. The as- sumption is apparently made that Treas- ury estimates are infallible and that, therefore, there has been wholesale dis- honesty in making out returns for the income tax. The proposed amendment gives to the agents of the Government the widest discretion in examining the books, papers, and records both of indi- viduals and of corporations. In the absence of the greater part of the Progressive party on the high seas an interesting little squabble has arisen among the fractions that are left at home. On Friday of last week Mr. Gif- ford Pinchot, Progressive candidate for United States Senator from Pennsylva- nia, publicly endorsed the objection rais- ed by his brother, Amos, against Mr. George W. Perkins as Chairman of the National Executive Committee of the Pro- gressive party. Mr. Amos Pinchot's ob- jection to Mr. Perkins was on the ground that his connection with corporations and his alleged reactionary views regarding "big business" had been detrimental to Progressive interests. On the same day a resolution demanding Mr. Perkins's retirement was offered at a meeting of the New Jersey State Committee of the Progressive party, but was tabled until Col. Roosevelt should have returned. M. Viviani's Cabinet easily survived its first test vote in the French Chamber last week, receiving a majority of 223 on a vote of confidence arising out of the Premier's declaration of policy. M. Vi- viani's declaration was almost identical with that of M. Ribot, which had fail- ed to gain tl.e support of the Chamber, except that it insisted even more strong- ly on the maintenance of the Three Years' Military Service law. The result of the vote shows that, as had been sur- mised, opposition to M. Ribot's Minis- try was based on personalities rather than on policies. The rest of M. Viviani's statement dealt principally with financial provisions, and on June 19 the Cham- ber further endorsed the new Ministry's policy by adopting, by a vote of 459 to 108, a resolution authorizing the Gov- ernment to issue a loan of 800,000,000 francs for extraordinary military and na- val expenses. On Monday the French Government is- sued regulations, enforcing the law pass- ed last March, which will seriously affect foreigners, and particularly Americans, residing in France. The law, which has so far been held in abeyance, but which will now become operative on July 1, provides for a tax of 5 per cent, to be levied upon incomes received in France from foreign stocks, bonds, and securi- ties of every kind. A terrible aerial disaster, in which nine lives were lost, occurred in Vienna on Saturday, when, in the course of some military manoeuvres, an aeroplane col- lided with the dirigible balloon Koerting, tearing its envelope and causing an ex- plosion. Both machines dropped together from a height of 1,300 feet, and all of the two crews were killed. Fighting has continued in Albania be- tween the insurgents and the Govern- ment troops. Another attack on Durazzo last week was repulsed, but, according to dispatches from the correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph, an expedition of Malissore tribesmen that was sent against the insurgents failed utterly, the tribes- men having been surrounded and cut to pieces. The tension between Greece and Tur- key, which when we wrote last week ap- peared extremely acute, has been sensi- bly relaxed by the conciliatory tone of the Turkish note sent in reply to the protest of Greece against the treatment accorded to her subjects in the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish note declared that Greek subjects who had been compelled to escape from Turkey during the past few weeks would be permitted to return and that compensation would be made for losses that they had sustained. The situation, nevertheless, remains sufficient- ly serious, and this country has become to some extent involved in it on account of the projected sale to Greece of the old battleships Idaho and Mississippi. The President has made known his approval of the sale, the question of which has been before Congress for the past ten days, explaining that he did so with the understanding that the acquirement of the ships by Greece would promote the cause of peace. The Turkish Ambassa- dor is understood to have protested against the proposed sale. The deaths of the week include: Prof. John R. S. Sterrett, Bennet Burleigh, June 16; James B. Brooks, Martin M. Reynolds, June 17; ex-Senator Frank Hiscock, June 18; Brandon Thomas, Sir John E. G. Hill, June 19; William Er- skine Torrens, June 20; Baroness Bertha von Suttner, James Moore Swank, Joseph T. Kelly, June 21; Morgan 1!. Williams, Bayard Domtnlck, June 22; Mrs. George Westinghouse, June 23.
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740 T li e 1ST a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2556 The Week The new aspect of tilings at Niagara is cheering in a double sense. Not only are the efforts for peace, which last Sat- urday seemed to have reached absolute frustration, to be continued, but the is- sues have been simplified by bringing face to face the two parties directly con- cerned. It must be admitted that the situation has its anomalies from the standpoint of correct diplomatic tech- nique. Huertistas and Carranzistas are to carry on the work of a conference which was called to avert hostilities between Huerta and the United States. The ABC nations as mediators between Huerta and the United States have sur- rendered the centre of the stage to the United States acting as mediator be- tween Huerta and the Constitutional- ists. But it is only the pedants of diplomacy who will find fault with the situation. The Tampico flag incident, never more than a pretext for bringing the Mexican problem to a head, has long been lost sight of; and we imagine President Wilson will contrive to bear up under the charge of inconsistency on the smaller matter if only the outstand- ing issue of Mexican pacification through the elimination of Huerta is attained. Of that the chances are bright- er than ever; and not the less so be- cause the two parties now confronting each other at Niagara are the same par- ties that confront each other at Zaca- tecas. President Wilson's earnest efforts in behalf of a settlement at Niagara have earned him the gratitude of friends of peace. The habit of sneering at the Ad- ministration's policy of watchful wait- ing has not died out. But if watchful waiting means a passive attitude, a mere vague expectancy of something that will turn up, the phrase absolutely does not apply to the course pursued at Washington since the opening of the conference at Niagara. Far from drift- ing, Mr. Wilson has known all along what he wants. He may be accused of prejudice in setting his mind implaca- bly against Huerta; he may be accused of undue partisanship in espousing the claims of the Constitutionalists; but it cannot be said that he has wavered in his determination that the Niagara con- ference shall not adjourn before all hu- man means towards an agreement on l.ave been exhausted. Mr. Bryan makes a legitimate point in his defence of the wording of the proposed treaty with Colombia, when he points out the almost complete identity of its language with that of the Dubois memorandum, drawn up as the basis for a projected treaty in President Taft's time. But while this considera- tion may properly be urged as a defence against personal criticism, it is far from conclusive as to the merits of the ques- tion. Even if the Taft Administration had drawn up a treaty in form, embody- ing the same words, it would still re- main a question whether the language was desirable; and to say a thing in a memorandum designed to pave the way to a treaty is very different from saying it in the treaty itself. To use the lan- guage of courtesy and good will, while providing substantial reparation for in- jury, would seem to be as far as a na- tion can be expected to go in the formal instrument of the settlement of such an affair as ours with Colombia. "The United States of America and the Re- public of Colombia, being equally ani- mated by the desire to remove all ob- stacles to a good understanding between them" — such is the opening phrase in the draft of the treaty proposed in Sec- retary Root's time, and it ought to suf- fice for any present purpose. In handing down last Monday so large a number of decisions, before ad- journing for the summer, the Supreme Court gives further proof of the indus- try and energy which have marked it for the past few years. It has now very nearly cleared its calendar. The so-called "intermountain case" is high- ly technical in its details, but simple enough in the fundamental principles involved. The "long and short haul clause" of the original Interstate Com- merce act forbade the charging of high- er rates for freight carried between two given points than was charged for freight carried, "under substantially similar circumstances and conditions," between two other points, served by the same line or lines, where the dis- tance traversed was longer. In the amended act of 1910, the "substantially similar conditions" clause was dropped There was left in the act, however, the provision that, "upon application to the Interstate Commerce Commission, such common carrier may in special cases, af- ter investigation, be authorized by the Commission to charge less for longer than for shorter distances"; the Com- mission being empowered from time to time to prescribe the extent of such ex- emption from the "long and short haul clause." In the case at issue, the rail- ways insisted that their through trans- continental rates were necessarily kept down by ocean competition from one coast to the other; but that rates be- tween intermediate points, or between an intermediate point and either coast, were not fairly subject to such ocean competition. They therefore asked for higher rates in some of the transporta- tion last referred to than for the full transcontinental haul. The Commis- sion in 1911 partly admitted this con- tention; but, pointing out that its scope applied in different degree, according as the intermediate shipping centre was near to or remote from the coast, it established a compromise arrangement. Under this, a series of geographical "zones" was fixed, separated by north- and-south lines, and for each of those several zones rates were adjusted ac- cording to their assumed relation to the influences which fixed the through transcontinental rate. The railways party to the suit had challenged the Commission's right to fix such "blanket rates," and the Commerce Court, since abolished, had upheld the contention. The Supreme Court now rules against it, and decides that the Commission has full authority to pro- ceed on the lines adopted in its com- promise arrangement of 1911. In two respects the Court's decision is of par- ticularly timely interest. It appears to recognize (what had previously been disputed) the Commission's right to al- ter rates on the basis of a "blanket rul- ing," not by fixing each separate rate individually; and this may bear on the pending decision as to a general in- crease in Eastern railway rates. It also sustains a policy of the Interstate Com- mission which will become much more important, both to the railways and to the shippers, when the ocean route from coast to coast is shortened by the P''ii ing of the Panama Canal. The orthodox Republican view of the way the tariff works can he slated In a
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June-25, 1914I T li e Nation 74:1 few words. When we put on a high tariff, we don't make prices any high- er to the consumer, but nevertheless we enable manufacturers to pay high wages; when we reduce the tariff, the consumer gets no lower prices, but nev- ertheless the manufacturer is compelled either to shut up shop or to reduce wages. Just why these things should be so must be a good deal of a puzzle to many persons, and it ought to be something of a relief to them to learn of concrete instances in which things act in a less topsy-turvy fashion. There- fore the statement issued by the Fed- eral Sugar Refining Company, which shows the direct connection between tariff reduction and sugar prices, is val- uable. The price of raw sugar in bond is nearly the same now as the average price for some years before the tariff was reduced — 2.04 cents per pound, as against 2.09 cents — but the price of re- fined sugar in the American market Is now only 3.82 cents, as against 4.40. There is thus a saving of .58 cent per pound, which means an annual reduc- tion of more than $48,000,000. When the duty shall have been entirely remov- ed, there will be, says the company's statement, a further saving of some $100,000,000 a year. The same kind of thing is going on in many directions. But it is hard to get people to take much note of such relief from indirect taxation, just as it is hard to get them to realize the burden which the tariff imposes on them in the shape of high prices. But the burden is none the less real, nor is the relief any the less beneficial. ed in advance. But that is only super- ficial reasoning. The fact is, of course, that only Roosevelt is strong enough to carry the burden of Perkins. The Pro- gressive party unaided can never stand up under the weight. Perkins as a Pro- gressive is neutralized by Roosevelt. With the Colonel in partial retirement, Perkins would remain the outstanding figure in any nation-wide campaign the Progressives may undertake. The radi- cal voter who has made a wry face at swallowing Harvester Trust, even with Roosevelt sauce, will balk when pre- sented with Perkins au naturel. Not very long after Col. Roosevelt's announcement that he cannot be a can- didate for Governor, and the intimation that he may even be prevented from taking an active part in the campaign, the holy war against Perkins proclaim- ed by Amos Pinchot takes on reality. Gifford Pinchot has now declared that Perkins is decidedly not wanted in Pennsylvania, and the George L. Record wing of the New Jersey Progressives de- mands similar action. One might imag- ine that the Progressives, threatened with the defection of their commander- in-chief, would be in no hurry to pitch ?.ny more leaders overboard. A Pro- gressive campaign without Roosevelt in the line of battle and Perkins in the commissariat would seem to be doom- Simplicity itself is the aim of the bill which Senator Stone and Represen- tative Flood, at the instance of the Third Assistant Secretary of State, Mr. Phillips, have introduced to make the consular and diplomatic services more mobile. It provides that secretaries and all consular employees be appointed to grades, not to specific posts. The in- elasticity of the present plan has long been a source of embarrassment. In emergencies in other cities or in other countries, consuls cannot be trans- ferred without a delay that may stretch into many months before the Senate confirms the nomination. Important changes, moreover, are frequently nec- essary to adapt the consular service to new conditions; and while the Depart- ment can suspend consular offices, it cannot establish new ones. Another innovation is the provision of a uniform salary for each grade. Under the pres- ent law, with a specific salary attached to each specific assignment, a promo- tion necessitates a change of post, and thus frequently removes the officer from the place where he is most useful. Di- rector Carr, of the Consular Service, remarks that the flexibility to which the bill looks "would go far towards giving this country an organization worthy of the name." While the mea- sure cannot be pressed this session, it deserves early consideration in the next. as" a rule." The condition of affairs when the present head took office is suc- cinctly stated. "iThere was complaint, and very properly, of many cases great- ly delayed. There were 4,007 cases be- tween five and ten years old, sixty-nine of these having been in the office as long as fifteen years, and 780 being more than eight years old. While these constituted about 4 per cent, of the to- tal business of the office, their impor- tance, and the work they entail because of their complicated nature, are far out of proportion to their number." The numerous instances of injustices and personal hardships caused by these slow- dragging cases are only one reason for expediting them. Another is the cumu- lative burden they place upon the pa- tent office force. The employees have been driven at full speed, patent attor- neys induced to cooperate with the corps, and a rule invoked forbidding endless amendments to applications. What has been needed is thorough de- polarization, as Dr. Holmes would call it, of formulas and systems. That some of the cobwebs of our American parallel to the Circumlocu- tion Office, the patent registry, could be made to yield to a new broom, was prov- ed on paper long ago; the first annual report of Commissioner Ewing shows the beginnings of it in practice. Since January "the work has not been more than eighteen to twenty months behind, The first congress for the country- wide promotion of mental hygiene, call- ed at Baltimore under the auspices of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, has adjourned after attracting little attention. Yet it would be notable if only as summarizing the extent to which similar committees within the States are devoting themselves to the subject. Their general objects are the study and amelioration of conditions whence insanity springs; the study of debatable or border-line cases of men- tal disease; the bettering of the laws governing the commitment of the in- sane; and the investigation of institu- tions and institutional methods. Since the formation of the first Mental Hy- giene Society in 1908, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Mary- land, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina have witnessed the foundation of simi- lar bodies. Virtually all have sprung to usefulness as supplements to the ef- forts of the State Boards of Health and State Boards of Education — that of Il- linois, for example, having taken over, at the request of the Cook County courts, the study of cases pending com- mitment in Chicago. Their clearer func- tion, however, is in the setting up of free clinics, the employment of medical directors, and the education of the pub-
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74=2 The Nation [Vol. 98, No.' 2556 lie iii mental hygiene. The field is one In which private philanthropy, especial- ly when scientifically directed, should prove highly useful. No more interesting action has been taken recently in college circles than the decision of the joint committee on academic freedom of the American Eco- nomic, American Political, and Ameri- can Sociological Associations to inves- tigate the forced resignation from Wesleyan University of Prof. Willard C. Fisher. Professor of economics in that institution since 1906, Mr. Fisher has had his own ideas on numerous sub- jects. He has twice been Mayor of Mid- dletown, and at that time found that his views on the question of Sunday ob- servance offended the orthodox. The chief bone of contention seems to have been a jocose remark by Professor Fish- er to the effect that it might be well to close all the churches of the country for seme years as an experiment. This was naturally heresy for Wesleyan, and his resignation followed. He is also report- ed to have admitted that his attitude is not in harmony with the traditions of this college. But the collegiate world has a vital interest in knowing whether this is something more than incom- patibility of spirit or not; whether it is a case of repression of free opinion due to presidential intolerance, or whether it is a case where another connection is more fitting for one of Professor Fisher's frank utterance. It is a diffi- cult problem in human relations which the joint committee has now tackled; but in the interest of the public, colleges which do not tolerate reasonable free- dom of thought and speech, ought to be labelled as such. The chances of success for an aero- plane flight across the Atlantic depend on the extent to which the managers of the enterprise can combine in their machine the factors of speed, sustained flying capacity, and structural strength, which separately have been developed by the aeroplane to a degree approxi- mating the requirements of a trans- atlantic venture. In the matter of mere size, lifting capacity, and stabil- ity, the record unquestionably belongs to the Russian aviator Sikorsky, who has carried sixteen passengers at once on a machine with a wing spread of more than 100 feet and driven by four 100-horsepower motors. An aero- plane equipped with cabins — and also restaurant facilities? — like Sikorsky's, would seem to put aviation for touring purposes outside of the experimental class. The record for sustained flight over a measured course is held by Fourney, who in 1912 covered 632 miles in 13 hours 22 minutes; but the closer parallel to the contemplated Atlantic flight is Roland Garros's dash from Bizerta across the Mediterranean to San Rafael, a distance of 558 miles, in 7 hours 53 minutes. The distance from our coast to the Azores, given at 1,200 miles, would call for a duplication of Garros's speed of 70 miles an hour for more than 17 hours. Cold figures would argue that the Atlantic will not be con- quered for some years. A recent letter to the press by the Archbishop of York cited a remark lately made to him by "a distinguished American citizen," to the effect that what most impressed him in the pres- ent political situation in England was "the contrast between the demand of the country as a whole for some set- tlement [of the Irish question] by con- sent, and the incapacity of Parliament to give effect to it." We fancy that this distinguished American citizen had seen kindred phenomena in his own country; and if the Archbishop had cross-exam- ined him, the reason might have ap- peared to be the same as to-day in Great Britain — namely, "the entanglements of party pride and policy." Of these the Archbishop complains as standing in the way of averting what may be civil war, though to this the whole nation is averse. The chief entanglement has been that of the Unionist party with Ulster. What Ulster wanted was the defeat of the Home Rule bill and the expulsion of the Government from power. The Ulstermen have themselves played straight. It has been said of them by an Irishman who knows them well that they were not bluffing, because they were too stupid to bluff. But this rude simplicity of the plans of Ulster has been confused by the manoeuvres of the English Unionists. The latter de- manded the exclusion Of Ulster. Now, Ulster did not want exclusion; It wanted to smash the bill and turn out the Lib- erals. But the I'nionlsts thought thai the thing could be done by making a great play about Ulster exclusion. Now that this is to be offered th£m, in some form or other, Ulster is in a rage at the thought of any settlement which means the passage of the bill, and Unionist leaders are beginning to say that they never intended to assent to exclusion. Australia has been having her trou- ble over a labor-preference bill, though of an order the reverse of ours. In two successive sessions of the Common- wealth Parliament, the Government have passed through the House a bill forbidding the preferring of trade unionists in employment on public works. But the Senate, where there is still a Labor party majority, has on each occasion rejected it. Under such circumstances, it is expressly provided in the Australian Constitution that the Governor-General may dissolve both Houses of Parliament. This has just been done, at the instance of the Liber- al Premier, and a general election is to follow. No doubt, the Prime Minister, Mr. Cook, hopes to secure seats enough to make sure of the enactment of the bill. Next time, if the Representatives again pass the bill, only to have it thrown out by the Senate, the Consti- tution provides that it shall be laid be- fore a joint sitting of both Houses, of which a bare majority would suffice to pass it. The issue thus forced is un- usual, and the final decision will be watched for with interest. Far from despairing of the future of parliamentary government in China, Professor Goodnow, constitutional ad- viser to President Yuan Shi-Kai, be- lieves that the Chinese republic is fol- lowing the traditional course of evo- lution from despotism to parliamentary institutions. This course leads through a period of concentration of large pow- ers in the hands of the Executive. It is possible to speak of Yuan Shi-Kai as dictator only by comparison with the radically democratic ideals cherished by the revolutionaries of the south of China under Dr. Sun Yat-Sen. The slow pace of progress towards true repre- si iit.it i v< ■ government is exemplify d In Japan, where, alter nearly forty years. the principle of Executive responsibil- ity to Parliament is just beginning to assume reality.
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June 25, 1914] The Nation 743 MORE CONSPIRACIES! There is room for dispute as to the condition of business in a great many lines, but there is one line of business which is unquestionably booming. The conspiracy business has never before attained anything like the position it now enjoys as a well-defined branch of capitalistic enterprise. So rapid has been its development in this country that, although only a few years ago — .say in the time of President Roosevelt — it could not be classed as anything more than an infant industry, barely struggling for existence, it has now at- tained the dignity of an international institution. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer of Great Britain gives a branch of American enterprise the rec- ognition of conspicuous mention in a political speech, it may certainly be said to have "arrived." The opponents of Lloyd George's policies, it appears, have "called in the aid of American millionaires," and he goes on to tell his hearers why "these golden apostles" are "intervening in British politics." In- spired by what is going on across the ocean, "America is getting sick of the ruthless piracy of these modern buc- caneers." And so the Trust magnates, "baffled and beaten in their own land, are coming over here to stop the deluge at its source." The question remains, however, whether the conspiracy business is the business of forming conspiracies or that of imagining them. So far as our sources of information extend, we have to say that real conspiracies are still very scarce. Take this one that Mr. Lloyd George has just sprung upon us. The only foundation that he appears to have for his statement is the speech of J. J. Hill's, in which he said: "The false humanitarianism of British social legislation is going to destroy British trade, British commerce, and British industry." Now it is true that Mr. Hill is a millionaire; and it is also undeniable that it is only because he has been a wonderfully successful rail- way and business man that his opinion was cabled to England. But apart from this, it does not appear that Mr. Hill's millions have had anything to do with the case. Even the few shillings or pounds it took to cable his talk were doubtless paid for in the usual way by the news associations. Out of this Mr. Lloyd George, it appears, has found it the easiest thing in the world to conjure up a mighty conspiracy, a desperate at- tempt of the Trust magnates of America "to stop the deluge" of humanitarian legislation "at the source." And what makes this performance of the Chancel- lor of the Exchequer the more curious is that the one American fortune which has, in point of fact, been employed to influence the course of British politics — that of Joseph Fels — has been used in promotion of radical land legislation, and has been of material help to Lloyd George's general propaganda. That, to be sure, was done in the open, and therefore was no conspiracy; but at least it was done, and there is not the faintest trace of reason to believe that anything at all is being done, above ground or under ground, by American Trust magnates to oppose British radi- calism. The latest development in our own Administration's warfare upon the conspiracy of Big Business is the giv- ing out of a selection from the letters that it has received in support of its position. We have no doubt that they have poured into the White House in great quantities; but the more numer- ous they are the less impressive is the lot that has been chosen for publication. Among those contained in the press dis- patches, the longest is this: Prom St. Paul, Minn.: "It is quite mani- fest that the cause of the present hard times is almost wholly due to a united action on the part of large corporations of the country, after deliberate confer- ence, to chastise your Administration. No doubt the corporations have mutually agreed to put on the brakes and slow up business in every way possible. This is the way they have of intimidating the people and the Administration. There should be a law that would imprison such conspirators and confiscate their busi- ness." Does "the White House" — we do not like to say "does President Wilson" — really think such stuff worth putting forward by way of vindication? Does it really believe that "the corporations have mutually agreed" to cripple the country's business? And even if it does, can it possibly imagine that any- body who does not accept that view on the authority of "the White House" will have his disbelief shaken in the slight- est by the bald assertion of an unnamed person in St. Paul, unaccompanied by a particle of evidence? Canards of this kind might be dis- missed with a smile if they formed part of the stage thunder to which we are all accustomed in the midst of an elec- toral campaign. In this country, and doubtless in every country, allowance is made for the extravagances and esca- pades of campaign oratory and cam- paign journalism. "British gold," sent here by the Cobden Club to promote free trade, was a regular part of the stage apparatus of the Republican party for a generation, though every man of sense knew that it was a pure figment of the protectionist imagination. It was transferred to the Democratic green- room during the free-silver period, the only difference being that it was the Rothschilds and other money kings who sent the phantom gold over, instead of the Cobden Club. But when the Govern- ment itself resorts to the spreading of these wild imaginings, the matter be- comes infinitely more serious. Whatever the end which it is designed to serve, the use of such means is vicious. The precedent is easily followed; and the method is just as likely to be resorted to in the promotion of foolish or unjust policies as of wise and just ones. It is intellectually degrading and politically dangerous; and we should be glar. to think that we had seen the last of i\, at the hands of this Administration at least. RADICAL IDEAS ABOUT STATE GOVERNMENT. Lecky, who observed that a growing distrust of representative bodies was one of the main characteristics of the close of the nineteenth century, could have found novel illustrations of it among the American States in the last few years. The older tendency was to deprive Legislatures of some of their powers. The duration and frequency of their meetings was limited; legislative procedure regulated; local and special laws forbidden; the executive and judi- cial veto broadened; and checks and supplements like the referendum in- voked. But the more recent impulse is to alter the whole nature of the Legisla- ture. It is true that the merits of com- mission and single-chamber plans have not been convincing. They reappear, however, with pertinacity. A bill was introduced last week in Louisiana pro- viding for replacing the lawmakers by
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74r4: T li e 1ST a t i o ii [Vol. 98, No. 2556 a body of eight commissioners. In Ore- gon the measure recently initiated for the abolition of the Senate, leaving an Assembly of sixty, has been endorsed by grangers, labor unions, and civic or- ganizations. Gov. Hunt's proposal of a commission Legislature in Arizona is still fresh in mind. In Kansas, Gov. Hodge's scheme of a continuous Legis- lature of eight or sixteen members is again brought to notice by a publica- tion sent broadcast from the State Print- ing Office. It contains ninety pages of argument from newspapers, magazines, and political experts in its favor, and forty pages opposing it. A study of this pamphlet is instruc- tive. Its arguments for the single- chamber form, which differs little from that now awaiting decision in Oregon, show a uniform source of dissatisfac- tion. It is essentially a discontent of democracy with itself. The legislative system cannot be run without a deal of trouble; and of this the people are get- ting impatient. The Baltimore News remarks that "the members of Legisla- tures are in large part elected and con- trolled by bosses. The lack of scientific and responsive attention to their func- tion is too well known to need assertion. With such a situation, . . . there can be no fundamental objection to electing eight men, as proposed." "We know," states the Columbus Journal, "no better policy this State could pursue than to abolish the bicameral Legisla- ture, and put a one-branch body in its place." The St. Paul Dispatch believes "there would be less law, and therefore better law. Business system would sup- plant unorganized effort, and there would be an end to much waste." The Milwaukee Free Press finds that "the Governor's strongest argument is based on the increased efficiency of a smaller body. The contests would become more important, and the peopie would be able to choose better men." All these are sincere opinions; and all are linked to- gether by the recurrent synonyms for "efficiency" and "past incompetency." The fundamental inconsistency is clear. In one breath the reason for change Is stated as the benefit of a new form as such. In the next it is given us to un- derstand that the trouble with the old era was the want of public spirit, of a sense of duty animating each legislator. Belief that anything else than wise action by the people will yield good gov- ernment is to be combated even when joined with agitation for desirable al- terations in form. The merits of the pure commission form of government for States, urged largely on the basis of a false analogy between city and com- monwealth, scarcely call for considera- tion at present. For the plan to abolish State Senates more can be said. Seri- ous reasons on the side of a single chamber can be found in the writings of Bentham, Mill, and Bagehot; there are nations which are legislated for by one chamber; certain of our States have at one time or another tried the plan. The evils of the other system are well known. But, on the whole, the utility and excellence of bicameral government have never been seriously questioned in this country. A single legislative body of sixty in Oregon, moreover, would tend to the same evils as a commission Legislature of sixteen in Kansas. If it held office for any length of time, it would become unrepresentative of the whole people. It would incline to a com- bination of executive and legislative functions, since, feeling itself the special organ of the popular will, it would grad- ually subject the executive to control. It might embody order and celerity, but it would go upon the assumption that the people can concentrate responsibil- ity and authority, with merely the check of the newer devices of govern- ment. This is a mistake, unless the ma- jority is certain not to use its power tyrannically. The decisions of such a body, finally, would probably be incom- plete and hasty. The upper houses in our States have always been the more express image of those judgments of the people which lag temperately behind its emotions; popular clamor is too weakened in force to reach them with commanding appeal. In an ideal state of affairs the two-chamber system might seem transitional; discussion in one broadly representative chamber might conceivably surpass that jealously bal- anced between two. But the Western States are not yet ideal democracies. The fundamental objection goes back to the belief that by revolutionizing ma- chinery a millennium can be brought about. If some States need changes, the first and sensible experiments are sure- ly not with the whole form of govern- ment, but with the organization and procedure of the present form. There is excellent reason to believe that the present faults of Legislatures are part- ly the result of the earlier distrust, and the curbing of legislative powers. Some of the innovations, such as the power of the Governor to introduce leg- islation, greater respect for experts, and a reduction of the size of assemblies, may be salutary. But in general, and in the long run, reform will depend on putting a new breath into the body politic, whatever form it have. UNIVERSITIES IN A DEMOCRACY. In his address to the Harvard alumni at Cambridge on Thursday, Senator Lodge admirably defined the attitude of a university towards the new ideals, aspirations, and political aims that come forward from time to time. It is essen- tial, he said, that the youth of the land should be put in sympathy with their own time; they must not be recreant to progress, nor oblivious of the evils of their day. The university itself, how- ever, must not think in terms of years or of decades, but of centuries. That is, it must admit to its precincts, for the purposes of study, every movement to better the moral or material status of ethers, but must then examine it "not merely in the roseate glow of enthusi- astic hope, but by the clear, cold light of the past, before she decides that they are fit for the ordeal of the future and will prove a benefit to mankind." It was excellent advice at Harvard, where too often innate conservatism has de- nied access to reforms until they had demonstrated their value abroad. But these words are timely elsewhere than in Harvard, because we hear in so many quarters the assertion that the University, if not in politics, should be in the service of the State; that it should be leading all the political move- ments of the day; it should draft every bill to be submitted to the Legislature, regarding every fad, or fancy, or sound reform of the hour. If mothers' pen- sions are bruited in one State, it should be the duty of the nearest State uni- versity to accept the proposal, with or without adequate consideration, and rush it into law with all possible speed so that the State may duly he labelled progressive. It should not only guide the farmers; it should reach out into every home, answering every question
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June 25, 1914I The ]ST a t i o n 74.5 put to it by any one, whether by letter or by 'phone. It should be an extension university and an intelligence office com- bined, with dairy inspectors and instruc- tors in the use of incubators ever on the road, so that the State may have evidence of the University's practical value, of its ability to make two dollars grow where one grew before. But above all else, it should be intolerant of any- thing except the new; conservatism must be the one unforgivable sin. Obviously, there is much in this to at- tract, as the University of Wisconsin has repeatedly shown. But if we accept it as the ideal of the university, we must obviously reject in large measure Senator Lodge's defence of the old-fash- ioned theory that the chief function of the university is to test the new in the light of the old by the "clear, cold light of the past." There is no longer room for the student and teacher working quietly in their laboratories, not blind to the present, but examining every proposal with scientific detachment and the absence of all heat or partisanship. We must then forget the great teachers of the past who attuned the spirits to which they ministered so that when their pupils went forth they vibrated immediately to the appeal of the hour, being keen with sympathy for the new, but with their sympathy reinforced by sound judgment, and trained by mental and moral discipline to accept what is wise and reject the ephemeral craze of the hour. It would surely be a mighty misfortune were the ideal of a business State university supervising all the ac- tivities of the State with a semi-social- istic maternalism to prevail above all others. If we are to have close alli- ances between State activities and State universities, then more than ever do we need the type of private university, of which Harvard, whatever its weakness- es, is still the preeminent example. For the danger in the case of State alliances is obvious; how shall the State university face in a difference of opin- ion with the lawmakers? Just now, the University of Wisconsin is being sub- jected to an "efficiency" survey, which must make any true scholar feel strong- ly tempted to hand in his resignation. Subpoenas are even threatened, and a New York researcher is reported to be attending classrooms with a stenograph- er by his side — doubtless to count the words the professor utters, to measure the attention of his listeners, to put a stop-watch on him, as if he were a bricklayer or a pig-iron handler. When an efficiency test was tried at Harvard last year the whole faculty rose in arms, and the president withdrew the proposal; at Wisconsin they must obey what the State decrees, when it decrees, or get out. To any one who thinks at all, this method of "bringing a univer- sity up to date" is destructive of the very best for which it should stand. It is the beginning of an intellectual thral- dom likely to stifle any great soul, to reduce a college to the basis of a fac- tory, and to ignore entirely its priceless spiritual values. If our State universi- ties must come to this, Heaven forbid that our privately maintained institu- tions should cultivate closer relations with the Commonwealths. BERTHA VON SUTTNER. With the death of the Baroness von Suttner disappears from view one of the most remarkable personalities of our time, whose influence is, fortunately, destined long to survive her. To her, it may be expected, monuments will be built when the militarism she fought so ardently shall have been abol- ished on earth. But her great book, "Ground Arms," will always be her truest memorial. Whether the story is authentic or not that a reading of this tract induced the Czar of Russia to call the first Hague Conference we do not know. It is, however, certain that no other brief for peace has won so many converts or exercised so great an in- fluence in all quarters of the globe. Her portrayal of war's horrors opened the eyes of millions to its actual nature, and may be counted one of the great forces which are steadily bringing about the emancipation of the world from whole- sale murder. The author of "Ground Arms" has frequently and not inaptly been com- pared to the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Both volumes exercised an in- ternational influence, being translat- ed into many foreign languages and run- ning through countless editions. Mrs. Stowe's famous book is credited by so careful an historian as Mr. Charles Francis Adams with having prevented, together with the Emancipation Proc- lamation, the recognition of the Confed- erate States by the British Government — that is, with having saved the Union. Fifty years hence the actual accom- plishment of "Ground Arms" may be clearer than to-day. There is, however, one great difference between the two books: Mrs. Stowe wrote her book af- ter having lived amid slave scenes, while the Baroness von Suttner penned her descriptions of the barbarisms of war without having herself come into contact with them — in contrast to Tol- stoy's noble "War and Peace," which was founded on numerous personal ex- periences of bloodshed. During Bertha von Suttner's youth was fought, in her neighborhood, the Austrian war of 1866. It left her cold, as she said in her memoirs: "I'm ashamed to write these words, but this event made no impres- sion on me — none at all." The Franco- Prussian War likewise left her indif- ferent. It was not until she came un- der the influence of a single notable per- sonality that her eyes were opened and her soul set on fire by the iniquities of that which is justly termed "the sum of all villanies." Her chance answering of Alfred Nobel's advertisement for a secretary and housekeeper became the turning point of her life. His greatest wish was to be able to invent an explosive or ma- chine so terrible as to end all war, and it was from him that she learned to hate militarism with all her ardent and powerful nature. Years afterwards the great peace prize which her former em- ployer founded came to her as a fitting reward for her own achievements, for her ability to visualize the carnage and waste of war so movingly that the bulk of her readers, probably, still think that it was of her own sorrow and wid- owhood that she wrote so vividly. The prize was the more welcome since it found her in great need. Indeed, she was compelled to the last to labor for her means of sustenance. She gave gen- erously to the great cause, and she suf- fered much for it. The hatred of the militarists for her knew few bounds, particularly in her own country. When she was last in the United States, at the beginning of the Balkan troubles, her mail was full of exulting and abusive letters and postcards from officers and men of the Austrian army, exulting in what they considered the certain ap- proach of war and reviling her as though her aim in life were the lower-
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74=<J T h e Natio 11 [Vol. 98, No. 2556 ing instead of the raising of humanity. Fortunately for her and her nation's happiness, Austria escaped the horrors of the conflict only to pay heavily eco- nomically for the waste of lives and property and the destruction of trade in the near-by states. Bertha von Suttner was no genius; there was within her no innate, over- whelming desire to express herself and her views on what became to her the be- all and end-all of her life. It was rather her iron will and determination to stir the world which we must admire. Without means, or reputation as a writer, speaking without authority or personal experience, she yet found her way to people's hearts. It is all a remarkable example of what single- minded, unselfish devotion to a great cause can accomplish. Naturally, the Baroness quickly lost interest in mere nationalism and came to realize inter- nationalism as the true aim of an en- lightened age. It was the sense of the relationship of nations which made her say in what was probably her last personal letter to friends in this coun- try: What a comfort it is to my soul to set: how widely and how bravely Ameri- cans are protesting against war, even if it is already begun. I do hope that the mediation of the South American re- publics will ward off the danger of a reg- ular war between the States and Mexico. For the pacifists of Europe it would be a dreadful blow if the leaders of the New World should fall into the crimes and errors of the Old. OUT OF THE MAIN CURRENT. By eight o'clock of a June morning the first scattering detachments of in- fantry in rompers and pinafores are de- bouching on the park benches and the lawns, under the convoy of clean-shaven old men with newspapers. Early morn- ing in the open air is the time of the very young and their grandparents; while the middle ages are still imper- fectly awake over the breakfast table. Old men and babies rise early and re- fuse to dawdle in bed; the old presum- ably because they have so little time ahead of them, and are bound to utilize every minute of existence, the babies be- cause countless tasks clamor for atten- tion— new business, and the business that remained unfinished the night be- Ik 11 they began nodding in their mothers' laps, Th< trees and lawns, be- ing at the same time very old and very young in June, are early risers them- selves. They have their freshest greet- ings for first comers, like the thrifty tradesman to his early customers be- fore the midday rush has warped his temper and made his smile perfunctory. This year the trees and grass in the park are of a rare green, owing no doubt to the same heavy snows which have made bumper crops in the West. The trees arch over the asphalt walks and sweep the benches, making cool bowers under which the old read their newspapers at peace. The thin traffic of the breakfast hour makes it unneces- sary to keep a wary eye on the rompered and pinafored pioneers. By ten o'clock the veterans on the benches have done with their newspa- pers and disappeared. In their place are the mothers and the nursemaids. There is much adult conversation. There is a good deal of domestic industry. The old housewifely virtues are far from vanished. Darning and stitching are in full swing, both utilitarian and educa- tional. Little girls work on very small I'ieces of fabric with huge needles un- der careful superintendence; before long there will be very little left of the original fabric, but the purposes of voca- tional training — a system antedating Froebel and Montessori by several thou- sand years — will have been fulfilled. By ten o'clock, after two hours of close ap- plication to tin pails and rubber balls, the nursing bottle comes into play — somewhat unhygienically, one must con- fess, but with apparent satisfaction in the two parties immediately concerned. Students of the rudiments of walking steer diagonal and wavering courses across the convenient asphalt. They tack and reach and beat to windward, and occasionally collide with their elders. They are a menace to adult navigation, but not so dangerous as the little girls in charge of doll carriages, which every little while refuse to answer to the helm and roll between the legs of pedes- trians, presenting difficult problems in balance. It is essential to safe walking in the park that one keep constanl watch on one's feet, for there arc the doll carriages and there are the toddlers who suddenly embrace the knees of to- tal strangers and claim Intimate rela tlonshlp with them. ' L01 e attention to the part benches fails to reveal that native animosity between parents and children which Bernard Shaw has recently discovered. It does reveal a wide difference of opinion as to use of the park soil and the water spouting from the hydrant. The chemistry of the ancients is sound- er than our own science when applieu to the young. The human heart will never respond to oxygen and hydrogen and carbons and phosphates as it does to earth and water and air and fire. Earth and water are the basic elements of childhood. Mixed in a tin pail, they lend themselves to an extraordinary variety of uses. They may be con- sumed surreptitiously and in small quantities as food. Applied to aprons and socks, they lend themselves to original effects in textile ornamentation. Worked into the face and other exposed parts of the body, they reproduce the war-ornamentation of primitive civili- zation. By three in the afternoon, say, the aspect of primitive warfare is un- escapable. At this hour the native hue cf childhood is thickly overlaid with a veneer of dust cut into infinite patterns by sprayings from the pump. By apply- ing one's fingers to the nozzle one may obtain an effect like the fountains at Versailles. The smaller children cry under the deluge and immediately come back for more. At six o'clock in the afternoon the shadows are falling on a host fast get- ting ready for bed. Weariness of the body has been setting in and tempers are beginning to chafe. Babies are crying under unjust punishment administered by substitute mothers twelve years old and under. There is a noticeable re- laxation in the zest of games. Tin pails are kicked over in a fret. Rubber balls that roll under the benches are no long- er pursued with animation, but must be retrieved by nurses or kindly disposed strangers. The militant cries from be- neath copses and under rocks, where flying detachments of small boys have been scurrying about in pursuit Of the familiar and ever fresh mysteries thai Lie bidden there, grow fainter. Strag- gling lines of baby-carl cavalry wind up the bill Inwards home, and weary footed Infantry drags its painful way ai the end of a taut, Impatient nuri 1 ' arm. Old men appear on the benches wiih afternoon papers. 11 is an armj in retreat.
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June 25, 1914] T li e !N" ation 74=7 Foreign Correspondence SUBMARINES VERSUS DREAD- NOUQHTS — SIR PERCY SCOTT'S LETTER TO THE TIMES — SMALL HOPE FOR THE NATAL ECONO- MIST. London, June 15. The doctrines of the "Suicide Club," as the Conservative press dubs the oppo- nents of a big navy, have found support from an unexpected quarter. Admiral Sir Percy Scott, having been asked whe- ther England should build small battle- ships or large, replies that she should not be building either. Sir Percy is one of the greatest living authorities on the use of heavy guns, and this latest broad- side of his has caused scarcely less sen- sation than the artillery he handled so effectively at Ladysmith. He has en- dorsed with his name the startling thesis that the men-of-war on which we are so lavishly spending millions are in these days of scarcely any value, either for defence or for offence. His position is, in brief, that in future wars no battleship will dare to come within sight of a coast protected by sub- marines. These craft will make impos- sible the bombardment or blockading of harbors and the landing of a party in an enemy's country. For fear of them no fleet will even put to sea. Sir Percy's picture of the next naval war shows us aeroplanes above and submarines below, operating jointly to expose all battleships within reach to certain destruction. These expensive monsters will be able neither to remain safely in harbor nor to come safely out of harbor. So that the two- to-one standard of which we have been hearing so much means simply that the stronger Power will have two dread- noughts lying at the bottom of the sea for every one of the weaker. Criticism of Sir Percy Scott's heresy has taken the form of emphasizing the limitations of the three chief factors of the new warfare; namely, torpedoes, sub- marines, and aeroplanes. Torpedoes, it is argued, are not weapons of sufficiently great range and precision to be depended on. In the Russo-Japanese War, says Lord Sydenham — better known, perhaps, as the Sir George Sydenham Clarke who has had so much to do with the problems of imperial defence — the results fell far short of reasonable expectation. On the other hand, Arnold White maintains that the damage done to the Russian fleet by torpedoes on the first night of war turned the scale. Still more attention has been paid in the discussion to the deficiencies of the submarine herself. A strong point has been made of the fact that hitherto her value has never been brought to the test of actual warfare. Peace manoeuvres do not supply material for a sound judg- ment. For example, they do not allow a battleship to get rid of a hostile sub- marine by running her down. The speed of the submarine, again, is described as a comparative crawl when matched against that of the fast steaming warship. Her maximum speed, when submerged, is only about ten knots, which has to be compared with the twenty-two knots of the battleship, the twenty-eight knots of the cruiser, and the thirty knots of the light-armored cruiser. As against these damaging figures, Ar- nold White argues that a long swift cruiser with a large turning circle can- not successfully chase a submarine with a small turning circle. The submarine would turn round and torpedo the cruis- er, as a hare gains on the turn when chased by a greyhound. Further, the submarine can operate by daylight only. It must come to the sur- face often, and when it does come to the surface it is visible for miles. On the surface it is highly vulnerable to the lightest of guns. Both above and below water it can be sunk by the merest touch bf the ship that rams it. Its only weap- on is useless for defence. Its view is so restricted that it has gained nothing from the increased distance that the im- proved torpedo can run. On the high seas submarines will require to be con- voyed by parent ships, which, on Sir Per- cy Scott's own hypothesis, will disappear. Sir Percy also contemplates their fre- quent need of being hauled up on the land. But when beached anywhere ex- cept in their own country, they will need an attendant army to protect them. In short, the submarine, as David Han- nay puts it, will go to war attended, nursed, preceded, propped, and coddled Keen controversy has been aroused by a passage in Sir Percy's letter in which he says that, with a flotilla of submarines commanded by dashing young officers, he would undertake to get through any boom into any harbor, and sink or ma- terially damage all the ships in that harbor. An anonymous naval officer as- serts, on the other side, that no sub- marine has yet attacked a boom with success. Destroyers have done so, not by breaking up the boom, but by "jump- ing" it, and in such cases have them- selves been of little service afterwards, owing to the damage sustained. A new explosive boom that has been tried with great success in several Continental countries may be relied upon to defeat the attacks even of destroyers. Another authority adds that a boom is not the only method of defending a harbor from attack, and that in most harbors the draught of water is less than six or seven fathoms, the minimum which will allow a small submarine to manoeuvre when sub- merged. The aeroplane, according to Sir Percy Scott's theory, is to be the eye of the submarine. It is to watch aloft and sig- nal the position of the battleships that are to be attacked. "Well," comments Da- vid Hannay, "within the last few days the most skilful of all airmen has van- ished from sight to a death we can only guess at, in the course of a very short flight. Two seaplanes sent to look for him have come to grief in circumstances of no particular difficulty. A fourth has plunged to destruction, carrying two lives with her. These are not the kind of craft able to watch long and take all weathers confidently." And the aero- plane, as some one else has pointed out. must have a surface ship — ex hypotheri certain to be destroyed by the enemy's submarines — close at hand if it is to be employed far from land. Even if these Hying craft were perfectly efficient and manageable, they might prove to be as much the enemy as the friend of the submarine. While the aeroplane can never be developed to the point of finding data for the actual aiming of the sub- marine's torpedo, its ability to detect the submarine's presence from the sky is a proved fact. The longer the newspaper debate con- tinues, the more confident become the disputants and the more varied their conclusions. This is emphatically a case in which the doctors disagree. And the plain landsman, who pays the bill, has reason to doubt whether the prospect of a reduction in the naval estimates is as near fulfilment as seemed likely on a cursory reading of Sir Percy Scott's letter in the Times. Sir Percy himself demand- ed, in place of battleships, "an enormous fleet of submarines, airships, and aero- planes," and it must be remembered that not very many submarines can be built for the cost of a dreadnought. The op- portunity is already being seized by a section of the press to work up a new variety of naval "scare." Sir Percy Scott's theory, it is argued, may possibly be a sound one. Whether it is valid or not we shall never know until it Is test- ed by actual warfare. In case it should prove to be correct, it is highly important that we should be prepared by means of the "enormous fleet" of submarines and airships that he asks for. At the same time, it might be fatal to put all our eggs into one basket. Suppose Sir Percy Scott should turn out to be mistaken. In that case, the abandonment of our dread- nought policy would involve the destruc- tion of our national existence. To be properly safeguarded in either event, the obvious course is to provide ourselves with the craft Sir Percy wants, not in- stead of, but in addition to, the dread- noughts that are put down in the ortho- dox naval programme, So that the net result of Sir Percy Scott's intervention may be to leave the naval economist in worse case than he was before. H W H. THE COOKS OF PARIS— THE SUCCU- LENT "ANDOUILLETTE"— A BAN- QUET OF EPICURES. Paris, June 6. — Truly, I Always declared 'twould be pity To burn to the ground such a choice-feeding city; As to Marshals and Statesmen and all their whole lineage. For aught that I care, you may knock them to spinage ; But think. Dick, their cooks — what a loss to mankind : What a void in the world would their art leave behind ! This was a hundred years ago, when the fear of Napoleon was vanishing and the young Briton was free once more to cross the Channel to acquire a French varnish: An Improving young man. fond of learning, am- bitious. - now to Paris to study French dishes. Bismarck had the universal idea, writ- ing to his wife from Paris, where he ac- companied his master, the King of Prus- sia, to the Exposition of 1867; and he seems to have been painfully surprised Burli^?" e arf
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748 rP li e N" a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2556 when Paris, three years later, stoically starved herself for four months against his besieging armies. Strangers now com- plain at limes that they have difficulty in finding the genuine French cookery which excited the enthusiasm of their fathers. Still, it exists, just as Ameri- cans, if they know how to seek, can find their catbird still singing his tune and their fireflies in the corn still making night amazing. The things that truly last when men and times have passed, 'l'l.ey are all in Pennsylvania this morning! Good cooking lasts in France, and you may find it, if you know how to seek. A note has been passed me that a dozen Britons are again coming over to taste authentic products of the French cook's art. To make sure of its genuineness, they are directing their troops now to this province and now to that, according to the home of the particular viand on which they have fixed their hearts. And they begin with the "andouillette" of Troy es. This particular sausage can be found for sale every year in Paris itself, in the week before Easter, at the century- old Ham Fair — near where Americans go for Memorial Day ceremonies at Lafay- ette's tomb. I have never counted the number of pork products sold there, but I should not wonder if they were as many as M. de la Reyniere assured the English there were ways of dishing up eggs in France — "685, not counting those imagined by our savants daily." The dif- ficulty in Paris would be to get your an- douillette cooker, for not every one has the exact French cook it needs at his beck and call. The great Paris hotels have become cosmopolitan and standardized, and little is to be hoped from them; and, except for universally known French dishes, the same is to be said of the great restau- rants. In out-of-the-way streets, there are provincial hotels and eating places, sometimes at a common wineshop, fur- nishing its customers with the "dish of the day," where the proprietor, man or woman, puts his skilled hand to the mak- ing of home cookery. Of late, at a clean, popular restaurant of Montmartre, with unpainted floor and low ceiling, automo- biles may be seen drawn up before the door at the lunch hour. A swell from Maxim's found out — and passed the word around — that there was good provincial cooking there; and so the idle ones of the great world sit at meat over against the little people of shop clerks and ar- tisans of the neighborhood. An Ameri- can millionaire has informed me that he is healing his stomach by lunching in a cheap wineshop, where the proprietor's wife cooks for half a dozen persons. French Parisians who were not born in Paris — they are perhaps more than half the population — also have their home- eating resorts. You can have bona-fido bouillabaisse that would have suited Thackeray in a Marseilles restaurant close to the Opera Comique. Thackeray himself ate it in Paris at a little cafe* which keeps hi* portrait to attract art students from England and America. V'cn the leaders of the more patriotic jFOvinciala of Paris have their monthly home lunches with an appropriate asso- ciation name — the "apple" of Normandy and the "garlic cream" of Provence, and so for the rest. But these are close cir- cles for native comrades only. So the English dozen do well to go to Troyes itself, one hundred miles from Paris, to eat their andouillette. There, af- ter Agincourt, the beaten French King, Charles VI, signed away his kingdom to English Henry V, who at once married Princess Katharine of France — all in the church of Saint Jean. In my own visits to that capital of ancient Champagne — it is not in the modern wine district — I have paid most attention to such churches and timber houses of a mediaeval past, and to the new Socialist agitation, of which Troyes factories are a nourishing centre. And then, I cannot eat but little meat — My stomach is not good — - that is, not quite equal to the fat, long, slender, round, and browned andouillette as it comes piping hot to table on a bed of mashed potato or cabbage or even rice or fried with eggs, and, I doubt not, dished up in "685 ways, not counting those imagined by our savants daily." And yet this intensive culture of food and stom- achs should be heartily reverenced, be- cause of the close union of soul and body. I am sure the workmen's local revolu- tions would be far worse if it were not for their occasional andouillettes. By the way, these are made of pork tripe, hashed fine with spices and stuffed into a casing of the same. It must not be thought that so patriotic and wide-awake a people as the French intend to suffer any decay in their na- tional art, simply because their city hotels make their money from foreigners, who do not know the difference between real, sincere, genuine meat and fish and game and eggs and the imitations from cold storage. Forty friends, some with titles and some playwrights, and Santos Du- niont and an ex-Prime Minister have re- cently had a luncheon of six dishes by as many master cooks of the most careful houses of France. I will not tell the ten Bordeaux and Burgundy wines which brought all safely to the end — except to assure uncontrollable Americans that, in France, he who loves alcohol is never thought a true lover of good wines. The "hors-d'eeuvres," to begin, were works of art: iced melon dashed with Armagnac brandy; pink shrimp salad with asparagus points, and feuillantine pastry of carp milt. The fish was cold salmon trout. Next came a "baron" of Pauillac mutton, "k la Parisienne," that is, with tender lettuce, new peas, and po- tatoes melting in the mouth. There were Charolais beef "cassolettes" by one mas- ter cook, and artichoke hearts by another — succulent and leading to the "Norman hole," Which is made in the mass so far ingested by the quaffing of a little glass of cider or grape or plum brandy. This left room for crushed duck and the pas- try called the "King's pave," and a salad of mixed celery and truffles. Chevalier Fata had still strength to explain to the master cooks their "high lineage," going hack to Prometheus, who stole fire from heaven for the cool Ins of mortals' food S. D. Polo II. •AND THE RIGOUR OF THE GAME" Price Collier shrewdly observed that the peoples of India are a riding and a sitting race; certainly, in the north and northwest, the absence of caste makes for homogeneity, and there a democracy of the horse may be said to exist. While the prodigal expendi- ture of native princes and "crack" Brit- ish cavalry regiments has largely influ- enced the quality of the polo mount, yet nowhere is found a more heterogeneous pony. Gifted with pace, since he is often bought as a "chaser," smaller in bone and not so steady in a "hustling" game as his big western rival, in India every sort of country-bred animal, including the imported Walers, Arabs, Barbs, and Syrians, is played from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin and beyond. That romance may flicker about po- nies of uncertain pedigree has always been part of the charm of polo, espe- cially in the early days when pace and weight did not wholly depend on mon- ey. The "Maltese Cat" was one of these "discoveries." "Let's see," said a soft, gold-colored Arab, who had been playing very badly the day before, to the Maltese Cat; "didn't we meet in Abdul Rahman's sta- ble in Bombay, four seasons ago? I won the Paikpattan cup next season, you may remember?" "Not me," said the Maltese Cat, po- litely. "I was at Malta then, pulling a vegetable-cart. I don't race. I play the game!" The prototype of Kipling's "flea-bitten grey, with a neat polo tail," I identify as the famous "Awfully Jolly," whose ro- mantic story is recorded by that first polo reporter, Moray Brown. "Awfully Jolly" was a Barb colt, captured in a raid in the interior and brought to Tunis bazaar along with the captive women. From the spoiled came a desperate message, begging the raiders to keep the women, but return the colt! This esti- mate of his value does not seem to have clung to the pony, for he was shipped to Gibraltar and, after unknown vicissi- tudes, was still young when discovered by Lord Harrington in 1877, drawing a cabbage-cart in Malta. "Awfully Jolly" soon became a famous player, and not only sired many well-known ponies, but also a line of hunters famous in the shires. It is a far cry from that eventful first match in England between two cav- alry teams in 1871, where hockey sticks and a billiard ball helped to make his- tory, or from the first American game live years later. But the history of modern polo may be said really to date from the International matehee, where the flneel players of two cations have
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June 25, 1914I Tli e ]ST a t i o 11 7^9 created and developed a game that will influence play throughout the polo world. During the past two years polo has undergone striking changes, and it is significant to note that with the new polo each side has a victory to its credit. Time was when the tactics were of the conventional order modelled by the pio- neers of the 'eighties, and relying for success on the integrity of "position- play," which was rigidly defined. Apart from too great a fidelity to the early canons, the "off-side" rule, that harass- ed both players and umpires, was re- sponsible for a slow, sticky game. Warfare has been waged over this rule, and it remained for Americans to prove that its rejection is a gain from all points of view. It was in- evitable that the new open, fast, and spectacular game should result in the releasing of No. 1 and back. Now that the British, its chief exponents, have won the last International by adopting the aggressive American tactics, we may hope to find "off-side" become obso- lescent across the water and in India. In its favor an important point was worthily maintained. Calling, as the new game does, for a larger string of ponies to stand the strain of the in- creased pace, the abolishment of "off- side" hindered democratic polo. To meet this criticism, however, the in- genious American system of a goal- handicap for veterans still keeps the game within reach of beginners and less-favored enthusiasts. International matches show "the rig- our of the game" at its apogee. Contrasts in play, horsemanship, and tactics, in- stead of being invidious, are rewarding. If the cavalry-and-hunting seat of the British gives them greater command over the ball in long, sweeping strokes, the cow-puncher seat of the American makes possible the sharp, q«ick stroke necessary in a scrimmage and in rid- ing-off. The high-power rifle and ma- chine gun have rendered shock-tactics obsolete for cavalry; in polo shock-tac- tics have made accuracy uncertain. On the whole, the new galloping game ealls for a solid defence by the backs, hard- riding by the forwards, and greater skill in hittisg all around. In tactics, the game as created by the American "BigFour" tends to borrow from football, in which the old "flying-wedge" forma- tion was resuscitated with great success last year. Also, from modern football and the ancient Persian game of polo, dribbling and passing in close-combina- tion will be adopted despite the tremen- dous pace. These points, however, only tend to perfect the scientific aspect of polo for players, ponies, and spectators. But the "rigour of the game" will never be lost if the old polo motto, "Each to his man, and the ball in the centre of the field," continues to be observed. W. G. TlXf'KOM-FF.RVANrF.Z. Russian Fiction RECENT TENDENCIES OF THE YOUNGER \\ Til TEBS— THE PREDOMINANCE OF REAL- ISM—I'EASAXT LIFE. While such well-known "noisy mod- ernists" as Maxim Gorky and Leonid Andreeff have not kept the Russian lit- erary pot boiling very briskly in recent years, their younger contemporaries have by no means ceased making liter- ary history in Russia. Much significant work has been done in Russian fiction since the decline of the erstwhile spell- binders, by such men as Ivan Shmeleff, Boris Ropshin, Sergeeff-Tsensky, A. P. Chapygin, Ivan Bunin, Andray Bialy, Ivan Volnoff, Boris Zaitseff, A. Serafi- movitch, and Fiodor Sologub. All of these evince a commendable disregard for sensational methods and are follow- ing accepted literary standards. In re- viewing their work, most of which is still unknown outside of Russia, it will be well to take account, with one excep- tion, only of the longer fiction publish- ed during last year. Sergeeff-Tsensky, the author of "Beauty," has already acquired a repu- tation as a great realist, an optimist, and a sincere artist. This novel, which is still to be completed, and a sixth vol- ume of short stories also published dur- ing the year, more than sustain their author's high reputation. His latest work shows an almost Chekhovian re- serve and aloofness, and is wholly free from his former dogmatic interpretation of life. It is quite natural, therefore, that Russian critics should be following the rapid evolution of this new writer with keen interest. If there really is to be a "new literature" in the land of the Czar, Sergeeff-Tsensky is undoubtedly destined to be one of its chief makers. Equally important and enjoying a greater popular success was Ropshin's "That Which Was Not," a sort of "News from Nowhere," though not so Utopian as William Morris's work. This curious novel has a revolutionary theme, While the style and spirit are very suggestive of Tolstoy. The author, moreover, frankly adopts Tolstoy's historical philosophy. On account of these re- semblances he has been persistently charged with plagiarizing "War and Peace." "That Which Was Not," how- ever, has sufficient merits of its own to account for much of its extraordinary popularity. The book has a revolution- ary theme, while its entire tone is real- ly an argument against revolutions and revolutionists, for the author shows up — sympathetically, to- be sure — the utter uselessness of both. Hence, along with his faithful portraiture of the revolutionists, there is an anti- revolutionary skepticism, borrowed, ob- viously, from Tolstoy's pessimistic phi- losophy of man's place in history. He evidently accepts, too, Tolstoy's theory of non-resistance, for his hero (Andray Bolotoff ) harps continually on the "Thou shalt not kill" commandment. Speaking as a revolutionist of the ethics of vio- lence, he reasons thus: We are shot, hanged, and exterminated; hence we hang, strangle, and burn our persecutors. But why am I a hero when I kill an officer, while he is a villain and scoundrel for hanging me? It's one of two things — either it is always right to kill, or else killing is never justifiable. After choosing the latter alternative be- cause, if the injunction "Thou shalt not kill" were not a universal ethical pre- cept, everything were allowable, he con- cludes: But when violating this principle we should not argue that it [killing] is right or proper or justifiable. No; we should make bold to say that it is bad, cruel, and horrible, but inevitable. As these two Tolstoyan views — the de- terministic view of man's place in his- tory and the view that taking human life is murder under any circumstances — receive special emphasis in' "That Which Was Not" and give it its moral and philosophic atmosphere, there can be little wonder that the charge of pla- giarism should have been preferred against its author. But whether this be justified or not, the book was beyond doubt, if the amount of discussion it provoked may be taken as a criterion, the most successful novel of the year. Since its author is one of the younger Russian writers — and especially since this is but his second effort in longer fiction — he, too, may be regarded as a man of promise in contemporary Rus- sian literature. A far less sensational, and perhaps also a less significant, novel was Chapy- gin's "The White Hermitage," which deals with peasant life (a subject fre- quently treated in current Russian fic- tion) in the "silent north." The writ- er, being himself a man born and bred in the ranks of labor, brings to hl3 task a special insight and sympathy possible only to one who has lived the life he depicts. The result is a vivid picture of a region but little under- stood. The remote people of the some- what primitive north, with their pecu- liar habits and speech, are so well de- scribed that one wonders where life ends and art begins. The old customs are rapidly going, and no bearers of any new gospel are in sight; nature Is being everywhere denuded of its resources, and the curse of drink is over the land; poverty and discontent reign supreme. Such is the sad picture Chapygin draws of the passing of primitive life in the silent north. But there is one man who still fights for the old order. This is a wild
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750 r I i T li e 1ST a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2556 woodsman of herculean strength — Krem by name — who loves the trees and the animals, and tries to hinder the de- struction of both. For this he incurs the bitter enmity of the village ex- ploiters, with a certain one-eyed Vorona at their head. As Krem has a younger brother, also a physical giant, effective resistance to these undesirable citizens might be still possible. But Krem's brother, seduced by drink, has been bribed by Vorona to crush Krem him- self, the deadly enemy of all who seek to ruin the villagers and devastate the village. The fratricidal strife that ensues — a war between two Titans — constitutes the main theme of this somewhat epical narrative. Its allegory is obvious. Chapygin's characters are so lifelike, so human, that even morbid introspec- tionists like Andreeff would do well to study them — especially the great woods- man, who says: "I try the despoilers of the woods in my own court; for this hath God given me strength." A somewhat similar theme has in- spired Seraflmovitch's "The City of the Steppe." Here we have a broad view of the silent and wild steppe, just being invaded by settlers. A little smoke ris- ing from afar gives the first evidence of the inroads of civilization. Looking more closely, one sees here and there a log cabin. These soon grow in clusters into a primitive village. When the saloon appears — and it precedes the church in this community — it becomes the social centre, with its owner (Zak- harka) as the "guiding spirit." This saloonkeeper, who subsequently comes to own or control most of the indus- tries of the new settlement, is per- haps the most original character in the book. To his egotism it seems that people make roads, build houses, work in field and workshop, buy and sell, are born and die, all for his sake. Even thieves exercise their cunning for his benefit, since the proceeds of theft in- variably reach his saloon. Other char- acters, too — pilgrims, laborers, traders, and counterfeiters — are faithfully delin- eated. A Like Chekoff, whom he successfully emulates, Serafimovitch delights to draw attention to "life's little ironies," those numerous commonplaces of existence which ordinarily pass unnoticed. Like Chekoff, too, he uses a Russian pure and undefiled — something very refresh- ing after the linguistic distortions and contortions of the Gorky-Andreeff school. Owing largely to his unsensa- tional manner and method of writing, however, the author of "The City of the Steppe" does not yet attract the atten- tion that his work merits. The first volume of long fiction from Poris Zaitseff, "The Remote Region," also published during the year, further accentuates the prevailing realistic ten- dency in Russian literature. This work, though perhaps not strictly a novel, has several features of unusual interest. It deals with the revolutionary years of 1904-1906 and brings out the pitiful ismallness of the characters that figured in those big days. Zaitseff's latest book is the more significant as coming from a writer known hitherto chiefly by his impressionistic sketches and short sto- ries. A somewhat similar interest at- taches to the two-volume novel by Fio- dor Sologub, entitled "Sweeter Than Poison," in which the writer, perhaps the greatest living Russian poet, makes his debut as a novelist — albeit none too successfully. Bialy's "St. Petersburg," not quite completed during the year, also has a revolutionary theme. Bialy has long figured in contemporary fic- tion, but this latest effort is generally taken to mark a promising new depar- ture. Though not a novel, but a play, Artsy- basheff's "Jealousy" should also be men- tioned, because its author belongs to the group of contemporary Russian writers whose most recent works we have been considering and because, moreover, it has scored an unprecedented popular success. Other plays were published during the year (A. N. Tolstoy's "The Aggressors," Alexander Bloch's "The Rose and the Cross," and Andreeff's "Professor Storitsin," for instance), but none of them have attracted such atten- tion or provoked so much discussion as Artsybasheff's "Jealousy," which has al- ready been staged both in Russia and abroad. In this play the author of the sensational novel, "Sanin," displays most of his former faults — his puerile pessimism, his vulgar unsentimental- ism, and his irrational rationalism. Even structurally the play is far fiom satisfactory, being very suggestive of motion-picture art. Nevertheless, Artsy- basheff's first dramatic effort has suffi- cient vigor and vitality to fall in with the new tendencies typical of contem- porary Russian literature. Naturally,, the better-known Russian writers — such as Korolenko, Kuprin, Chirikoff, Gorky, and Andreeff — have not been idle during the year, while the authors already considered have done much other work than that which has been mentioned. But in both cases the output consisted almost exclu- sively of short stories, which, meritor- ious as many of them were, cannot be enumerated here without converting this review into a periodical Index. Hence I make no mention of the recent work of Shmeleff and Bunin, two of the foremost representatives of contempo- rary Russian literature, who have not published any long fiction recently; nor of Ivan Volnoff, whose "Peasant's Chronicle" deals with a theme similar to that of Chapygln's "White Hermit age." In conclusion, it may be interesting to note what the leading writers of the older generation are doing. Gorky, who has already published the first chapters of his autobiography, has lately shown a tendency to embark upon the troubled waters of literary and philosophical crit- icism— a task for which he seems ill- fitted. His recent short stories, however, show occasional sparks of his old fire, which may yet be fanned to its former glow. AndreefFs case is not so hopeful, however. His latest work is as full of mysticism, symbolism, and pessimism as anything that has come from his morbid pen. On the other hand, Koro- lenko, the venerable dean of contempo- rary Russian writers, whose sixtieth anniversary was recently celebrated with genuine enthusiasm all over Rus- sia, continues to uphold the high stan- dards of a passing literary age of which he himself is perhaps the noblest repre- sentative. David A. Models. Books and Men THE TRIALS OF LIBRARIANS. Mr. Henry T. Coutts, who is branch librarian at Islington, has published (through Grafton & Co.) a little volume called "Library Jokes and Jottings." The English librarian, it would appear from the book, has no easier task than his American brother. Indeed, when "constabulary duty's to be done" it seems that he has an even harder time of it. Certain passages in Mr. Coutts's book make it appear that disorderly persons in what the author terms the "( S ) Newsroom" call upon him some- times to act as "chucker-out." This part of a librarian's duties is hy no means unknown in America, though there are some happy libraries where it is never needed, and where the cus- todians, in consequence, think the sub- ject too indelicate to mention. The Islington librarian tells many li- brary stories, old and new, English and American, funny and moderately funny. One of the best of the things in his book is the satirical comments of two tramps upon librarians and their ways. It is too long to quote, but it is summed up in another remark of "the man in the street." Speaking of the "llb'arian," he tolerantly says: "He's a decent sort o' chap, eddlcated and all that, but *e*s got a easy crib, mates, reg'lar wages f nd no worry." What American librarian does not know the "bibliographical treasure crank" whom Mr. Coutts describes? "He has discovered an old book in Hie pen ny box of a second-hand bookseller, and he brings It to the librarian for valua- tion. He is surrounded by an nlr of mystery as he approaches the librarian, and carefully draws forth, from a c:i-
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June 25, 1914] Tli e Nation 751 pacious pocket, a very dilapidated vol- ume. Usually the book, judged from a bibliographical or literary aspect, is worth about what he gave for it — some- times less. The librarian tries to break the truth gently, but it is a dismal fail- ure. 'Look at the date,' he will say tri- umphantly, '1785.' The librarian ex- plains that an old book is not valuable necessarily; that it needs some special bibliographical characteristic to give it a market value. 'But look,' he contin- ues, 'the s is printed like f.' At last the librarian gives it up in despair, and, if humorously inclined, refers the trea- sure-hunter to a fellow-librarian or bibli- ophile." It may be added that the situation is always troublesome for the librarian. If he is asked to set a price on the book, and gives a truthful reply, he is instantly suspected of trying to run down its value, buy it in at a song, and afterwards sell it at a fabulous profit. Sometimes the owner of the book does not desire to sell. He or she is a nice old gentleman or lady who exhibits the book as a treat. The librarian can then take his choice between the role of a brute or that of a liar. He can tell the bitter truth or he can hypocritically pretend admiration and envy. The publication of library jests raises a difference of opinion among libra- rians. Some of the jokes in Mr. Coutts's book, it is true, are on the librarians, but most of them are at the expense of the readers. Of the librarians who are inclined to deprecate such publications there are three classes. The first of these look upon their work very seri- ously— almost with an attitude of relig- ious respect. They are few in number, and are diminishing amid the laughter of their colleagues. The second class consists of those who fear that the read- ers whose oddities and blunders are recorded will take offence and boycott the library. As there has not yet been a case reported of any single reader be- ing offended in this fashion, the danger seems theoretical rather than real. In the third class are those who become rather exasperated, after a year of hard work to make the library use- ful and pleasant, to find that the only thing which impressed itself upon the newspapers is that some reader made a ridiculous blunder in asking for a book. This frame of mind is easy to under- stand. It is that of the public speaker who finds that the reporters have neg- lected all his serious remarks in order to elaborate upon one anecdote. It is that of the university professor who is naturally irritated, after years of hon- est scholarship, to find himself derided from one end of the land to the other for some chance remark — misquoted, perhaps, and distorted out of all rela- tion with the truth. For a second edition of "Library Jokes and Jottings," let this be record- ed. It may not be historically true throughout, but the main facts are cor- rect. A Swedish woman presented herself at the desk of a public library, and re- marked: "I wants to see Yon." "Yon ?" queried the attendant. "Yes, I wants to see Yon." "What do you suppose she means?" whispered the mystified librarian to an- other assistant. "She means 'John,' " said the other. 'It's the janitor — he's down in the fur- nace-room. Send one of the pages." The page was dispatched, and pres- ently up came John, coal-dusty, perspir- ing, but polite. He was presented to the woman, and offered his hand to shake. She declined it in some indignation, and matters seemed at a standstill. Finally she led one of the assistants to the catalogue. She pointed dramatically to one of the cards. On it was neatly typewritten: Marlitt, E., pseud. See John, Eugenie. Edmund Lester Pearson. News for Bibliophiles THE DATE OP DRYDEN'S APPOINT- MENT AS POET-LAUREATE. A curious inaccuracy has prevailed ever since the time of Malone, in regard to the date of Dryden's appointment as poet-laureate. Early biographers of Dryden (among them Dr. Johnson) had apparently taken it for granted that the laureateship was conferred upon Dryden immediately upon the death of Davenant, and had, there- fore, given 1668 as the date of the ap- pointment. Malone, however, makes the following statement: "All the biographers of Dryden have said that on the death of Davenant in 1668 he was appointed poet-laureate. But it appears from the Letters Patent, a copy of which will be found in the Appendix, that he did not obtain the laurel till August 18, 1670" (Dryden, Works, ed. Malone, London, 1800, Vol. I, p. 87). Accordingly, Malone prints in the Appendix an official docu- ment of the above date, appointing "the said John Dryden our Poet Laureat and Historiographer Royal." Malone adds, apropos of the conferring of the degreo of M.A. upon the poet: "Sir William Davenant died in April, 1668, about two months before Dryden received this de- gree. It would seem that he sought the literary decoration, honoris causa, to add somewhat to his pretensions, while ho was soliciting to be appointed Poet Laureat and Historiographer Royal; though he did not obtain those offices till two years afterwards" (Vol. I, p. 556). Scott took Malone's word for it, closely paraphrased Malone's statement, and re- printed the official document. Austin and Ralph ("Lives of the Poet-Laureates," London, 1853, p. 158), repeat the blun- der: "When James Howell died, the of- fice of Royal Historiographer became va- cant, and it had not been filled up. It was now conferred upon Dryden, togeth- er with the Laureateship, which had not been bestowed since the death of Dave- nant. Dryden was appointed on the 18th of August, 1670." W. Hamilton ("The Poet Laureates of England," London, 1879, p. 90) also preserves the tradition. When Saintsbury edited Scott's Dry- den, he just missed getting the facts. He annotates Scott's statement: "This is the correct date of the patent. There is, however, in the Record Office an instruc- tion for the preparation of a bill for the purpose, dated April 13." As the patent is dated 18th of August, 1670, and as Saintsbury gives the day and month but not the year of the "Instruction," the im- plication is, of course, that the "Instruc- tion" immediately preceded the patent, in the same year. Mr. Leslie Stephen, in his article on Dryden in the Dictionary of National Bi- ography (Vol. XVI, p. 66), is the next to fall heir to the story: "In 1670 [Dryden] had the more solid appointments of poet- laureate and historiographer. . . . Davenant, who died in 1668, was his predecessor in the first, and James How- ell, who died in 1666, in the last appoint- ment. The office was now joined in one patent, with a salary of 200 1. a year and a butt of canary wine. Dryden was also to have the two years' arrears since Davenant'n death." Finally, Professor Noyes condenses the language, but accepts without ques- tion the information of his predeces- sors: "In August, 1670, [Dryden] re- ceived the posts of Poet 'Laureate (va- cant since the death of Davenant in 1668) and Historiographer Royal (va- cant since the death of Howell in 1666)." ("The Poetical Works of John Dry- den," Boston, 1908, p. xxi.) It might well have aroused the won- der of Malone and his successors that a lapse of two years should occur be- tween the death of Davenant and the appointment of Dryden to the office. Dryden possessed a considerable de- gree of political influence; he was at the zenith of his poetical power, and the "Annus Mirabilis," a poem which manifested his peculiar fitness for lau- reate honors, had just come from the press. There was no rival candidate con- sideration of whose claims might have delayed the decision of the court, and yet, from the time of Malone to the present, the editors and biographers of Dryden have taken the hiatus for grant- ed and have assumed that the patent of 1670 was the first official recognition of Dryden as poet-laureate. As a matter of fact, the existence of a patent conferring an office in any given year is by no means a proof that the of- fice is then being conferred for the first time. Nahum Tate was thrice appoint- ed to the laureateship — first when Shad- wcll died, again upon the accession of Queen Anne, and again in 1714 when the power of appointment was for the first time vested in the Lord Chamber- lain. The truth is that the Government, in- stead of dallying with the matter for two years after Davenant's death, issued, on
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752 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2556 April 13, 1668, precisely six days after the death of the former laureate, a "war- rant for a grant to John Dryden of the Office of Poet Laureate, void by the death of Sir William Davenant." (Calen- dar of State Papers. Domestic. 1667- 1668. Vol. VIII, p. 341.) Nor was this warrant an official secret, for on May 19, 1668, Aubrey writes to Anthony Wood: "Sir William was Poet Laureate, and Mr. John Dryden hath his place." (Aubrey's Lives, Oxford, 1898, Vol. I, p. 209.) The later patent of August 18, 1670, was evidently issued because at that time, and not until then, the office of historiographer royal was combined with the poet-laureateship, and the pat- ent served to confer the one and to re- confer the other. The patent of 1670 fix- es the honorarium for the two offices at £200 and a butt of canary; but it was not until the following year that the honorarium was forthcoming. In the Cal- endar of Treasury Books for 1671 (Vol. Ill, part ii, p. 772), is the record of a "money warrant for 5001. to John Dry- den, M.A., His Majesty's Poet Laureate and Historiographer Royal in full of what is grown due on his pension . . . payable from the Feast of St. John Bap- tist next after the death of Sir William Davenant." Edmund Kemper Broadus. Correspondence the United States passing over the rail- way and in transit from one port to an- other of the United States." American citizens, then, are to allow their goods to be charged double in transit over the Isthmus or through the canal what is to be paid by Colombian products. In many of our treaties with foreign nations there is included what is usually called the "most favored nation" agree- ment, by which we bind ourselves in granting any concession to any other nation to grant the same favor automat- ically and by virtue of this standing- clause to the nation with which we have such an agreement. Does any one think that other countries having that "favored nation" clause in their treaties with the United States will be likely to sit back calmly and allow Colombia to avail her- self of the provisions of this convention without claiming for themselves the same advantages? We should thus have the pleasant spectacle of foreign nations car- rying their products through the canal at rates "which shall not in any case ex- ceed one-half of the ordinary freight charges levied upon similar products 01' the United States." Montgomery Schuyler, Jr. New York, June 20. THE TREATY WITH COLOMBIA. ■ To the Editor of The Nation : Sir: The absorbing interest of our af- fairs in Mexico has served to distract public attention from the treaty recent- ly negotiated with the Republic of Co- lombia by the new American Minister to that country, Mr. Thaddeus A. Thom- son. Article II of the draft treaty provides, first, that Colombia "shall be at liberty at all times to transport through the in- teroceanic canal its troops, materials of war, and ships of war, even in case of war between Colombia and another coun- try, without paying any charges to the United States." The observance of this stipulation on the part of the United States would be a clear violation of the rules of neutrality in time of war. If Colombia were at war, say, with Germany, it is evident that the fact of our allowing Co- lombian troops or warships in our pos- sessions without enforcing the customary regulations regarding length of sojourn, could quite properly be considered by Germany as an unfriendly act and a violation of neutrality. The final paragraph of the same Ar- ticle II provides that "coal, petroleum, and sea salt, being the products of Co- lombia, passing from the Atlantic coast of Colombia to any Colombian port on the Pacific coast, and vice versa, shall h<- 1 1 imported over the aforesaid [Pan- ama] railway free of any charge, except the actual cost of handling and tresis portation, which shall not in any case 'i one ball of the ordinary freight, charges levied upon similar prodt HUERTA, THE MAN. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: One of the disadvantages of a free press is that at times it provides too much news. Especially is this true about personalities; and never perhaps has hu- man being suffered more severely from this surplus of news than has Gen. Huer- ta. The existence of one man only al- lows room for a certain number of facts; set out too many and he loses all re- semblance to a man and becomes a mon- ster. This is true even when the facts are set out in a friendly spirit. When they are not, as in the case of Huerta, the monster loses even the suggestion of humanity. As a matter of fact, President Huerta is very human indeed — too hu- man, if anything — and his most human traits have been distorted to line the monstrous caricature which serves to represent him to the American public. Believing only what you read, you would picture the General as a kind of drunken savage, living only to gratify his two overmastering passions for loot and bloodshed. I used to believe a good deal of this myself, before I saw something of the man and his surroundings. After- wards I realized that if he lived in New York he would probably be conspicuous only by his success in some kind of ra- ther unscrupulous business career. Huer- ta is not an angel, and he is admittedly not a man of high moral tone. There is no doubt, for instance, about his pro- pensity for strong liquor. I saw him quite recently one evening, at the Cafd Colon, which is one "i several of which he is a regular patron. He was perfect- ly sober, and, after I had watched him 1I1 ink four small ponies of cognac, ho was QOni I he, less sober, talking and walking with perfect composure. Yet it is a fact luii at. eight o'clock that morning he had been seen at the Automobile Club- hiiu.se, near Chapultepec, dl inking cognac and that he had been drinking cognac ever since, probably, as a Mexican doctor who has close relations with the Presi- dential circle told me, thirty or forty ponies of cognac in the twenty-four hours. Certainly such prowess would be frowned upon in any respectable tem- perance circle; but it does not appear to interfere with the General's health, his brain, or his business. We are told that Gen. Huerta has, in a very short time, accumulated an even more enormous fortune than did any of his predecessors. Personally I do not be- lieve it and my disbelief is based upon the authority of a Mexican politician and anti-Huertista. He takes the view that the President has only very little actual cash. His property is mostly in the form of real estate, much of it in the City of Mexico. Hence his reluctance to resign until the legislative acts passed during his term of office be legitimated by his successor, in which case only could he hope to enjoy the fruits of office. I have heard, also, on very good authority, that of the politicians it has been found nec- essary to dispose of in the last year or two a rjumber were possessed of real es- tate which, after their execution, was confiscated. What became of it after- wards I do not know, and it is never wise to believe all you hear in Mexico. There is one point in which the General stands out very markedly from the ordi- nary run of Mexicans. He is generous not only in words but in deeds also. Every Mexican, of course, makes a point of putting all that he has entirely at your disposal. It is only his form of polite- ness, and if you seriously accepted his gifts he would probably be greatly amazed. Gen. Huerta not only makes such offers, but actually carries them out. A very eminent diplomatist told me one instance in point. He was, be- fore the present troubles, upon a certain intimacy with the General, and his small boy would frequently play with the Huer- ta children in their garden, where they have, among other things, a whole farm- yard of chickens, lambs, calves, and the like. Among the rest was a small pony to which the young foreigner took a de- cided and loudly expressed fancy. It chanced that the General was standing near and overheard him. "You shall have it," he said, and at once gave orders to one of his entourage that the pony be taken to the diplomatist's house. Natu- rally the small boy was delighted; his father less so. In such times as the pres- ent, to accept presents, however .small, from President Huerta raighl be made the basis for who shall saj whal charges of graft, bribery, and the like. Fortu- nately he was leaving tin cits within a few days, and his hope lay in the pro- verbial dilatoriness of the Mexican. Me knew that the pony would come, because the General had said so; he hoped thai 11 might come to., late, because .some other Mexican would have to see to tin SI lid ing of it. As it turned out, he was right ; tin pony arrived in due course, but not until the diplomatist and his small t)OJ \\t re already far awa\ lr.,111 I he oltj Not only do all the foreigners w ho Inn e come Into personal contact with the Qen eral, almost without exception, speak well of him; but his own servants are devoted
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June 25, 1914] The Nation 753 to him, whatever their particular posi- tions. This does not, of course, apply to his Ministers and political entourage. Anions them, indeed, he lives and reigns only because the others are afraid of him, and that he should yet be able to inspire real affection In those in more intimate relations with him is something of a tribute. Perhaps the secret of the extraordinary fight he has put up against such heavy edds is that he attends to things person- ally. You may frequently read that he is .swayed by this, that, or the other Min- ister; that his cleverest moves are dic- tated by some' subtle foreign adviser. As a matter of actual fact, his Ministers are mere appendages, more or less ornamen- tal, to his "court." Things are done, in their names, of which they know nothing •w hatever until afterwards — and they are far too wise to make any protest. One particular instance came under my personal observation a few weeks ago. In common with some other newspaper men, I happened to be arrested as a spy. I was released first, and naturally set to work to obtain, if might be, the re- lease of my friends. In the end I was enabled to enlist the sympathies of the Minister of the Gobernacion, in whose province fall naturally all matters of imprisonment. He was ready enough to help, but there was a drawback. He knew nothing of the circumstances, had not heard of the arrests, and at first re- fused to believe that they had occurred at all. The police, of whom he was the rominal head, had not thought it worth while to mention the matter to him. And when my friend was at last released it was to the President and by no means to the Minister that it was due. Gen. Huerta has the typical Indian face, suggesting a Savonarola devoid of scrupulosity; he has wise eyes that are not unkindly, and somehow always sug- gested to me the eyes of an amiable rogue elephant. I confess that, despite his lapses from the strict path of rectitude, I like and admire him. He is at least a man — a man of the unpopular Bismarck- ian type. O. M. Hueffer. New York. June 19. A MASTER OF THE ART OP LIVING. To the Editor of the Nation: Sir: In 1865 Charles Eliot Norton wrote to Ruskin, "And yet what you write never seems to me to do full jus- tice to yourself." Those who knew Nor- ton as a teacher lay aside his two vol- umes of letters with a similar feeling. Vital personalities express themselves in their work, and Norton's peculiar work was teaching. His gift and peculiar in- strument was personality. His smile, the tones of his voice, the keen light in his eye, carried his more precious messages. The best that he gave was too subtle for the written page. Moreover, no man writes adequately of his own talent. As a consequence, his collected letters, de- lightful and admirably edited as they are give us intimate pictures of Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell, Clough, Ruskin, Car- lyle, Curtis, but only a shadowy sense of the man who to successive genera- tions of eager-souled youths preached with such singular effectiveness the gos- pel of life made beautiful by conduct and art. It is probable that no written page can ever explain the extraordinary signifi- cance of Norton to his disciples or pub- lish to the world the measure and quality of his influence upon them for culture and happiness and civilization. But if posterity is to think of him as those who knew him would have it, he will be por- trayed as a man who, in an age of ma- terial things, lived uncompromisingly upon a hill, practicing the art of making life sweet and sound and elegant; a ma whose intellectual loves were the Par- thenon of the Athenians and the poetry of Dante. To this man the white harmony of those Attic marbles was more than stone cunningly piled and sculptured. The entasis of each fluted shaft, the subtle, unsuspected curve of stylobate, was to him an illumination of the deeper ways of beauty; and in those calm propor- tions and inevitable relationships he read the laws of life and conduct. For him around each repressed Doric capital was written Sophrosyne, and Ethos, that sum- mary of the attributes of heroic char- acter, glowed from the calm sculptures of the pediment. The whole, embody- ing the full expression of the sane an' happy Greek genius, constituted the visi- ble appeal of the Beautiful and the Good. And it was his spiritual endowment to be able to make those whom he taugh' see and feel what he saw and felt. But his aesthetic sympathies were not bounded by the works of the Greek. He loved all beautiful things of all times, especially the best Gothic building, the painting of the Venetians, the slim tow- er of Giotto, the drawing of the ancient masters of Japan. Yet he was no mere hedonist, in the usual meaning of that word, for, much as he loved the beautiful things of art, he loved high conduct more — high conduct, noble manners, and love. So that it was not strange that, of all the great dead, he should have been drawn most intimately to Dante. In the art and manners of his time he felt tho need of qualities eminent in Dante, his uncompromising scorn of vulgarity, mawkishness, and cheap emotion; his elegance and distinction of standards in both life and art; his high simplicity and self-repression, and, most of all, his ex- alted obedience to Right Reason and Love as twin guides of life. Led by such ideals, this man labored not to express himself in literature, but in the art of making beautiful people. A teacher of less faith would often have despaired. Too often the young men who came to him had been brought up to look upon the culture of beauty as something unmanly, honor as a stumbling-block to success, fine manners as foppery, and all noble ideals as inconvenient or impracti- cable. He was misunderstood, malign- ed, ridiculed, but he never faltered or ceased to insist upon the noblest art, the highest standards of conduct, the tenderest and wisest ideals of love. Whatever his text, day after day he re- peated his appeal for the cultivation of the best, and his protest against content- ment with anything short of the best. And so, with both gentleness and fire, he preached and lived his gospel of beauty to tho end. There is a picture of him stamped twenty-five years ago upon the writer's mind which is characteristic. It was to- wards the close of his active days. The lamplight fell upon the bent figure of a scholar in his chair. He held a book. The pleasant room was walled with books. The portrait by Veronese of a Venetian lady with a pearl necklace glowed dimly in the subdued light. The old man's voice rose and fell in even, modulated cadences. He was reading aloud: Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place : Hail to your purlieus, All ye highfliers of the feathered race, Swallows and curlews! Here's the top-peak ; the multitude below Live, for they can, there : This man decided not to Live but Know — Bury this man there? Here — here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form, Lightnings are loosened, Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm, Peace let the dew send! Lofty designs must close in like effects : Loftily lying, Leave him — still loftier than the world suspects, Living and dying. He finished, his voice clear but reso- nant with emotion. His great spirit shone in his eyes. He closed the book. How is criticism to rate such a man? Who can measure the influences that he set in motion, or compute the latent forces of his work?- We only know this: no fire-bearer can be snuffed out; "Lofty designs must close in like effects." The lives of peoples have been lifted up by the lives of individuals no more devoted and inspired by no sweeter aim. David Gray. Cambridge, Mass., June 1. THE GOTHIC BIBLE. To the Editor of The Nation : Sir: Forgive me for once more — for the last time — referring to Prof. Leo Wiener's recent article on the Gothic Bi- ble. He ridicules my remarks as unintel- ligible, inconsistent, and ignorant. Let me briefly state a few facts: (1.) According to Professor Wiener, my statements concerning Goth, siponeis "made no sense." Will it be clear enough if I say that I did not question the iden- tity of Goth, siponeis with Gr. avovScuos (though, by the way, I do not believe In it), but merely called attention to the fact that Professor Wiener, in this in- stance, strongly emphasizes the element of chronology while he entirely neglects the influence of time on the character of the language of a migrating people when he believes that the Gothic Bible, with its wonderful preservation of Germanic sounds and forms, can come from the eighth century? (2.) It is perfectly consistent to believe, as I do, that O.H.G. skribu Lat. scribo followed the inflection of bllbu, but to consider it impossible that borrowed Lat. culca should have been the basis of a Pan-Germanic skal-skulum. No philolo- gist can seriously entertain the latter theory for one moment; Professor Wie- ner does. • (3.) In the interest of the reputation of
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754= T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2556 American scholarship, Professor Wiener's remark concerning the relation of l-at. / to Goth, th is truly distressing. I really cannot admit the colossal ignorance of the Germanic sound shifting that Profes- sor Wiener declares me guilty of. It need not be known to my opponent that I have written a few articles on this very subject, but I assure him that I happen tc remember that Indo-European t is represented by Goth, th (or, under Ver- ner's law, by d) ; however, the very be- ginners in Gothic are taught that this Germanic change took place centuries, perhaps a thousand years, before the times of Ulphilas. Even the most elemen- tary knowledge of any philology what- soever must make it clear that the cog- nates Lat. verto — Goth, ivairtha are to be judged entirely differently from Goth. dulths if borrowed from Lat. dultum. Is it worth while to mention that the laws of sound shifting, if we were allowed to apply them here, would require Goth. t. .d (hardly th) for the d. .t of the par- ticipial form dultum? (4.) The thirty "Franco-Burgundian" loan-words that Professor Wiener kindly offers me "to whet my appetite," as he says, are most astonishing. The great majority are easily derived and explain- ed as purely Gothic, without reference to borrowing from any foreign source whatsoever, and quite a few of them are Pan -Germanic. I regret to have entered into this dis- cussion at all; the questions raised are of .such an elementary character that their .serious consideration is a nearly unpardonable waste of space and time; but I could scarcely allow Professor Wien- er's disparaging remarks to go unchal- lenged. E. Prokosch. Mayville, Wis., June 17. THE HONOR SYSTEM. To the Editor of The Nation: Sir: The honor system, attacked by Professor Firkins, of Minnesota, and de- Ei nded by Professor Sparrow, of Vir- ginia, is a feature in modern education that will scarcely lie affected much by criticism. It is, as Dr. Sparrow has well shown, merely an element, the most im- portant element, in the broader system 01 student self-government. Whether a given body of students is capable of self- government has to be determined and demonstrated by the students themselves. No professor, or body of professors, can do so for them. No faculty is strong enough to incorporate the honor system into a working code. If the initiative does not come from the students themselves -tern has no chance for existence. Its essential foundation is justice. It is ient, by cheating, to ob- tain for himself the reward which his nate wins by hard work. The at- thus to cheat betrays an individ- ual deficiency which the majority refuse to tolerate; and the only possible re- ls the ellm Prof< isoi 1 ■ been kind to ref< r to 1 cl on thli subject, pub- II hi L906, Thai articli r< all of coi go ei nment, nd ib in1, i quel to papei on "Student Honor and College Exami- nations," published in 1895 when I was a professor in a Northern technical school. For the man whose whole teach- ing experience has been in a Southern college where the honor system is tra- ditional, it may be hard to look at the subject from another standpoint. After fourteen years of experience in the North, amid students who had no knowledge of a specialized honor system, and after an equal number of years among Southern students, it is possible to recognize the fact that human nature is about the same in both sections; but that social traditions remain strong long after po- litical and commercial conditions have become changed. Professor Firkins's re- ply to Professor Sparrow shows how hard it is to dislodge the idea that there is some sort of bargain implied; for he re- peats his former arraignment in refer- ring to "that renouncement of supervi- sion in return for which the student un- dertakes to play the part of an honest man." As I observe the system here, no- body thinks of it as embodying a "quid pro quo." The students merely insist that there shall be fair dealing in the examination-room and class-room, wheth- er the professor is present or absent. To the question whether the honor sys- tem ought to be, or can be, introduced everywhere, a reply can hardly be framed. It ought to be introduced wher- ever possible; but nobody is able to spe- cify in advance just where it can be. Its existence implies a well-organized student body; and its maintenance is not. easy without the previous development of well-defined traditions. At the Uni- versity of Virginia, and at various other Southern institutions that could easily be named, these conditions are fulfilled. Kut in a great city, where most of the students meet only or chiefly in the per- formance of scholastic work, and where the importance of a heterogeneous mass of several thousands of young men is dwarfed amid the interests of hundreds of thousands of population, the introduc- tion of the honor system, or of any other code which must originate among the students and be recognized by the entire student body, would be a task of extraordinary magnitude. The increasing rate of growth of urban conditions in the United States tends to make the extension ol the honor system harder. But it is no longer confined to the South. it has taken root in the North In a number of colleges where density of population is not great enough to overshadow the local importance of the college. Every educational institution has to work out its own problems in its own way. We in Virginia are not warranted in prescribing for those in New York or Minnesota whose local en- vironment is different. II the recent ar- 1 all 1 1 1 1 1 . 1 1 1 Of t he honor SJ Stem I hibited some fundamental miSCl p lions, this is not strange, II d I |,ro\ e that total depravity exist;; irhei 1 \ er t tie honor bj stem has not been or sanizi 'i 11 1. onlj an i ampl< oi I est men, Noil h and Soul h, on 0PPOI Itl gld< soi t hi nield. W. LbCONTD Stkvi.ns. w b ii.ii' to I 1 ec 1 d er»ltj tfnj 28. Literature ASIATIC IMMIGRATION. The American Japanese Problem: A Study of the Racial Relations of the East and the West. By Sidney L. Gu- lick. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. $1.75. This is an eminently judicious han- dling of a perplexing question. The threat made ten years ago by disappoint- ed newspaper men, that the snubs they received at the Japanese military head- quarters would not be forgotten, has since been made good in persistent news- paper misrepresentation and antagon- ism. Particular circumstances have aid- ed malcontents in making California the centre of an anti-Japanese crusade. In the first place, the Californian oppo- sition to Japanese immigration, as Dr. Gulick points out at page 21, is not a sudden outbreak; "it is the heir of dec- ades of antipathy to Chinese." And the different national temper of the Jap- anese, who rely on their home govern- ment to present their grievances at the capital in a way that forces respectful attention, has irritated the complacent local politician, accustomed to the more subservient Chinese attitude. However mildly the Japanese may put his griev- ance, he cannot give it the least ring of truth as a genuine protest, without be- ing accused of "spoiling for a fight." Long ago the time limit set by the bel- ligerent Capt. Hobson for his antici- pated Japanese invasion expired; and the forecast remains — what it was from the beginning — a mere hallucination. Then, again, San Francisco, whence has come the driving force in the re- cent anti-Japanese legislation, is, be- yond almost any other city in the coun- try, under the domination of foreign- born and anti-religious Socialists; men who regard a government merely from the side of its industrial legislation. Their altruism ends with members of their labor unions, and they are abso- lutely regardless of the comity of na- tions. California, moreover, contains a great number of Southerners, who have been burdened in the pasl with a race ques- tion which still awaits solution; and they and their friends are determined that no similar question shall be forced on the country. In soul hern California, where the Japanese are better treated than in the northern section, the race distinction is more emphasized; and cafeteriaB and other restaurants close their door;; more rigidly to the brown men. Moreover, the Progressives, who are in possession of the State Legislature, have taken advantage Of the awkward situation In which a Democratic Pr«i I (]l ]lti ii,,. li,,, i (or nearly twentj years,
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June 25, 1914J Tli e Nation ?5o finds himself, of calling upon a State iture to limit the exercise of its live activities and consider the embarrassments of the Federal Govern- ment. This trilling with the larger in- of the nation to meet party ex- igencies may do the party no good in the end, but meanwhile it seems to serve immediate ends in hampering a Demo- cratic Administration. Our author is wisely silent on some of these aspects of the situation, and sets himself to answer the arguments of those who favored the recent anti-Jap- anese land legislation and are clamor- ing for still more legislation of the same nature. These arguments may be class- ed under four or five heads: intense dis- gust at race mixture and the possible growth of a new color problem; a con- tempt for the shabby un-American way in which Japanese laborers live; the absence of reciprocal privileges of citi- zenship in Japan; dread of their lower- ing the rate of wages, and dread of their lowering the dignity of labor by making farm and orchard work consid- ered "only good enough for Japs." He is careful to point out how the press, in handling the matter, has persistently suppressed the truth and suggested the false. When Mr. Hattori, of the Jap- anese House of Representatives, who re- cently died in San Francisco when on a mission of reconciliation, was advising his countrymen in Hawaii how best to meet the situation, he "made four most impressive and striking points: first, every Japanese in Hawaii should be true to his fatherland and unswerving in his devotion to his Emperor; second, every Japanese settled here in perma- nency should become an American citi- zen, if possible; third, such a change of allegiance is not evidence of loss of patriotism and will entail no injury to one's national individuality, . . . for the deeper the patriotic devotion the better fitted the man will be for citizen- ship in another country; fourth, if af- ter change of allegiance from Japan to America war between the two nations should come, the truer the Japanese, the more valorously will he fight for Amer- ica." But the American press, in their report of the address, gave only the first of the four points, "thus conveying ex- actly the opposite impression of the im- port of his remarks." Dr. Gulick quotes from an editorial which appeared in the San Francisco Examiner of last Octo- ber, showing how insolently our press thinks fit to treat a courteous discus- sion of an international problem by a writer who is unfortunate enough to be an Oriental. Five years ago the State of California made an appropriation of $10,000 for a thorough investigation into the whole problem of Japanese immigration, and the report of the Labor Commissioner, J. D. Mackenzie, appeared in May, 1910; but no appropriation, unfortunately, was made for its publication. Was it pur- posely suppressed, asks Dr. Gulick, be- cause it proved so unexpectedly favor- able to the Japanese? Quoting from the "Summary for the Press," he finds that, while it deplores "the readiness ">t the Japanese to work Tong hours and in unhygienic conditions," yet "Jap- anese farm-hands were earning, in 1909, better wages than white men engaged in the same work, and, strange to say, Japanese employed by Japanese received higher wages than those employed by white men." In the future change that is before the country, from extensive to intensive farming, the Japanese may be of the greatest service. "They have made possible developments in berry, lettuce, celery, and kindred crops, which white labor alone would never have al- lowed. In point of fact, as a whole they are developing uncultivated lands and carrying on forms of agriculture which would remain largely undeveloped if left to whites." The author devotes several chapters to what he terms the "storm-centre" of his problem, Japanese assimilability. This is a question to which he has paid particular attention, having published many years ago the book by which he is best known, his "Japanese Evolution, Psychic and Social." He recognizes three factors in race assimilation: "bio- logical assimilation through intermar- riage; biological assimilation without in- termarriage; and social assimilation." Far too great importance, he declares, has hitherto been ascribed to the first of these factors. Modern scientific in- quiry has completely established the fact that the "obstacles to the social assimila- tion of races are not inherent in their biological differences." The assimila- tion that interests sociological inquirers to-day is psychological rather than physiological. Already the Japanese res- idents in California are taking on Amer- ican characteristics in bodily appear- ance as well as in mental habit. The very task of acquiring the English lan- guage tends towards assimilation, for the utterance and articulation of sounds in Japanese require a different use of tongue and throat. Dr. Gulick contends that "such psychic differences as distin- guish the East from the West are prod- ucts of social life, belong to the social order, and are therefore subject to rap- id change." He is with President Eliot in holding that the immigration ques- tion need not be complicated with any race problem in this case, as the Jap- anese race keeps itself pure. The very fact of their gregariousness, their clannishness, is made a matter of reproach. Hitherto very little has been done to train the immigrant laborers In American ways of living, and the cot- tages and huts in which they are hud- dled are too often kept in a slovenly manner. But, as a matter of fact, de- clares Dr. Gulick, so far from "living like pigs," as Californians sometimes assert, "Japanese as a whole are the most cleanly foreigners that come to America. If they are able to acquire a little property, especially if they have their own homes and wives and chil- dren, this characteristic, along with their innate artistic sense, becomes con- spicuous." He quotes from Bishop Brent, who crossed the Atlantic in the steer- age of a boat sailing from Naples. "I never quite gauged the menace from Southern Europeans," declares the Bish- op, "until I came over with the indigesti- ble mass on the Caronia. One has pity for them, but that ought not to blind us to the danger they bring to this coun- try. In virility and decency the Jap- anese are infinitely beyond them." If we qualify Dr. Gulick's statements with the Bishop's remarks, they may be more readily received. The call at present is surely for a national handling of the whole immigration question. The condition of semi-peonage that has marked the Japanese in Hawaii, and lowered the social status of the Jap- anese laborer on the Pacific, is a tem- porary phase that is rapidly passing away. Unmarried Japanese laborers have hitherto regarded themselves as mere birds of passage who are here only on sufferance and must not make permanent homes. Many, however, be- gin to prefer American life and ways and send for "picture-brides"; and the rising generation will find a barrier to their return in the impossibility of ac- quiring the very difficult language of their own people. They will be severed from the social and historical influence of their country more completely than other American educated aliens. The assimilation into our social life of a cer- tain number of Japanese, so admirably fitted for particular industries and arts, would be a positive gain. Such are Dr. Gulick's contentions. The practical proposals, nine in num- ber, that he brings forward for the solu- tion of the whole question are of a very moderate nature. Among them the most important are: that American citi- zenship should be granted to every qual- ified individual regardless of race; that immigration should be allowed on a per- centage rate of those from the same land who are already naturalized, including their American-born children; that the granting of naturalization should be vested in a bureau of naturalization: and that there should be direct Federal responsibility for all legal and legisla- tive matters in which aliens as such are involved. A like proposal, dealing, however, only with Kuropean immigrants, and leaving Asiatic exclusion laws exactly where they stand, was introduced in the siimmcr of 1913 by Senator Dillingham.
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756 T li e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2556 On a basis of 10 per cent, of the people of any nationality already in the United States, it would place a check upon Russian and Italian immigration, but leave a wide margin for German, Brit- ish, and Scandinavian immigrant. Moreover, it provides for a minimum of five thousand from any land, however few may be their representatives here. Dr. Gulick's basis of 5 per cent, wout allow only 220 Japanese and 738 Chi- nese to enter in any one year, exclusi* of such as by social position and educa- tion are not to be classed as ordinary immigrants. Surely, a limitation of thk nature is drastic enough for any one, however obsessed by the fear of an Asi atic invasion. The anti-Japanese forces on the Pa- cific Coast are so well organized that there is danger lest, through indiffer- ence, those who, both for national and international reasons, regret the intol- erant Asiatic exclusion laws, may see themselves out-voted and thwarted. So thorough and sane a treatise as Dr. Gulick's is of special value at the pres- ent time in helping to formulate a pol- icy of a worthier kind, which may fur- nish a basis for organized activity in checkmating intolerance. CURRENT FICTION. At the Casa Napoleon. By Thomas A. Janvier. New York: Harper & Bros. The casual reader of these tales may be struck with a certain quaintness of flavor which nothing in the preface by Mr. Ripley Hitchcock would account for. Mr. Janvier died only a year ago. These stories, as the copyright dates show, must have been published in the early nineties, presumably in Harper's Mag- azine. How the world moves in a quar- ter of a century! Not only are the stories of a gas-lighted, motorless, easy- going New York, they were written by gaslight, in the genial, leisurely, slight- ly facetious style of that day. The "punch" in fiction had not yet been dis- covered— or, rather, had not been gen- erally recognized, for Kipling was in- troducing it at the moment. In short, the charm of the stories is already a trifle antiquated. Casa Napoleon, says the preface, represents a real hostelry off Fifth Avenue, frequented for some time by Mr. Janvier. Its host is a po- litical exile from Mexico, its hostess a Frenchwoman of Toulouse: hence the bilingual name. As a hotel it is patron- ized by travellers of several Latin races, and its cookery attracts a group of New York Bohemians. A representative handful of its patrons supply material for these stories, or sketches, as the ex- acting magazine editor of to-day might call them. Whatever their category, they are delightful. Col. Withersby, promoter, and Monsieur Duvent, gam- bler, are as memorable types as Bret Harte's Starbottle and Oakhurst. Mrs. Mortimer is a less sentimentalized type of the frail sisterhood of Poker Flat. The defeat of all three of them on their own ground by the astonishing Marques de Valdeflores is an amusing if not quite credible bit of comedy. It is a book to be particularly enjoyed by middle-aged readers who have tender memories of a phase of the American short story which, in default of "punch," relied openly on its recipe of whimsical hu- mor and graceful sentiment. You Never Know Your Luck. By Gilbert Parker. New York: George H. Doran. This is far from being of the best that the author of "Pierre and His Peo- ple" has given us. The story is based largely upon the workings of chance. Shiel Crozier, the son of an Irish bar- onet, at an early age became fascinated by the betting-book at Brook's, and de- cided to devote his life to the worship of the god Luck. His devotion leads to the loss of fortune. Crozier is estranged from his wife, and goes out to start life anew in a prairie town in the Rockies. There chance leads him to the care of a maiden who appears to him as a symphony in gold. Chance also forces him to reveal his past on the witness-stand at a murder trial. He is shot as a result of the evidence given, and then the Golden Maiden, finding that her love for him is un- reciprocated, decides to assist chance. She steams open a letter to Shiel from his wife, discovers her address, and con- trives to reconcile an unsuspecting hus- band to his wife. Crozier decides that luck lies in the resumption of his past life. The book has movement and a sprightly wit that atones for a good deal. A Free Hand. By Helen C. Roberts. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. This is a solid piece of work that ought to win a wide audience. It is concerned with the inner life-history of a single individual. Ridley Courage, the son of a narrow-minded, garrulous shopkeeper, does not relish the prospect of settling down to the same occupation. He longs for Canada, where advertise- ments say a man can have a "free hand." But as he is about to announce his departure, he learns that it has been decided for him that he is to enter a profession. So he prepares to be a dentist, and succeeds after much trib- ulation. But he has no love for his work. Ho still inactively longs for a free hand. As a man he seems a fail- ure, except that his native indolence and resignation are punctuated by flashes of ready decision. In one such mood he wins his wife, an unsuccessful young actress, whom he has always loved. The "free hand" he gives her, however, in- duces her to return to the Btagt tome years later, and leave him with an in- fant daughter. Accordingly, at forty- five Ridley Courage is not a worldly success and has still missed his "free hand." He has, however, become recon- ciled to the fact, and has realized that the fault is not of destiny or of life, but "of his own imperfect nature, with its hesitancies and limitations, its sud- den weaknesses and fears." But resigna- tion has given him something in place of success. It has taught him sympa- thy for men and women, with the gift of deep and tender affection. It has given him a love for beauty, color, and vital- ity. So, after casting up accounts, Rid- ley begins a satisfied life with a little woman who adores him. A Lady and Her Husband. By Amber Reeves. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. The lady is a middle-aged English woman of the old-fashioned sort, who is awakened in time to save her soul from humdrum happiness by way of be- coming, very mildly, a modern female. The hushand is the British paterfamilias of fiction, bumptious and patronizing, clinging to the ancient notion of women as born to serve, to be pretty, and to purr. But it is the twentieth century, and they have a daughter who is very up-to-date indeed. At eighteen years, though, still nominally under the shel- ter of the paternal roof, she has learned to take care of herself and to think. However, Rosemary is not offensive, nor does she have to be lifted out of any sort of scrape. In fact, at the moment of our introduction to her she has just engaged herself to be married too young, in a perfectly human and normal way. Still, she has learned to think. She engages to be a partner, not an inferior, and belongs to the Fabian Society. She is inoculated (or infected?) with the Socialism and feminism of the day. It is partly through her, partly from mere contact with the new atmosphere, that the meek "little mother" of the family is aroused to consciousness of certain responsibilities. That she owns half the business her husband has made so successful gives her purchase for ac- tion which she long defers. The issue is the wage and treatment of the firm's shop-girls. In the end we leave little mother on the way to reform or at least mitigation of the evils she sees; pater- familias, after vain attempts to over- bear her in the established way, des- tined to be defeated in the long run by the mild obstinacy of a woman sure of her duty. At all events, the passive comfort of her old days is gone. "Now .■lie, too, was to share man's task and his inheritance. She had hit her Or- dered house for the clamour and prom- ise of life. . . ." The wife's discov- ery that her husband has once In <\i technically "unfaithful" to her, and Hie
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June 25, 1914] Tli e Nation 757 effect of that discovery on her attitude, rather cheapens a situation which is otherwise handled with discretion and a good deal of force. Croat Trails. By Herman Whitaker. New York: Harper & Bros. Once more we find the frozen wilds of Canada set as a background for the primitive passions and loyalties. Mr. Whitaker describes a man's struggle to regain the love of his wife from whom scandal has separated him at the altar. Their trails cross in Canada, where the husband finds his wife lost in a snow- drift. He brings her to the lumber camp. Their relations are unknown to all others. She repels his kindness, but he cannot permit her to leave the camp in mid-winter. Thereupon she decides to escape by eloping with a rather dis- solute Englishman. Too soon his wo- manish helplessness disgusts her, and she longs for her husband's strength. By a ruse, she leaves the Englishman and returns to the camp to meet her pursuing husband. The woods have cleansed and chastened the hearts of both. The story is vigorously told and abounds in effective bits of description. AN ECONOMIC HERESY. The Cause of Business Depressions. By Hugo Bilgram, in collaboration with Louis Edward Levy. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co. $2 net. In their search for "The Cause of Business Depressions" the authors have made an examination of the whole field of economic theory; they have found the accepted doctrines untenable and have constructed a theory in their place which is reminiscent of mercantilism and land banks. In their opinion, "soci- ologists in the halls of learning are teaching, and legislators in Congresses and Parliaments are formulating into law, the misconceptions of economic principles and the misinterpretations of economic history which have come down to us from the past" (p. 457). Mr. Bilgram's "strictly deductive line of in- vestigation," as he rightly calls it, of economic theory, leads him to the con- clusion that "the underlying cause of the economic disorder is the legalized restriction of the right to use credit as a medium of exchange, a conclusion which, though confirmed by all the symptoms of the social disease, is not in agreement with the accepted tenets of the modern school of economics" (p. 456). Not only does he find that "the recurring economic paroxysms, known as financial crises, which are followed by periods of industrial depression, are the inevitable outcome of the arbitrary limitation of the volume of the curren- cy," but in addition he finds "that this same cause gives rise to the most griev- ous of the many forms of social and eco- nomic injustice that are so loudly cry- ing for redress throughout the modern world" (p. 511). According to Mr. Bil- gram, then, currency reform is the pana- cea that will cure the business world of its periodical paroxysms, do away with the necessity of paying interest, bring about an equitable distribution of wealth, and accomplish economic jus- tice. He is as sanguine concerning the efficacy of his remedy as are the single- taxers or the Socialists of theirs. The argument runs thus: The quan- tity theory of money is inconsistent with facts and untenable. "Money does not owe its value to the demand for a medium of exchange, nor to any law au- thorizing the issue of such medium, but exclusively to the value of that of which money consists, be it the standard com- modity, gold, or credit expressed in terms of that commodity" (p. 155). "The time-honored notion that money is paid to the lender of money for the use of 'capital' is groundless" (p. 280). "In- vestigation discloses the fact that what the borrower is after is money, and that the interest which he pays to the lender of money is paid 'for the use of money and not for the use of capital" (p. 277). "It follows that if the total demand for money is not supplied, com- petition will tend to put a premium on its use. Interest is accordingly paid on money because of its inadequacy to meet the demand of those who need it for the exchange of their products or services, and, as we shall see later, this competition raises the rate of interest as high as the market will bear; in deed, so high as to exert a destructive effect upon the market" (p. 317). In a business depression "the general over- supply of things and services offered for exchange can be accounted for only by an equal under-supply of the medium of exchange. . . . The arbitrary control of the volume of currency, ac- cordingly, is not only the cause of the predatory power of wealth, but also the cause of industrial stagnation" (p. 363). The remedy, therefore, is for the Gov- ernment freely to advance notes to banks on the security of their assets, including loans on real estate security and national, State, and municipal bonds; such notes to be redeemable in gold by the Government, but not by the banks; "the gold for this latter fund could be obtained by requiring every bank applying for currency to furnish not only the prescribed amount of se- curities, but also gold to the amount of such percentage of the currency issued as experience indicated as sufficient" (p. 409). Delay of a month or more in re- deeming the notes in specie would not be serious (p. 410). "While the Fed- eral reserve currency Is a step in the right direction, . . . the process of issuing the currency [is] so costly that the intention of the law, that of render- ing the business world independent of financial disturbances, can at best be but partially realized" (p. 518). To make a thorough criticism of "The Cause of Business Depressions" would be to cover the entire field of econom- ics, an uncalled-for proceeding. It is uncalled for because Mr. Bilgram does not adequately support his economic heresies with statistical and other data, and because he completely ignores the contributions of modern economists. For example, in discussing his proposition that pure interest "is clearly traceable to a monopoly upheld by law" (p. 350), he does not refer in any way to the diverse currency systems of Canada, England, Germany, and France and their influence on the interest rates in those countries; in discussing money theory he does not mention Irving Fish- er, Laughlin, or a host of others who have recently treated that subject. The main contention of Mr. Bilgram, that the phenomenon of interest is brought about by legal limitation of the medium of exchange, is a fallacy. Economists of all schools will agree as to that. Mr. Bilgram has clouded rath- er than clarified the questions that he discusses. Consequently it were better to leave the book unread. THE APPEAL OF THE BALLAD. Folk-Ballads of Southern Europe. Trans- lated into English Verse by Sophie Jewett. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. $1.50 net. For "successive classes of Wellesley College students, studying English and Scottish popular ballads," Miss Jewett translated sundry cognate ballads in French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Rumanian dialects. Mainly follow- ing Professor Child on the comparative trails, she made her own selection, and in all cases undertook the formidable task of translation. It is said that ex- perts in the various dialects, to whom her translations were submitted, found "hardly a word to change." In the sum- mer of 1909, shortly before her death, Miss Jewett revised these translations, and left them, along with notes and n emoranda of an introduction, to be prepared for the press by her friend and colleague, Prof. Katharine Lee Bates. The editor has done her work with due knowledge, discretion, and sympa- thy. The original texts, which are print- ed opposite to the translation, have been verified at the source; the introduction keeps within the limits of the transla- tor's memoranda; and the notes, for which little material had been prepared, are adequate. For the main part of the book, fifty-five "ballads of Southern Eu- rope" are printed and translated, and seem fairly representative in quality and range. The popular note varies from absolute in "Scibilia Nobili" to vanish-
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758 T li e N" a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2556 Ing in "La Belle au Jardin d'Amour." The selection of these ballads depended, of course, upon the analogous British pieces; but choice of the particular ver- sion may hero and there be questioned, as in the case of the "Marquise," where tradition is supposed to tell the story of a poisoned royal mistress — whether Madame de Vintimille, as Bujeaud says, or, as the Italian "Gabriella" would suggest, the favorite of Henri IV, or else, in Blade's opinion, Madame de Montespan. Miss Jewett has selected the version of Blade, which inclines to be stolid and garrulous, instead of that of Bujeaud, which is simple and ef- fective, approaching the tout faire river, in Sainte-Beuve's famous definition ol poetry, rather than the tout dire. But should this choice be questioned? Is not all balladry tout dire triumphant? A recent writer, who may or may not have taken his cue from Matthew Arnold and the discussion of Homer, lays down the law that true balladry is garrulous, if not stolid, and that any poetic appeal, of suggestion or of reticence, at once bewrays the artist. Blade's version does not conclude on the climax: La reine lui donne un bouquet Fait de fleurs tant jolies; Mais en flairant ce beau bouquet Elle a perdu la vie . . . Two stanzas follow, with "particulars of the funeral"; and even that "Je n'ai ni roi ni femme" of the marquis fails to restore the simplicity and suggestion of the right close. Bujeaud's version ends: La reine a fait faire un bouquet [bis] De belles fleurs de lyse, Et la senteur de ce bouquet A fait mourir marquise . . . Peasants, says one recent writer, would naturally give and take those garrulous details, and would be incapable of the reticence and suggestion of "poetic" ver- sions, such as Bujeaud's, which, for this same poetic taint, should be blotted from the list of traditional ballads. Yet many of the best British ballads have this haunting and suggestive note of conclu- sion, this right dying fall — "Sir Patrick Spens" and "The Wife of "Usher's Well," for example; others, because of the dra- matic element, are even more effective in their close — "Babylon," "Edward," "Child Maurice"; and one Shetland bal- lad, "The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry," is as sudden and stunning at the end as the Ich voollV, cr schosse mich todi of Heine's little masterpiece. Apart from this last, peculiar case, suggestive conclusion and effective reticence are by no means alien to the ballad; and the argument from old wives' tales is not convincing. Tradition as well as crit- icism can select what is effective. The clear implication of Professor Child's various comments on individual ballads is that the reticent and effective ver- sions come unspoiled from the hands of tradition; and with this theory Miss Jewett would undoubtedly agree. Her general habit of selection — the "Mar- quise" version of Blade can be defended for other reasons than its garrulity — and, still more, her translations, prove this assent. It is conceded that imitation of the popular ballad is a rare and difficult feat; and translation itself is far from easy. The older ballads often make ap- peal by failing to say what is expected, and by saying over and over what would seem to have been said enough. Now this repetition, the ground-plan of the old ballad, is a very different matter from garrulity — a point missed by Ar- nold— and must not be cut down in translation. On the other hand, a trans- lator must not beautify or poetize, and, above all, must not pad. It can be said that Miss Jewett seldom errs in these respects. Fait de fleurs tant jolies should not be rendered "sweet with the roses' breath"; and not even the ex- igency of rhyme excuses "Come and wish me happy chance" for i v'invito a le mie nosse, or "one little love-kiss like the old" for oazin d'amour. "Lov- ers' fears" will not do for amitie's. Pad- ding outright, as "too tired to weep," p. 125, is very rare. More serious is the failure to keep repetition. In the whirl- wind of passion which fills the opening dialogue of "Donna Lombarda" the translator must beget no temperance by bating a jot of that duplication of miiri, as it is called, echoed, and re- echoed, in successive lines. Herder passes as the master in this art of translating popular verse. He not only gave Europe knowledge of its bal- lads, but chanted them, like another Autolycus, and chanted them supremely well. He appealed to the critic and the reader. It is to be regretted that anoth- er great lover and student of the ballads did not make his translations with this same wide appeal. And yet the model for English translation of popular verse is to be found in Professor Child's in- troductions. By way of illustration, he translated, in the first and seeond of his five volumes, about one hundred and fifty scattered stanzas or couplets from foreign ballads. Only twice did he trans- late a whole ballad. Once (I, 219) he gives "a close translation" of the Dan- ish "Barnemordersken" instead of the usual prose abstract with a striking stanza or so in verse. Again (I, 303), to show what "beauty" the Eng- lish "Hind Etin" has lost in transmission, he translates a dozen lines from a Nor- wegian version, keeping the lilt of the rhythm, the assonance ("drank: for- gat"), and using dialect to render cer- tain phrases "the ae rut drink." In Hie later volumes, probably on account of iii< pressure on 1 in- editor's time and strength, the prose abstracts are shorl er, and seise Is hardly used at all. Hut there is plenty Of material (or the trans lator or critic of ballads to study in these fragmentary verses of the early introductions. So far as transfer of the ballad as ballad from one tongue to an- other is concerned, no better translation has been done. It would be easy to isolate some of Miss Jewett's translations and make them seem inadequate or infelicitous. But if they are read along with the originals, read as a whole — and that was her intention — the rendering is seen to be faithful, in the main, not only to the sense but to the poetry of the more or less difficult texts. In most cases she seems to apply the method so success- fully used by Professor Child. Miss Jewett understood the popular ballad, and understood it the better because she loved it. Through her work runs that enthusiasm which Goethe once declared to be so much more effective in the teacher than mere knowledge and pow- er to drill. THE PURITANS OF INDIA. Psalms of the Early Buddhists. Second Part: Psalms of the Brethren. By Mrs. Rhys Davids. Oxford University Press. 10 shillings net. In this companion volume to her ear- lier "Psalms of the Sisters," published five years ago, Mrs. Rhys Davids has translated into English verse the 1,279 "stanzas of the Elders" (Theragathas) ascribed to the venerable Brethren of the Buddhist Church. Both collections belong to the Khuddaka Nikaya, a di- vision of the Sutta Pitaka, which con- tains also the well-known Dhammapada and Jiitakas. They have already been translated into German by Neumann, who regarded them as the work of one poet. Mrs. Rhys Davids, on the other hand, believes that tradition is right in ascrib- ing these hymns or psalms to many writers, and holds that it is a veritable collection of ancient verses emanating from authors of distinct personality, whose historical character cannot in the main be questioned. As between the psalms of the nuns and those of the monks she notes the prevalence of the personal note in the former, together with more frequent reference to out- ward happenings, while in the latter descriptions of nature prevail, and there is more frequenl reference to the Inner life. On these points it is probable thai any one who has read carefully both collections Will be inclined to agree with her; but not in the belief, also held by Mrs. Rhys Davids, that much credence can \»- riven to the traditional authorship of the different stanzas \\ illi line deference to the learned translator, ..li we really know Is thai there were dlffereni authors. Who they were, must remain as doubtful as Hie true names of the writer! of the countless ethical
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June 25, 1914I The Nation 759 stanzas in the epic poems or of the seers of the Vedic hymns. But it is a rich treasure of old relig- ious thought and feeling which stands thus revealed in English dress, varie- ties of religious experience which might add a new chapter to James's work, if only to point out parallels with similar experiences in the Occident. There is a certain sameness about all of these psalms, but it is the sameness of the one religious ideal here made manifest, the destruction of lust and of all forms of desire, serenity, kindness to all, ab- sence of desire to injure, absence of de- sire to love, rejection of family ties, an assured expectation of the fulfilment of that "extinction" on earth which shall lead to Nirvana. But within this relig- ious and ethical frame which encircles all Buddhistic utterances, whether found in the Gathiis or the Dhammapada or elsewhere, the psalms here recorded give many glimpses of the individual strug- gle, of the variety of experience which is reflected from personal environment. One monk sings how he came to be con- verted through watching the kites ever swooping down after meat. Another tells of his life as a prince, and how he became at last influenced "to lead the forest-life the Buddha praised." One even leaves us nothing save his emotion, essentially pagan, versified in the lines: Whene'er I see the crane, her clear bright wings Outstretched in fear to flee the black stormcloud, A shelter seeking-, to safe shelter borne, Then doth my river Ajakarani Give joy to me. Yet there is another aspect of the picture. Too many of these saints revel in describing how they have deserted their wives and children, "bonds to be broken," in order to devote themselves to inward peace. We read as part of a psalm a Brother's disgusting description of his former (now deserted) wife, who, "afflicted, lean, in sad array, and in tears," greeted him and received only contempt, and we begin to understand that there was a very ugly side to the self-complacent saint. And as we read this long collection of psalms and real- ize that it is but one more vehicle of the same monotonous religious expression found in all Buddhist works, we cannot help wondering that any community could exist for centuries on so slender an intellectual pabulum as seems to have contented the Buddhists. In a land of art and literature to have produced nothing save religious ejaculation and ethical monitions is rather a sorry show- ing. The Buddhists were, in fact, the Puritans of India. They knew no art save as it subserved religious needs. The drama was openly scorned; all amuse- ment was taboo; shows and fairs were abhorrent. To them, epic and lyric poetry existed only as memoirs of Buddha and expressions of religious rhapsody. Plastic art served only to re- call legends of the master and to instil moral teaching. These psalms do much to interpret the real feeling of Buddhism. They re- veal its strength and its weakness. Even with the best will in the world one can- not find in the stanzas of the Thera- gathas a recognition of anything more precious than one's own selfish peace of mind. The "love" taught here is a cool friendliness. The Brethren learned, indeed, from the Master that to "exhort, instruct, and lead others in the right way" was their duty, but their true aim was that of the ascetic philosopher, to retire into a soli- tary place and, disregarding all social obligations, to save themselves from "the bog of life." Significant are the words of Talaputa: "I have vomited forth all desires, loves, hates, and things of beauty. For no one else have I done this; it is only for myself I act- ed thus." Buddha himself abhorred ascetism, but this is the Buddhist's atti- tude in this "psalm" of Kassapa: "In the whole field of Buddha's disciples, saving the mighty Master's self, I stand the foremost in ascetic ways. No man practices ascetic ways so far as I." JSTotes The Index of the Nation, January 1 to June 30, will be printed with the issue of July 2. The Bobbs-Merrill Company announces that it has in preparation a series of vol- umes on Childhood and Youth, under the general editorship of M. V. O'Shea. Included in Small, Maynard & Co.'s autumn list will be the following vol- umes: Fiction. — "A Lady of Leisure," by Ethel Sidgwick; "Happy Hawkins in the Panhandle," by Robert Alexander Wason ; "Of One Blood," by Charles M. Sheldon; "The Golden Blight," by George Allan England. Miscellaneous. — "My Son," by William Carleton ; "My Adventures in the Arctic," by Robert A. Bartlett; "Four Plays for Children," by Ethel Sidgwick; "A Practical Guide for Authors," by Wil- liam Stone Booth; "The Wallace Collec- tion," uniform with "The National Gal- lery" and "The Louvre"; "Consumption," by John B. Hawes 2d; "Vigee le Brun," by W. H. Helm; "My Memories," by Jules Massenet, translated by H. Villiers Bar- nett; "Highlands of the French Riviera," by Constance Smith. WE are informed that a full account of the recent discovery in Egypt by Professor Petrie of the diadem and jewels of Senusert II will be given in the July issue of Ancient Egypt. This quar- terly, which was started at the begin- ning of the year, is published by the Egyptian Research Account under the editorship of Prof. W. M. F. Petrie and others. It is excellently illustrated, partly in colors, and its object is to serve as a record of the excavations conducted by the Research Account and to enable those of the public who are interested in Egypt- ology to keep abreast of the results of modern excavation. The price of the. magazine is $2 a year. The American representative is the Rev. W. C. Winslow, D.D., 525 Beacon Street, Boston, to whom subscriptions may be sent and inquiries addressed. It may be added that all con- nected with the Research Account, both in England and in the United States, give their services without remuneration. It is hoped that a sufficient number of subscribers to the magazine may be ob- tained to remove the necessity of draw- ing for its maintenance on funds needed for the work of excavation. AN innocent compilation is "Modern Short-Stories" (Macmillan; $1.25. net), edited by Margaret Ashmun, of necessity "with an introduction and with biographies and bibliographies." Fortunately, the introduction gives. the accepted doctrine of this thrice- familiar genre in tabloid form, and the biographies are strictly of the thumb-nail variety. The twenty-one sto- ries, selected on now this and now that basis, include such "up-to-date" exem- plars as O. Henry, William Allen White, Jack London, and Selma Lagerlof. Why, after ranging among Russians, French, Germans, and Scandinavians, the editor fails to include Alarcdn, Roberto, Verga, or any other Spanish or Italian master of this now universal and never-enough-to- be-written-about type, one should not in- quire too closely. The earnest reader will at any rate find clear type, fair paper, and a guide who will not fall with him into the ditch. ""[""HE latest translation of Rudolf Euck- 1 en's works, by Lucy Judge Gibson (Macmillan; $1.25), is entitled "Can We Still Be Christians?" Fifty years ago, in Colenso's time, the issue raised in this question was the Biblical account of the creation; later it had narrowed to the divinity of Christ; and more recently to the acceptance of Christian ethics as final raid unique. Eucken declines to qualify by any of these tests, and by him the issue has been rarefied into a question of believing in the reality of a spiritual world transcending naturalistic forces. For him, as for Royce, the essence of Christianity is a belief in a power greater than ourselves, in the form of a spiritual community, apart from which we cannot rise above the forces of nature. In this belief, expressed in the doctrines of re- demption and grace, Christianity stands alone among the religions of the world; and in this sense Eucken looks for the redemption of the world from its present lost state of vulgar naturalism by a "new Christianity," which is to supplant all ex- isting ecclesiastical organizations. Grant- ing, however, that we still can lie Chris- tians, it remains to ask why we should still want to be. Even Kucken's pessi- mism, profoundly comfortable and grace- ful, relents so far as to discover in natu- ralism itself some evidence of a spiritual motive. It then turns out that all of us are to some degree Christians who are aught but rank materialists. In that case, the "new Christianity" has apparently nothing to offer beyond tbe stimulus of a
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76Q T li e N" a t i o 1 1 [Vol. 98, No. 2556 "movement," and it is something of a question whether the day has not passed when spiritual influences need to be har- nessed to a movement. THE title of Mr. Addington Bruce's "Adventures in the Psychical" (Lit- tle, Brown; $1.35 net) is well chosen, as the book consists mainly in the repetition of such picturesque tales as one rinds in plenty in the annals of the Society for Psychical Research, borrowed from any handy source. These tales he employs quite uncritically to substantiate his be- lief in the existence of telepathic com- munication from one individual to an- other. He, however, throws no new light on "the mechanism" by which this hj pothetical transmission is accomplish- ed. A TIM ELY bibliography on our first war with Mexico has been compiled by Henry E. Haferkorn, librarian of the United States Engineer School (Washing- ton Barracks, D. C). This is not only a select bibliography on "The War with Mexico, 1846-1848," but also a carefully chosen list of books and other printed material on the resources, economic con- ditions, politics, and government of the republic of Mexico and the characteris- tics of the Mexican people. Mr. Hafer- l.orn had the Library of Congress to draw upon, as well as the extensive col- lections of his own library, and those of the War Department and the Army War College. He has sifted the material with great care, annotated the entries, and prepared a full index. The publication will be serviceable to librarians and to students in general. WHAT may happen to a bit of rhetor- ic in translation, first into a for- eign tongue and then back into its own, is shown by the rendering of Bryan's famous metaphor that appears in the new edition of Hugo Miinsterberg's "The Americans" (Doubleday, Page; $1 net), where it takes this form: "You must not tiail humanity to a cross of gold." It teems strange that a translator should have made a slip like this, when, if his memory did not serve him, that of almost any one else would; it is doubly strange that the slip should be preserved in a new edition of the translation. Profes- sor Miinsterberg published "The Ameri- cans" in German a decade ago, not long after the publication in English of his "American Traits." The latter, by show- ing us our faults, was to bring about an improvement in us, and better apprecia- tion of Germany and of the similarity of our civilization to that of the land of William II. "The Americans," on the other hand, was to reveal to the Germans our good points. Thus, the two books were to bring about an informal entente cordiale between the two nations. But their author was so indiscreet as to an- nounce this rather naive plan, and, in the end, he had to satisfy our curiosity B to what be had told Ids own people about us by permitting a translation of the later book. Tin: present edition, since it is merely a reprint, not only keeps such slips as the one noted, bul speaks always from the standpoint of 1904, Thus, "the last Presidential elec- tion" means, not the one of 1912, but of 1600. This, of course, does not vitiate the general reasoning of the book, which is occasionally illuminated by such fresh pictures as that of George Washington, "the popular, dashing, and yet cautious aristocrat." THE task of compiling such a work as "A Dictionary of Mediaeval Romance and Romance Writers" (Dutton; $1 net), by Lewis Spence, might well appall even the greatest living masters of mediaeval literature. But a mere cursory examina- tion of the book before us is sufficient to reveal the slenderness of Mr. Spence's qualifications for the enterprise. Take, for instance, an article of capital impor- tance, such as that on Beowulf. With the Anglo-Saxon epic accessible in nume- rous modern English translations, it is a mystery why the author should furnish us with a synopsis of the poem that is marred by the grossest inaccuracies. Ac- cording to Mr. Spence, Beowulf first learned about Grendel's ravages from a wandering minstrel who came from the court of "Hrodgar of Jutland" and who sang about these calamities before the hero at "a feast of victory." But these statements of the writer's are as pure a piece of romance as anything in the poem he is analyzing. One need not be surprised, then, that in the next sentence the "trial of strength with Breka" should be put between the time that Beowulf first heard about Grendel ("who lived in the morass near Hirschalle") and his set- ting out for Denmark (or Jutland, as Mr. Spence would have it). The article on "Breka" is itself a curiosity. French romance fares no better than English at the writer's hands. In the article on "Lancelot" it is stated, "The original le- gend of his life and adventures is proba- bly the mediaeval prose work entitled Lancelot" and then a few lines further on (correctly) that he first appears as Guinevere's lover in the "Chevalier de la Charrette" of Chretien de Troyes. But the prose "Lancelot" is as much taken up with Lancelot's love for the Queen as Chretien's poem — it even contains a prose rendering of most of the latter — and, as every student of the subject knows, it is altogether later than Chre- tien. Mr. Spence refers to Lancelot's "amours" In tire prose romance, as if he thought that that work were a sort of "Amours de Faublas." As a matter of fact, it is a glorification of the hero's fidelity to Guinevere — a fidelity from which he does not depart save when he Is tricked irr the affair of King 1'elles's daughter, In order that he may oeget the future victor of the Grail-Quest (Gala- had). J I 'ST one specimen from the article on Chretien de Troyes. Concerning the sources of this poet, Mr. Spence says: "it is quite likely that Chretien utilized the works of writers now lost, but it is equally probable that be based his art on traditions sung by minstrels; and be that as it may, the fact remains that sundry manuscript copies of his tales, only preserved in the isibiioihcque de I'Arsenal, are manifestly the earliest manuscripts enshrining stories of Arthur and iris knights." Manuscripts of Chra tien are, of course, not confined to the Bibliotheque de I'Arsenal nor even to Paris. Moreover, Geoffrey of Monmouth and Wace "enshrine" stories of Arthur and his knights. Both were earlier in date than Chretien, and, as regards the unessential matter of the relative dates of the manuscripts which preserve the works of these writers, there is no rea- son to believe that even here the later poet enjoys any advantage. But what does the confused statement that begins this passage mean? It would be a waste of labor to point out other inaccuracies in this same article, or, indeed, to add anything further to the criticism of this worthless book. «D EATING Back" (Appleton; $1.50 •D net), by Al Jennings and Will Ir- win, is a true story of the real West, which is also an unusually interesting "human document." Fifteen years ago Al Jen- nings was a notorious bandit and train- robber in Oklahoma. Before that he had been a cowboy, a law student, a land- boomer, and a practicing lawyer. His career as a "long rider" came to an end with a term in the penitentiary. Since his release he has been "beating back" to success in the law and in politics. The history of such a man is bound to be worth listening to; and it has been ex- tremely well told. In the introductory chapter Will Irwin says that he got Jen- nings to tell him the story in the pres- ence of a stenographer, and that he has merely revised and "edited" the steno- graphic record. The narrative is simple and direct, without apologies or attempts at romantic idealization. Al Jennings was a born leader, and the very traits which landed him in jail would, in a cruder state of society, have assured his success. Not only in his emotional vio- lence and promptness in action, but in his simple-heartedness, he seems to be- long to an earlier time. More than once, when he is describing some outburst, one thinks of Benvenuto Cellini. Like Cellini, he was at the mercy of the moment's passion, and entirely indifferent to conse- quences. He is a good representative of the Southern pioneer type. Drifting into outlawry through a family feud, be pre- served much of the code of the gentle- ,,,.,,, His plucky and successful struggle for rehabilitation after his release proved the Stuff that was in him. THE author of "The Empress Fred- erick: A Memoir" (Dodd, Mead; $2.50 net) has chosen to remain anonj mous, and we cannot but approvi ,,, h, , decision. The book is not one to be proud of, though it is free from scandal- mongering and contains some Interest- ing glimpses of ever-watchful (and often mistaken) Baron Btockmar, hovering over the newly married Crown Prl Vietoria, of the Prince Consort, writing ponderous "physiological treatises" to his daughter, and of rancorous Bismarck, l Qg the luci.iess English Princess, ,,,,,,, the day of her entry i'lto Berlin sire herself, as pictured In the volume, and as she doubtless was In re- ality, appears as a refined, kindly, and exemplar] lady, whose chief defects were loch at tact and Inability to adapt bar- ■elf to the requirements of bar position ,,,; intuie Queen of Prussia. (1 would be
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June 25, 1914I Tli e Nation 761 unfair to hold the heroine of this book responsible for the silly r61e which she is occasionally made to play by a gushing biographer, who faithfully chronicles that "the Princess Royal had a long engage- ment, probably the longest that any lady of her rank has had, at least in modern times, but the months as they went by were occupied with her father's seditious preparation of her intellect, as well as with the more frivolous preparations of her trousseau," and who tells us (on the authority of the writer Gustav Putlitz) that "the Crown Princess is wonderfully well read; she has absolutely read every- thing, and knows it all more or less by heart" It is true, we are informed else- where that "the Empress, especially as a young woman, did not care very much for reading, though she was fond of being read aloud to, as are most Royal per- sonages," but such contradictions must be looked for in the lives of those in high station, as told by modern biographers. Still, the volume before us is, on the whole, readable and, being compiled from good sources, is not without a certain value. UNDER the title of "The Descendants of Joran Kyn, of New Sweden" (Philadelphia: The Swedish Colonial So- ciety), Dr. Gregory B. Keen has reprint- ed, with considerable additions, a series of articles originally contributed by him to the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography during the years 1878- 1883. The family of Kyn, or Keen, shows wide ramifications, such well-known names as those of Cadwalader, Finney, McCall, Montgomery, Wharton, and Wil- ling, with Lord Ashburton and John Ja- cob Astor, adorning the branches of the genealogical tree. The work has pri- mary interest, of course, for the genealo- gist, but the historian will also find it a valuable supplement to Johnson's recent "History of the Swedish Settlements on the Delaware." A useful map of New Sweden serves as a frontispiece. THREE volumes, "De Jure et Officiis Bellicis et Disciplina Militari," by Balthazar Ayala; a translation of the same, by John Pawley Bates, and "De Jure Belli ac Pacis," by Hugo Grotius (Carnegie Foundation of Washington, D. C), are the first of a series of classics of International Law which are to be re- published by the Carnegie Foundation, under the editorship of Dr. James Brown Scott, Secretary of the Carnegie Endow- ment for International Peace. Volume One contains a photographic reproduc- tion of the first edition of Ayala's trea- tise on the Law of War, with an interest- ing introduction by John Westlake. The second volume consists of an excellent translation of the original, and in the third is presented a photographic repro- duction of the edition of 1646 of Hugo Grotius's great work on the Law of War and Peace. This will be followed by a translation of the text by John D. Ma- guire. TWO- other treatises by Grotius will be republished, "De Jure Praedae Com- mentarius," prepared 1604-5, and "Mare Liberum," published 1609. At a later date, and in separate form, a general intro- duction to the three will appear, in which the relation of Grotius to his predecessors will be shown, as well as his influence upon the development of international law. While the masterpiece of Grotius will be the central point in the series, we are assured that "the works of his lead- ing predecessors and successors will like- wise be included." Indeed, the term classic is to be applied in a broad sense so as to include every work which has been a real contribution to the develop- ment of international law. One of the reasons for republishing these classics is to provide a supply for public and private libraries in this country. Ayala's treatise has been heretofore available to but few students and many of the writings of Grotius are almost unknown, even to persons who are learned in international law. The Carnegie Foundation, there- fore, is rendering an important public service in popularizing these great class- ics. The form in which they appear is worthy of the endowment which sends them forth, and bears additional testi- mony to the artistic taste of the distin- guished bibliophile who is their general editor. THE Peabody Museum of Harvard University has recently published as No. 3 of Vol. V of the Memoirs, "A Pre- liminary Study of the Pre-Historic Ruins of Nakum, Guatemala," by Alfred M. Toz- zer. Nakum, discovered by Count Perigny and partially cleared by him, was visited by the Museum Expedition of 1909-10. Al- though containing ruins of considerable extent and situated near Tikal in Peten, the region of the oldest Maya culture, Nakum proved to be remarkably poor in hieroglyphic inscriptions. Fifteen stelae and eleven altars are reported by Dr. Tozzer, but only three of the stelae and none of the altars showed any carving. One stela contained an inscription con- sisting of nine double glyphs arranged in a single vertical line, but no. dates could be made out. On another stela, now fallen and badly broken, was a finely carved head-dress. Dr. Tozzer inclines to the belief that the failure to find carved decoration on the Nakum monuments would seem to indicate that some form of painted design had formerly adorned the smooth faces of the stelae and altars. Following the custom of recent Harvard expeditions to Central America, it was the object of the expedition to Nakum to search for monuments and buildings bearing sculptures and hieroglyphic in- scriptions, rather than to make excava- tions. Consequently, as an addition to American archaeology, the report is dis- appointing except from the point of view of architecture, where it main- tains the usual high standard set by the Museum Memoirs. Unfortunately for the pictorial results of the expedition, there Is little at Nakum to show the Maya fondness for architectural decoration. "The facades are almost entirely plain, broken by a simple medial moulding. The cornices are usually quite as undec- orative as the mouldings, often no more than the simplest of string courses." The few shards which are figured, and which were found near the level of the ground, are so interesting that one wishes more time had been spent in procuring others The heliotype plates give an excellent Idea of the difficulties under which the explorers had to labor, but it is a pity that more pains were not taken to clear the ground of the forest refuse. The drawings in the text are moderately sat- isfactory, although figure 95, "Portion of Head of Old Woman," looks more like the head of a camel or a very cross burro! WE comment elsewhere upon the death of Baroness Bertha von Suttner, which occurred on June 21, in Vienna. Baroness von Suttner was born in Prague in 1843, the daughter of the Austrian Field Marshal, Count Franz von Kin sky, and married Baron Gundaar von Suttner in 1876. Her book, "Ground Arms," which was published in 1890, gained for her the Nobel peace prize which she herself had been largely in- strumental in establishing when she was secretary to its founder, Dr. Alfred B. Nobel. Baroness von Suttner was hon- orary president of the International Peace Bureau, in Berne, Switzerland, and was a member of the advisory council to the Carnegie Peace Foundation. In addi- tion to "Ground Arms," she was the au- thor of "The Age of Machinery," "Mar- tha's Children," "Letters to a Dead Man," "The Great Thoughts of Humanity," and "The Romance of an Author." PROF. JOHN R. S. STERRETT, the eminent archaeologist and head o? the department of Greek at Cornell Uni- versity since 1901, died on June 16. He was born in Rockbridge Baths, Va., on March 4, 1851, and was educated at the Universities of Virginia, Berlin, Leipzig, Athens, and Munich. He received the de- gree of Ph.D. from the University of Mu- nich in 1880, and the honorary degree of LL.D. from Aberdeen in 1902. Pro- fessor Sterrett had been leader of various archaeological expeditions in Asia Minor, and was professor at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1896-7. He was joint editor of Cornell Classic-it Studies, and associate editor of the Amer- ican Journal of Arclucology, and recently had edited and translated the "Strabo" for the Loeb Classical Library. Among his publications are: "Qua in re Hymni Homerici quinque majores inter se dif- ferant," 1881; "Inscriptions of Sebaste": "Inscriptions of Assos," 1885; "Inscrip- tions of Tralles," 1885; "Epigraphical Journey in Asia Minor," 1888; "Leaflets from the Notebook of a Travelling Arch- aeologist," 1889; "The Torch-Race," 1902; "The Iliad of Homer," 1907; "A Call of Contemporary Society for Research in Asia Minor and Syria," 1911. BENNET BURLEIGH, the war corre- spondent, who had been on the staff of the London Daily Telegraph since 1882, died on June 16, at the age of seventy. Mr. ISurleigh was born in Glasgow, Scot- land, and fought in the t'ivil War in this country on the Confederate side. 1 l\\i< e captured and sentenced to death by the Northern troops. He was Central News correspondent throughout the first Egyptian war, being present at Tel-el- Kebir, and represented the Daily Tele- graph in the second phase of the same war. He was in the French campaign in Madagascar and accompanied the desert column from Korti to Metammah in mi. being present at the battles of Abu K' \ and Abu Kru, and receiving mention :-.i
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762 Tli e Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2556 dispatches. Other campaigns in which he took part included: The Ashanti expedi- tion, the Spanish Riff campaign, the Greek war, (he Atbara expedition, when he was present at Omdurman; the South African war; the Somaliland war; the Russo-Japanese war, and the Italian cam- paign in Tripoli. He was the author, among other works, of "Two Campaigns" and "Empire of the East." NOTES FROM ABROAD. TWO years ago something of a stir was made in English political cir- cles by the biographical sketch of King Edward VII, published in a supplement- ary volume of the Dictionary of National Biography. The writer, Sir Sidney Lee, aroused no little comment by his story of the strange hot-house methods adopt- ed by Queen Victoria and the Prince Con- sort for their son's education, and by his frank recognition of certain disqualifica- tions from which the late King suffered when he came to the throne. That this article should have been written with the approval of the Court was a notable sign of the times, especially when one remem- bers the indignation shown by Queen Victoria at the freedom of the Greville Memoirs. So far from having any black marks recorded against him for his dic- tionary article, Sir Sidney has received official sanction for the preparation of a full-length biography of the same sub- ject. THERE came into force in England on June 9 a new code of rules re- lating to procedure in forma pauperis. One provision raises the income limit under which a litigant may avail him- self of this procedure. It is further pro- vided that, if such a litigant is successful and recovers a substantial sum, his so- licitor may receive payment for his trou- ble. As originally drawn up, the new rules provided that the barrister should be paid also, but the Bar Council raised the objection that, by the etiquette of the profession, counsel's fee on a brief must be fixed beforehand. Barristers undertaking these cases must, therefore, do their work for nothing, and a panel of qualified persons willing to render this service has been prepared. An important feature of the new rules is that, unlike the old, they will apply to the Divorce Court, and will thus make that court ac- cessible to poor persons, who hitherto, for reasons of expense, have had to be content with separation orders granted by the magistrates. With the object of still further diminishing the hat from which poor litigants suffer, a pub- lic fund is about to be started, with high legal sanction, for the assistance of those who, even with a free lawyer to help them, are debarred from seeking redri : in the courts through the difficulty of finding out-of-pocket expenses, e. [/., the railway fares of their witm THE rank and file of Liberal politi- cians are becoming more and more uneasy at the prospect of heavy losses through three-cornered contests at the !" 1 English general election. The lead- . are hoping to effect irrangement with the Labor lead- ers by which cei ressl 1 e seats shall be apportioned to Liberalism and others to Labor. This policy, however, is likely to be extremely difficult to car- ry through, owing to the strength of lo- cal feeling on both sides. The very at- tempt at conciliation only increases the friction in many constituencies. Itis wide- ly believed that the only satisfactory so- lution will be some measure of electoral reform — whether by proportional repre- sentation, or alternative vote, or second ballot — but, so far, no one of these schemes has been able to command any- thing like unanimous support. TEMPERANCE reformers in Great Britain, in their desire to shorten the legal hours of "the trade," have usually attempted to effect the earlier closing of the saloons at night. A new Scottish Temperance act begins at the other end by compelling them to keep shut in the morning until ten, instead of eight, as hitherto. The innovation came into force at the beginning of June, and appears to have aroused little objection, even in the shipyard district of Glasgow. The prediction that men would stay away from work until the public-houses were opened has not been fulfilled. The police are keeping an alert lookout against the possibility of shebeening. SEVERAL British scientists hope to turn to profitable account the weeks that will be occupied by their journey to the British Association meet- ings in Australia. The Ascanius, by which a party of seventy will leave Liv- erpool on June 22, will be fitted up with biological laboratories. Prof. W. A. Herd- man will make an intensive study of the plankton, and Professor Duffield will car- ry out researches to test how gravity varies over the deep and shallow parts of the ocean, with a view to distinguish- ing between rival theories accounting for the conformation of the earth's sur- face. THE University of London is estab- lishing a Chair of Town Planning, whose occupant will work in cooperation with the professors of architecture and municipal engineering. The new profes- sor, besides giving lectures and holding classes, will supervise the town-planning work of regular students in the drawing office and will organize the summer school cf this subject, to be held this year from August 1 to 15. No less than two hundred town-planning schemes are ent under the consideration of the Local Government Board. AT the end of the Avant-propos of the sixteenth volume of "L/Empire Liberal," the author, the late Emile Olli- vicr, wrote; "I supplicate his Majesty Death to accord me the time to finish this work; then I will follow him docilely, without complaining, and in perfect con- fidence, for I am sure he will lead me where it is good that I should go." Th< 91 words were written in 1912, and M Olli- \ i( -r continued to labor incessantly on his task until a month before his death, last August. The forthcoming tee-nth volume, which will end this long series, and which (loses with September 4, 1870, the day of the declaration of the Third Republic, was one of the four or Ave volumes written some fifteen or twenty years ago; for when M. Ollivier started on this undertaking, he wrote first the last part of the period to be treated, with which he was more familiar, and with which he had been more inti- mately connected. But before sending any of the volumes to the printer, he went carefully over the manuscript, prac- ! Rally rewriting them. He was in the n.idst of this revision of the seventeenth volume, when overtaken by death. "You will find it all ready for the press," he would say to his faithful wife, amanuen- sis and collaborator, as he felt his strength gradually failing him. He was mistaken in this, however. The very end is lacking. Though a thorough search has been made among all his papers, the closing chapter, devoted to Sedan, when the curtain was finally rung down on the Second Empire, can be found nowhere, and the volume will be published in the autumn in this truncated form. In the meantime, the Revue des Deux Mondes will print two or three articles, as was done with the preceding volumes, taken from the pages of the future book. THE management of the National Gal- lery, better known as the Corsini Gallery, in Rome has for some years past adopted the custom of periodically organizing special exhibitions of the works of different artists. They have now arranged an interesting show of the paintings of Michelangelo da Caravaggio, the most realistic Italian painter of the end of the seventeenth cen- tury. The occasion was the gift of the picture known as Narcissus at the Font, presented to the gallery by a Russian diplomat, M. Khvostchinsky, and they have collected in the three print rooms a number of other works by the same master scattered among the various pub- lic and private collections of the city. The Narcissus represents a young man in a page's costume gazing at his own image in a pool, and so disturbed at the sight that he tries to efface it by stirring up the water. Of the other pictures now on view the most important are the Mag- dalen and the Rest in Egypt, from the Doria collection; the St. Anthony, from the Church of SS. Cosma and Damian the Anchorite, from the Capuchin Church in Via Veneto; the Madonna dei Pala- frenieri, from the Borghese Gallery; the portrait of Paul V, lent by Prince Borghese, of which a replica presented by that Pope himself is in the possession of the Mikado, and a number of works al- ready in the Corsini Gallery. A VOLUME entitled "Camillo Cavour e Meianle Waldor" has just been brought out by Prof. Francesco Ruffini, who has been entrusted by the relatives Of fount favour with a large number of 1 1 1 < - statesman's private papers. In it we are shown Cavour in a new and unexpected light, that of a hero of a love romance, The novel Id question is "Alphonse el Juliette," which appeared anonymously in rails in L889, and caused :, considerabli fluttei In the fashionable and lite.ai j circles "i iii« French cap! tal, being obviouslj a roman i <•/<■/. 81- ii,, 1 Rufflnl Ice; |,m.\ ed that the iiulhnr was Meianle Waldor, a lady for whom Cavour had conceived a greal pa and that Cavern liim.sell' was the hero.
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June 25, 1914I T li e N" a t i o 11 763 Science PRIMITIVE MAX. Prehistoric linns, as Illustrated by 1 ii< lent R« mains and th<: .1/ a, at Customs of Modern Savages. By tho late Rt Hon. Lord Avebury. Sev- enth and revised edition. New York: Henry Holt & Co. $3.50. The latest edition of this classical work enjoys the unusual distinction of having been finally revised by the au- thor fifty years after it was originally written. One of the first of Lord Ave- bury's extended works, it was thus es- iy his last, and it is presumably as perfect as he was able to make it. ag of a fascinating theme, writ- ten in a direct and befitting style, ad- mirably printed and illustrated, with typographical errors generally elimi- nated, this standard treatise on man in his earliest and humblest estate goes far towards bridging the gap between biology and civic history, even if it does not accomplish the impossible feat of converting archaeology into history itself. One can but reflect that this latest issue of "Prehistoric Times" will be greeted by a very different audience from that which was startled or ever, scandalized by Lyell's "Antiquity of Man," in 1863, but two years before the debut of Lord Avebury's work. The tide of protest and dissent was then rising against the new Darwinian con- cepts, that Lyell had strongly endorsed, and Archbishop Laud's chronology was in force in all the schools. This latter anachronism survived to a much later day, when schoolboys were taught to head their lists of historical dates with the "Noachian Deluge in 2348," and the "creation of man in 4004 b. a," some jovial spirits, we believe, adding even the day of the week, and the hour. The present and prevailing attitude of man towards his own history is a register of the remarkable accommoda- tion in thought which has been effected in the past fifty years. That it is a le- gitimate and fruitful attitude the ad- vances in prehistoric archaeology, as re- corded in this work, to speak of no other science, bear unimpeachable wit- ness. We are no longer startled to hear that the negro was living in Africa when the Sahara Desert was a great inland sea, that man has dwelt in northern France nearly or quite as long as its rivers have been cutting their channels to the ocean, that man or semi-man was using rude stone tools in the Miocene Period of the Tertiary Age, at a time so remote that every other contemporary mammal has become ex- tinct, that the age of man, as man, upon our earth is probably to be mea- sured, not by thousands, but by hun- ' dreds of thousands of years, while for life in general upon our planet, one hundred million years is regarded by the author as a conservative estimate. I "In fact," says the judicious Avebury, I "all the evidence of geology seems to me to indicate an antiquity of which I we are but beginning to form a dim idea." "Our belief in the antiquity of man," he continues, "rests not on any I isolated calculation, but on the changes I which have taken place since his ap- pearance," and more especially changes j in the geography, the fauna, and the climate of Europe, where early man has been more successfully studied; yet it I is only in those parts of the earth that possessed a tropical climate that we can expect to find, if at all, the earliest traces of man's immediate ancestry. When it is considered that primitive man has left to posterity not alone his bones, but in many cases his dwellings, his tombs, his temples, and fortifica- tions, besides a vast store of tools and ornaments, the progress of knowledge in this fascinating field of research is not so surprising. Modern man seems to have discarded every one of those primitive implements save the club, and nearly every ornament but the safety- pin, which was an invention of the Bronze Age, and which, therefore, ac- ording to Lord Avebury's calculation, night be from five thousand to seven housand years old. Little is known of man, or his an- cestry, in Tertiary times, excepting that the relics of his workmanship at that most remote epoch are generally so rude as to be hardly recognizable as tool or weapon, that he led a social or com- munal life, and that he matched his brains with the brawn of the big beasts of his day and won. To follow his his- tory through the more certain Palaeo- lithic Period of the Drift, when he slew and ate the cave-bear and the mammoth, the rein-deer and the woolly rhinoceros, and protected his body from the cold of the glacial climate with their skins, through the later Neolithic Age of pol- ished stone, and the subsequent ages of Bronze and Iron, to more modern times, is the task which the author has per- formed in his admiraDle style. In the Palaeolithic or early stone age people sought no better habitations than the caves carved by the hand of nature along the courses of rivers or by the sea, and they knew no metal but gold; many thousands of years were required to learn to polish and perforate their rude but effective implements, and many more thousands were needed to discover the value and use of copper, one of the most abundant and most eas- ily worked of all the metals. The Bronze Age, which began in its first period with the use of this metal alone, is thought to date from 5,000 B. < . in the East, but from 2500 n. c. in Western [Europe, so slowly did the knowledge 'of nature and the arts diffuse among primitive men. Early civilization, when viewed in the light of existing remains, seems to have followed with remarkable precision the rise of the arts of extracting and using the metals. Though gold was early I valued as an ornament, it yielded to copper in real importance to primitive ; human needs. Tin was probably sought on account of its weight, and in times of scarcity it might have been added to the copper to supply the necessary weight, thus, as the author suggests, leading to the discovery" of bronze, an alloy that would be seen to possess dif- ferent and most useful properties. No tin weapons have ever been found, and those of pure copper are very rare. When Columbus reached the New World, Central America was still in the Age of Bronze, while the less-advanced Indians far to the north were in an I age intermediate between that of stone and copper, since some of them used native copper as a stone, working it cold. The potter's wheel, an invention of the Iron Age in Europe, was un- known to them, as it was to the Mound Builders whom they had supplanted, and who resembled the more advanced Indian tribes. Iron was then unknown in America except to a people living tear the mouth of the River La Platte. The archaeologist often digs deep into the dust-bin of time to find only a few scattered objects that had been casually lost, or ravishes an ancient tomb that yields him rich and important data, but fortune actually smiles upon him when he discovers a genuine hoard; this may consist of treasures once hidden away and lost, or of the entire stock in trade of some primitive workman, his workshop forsooth, with all its contents. The greatest of all such hoards was discovered in 1877, when in the course of digging for a sewer in the streets of Bologna a great vase of bronze was encountered, containing no less than 14,800 objects in that metal and three small bits of precious iron. The ores of iron being less striking in appearance than those of copper, and the metal far more stubborn than bronze, the art of working it was long delayed. The Romans found the inhabi- tants of northern Britain well equip- ped with iron weapons, set with bronze j handles, and Lord Avebury thinks that (they had been using this metal there for nearly a thousand years, its earliest known use beginning in the East and in Southern Europe as early at least as B, C. Very plausible is the sug- gestion that some primitive man may have used a lump of iron ore as one of the enclosing stones of his hearth, re, meeting with a strong blast and jthe necessary charcoal, the metal was thus casually produced, and this unlet-
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734= T li e ZEST a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2556 tired savage, being more observant than his follows, turned his epoch-making discovery to good account. That palaeolithic man of the Quater- nary Period had some taste and skill in the graphic arts has long been known, as proved not only by his sculptures and engravings on stone and bone, but by the numerous and excellent colored pictures which were executed on the walls of his cave-dwellings. Some of the most notable of these wall decora- tions were found in the cave of Alta- mira, in Spain, nearly forty years ago, and later at Combarelles, in France, where sixty-four figures of entire ani- mals and forty-three heads were to be seen, representing horses, bison, rein- deer, the mammoth, the ibex, and the antelope. Still more recently the caves in the classical locality of Les Eyzies, and of Font-de-Gaume, in Dordogne, have yielded an even longer, if not more famous, series. The earliest actual remains of man yet discovered in northern Europe per- tain to three well-marked races or types, the Neanderthal, the Cromagnon, aDd Chancelade, of which the first was pronounced by Professor Huxley to be the "most pithecoid of human crania yet discovered." Still a fourth race, of the negroid type, and resembling the Bush- men or Hottentots, has been disclosed by the interesting caves of Gnmaldi. near Mentone, close to the Mediterra- nean Sea, where sixteen skeletons were recovered, and two of them were nearly complete. As to the famous Pithecan- thropus skull, found in Java, and at a depth of thirty feet in gravel, of either Pleiocene or Pleistocene age, Lord Avebury was in doubt "whether it should be described as that of a large gibbon, or as belonging to a man of a very small and distinct race." But, excepting this fragment, most ape-like of all such remains are those recently unearthed at Piltdown, in Sussex, Eng- land. "The lower jaw," in this instance, says Lord Avebury, "if found by itself, would certainly have been referred to an anthropoid ape, though the teeth are decidedly human." The skull is extremely thick, and the brain, as indi- cated by a cast that it was possible to secure, is so inferior as to imply little or no powers of articulate speech, and though more man than ape, one natu- ralist has regarded it as representing not only a different species, but a dif- ferent genus. The author, as is well known, finds many a text in the life of the modern savage to illustrate the history of primi- tive man, and the four concluding chap- ters, which deal with these analogies, abound in interesting and pertinent comment. "The Van Diemaner and the South American," says the author, "are 1 'i the antiquary what the opossum and the sloth are to the geologist." Drama THE LONDON SEASON. AMERICAN PLATS IX ENGLAND— ZANG- WILL'S "PLASTER SAINTS"— THE IK1SII PLAYERS— "COMMAND" PERFORMANCES. London, June 9. The Providence which placed Man- hattan Island in the latitude of Gibral- tar or thereabouts seems to have had a special eye to the development of an Anglo-American drama. For, just when the heat-waves begin to flow over New \ork and drive people to the coast, to the mountains, or to the roof-gardens, the British summer, setting in with its usual severity, gathers all the world to London for "the season." The result is that London adds a supplementary ten weeks to the twenty-five or thirty weeks of the New York theatrical year. Mr. Cyril Maude, having run "Grumpy" in New York to the verge of the close time, can bring it over to England and find a fresh set of audiences eager to welcome his senile Sherlock Holmes. "Potash & Perlmutter" can renew on Shaftesbury Avenue their Broadway popularity; and American visitors, hav- ing, so to speak, drained the New York season to its dregs, can easily arrive in time to skim tbe cream of the London season — not this year a very rich cream, it must be confessed. The success of the two plays above mentioned shows how little "the cold interposition of the sea" really counts in things theatrical. What could be more English than "Grumpy"? Yet it drew all New York. What more Amer- ican than "Potash & Perlmutter"? Yet all London is talking of it and flocking to it. Every now and then an Ameri- can manager, disappointed in some spec- ulation, raises a bitter plaint as to a "conspiracy" in England against Amer- ican productions. Nothing could be more chimerical. The taste of London is not exactly the same as that of New York — no more is the taste of Boston or of Chicago. Productions that have caught the fancy of New York will now and then fall flat on this side — some- times for obvious reasons, sometimes for no reason that can easily be as- signed. But the notion that there is any general prejudice against American plays, either among the critics or the public, is absolutely unfounded. Ameri- canism, so long as it is comprehensible, is an added attraction rather than the reverse. Some sorts of American ism are incomprehensible — for instance, it is no use sending us a baseball play, for neither the language nor the feeling can awaken any general response. But where we understand we are quick to appreciate; and American plays per- formed by American actors have a much better chance than if important parts are taken by English actors. Indeed, the difficulty of duplicating the Ameri- can performance is a serious check to the popularity of American drama in England. I could name several New York productions of recent years which would have had a great success in Lon- don could they have been transported, stock, lock, and barrel, across the At- lantic. But, as this could not be ar- ranged, they either were not presented at all, or, being presented, failed. The three P's — "Pygmalion" and "Pot ash & Perlmutter" — are, I fancy, th enly marked successes of the present season. "My Lady's Dress," by Mr. Ed- ward Knoblauch, at the Royalty, seems, however, to have survived the rather frigid reception accorded to it by the critics. It is a harmless dream-play, illustrating, in half-a-dozen detached episodes, the lives of the people who have contributed to the production of a three-hundred-dollar dinner gown. The heroine (Miss Gladys Cooper) and her husband (Mr. Dennis Eadie) imperson- ate in turn the leading characters in the different playlets. No attempt is made either to present the shifting, elu- sive dream-atmosphere, or to give the episodes any clear sociological import. Whatever success the play may achieve will be mainly due, I imagine, to the last act, which illustrates briefly and poignantly the hard fate of a Bond Street "mannequin." At Wyndham's Theatre Mr. Alfred Sutro (greatly aided by Mr. Gerald Du Maurier and Miss Marie Lohr) has achieved a fifty-night run with "The Clever Ones," a very light comedy which is supposed to satirize the affec- tations and extravagances of feminine "intellectuals." The types presented are not very recognizable; but there is some humor in the intrigue, which shows how a young man of great wealth and irreproachably commonplace opinions pretends to be a workingman anarchist in order to win the heart of a pedan- tic Girton girl, who is in revolt against all the social conventions. Mr. Jerome K. Jerome has scored an undisguised failure with "The Great Gamble" at the Haymarket. It interwove a rather fu- tile comic plot with a rather foolish idyllic underplot. There was, however, some humor in its character-drawing, a good deal of charm in its setting, among the firs and silver birches of the Black Forest. A much more ambitious play than any of these is Mr. Zangwill's "Plaster Saints," which has succeeded "The Melt- ing Pot" at the Comedy Theatre. Its theme is practically that of the late. Harold Frederic's powerful novel, "The Damnation of Theron Ware"; but in Mr. Zangwlll's version it might rather be called "The Salvallon of Kodne.v Vuughan." The clerical protie
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June 25, 1914] X li e 1ST a t i o 11 765 esteemed, eloquent, middle-aged, and married, has seduced his typist, with unfortunate but not unforeseeable re- .-■iilt: -. By a course of brilliant and en- istic lying, he almost, but not quite, prevents the discovery of the in trigue. When it comes to his wife's knowledge, she, poor, simple woman, thinks that he ought to resign his pas- torate and the leadership of a White Slave Crusade. He is at first quite sincerely shocked by this narrow view, urging that he is now better qualified than ever to denounce sin, since he now knows what he is talking about. Event- ually, however, he does step down from his pulpit and devote himself to the service of God in some lay capacity. The play is ably put together, and contains some "strong" scenes, but is, I think, below Mr. Zangwill's best intellectual level. I am confirmed in this opinion by the fact that it has elicited warm commendation from Mr. Hall Caine. The Irish Players, at the Court The- stre, are having a fairly successful sea- son, yet not so successful as they de- serve— they ought to have crowded houses every night. It happens that I have not seen them for several years, and rumors had reached me that they had deteriorated. I can find no justi- fication for this report. Their art seems to me as sincere, as simple, and, within its limits, as appealing as ever it was. Perhaps my love of the brogue, and the exquisite syntax that goes along with it, renders me over-sympathetic; but where, I wonder, has there been such a Peasant Theatre in the world before? The actors, I fancy, are townsfolk rath- er than peasants, but they have studied the peasant and know how to repro- duce him — and her — with delicately faithful art. And their modest, seemly little theatre in Dublin has had th? luck to gather round it rare poets, strong, unsophisticated realists, and original, racy humorists — all the fac- tors, indeed, that go to the making of a fine dramatic literature. Or rather (let me be accurate), all the factors but one — for a dialect theatre cannot extend its portrayal and criticism of life into the domain of wealth and culture. The drawing-room, after all, has as good a right to be mirrored en the stage as the cottar's cabin. But a generation which has almost stifled in the close air of the conventional stage drawing- room cannot be too grateful to the artists who lead them "back to the soil" in the Irish Theatre. The principal novelty of the present season has been a tragic play, "The Supplanter," by Mr. J. Bernard Mc- Carthy, reported to be a rural post- man. It shows how a widow woman, owner of a prosperous farm, disregard- ing the entreaties of her only son, mar- ries a drunken ruffian; how prosperity at once deserts the household, and how the stepson, constantly insulted and rob- bed by the stepfather, is at last goaded into killing him. Certainly it is not a great play; it deals with very simple characters, and its technique is purely instinctive; but the very absence of complication and artifice renders it, within its limits, a work of true and delicate art. Profounder in its tragedy is "Maurice Harte," by Mr. T. C. Mur- ray, now some two or three years old. It portrays the ruin wrought in a peas- ant household by the parents' insen sate ambition to force their eldest son into the priesthood, in spite of his lack of vocation. The theme is one of pro- found significance, and it is treated with an admirable mingling of humor and pathos. For the rest, the company has been relying mainly on such ever- welcome material as "The Playboy of the Western World," "Kathleen-ni-Hou- lihan," and Lady Gregory's delightful drolls. For my part, I have never found more to admire in the work of this brave little band of artists. Thanks to the suffragettes — or "out- ragettes," as they are now called — you have perhaps heard in America of a royal "command" performance which took place a couple of weeks ago at His Majesty's Theatre, in aid of a the- atrical charity. All the leading actors of the day vied with one another to take part in the brilliant function. And what, think you, was the classic chosen for ennoblement by the flower of Eng- land's histrionic genius in the august presence of Majesty? Was it, perhaps, "Julius Caesar" or "King Henry IV" or "King Henry V" or even, say, "The School for Scandal"? No, it was one of Mr. Henry Arthur Jones's early melo- dramas, "The Silver King" — a stirring play of its class and time, but without the smallest pretension to intellectual or literary quality. In one respect, however, this choice was a welcome in- novation; for Mr. Jones is, after all, a living playwright, whereas the works hitherto chosen for such occasions have always been either "Money" or "Lon- don Assurance" — dead plays of the very deadest period of English theatrical history. Could anything be more tragi- comic than the idea of entertaining the German Emperor— the owner of five great theatres where all the German classics (including Shakespeare) are constantly performed — with a scratch representation of such a piece of an- tiquated fustian as "Money"? It is a serious scandal that the court should never by any chance betray the slight- est consciousness that a revival of Eng- lish drama has been one of the most conspicuous features of the Edwardian and Georgian period. Of the King him- self I desire to speak with the sincer- est respect. He is a brave man, doing his arduous and difficult duty with ad- mirable devotion. It is no part of his duty to possess dramatic knowledge or insight. The scandal is that the func- tionaries of the Lord Chamberlain's de- partment, to whom is entrusted the cen- sorship of the stage, and who ought to guide his Majesty in the proper exer- tion of the influence he possesses, or might easily possess, should show them- selves so cynically careless of the in- terests of the living drama. It is, of course, a gross abuse that entrusts a junta of court officials with autocratic power over the stage; but since the unwisdom of our ancestors has so or- dered it, they might at least show some little sense of the responsibilities which go with autocracy. William Archer. Dunmow, in Essex, famous for its matrimonial flitch of bacon, is the home of a growing literary and artistic colony, whose members are starting a "neigh- borhood theatre." The actors, as well as the stage decorator, are local residents. Just now they are giving a play, "The Furriner," in which almost all the char- acters are required to speak the Essex dialect. Among the leading assistants in this experiment are S. L. Bensusan, the author of this play, and J. W. Rob- ertson-Scott, who, under the pseudonym of "Home Counties," is well known as a writer on the English village life of to-day. The great vogue of the picture palace in England has led to the formation of an Educational Kjnematograph Asso- ciation, on whose committee several lead- ing educational and social welfare so- cieties are represented. The difficulty with so many of these shows is that films not bad enough to be prohibited by the censor may still be objectionable in their influence on children. Reports from school inspectors and teachers give con- vincing testimony of the injurious effect of the new habit, not only on the eyesight of boys and girls, but on their interest in their school work and on their moral sense. Besides doing what it can to elim- inate undesirable pictures, the Associa- tion will develop plans for the use of the kinema in schools. At Rochdale already the local educational authorities arrange matinees for the children. Brandon Thomas, the playwright, who died in London on June 19, was born in Liverpool on December 25, 1856. He was trained as a civil engineer, but in 187!' abandoned that profession to go on the stage, where he had a successful career for twenty-eight years. He toured Amer- ica in 1885, in the company of Rosina. Vokes. Brandon Thomas, however, was better known as an author than as an ac- tor. He wrote a dozen or more comedies, the first one being "Comrades," produced In 1882, but his most successful play was "Charley's Aunt," of "still-running" fame, wlmh was originally produced at the Roy- alty Theatre, London, in 1892, with W. S. Penley in the leading r61e, and which ran continuously for four years. The play has been frequently revived, and has had many thousand performances in all parts of the world and in numerous lan- guages.
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766 Tli e 1ST a t i o n [Vol. 98, No. 2556 Music PROBLEMS, PUBLIC AND INDIVID- UAL. Studies in Musical Education: History and .Esthetics. Eighth Series. Hart- ford, Conn. $1.60. Cincinnati has for many years held a prominent place among the musical cen- tres of this country. The steps by which it reached its eminence are described by Frank R. Ellis in the opening pages of the "Papers and Proceedings of the Music Teachers' National Association" for 1913. As far back as 1835 Harriet Martineau was impressed by noting how the spirit of Mozart "swayed and inspir- ed a silent crowd" in a place which had r.ot long before been "a canebrake, echo- ing with the bellow and growl of wild beasts." A Handel and Haydn Soci- ety was organized a decade later, and when Theodore Thomas began his May festivals in 1873 there was at his dis- posal a trained choir of 2,000 voices. Ever since that time Cincinnati has been noted for its festivals, which are self-supporting. Reuben R. Springer gave the city a Music Hall and an organ which at that time was the biggest and finest in the country. Add to these the local Symphony Orchestra and the Col- lege of Music, and we have the chief factors which together made musical Cincinnati famous. Mr. Ellis does not attempt to explain why this same city refuses to patronize performances given within its walls by first-class visiting cpera companies. Another retrospective article in this volume is concerned with the early his- tory of public-school music in the Unit- ed States. Here again Cincinnati plays a leading part. It was in Ohio and New England that the earliest interest in public-school music seems to have devel- oped. In Massachusetts, Lowell Mason looms up large. The history and work of the Schola Cantorum in Rome, which preserved its identity and organization unbroken for almost eight hundred years, is told by Charles Winfred Doug- las. The ideals of this school, which were disseminated among bodies of sim- ilar name throughout Europe, are wor- thy of the serious attention of all choral organizations in our country. "Class and Private Lessons for Sing- ers" and "The Singer's Control of Speech" are the titles of two other pa- lters of interest to singers included in this volume. Five papers are devoted to public-school problems; several others, to the standardization of music teach- ing and music examinations in France. Johannes Miersch, of the Cincinnati Col- lege of Music, relates that at the Nation- al Conservatory in Paris there is a pre- amlnatios at which all the play the same piece, their per- formance deciding whether they are to be admitted to the final test. This oc- curs in the month of July; he remem- bers a concours on a day when the ther- mometer rose to 105 degrees in the shade, ''when the long hours of waiting for one's turn, which might be No. 1 or No. 39, became physical and mental torture." Arthur Farwell, who for several years was Supervisor of Municipal Concerts in New York, contributes a paper in which he discusses the problem of how to reach with the best music the 95 per cent, of the people who are not able to attend expensive concerts. The present system of municipal concerts is one of the results of the Gaynor Ad- ministration. Band concerts are given in some thirty parks in different parts of the city, and in Central Park there are orchestral concerts. Mr. Farwell expresses the opinion that if there were several great orchestral centres, with proper acoustic conditions, they would accomplish more for the people that is worth while than is done by a number of concerts by small bands producing "the old war horses and trivial modern novelties." He is anxious to have such things kept from the orchestral pro- grammes. "The mood of almost relig- ious exaltation and serenity which pre- vails at these concerts would make ragtime seem ridiculous and even sacri- legious." Perhaps Mr. Farwell, like many others, overrates the inborn mu- sical intelligence of the masses. The trend of modern composition is described in a trenchant article by Ed- gar Stillman Kelley. When he was a student at Leipzig Carl Reinecke once said to him: "Some composers begin to modulate before they have established a key," which, of course, "destroys the pleasure derived from contrasting key- colors." The latest of the progressives abolish keys altogether, as they do mel- ody and concord. Some of them, so it is said, insist that our large cities and factories create such a variety of inter- esting noises that mere musical sounds no longer excite the slightest emotion. This may be persiflage — but one can- not tell, in these days of musical anar- chy. One thing all the "futurists" lack — the art of creating melodies. They re- mind Professor Kelley of the princess who had "the ability to say nothing in seven languages." On the most important of all musical questions — that of expression — new lighi is thrown by two papers on "Mu- sical Editing," by Waldo S. Pratt and W. J. Baltzell, and one on "Musical In- terpretation," bj Mary Venable, who ex- plains, among other things, why Elans von Billow forbade the use Of his own editions of the Classics tO his pupils. Mr. Ilaltzell calls attention to the need of caution in buying music. Much of it is carelessly marked by the oompoi ers and needs editing, while a v 1 \ large proportion of the remainder is what has been called "music engrav- er's phrasing" — a symmetrical and uni- form series of slurs of a measure or two in length, absolutely at variance with the construction of the composi- tion. For this reason he has no faith in the scheme of bringing out an edi- tion of classical and modern works without any editing whatever. What, in his opinion, would be desirable is the appointment of a committee to consider the question of uniformity in the use of signs of musical expression, to be submitted to American publishers for their acceptance. It is to be hoped that this will be done. We have touched on a few only of the more important questions discussed in this suggestive volume. Copies of it may be obtained of Waldo S. Pratt, Hartford, Conn. Henry T. Finck. A fund is being raised in London to purchase an annuity for Alfred Forman, who translated "Tristan" and "Parsifal," and whom Wagner addressed as "noble friend," but who now finds himself re- tired from a long career in the service of the Post Office without a pension or other means of subsistence. The sub- scription list is headed by the Earl of Dysart, at whose residence (Ham House, Richmond) the Wagnerites used to con- gregate on Sundays a generation ago. The surprise of the Drury Lane opera season has not been the success of the Russian operas — which was generally an- ticipated— but the enthusiastic reception given to "The Magic Flute." The spec- tators are described by one of the critics as behaving like so many Mozart ex- perts. "One could feel their settling down before some famous aria, then lis- tening with rapt attention, and, at the close of the aria, relapsing with a slight rustle and waiting till the last note in the orchestra died away before breaking out into noisy clapping of hands." The unexpected popularity of this opera is believed to be due to the excellence of all its performers, Including the musi- cians in the orchestra, which is particu- larly efficient in the strings. Parisians had an opportunity a few weeks ago to hear Richard Strauss at the piano during a whole recital. It was given by Franz Steiner, who sang eleven of Strauss's songs, two of which, "Wlegenlied" and "Ich Schwebe," he had to repeat. Strauss also played, with Hek- king, his sonata for piano and violoncello. Weingartner tins communicated to the ■. ,, ihi.i v eue Freii Presae his pla "Generalmui 11 dire! toi " of 1 larmstadt He will obtain some promlnenl and Increase the orchesl ra as well as the chorus. Special attention is to be a to "( >tello" and "i I He u hi ,ii:,, condu t th >armstadt phony c i< rts as well as thosi 0! th Vienna Philhai Philadelphia now bas, under the able direction of Leopold Stokowsky, one of 1 1,,. best '" ■ hi itras In Imet U a A big ii::i of soloist be i" en obtained tor next season, it Includes Uma QIucl
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June 25, 1914] The Nation r> 737 off, Louise Homer, Efrem Zimbal- rraccio Busoni, Scbumann-Helnk, Harold Bauer, WHlj Burmester, Elena Qerhardt, 0 ibrllowltsch, Fritz Kreisler, Fannie Bl afield Zeisler, Carl Pleach, Harold Randolph, Jacques Thi- 1 aud, and Josef Hofmann. During the rust three months of this fear Wagner's "Parsifal" was heard in by about seven hundred thousand wlio would never have been able to enjoy this work if the Bayreuth monopoly had been continued. Twenty- flvi European opera houses gave 314 performances of it in the original Ger- man, while French, Spanish, Italian, and Bchemian versions were also heard. Art We have already reviewed favorably Lisle March Philipps's thoughtful study, "Art and Environment," and have now only to note its inclusion in the list of Henry Holt & Co. Sir Charles Waldstein's two lectures before the Koyal Academy students on "Greek Sculpture and Modern Art" (Put- nam; $2.50 net) are now handsomely printed by the Cambridge University Press, with some seventy-five illustra- tions. In these two eminently judicious discourses the lecturer hit the tone of the place and audience with fairly Attic tact. We seem to have heard much the same plea for harmony, much the same reprehension of individual extravagance from a distinguished line of Academy speakers reaching back to Sir Joshua himself. Sir Charles did no discredit to the ritual theme while naturally failing to invest it with much novelty. Despite the title, modern art barely shows its head, and then in the rather atypical im- personation of Rodin. A mass of eighteenth-century anec- dotes with a sprinkling of orthodox moral comment and a modicum of biography may sufficiently describe Mrs. Bearne's "A Court Painter and His Circle, Fran- cois Boucher" (McBride; $4 net). The whole is carried off with a rather dizzy kind of vivacity suggestive of the parlor lecture. There are some thirty illustra- tions, of which a few relate to Boucher. The whole mixture will be most attrac- tive to those who care least about the main point, the artist who happens to be involved. The Country Life Library (London) has published in its series of Architec- tural Monographs a large and sumptu- ous quarto volume on "Houses and Gar- dens by E. L. Lutyens," described and criticised by Lawrence Weaver. Twenty- six chapters and an Appendix are devoted to a review of Mr. Lutyens's work in the field of domestic architecture, of which there are 580 illustrations. A large proportion of these are full-page plates from photographs, and all without ex- ception are of the high quality which one associates with the Country Life pub- lications. The Appendix is devoted to reproductions of detail drawings from Mr. Lutyens's office; these are the least inter- esting of the illustrations, as they are not for the most part figured, and show little of the actual construction. It may be questioned whether the work treated of is quite worthy of this extended pre- sentation. Mr. Lutyens is an architect of high repute, and by reason of his work in South Africa and his selection as architect of the new capital of India at Delhi, is probably more widely known abroad than some of his British compeers of equal ability. But it can hardly be said that his work betrays the stamp of special distinction or of marked origi- nality. The country houses shown in this book display good taste, sometimes the elusive quality of artistic charm; the town houses and more formal designs are distinctly dull and heavy. Text and illustrations are evidently designed for the general rather than the professional public; but it is hard to discover, even in the explanatory, almost apologetic preface, any quite adequate motive for so elaborate an advertisement to the mul- titude. Certainly Americans, whether architects or clients, seeking for instruc- tion as to English country-house archi- tecture, will find more and better ma- terial in other sources. In two miniature volumes, "Berlin, Dresden" and "Munich, Frankfort, Cas- sel," John C. Van Dyke's "New Guides to Old Masters" (Scribner's; $1 each) cover the chief galleries of Germany. The gen- eral characteristics of these guides we have already discussed. On points of quality Mr. Van Dyke is a stimulating mentor, on issues of attribution he is bold to rashness. Out of the twenty-two Berlin Rembrandts, most of which were bought by the great expert Dr. Bode, only seven are accepted as genuine, three of these being doubtful. A process that in- volves giving such a masterpiece as the Vision of Daniel to scholars of the calibre of Eckhout or Bol will find little favor with the judicious. In general we are convinced that such critical matters should be threshed out in the special journals before being laid before the pub- lic. We feel, too, that the warning against repainting is overdone. It is most need- ful to know the few pictures that are intact and those that are hopelessly over- painted. But the caution "somewhat repainted" holds of nearly all old pic- tures, and may be taken for granted. Mr. Van Dyke grants three stars, the mark for a great masterpiece, to only four pictures in Germany; the Sistine Madonna and the Giorgione Venus at Dresden, the Saskia with a Crimson Cap at Cassel, and the Wings of the Van Eyck Adoration of the Lamb at Berlin. It seems to us that he underrates such pictures as Diirer's Four Apostles and the Dresden Ruysdaels, nor can we at all agree with his low estimate of Hol- bein's Georg Gisze. It is a masterpiece of the cold type, but still a masterpiece. Mr. Van Dyke's invention of a "Pseudo- Vermeer" to account for the poorer pic- tures ascribed to the master of Delft seems to us fantastic. Broadly speaking, these little books are better calculated to divert the expert than to edify the public. We have received Part XII of Paul Herrmann's valuable "Denkmaler der Malerei des Altertums" (Munich: F. Bruckmann Co.). This part is devoted to the frescoes in the so-called House of the Citharist at Pompeii, as the previous one was to those of the "Villa of Cicero." It goes without saying that the plates maintain the high standard of the house of Bruckmann for beautiful and accu- rate reproductions, and Dr. Herrmann's text displays the scholarship and the in- finite pains in his study and description of details to which the previous parts of this work have accustomed us. Indeed, one of the most useful and important features of his text is his correction, bit by bit, of the many careless errors in the descriptions of the colors and other details which were made in earlier cata- logues, notably — to our surprise — Hel- big's, on which students have hitherto relied with confidence. But the most im- pressive fact which he brings out, and which is a disheartening one to all lovers of ancient art, is that many of the Pom- peian frescoes, especially among those which were removed to the Museum of Naples, have already sadly deteriorated in the comparatively brief period since their discovery. Students who have visit- ed that museum at rare intervals must have been conscious of this fact in a general way — the increasing effect of dinginess, and the gradual deadening of the vivid colors which one notices after an interval of several years — but Dr. Herrmann proves it by evidence which is incontrovertible. Those who consult the present part may follow this evidence most convincingly by comparing the re- productions which he gives of early pho- tographs of several of these frescoes with his own plates showing their con- dition to-day. Of course the early pho- tographs were generally retouched, and sometimes extensively, to make them good "sellers," but by comparing those of different makers he says he has been able to determine the facts, as no two negatives of the same subject were re- touched in precisely the same manner. We may cite two examples given by Dr. Herrmann as appalling illustrations of what has happened within a single generation. One is the picture of Leda or Nemesis (pi. Ill, Helbig No. 152), which his reproduction of an early pho- tograph shows with all the details of the three figures and their architectural set- ting clearly denned, whereas now the whole surface is badly worn, the figures are barely recognizable, and many of the details have practically disappeared. The other is the charming Judgment of Paris (pi. 113, Helbig No. 1286). Both the early photographs and Helbig's description show that not many years ago tin ras strong in color and well pre- served throughout, but now the upper part has paled and some of its more deli- cate details have vanished, while the lower third has gone entirely, even the surface of the stucco having crumbled away. To appreciate this situation it must be remembered that the excavation of the House of the Citharist was begun in 1853, and completed in 1868, with a long interval of interruption between, so that the deterioration to which we re- fer has occurred during the first gen- eration after the discovery of these fres-
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768 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2556 coes. Such being the case, to what are we to look forward for future genera- tions— will there be anything left for them? It is a comfort to believe that these matters are more carefully and in- telligently looked after now than they used to be, and that better treatment has been given to the paintings unearthed in recent years, insuring them a longer and more brilliant life, yet this is but imperfect consolation for what has been allowed to go and now can never be recovered. Barclay Vincent Head, an authority on numismatics, died in London on June 12. He was born in Ipswich, England, on January 2, 1844. In 1864 he was ap- pointed an assistant in the British Mu- seum; in 1908 ho was elected vice-presi- dent of the Royal Numismatic Society, and was joint editor of the Numismatic Chronicle from 1869 until 1910. From 1893 to 1906 he was keeper of the de- partment of coins and medals of the British Museum. Mr. Head was a cor- respondent of the Institute of France and of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sci- ences, and a member of the Imperial German Archaeological Institute. He had also received the degrees of D.Litt. from Oxford, D.C.L. from Durham, and Ph.D. from Heidelberg. He was the author of "History of the Coinage of Syracuse," "The Coinage of Lydia and Persia," "His- tory of the Coinage of Ephesus," "His- toria Numorum," and the Catalogues of Greek Coins in the British Museum in ten volumes. Finance THE SWING AROUND A CIRCLE. In an interview with the Evening Post last week, ex-Senator Edmunds— a survivor, in full intellectual vigor, of the celebrated group of statesmen who guided the country's political destinies from the ending of the Civil War to the beginning of the Spanish-American con- flict— had two things to say which bore on the financial situation. One was in comment on President Wilson's theory of a "psychological depression." Mr. Ed- munds offset this by President Cleve- land's remark of 1884 that "it is a con- dition, not a theory, which confronts us." The pressing of the contrast between the two Presidential utterances was in- teresting, though perhaps not wholly fair. Mr. Wilson did not allege, and could not very well have done so, that business depression was not in itself an actual condition. Mr. Cleveland was not arguing that theory had no part in plans to reduce the tariff, but that reve- nues ought to be reduced, whichever economic theory about it might be the wiser, because the overflowing public surplus was deranging the money mar- ket. The second point of ex-Senator Ed- munds had to do with the situation it- self— financial and industrial, as well as political and social. As to this, he declared himself not discouraged at the popular extravagances of the day: It will all come out right. The troubles are not political, but social. Human his- tory and experience teach that things go around in circles. We are now in a part of the circle which I shall not endeavor to classify. We are troubled with an epi- demic of emotion among people who don't stop to reflect. Radical doctrines are merely a sign of the times. Some day there will be a further swing around the circle and then you will see a change. This is a highly interesting statement. If the principle applies to the social and political ferment of the day, it can hardly fail to apply to the financial dis- turbance as well; for the one is vitally influenced by the other. What is the basis of it? That good and bad times in business swing around in a fairly well-defined circle — usually fixed at something like twenty years — is an old story. That happens under the influence of other causes than the upheaval and subsidence of great popular emotions. Retrench- ment and accumulation of capital, through a series of years, alternate with an approximately equal period of expan- sion and speculation. Each is the natur- al sequel to the other; we are now in a period of the first-named sort, just as we were in a period of the other sort a decade or so ago, and just as we were in a period such as now exists a dec- ade before that. In the field of political contests, the swing of the circle is some- what narrower, because any party in power is apt to become unpopular through inability to please all its pre- vious supporters, and because the dis- satisfied voting constituency which cre- ates majorities swings, for the time be- ing, to the other side. But the "epidemic of emotion," of which Mr. Edmunds speaks, is some- thing different from either. Its seizure of the mind of whole communities is much more rare in its recurrence. Such world-wide demonstrations, occurring in periods half a century or more apart, and seemingly based on a fixed resolve to upset existing institutions, have been explained on the theory that the pre- vious state of things had at last become impossible to endure. They have also been explained on the ground that the public's imagination had been so set on fire, by a series of inventions which had changed the methods of the physical world, that the excited public had determined to change things with equal suddenness and completeness in the social, political, and financial world as well. Either theory would apply to the great upheaval of 1789 and to that of 1848, and either applies to that which is now in progress. What Is even more immediately to the point, leaders in both of those older epoch-making demonstrations, after the real abuses and anachronisms of the period had been successfully attacked, proceeded to indulge in every sort of wild and fantastic propaganda of re- form. That also is true to-day; some of the evidence for which is the pro- posed recall of judicial decisions in poli- tics, "syndicalism" in economic theory, feminism and the militant suffragettes in the field of moral and social institu- tions, and Government commissions with power to regulate any incorporat- ed business (the original proposition of the Trades Commission bill) for finance. After the French Revolution, and af- ter the uprisings of 1848, the civilized world swung gradually around the cir- cle again. It never got back to exactly the situation which it had left behind it when the people rose against the Crown; otherwise the Bourbon autoc- racy, with its lettres de cachet, would have returned after the one upheaval had subsided, and the Continental tyran- nies would have been rebuilt after their general collapse in the middle of the century. On any such supposition, the wild performances of associated capital- ists, "thinking in hundred millions," would return when the present commo- tion should have spent its force — which no one imagines as a probability. But, on the other hand, 1789 did not introduce a permanent regime of sans- culottes, guillotines, Jacobin clubs, and a calendar in which Year One was the date of the French Convention. The settling down of affairs after 1848 did not establish a world-wide institution of State Socialism. Neither will the af- termath of the present furious emotion- al upheaval leave the courts or the mar- riage ceremony abolished, or the banks and the stock exchanges managed by legislative committees. Mr. Edmunds was wise, however, in declining to com- mit himself as to exactly what part of the circle we are in to-day. That is something which every one would like to know, and which It is not at all prob- able any one will know until we are considerably further along on the periphery. BOOKS OF THE WEEK FICTION. 1 i .so, J. E. Gay Morning. Doran. $1.25 net. Johnson, W. S. Nothing Else Matters. Kennerley. $1.25 net. Merrick, Leonard, when Love Mil-* nt (>• the Window. Kennerley. $1.20 net. Scott, Leroy. No, 18 Washington Square Houghton Mifflin. 11.85 net Silberrad, U. L Cuddy YurboroiiKh's 1 laughter, 1 toran 91.26 net. Suttner, B. von. When Thought! W1U Soar. Houghton Miiiiin. 11.60 net, MISCKI.I.ANKOrS Bishop, w. w. Practical Handbook f Modern Cataloging. Baltimore: Wil- liam & Wilklns. BHggs, i.i' Baron R. To College <ili-N. hton Mifflin. 10 rents net,
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June 25, 1914] The Nation rv 739 Chin* Year Hook. Dutton. $3.50 net. MacMuim, Norman, a Path to Free- dom in the Bi I I. Macmillan. 60 cents net. Morris, William. Old French Romances. Scribner. South African Fear nook. Dutton. $3.50 net. MBUGI03 AND PHILOSOPHY. Brandea, Oeorg1. Friedrich Nietzsche. Macmillan. 75 cents net. Cornlll, C. H. Ancient Israel. Chicago: iii" n Court Publishing Co. Dunn, J. P. The Unknown God. Indi- anapolis: Sentinel Printing Co. $1. But ken, R. Collected Essays. Scribner. $4 net Murray, George. Jesus and His Para- bles. Edinburgh: Clark. I .i:nmi:m AND ECONOMICS. BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY. Chadwick, Ellis H. In the Footsteps of the Brontes. Brentano. $3.75 net. Hill. I). J. A History of European Di- plomacy. Vol. III. Longmans. $6 net. Salzman, L. F. Henry II. Houghton Mifflin. $2.50 net. Schurman, J. G. The Balkan Wars. Princeton: University Press. $1 net. Stanhope, G., and Gooch, G. P. The Life of Charles, Third Earl Stanhope. Longmans. $3.50 net. Temperly, W. M. G. The Life of Henry VII. Houghton Mifflin. $2.50 net. TRAVEL. Hale, Walter. The Ideal Motor Tour in France. Dodd, Mead. $1.50 net. Wigram, W. A. and E. T. A. The Cradle of Mankind. Macmillan. $4.50 net. POETRY. ( Cyclopedia of American Government. Vol. Norton, G. F. The Sister of the Wind. I. Appleton. Houghton Mifflin. $1.25 net. Hobson, J. A. Work and Wealth. Mac- ; Procter, A. A. Legends and Lyrics. Ox millan. $2 net. ford University Press. Is. 6d. net. SCIENCE. Chase, H. Game Protection and Propa- gation in America. Philadelphia: Lip- pincott. $1.25 net. Eugenics: Twelve University Lectures. Dodd, Mead. $2 net. Sharp, D. L. Where Rolls the Oregon. Houghton Mifflin. $1.25 net. MUSIC AND DRAMA. Crawford, C. Dramatic Games and Dances. Barnes. $1.50 net. Galsworthy, John. The Mob. Scribner. 60 cents net. Rath, Emil. ^Esthetic Dancing. Barnes. $1.50 net. ART. New Guides for Old Masters. Vienna, Budapest. $1 net. Madrid. 75 cents net. Scribner. Olschki, L. S. Le Livre en Italic Flor- ence: Imprimerie Juntine. 10 fr. TEXTBOOKS. Racine's Andromaque, ed. by C. Searles. Boston: Ginn. 40 cents. Introductory Geology A Textbook for Colleges By Thomas C. ChamberLTN and Rolt.in D. Sai.isiu iiv. Heads of the Depart- ments of Geology and Geography in the University of Chicago. (Ameri- can Science Series. > xi + 708 pp. 12mo. $2.00. This is an abbreviation and simpli- fication of the authors' College Oeology, which has been so widely and success- fully used in American colleges. Many technical details have been omitted, but the general purpose and scope of the volume is not altered fundamental- ly. Part I deals with geological m processes and materials, and Part .HenryHolt&Co.^S &tubie* in JNatorp, economics anb public %a\n Edited by the Faculty of Political Science of Columbia University. The Development of Modern Turkey as Measured by Its Press By AHMED EMIN, Ph.D. 8vo. Paper covers. Pp. 142. $1.00.* LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. Foreign Books and Magazines Correspondence Solicited E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 681 Fifth Avenue, near 54th Street NEW YORK WHAT IS IT TO BE EDUCATED? By C. HANFORD HENDERSON A valuable contribution both to the art of education ami to the art of reasonable living. At all bookstores. $1.50 net. Postage extra. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN CO., 4 Park St., Boston McClurg's New Catalogue of Rare & Fine Imported BOOKS Selections from the finest collection in the country Copy sent free on request A. C. McCLURG & CO. Dept. P. 218-24 S. Wabash Avenue CHICAGO Adventurings in the Psychical By H. ADDINGTON BRUCE Author of "Scientific Mental Healing," etc. A comprehensive review of results of modern and psychical research in the realm of the abnormal and the supernormal. Mr. Bruce has long been « student of the psychical, and his examples are gathered from a vast variety of sources, while his explanations are based on the latest scientific data. 318 Pages. Cloth. $1.35 net. LITTLE, BROWN & CO., Publishers, Boston HEINE'S ATTA TROLL Translated by Herman ScbefTauer; with Intro- iluctlon by Dr. Oscar Levy, and Illustrating by Willy Pognny. * A classic satire applicable to political condi- tions of all times and countries. $1.2."> net B.W. Ill KIIM II. Publisher, 225 Fifth avc.NewYork The Necessary Adjunct to the Summer Book- Shelf is a simple work on Astronomy — Some one in the house is continually looking for "Star information " — The Call of the Stars A Popular Introduc- tion to a Knowledge of the Starry Skies. BY John R. Kippax,M.D.,LL.B. Author of "Comets and Meteors," "Churchyard Literature," etc. 8vo, 41 illustrations, $2.50 This handsomely printed volume gives the story of the starry heavens, written in plain, non-technical lan- guage, and richly illus- trated by charts and dia- grams and also by plates taken from recent photo- graphs made by distin- guished astronomers. Es- sentially A star and planet book for the people and entirely within the ken of the ordinary reader. G. P. Putnam's Sons, Publishers
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770 The Nation [Vol. 98, No. 2556 "The best magazine in your country." — Henri Bergson. Yale Review The New American Quarterly Edited by Wilbur L. Cross CONTENTS FOR JULY LITERARY CRITICISM IN AMERICAN PERIODICALS Bliss Perry LATIN AMERICA AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE Hiram Binqham A PILGRIM IN CONCORD. . . .*. Henry A. Beers THE MIRROR j Fannie steams Gifford ESCAPE I LETTERS FROM AN OLD HAIR TRUNK Dudley L. Vaill NEW OPPORTUNITIES IN THE PACIFIC Lincoln Hutchinson HIGH PRICES AND HIGH LIVING Frederick S. Dickson TO A MOCKING-BIRD William Alexander Percv LIBERTY: MEDIAEVAL AND MODERN A. F. Pollard LIFE AT GREAT ALTITUDES Yandell Henderson CONVERSATIONS WITH PAUL HEYSE William Lvon Phelps THE AMERICAN VASARI Theodore S. Woolsey YOUNG EDEN I „,.„ B THE RECOVERY OF LOST GREEK LITERATURE H. de Forest Smith BOOK REVIEWS J £ _ >.«, SPECIAL OFFER. —This number will be sent on ap- fr s\ r^r\ I DC • d COpy proval, to be returned or paid for, as you prefer. ■$<£ »DU CI y € di YALE REVIEW, NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT. "A periodical that stands steadfastly for good literature, and for the value of poetry in alljwalks of life." — The Dial JPoeficgpreJ Title Registered as a Trade Mark. A MAGAZINE OF LETTERS ESTABLISHEDI1889 The oldest and largest review in the English language devoted to poetry and drama SUMMER NUMBER JUST OUT PARTIAL CONTENTS The Light : A Play in Four Acts Authorized translation from the French of GEORGES DUHAMEL He Is Coming: A Play in One Act Authorized translation from the Norwegian of ALVILDE PRYDZ. Critical Articles on Georges Duhamel, Alvilde Prydz, Arthur Upson The Manchester Players ' . By miss horniman Poems. By ARTHUR KETCHUM, CHARLOTTE PORTER, CHARLES VILDRAC, FREDERICK HUNTER, WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE, LUCILE PRICE LEONARD, and others. tt* * f\f\ /-s. F°r Sale in New York by Brentano's & C /)/! tpl.UU a copy Ok or sent postpaid by the publishers 0O.I/1/ a year THE^POET LORE COMPANY 194 BOYLSTON STREET, BOSTON, U. S. A. "it is a dkisi excellent indication of the genuine love of high Uteratun thai the editor! have been able to brir so many distinct contributions of a suggestive and critical character. There Is a freshness about the work which Is Inspiriting, and the study Is of that which is worth while, not the tiresome praise of the second rate." —Atlantic Monthly