The New Republic: A Journal of Opinion (August 25, 1920)
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he New REPUBLIC. _A Journal A Opinion 7 VoLuME XXIII Contents Editorials Peace or War in Europe Mr. Roosevelt’s Imaginary League........... | Help From Hecklers Transit in Europe Coddling Our Merchant Marine General Articles Stark Young Paxton Hibben Elinor Wylie Mexico CV CLS C06 Cp eces .....Carleton Beals Reviews of Books British Report on Dock Labor. .R. H. Tawney Miserable Innocents Who Is Wrangel? August (Verse) Sir James Frazer Herbert S.‘ Gorman The Week \N the surface there are three conflicting poli- cies towards Russia. Britain and Italy stand for peace. France stands for intervention. America _ stands for no peace, no intervention, and a guaran- _. tee of the integrity of the Old Russian Empire. _ These positions seem to be irreconcilable. For while there is a certain verbal agreement between France and America, there is no real understand- ing on the issues. The American position is whol- ly dictated by logic and principle, regardless of fact or necessity. ‘We will never recognize the government of Russia. We will not make more than an armistice. But we will guarantee to any _ government, but the Soviet, the integrity of the old - empire, minus Finland and Poland. The French on the other hand will never recognize the Russian government, well, at any rate hardly ever. They are dealing in other words not with “principles,” but with interests and necessities. Therefore they might recognize the Soviet government, or they might subsidize the invasion of Russia, or consent _ to its dismemberment. The French position is stiff, but negotiable and it is governed by French interests. ‘The American position is absolutely stiff, but not negotiable. It cannot bend. It can only New York, WEDNEsDAY, AUGUST 25, 1920 by principle. standing differences. jf THE three policies are the result of three differ- ent sets of facts. The Italians are for peace be- cause Italy has ousted her jingoes, and labor and liberalism are definitely in the ascendent. ' As the close neighbor of Central Europe, Italy appreci- ates most directly the appalling consequences of the war and blockade on the Russian frontier. Italian reconstruction racing, against Italian revo- lution needs peace, trade and tranquility. British are for peace on two main grounds. The stewards of Empire, like Lord Curzon, know that a war with Russia is a gamble with the empire. They know the disaffection of the Mohammedan — world, and they realize that Russia has the inside They dare not risk an Armageddon with a nation that is almost invul- — lines on the road to India. nerable to sea power, and is unconquerable by land, But even if they could discount these facts, they could not, with Ireland boiling, face the wrath of organized labor and of independent liberalism. Finally England, as the centre of the maturest statesmanship in the world, a country where em- pirical facts influence the calculations of leaders, knows the futility of more war and the fundamen- tal need of restoring the trade of Europe. FRANCE, having no vital interests in the East, NUMBER 299 The- break. The British and Italians are untroubled They are ready to negotiate all out- “ has less to fear from Russian enmity. Governed — by a mercantilist and ultra-protectionist philosophy rather than an economic liberalism, having a large bureaucracy and a large militarism to support, she | is influenced less than Britain by practical consid- erations. The determining factors for the French Foreign Office are primarily the validity of the Russian bonds, and the deciding reason in every important relationship is military force. France that promised to pay the bonds and was in military control. Her attitude towards the Soviets today would make’ peace with any Russian government —
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345 - is governed by the conflicting facts that the Soviets. are in control, but that they will not promise to pay the Tsar’s debts. Or if they will promise, they insist at the same time in submitting a bill, that would cancel the bonds, to cover the cost of resisting intervention. French policy, if the Sovi- ets are fully victorious, consists of a diplomatic manoeuvre in behalf of the bonds. Wrangel is the card to be played. Should the victory of Rus- sia compel a peace conference, France, one may guess, will try to secure her bonds, as the price of ‘Wrangel’s disappearance. A'MERICA, having no empire in Asia to defend, no politically conscious labor movement to placate, no bonds to validate, no great need of Russian re- sources, and being out of reach of any military danger is able to stand on “principle.” Unfor- tunately it has chosen as the principle on which to stand, a set of ideas which can.have one of two results. If acted upon they would produce war and revolution on the continent; if not acted upon they are ridiculous. For Mr. Colby proposes to isolate victorious Russia, and then starve her into submission to any reactionary who will seize pow- er. As compensation for starving Russia he prom- ises that the United States will restore the empire when the Bolsheviks are gone. But the promise is meaningless, because the United States will not shed a drop of blood or spend a penny to restore the boundaries of old Russia. His promise being - without value, his pretty little plan for holding Rus- sia isolated is no less unreal. If the Colby policy prevailed, Russia would do what every other block- aded country would do: she would fight her way out and pull down Central Europe in the process. This would provoke a general war and widespread revolution. But neither Mr. Colby nor Mr, Wil- son have any authority to engage in such a war; consequently they have no moral right to pursue a policy which involves obligations they cannot fulfill. s IN all probability this is to take Mr. Colby too - seriously. He is fond of gestures. He has no serious intention of fighting for the integrity of Russia or against a sortie by Russie. He is prob- ably infatuated with the idea that Russia will crum- ble because the Word has gone forth. This is humiliating, and discreditable to the shrewdness of our diplomats, but it will probably not affect the course of events very deeply. The trump cards are held by Britain and Russia, and between those two Powers agreement would not be difficult, if the intriguing factions in one and the extremists in the other can be kept in leash. For Britain and Russia are in agreement about the peace terms for Poland. THE NEW REPUBLIC August 25, 1920 H OW is it then that at the moment when the British Prime Minister declares for peace, British Labor issues the most threatening ultimatum ever delivered to a stable government? Was the ulti- matum not superfluous? Why, if Mr. George is for peace, should Labor through its most conserva- tive leaders threaten revolution if peace is not made? ‘The reason lies undoubtedly in the whole complex of influence within the government symbol- ized, if not led, by Mr. Winston Churchill. That . “aristocrat and journalist” has been publicly’ con- victed of intrigue to drag Britain into war, and Labor and Liberalism can never trust a British cabinet of which he is a member. This distrust is accentuated by a number of slippery evasions in the Premier’s otherwise admirable speech. Britain was not supporting Wrangel, but Mr. George did not speak for France.’ The Soviets had delayed the armistice with Poland, but Mr. George did not advert to the failure of Poland to send _pleni- potentiaries capable of making. the only armistice on which any government in Russia’s position could. make an armistice—namely, the disarmament of Poland. For surely after the Polish aggression against Russia, no one can expect the military terms to be less rigorous than those imposed by the Allies upon Germany. BRITISH Labor is, therefore, well advised in re- fusing to relax its vigilance no matter how many fair words are spoken. For upon British Labor with its allies in the ranks of Liberalism rest the burden and the glory of saving Europe from a supreme disaster. In resorting to extra-cunstitu- tional methods, they have adopted a course which sane men do not lightly choose. Only the most ex- treme provocation would justify it, but that pro- vocation exists today in the effort of European militarism to instigate another and ultimately more costly war than that which began in 1914. British Labor, standing outside the constitution is today in all truth the champion of law and order, decency and honor. To their eternal credit, they have not misjudged the terrible gravity of the crisis. May they hold fast. Their cause is the cause of mankind, THE real interest of America today lies, as it al- most always does, with Britain, and especially with that liberal Britain which is demanding peace. Mr. Wilson has never understood that, and much of the tragedy of Versailles may be traced directly to the anti-British suspicion in our diplomatic service which prevented a genuine Anglo-American cooper- ation at Paris. ‘That suspicion French diplomacy has exploited, and it has admirable opportunities in the histrionic vanity of the rhetorical Mr. Colby. But America simply cannot afford to become the
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August 25, 1920 THE: NEW catspaw of the French Foreign Office at the expense of the unity of the English-speaking peoples. Yet that is exactly where Mr. Colby’s impressionistic mind and Mr. Wilson’s delusion about the power of words has led. On the greatest question. con- fronting mankind, the American and the British peoples have been aligned in opposition. THE ramifications of Mr. Wilson’s fatal blunder about Russia are world-wide. It will react, for ex- ample, on the Far East. To Japanese imperialism in Siberia and China, the flaring up of war and re- volution in Europe means a free hand. Mr. Wilson can write notes to Japan, but while he is teetering on the edge of another European war, his protests mean nothing. Japan knows it. To extricate China and Russia from the stranglehold which Japan ob- tained during the war and as a result of interven- tion in Siberia would be an enormous task, were America unembarrassed and Britain in a ‘position to help. With a new war brewing, we shall have to default on our moral obligations in the Far East. THAT the rent legislation passed by the New York legislature did not solve the housing problem was widely recognized at the time. The laws were aimed at profiteering, and in spite of the fact that they were loosely drafted and have been rather casually administered, they have helped to protect the poorer tenants against extortion. But they have if anything aggravated the actual shortage in dwel- ling places, and have undoubtedly contributed to the startling conditions revealed by the Manhattan building report for July. There were filed last month just one plan for an apartment house and a plan for one dwelling, as against five theatres, one hundred and fifteen garages, and three loft struc- tures. ’o make matters worse there is going on a conversion of dwelling places into mercantile build- ings. [he normal increase in apartments, accord- ing to the Tenement House Commissioner, Mr. Mann, would be about 28,000 a year, not counting hotels and two family houses, In the last four years the construction has not been one-seventh of normal. the shortage at 160,000 apartments. The construc- tion of school houses, churches, hospitals, and pub- lic buildings is at a standstill. CLEARLY private capital is not meeting the emergency. Public assistance is needed either through building loans, tax exemption, or municipal construction. For any constructive measure the as- sent of the legislature is necessary, and Governor Smith has called a‘special session for September 20th, This. legislature it will be recalled devoted And Mr. Doyle, the Secretary of the _ Mayor’s Housing Conference Committee, estimates REPUBLIC | ae most of its time last winter to a witch hunt organ- : ized by Senator Sweet, and contributed to the glory © of America by the expulsion of five duly elected Assemblymen. The Governor who is a sound . Democrat ‘has called a special election for Septem-. ber 16th in the five disfranchised districts saying. _ that a population of approximately 250,000 people in the congested areas is entitled to representation. There is thus an opportunity to right the wrong done last winter, and in righting it to make a fresh start on the very real problem of housing. That | the five Socialists should be reelected goes without saying, for only by their reelection can the assault on popular goverment be properly rebuked. Peace or War in Europe T is only six years since the European war. crashed down upon America unsuspecting and unprepared. Afterwards we learned, bit by bit, that the stable Europe we had visited and admired had been the figment of our unsophisticated imagi- nation. Europe had really been a powder maga- zine, ready for a chance match. Under a peaceful surface, moves and countermoves had been mak- ing, forces had been drawn up and coordinated, and on either side eager and unscrupulous spirits: were awaiting the occasion. Intelligent Europeans — were alive to the danger, but intelligent Americans were not, - - There is a parallel in the present crisis in eastern Europe. To most Americans it looks like a suf- ficiently troublesome matter, but local and tran- sitory. Is it to be supposed that a conflict between a tatterdemalion Bolshevik army and the more or less demoralized Poles could spread and disturb — seriously the calculations of the western great Powers? Europeans must certainly think it is; else one cannot account for the conciliatory atti- tude of such unregenerate militarists as Curzon and Milner toward the Soviet representatives. The problem lies near to them, and they are forced to gauge honestly the actual balance of forces. That | we have not been doing, but it is time. If general - war again flared up in Europe, we could not say that it was none of our business. We have learned so much from the late war. | | What then is the actual strength of this Soviet government, which Secretary Colby has condemned. to, solitary confinement and extinction through non- What is the utmost mischief it can — recognition? do, in case the Polish war becomes general? The Soviet government appears for the present to be secure in its control of Russia, from the Polish line to Lake Baikal, with the exception of the — Crimea and a small section of. the south, Russian,
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347 plain. It can recruit men throughout a territory containing a population of one hundred and twen- ty-five millions. Probably the great majority of these do not like the Soviet government, but just as they followed the Tsar against the foreign en- emy, so they appear willing to follow the Bolshe- _viki against the foreign enemy. It is repeatedly reported from Poland, France and England that the army operating against Poland is, a national, not a communist army. Even Secretary Colby has an inkling of this fact. Former officers of the Tsar, Cadets, Mensheviki, Social Revolutionaries join gladly in the attack on the Poles. They all hate the Poles, and the French, whose military ambitions ‘have prolonged the sufferings of Russia beyond endurance. The Soviet government does not lack men for its armies. ‘There is no lack of competent com- manders, nor of the arms appropriate to a war of movement. ‘Their army, Lloyd George says, is not formidable, as we know armies in western Eu- rope. They have not the artillery to blow the tops off the hills'\in attacking trench lines and fortified cities, But warfare in eastern Europe does not lend itself to west European technique. If a British or French army, equipped, as in Flanders, appeared on Russian soil, the Russians would have to re- treat. But Russia affords plenty of room for manoeuvring, and the Russian generals have not lost the art of retreating for which they were so abundantly praised in the days of the Grand Dukes. Accordingly the Soviet government has no great reason to be perturbed over the menace of inva- sion. Its defensive position is strong. How about its offensive position? It is impos- sible to say how far the reports of the Bolshevik _ advances in the Caucasus and Turkestan rest upon facts, and how far they are mere propaganda, floated simultaneously by both sides. But one thing is certain; there is no physical obstruction nor mili- tary organization to check a determined thrust in- to Armenia, Persia or Afghanistan. In all that region there are powerful forces bitterly hostile to British and French policy. The foundations of empire are not absolutely stable even in India. France may be willing to take risks with her sha- _dowy claims in Asia Minor, but Britain has vastly _ greater reason for caution. This, we infer, is part of the reason why Britain is more eager for peace : : with Russia than France, or than the United Sintes, whose chief immediate interest in the Rus- sian situation is one of abstract governmental theory. If it came to a fight for their lives, the Bolshe- ‘viki could do great mischief in the east. How about the west? We have seen how fragile the THE NEW REPUBLIC pro-German during the war. those that Britain and France could raise. power of resistance of Poland really is, although August 25, 1920 fortified by the new spirit of nationalism and a_ hatred of the Russians that made most of the Poles _ Are we sure of the resisting power of the Germans? Consider the state in which we have left Germany. The in- terminable months of unemployment and under- nourishment have prepared the way for revolu- tionary radicalism among the masses. pect of prolonged economic slavery and the in- definite occupation of German soil by the Allied armies must infallibly have weakened the power of resistence among the German middle classes. As everyone knows, there are German aristocrats and militarists who are seriously considering the advantages of throwing in their lot with militant Bolshevism. They know that the immediate effect would be a terrible punishment of the territories near the Rhine, and the temporary annexation by France of the Rhine provinces and Westphalia. But there would be at least a fighting chance of getting the whole movement under German con- trol and winning possession of an economic and military domain stretching from the Elbe to the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. As for Rumania, Hungary, Austria, and even Czecho-Slovakia, they would prove a row of houses of cards if Bolshe- vism blew up a great wind of militancy. On the other side, however, are the great war machines and the millions of trained soldiers of France and England. Even a Bolshevik-German combination could not send out armies matching But neither could such a combination be broken up and subjugated. In a long drawn-out war, moreover, France and England would sink deeper and deeper into fiscal bankruptcy and economic decadence. They are still far from the proletarian revolution, but war waste produces = effects that are in- calculable. These are remote possibilities, as remote as the downfall of empires seemed to Kaisers and Tsars in 1914. Prudent statesmenship will not ignore them. It will not hastily assume, either, that Bol- shevik world militancy is already too far advanced to be checked. ‘The Bolsheviki may believe that they can pull down the European political struc- ture, but they must certainly realize that in a pro- longed struggle the militarists, either their own or those of Germany, will take the leadership out of their hands. to avert the general war. By what method? Last week two plans were presented to the pub- - lic on the same day, that of Lloyd George and that of Secretary Colby. It was the object of Lloyd aris eh s plan to bring about peace, if possible. The pros- They hesitate, and there is still time © ale = hae | vane — Oe
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August 25, 1920 THE NEW He recognized frankly that the Poles had over- reached themselves in carrying the offensive into Russia, and that the Soviet government had a per- fect right to press its victories until the Poles agreed to an armistice on such terms as any other victor would dictate. Only in the event of imposi- tion of terms destroying the independence of Po- land would Britain intervene, and then not by ar- mies but by economic pressure. And in the event of a satisfactory Polish settlement Lloyd George | contemplated a general peace with the Soviets. Secretary Colby’s plan is in short, neither peace nor war with the Soviets. Let the Poles arrange an armistice, in the most limited sense of the term, and then let us all sit watchfully waiting until the Soviet government collapses. That is a plan which the French, anxious about their bloodstained. Rus- sian bonds, approve enthusiastically, But its im- plications are disturbing. If Poland can not make a binding peace, as well as an armistice, then the Soviet government in self-defense will be compelled to disarm Poland completely, if it can, and set up © a government that will.be immune from French and American influence. But that would be to vio- late the Treaty of Versailles, which guaranteed Poland’s independence. It would be the beginning of a general war. Secretary Colby, in effect, challenges the satan government to enter upon the general war which the British are endeavoring desperately to avoid. Thus he aligns America against British liberalism and common sense and with French militarism and reaction. American influence, however, will be exerted in the moral field only, since the time has passed when the administration can carry on war against Russia on its own initiative, and Congress _ would hardly vote for war at the Administration’s request. France may make much of the diplomatic support of America, but the will of Britain is likely to prevail. For the British know that whoever plays the fool they will pay the piper. Mr. Risosevele S Imaginary Ae League | R. ROOSEVELT'S speeches are particularly appealing because they are gracious and simple. Governor Cox also is attractive when he is trying to stimulate the hope and courage of America as against its timidity and selfishness. The Democratic candidates are, in a sense, the idealists of the campaign. But they are idealists whose ideals exist entirely in the realm of the imagination. Neither of them is talking about anything which actually exists; neither of them betrays the effects . of any knowledge or thought about things as they are. REPUBLIC 348 +. They argue eloquently that war is barbarous, costly, and unreasonable. They plead nobly that reason is a better arbiter than force. ‘They insist rightly that America cannot be a hermit nation. But they talk about the world as only a hermit could. For while they demand contact with the world, they illustrate in their own speeches a lack of contact and an inexperience which would make a European blush. Take, for example, the remarks of Mr, Roose- velt at Milwaukee. He talked about Poland and said: If America had been a member of the League. of ‘Nations the Polish nation would not be today fighting. Bolshevism with its back to the wall. If America had been able to throw into the scale the splendid moral force of its hundred millions of people, the Bolshevik armies would not be where they are now... not have been necessary for America to become entangled in any way in European politics. Ours would have been the quieting and steadying hand in a league which with- out America is incomplete. History will lay a great share of the responsibility for the plight of the splendid people of Poland upon those little narrow men who today control the machinery of the Republican party. But for their desire to satisfy a personal spite, the Bolsheviks would not be knocking at the gates of Warsaw. These sentences are worth examining closely for they state concretely the Democratic position on the League. What is the argument? It begins with an assumption of fact, namely, that Poland is the ~ victim of aggression by Russia because Russian — armies are approaching Warsaw. ‘The fact-1s un- true. Poland is no more the victim of aggression than Germany would have been if Foch had broken into Germany. This is a war of Polish aggression, not of Russian aggression. It started with the Polish armies several hundred miles beyond the frontier assigned to them by the Peace Conference. Its opening phase was an invasion of Russia as far as the city of Kiev. It was a war of conquest by Po- land to establish an empire over millions of non- Poles. It was a war begun after repeated attempts by Russia to avert it by negotiations of peace. All this is clearly recognized by Mr. Lloyd George: The Soviet government in any conditions of peace are entitled to take into account the fact of attacks made by the Polish armies upon Russia . . . and they are also entitled to demand such guarantees as would be enacted by any Power against repetition of an attack of that kind. All of this Mr. Roosevelt flatly ignores, and proceeds to argue with every moral implication that Poland is the innocent victim. Upon this piece of misinformation he then proceeds to build a logical edifice. The League, he says, would have prevented — ae this war had America been a member. Naturally : the question arises: why did not the thirty-odd . It would © :
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349 AES INEOWW. nations of the League stop the war? Mr. eer velt says: Because without America the League "1 a incomplete.” He means that the League is not strong enough to restrain Russia, the aggressor that would be a sound argument. But since Poland was the aggressor what sense is there in it? Would anybody say that a League which includes the British Empire, France, Italy and Japan is not strong enough to restrain a weak, im- poverished unstable little country like Poland? No- body would argue that. Mr. Roosevelt would not argue it, had he taken the trouble to read Mr. Lloyd George’s speech. Well, why did not the League restrain Poland? Lord Robert Cecil tried to find out last May, and the answer of Lord Curzon came down to this: that action by the League ° ‘would certainly be re- garded. as intervention in favor of the Bolsheviks and against our Allies.” In other words, a League member—Poland— is not bound by the covenants of the League if tholding her to those covenants would displease “‘Allies.” Russia, not being a mem- ber of the League, had no rights under the cove- nants, and Poland had no duties. Therefore the League could not act, None of this enters into Mr. Roosevelt’s argument because he simply does not happen to know the fundamental fact in the situa- tion—namely that the Russo-Polish war is an example of the League’s failure to prevent aggres- sion by a member of the League. It might be argued, however, by some one who was better informed, that America would, as a mem- ber of the League, have forced Poland to retire within her frontiers and to give up her plans of con- But actually, | quest. That is theoretically possible. what would have been the case? America would have been represented in the council by some one who took his orders from President Wilson and Mr. Bainbridge Colby. Three outstanding facts attest their attitude in this matter. The first is the sale of munitions to Poland. The second is the absolute trickery and deceit of their pretense that they have lifted the illegal blockade of Russia, The third is the recent note declaring against peace with Russia, for that is what the note boils down to when it suggests an “armistice,” without trade or inter- course, to the victorious armies of Russia. ‘The Wilson administration is against peace in eastern Europe on the only terms on which peace is avail- _ able. What is more, the Wilson administration has shown its bad will by using its “moral influence” at the critical moment to sabotage the efforts of Brit- ain and Italy to restore order. If any one thinks that the presence of Wilson in the League would make for peace, he is welcome to the illusion. But evidence to support him is hard to find. What is the moral to be drawn from the inno- Had Russia been REPUBLIC cence of Mr. Roosevelt and the behavior of Mr. Wilson? Isn’t it this? ‘That in spite of all the talk about abandoning isolation and leading the world, many of our public men embody the very isolation which they deplore. ‘They tell us that we cannot build a Chinese Wall, and they are right. But around the minds of men like Roosevelt and Cox and Wilson there is a Chinese Wall so high that they are quite isolated from the facts of life. Compare what they say and honestly believe with what Mr. Lloyd George says, and you can see the difference between a world-politician and a provin- cial politician. Our exponents of the League are spin- ning their policy out of their own inner conscious- ness stimulated by the winds of propaganda. They were idealistic during the war when idealism was the thing. They are the unconscious allies of every monarchist and reactionary in Europe today, not because they mean to be, but because intellectually they take their cue from the propaganda that is in the air. one in Milwaukee to any educated’ body of men in Europe today the best he could hope for would be an indulgent and charitable smile. Nobody abroad who reads his newspaper is so grossly misinformed. August 25% 1920 If Mr. Roosevelt made a speech like the . And so when candidates for office talk glibly © about throwing into the scale the splendid moral force of our hundred million people, the question is: who is to do the throwing? Are we to be thrown by men who do not know what they are talking about, or are we to remember that the transition from complete isolation to complete participation is not to be made at one whack? Are we to remem- ber that our first experience in “leadership” was a failure, and that we have a long apprenticeship to serve before we shall have developed diplomats and politicians who know enough to throw around the moral influence of a hundred million people? Dare we forget that if we throw that influence wrongly too often, it will disappear? And are we not in fact compelled to hedge about with the utmost care the authority of those who are to throw us around? Are we not compelled to tie their hands so that they cannot intervene in things they probably do not understand until they have laid the matter before. public opinion and had the benefit of a public dis- cussion? Can we afford, in brief, to endow Mr. Harding or Mr. Cox or Mr. Wilson with the power to intervene in Europe, by moral pressure or legal pressure or economic pressure, until we have some assurance that they have at least opened their minds and hearts to the experience of the world? How moral will a moral influence be that has unconscious- ly been used for immoral purposes too often? How many Versailles, Hungarys, Armenias, Archangels, Kolchaks and Shantungs can we afford and not be morally bankrupt? 26 ATID ES 2S 00
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| August 25, 1920 2 THE NEW Help from Hecklers F President Wilson were a student of his own weak points he would have felt what he might call a solemn thankfulness on Tuesday, August roth. ‘The day afforded a pleasant illustration of one among the familiar differences between par- liamentary and congressional government. ‘The British Government defined its intentions toward Poland and Russia. So did the American Govern- ment. Mr. Lloyd George made a speech in the House of Commons. } n ‘‘American note on the Polish situation,” in answer to an ‘agreeable intimation” from the _ Italian Ambassador that his Government would zs a like to know the American Government’s views. Mr. Lloyd George reminded the House that he had promised to take it into the Government’s can- fidence before the Government committed itself to definite action, He cited one instance, implying _ that it was the only instance, in which this promise ! nographical Poland’ was had not been kept—the Government had advised Poland “to endeavor to negotiate an armistice and to make peace as long as the independence of eth- “recognized.”’ There had been no time to lose about sending this advice. Besides, “I felt confident we need not await the sanction of the House as to that.’’ Mr. Colby did - not remind anybody of our Government’s promise 4 % z ; 7” took the House into his confidence. eral things. to take anybody into its confidence before commit- ting itself to definite action. Our Government had made no such promise. It was not obliged to consult anybody. It did not wish even to go through the motions of consulting anybody. With this difference in procedure before his eyes, Mr. Wilson, if he were self-critical, would have revised his old preference for the parliamen- tary to the congressional form of government. ' He would have thanked God that our American sys- tem is so merciful to a President who likes to play the lonest of all lone hands. It was, to be sure, more of the forms than of the realities of things that Mr. Lloyd George was observant when he Parliament has lost in the last six years whatever effective con- trol. of British foreign policy it had before 1914, and it never had much. Mr. Lloyd George’s de- claration of British policy on August 1oth was } more effectively controlled by what British Labor had already said to him than by fear of what the - House of Commons might say. Still, although the House said nothing, individual members said sev- They interrupted Mr. Lloyd George some fifteen or twenty times. They heckled him. Nobody interrupted President Wilson with ques- | . tions meant to be disagreeable while he was se- } cludedly inventing this fresh chapter in the foreign Mr. Colby gave to the press. chances. ple. Meee bi EC 350% policy of the United States, or while, i in answer to that ‘“‘agreeable intimation” from the Italian Am- bassador, he was putting his invention into an American note. Nobody heckled Mr. Colby while he was transmitting the note to the Ambassador or giving it to the papers. Say what you will against congressional government, you can not deny that it does protect the President and the Secretary of © State against hecklers. Certain losses must be reckoned against this | gain. Even President Wilson, whose eye so rarely goes searching for joints in his harness, might have examined his Polish note more closely had he ex- pected to read it aloud, subject to questions and other interruptions, on the floor of the Senate. Expecting nothing of the sort, he has given the non-existent and impossible heckler a good many For example: ‘“The Government of the United States, reflecting the spirit of its people, — has at all times desired to help the Russian peo- At all times? Surely not quite all. Not when it authorized trade with Russia on condition that no merchant or manufacturer in this country should send letters to or receive letters from any Russian manufacturer or merchant. And does not that distinction between a Government and a peo- ple, so dear to President Wilson’s heart, make the: reasoning of the two following passages, taken to- — gether, hard to follow? “While deeply regretting the withdrawal of Russia from the war at a critical time, and the disastrous surrender at Brest-Litovsk, the United States has fully understood that the people of Russia were in no wise responsible.” Add this sentence, separated from the foregoing by less than the length of two paragraphs, and then grasp, if you can, the President’s meaning: “The war weariness of the masses of the Russian people was fully known to this Government and — sympathetically comprehended.” . Doesn’t the total _ foot up to this, that since the Russian people had no chance to vote upon a peace treaty, signed when the war weariness of the Russian masses made peace inevitable, therefore the Russian people were in no wise responsible for the withdrawal of Russia from the war? It would be like President Wilson to believe this, but not even a skilful heckler could force him to recognize the belief as his own, un- less‘it were more gracefully put. | Sometimes the contradictions upon which heck- ling thrives are not so far as a paragraph apart. Sometimes they embrace each other in a single sen- tence, such as this: “We are unwilling that while it is helpless in the grip of a non-representative Government, whose only sanction is brutal force, Russia shall be weakened still further by a policy of dismemberment, conceived in other than Rus- sian interests.” A heckler might want to know,
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351 ~ he might by questioning try to find out, whether President Wilson, when he: tries to appraise the forces now at work in the world against the dis- memberment of Russia, rates our declared aver- sion to such a policy as stronger or weaker than the brutal force, exerted against dismemberment, of Russia’s present non-representative government. Stronger, we are afraid, he thinks our American expression of opinion upon this point, ever so much stronger than all the force at the command of Le- nin and Trotzky. It would be like President Wil- son, more’s the pity, this blindness to the difference between what is and what he thinks ought to be. A heckler is an antagonist, and it was one of the President’s favorite authors, it was Burke, who said ‘my antagonist is my helper.” Perhaps a heckler might with good luck have helped Presi- dent Wilson to make these two passages clearer. First: “. .. the Bolsheviki, although in number an inconsiderable minority of the people, by force and cunning seized the powers and machinery of Government, and have continued to use them with savage oppression to maintain themselves in pow- er.’ Second, after expressing a hope that the Rus- sian people ‘will soon find a way to set up a goy- ernment representing their free will and purpose,” our ‘American note on Polish situation” goes on to say: ‘When that time comes the United States will consider the measures of practical assistance ‘which can be taken to promote the restoration of Russia, provided Russia has not taken itself wholly out of the pale of the friendly interest of other na- tions by the pillage and oppression of the Poles.” The good intentions of this qualified promise are plain enough, but what hope does it leave the Rus- sians? Doesn’t it amount to warning the Russian people that we will not help them in any way, even after they have set up a representative government, if meanwhile a Government which does not repre- sent them, which has seized power by force and cunning and kept itself in power by savagely op-— pressing Russians, has also savagely oppressed the Poles? Rather a dark future, whose author might havebeen inducedtobrighten it, if heckled properly. Transit in Europe FEW days ago the American press carried reports of a League of Nations meeting. Various matters of international importance, it was announced, had been brought before the _ Council of the League—among them the problem of transit in-Europe. A conference had been ar- ranged for early in 1921, to be held at Barcelona. According to an Associated Press dispatch, “The THE NEW REPUBLIC a August 25, 1920 object of the Barcelona conference will be to plan ways and means of preventing any country from profiting by its geographical situation to hinder the free movement of international traffic, and to regulating such traffic.” It is doubtful whether Americans realize the degree to which war, and treaties dictated by the spirit of war, have reacted upon the transit situ- ation in Europe. Profiteering nationalism has set new obstacles in the way of intercourse between nations. ‘Take, for instance, the Treaty of St. Germain. That treaty is notable chiefly for its transit arrangements, and it was primarily against those arrangements that the protest of the Aus- trian government was directed. The Austrian note of July r1th, 1919, begins: “Only fragments are to be left us from almost all our railroads, which we shall only with great difficulty be able to man- age and which we cannot possibly maintain in a state of solvency. ‘The eastern and northern lines are crippled in a downright grotesque way.” | The Siidbahn, Vienna’s only outlet to the sea, was taken from Austria and placed under a com- mission. Austria’s boundaries were drawn regard- less of nationality, in order that the chief railroad centres might be bestowed upon the new states. The enormous railway stations of Vienna, with their elaborate equipment of offices for centralized management, were left with only a few miles of track under their control. No new organization was substituted for the one thus destroyed. In addition to this spoliation of the railways and the well-known plunder of rolling stock (which : is yet to be completed) Germany and Austria both bound themselves to construct on their territory any railroad requested by any Allied Power. Lack- ing any centralized railway organization among the Allied Powers, the chaotic results of such a provision may be imagined. The fact that Ger- many inserted a similar clause to her advantage in a peace imposed on Rumania during. the war is an apology but no excuse for this saraauti in the Treaty of St. Germain. . The same policy pursued in SHAE up enemy railroad communications was followed also in. re- spect to water communications. The Danube steamboat organization was disrupted and its boats allotted to the various Allies, It remains for the new Danube Commission to organize something to take its place. But, the national jealousies of those who have divided the spoils have made this a task no one is eager to undertake. The fact is that the Allies demanded an amount of participa- tion in the management of east European transit which they are not prepared to carry out, now that arrive at a clearer and more uniform system ie |
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: ; , ; . August 25, 1920 it has become a duty. THE NEW The French people in gen- eral are ignorant of their responsibilities in the matter, and are surprised that their officials must spend so much of their time in Germany. Since the signing of the treaties certain steps, have been taken by the Allies to meet the develop- ing crisis in the transit situation. Upon the in- vitation of the French government a Commission of Enquiry into Freedom of Communications and Transit was called in Paris shortly after the armistice. Later, by the League of Nations and by the Allied and Associated Powers, this com- mission was given the task of drafting the con- ventions concerning transit, railways, waterways and ports called for in the treaties. ‘The commis- sion, however, labors under various difficulties. All its decisions must be unanimous. Its conventions, moreover, must be ratified by the League of Nations, which means not only the Council and Secretariat of the League, but the Assembly. And the: first meeting of the Assembly is still far off. In the meantime certain beginnings have been | REPUBLIC eae Often a customs and passport union has been proposed for Europe, but never has anything been done to carry out the proposal into fact. Such a union is immediately desirable today. The League of Nations is in no position now to put the neces-: sary regulatiohs into effect. So long as it has no Assembly it is only a torso. Not until 1921 will a conference meet “to plan ways and means of preventing any country from profiting by its geo- graphical situation to hinder the free movement of international traffic.” Will the conference be ready, in 1921, for genuine action? If it is, it will find one of its major tasks to be the undoing ~ of much that was done at Versailles. That is the direction in which Europe’s present transit dif_i- culties, as well as other maladies on the continent, are driving the statesmen who thought they had | made peace. a Coddling Our Merchant Marine made by the Council of Ambassadors and the | Supreme Economic Council to cut through the barriers—self-imposed and imposed from above— which so disastrously block communication and trade in Europe. The need for a commission to deal in some fashion with the question of rolling stock has been recognized; and at the present time three such commissions have been brought into existence. A still more practical step has been taken in instituting. international express trains. These are, at present, no more than trains de luxe, which follow the routes traversed by diplomats. Two international lines are now operating: the Simplon-Orient Express and tthe Paris-Prague- Warsaw Express. Other lines are planned, to. in- clude the 45th Parallel Express, from Bordeaux to Bucharest, via Lyons, Turin, Milan and Bel- _ grade, and the soth Parallel Express, running through Frankfort, Prague and Warsaw. The sooner Europe recognizes that vexatious customs and passport regulations are out of date the better. ‘Austria has virtually recognized it in her note of July 11th, 1919: “German Austria is well aware of the fact that restrictions on the absolute sovereign rights of states are the necessary corollary of international relations; and she is ready to submit to all these restrictions which aim at attaining complete free- dom of transit and of international traffic, on condition of reciprocity, at any rate in part, in such relations— a condition not recognized in the Draft Treaty, at least not for the first recuperation period of the next five years.” : (But). German Austria can only consent to this principle S Chairman of the Shipping Board, Admiral — Benson has fallen heir to Mr. Hurley’s un- rivalled publicity bureau, and he is using it to good effect. He is endeavoring to popularize a merchant marine policy which’ is concrete and positive, which carries a strong popular appeal, and which is re- markable chiefly because under a Democratic ad- ‘ministration it-completely reverses the ideals of i in- ternational comity to which President Wilson pledg- ed this country during the war. Admiral Benson’s policy is nationalistic and bel- ligerent. American commerce should be carried in American built ships, flying the American flag, man- ned by Americans, insured by American underwrit- ers and registered in an American Lloyds. Amer- ican merchants who ship their goods on foreign ships, are disloyal to their country, since they are paying to foreign ship-owners a tribute which — should go to American pockets. Foreign ships — trading at American ports must be treated with hostility, since they place our commerce under the domination. of alien interests. — _ American citizens, however, so Admiral Benson points out, cannot operate vessels in. competition with our expert competitors, and earn a return on » the high war cost of our merchant fleet. Hence they must be given artificial national advantages — to offset their adverse conditions. On the recom- mendation of Admiral Benson, Congress has fur- ther extended the coastwise shipping monopoly in favor of American ships, and has made even a substantial foreign stock ownership in American coastwise shipping companies illegal. It has com-
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353 pelled the railroads to grant reduced freight rates on export and import traffic only on goods carried in American ships,. thus sharply discriminating against foreign shipping. It has granted special _ tax exemptions to American ship-owners which no other class of citizens enjoys. Admiral Benson is now advocating new legislation granting further exemptions and governmental aids to American marine underwriters. In defending and popularizing this program, Admiral Benson is directing his appeal to our most pugnacious instincts of international rivalry. For- eign interests, he tells us, are engaged in an at- tempt by invidious propaganda to “‘tear down what we are bent upon making permanent—an Ameri- can merchant marine.’ American investors, Amer- ican seamen and American business must rally to the defense, He appeals to our national covetous- ness. Germany has been defeated. “The com- _ mercial advantages enjoyed by the enemy are no longer theirs. It is the trade which they develop- ed to a high degree that now offers itself as a na- tion’s cry for goods, more goods, and ships to carry them.” Our former Allies will be our com- petitors, and we welcome their competition. “But it should be borne in mind that so far as the race for commercial advancement would make it so, the war is over.’ (Italics of Admiral Benson’s pub- licity department.) The man who criticizes this new policy of artificial protection and special priv- ilege (or as the Admiral puts it, who “lends him- self to propaganda tending to injure American shipping”) is a “mighty poor sort of American.” A Commissioner of the Port of Seattle complained that since thirty-five percent of the commerce of that port was carried in foreign bottoms, a policy of discrimination against foreign lines threatened the port’s commercial existence. Admiral Benson replied that “I am forced to conclude that your plea is based upon concern for the business of for- — eign carriers ... and that you are apparently not so deeply interested in cooperating with the Board in developing an American Merchant Marine through the use of American shipping from your port.”’ insinuation does not appear in the literature of Admiral Benson’s publicity department. The Admiral’s policy is, of course, the old pol- icy of maritime protection and subsidy dressed in new clothes. It rests upon the humiliating as- sumption that American ship-owners cannot stand on their own feet in competition, but must be cod- dled and pampered by a paternalistic government. It may for a while give to American shipping an abnormal stimulus, but in the long run it ‘fur- nishes to our ship-owners precisely the kind of “THE NEW REPUBLIC The Commissioner’s reply to this cheap August 25, 1920 incentive which is least likely to make for healthy development. When a business establishment finds that it is being outstripped by a competitor, it — naturally proceeds to overhaul its organization, check up waste, remove ineflicient employees, and speed up its activities, Otherwise it will go to the wall. Under the new protectivism of Admiral Benson a shipping company will do nothing of the kind. It will find it much easier to go to the Ship- ping Board or to Congress and ask for more pro- tection against foreign ship-owners. In the long — run, moreover, the protection is illusory. Today, Admiral Benson claims, (conveniently, ignoring Great Britain) our maritime competitors are re- ceiving substantial protection and privileges from — their own governments so that a similar policy on the part of the United States will merely equalize the situation. But in all probability France and Japan and Germany if the Allies permit, will meet our new legislation with compensatory or re- taliatory measures of their own. Perhaps Eng- land will even be led to abandon her traditional . policy of maritime freedom. The logical next step will be further demands. for protection from Amer- ican ship-owners. Subsidies and maritime restric- tions lead us into a vicious circle, with mounting costs paid by governments or consumers, and with © no guarantee that the public will get the service it is paying for. The new merchant marine fou in so far as it adopted a sane program for the management and sale of our war built merchant fleet, was a states- manlike piece of legislation. In so far as it com- mitted the United States to a policy of maritime discrimination and subsidy, it was merely another example of our inability to live up in practice to the high international ideals to which we gave such self-righteous utterance during the war.’ ‘She New : REPUBLIC A Journal of Opinion PUBLISHED WEEKLY AND COPYRIGHT, 1920, \N THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE REPUBLIC PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC,, 421 WEST TWENTY-FIRST STREET, NEW YORK, N, Y. HERBERT CROLY, PRESIDENT; ROBERT HALLOWELL, TREASURER EDITORS HERBERT CROLY CHARLES MERZ FRANCIS. atc sry WALTER LIPPMANN ALVIN JOHNS PHIEIP LITTELL | TSIGNE TOKSVIC, Assistant Editor YEARLY SUBSCRIPTION FIFTY-TWO ISSUES, FIVE DOLLARS IN ADVANCE, SINGLE COPIES FIFTEEN CENTS, CANADIAN SUB- SCRIPTION FIVE DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENTS PER YEAR IN ADVANCE. . FOREIGN SUBSCRIPTIONS FOR COUNTRIES IN THE POSTAL. UNION, SIX DOLLARS PER YEAR IN ADVANCE; REMIT- TANCE TO BE MADE BY INTERNATIONAL POSTAL MONEY ORDER, “ENTERED AS SECOND CLASS MATTER, NOVEMBER 6, 1914, AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y., UNDER THE ACT OF MARCH 3, 1879.
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eg ee tN. eee ee August 25, 1920 THE NEW REPUBLIC 354 From the German-Polish Frontier present a spectacle scarcely more dis- couraging than a plebiscite badly man- aged. The recent plebiscite in East and West Prussia is a case in point. At Paris the Poles had asked for the awarding of this border region to ( dividing che spoils of wat their country on the ground that some three- fourths of the people were Polish or sympathetic to Poland. Allied statesmen did not entirely share this opinion. They feared such a decision might lead to fresh difficulties. They accordingly decided upon a plebiscite by means of which the people _ born in the region (whether still living there or not) and those now having their domicile there, would show their desire to stay. with Prussia or to join Poland. On the result of this plebiscite the Allies were to determine the ultimate dis- position of the region. The Allies thus encouraged the principle of self-determination without abso- lutely binding themselves to abide by it. They agreed, however, to give equal freedom to Polish and German sympathizers; they ruled that the plebiscite must be held without violence or fraud; and finally the more liberal statesmen hoped that, in spirit at least, it might lead to a better under- sanding between the.two peoples. On all of these counts the plebiscite was a fail- ure. It resulted in a 98 percent majority, for the Germans in East Prussia, and a 92 percent ma- jority in West Prussia, The Prussian statesmen had planned that only their own version of the plebiscite, the story of the fidelity of these border peoples to Prussian culture, was to be given the world. Foreign correspondents were-not welcome. I managed, however, to secure permission in Ber- lin to make the trip, though it was granted grudg- ingly; and upon arrival at Allenstein in East Prussia I was greeted by a representative of the German Foreign Office, and by members of the local patriotic organization, the Home Service (Heimatsdienst). Several trips were planned for me, that I might be present at historic pageants in certain very German cities. On the night of a large political meeting I was to drink a Maibowle with a genial German officer on an island in the Masurian Lakes, and on the day of the election I was to journey over the historic battlefields of Tannenberg. I saw several of the pageants. The ardor of German patriotism amazed me. Then I explained to my hosts that I had come to see the Polish side of the plebiscite as well. I told them that I intended meeting the leaders of plebiscite. ‘of Prussia,” he said, the Polish plebiscite campaign, and visiting centers of the Polish movement, Abruptly the lip courtesy ceased. . Mere contact with the Poles was enough to contaminate me, and the suggestion that there could be a side other than the German in this frontier dispute seemed to my hosts offensive. Was it naivetée or indifference which made the Allies decide that a plebiscite in this frontier region could be carried out by peaceful methods under a control only nominal? The Allied statesmen sent only a few administrators, with several battalions of soldiers, to supervise the execution of the The administrators were unable to supervise more than the three or four towns in which they had their offices, and the troops were entirely useless in large garrisons. It was the height of absurdity for the Allies to pick as their plebiscite police the so-called German Security Police, the most reactionary and the least reliable troops of any Germans under arms for such a task, Such was the control over a plebiscite which was to settle the fate of a disputed territory by peace- ful methods. To have regarded it as sufficient was to have presumed that a hardened, reactionary frontier people like the Prussians and a desperate, undisciplined people like the Poles would go to the polls inspired by the ideals of Jean Jacques Rousseau and governed by the moderation of an English liberal. This was far from reality. The plebiscite was a battle as intense and ruthless as any phase of the war; and the decision ‘went to ; that side which could concentrate at the critical’ spot the strongest force—and that side was Ger- many. _ C Tolerance is a word unknown in East and West — Prussia. Prussian domination has always been won by force. A West Prussian, speaking of the struggle between Germans and Poles, summed up — the situation for me. ‘This border region is a colony,” he said. “We are fighting on our frontiers for the maintenance of western culture against the Slavic hordes. Asia begins with Poland.” A no less typical opinion came from a citizen of Allen- stein. His forbears had been Knights of the Teutonic Order, called in by the Poles to help exterminate the heathen Prussians some seven ~ centuries ago, and now established as Prussians in their stead. He had been on Hindenburg’s staff in the battle of Tannenberg. ‘The east marks ‘‘are in a battle ‘shoulder to shoulder against an enemy who is using weapons more deadly than Russian cannon. Our heart’s
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355 cry is to live Germans, or to die if we are made Poles.” Always, on such an occasion, is Hindenburg in- voked. This time he struck the key-note of Prus- - sian defense by calling upon the East and West Prussians to flock back to their borders and show the same determination they had shown in 1813 and in I9I4. Prussia, the other into Upper Silesia. ~ to keep their Polish character intact. are cut off from the Polish frontier by a Prussian “Fast Prussians, I count upon you as I counted upon your sons, brothers and fathers in the battle of Tannenberg. You were loyal to me then, and you will be loyal to me now.” At bottom Prussian antagonism to the Poles is much the bitterness of the old master who sees his serf suddenly freed from oppression. For cen- ‘turies the Pole has been the humble toiler on the . __ large Prussian estates. Polish Jews have sweated and died in the German work-shops. even if Prussians and Poles, had both agreed to abide by the ‘rules of the game in the plebiscite area, a geographic settlement along racial lines would have been exceedingly difficult. Dominant peoples do not push forward in a wave, but move in chunks occupying one vantage point after another. Such is the case with the Germans here, as it is with the Poles in their migration into Russia. In general the German advance has been in two great prongs, one reaching into East The Ger- mans have gathered in one village after another, pushing out on the land, until finally the Poles hold only the less fertile regions. ‘The towns, accord- ingly, are all predominantly German, though they are often surrounded by regions in which the Poles have a majority. Certain districts have managed But these people more jealous of their nationalism and more _ aggressively German than their countrymen of the interior. Nor is language a satisfactory ake determin- ative in Prussia. There are the Masurians, a primitive people who have always managed to live apart both from Polish and to a lesser degree from German influence. They speak a Polish dialect and are of the same stock as the people who extend from the Masurian Lakes to Warsaw. But the Teutonic Knights converted them to Protestantism, and the feeling of religious solidarity with Prussia ‘is stronger than the racial bonds with Poland. They have learned to read and write German. And with this simple knowledge they have come to believe that they are bearers of German Kultur ‘to the unlettered Slavs beside them. The hold. which the Prussians have won over the Masurians is to me the highest achievement of their propa- ganda. (Without taking the time or the trouble THE NEW REPUBLIC. And now, - \ August 25, 1920 " to make the Masurians share their civilization they _ have succeeded in giving them the feeling of the mystic superiority of Deutschtum over other civili- zations. ‘The natives refused to respond to their Polish brothers across the border, not because they felt themselves dependent upon the Prussians, but because they have been taught to regard them- selves as equals of that superior race. The Ermlanders in the region about ‘Allenstein are of a less distinct Polish stock than the Masur- ians. But the Ermlanders are more sympathetic to the Poles because of their common Catholic faith. Here the Polish language is not so common as in the lake region; but the enthusiasm for the Polish cause is greater. The plebiscite regions of large estates and back- ward rural districts were little qualified for the holding of a plebiscite. Instead of exercising their privilege of self-decision the people simply acted: under the direction of those to whom they had always looked for leadership—the Prussian gend- arme and the school teacher. When their feudal lords were obliged to renounce serfdom, a century ago, their serfs simply became poor tenants, or drifted to the slums of the towns. In either case they continued to serve their old masters or new functionaries. A plebiscite for people who re not know their own convictions, and who do not dare to express them, was bound to be unreal no matter how thoroughly the Allies exercised their control. What happened was that the over-lords of the Prussian system had a free hand for organizing the pleb- iscite as ‘they wished to. Prussian preparations for the plebiscite were largely managed by the newly formed Heimatsdienst. ‘This organization is led by a Masurian journalist named Worgitsky. He is a man with many of the characteristics of an adventurer. He has had an excellent apprentice- ship in Machiavellian tactics. His organization operated unhampered by government control, and with full support from the Prussian government | in Berlin. I have never seen a more aggressive, narrow and brutal nationalism than it spread. No lie was too specious and no means too sly, It used every weapon to drive the Poles out of the plebiscite area. Where the appeal to patriotism failed, bribes or violence were resorted to. Wor- gitsky himself describes how he organized his propaganda service with bands of roughs to break up meetings and drive Polish speakers out of town. In addition to the: Heimatsdienst' the Prussians used other propaganda organizations as little in keeping with the spirit of an impartial plebiscite. The local gendarmes often refused protection to the Polish sympathizers. I saw an instance of this
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August 25, 1920 THE on the day of the election in the village of Dar- ethen. A man of seventy came to us for the pro- tection which gendarmes had refused him. ‘These gendarmes ‘were increased four-fold the last few. months before the plebiscite. In addition there were the so-called Plebiscite Police who usually appeared just too late to reestablish order when a Polish sympathizer was the victim. But the organizations which made the plebiscite a complete mockery, in so far as it was supposed to represent freedom of opinion, were the so-called ‘working companies.” These organizations were detach- ments from the Baltic and Iron divisions detailed to the large estates, theoretically for farm work, but actually to keep the farm-hands quiet. of such men operated in alliance with the Heimats- dienst, terrorizing the country-side and re short work of Polish agitators. Of two hundred meetings planned by the Poles in the region of Allenstein only forty were held without being broken up, and during the final week before the voting the Poles were unable to hold ' any meetings at all. Instead of reestablishing _ order and permitting meetings to proceed in peace, ' the Plebiscite Police often. aided 1 in bringing them to 2 closes) i The manipulation of election lists by the faith. ful Prussian servants was no less conspicuous. People of known Polish sympathies were often un- able to consult the lists which should have been open for every one. On the day of the election many people were informed that they had not re- gistered. Others lost their ballots on one technic- ality or another. In the village Dietrichswald an elderly couple told us with tears in their eyes that they had come from southern Germany to vote for the Polish cause, and found when they reached the polls that their names had not been carried. After the election there were many Polish sympa- thizers who tried to ascertain what had happened _ to their votes in villages which were reported as ' unanimously German,’ Such a miscarriage of justice would not have been possible had Polish sympathizers been given the equal representation to which the plebiscite conditions entitled them. So great was the terrorization preceding the election that most of the Polish members had de- clined to serve. The night of the plebiscite was a trying ex- perience for all of us who were outsiders. It would in any case have been an easy victory for _ the Germans. No Poles, by the time, were to be _ seen. But the hungry crowds still looked for _ quarrels. As the returns from each district were _ announced the crowds massed before our hotel, _ the Deutscnss Haus, roaring their satisfaction. NEW Bands — shattered at any moment by the wind, 356 The cry was not, “We will defend our Prussian RePURniC 2 frontiers against all intrusion,’ but “On to Posen.” The carefully planned plebiscite by the Allies had become a frenzied nationalistic Prussian demon- stration. The young unorganized Polish state went down that night in defeat before the highly developed Prussian social organization. ‘The out- come is a Prussian victory which leaves behind it all the hatred and bitterness. which the plebiscite -was intended to remove. SANFORD GRIFFITH. eae Bet Clan’ N a bleak wet stormy afternoon at the out- set of last year’s spring, 1 was in a cot- tage, all alone, and knowing that I must be all alone till evening. It was a remote cottage, in a remote county, and had been “‘let furnished” by its owner. My spirits are easily affected by weather; and I hate solitude; and I dislike to be master of things that are not mine. “Be careful not to break us,” say the glass and china. ‘You'd better not spill ink on me,’ growls the carpet. ‘None of your dog’s-earing, thumb-marking, back- breaking tricks here/’’ snarl the books. mi ‘The books in this cottage looked particularly disagreeable—horrid little upstarts of this and that scarlet or cerulean “series’’ of “standard” authors. Having gloomily surveyed them, I turned my back ~ -on them, and watched the rain streaming down the latticed window, whose panes seemed likely to be I have known men who constantly visit the Central Crimi- nal Court, visit also the scenes where famous crimes were committed, form their theories of — those crimes, collect souvenirs of those crimes, and — call themselves criminologists. As for me, my interest in crime is, alas, merely morbid. I did not know, as those others would doubtless have known, that the situation in which I found myself was precisely of the kind most conducive to the darkest deeds. I did but bemoan it, and think of Lear in the hovel on the heath. The wind howled in the chimney, and the rain had begun to sputter right down it, so that the fire was be- ginning to hiss in a very sinister manner. Suppose the fire went out. It looked as if it meant to. I snatched the pair of bellows that hung beside it. I plied them vigorously. ‘Now mind!—not too vigorously. We aren’t yours!” they wheezed. I handled them more gently. But I did not release them till they had secured me a steady blaze. I sat down before that blaze. Despair had been warded off. Gloom, however, remained; and
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<b a _ gloom grew. I felt that I should prefer any one’s thoughts to mine. I rose, I returned to the books. A dozen or so of those which were on the lowest of the three shelves were full-sized, were octavo, looked as though they had been bought to be read. I would. exercise my undoubted right to read one of them. Which of them? I gradually decided on a novel by a well-known writer whose works, though I had several times had the honor of meet- ing her, were known to me only by repute, I knew nothing of them that was not good. The lady’s ‘‘output’’ had not been at all huge, and it was agreed that her “‘level’’ was high. ways gathered that the chief characteristic of her work was its great ‘‘vitality.” The book in my hand was a third edition of her latest novel, and at the end of it were numerous press-notices, at which I glanced for confirmation. “Immense vitality,” yes, said one critic. ‘Full,’ said another, “of an intense vitality.” said a third. How on earth did he know that? I was, however, very willing to believe in the vitality ,of this writer or all present purposes. vitality was a thing in which she herself, her talk, her glance, her gestures, abounded. She and they had been, I remembered, rather too much for me. The first time I met her, she said something that I light- ly and mildly disputed. On no future occasion did I stem any opinion of hers. Not that she had been rude. Far fromit. She had but in a sisterly, brotherly way, and yet in a way that was filially - eager too, asked me to explain my point. I did my best. She was all attention. But I was con- scious that my best, under her eye, was not good. _ She was quick to help me: she said for me just what I had tried to say, and proceeded to show me just why it was wrong. smile of a man who regards women as all the more adorable because logic is not their strong point, ‘bless them! She asked—not aggressively, but __ strenuously, as one who dearly loves a joke—what I was smiling at, Altogether, a chastening en- counter; and my memory of it was tinged with a feeble resentment. How she had scored! No ~ man likes to be worsted in argument by a woman. And I fancy that to be vanquished by a feminine writer is the kind of defeat least of all agreeable to a man who writes. A “‘sex war,” we are often told, is to be one of the features of the world’s future—women demanding the right to do men’s work, and men refusing, resisting, counter-attack- ing. It seems likely enough. One can believe any- _ thing of the world’s future. Yet one conceives that not all men, if this particular evil come to pass, _ will stand packed shoulder to shoulder against all women. One does not feel that the dockers will be very bitter against such women as want to be THE NEW REPUBLIC I had al- ‘““A book that will live,’ : I smiled the gallant August 25, 1920 miners, or the plumbers frown much upon the — would-be steeple-jills. I myself have never had my © sense of fitness jarred, nor a spark of animosity roused in me, by a woman practising any of the — fine arts—except the art of writing. That she should write a few little poems or pensées, or some impressions of a trip in a dahabieh as far as (say) __ Biskra, or even a short story or two, seems to me not wholly amiss, even though she do such things for publication. But that she should be an habitu- al, professional author, with a passion for her art, and a fountain-pen and an agent, and sums down in advance of royalties on sales in Canada and Australia, and a profound knowledge of human character, and an essentially sane outlook, is some- how incongruous with my notions—my mistaken notions, if you will—of what she ought to be. ‘Has a profound knowledge of human char- acter, and an essentially sane, outlook,” said one of the critics quoted at the end of the book that I had chosen. The wind and the rain in the chim- ney had not abated, but the fire was bearing up © bravely. So would J. I would read cheerfully — and without prejudice. I poked the fire and, push- ing my chair slightly back, lest the heat should warp the book’s cover, began Chapter I. _ A woman sat writing in a summer-house at the end of a small garden that overlooked a great valley in Surrey. The description of her was cal- | culated to make her very admirable—a thorough — woman, not strictly beautiful, but likely to be — thought beautiful by those who knew her well; not — dressed as though she gave much heed to her © clothes, but dressed in a fashion that exactly har- monized with her special type. Her pen “travelled” rapidly across the foolscap, and while it did so she was described in more and more detail, But at length she came to a “knotty point” in what she was writing. She paused, she pushed back the hair from her temples, she looked forth at the valley; and now the landscape was described, but not at all exhaustively, it, for the writer soon over- came her difficulty, and her pen travelled faster than ever, till suddenly there was a cry of “Mammy!” and in rushed a seven year old child, in conjunction with whom she was more than ever _ admirable; after which the narrative skipped back — across eight years, and the woman became a girl, © giving as yet no token of future eminence in liter- — ature, but—I had an impulsé which I obeyed al- — most before I was conscious of it. Nobody could have been more surprised than — I was at what I had done—done so neatly, so quietly and gently. The book stood closed, up- right, with its back to me, just as on a book-shelf, behind the bars of the grate. There it was. And — it gave forth, as the flames crept up the blue cloth - 4 sy aes,
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THE NEW sides of it, a pleasant though acrid smell. My astonishment had passed, giving place to an ex- quisite satisfaction. How pottering and fumbling a thing was even the best kind of written criticism! I understood the contempt felt by the man of action for the man of words. But what pleased me most was that at last, actually, I, at my age, I of all people, had committed a crime—was guilty of a crime. I had power to revoke it. I might write to my bookseller for an unburned copy, and place it on the shelf where this one had stood— this gloriously glowing one. I would do nothing of the sort. What I had done I had done. I would wear forever on my conscience the white rose of theft and the red rose of arson. If here- after the owner of this cottage happened to miss - that volume—let him! If he were fool enough to write to me about it, would I share my grand secret with him? No. Gently, with his poker, I prodded that volume further among the coal. ‘The _ all-but-consumed binding shot forth little tongues of bright color—flamelets of sapphire, amethyst, emerald. Charming! Could even the author her- self not admire them? Perhaps. Poor woman! —TI had scored now, scored so perfectly that I felt myself to be almost a brute while I poked off the loosened black outer pages and led the fire on to pages that were but pale brown. These were quickly devoured, But it seemed to me that whenever I left the fire to forage for itself it made little headway. I pushed the book over on its side. The flames closed on it, but presently, _ licking their lips, fell back, as though they had had enough. I took the tongs and put the book upright again, and raked it fore and aft. It seemed almost as thick as ever. With poker and tongs I carved it into two,. three sections—the inner. pages flashing white as when they were sent to the binders. Strange! Aforetime, a book was burned now and again in the market-place by the common hangman. Was he, I wondered, paid by the hour? I had Rock NOR many months the Rock Island Arsenal August 25, 1920 furnished in the opinion of acute observers the most outstanding industrial experiment “based upon hopes rather than fears.” Now that it has been brought to an end it is possible to es- timate the contribution which it has made to the empirical science of industrial readjustment. Before the war Rock Island Arsenal produced a limited amount of Ordnance material, equipment and artillery harness provided for by specific ap- Tolstoi been right, about? ‘Vainly. REPUBLIC ie always supposed the thing quite easy for him—a bright little, brisk little conflagration, and so home. — Perhaps other books were less resistant than this one? I began to feel that the critics were more right than they knew. Here was a book that had indeed an intense vitality, and an immense vitality. It was a book that would live—do what one might. I vowed it should not. I subdivided it, spread it, redistributed it. Ever and anon my eye would be caught by some sentence or fragment of a sentence in the midst of a charred page before the. flames — crept over it. “lways loathed you, bu,” I remem- ber; and “ning. Tolstoi was right.” Who had always loathed whom? And what, what, had I had an absurd but genuine desire to know. Too late! woman !—she was scoring again. I furiously drove her pages into the yawning crimson jaws of the coals. Those jaws had lately been golden. Soon, to my horror, they seemed to be growing gray They seemed to be closing—on nothing. Flakes — of black paper, full-sized layers of paper brown and white, began to hide them from me altogether. I sprinkled a boxful of wax matches. I resumed the bellows. I lunged with the poker. I held a newspaper over the whole grate. I did, all that inspiration could suggest, or skill accomplish. The fire went out—darkly, dismally, gradually, quite out. i ria ~ How she had scored again! But she did not know it. I felt no bitterness against her as I lay back in my chair, inert, listening to the storm that was still raging. I blamed only myself. I had done wrong. The small room became very cold. Whose fault was that but my own? I had done ~ wrong hastily, but had done it and been glad of it. I had not remembered the words a wise king wrote — long ago, that the lamp of the wicked shall be put out, and that the way of the a is hard. Max BEERBOHM. Island propriations. These. appropriations were gener- ‘ously estimated. They did not require the work to be done at the arsenals. It might be, and to a large extent was, let out to private manufacturers ~ —for “educational purposes’”—at 25 per cent above the cost of production in the arsenals. Island, like the other arsenals, was conducted largely on an experimental or laboratory basis, em- ploying in 1914 only 1,600 men and in April, — 1917, 3,600. | Confound the Rock |
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359 Obviously circumstances. did not force economy -or efficiency upon the management as a compelling consideration. Equally obviously, the inelastic program put the workers in a position where in- creased effort or ‘“‘scientific management” _ only to bring nearer the inevitable period of unem- THE NEW _- ployment when the work should have run out. The © result was opposition to such innovations as the Taylor system, the imposition of rules limiting output, apprentices, hours of labor, the insistence upon rigid classifications by trades, and lobbying at Washington for appropriations. With the coming of the war, however, the de- mand upon the arsenal changed the foundation of _ the relationship between management and men. The arsenal became a great establishment—ex- panding its force to 13,000 employees—where speed and quantity of production were essential. There remained no question of unemployment; and through the force of tradition both parties felt themselves almost a part of the fighting services. This change was at once reflected in organization. An agreement was reached by which the men with- drew all the restrictions previously considered nec- essary safeguards and accepted in their place mem- bership upon a Works Council and subsidiary shop committees. ! The importance of these committees and the council lay not in their actual powers but in that through them the men became acquainted with the business of the arsenal. On the shop committees they met the officers in charge of their depart- ‘ments and discussed grievances, shop organization and the details of the job in hand. On the Works Council they met the higher officers and in the main had only advisory powers on rates of pay, _ discipline and methods of increasing production. The employees’ representatives were elected by the men as employees and not as union or non-union men, but the union might at any time deal with the commanding officer through its non-employee representative instead of resorting to the shop machinery. In fact, however, the union men being in the majority controlled the committees and, fol- lowing political precedent, used oe union meetings as a sort of caucus. _ Throughout the war this organization met the pragmatic test. Because the men felt ‘that they could safely put their backs into their work and —what is more important—their minds as well, the production records left little to be desired. There were no strikes at Rock Island. Then came the armistice. Immediately and nec- -essarily the process of contraction began. In a few months the force had dropped to the neighbor- hood of 8,000 and thereabouts it remained until _ June, 1920. But the men did not contemplate with REPUBLIC served. for three months. August 25, 1920 satisfaction a return to the old, unstable, pre-war conditions. While they were at work upon a plan which they had long had in mind they met Captain Beyer, an Ordnance officer who was conducting an investigation for the War Department, and dis- covered that he had formulated the same idea into concrete proposals. ‘They immediately sent a com- mittee to urge their adoption upon the Secretary of War. | The plan, in a word, was this. The arsenals so far as their facilities were adapted were to enter the competitive bidding for the production of ar- ticles required by other departments of the govern- ment. The extent of the work which might be un- dertaken was to be limited to the “‘surplus capaci- ty” of the arsenals, Although the subject of bitter controversy later, this phrase at the time did not appear ambiguous. ‘The Ordnance program to July 1st, 1920, would require the employment off and on of approximately all the existing force. But due to the nature of the work neither all the force nor all the equipment could be utilized all the time. The proposed work would be the amount necessary to permit full utilization of the available plant and would thus stabilize employment. The Secretary of War accepted the plan. He immediately established in Washington the Ar- senal Orders Branch of the Ordnance Department to secure opportunities for bidding. Captain Beyer was put in charge and Mr. Cornick of the Saddle-Makers’ Union in Rock Island was elected Employees’ Representative for a year. Each of the other arsenals in turn elected a representative These three men with some clerical assistance made up practically the entire soliciting staff which secured two million dollars — of orders this first year. From the outset the men threw themselves into the work. To them it was not merely an interest- ing experiment. It became the alpha and omega for it offered an escape from the curse of the wage earner, unemployment. It is not strange that the Ordnance officers failed to understand the place which it took in their thoughts; and unfortunately this failure was to be a prolific source of trouble. The real importance of the shop committees now became discernible. When bids were to be submitted it was the function of the men to esti- mate the direct labor cost. The experience gained upon the committees and the power they had to suggest innovations in shop processes enabled them to offer estimates which at first seemed utterly im- possible to the cost accountants. But never in the history of the experiment was a labor estimate ex- ceeded. The doctrine of the sanctity of the estimate be- came an established dogma. It became so for both
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' ment. August 25, 1920 THE NEW a spiritual and a material reason, . In the first place it was a matter of honor. The men had made it and they would live up to it. They would show those fellows in the estimating room that they had no monopoly on figuring costs. ‘he material rea- son rose from interdepartmental finance. If the arsenal made lamp posts for the Department of the Interior it made them for actual cost. If the cost exceeded the estimate, the purchaser was out so much money and more temper. If it was less, he saved money and was anxious for more bids. _ ‘Accordingly: interest spread from labor costs to _ all costs. | When the men secured j apranenentide in the es- timating room—the fountain head of all cost ac- counting—they sent the best they had. As soon as _ these got out of their depth they went to night school. Soon, however, a problem arose which even the night school could not solve for them— the problem of apportioning costs between the ar- senal as a military post, the arsenal as an ord- nance factory and the arsenal orders work. They had come to the need for the expert. It is deeply significant that they recognized it at once. They proposed to the Secretary of War that they employ. jointly with him an industrial engineer and an ac- countant to determine a more equitable, readjust- When the end came this pope had just been. accepted. They went on to other eshlbena of manage- ment. Having done their best to correct the inef- ficiencies in their own ranks they approached what they believed to be inadequacies.\in the manage- ment with the same naive spirit of reconstruc- tion. Committees made recommendations with frankness, but with reasonable tact. However, to men who were both army officers and managers this attitude on the part of their subordinates was doubly irritating, The recommendations were pigeonholed. The men, almost fanatically in earnest regarded such action as tantamount to be- trayal. Of course, it was unfortunate on both sides, but it was eminently human. Distrust once started was easily fanned. Last November the flame broke out. Captain Beyer who had returned to his civilian status was removed and succeeded by an Ordnance'officer. The protest of the men, immediate and rather shrill, was almost a reflex action. But to the army officers it was a plain attempt to usurp power. The words “soviet” and “Bolshevism” began to be heard. When the dis- pute reached the Secretary of War he felt that his ‘position was not to review on the merits but to support or repudiate his subordinate. It was ob- viously absurd to remove the Chief of Ordnance, so the appointment stood. The immediate ques- tion involved was trifling, but irrevocable damage »* REPUBLIC had been done. - 360 Officialdom had become afraid of the experiment. Then came the announcement of the Ordnartce program for 1920-1921 and the initial skirmish developed into a general and decisive engagement. The Rock Island force was to be reduced below the pre-war number and a large part of the ma- chinery was to go into storage. The Arsenal Or- ders Branch was not to be abolished in name, otk it was termed a “demobilization expedi-— ’ but in fact its operation was impossible wie $0 la a factory force... The men hastily summoned a convention in Washington. ‘They urged upon the Secretary of War that the original intention, as they understood it, of making the plan a permanent institution was sound. from every point of view. It has operated successfully. It provided an immediately available organization in time of war and removed the ar- senal lobby, It utilized for the, public service a — vast public investment, and not only saved money on the work actually done, but injected real com- petition into all bidding. ‘They suggested that the -size of the organization be the force required to complete the Ordnance : program at the lowest cost per unit without an increase in the management. This would not involve any greater absolute ex- penditure since the force could maintain itself on the Arsenal Orders work. But these contentions were overruled. After the argument had dragged on for a while it was cut short by the discharge out of their civil ser- vice order of the active union members of the com- mittees. ‘The unions at once withdrew from the Works Council agreement, These discharges are now being reviewed, but they mark the end of the Rock Island experiment. | | So far I have stuck as closely as possible to statements of fact, but I cannot resist one opinion on a matter consistently obscured. ‘The Secretary of War has repeatedly declared that cooperation in the shop through joint committees is something entirely distinct and unconnected with the experi- ment symbolized by the Arsenal Orders Branch. This cooperation, he says, is the great contribution of Rock Island and can be continued irrespective of the other. The men themselves are under no. such misapprehension. To them it was the chance to stabilize their own employment which mattered supremely. Self-determination in the engine-room was important—it unloosed latent energies which even the most scientific driving could not reach— but it was the direction of the ship and the oppor- ~ tunity to insure her course which lent significance. The causes of conflict are not removed by the cre- ation of a League of Nations or a shop committee, —at least so they say in Rock Island. There is
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361 ) something back of wages and hours and conditions of work and a voice in the management of the shop. These may answer the question how shall men make things. There remains to be answered what things men shall make and to what end. DEAN ACHESON. Miserable Innocents OU who have not had the experience of be- ing in Italy during the war can never know what it has been!’ my friend was assuring me. He is a Harvard man who has lived twelve years in Florence, studying the primitives to some extent, and to some extent bewailing the indelicacy of the times, especially in his own country. We were having tea at Doney’s on the Via Torna- buoni, | “The uncertainty of it all,” he went on, “the chaos, the hardship. So many women in black! And for months we could not get butter or sugar except now and then. What did America know of ‘this? They had abundant supplies. And how luxury goes on increasing there! What did the war mean there? They came in late and they never knew the terrible brunt of it. I was here in Flor- ence and I saw the horror of war. We had pris- oners marched through the streets, frightful crea- tures in mud and rags. There was the dread of airships and bombs. seas were riots. I can_-tell you it was no bed of roses.’ He fell silent, worn out with the recollections and with the strain of living nowadays. And I fell to thinking of these countrymen of mine in Italy. _ during the war, and there are more of them now than one might think. Many have come in since the armistice, sometimes from America, sometimes from Spain or from Switzerland, sometimes from. war work in France. Most of them that I have seen, however, have been residents. They are the old timers in Italy. Come to think of it, I had seen many people looking a little tired. And there were many Americans who were evidently lonely for some of their own blood to talk to, if only to tell them how vulgar America ‘is, or how impos- sible it is to live there now; or how long we were coming into the war; or to ask what one thinks, of President Wilson, is he really insane? or—and these are the truly pathetic cases—how are things now in the country to which for one reason or another they cannot return. But most of their complaints now, I remember- ed, had very little to do with the war. They were miserable on account of the terrible cost of living in Italy, the expense of living was appalling. It was impossible to exist really, They write home CAL NEW REPUBLIC the most part. There were many of them there August 25, 1920 these sorrows and those who return tell stories to But the one true thing — they hardly touch. That is the difficulty in getting — the papers about the prices. really nourishing food to a sufficient extent. It is not the price of the meals that is a cause for com- _ piaint; it is the fact that the dishes are not really sustaining and that many, Italians especially, are — slowly starving though they may not know it. Tourists should be discharged from Italy at pres- ent. But this side of the situation has little to do with the sadness I am relating. — That turns on prices. I looked out through Doney’s ditdows at the Via Tornabuoni with its fine old palaces and stone houses and smart shops. It is one of the most dis- tinguished streets in Europe. But now there are fewer carriages and automobiles and a little less elegance, but not much less. I thought of the ex- pense of keeping up these equipages now, with coachmen and chauffeurs. Then I looked at the people in Doney’s rooms. They were nearly all Americans and many of them not very smart Americans, quite simple people for Before the war, I remember, we thought twice before going to Doney’s, it was one of the dearest places in Florence; there was al- ways a mingling there of Florentine society and luxurious foreigners. And now the Italians had their equipages and these countrymen of mine had the tea and cakes. I figured the explanation as I watched my friend plaintively sipping his tea. The secret lay in the exchange. The lira made the difference. How the majority of the Italians manage to exist now is a bitter problem, Surely the automobiles and car- ~ riages cost terrible sums, but one must have them if one is to be anybody; the tea at Doney’s one could do without. Tea for two meant eight lire. But for Americans eight lire was only forty cents. It would be a poor couple that could not venture — tea for forty cents. They could have ices or tea, cakes, anchovy, pastry, and Strega, Chartreuse or any other liqueur, all for that forty cents; and eat indecently, besides the munificent tip at the end. ‘‘And this tea, it used to be three lire or four at’ Doney’s for all of this, and now it is what? seven or eight I suppose,” my friend said, in a revery. I did not remind him that in the good old days. he got five lire on the dollar for his checks, where - he got twenty now. I knew what was really the cause of his depression. His tailor, the smartest in Florence, had demanded for the best English suitings, silk lined, the rapacious amount of 900 lire, where the same suit used to be less than half j that sum, and then it was the dearest haberdashery — in Florence. We sat silent over the Casivtelieins sialon. Cie! \
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August 25, 1920 THE NEW garettes for which the government was robbing us at the rate of fifteen lire a hundred, seventy-five cents. And I was thinking over my last tour. — A friend and I had made an excursion from Florence to Verona by way of Faenza, Castel Bo- lognese, Padua, Mantua, Ravenna, Venice, and back from Verona to Florence, by way of Bologna. These were mostly short distances, journeys of an hour, two hours, three. And I remembered our glee when we bought the tickets. Even with the fare doubled and more, as it is now, they came to thirty cents, eighty cents, a dollar ten, second class. Once we went third class at fourteen cents each. At Faenza, which is a small city, we went to the best hotel in the place. The padrona showed her finest apartment, on the best floor, the piano nobile. An immense room we saw, with perfect beds, a divan, armchairs, and a painted ceiling with Pompeian nymphs, This would cost rather more, she said, sixteen lire for the room complete, for the two of us. But we found that too dear, we feared, and were taken to the next floor up, to another immense room, with a nymphic ceiling and garlanded walls. That would be twelve lire, sixty cents, thirty each. We had not the courage to ask for the rooms that most of the Italians were taking, the travelling men, at five. At Padua we paid fifteen cents each for a room in a plain Italian hotel; at Ravenna twenty cents, and at Venice, at the Hotel Luna on the Canal Grande, we had two simple rooms on the inner court—the only ones available, since the house was filled with Italian and Scandinavian tourists—for fifty cents a room. And all the galleries and monuments— of which there are so many everywhere—had kept the old one lira admission. To any one who loved Italy and wished it well all this was distressing. But it was only human to rejoice at one’s private good fortune. People used to come back to the pension in Siena with beaming faces.. Do you know what the exchange is today? 21.75. Isn’t it dreadful! I don’t see what Italy is going to do; but isn’t it wonderful? The old stagers there were paying ten lire a day for everything, with three lire a week for light. My expenses were heavier. In their opinion I was greatly put upon by the wily Italian manager. I was paying twelve lire a day with four lire the week extra for the electric light. I explained that I knew Italian wiles well enough, but that the night I arrived I had just come from Burgos, and the big room in Siena with its carpets and desks and reading lamps and a good bed looked so civilized after Spain, where my bed, none too good either, had cost more than twelve lire, that I had not the courage to object. And that, after all, it meant seventy-five cents for the room with three meals things have done. from four to six, which is about the same. icans were getting on. REPUBLIC 362 and service, steam heat included, But I did con- sent to feel wronged by the laundress. Siena is a centre of Bolshevism, the padrona explained, and new ideas, and the washerwomen were high headed and out of hand, but even at that, Signore, seven lire and a half was an outrageous price. In the shops there were Parker’s Fountain Pens at two dollars, straw hats for twenty lire, fine leather bags brought down from Germany for less than thirty dollars. For a leather address book — that one sees on Fifth Avenue now for fourteen dollars, Mr. Cole in the Borgo San Iocopo was asking twelve lire; and to make me a fan frame that they had asked me thirty dollars for in Bos- ton, he was very sorry, but with the dreadful prices paid the workmen now he was forced to ask me seventy-five lire, though he was ashamed to mention it. The price of haircuts had risen and now on my exchange, cost me five cents. And for the huge black cherries I was pilfered at the rate of five cents a pound, sometimes nine cents. Some things have stayed for Americans almost exactly the same instead of rising in lire and get- ting cheaper in dollars at the same time, as most — Majolica and china for exam. | ple are four times what they were, at some shops dearer. Plates that used to cost a lira cost now Silver. ware varies from day to day as gold objects do, with the value of the lira. All of which throws a fantastic light on the prices asked in our own coun- try, since the war, for Italian goods. 3 But I soon found that with my afflicted country: | men I must check my exuberance over the prices at — which I was living and buying things. It was not tactful evidently to speak of how cheaply we Amer- — I knew that this was most — unreasonable of them, since all their money came in American checks. If they had Italian invest- ments the case would have been different. But still I found tact necessary decidedly; and that it was wiser to speak of the high cost of everything, even to a gentleman who had just bought a villa with a garden in Taormina for $750. sei: The light of this realization dawned on me race fully on one particular occasion. I had taken a two days’ trip in the public cross- country automobiles from Siena to San Gimignano and Volterra and back again, to Poggibonsi and by train to Siena. I was rejoicing in my budget: “With the motor to San Gimignano,” I said, ‘‘and dinher there, and'a room and tips and the motor to Volterra and coffee afterward in the piazza, and ices and cherries and a cake of choco. . late that afternoon when I reached Poggibonsi and dinner there and third class back on the train to Siena, I figure that for all that I have spent one
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363. taller and ninety-eight cents, to be quite exact.” My two friends took me up with considerable irritation. I ought not to talk in that vein. It promoted extravagance. They are Boston people by the way, not rich; and are forced by bad health to remain where they are, always from America. I ought not to speak in that manner. But their income is Things were terrible now, the expense of living. And one ‘Must economize; they had been able to put 4,000 lire aside from the New York-check every month. As it was, their apartment was costing them fifty ‘lire a month; eggs were six lire a dozen; and the cook twenty-five lire a month, probably thirty soon to keep her. And now their summer apartment where we were sitting had been raised on them because their landlord knew he could and was tak- ing advantage of them: they used to pay 124 lire a season for it and now it was to cost 200. My mind was inconsiderately going over the bills: at Florence and in Palermo, where a big double room in the Hotel Patria cost for the two of us eleven lire. JI thought of a luncheon in Naples at a restaurant: rated as first order by the - government price regulation, where the bill for three of us was 32 lire, including the ten percent on the service, now put down as a part of the bills under the new socialistic tendencies in Italy. We THE NEW REPUBLIC. v had-had half.¢ bottle of.white Capel wine, spp hetti, omelette aux fines herbes, fried zucchini, — And I haricots verts, cherries, coffee and liqueur. thought of the Hotel Boston in Rome, where we © had a combination bedroom and salon on the front second floor, upholstered to despération in yellow damask, with a desk, chaise-longue, arm. chairs, seven mirrors, and with meals, for forty lire the person, complete. But I said nothing of it to my friends. only that we could not tell what the world was coming to these days. On my way to the town, hex nee had their ten-room apartment in an old palace for $2.50 a month with that cook and woman of all work of — theirs drawing her $1.25 a month, to be raised to $1.50 who knows how soon these times, } stopped half way down the hill, among the olive trees and leafy vines, and looked back at the villa, My friends had the first floor, opening on the terrace, five rooms and a kitchen, furnished, including linen and china. It was twenty minutes walk from Siena, mostly through vineyards. ‘They move out to it on May rsth and go into town again some- where toward November, five months or so, accord- ing to the weather. And the landlord has raised it on them from $6.20 to $10 for the season. It was very sad. STARK YOUNG. Who is Wrangel? OrDER TO THE Caucasus Army, NovemBerR 6TH, Gone No. 557. JXisLOvoDSK. Certain traitors calling themselves Kubans, located in our rear, have betrayed Russia. By their iieataal activities they threaten to destroy all that has been accomplished by the sons of Kuban for the regeneration of Russia, for which 10,000 have shed their blood. Some have even gone so far as to conclude a treaty with the Circassian Moun- taineers, our enemies, thus delivering their younger brothers of the Kuban and Terek into the hands of the enemy. Seeking to destroy our front, to spread disaffection in our rear and to place mostanies in the way of the work of the HE ten men named were members of the ey T Kuban Rada, which for a year had been | trying to assert and maintain the same in- dependence of Imperial Russia that the Finns, the Poles, the Georgians, the Azerbaidjanians, the Ar- - menians and the Ukrainians had asserted and main- tained. The same night. of Wrangel’s order, - Kalabukoff, the leader of the Rada, was sentenced | At five the next morning he was hanged to death. in the courtyard of the fort at Ekaterinodar. The curious thing about it was that the Kuban Rada was not in the least Bolshevist. The Cossacks Ataman of the Cossacks and the service of supply and replacements of our army, these criminals have given as- sistance to the enemies of Russia, to those Red scoundrels who, a year ago, brought such bloodshed to the Kuban. By my orders to General Pokronsky, Commander of the troops in the rear, ten of these traitors have been arrested to start with. ‘They will be court-martialed. ‘They are: Kalabukoff, Makerenko, Manjula, Omeltchenka, Balabas, Voropinoff, Foskoff, Rogavetz, Juk and Podtopelny. Let any who wish to share the same fate remember these names. | WRANGEL. of the Kuban were as ready to fight the Soviet army as Denikin himself. But they wanted autonomy, local self-government, ‘They wished to fight as a people, not as mere stop-gaps in Denikin’s waver- | ing line. They wanted to retain the Kuban grain to feed the people of the Kuban, not to deliver it to Denikin and have it squandered through the in- credible graft and mismanagement of his quarter- masters. Above all, they had no confidence in the military command of the ‘‘Volunteer” army. Men- aced by the Soviet troops from the north, the “Green army” of Black Sea communists from the August 25, 1920. : I said
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4 d | : 3 i ‘ oR a aa a I Fd ey fa eg ee ee er ae ee ‘ eit ov : WI ne ae ee ee Pye ' besides the members of the Rada. - the Cossacks, free of Denikin’s control. \ Sola hes 25, 1920 Fs senath, and the Circassian Wi dialiees at war with Denikin, on the east, they felt themselves their own best defense of their land. This was their treason to Denikin’s determination not to permit Russia to be divided strength, politics.” Ekaterinodar, the capital of the Kuban. He surrounded the city with a cordon of troops, ‘into states deprived of significance and voice in international placed artillery and machine guns to command it and ordered the arrest of over a hundred Kubans Those who were not court-martialed and executed, were exiled to Malta or some other British political prison, not under Parliament’s control. The Free Kuban, the newspaper of the local self-government party, was suppressed, The Cossacks of the Don and the Kuban began to ask themselves what they were fighting for, anyhow. At the end of three months of this ealiok of re- pression, discipline was’ so shaken in the ‘‘Volun- teer” ranks that Denikin was forced to issue his order of January 23, 1920. No. 2757: Let all remember that one reason for the ruin of a front is outrage and plunder. In the localities liberated from the Bolshevists the population welcomed us enthusiastically, but many of our troops behaved no better than the Pg aghe and the people turned against them. . . . If the officers do not stamp out this evil at once, a new advance will be useless and our cause will fail. | With this one port of entry, Novorossisk, in Kuban territory, the increasing hostility of the Kuban Cossacks compelled Denikin on January 24th to yield to some at least of their demands of autonomy. An artificial ‘South Russian Gov- ernment” was formed under the Kuban Ataman, General Bukretoff, and all the ministries save those of war, marine and supplies were turned over to The char- acter and stability of this purely artificial creation of Wrangel’s is attested in an item in the Tiflis Slovo of February 22, 1920: Don money is now issued mainly in Novorossisk [the Don was no longer under Denikin’s control],,and owing to a breakdown of the printing press, the South Russian Government has suffered an acute financial crisis. A week baer: Denikin was appealing to his men ‘‘to realize that only with severe discipline and a steadfast purpose can we accomplish our difficult _ task,” and General Ulagai, the new commander of the Cossacks, threatening to declare all who would not serve at the front traitors, and execute them. But Wrangel’s job had been well done. Not _ only had he enraged the Cossacks by his sammary treatment of them, but he had plotted against Denikin, whose Chief of Staff he had been, and THE NEW To deal with it, Wrangel was sent to. REPUBLIC 364 little by little had built up a following of his own. He more than any other was responsible for the appeals for discipline and honest support which became the day’s routine of the Commander-in- Chief of the All-Russian army. By April 1st, it was all over. General Kupetoff, on behalf of the malcontents, addressed Denikin: My duty and my conscience demand that I tell you, Anton Ivanovitch, that your resignation of authority is the most necessary condition for the success of further struggle with the Bolshevists. The charge against Denikin was that he was “not firm enough.” On April 5th, after three sessions of the Council of Generals of the “Volunteer” army, packed with — supporters of Wrangel who were without com- mands, Wrangel’s Chief of Staff, he now became the successor of Denikin. Telegraphing from the Crimea, General party triumphed. Once the Slascheff, then commanding the crumpfing anti- | Bolshevist forces in the Crimea, congratulated his new leader: ‘We lay all our hopes of saving our country on your popularity and iron will,” he said. Sixty transports and eighteen Allied warships con- gested the harbor of Theodosia, carrying the shat- tered remnants of Denikin’s army to the Crimea, and evacuating the 894 British officers and 7,929 British soldiers who had formed part of Denikin’s command. There was such confusion that the British commander of the South Russian Armed Forces proclaimed that “until further orders British ships will not take sick, wounded or re- fugees.”’ It was not a retreat, it was a rout, a crushing disaster. The members of the artificial South Russian government, the forerunner of the “government” the French have now recognized, fled to Constantinople. 13,000 Cherkesses, whom Wrangel left to shift for themselves, surrendered - to the communist Green army of the Black Sea Province. granted by the Bolshevist government, Denikin adventure was ended. All of this was in large measure Wrangel’s work. At no time did the Denikin adventure possess the essential elements of success. to live on the country and thus to deprive those whom he must turn into supporters, if he were to. succeed, of the meagre ‘food store that the blockade instituted by the Allies had left them. The arrival of the Denikin army meant, therefore, not release but greater privation for those “liberated” from Soviet rule. cord in the military councils, intrigue and disloyalty. He had inflamed resentment in the To the remaining Cossacks who had borne arms against the Soviets, full amnesty was. The. To this unavoidable handicap under which Denikin labored, Wrangel had added dis- His army was forced Cossack’s,
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365 rear by the harshness of his measures of repression. The failure of his attempt to force the Kubans to ac- cept the old imperial conception of Russia was the beginning of the disintegration of the Denikin army. In his cabal against his commanding officer, Wrangel represented the nobility of Russia; and the Russian nobility is by no means the small nucleus constantly leavened by accretions from other classes that it is, say in England. In Russia the nobility is a distinct, self-conscious class. Wrangel is one of this class. His grandfather was the marshal of the nobility in the district of Yam- burg, and afterwards governor of Petrograd. His wife, the daughter of a chamberlain of the T'sar, was herself a lady-in-waiting before her marriage. Educated at the Empress Catherine Institute for Engineers, a school principally for the nobility, Wrangel in 1912 was first lieutenant in the Im- perial Horse Guards. In the first two years of the war he rose, by virtue of his relationships in court and army circles, to be colonel of cavalry and aide- de-camp to the Tsar. Under Kerensky, he became chief of division at thirty-nine—he was born on August 15, 1878. He is a charming man to meet socially, but he has as much in common with the Russian masses as any courtier of the Tsar. I talked with many emigrés, former large land- owners, nobles, ex-officers of guard regiments, in Tiflis, Constantinople and Paris, during the days when Denikin was making his hardest fight. They were not at the front—indeed, they were as far from the front as their means permitted them to get. When I asked why, they said: “Oh, well, you know Denikin—he’s nobody, He won’t last. Wrangel, now, is a gentleman. When he gets the commandwhich he will—we’ll join.” I recall one sinister old lady in Tiflis who had “grown stupendously rich in the halcyon days of the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaievitch, and who was selling her priceless bibelots—to the Americans and English, at very good prices—to keep her luxurious establishment going. “Denikin? Pooh! Wrangel—that’s the man! Denikin’s a fool. Wrangel knows how to handle the mouzhik. When he comes in, it will go like wild fire. ‘Then we shall be rich, rich again, and these insolent peasants and cay inact shopkeepers will be put in their place.” | In a report on the situation in Southwestern Russia, of February 27, 1919, the British General in command of the forces in Transcaucasia said: In the eyes of the Socialists, we are Imperialists and monarchists, and are backing Denikin not only against Bolshevism but also to deprive the proletariat of the freedom they have won in the Revolution. Against this impression Denikin struggled—not THE NEW REPUBLIC August 25, 1920 . very successfully, it is true; the impression was too — firmly grounded in fact. But Wrangel glories in — it. ‘To deprive the proletariat of the freedom they have won in the Revolution’ is precisely his purpose. ‘‘Denikin’s. all right,” the Americans of the vari- ous relief organizations whom one saw in Novo- rossisk used to say. ‘He means well. It’s the gang around him of drunken, grafting sabre- draggers, who hang around G. H. Q. instead of going to the front, that is all wrong.” This gang formed Wrangel’s supporters in his cabal against Denikin. And the princes and barons and counts of Imperial Russia who fill the hotels at Tiflis and Constantinople, and squander money—whose,. I wonder ?—with fantastic lavish- ness while they wait for the good old imperial days to return—they are all for Wrangel. He is one of them, PAXTON HIBBEN. August Why should this Negro insolently stride Down the red noonday on such noiseless feet? Piled in his barrow, tawnier than wheat, Lie heaps of smouldering daisies, sombre-eyed, Their copper petals shrivelled up with ose, Hot with a superfluity of heat Like a great brazier borne along the street By captive leopards, black and burning pied. Are there no water-lilies, smooth as cream, With long stems dripping crystal? Are Sirs none Like those white lilies, luminous and cool, Plucked from some hemlocbadiekeaud northern stream By fair-haired swimmers, diving where the sun Scarce warms the scene of the deepest pool? ELinor WYLIE. Mexico Three centuries lie tucked away Within a silent patio Where brown chayote tendrils stray About the balconies grown gray Beneath the sun’s remorseless glow _ Through years of mouldering decay. The clear, calm sky of cobalt dies Above the red adobe walls, | Heart pierced. where broken steeples rise. The lizards sleep; the dragon-flies Drone drowsily as twilight falls. Sudden the tropic thunder mutters, The hurried call of birds grows shrill; A sefiorita’s mantle flutters’... A muffled.sob, arid all is still Behind the half-closed shutters. | CaRLETON BEALs. ¢
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- August 25, 1920 THE NEW British Report on Dock Labor Report of Court Inquiries, concerning Transport W ork- ers—Wages and Conditions of Employment of Dock Labor, published by the Great Britain Ministry of Labor, London, 1920. HE Report upon the wages and conditions of Em- ployment of British Dock Workers issued last Spring by the Court of Inquiry, presided over by Lord Shaw, is of great significance from more than one point of view. As the first instance of the application of the Industrial Courts Acts of 1919, it was in the nature of a test case of the utility of that measure, and aroused by the bril- liant and restrained advocacy of Mr. Bevin, one of the officials of the Transport Workers’ Federation, the public watched the Court’s proceedings with the same interest as was given a year ago to the Coal Industry Commission. The subject is one of crucial importance. ‘The conditions of Dock Labor down almost to the present day was-at once one of the grossest and one of the oldest scandals of Brit- ish social life. Since John Burns led the strike of 1889 for “the dockers tanker,” which was the herald and sym- bol of the “neo unionism” of that day, wages had improv- ed; but casual labor,. with all its horrors, survived to demoralize a population which in London alone must have approximated (when the dockers’ children are included) to 60,000 or 80,000 persons, and, in spite of half-hearted attempts at reorganization in London and more elaborate measures in Liverpool, was an evil hardly less rampant when Mr. Moss wrote his book on it in 1915 than when Mrs. Sidney Webb—then Miss Potter—investigated it - for Charles Booth in the eighties of last century. The Report of Lord Shaw’s Court of Inquiry is remarkable not only for what it proposes, but for the manner in which it proposes it. The handling of industrial questions by lawyers has often been somewhat infelicitous. But as Mr. Justice Brandeis and Holmes have shown in America, and Mr. Justice Sankey showed last year in Great Britain, the very familiarity of the legal mind with what may be called the current cant of economic relationship enables it at its best to treat with becoming disrespect doctrines which have become an idée fixe in the narrower intellect of business men, and thus to restate, with a kind of tran- quil insouciance, the very foundations of the industrial sys- tem. The declaration in Lord Shaw’s Report “if men were merely the spare parts of an industrial machine, this callous reckoning might be appropriate; but society will not tolerate much longer the continuance of the employ- ment of human beings on those lines,” deserves in its cool explosiveness, to be set side by side with Mr. Justice Sankey’s explanation of the impossibility of perpetuating private ownership in the coal industry in face of a gen- eration of education and organization among the miners; for “spare parts of an industrial machine” is precisely what in the “callous reckoning” of the existing economic régime, a great many “human beings” are. Nor is the result of the Court’s inquiry of merely domestic interest. Dock labor appears to reproduce much the same problems all the world over. ‘The British situation has its own idiosyncracies of detail. But the broader principles of the Court’s Report seem as applicable to Antwerp, Hamburg, or New York, as to London, Liverpool and Glasgow. Under the Industrial Courts Act, 1919, the Minister of Labor has power to refer an impending dispute to a Court of Inquiry appointed by him, the decisions of which, RimrUBLIC 366 however, are not binding upon the parties. The Trans- port Workers’ Federation had advanced a _ program which had as its most important items a demand for a minimum wage of dayworkers and pieceworkers of 16 shillings a day for the 44 hour week already agreed on, the payment of time and a half for overtime, and the aboli- © tion of “systematic” overtime. Negotiations between the Federation and the National Council of Dock Labor em- ployers having broken down, both parties requested the Minister of Labor to appoint a Court of Inquiry. The Court, established by the Ministry, consisted in addition to an eminent judge, Lord Shaw, as chairman, of four representatives of labor and four employers: it is notice- able perhaps that the way now taken in Great Britain to secure a fair hearing of industrial issues is not to attempt the impossible task of appointing persons who are “im- partial’? in the sense of having no conception of social expediency—outside asylums such persons do not exist— but of bringing all the partialities in, the only course, it may be suggested, by which “impartiality” can be — achieved. The Court, which had power to take evidence on oath, held twenty public sittings and examined fifty- three witnesses. The chairman, four representatives of labor, and the business men signed a majority report, recom- mending that the Federation’s claim for a minimum wage ‘of sixteen shillings per day should be conceded, and adding certain highly important proposals for the better organiza- tion of work at the ports. TI~wo of the business men pro- duced a minority report dissenting from the minimum pro- posed, but recommending an advance in wages to corres- pond with the advance in prices. In order to expedite its decisions the Court confined its attention to the wage claim advanced by the Federation and left the ten other claims in the program—prin- cipally matters of hours overtime, to be settled later by negotiation. ‘The paragraphs in its Report with regard to wages are remarkable principally for their frank rejec- tion of the idea that wages should be fixed at a “subsist- ence level.” Mr. Bevin, who argued the case for the Federation, had repudiated indignantly the idea that the wages should be determined on a “fodder basis” and the Court repeated his argument in diplomatic language. It accepted the workers’ claim, not merely for an advance in wages to keep pace with prices, but for “a better standard of living.” “By this,” it stated, “is not meant a right to have merely a subsistence allowance, in the sense of keeping the soul and body of the worker together, but a right to have life ordered on a higher standard, with full regard to the comforts and decencies which are pro- ductive of better habits, which give a chance for the de- velopment of a greater sense of self-respect, and which be- tokens a high regard for the place occupied by these work- ers in the scheme of citizenship. . . . In the opinion of the Court the time has gone past for asserting the value of human labor at the poverty line.” ‘This treatment of the question of wages may be compared with the attitude of the British Trade Boards, which have always declined to limit the legally enforceable minimum rate by considera- tions of the sum needed for mere physical subsistence. ‘The truth is that the phrase “living wage,” though useful as \ a weapon of offense, is too vague, when broadly inter- preted, to be of much practical utility, while if it is used strictly to ‘mean the wage needed for existence, it is not a standard which any body of workers, except temporarily, can accept. ‘Their demand is inevitably that wages should be the highest which the industry, when properly organ-
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367 ized, can at any one time afford. In the, future, in fact, it may be necessary to fix a living wage, not for labor, but for capital! ' It is a long road from the great dock strike of 1889 for sixpence an hour to the daily minimum of sixteen shillings granted by the Courts. But its award as to wages is the least significant part of its recommendations. Mere underpayment is not the characteristic which has given the dockers their unenviable notoriety as, in some ways, the most demoralizing of all fields of employment. Their peculiar vice has been in the past their erection of casual emiployment into a system, which even today, in spite of tentative movements for reform, remains in most parts almost unabated. ‘The economic background of it is sim- ple. The demand for dock workers fluctuates not only from season to season (with the movement of the world’s crops, such as wool, cotton, cereals and timber), but from day to day, and indeed from hour to hour. The precise time of a ship’s arrival in port, depending as it does on tides, fog, and a dozen other causes, is uncertain. But once there, it is of the utmost importance to the ship- owner that it shall be “turned round” with the utmost pos- - sible rapidity. Work, therefore, comes in rushes, and be- cause it comes in rushes, every employer of dock workers (unless he is abnormally intelligent) hastened to aim in his labor policy at two objects. He is anxious to cut down his permanent staff to the lowest possible figure, and he is anxious at the same time that there should be as large a pool as possible of workers on and about the docks into which, when the emergency comes, he can dip. What hap- pened, therefore, hitherto has been that most British ports have been the scene of a scramble for employment between thousands of casual workers who are taken on by the job and dismissed when the job is over,. without any certainty of getting another or any provision being made for their maintenance when a job is not forthcoming. Dock labor, in such circumstances, became the gamblers’ chance of the men who could not get employment elsewhere. ~“Inevita- bly, its ranks were enormously overcrowded. It was esti- _mated, for example, before the war the number employed (in round numbers) in the Port of London was on the busiest day, roughly 18,000, on the average day 14,000, and on the slackest 11,000, while the total number of workers hunting for work on any one day was 22,000. Inevitably, again, the majority of workers obtained, on the average, two or three days’ employment per week. The _ spectacle was a shocking one. A “stand”' would be held by a foreman crowded by a horde of some hundreds of men eager for employment; he would, run his eyes over them as though they were cattle, pick out three who look- ed strongest, and leave the rest—often the majority—toa digest their despair till a later “stand” took place. and the same scene was repeated... And that occurred not at one spot, but at a dozen, for instead of men who failed to find employment at one place moving to another, a sur- plus tended to be collected at each. The whole proceed- ing was horribly suggestive of a slave market and, the Report does not in the least exaggerate when it says “members of this Court can recall a period when men, gathered at the dock gates, fought fiercely for a tally which, when obtained, might only enable them to obtain ‘ one hour’s work and so limit their earning for the day to 4d.”” Foremen often liked the system: it increased their power. Employers often liked it, it kept a body of work- ers at their disposal for whose maintenance they need not pay. In time even some of the workers came to prefer THE NEW REPUBLIC ‘be torn up by the roots,” August 25, 1920 it. For the system attracted the dances. and men dread- ed that better organizations might deprive some of them 4q of work altogether, so that projects of reform have some- times been opposed even by those whom they were intended to benefit. Employers had, in fact, asked for casual labor for three generations, and at length they had got it. The social misery produced by this system can not be exaggerat- ed. It meant that in almost every port there was a large ‘body of workers who were chronically underemployed, and that in that swamp of casual labor every other evil found a fertile soil. . It was impossible for a woman to keep house intelligently when the weekly earning of her hus- band varied from 2/6 to £3. Decent housing was impos- sible when there Was no secure annual income. Women crowded into underpaid occupations in order to supple- ment the earnings of fathers and husbands and dragged a low standard of wages still lower. An inquiry into the clothing trades made in 1913 showed that in London the worst paid women workers were often the wives and daughters of casually employed dock workers. | In the last two years two causes have been at work to modify that situation. ‘The first is the growth of a strong and ably led Transport Workers’ Federation. The second is the war. But the legacy of the past cannot be shaken off without a far more resolute effort of reorganization than has yet been made, and the Court showed its in- sight in insisting that neither wages, nor the question of increased output, could be handled intelligently as long as casual employment is accepted as a thing unalterable. Clearly, rates per hour or per day must be higher if there is no certainty of continuous work; not less clearly, the atmosphere which casual employment creates is incompati- , _ ble with the, general maintenance of any high professional — standard of efficiency. The last point is an interesting one, because it is another illustration of the way in which a study of existing methods of industrial organization drives the candid inquirer to the conclusion that merely on grounds of efficiency a change is indispensable. As Mr. Justice Sankey said in connection with the coal industry, as Mr. Foster’s Committee said of the building industry, so now Lord Shaw says of Dock Labor that one of the fundamental obstacles to increased output (there are, of course, others) which must be faced is, “the absence of confidence between employer and men.” “The. men’s memory has not to go back far to recall conditions of labor which were such as made. their minds revolt against an employment which recognized such conditions, and even against a society which permitted them.” Though the — statement is not flattering to our civilization, it is possible that reforms which were resisted when advanced .on hu- manitarian grounds may be accepted now that they are waged for reasons of economic expediency. q Unlike Mr. Justice Sankey, the Court presided over by — Lord Shaw did not state in detail what those reforms | should be. It left their working out to the National Joint ~ Council of which it recommended the establishment. But it © declared that “the system of casualization must, if possible, | and it indicated clearly enough — the methods which should be applied. The first is “a — system of registration of all workers at the Docks.” ‘The — second is “the adoption of the principle of maintenance.” These two reforms go together. Registration had before the war been tried in Liverpool. What it means is that all persons employed in a port at a given date are register- ed, (for example, by being entered on a list and given tallies or tickets) and that, when this has been done, no — \
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at IE SATS LOE LS TLE LI PRI BS 4 August 25, 1920 | additional workers are admitted to the industry except as actual need for them is. proved and with the consent of a Joint Committee of employers and workers. The effect of this policy is to end the overstocking of the port by workers who drift in on the chance of getting a day’s employment, which is one cause of casual labor, and to do so without a violent shock to existing interests. No one already at work is displaced; but, as men retire from the - industry, through’ natural causes, the number are gradual- ly reduced till they correspond with the demand. When and as that reduction takes place, the same volume of work must, of course, be done by a smaller number of men, and, in order to make this possible, arrangements must be made for increasing the mobility of men throughout the port, so that those who do not get employment at one place may get it at another, in place of the traditional sys- tem of allowing each centre of employment to accumulate and retain its own reserve. In such circumstances men who are not offered employment, because on one particular day there is no work for them to do, must obviously be paid. If they come to work (as they do) for the con- venience of the employer, they must not suffer because, on a particular day or at a particular hour, he happens to have no work to offer them. The system under which dock workers are paid merely by the job is about as rea- sonable as it would be to engage a staff of railway men when a train cémes in, and to dismiss them when it goes out. The only right policy, in the long run the most economical policy, is to maintain a body of regular work- ers who are paid a standing wage or retaining fee. In view of the dependence of modern societies on the trans- port industries, there are few immediately practicable changes which would do more to raise the general stand- ard of life than one which secured the whole personnel of those industries.a regular salary. , ; R. H. Tawney. Sir James Frazer Sir Roger De Coverley and ‘Omer Literary Pieces, by Sir James George Frazer. New York: The Macmillan Company. | 3 IR JAMES GEORGE FRAZER is of that fortunate band of literary, workers who possess a single and colossal object in life, some individual achievement that stretches across the years, that renders them indefatigable in their zest for filling every moment of life. The monu- ment that Frazer has erected in his Golden Bough is one of the finest creations among contemporary letters, and it is manifestly needless for him to attempt anything further to enlarge his reputation. But the writing instinct will not be curbed; it breaks out in ithe most unlikely moments and in the most surprising ways. ‘Therefore it is not at all extraordinary that Frazer should have enough stray bits, off-shoots of a life that has principally bent its en- ergies toward the completion of a single thing, to make up a volume of miscellanies. Neither is it surprising that | some of these stray bits should be in verse, for behind most of the volumes in the Golden Bough series glimmers | the figure of the poet, the sensitive perceiver of nature || and the soul. , : Sir Roger De Coverley and Other Pieces possesses that 2 mellowness that bespeaks -the true literary artist, the man | who has passed all his life in those corridors of Time among the masterpieces of the ages. Whether it is the a THE NEW 4 a REPUBLIC 368 kindly Spectator, full of ripe humor and homely sageness, or poor mad Cowper, or Perseus in quest of the Gorgon’s head, or experiments in Latin versification we find the writer born to the purple of scholarship, the Fellow of Trinity College, the literary figure following in the great _ traditions of English letters. Quite the most delectable portion of this book is the five pieces concerning Sir Roger De Coverley. The figure of Sir Roger is handled from an imaginative standpoint, indeed, one of them is supposed to be an unpublished paper for The Spectator written about the time of Will Honeycomb’s marriage and the breakup of the Club. Then | in another paper the ghost of Sir Roger manifests itself to the writer in modern London. ‘There is a mellowness and beauty about these papers that arises mainly from the style. Sir James Frazer has caught the note of the ald Spectator paper to a nicety and his recreation of Steele’s undying knight is one. that will delight lovers of the old papers. | How many people read The Spectator now? How many know the delicious humor, the gentle yet shafted satire, the adorable characterizations that star those papers? To enjoy them thoroughly do as the reviewer did,—¢et an old yellow, dog-eared edition in which the quaint printing is retained, the s’s like f’s and a liberal sprinkling of capitals for emphasis and find a quiet ‘sun-speckled. grassy nook wherein to read. Back will come Covent Garden and the Mall, sedan-chairs swinging along to St. James’, stately beaux in flowered waistcoats with slim rapiers at their sides. An age of courtliness reassumes its debonair ex- istence. It is this period that comes so remarkably to life in Sir James Frazer’s papers. ‘There is genuine. pathos and testimony to the writer’s great love of that vanished period _ in the concluding paragraph of the paper wherein he de- sctibes his last meeting with the courtly figure of Sir Roger in Fleet Street. ‘We walked along together in silence to Fleet Street. ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘I have a fancy that when you and I part for the last time, I should wish it to be just thus.’ I was too moved to reply, and could only shake As he was about to leave me, © him silently by the hand. He lifted his hat, with the red — roses still in it, and walked away. I do not know how it was; perhaps his words had struck a note of foreboding in my mind, but a sense of uneasiness and sadness came over me, and I noticed with a sort of apprehension that the roses in his hat drooped and had lost some of their petals. I stood bareheaded, watching him till he disap- peared in the shadow. I never saw him again. It was my last parting with Sir Roger. But I humbly trust that we may meet again in a world beyond the shadows, where roses never fade and friends shall part no more.” The retelling of the Greek myth of The Quest of the Gorgon’s Head is handled in a simple and delightful man- ner. Thoughts of Frank R. Stockton’s half-forgotten book of myths come to mind while considering the method of nar- _ ration. Then the short yet compact life of Cowper must be mentioned. ‘This essay originally served as preface to a volume of selected letters by the poet. It offers a com- prehensive outline of the poet’s life with none of the un- derbrush of theory and surmise that generally spoil these efforts. , Most of the other pieces in the book are mere bits, some of them running to but a few hundred words. But all of them possess value as examples of leisurely and finished - prose and the poetry while never inspired is of that kindly
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369 and sincere style. that awakens respect. -Taking pains with one’s prose is not so ordinary in these fevered times as it should be. But in the seclusion of his English home, among the storied confines of Cambridge and beneath the eternal shadow of his Golden Bough Sir James Frazer has found the time to be circumspect and deliberate. One fragment in the book, a single paragraph entitled Mem- ories of Youth, suggests itself for quotation. “Tonight, with the muffled roar of London in my ears, I look down the long vista of the past and see again the little white town by the sea, the hills above it tinged with the warm sunset light. I hear again the soft music of the evening bells, the bells of which they told us in our child- hood that though we did not heed them now, we would remember them when we were old.. Across the bay, in the deepening shadow lies sweet Roseneath, embowered in its wood, and beyond the dark and slumberous waters of the loch peep glimmering through the twilight the low green hills of Gareloch, while above them tower far into the glory of the sunset sky the rugged mountains of Loch Long. Home of my youth! There in the little house in the garden—the garden where. it seems to me now that it was always summer and the flowers were always bright —the garden where the burn winds wimpling over the ' pebbles under the red sandstone clifis—I dreamed the long, long dreams of youth. A mist, born not of the sea rises up and hides the scene. And as the vision fades, like many a dream of youth before, I look out into the night, and see the lights and hear again the muffled roar of London.” : The book, as a whole, cannot be called a rounded whole for it is too diffuse in its subjects, it meanders too widely through fields of fancy and poetry. Memory and imagination go hand in hand through its pages. But it is such a book as only.a great master of English letters could write. The name of Sir James George Frazer is not as widely known in this country as it should be and this is probably because of the portentous aspect of the Golden Bough series. But those readers who have dipped into this vast effort know what the writer has accom- plished. ‘They know the excellence of his prose and they will accordingly welcome this new volume of mis- cellanies. HERBERT S. GORMAN. Contributors SANFORD GRIFFITH is travelling in Central and Eastern Europe where he is observing conditions for the New Republic. \ _ Max BEeErBouHM is the well known English artist and author. Among his writings are Zuleika Dobson, A Christmas Garland and The Happy Hypocrite. Dean AcHESON is a, graduate of, Yale University and Harvard Law School who has studied the condi- tions of which. he writes at first hand. STARK YOUNG, professor of English at Amherst College, is the author of Addio Madretta and other plays. Paxton Hispen was staff correspondent of the Asso- ciated. Press from 1915 to 1917 in Europe and has recently returned from Transcaucasia where he was special correspondent of the Chicago ‘Tribune. THE NEW REPUBLIC For boys and girls from 2 to 11 years The aim of the school ts to prepare each child for a complete life, both as an individual and as a member of tes social group. All-day activities make best use of udvantages of city life. Hot lunches served. Afternoon trips in connection with schoo] work. Athletie field; swimming; large roof playground; carpentry shop; guditorium fer music and dancing, outdoor nature atudy; art and Indian craft work. Particular atten- tion to spoken French and Science. Write for booklet. 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