The Nation 1925-01-28: Vol 120 Iss 3108

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f 2 ] ' nonce ROOM 5 | ENE LIBRAR t VICH. Eclipses—Ancient and Modern IThe Nation Vol. CXX, No. 3108 Founpen 1865 Wednesday, Jan. 28, 1925 Monarchist Germany ? by Robert Dell The Nordic Myth I. What Is a Race? by Franz Boas The Jazz of the Spirit by Joseph Wood Krutch Fifteen Cents a Copy Five Dollars a Year Published weekly at 20 Vesey St., New York. Entered as second-class matter December 13, 1887, at the post office at New York. N. Y., under the Act of March 2. 1% Copyright, 1925, by The Nation, Inc.

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The Nation [ Vol. 120, No. 310s +4 “Empty Your Purse Into Your Head” B. W. HUEBSCH, Inc. Publisher * 30 Irving Place, New York | ROM our office, we look out at the home of Washing- | ton Irving and at that hive of eager youth, Wash- | ington Irving High School. A block away lies his- | toric Union Square, and up the street Gramercy Park, a post- age-stamp of grass enclosed in a locked iron fence. It used to look like a bit of London, but the tall buildings are chang- ing that. How many know that New York still contains a “park” which opens only to the keys of property owners ? Other neighbors It is a_ nice are the old neighborhood to Wienerisch' | Ac a de my of work in, and we . ) a. | Music (Shades Hi elusive charm of Vienna (of Italian has rarely been captured with such effect as in this book by the author of Diplomatic Days in Mexico. It is a fascinating story of post-war life with its con- trasting aristocrats and past€ | German actors gentry, toilers and swindlers, so- rg hej lidity and flimsiness, a story of | WO Knew their ~ fortitude and human weakness. | art once gave memorable _per- | | } | Joy for the Erudite’ expect to con- | A's readers will find satisfaction : tinue to pub- with Frances Newman’s brillian: : book, THe SwHort Srory’s Mv. lish good books | opera!), “Tam- TATIONS here and to sell | many Hall and | the Irving Place | Theatre, where The sixteen epochal tales alone justi- | fy the volume, but the connective tex: many more | wittily expounding a startling theory , . | contributions to criticism. No wonder than ever be | Mr. Cabell alludes to the “opulence” fore. We hope | her gifts. | | | places her work with the authoritative There are tales by Petronius, Boccac- that those here mée, Maupassant, Laforgue, James Chekhov, Anderson, Lawrence, Joyce and Morand. cio, Voltaire, Andersen, Musset, Me: described may eth . ne! Ne tormances. WASHINGTON IRVING'S HOUSE attract you. | A Prophet in His Own Land’ ry ECAUSE the Nobel Prize was awarded to Gerhart Haupt- mann a dozen years ago people have the notion that he is i very old man. He is only sixty-two, and at the pinnacle of his aa creative power. It is difficult for us to imagine the reverence in hich Hauptmann is held in Germany; there he is not only their ereatest poet and dramatist, but almost their leader in the things | of the spirit. Now comes Votume VIII of his plays in English, containing | sm ——— | three beautiful dramas (translated, by the way, by Edwin Muir An Artist’s Life’ | and his wife), one dealing with Montezuma and Cortez, one on | . ae . HE legend — Maya Indian theme and one based on a tale by Selma Lagerléf. | Biosracriticism » EGS SaaS James | \Itocether a volume not to be missed by the discriminating. CCESS to his private papers : Joyce and the fact and fancy | A the generous aid of Andreyev's upon which he drew in the crea- | widow, were helpful factors tion of ULysses have been caught A Newer Henrv Adams | the preparation of Alexander Kaun's by Mr. Gorman in James Joyce: | . el | LeonID ANDREYEV. Be le ee . “* | ¢t=ws HE tale of an American writer's journey through his own | | It makes good reading, this presen- His Firs lORTY YEARS. | tation of two decades of Russian litera- This is the sole volume on the | ture, this examination of the phi- most unusual figure among living | losophy that moulded them, this por writers. | | ! j imaginative world and through the world of facts, with many of his ex- periences and im- pressions among other writers.” * . Scotch Reviewers” Sona Mill ATTITUDES is a book of brilliant | derson’s autobi- | essays, in which Mr. Muir tosses | seatelions a -4 aside clichés and views the welter ography may be of contemporary thought from a new compared with a eminence of the mind. Here is a man ‘| because in who helps to restore the essay to its nove , ecause former high estate. its facts and Prognostications come home to roost. | . . . : Yet, confidently, we wave Mr. Muir to . tatements we a high place in criticism. To offer find the source LATIT( DES to a friend is to compliment material out of the friend's intelligence. ee which his fictions grew trayal of the chief figures of the day 7 P all woven into the story of a brilliant The book is and curious figure. rich with obser- vations of the | A Model fcr Journalists American scene, | HE most successful attempt to : . a produce a perfect magazine is that ” it h pen - por attested by eight volumes of Th: traits, anecdotes Freeman, whose four years shine and the deep, American journalism. The Freema 1 ‘ | never wrote down to the public, hence musing. self- the public always looked up to The analvsis of ge- | Freeman. Those who admired its wit, “ibe a : | sanity and literary style, may now pro- nius ecoming | cure THe FREEMAN Book, a character- aware of itself. istie selection, 400 pages of good read- ing. \f i (} 'Viennese Medley, by Edith O’Shaughnessy, $2.00. \ sired, using this strip as an order form. Send it to vour booksellers or to us. Latitudes, by Edwin Muir, $2.00, Books will be sent C.O.D. unless remit- | ‘Dramatic Works, Volume VIII, by Gerhart Hauptmann, $2.50. tance accompanies check. ake check mark next to the books de- James Joyce: His First Forty Years, by Herbert S. Gorman, $2.00. [) °A Story Teller’s Story, by Sherwood Anderson, $3.00. ‘The Short Story’s Mutations, by Frances Newman, $2.5 To B. W. HUEBSCH, Inc., () *‘Leorid Andreyev, by Alexander Kaun, $3.50. 30 Irving Place, New York. * ‘The Freeman Book, $3.00 THIS MARK ON GOOD BOOKS oT an rs A». ivertisers, ‘ion The Nation gs 6S a ir re §TlCUrlUCUCrhCUrhOlUCOSS

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The Nati on FOUNDED 1865 Vol. CXX NEW YORK, WEDNES SDAY, JANUARY 28, 1925 No. 3108 C C. Bascom Slemp, who should never have been appointed, ontents rey apne | atgl ; Sg ee - a and is giving Representative Everett Sanders of Indiana I TA oink nccceckcanusresenndencctbennted 81 his place. EDITORIALS: Christian Missionaries........... Sa cea ete a eae in 83 The Paris |. geht aad eg ee AGE CUTS which were held in abeyance until after aa a the Presidential election have now been put into REACTION IN GERMANY. By — Dell. ....-++-+++++++e0e: s* ~—s effect pretty generally in the cotton mills of New England. WHAT IS A RACE? By Franz Boas................++:- a9 HOMER, VIRGIL, AND A JOURNALIST. By Robert Louis Burgess 91 The textile workers of Fall River have just accepted a re- a a oo Se Wale Minee......... 92 duction in their pay of 10 per cent and a similar cut has IN THE DRIFTWAY. By the Drifter...............-00000: een Ae 93 : : iam asa os ow anGadaconbinnnena a been decreed in New Bedford and in Springfield and BOOKS AND PLAYS: Pere Gimee, Ey BOP Vam TOPOR. . oo cccccccccccssecscecs ere 96 The Interpretation of Aristotle. By Clara M. Smertenko...... 96 The Human Criminal. By Winthrop D. Lane........... aE 97 David Wilmot. By Walter L. Fleming............... one ies 97 ee EF iio ccscecccccisasecesecccssnesee 98 A Land Half Seen. By James Rorty............ Pirere hoa aaa een aa oa GR i a ag koh ted ts hei We dha hw ara ae A 99 Drama: Jazz of the Spirit. By Joseph Wood Krutch.............. 99 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SECTION: SO TO, TO II. ooo citer cdisccceccasecaes : 101 Ny ining din'6 ae own toccncanecedemacmeded needs 102 OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, " Eprrom ASSOCIATE EDITORS LEWIS S. GANNETT ARTHUR WARNER JOSEPH WOOD KRUTCH FREDA KIRCHWEY MARK VAN DOREN MANAGING EDITOR Literary EpItox DAVID BOEHM, ApDverTISING MANAGER CONTRIBUTING EDITORS ROBERT HERRICK LUDWIG LEWISOHN NORMAN THOMAS JOHN A. HOBSON H. L. MENCKEN CARL VAN DOREN SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Five dollars per annum postpaid in the United States and Mexico; to Canada, $5.50, and to foreign countries of the Postal Union, $6.00. THE NATION, 20 Vesey Street, New York City. Cable Address: NATION, New York. Chicago Office: 38 So. Dearborn Street. British Agent for Subscriptions and Advertising: E. Thurtle, M.P., 36, Temple Fortune Hill, N. Ww. 11, England. RESIDENT COOLIDGE’S PROMOTION of Ambas- sador Houghton from the Berlin Embassy to London is doubly praiseworthy. The advance has been well earned by Mr. Houghton, and it establishes the principle of pro- motion for merit within the service. If we do not err this is almost the only case in which the London position has been filled by the promotion of a diplomat. If Mr. Houghton is not an orator, or man of letters, he has displayed in Berlin all the qualities requisite for his new post, and he stands head and shoulders above Mr. Kellogg both as a man and as an Official. Coming to Berlin with an excellent knowledge of Germany and the German language, Mr. Houghton entered upon his difficult task of renewing rela- tions with the beaten enemy without hate or condescension, with friendliness, tact, sympathy for their desperate plight, and with genuine skill. It is a pleasant thought that the new Ambassador to London will come to his task familiar with the European situation and able to bring to his work in connection with the Dawes Plan a unique understanding of conditions in Berlin. Another similarly commendable action is the President’s promotion of Mr. John J. Kiely, the assistant postmaster in New York, to the postmaster- ship made vacant by the death of Edward M. Morgan. His promotion will bring encouragement to a body of faithful but overworked and gravely underpaid officials accustomed to seeing the prize positions in the service given to poli- ticians. We must also record our satisfaction that the President is dispensing with the services of his secretary, in certain mills in Rhode Island. Reductions were ordered earlier in the season in Lawrence and in many New Hamp- shire mills. The textile trades, especially cotton, are in the throes of a severe slump, and as usual the workers have to pay the penalty even though the fault lies elsewhere. Ob- viously something more constructive than cutting wages is needed to restore New England’s cotton industry, adversely affected both by a weak international market and by the competition of the South. In view of the generally strict laws against child labor in New England one would expect to see its cotton manufacturers lining up for the proposed federal amendment on that ik in order to protect themselves against the competition of child-made goods in the South. The fact that New England cotton manufac- turers are generally opposing the amendment suggests that their interests in the South are greater than is generally known, and that they are keener to exploit cheap labor there than to restore their business in New England. Judge November elect ion. HE KU KLUX KLAN thought it could finish 3en B. Lindsey of Denver at the It had captured the Republican Coolidge-Ku Klux flood washed into office every candidate in Denver County but two; one Democrat unop- posed by the Klan—and Judge Lindsey. Lindsey had nization, and the tepudlican orga fought the Klan from the moment it swept reaction into Colorado, and when the election came it saw its chance to wipe out its enemy and the liberal] principles he stood for. During the campaign it used every weapon of force and slander at its command, but Li was elected be- cause the people of Denver believed in him. He ran some 30,000 votes ahead of Davis. But the Klan is not through with Judge Lindsey; his margin of votes was less than 200 and the election is being contested. His foreign-born precincts offers the possibility lots; it is charged that pencils were supplied in several polling-places instead of the pen and ink required by law. Lindsey hopes to win the contest; but that sarily save the children’s court. A bill into the legislature to abolish the court and number of appointed judges—making way for Lindsey’s defeated opponent. The Klan controls the lower house, but the sympathy of the Senate is still doubt the Denver juvenile court is hanging in will be needed to fight against its abolition Judge Lindsey in the the principles it stands for may through The Nation. j = ndsey heavy vote in Wii, not neces. a + “4 ”. has been introduced incroaaa the increase ~ii kl #45,) 4 ts + Po A ul. The fate of the balance; and to support .* ges —. | € + i nm Friends of the i money contest. send their contributions

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82 The Nation [ Vol. 120, No. 3108 eee 2 — - - —e & CLOSE-SEASON for governors seems almost neces- A sary. With Governor Davis of Kansas being arrested and rearrested on charges of selling pardons with the aid of his son and others, ex-Governor McCray of Indiana in the Atlanta Penitentiary, ex-Governor Ferguson of Texas under the stigma of having been impeached and removed, and Governor Small of Illinois, after one trial, under new charges of embezzlement of public funds when in another State office, the time seems ripe for a moratorium for gov- ernor-baiting. What will become of our reputation for the best and purest form of government in the world if this sort of thing goes on? And just at this unfortunate junc- ture the Republican sub-committee of the Senate Oil Com- mittee has pronounced the former Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall, beyond even Republican condonation. How nice all this will sound abroad! Will it not be exploited in Rus- sia as fresh proof of the decay of capitalist civilization? This is the time when we were all to settle down, make money to our heart’s content, and enjoy Coolidge pros- perity. Could there be a more constructive scheme for the preservation of our national honor than a bill to extend immunity to all governors now in office for any acts com- mitted in the past or hereafter? HE SENATE has passed the Underwood bill author- izing the government to turn over its nitrate plant and vast water-power development at Muscle Shoals, Ala- bama, to a private lessee. The report of Senator Norris’s Committee on Agriculture in favor of continued federal control has been discarded. The bill has still to run the gantlet of the House; and so there is opportunity yet for the public to insist that this great water-power shall not be alienated from the people. The House voted last year to turn over Muscle Shoals to Henry Ford, but that was rather a gesture in favor of the Detroit flivver-maker per- sonally than an indorsement of private ownership as such. The House is by no means committed in advance to the Underwood bill, and the measure should not be permitted to go through without another fight. Our politicians are for- ever giving away our valuable federal properties and then turning around and buying some utility of which private ownership has been unable to make a success, like the Cape Cod Canal (the story of which was told in The Nation of January 7). When public ownership has failed in this country it has usually been because the government took over a failure. “AST AND WEST MEET in the opium conferences at EK Geneva, and happily the representatives of the United States have sided with the East. Seldom has the selfish- ness of colonial Powers exposed itself more clearly than in this amazing lineup—Great Britain, France, and Holland, the imperial masters of coolie colonies, forming the “Opium Lloe’ which has set itself against immediate steps toward suppression of the drug traffic; and against them Turkey, Persia, China, Japan, the disinterested Powers, and the United States. The Nation will publish next week a re- vealing article by Miss Ellen LaMotte upon the machina- tions at the League conferences in November and De- cember. Those conferences adjourned with their work un- finished, but it was hoped that after a month of prayer and meditation the delegates would return with a new eager- ness to accomplish their task. That hope has been disap- pointed. The United States proposed measures to abolish opium consumption in ten years. Viscount Cecil (doubtless on instruction from Britain’s Tory Government) made a worse than useless counter-proposal. Declaring that opium- eating was “sometimes beneficial,” he said that England would agree to abolish opium-smoking in the British col- onies in the East—within fifteen years after China has effectively suppressed opium-growing in China! That should make the judges who recently awarded the $25,000 Woodrow Wilson prize to England’s war-time Blockade Minister hang their heads. N BESTOWING upon the inhabitants of Santo Doming: the benefits of modern hygiene our military officials there recently turned their attention to the sale of bread and rolls and decreed that “each roll shall be wrapped in paper.” The Dominicans could not seem to get through their heads that it was better to pay twenty cents for a dozen rolls with the privilege of having them neatly done up in twelve separate packages than fifteen cents for twelve rolls in one paper bag. Their newspapers protested that it was not done in the rest of the world, that the baker would have to handle the rolls anyway i he wrapped them up, and that people were too poor to pa\ the extra price. Not content with that, they said that when our Department of Sanitation turned its attention t keeping the streets clean, collecting the rubbish, providing an adequate water supply, putting in pavements and side- walks, and installing a drainage system, then it would b: time enough to talk about wrapping rolls in separate pieces of oiled paper. Now, how can a poor American marine, sent out to teach democracy to the heathen, reason wit! people like that? ILL THE BICYCLE ever win back its popularity i: America? Its merits are as great today as ever; changing fashion rather than the automobile or the motor- cycle is responsible for its near-disappearance. Neither th: automobile nor the motorcycle does, or can, take its place. Not only is it less expensive than they, but one ean use it in places and ways to which the other two are not adapted: it is not merely a means of transit but an exercise and a sport. The bicycle in America is now ridden mostly by boys; women have abandoned it almost entirely. Hope of its return to some of its old popularity is to be found in its use abroad. In Europe it never had either the remark- able vogue or the great slump that has been its history here, and recent statistics in England indicate that it stil! holds its own. A census of road traffic there last summer showed that bicycles constituted from one-fifth to three- fifths of all vehicles. ICE AND GUINEA PIGS, exposed for 188 days to the exhaust gas from an engine in which lead tetra- ethyl gasoline was burned, showed no evidence of th: poisoning which certain experts had predicted as the prob- able result of the common use of this new motor fuel. According to the United States Bureau of Mines, which conducted a series of experiments at Pittsburgh, the pres- ence of the lead tetra-ethyl in the gasoline does not add any appreciable hazard to the exhaust gas discharged by an engine; it is commonly known that even ordinary exhaust gas breathed in a closed garage is dangerous, as a result of the carbon dioxide which it contains. The important ques- t‘on remains, however, as to the danger of haxdling th

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Jan. 28, 1925] The Nation 83 — oe a . eee Th; } f ethv. gasoine in liquid 1orm. Inis mignt affect mili * motor-car owners and employees of garages and filling +7 a? r 1 *n1e at 4 il a ucn at ail ON ali stations. Nor does this study risks in the manufacture of the concentrated ethyl which killed five men at the Standard Oil plant at Bayonne several weeks ago, as reported by Mary Ross in The Nation for November 26. The former question is under investigation by experts connected with research depart- ments of Columbia University; until it is answered on the basis of careful and authoritative experience the new fue! must be regarded as potentially dangerous. And until the problem of safeguarding the workers who make it from the menace of such horrible deaths as have claimed several! )f their number is solved, no civilized community can coun as a gain this application of science to commerce. } j - bons ead te.ra- ™ URFEITED THOUGH NEW YORK IS with musica S geniuses, it was thrilled by the conducting of Philharmonic by Wilhelm Furtwaengler. The successor of the great Arthur Nikisch as conductor of the Gewandhau Orchestra in Leipzig came almost unheralded, but he at once achieved an almost unprecedented success. Even hi yrchestra on one occasion refused to share with him t} cheers of the audience, but instead joined in the ovation. Such rare skill in conducting, such power and musicia: ship have not been seen in New York since the days of Seidl and of Nikisch. Dr. Furtwaengler seems to hay even greater force than Nikisch. Certainly in his render- ing of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony and the Handel D minor concerto grosso he worked wonders with his or- chestra, achieving extraordinary tonal effects with the most delicate shading imaginable. It would be good fortune for all America if the directors of the Philharmonic should secure this gifted man as the permanent conductor of their yrchestra, which, since the retirement of Josef Stransky, has languished under Mr. Van Hoogstraten. It is a pleas- ant episode in international relations to see capacity Ame: i¢an audiences cheering a great German. ANUARY THAWS send the green tips of skunk-cabbage cowls poking their way through the mud of fresh-water swamps in the latitude of New York, and a prolonged warm spell will bring the strange ill-smelling spathes into flower. February thaws bring them into bloom about Boston; Washington rovers sometimes find the unnatural plant pre- naturely a-blossom in December. When violets peep out of their buds on the hillsides the skunk cabbage blooms in the swamps below will be already withered, and the sturdy roots will be producing the huge green leaves which hide the ground through the summer. The Journal of Heredity recounts the amazing discoveries of a botanist who has been studying these roots. Each year the plant sends out new rootlets, and each year these contract, pulling the rootstalk further beneath the surface. While other plants are growing up into the air the skunk cabbage is growing down into the soil. As this process continues the tip of the rootstalk naturally becomes worn, but even so occa- sional plants preserve the traces of seventy years of con- tinuous growth, and it seems probable that some of them may have been growing in their present locations when Columbus discovered America. Anyone may turn his eyes to California and marvel at a towering redwood; it took 4a scientist to find an almost equal marvel in our Eastern swamps. Christian Missionaries OO often blood and business have followed roads blazed by heroic missionaries, and criticisms and suspicion of the pioneer preachers has naturally followed. A group of twenty-five American missionaries in China, however, has recently expressed its Christianity in new and thrilling terms. To the American Minister at Peking, Mr. Jacob Gould Schurman, they sent the following truly magnificent declaration: ssionaries, are in China Our is to lead men and women into a new life in Christ The undersigned, American m as messengers of the gospel of brotherhood and peace. task which promotes brotherhood and takes away all occasion of wars. We therefore express our earnest desire that no form of military no foreign military force, be exerted to protect us or our property; and that in the event of our capture by lawle persons or ow death at their be paid for our release, no puniti out, and no indemnities be We take this stand be ving that the is through bringing the pressure, especially hands, no money ve expeditions be sent exacted. establish spirit of personal good-will to bear on al] a way righteousness and peace persons under all circumstances, even through suffering wrong without retaliation. Jesus Christ to mean. We wish to be clear that we have no authority to speak This is what we understand the example of for our missions or churches, and sigr mply in our indi vidual capacity. There, indecd, was a] nin ( Istlanitv, and we wish w could publish the names of these heroes and ask aid for such apostles. Of them we know y this: t t came from different pr that the two names slg 1 to tne f vering ijetter to the Americé liniste e d ¢. reneré Ila, ce} ar: cter v6 j ner ‘Yr , . 7 y | } le@Talis Nata IiZOCQd ATI rican } ‘ a ‘late spite of the enormous difficult Vance toward to hold the lead in this advance: We do not re for reciprocity in aii ling we expect Ar r “firmness” which some are advocating; we do not care fur gunboats on the Yangtze And what did the American Minister ply te who petitioned him to permit them to put their ¢ into practice? For that we have Press dispatch, which reports: The American Legation pointed out was inconsistent with the necessity that exist guarding Americans in China, and that no exce] or would be made in the procedure in emergencies with r ft gard to the signers of the petit Whatever the missionaries wished, the Amer M did not intend any Chinese to make the mistake that the United States was a Christian nat “ those twenty-five missionaries, but they need not have g so far from home in the search for mission fields. Or reason for their attitude, they say, is that the Chit Chr tian church has suffered from connecti with foreign mis- sionaries and the foreign military forces behind them. Per- haps as a next step they will petition the Chinese Christ church to send a band of missionaries to establish a chapel and preach Christianity at the doors of the Stat Department in Washington.

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84 The Nation [ Vol. 120, No. 3108 Canals and the People OVERNOR SMITH revived a discussion of first-rate importance in his recent message to the New York Legislature by raising the question of the State canal sys- tem and calling for a commission to study the subject. Why is it that Europe is netted with canals which perform a fun- damental service while America has only a few scratches of inland waterways and they have met with the meagerest success? In the last twenty years New York has built or rebuilt a modern system known as the Barge Canal at an expense of $230,000,000 for construction, operation, and interest. The estimates for operation and improvements in 1925 ex- ceed five millions. All this is an out-of-pocket expenditure on the part of the State, since it charges no tolls. It main- tains its canals like its roads as free ways. Naturally, there- fore, it wants assurance that the public benefits are equal to the tax bills. Governor Smith’s recommendation for a com- mission to study the Barge Canal with a view to developing further usefulness is excellent, but the figures he gives in regard to its traffic are unduly pessimistic. Going back to the heydey of the old Erie Canal Governor Smith finds that for the six years just previous to the abolition of tolls, 1877- 1882, the traffic averaged 5,434,474 tons annually. He then notes that the Barge Canal, although designed to carry four times as much as its predecessor, has had an average traffic of only 1,640,481 tons annually for the first six full years of operation, 1919-1924. Governor Smith does not explain that between 1882 and 1919 business on the old Erie waterway had gone to pieces, nor does he mention the highly signifi- cant fact that traffic on the new route has made an annual gain each year since 1919, approximating 100 per cent. The Barge Canal—which is short for 1,000-ton-barge canal—consists of four routes: the new Erie Canal, which virtually coincides with the old waterway of that name from the Hudson River opposite Troy to Buffalo; a waterway joining the Hudson with Lake Champlain to the north; a spur from the Erie Canal connecting it with Lake Ontario at Oswego; and the Cayuga-Seneca branch. The Erie Canal is the main artery, and in 1924 carried 1,691,766 tons of the total of 2,032,317 transported over the entire system. The steady growth of business on the Erie Canal since 1919 is evident from the following statistics of its traffic: 1919, 842,164 tons; 1920, 891,221 tons; 1921, 993,639 tons; 1922, 1,485,109 tons; 1923, 1,626,062 tons; 1924, 1,691,766 tons. Moreover, lack of traffic is not due to an absence of cargoes but, by general testimony, to a shortage of boats. Gov- ernor Smith said so himself in his message to the legisla- ture two years ago and the State Engineer confirms the statement in 1925. Shippers in New York City complain that one of the reasons for a shortage of boats is the failure to maintain the Barge Canal at its theoretical depth of twelve feet while another is doubt about the State’s policy. Both of these considerations have made business wary of putting capital into boats. The old-time low-powered canal boat, it should be understood, has largely disappeared. The Barge Canal opens a through route by way of the Hudson River from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. The present tendency, therefore, is toward a boat sufficiently large and powerful to traverse the Great Lakes and at least the more protected parts of the Atlantic seaboard. The experience of New York with its Barge Canal js well worth the examination of the entire country because the undertaking is essentially a national one. Actually this great waterway brings the Atlantic seaboard inland as far as Duluth, although of course only for a limited type of vessel. For many years before its construction an argu- ment raged between the advocates of a waterway of the present sort and a ship canal wide and deep enough for ocean-going vessels. The latter project, it was estimated, would have cost about four times as much. It was argued also that the benefits of a ship canal over a barge waterway would accrue almost entirely to through commerce be- tween the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, from which the State of New York would profit only slightly while bear- ing all the expense. So New York decided to leave a ship waterway to the Federal Government should there be suffi- cient pressure of public opinion to bring it about. The agitation in the Middle West to get the United States to join with Canada in the construction of a St. Lawrence ship canal has revived interest in the possibilities of a deep- water route within our own borders. Since Governor Smith’s message, Colonel Frederick Stuart Greene, head of the Department of Public Works—which operates the canal —has come out in favor of asking the federal Government to take over the waterway. He suggests also that the Erie Canal between Syracuse and Buffalo be abandoned and that all traffic go by way of the Oswego branch and Lake On- tario. (The Welland Canal furnishes a link between Lake Ontario and the bodies of water further west.) If the federal Government should step in, there would certainly be a demand to deepen the canal and the Hudson River for the accommodation of ocean-going steamships. This may be a project for the future, but the immediate job is to make the Barge Canal an undisputed success before proposing to replace it with a costlier and even more prob- lematic waterway. New York State, both through experi- ence and self-interest, has a greater likelihood of achieving such a success than the federal Government. It is true that much of the present traffic is through commerce of little benefit to any of the State except New York City, but it is equally sure that the route of the Barge Canal will be an ideal site for hundreds of industrial enterprises once 4 proper utilization of the waterway is arrived at. The sorry fact is that in America inland waterways have been fought bitterly and successfully by the railroads, whereas in Europe, where the railroads are largely under government control, they have been linked with the canals. In this country the railways have either prevented the im- provement of canals or have subjected them to cut-throat competition. They have also refused them the benefit of through routings. Even where railroad influence has not been felt, canals have suffered in this country from the inertia and indifference of business. It is easier for the average American business man to pass on expensive trans- portation to the consumer than to grapple with the difficul- ties of a cheaper transit. Even in England it was found more difficult to divert traffic to the now successful Man- chester ship canal than to finance or build it. Likewise with the Barge Canal. The waterway is there. Cargoes are everywhere. The job is to bring the two together. eC... sn F) TI co no ou ce ar de

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Jan. 28, 1925] The Nation 85 The Paris Settlement “ECRETARY HUGHES is to be congratulated upon his Ss maintenance, at the recent Paris financial conference, of the American demand for participation in the Dawes reparation annuities. The British opposition against which he had to contend was motivated not by the trifling con- tingent money sacrifice that Britain would make but by the far more important consideration that if the United States were denied Dawes bonds it might be forced to con- fiscate sequestrated German private property in order to pay the American claims, and thus place itself in the same sorry predicament in which England finds herself, having sold her reputation for financial integrity by confiscating privately owned enemy property. We had two large claims to settle at Paris—the Rhine- army costs and the claims of American citizens arising out of war damages. The former, amounting to $255,000,000, represents the cost of maintaining our army on the Rhine from the armistice until its withdrawal. This sum had been paid by Germany to the Reparation Commission as part of the billion dollars or so paid for the upkeep of all the occupying armies. But in distributing the billion, the Allies “overlooked” the United States and calmly pocketed our share. When we finally asked for it the Allies informed us that they had already spent it and that we might ask Germany for it again. That we practically did, for in the Wadsworth Agreement of 1923 we agreed to accept priority payment in twelve annual instalments out of a percentage of future payments to be made by Germany. This agree- ment we surrendered at Paris in order to obtain recogni- tion of our pecuniary war claims. Instead of receiving on the Rhine-army account nearly 90 million marks annually, not counting arrears, our payment has been reduced to 55 million marks annually, beginning September 1, 1926, pay- able over a period of about twenty-two years. Interest is sacrificed. Winston Churchill, who fought hard to prevent the recognition of the American pecuniary claims, regards this reduction as a great advantage for the Allies, for, even with the percentage we are to receive to discharge the war claims, the total under both heads for the next twelve years will be less than we would have received under the Wads- worth Agreement alone. The item of pecuniary war claims, now being settled by the Mixed Claims Commission, was estimated at $350,- 000,000. It will hardly be that much, unless interest for many years hence is included. Excluding about $50,000,000 for government ships sunk, the private claims will probably come to about $200,000,000. Under this head we are to receive 24%, per cent of Germany’s annuity payments, not exceeding 45 million marks in any one year. What price have we paid for this admission of our small claims, which may be compared with the British and French indemnities and territorial and economic conquests? The European press suggests that the United States is now committed with the Allies to making war on Germany whenever the Dawes Plan breaks down. This, however, is not 1917 or 1918, and it is to be hoped that we have learned our lesson. The United States has consented only to re- ceive payments as and when made, and has, the President and Mr. Hughes have made clear, no intention to collect debts by force of arms. If the Dawes Plan breaks down, the reason is likely to be that France and England do not want Germany to build up that surplus of exports without which the plan is admittedly doomed. The plan presup- poses a politically and economically healthy Germany, and there is little evidence that France or Tory England in- tends to permit Germany to recover normal health. If Americans understand this, they will realize that their con- flict of interest is not with Germany. For the United States the settlement affords an oppor- tunity to liquidate some of the most unhappy legacies of the war. It brings the occasion for the return of the seques- trated private property, which, contrary to a profound American tradition, has been kept from its owners these six years. Compensation should be made for the dissipa- tion of this property by the gross violations of the principle of trusteeship perpetrated by Messrs. Palmer and Garvan as alien property Secretary Hughes should liquidate these problems before his retirement, and make doubly sure that we are not pledged to more than we know. ~mietndis . CUSLOG1aNs, How to Insure Old Age OES anyone wish a prescription for longevity? We know it and are ready to offer it. It is not a Brown- Séquard liquid or a monkey gland, or abstention from far beyond the pen- from a drink and tobacco. Would you live long scriptural threescore and ten? Then get yourself a sion from the government. An railroad or a corporation or an insurance company do. It must be from the government. Apparently get governmental support the absolute security—at it was absolute security until the World War showed how easily governments could topple and pensions fade away with them—of the source of your income yives you peace and quiet and contentment that strain and take life so placidly that man’s final enemy post- pones his approach. ordinary pension will not if you least such ou forego all nerve We are fortified in this opinion by a perusal! of the annual report of the Commissioner of Pensions in Washing- ton. Who would believe that we are still paying p jons as a result of the War of 1812? | living thirty-three women supported in part by the govern- ment because they were w war that ended 110 years ago. early in life some pensioned veteran who then was Of course, the married life. But the government cares not for that. As long as your husband shouldered a musket in * War of 1412 does not matter whether you married him when he was seventy or eighty or ninety or one hundred. The thirty- three women are drawing $30 a month and they are scat- tered all over the country. It is only twenty years ago that the last male survivor of the War of 1812, Hiram Cronk, of Ava, New York, died at the age of 105 years days. We don’t recall anything about his habits, but must have been his pension that did it. At tnat he had four and a half years less of life than the last survivor of the fevolutionary War, who lived until Apri! 5, 1469. The last widow-pensioner of the Revolution left this mundane sphere on November 11, 1906, at the tender age of ninety-two. As for the other survivors of our wars, the commis- sioner reports that he still pays 146,815 soldier pensioners from the Civil War and 253,136 dependents, with 6,359 claims for new pensions pending. Thus approximately 400,000 pensioners receive money because of a war which

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86 The Nation [ Vol. 120, No. 3108 —_ —EEEe —_ — a as Stil ended fifty-nine years ago, the youngest soldier in which is now seventy-eight and a half years old. He enlisted when he was fourteen and a half years old. Our war with Spain was a tiny struggle, with but insignificant forces judged by World War standards, but we are already pen- sioning 101,142 of its soldiers and their widows, with 23,542 claims pending on June 30, 1924. In the twelve months before that date no less than 17,000 additional Spanish War veterans were placed on the pension rolls. There are also 22,682 widows and veterans of our Indian wars and our regular army on the lists. As for the World War, we have only just begun there, for we have only seventy-eight pen- sioners as yet from that gigantic struggle; it will be re- membered that through the soldier-insurance and direct- disability payments the effort was made to prevent the building up of another pension roll in the good old fashion. That was an admirable ambition, but we do not believe that it will be realized. As time passes, and the memory of the bonuses, State and national, fades away, there will be a greater and greater demand for the old-fashioned, straight-out pension. England’s pension bureau thinks it will be through taking care of its war widows and or- phans at the expiration of thirty-eight more years. Appar- ently their climate is different from ours, or perhaps their pensions are of a different grade and quality from ours, and so do not produce similar longevity. Or they may have a dead-line controlling the age at which the veteran may marry with the right to get his widow on the pension roll. So if the Commissioner of Pensions has any fears that his department may go out of business because of the rapid decrease of Civil War veterans—23,000 died in 1923-24— we would reassure him. The President has just signed an omnibus pension bill calling for millions of dollars in pen- sions to people who could not legitimately file their claims under existing statutes, including one of $5,000 for Mrs. Woodrow Wilson. The Pension Bureau may shrink for a while, but it will be with us when most of us pensionless ones are prematurely gathered to our fathers. > wy We Of Eclipses HEN, on January 24, the shadow of the moon sweeps across Manhattan, three-fourths of the inhabitants will congratulate themselves upon what “we” know about eclipses. Yet in fact not one in a thousand knows a single important fact about eclipses which was not known to a well-informed Roman of nearly two thousand years ago. A few patient and laborious scientists who have mas- tered the intricacies of celestial mechanics can predict with an accuracy unknown before the exact instant at which the eclipse will occur and in exactly what areas it will be vis- ible; the average citizen knows only that the moon comes between him and the sun and that this is a periodic occur- rence. Pliny knew that much, but of all the knowledge gained. since that time only an exceedingly small part is comprehensible to the untrained man. Aristotle suggested that the circular shadow cast by the earth during a lunar eclipse signified that the earth was round, and that is an observation quite beyond the present-day man who is sure that he lives upon a sphere without being able to give one good reason for his conviction. The eclipse has surrendered its mysteries step by step during a period which embraces several millenniums. Al- most at the dawn of history the Chaldeans were familiar with the cycle of eclipses though their knowledge was largely empiric and the fact that corresponding eclipses of the sun are not visible over corresponding areas baffled them completely. The Greeks discovered the cause of the obscuration of sun or moon, and (in the second century B. C.) Hipparchus, though he worked upon a geocentri theory, studied so carefully the moon’s orbit that he was able to increase the accuracy of his prediction until h: could tell the hour in which an eclipse would occur. Johann Kepler made the next great advance in this direc- tion some eighteen hundred years later, and it is now, 0 course, only a matter of routine calculation to determin the very moment of an eclipse. In ancient as in modern times the knowledge of th: mass lagged centuries behind the knowledge of the few. Pliny knew what the average man knows today, but in his time his was the unusual knowledge. Superstition gave ground slowly, and though he could speak of the earth’s shadow upon the sun the Athenians a few centuries earlier regarded similar talk on the part of Anaxagoras as blas- phemous. Plutarch tells of a woman of Thessaly wh gained great fame among her people because she could, b her incantations, remove the moon from the sky—a feat which doubtless she never undertook to perform except when she knew that an eclipse was about to take place- and Herodotus recounts how in the midst of a battle th Lydians and the Medes were so frightened by a darkening of the sun that they stopped fighting at once and quick); arranged a peace which was cemented by a royal marriage. The Athenian general Nicias lost a battle because he heeded the common warning that eclipses brought bad !uck; but Plutarch, in speaking of him, had come to the point wher: he could say that though there is nothing terrible in see- ing the sun darkened by the shadow of the moon there is something terrible in seeing the mind of Nicias darkened by superstition. As one might expect, the Middle Ages developed m elaborately the magical lore of eclipses. Thomas Aquinas is at pains to remark that they seem supernatural on)! to the ignorant, but Saint Thomas was an unusual man and one may read of strange things in the works of learne magicians. Eclipses of the sun were considered the mos’ terrible, and they might be expected, so we learn from Peter of Albano, to produce various strange effects, such « sterility of the soil, increased activity among both good and bad demons, and intercourse of incubi and succubi, as wel! as a general weakening of human nature with an accom- panying increase of avarice and cupidity. During lunar eclipses, another medieval writer informs us, a gem called glossopetra, which has the form of a human tongue and possesses magical properties, falls upon the earth. By what slow stages the average man came to be as rational as Pliny or Plutarch or Thomas Aquinas it would be difficult to say, but the process must have been a slow one and may not yet have been completed. As late as the middle of the seventeenth century Sir Thomas Browne in- cludes belief in the supernatural influence of eclipses among his “Vulgar Errors” and remarks in his rotund manner: “To behold a rainbow in the night is no prodig) unto a philosopher. Than eclipses of sun or moon, nothing is more natural; yet with what superstition they have been beheld since the tragedy of Nicias and his army, many examples display.” ~~ FH Fe be OUttllCOShlUC KA Ul lo i. cr -3 OS > an onal yy mM

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()X Jan. 28, 1925] The Nation ie ~]) Reaction in Germany By ROBERT DELL (The Nation’s Special Correspondent in Germany) LStnce Mr. Dell mailed this article in Berlin the cable: have confirmed his prophecy. succeeded, and the Republic of Germany has for the first ‘me a frankly reactionary Government. Dr. Luther, Min- ‘ster of Finance in the Cuno Cabinet, becomes Prime Min- ister; and the remainder of the Cabinet consists of four Nationalists, a member of the Bavarian People’s Party, four Centrists, and one Democrat. If the Democrats and Cen- trists unanimously support this Coalition of the Right i! will have 303 votes in a Reichstag of 493 members. Among the Nationalist members is one who has refused to swear allegiance to the Republic.—EbDIToR THE NATION. Berlin, December 28 FP ONHREE weeks after the Ger- man general election its un- satisfactory character is clearer than ever. In the new Reichstag, as in that elected last May, nei- ther the parties of the Left nor those of the Right have a ma- jority, and there is not even a majority for what is called the “Weimar Coalition” of Center, Socialists, and Democrats, which formed the Government for near- ly three years. The only change is that the Republican parties are slightly stronger than in the May Reichstag. In May the par- ties of the Left numbered 190 (160 Socialists, 62 Communists, and 28 Democrats), and the Dr. Luther, Germany’s Center 65. Now there are new Chancellor 208 members on the _ Left (131 Socialists, 45 Communists, and 32 Democrats) and 69 belonging to the Center. On the other hand, the parties of the Right together have los only one seat, having 216 members instead of 217. The total membership of the Reichstag has been increased from 472 to 493, because there were in round figures 900,000 more voters than in May. As before, no Government can be formed without the Center and, as before, the Center at present—refuses to join a coalition either with the par- ties of the Left or with those of the Right. The Center wants to revive the “Big Coalition” (of Center, Socialists, Democrats, and German People’s Party) which formed the Government, from August to December, 1923, in which Dr. Stresemann was Chancellor. Dr. Stresemann and his party now, however, refuse to join a “Big Coalition” and insist, as before the election, on a Government including the Ger- man Nationalists, which means a reactionary coalition of the Center and the Right. Not only have the parties of the Right held their own, they have also consolidated their position. Its extremist Fascist wing has been reduced from 36 to 22, but they are so silly that they were a thorn in the side of the German Nationalists, who are really dangerous. In the May Dr. Stresemann’s intrigue ha From the Tagebuch (Berlin) ae jag tha GWaaries lik +) , ; heicnstag the Fascists, like the Communists. were in per- and a coalition Government of the Cen- uld by no means have counted on their support. Humbled by defeat, they are now ready to sup- :+ manent opp sition ter al . 4 I ioht . ala clit beige iil ¢ indeed it port such a coalition is probable that before amalgamate with the German Nationalists. } a? 2o9 iOng tney Willi Since Center and Right together would have a clear ma- } rity of FE. t ts formation of such a coalition Government is only too probable. The Catholic industrial magnates are in favor of it, although Dr. Marx and Dr. Wirth are Op- posed. The fact that the Center has voted unanimously against such a coalition is no guaranty that it will stick to its guns—before the election it voted against the inclu- sion of the German Nationalists in the Government one morning and in favor of it the same afternoon. For the Center to enter a coalition with the monarchist Right would be a betrayal of the electors (it fought the election definitely as a Republican Party) and a repudiation of the policy of the Marx impossible. Cabinet, but that does not make jit at. all For this deplorable situation the cowardice of the So- cialist and Democratic leaders is greatly responsible. Plainly, as the Frankfurter Zeitung said, the right policy for the Socialists and Democrats was to checkmate Dr. Stresemann’s intrigues by taking the initiative immediately after the election. Had they at once proposed t of the “Weimar Coalition,” the; iid probably have rushed the Center into it. would have had no majority, unless the 45 Communists abstained from voting against it, and their beney might have been secured by the release of the political prisoners of all parties, of whom there are about 7,000. But the Socialist leaders did not even hold a meeting of the party in the Reichstag until December 18, and, meanwhile, pledged their party without tion.” The “Big Coalition” is detested Dy tne yreat ma- jority of the working class and Socialist participation in it would benefit both the Com- +. munists and the German Na- oe tionalists, as it did last May. That is why the German Peo- ple’s Party, which lost heavily to the German Nationalists in May, refused to have any more to do with the “Big Coalition.” revival Such a Government . 1 + ‘ 1s . olent neutrailty they had consent The extraordinary decision ~-- to postpone the formation of Ludendorf, Leader a new Government until Jan- the Fa t uary was probably due to the desire of the German Nationalists to have the questions 2f the League of Nations and the Cologn: ipation settled before they joined the Government. This hypothesis is supported by the note to the League of Nations, which in effect shelves the question of Germany joining the League, for it can be answered only by the Assembly of the League which will not meet until September. Moreover, t Ger-

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88 The Nation [Vol. 120, No. 3108 man demand to be exempt from the obligation of Article 16 of the Covenant involves an amendment of the latter, which requires ratification and would probably take about two years. The note was superfluous, unless it was intended to have this effect, for it merely repeated what the German Government had already said privately to the Powers repre- sented on the Council of the League, all of whom replied favorably on the questions of giving Germany a perma- nent seat on the Council and not raising difficulties about her fulfilment of her treaty obligations. The conduct of the German Government, which has resigned and is merely holding on to transact routine business, in taking a step of this kind on an important question of policy, was a flagrant breach of constitutional usage. It must be said that the English and French govern- ments are doing much to make reaction in Germany suc- cessful. The change of government in England has had a more disastrous effect on the European situation than I could ever have believed possible in so short a time. In three months the hopes of peace that were raised at Geneva seem to have been shattered. The evident hostility of the new English Government to the Geneva Protocol and indeed to the principle of arbitration, which it has flouted in the case of Egypt, is a sinister omen. The brutal imperialism of the ultimatum to Egypt, recalling that of Austria to Serbia in 1914, has been hailed by the German Nationalists as an example for every country to follow, and has en- couraged the supporters of the thesis that Germany’s only hope is in the restoration of her military power. Now the English and French governments are playing into the hands of the German Nationalists by the post- ponement of the Cologne evacuation. Everybody in Ger- many knows that the real reason of the postponement is that evacuation of the Cologne district would require evacu- ation of the Ruhr. The wise course would have been to propose a compromise to the German Government by which Cologne would have been evacuated, say, in April, and the Ruhr at the same time. Such a compromise, which would have shortened the military occupation of the Ruhr by four months, might have been accepted. If it be true, as re- ported, that the English Government wished to propose such a compromise some weeks ago and the French Government refused, the latter is to blame. The date for the joint evacuation of Cologne and the Ruhr suggested by the English Government is said to have been May 10. If, as seems now to be the case, the occupation of Cologne is to be prolonged as a “sanction,” the effect on German opinion, even if the occupation of the Ruhr be also shortened, will be disastrous. One would have thought that the futility of the policy of “sanctions” had been suf- ficiently demonstrated. When at last the Entente Powers consented to come to an agreement with Germany about reparations, something approaching a solution was found. The question of military control must be solved in the same way. Effective military control is impossible without the good-will of the German Government. That is shown by the fact that the control was for all practical purposes sus- pended for nearly two years because the German Govern- ment refused to give facilities for it after the occupation of the Ruhr. It is true that the military commission has met with obstruction organized by the officers of the Reichswehr which has prevented it from making a complete inquiry. It is clear that certain breaches of the disarmament pro- visions of the treaty have been committed. It is also clear that General von Seeckt has kept the promise that he made when he took the command of the Reichswehr “to form, not a little professional army, but leaders for the people in the moment of danger.” The Reichswehr is, in fact, an officers’ training corps—every private in it is taught to command. The Government has winked at the formation of illegal armed organizations—the “Black Reichswehr’”’— whose members have in many cases been given military training in Reichswehr camps. Disbanded regiments ar: kept together as far as possible by forming such members of them as are willing into associations in close touch with the Reichswehr. That General von Seeckt is looking to a war of revenge in the future can hardly be doubted. Th: Government is responsible, for it has refused to interfere and has even prosecuted Germans for telling the truth about the matter. Dr. Zeigner, formerly Prime Minister of Saxony, is awaiting his trial for high treason for having revealed to “enemy Powers” the connection of the illega! armed organizations with the Reichswehr in a speech in the Saxon Landtag. The truth of his statements is not denied. On the contrary, his prosecution is based on the assump- tion that they were true, for otherwise no charge of treason could by German law be made against him. German Republicans, and the working class in particu- lar, wish the disarmament of Germany to continue. They know that General von Seeckt, the Reichswehr, and the illegal armed organizations are a much greater danger to the German Republic than to any foreign Power. Most of the discoveries of secret arms made by the Military Com- mission of Control have been due to information given by German workmen. The younger generations have grown up and are growing up without military training and wil! never willingly consent to the restoration of conscription. Nevertheless, Germany is not at this moment in a posi- tion to make war, and is as effectively disarmed, with tri- fling exceptions, as she ever can be. No country with a great metallurgical industry can be permanently disarmed. There is only one way of making it impossible for Ger- many ever to go to war again—that of destroying German industry. No doubt, as the Temps says, Germany could prepare for war in a comparatively short time if she were allowed, but she would have to do what England did in 1914—divert the greater part of her factories to the manu- facture of munitions, and she could not possibly do that secretly. Since it is, presumably, not proposed to destroy German industry, the only way to prevent Germany beiny a danger in the future is to adopt a policy that will strengthen the friends of peace and reconciliation who, as the election showed, are still the majority. The continued occupation of Cologne has the opposite effect. The moral disarmament of Germany is the only real security for France and it will never be obtained by threats and “sanctions.” Prolongation of the occupation of Cologne without the consent of the German Government is likely to put the German Nationalists in power. They are threat- ening economic reprisals for the continued occupation of Cologne and they are quite capable of wrecking the Dawes Plan, which can work only with the sincere cooperation of the German Government. The Cologne policy of the En- tente Powers may put us back in the situation before the London Conference, destroy all the results—necessarily only partial—achieved by the policy of MacDonald and Herriot, and ruin the hopes of permanent peace. va dev affil ture our hav sam dev

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Jan. 28, 1925] The Nation 89 a: What Is a Race? By FRANZ BOAS ‘YVHE intensity of race consciousness in our country is not entirely due to the presence in large numbers of various non-European races, for even a hasty review of the attitude of many European nations reveals a phenom- enal growth of the feeling of racial antagonisms. The belief ‘ny organic difference between the European and the Negro or the European and the Chinese has come to appear as so fundamental that social and ducted without any regard to racial affiliations, but dealt with mankind as a whole and emphasize the unity of mental behavior of man. Whatever the outcome of scientific discussion may be the existence of racial antagonisms among ourselves cannot be denied. The inquiry should be directed toward an inves- tigation of the conditions under which they have grown up and of the soundness of political relations are deter- mined by it. We no longer demand any careful exami- nation of the reasons for the feeling of difference, but ac- cept it as an instinctive, un- avoidable effect of the con- Myth. This article is the first of a series on The Nordic It will be followed by discussions of the ques- tion of race superiority and of race Edward Sapir of the Victoria Memorial Museum at Ottawa, A. A. Goldenweiser and Melville J. Herskovits of the New School of Socia! Research, Manuel Uygarte, Argentine writer; Hendrik van Loon, and others. the arguments supporting racial discrimination. ~/ It is generally assumed that relations by | race antayonisms are instinc- | ° | | race consciousness and tive, that is to say, organic- It is fairly for individuals ally determined. obvious that tact of different races. “The theory that mental traits are determined by race is old. In earlier times it was not clearly differentiated from the assumption of an immediate influence of environ- ment upon body and mind. In the eighteenth century we hear of the belief that the type represented by the nobility is organically superior to the type represented by the com- moners.”In the nineteenth century the theory of the racial determination of mental traits made rapid headway. It was a convenient prop for supporting slavery and was, therefore, used as the strongest argument against the aims of the Abolitionists. But aside from this students of the history of civilization became impressed with the evident differences of mental behavior in large divisions of mankind. Gustav Klemm in his “Allgemeine Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit” discusses at length the aptitudes of different racial types. Carus tried to explain the history of nations on the basis of their organic character, but the whole prob- lem received its principal impetus by the publication of Comte de Gobineau’s “L’Inégalité des Races Humaines.” In the course of time the arguments by which he tried to prove the superiority of the blond North European type over all other European groups made a deep impression, and since that time the conviction has grown apace’that fundamental, organically determined psychical differences exist between human races and even between closely allied groups. It is only necessary to mention books like Stewart Houston Chamberlain’s “Foundations of Nineteenth Century Civili- zation,” or those of Woltmann, Lapouge, or Hans Giinther, and in our own country the much-read propaganda by Madison Grant, “The Passing of the Great Race,” to indicate the general character of the growth of this movement. On the other hand an equally voluminous literature has developed, intended to maintain the irrelevancy of racial affiliation in cultural and mental life. Much of this litera- ture is due to an effort to combat the anti-Semitic drift of our times. Quite aside from this discussion certain ethnologists have based their work on the assumption of an essential sameness of the mental life of all races. Inquiries into the development of civilization like those of Theodor Waitz, E. B. Tylor, Herbert Spencer, or Adolf Bastian were con- this rule does not hold good. The numerous cases of racial mixture between whites and al] other races show clearly that there is no fundamental! racial antipathy that would prevent the closest and most intimate relations between in- dividuals of the most diverse races. e Furthermore it is im- portant to note that race antagonism is not by any means a of mankind. While it is very pronounced it is weak among most of the people The present French policy of treating Frenchmen has il differences universal trait among Anglo-Saxons, of Romance tongue. the African theoretical denial of essential raci:z sible only on account of the lack of a strong, widespread feeling of race antagonism. The of race sciousness among people speaking Romance languages i Negroes as for its basis a and is pos weakness con- shown also by the social conditions in many South Ameri countries. Still more striking is the attitud dans, among whom racial affiliations cour against religious unity. A convincing proof of this attituas in early times is the description of inter-racial relations in Arabian literature. A study of the behavior of childr shows also that while a consciousness of race difference mays be present, it does not include necessarily any feeling of 1 racial antagonism. “As the child grows up the dividing line between the races is impressed upon it and in this way the race consciousness develops until it becomes a purely automatic reaction which evokes the same intensity of feel ing as the so-called instinctive reactions. Nevertheless the two are fundamentally distinct. If instinctive it would appear among all members « not necessarily in earliest youth, of adolescence. If, on the other hand, it is a behav is developed as a social pattern it will be pres: this pattern prevails and will become more autornatic and therefore emotionally stronger the more pronounced the social pattern. of India the same kind of antagonism and feeling of nance develops without being everywhere foun differences. Numerous attempts have been made to give a acientifie status to the feeling of racial difference and particularly to the claim of Nordic superiority. In these attempts use is , raciai antago Dut certainiv a t is also instructive ¢ jad ger ¢ a* 4

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G0 The Nation [ Vol. 120, No. 3105 made of historical data, of descriptions of national character and of psychological tests to which individuals of different races have been subjected. In none of these discussions, however, do we find a concise and definite answer to the question of what constitutes a race. Unfortunately the concept of race is not at all clear. The terminology adopted by our immigration authorities has added greatly to the confusion because they designate people speaking different languages and of different politi- cal association as races without any regard to their biologi- cal characteristics. When we speak of innate characteristics of races we mean by the term race a group of people descended from a common ancestry and for this reason alike in anatomical form. Likeness does not mean identity. In no species or variety of animals or plants are all individuals strictly of the same form. Differences in size and form are ever pres- ent and variability within certain limits is one of the prime characteristics of organic nature. Individuals of the same variety are not identical and a variety derived from the same ancestry will always embrace many distinctive indi- vidual forms. A whole racial group can never be described by a few descriptive terms, because there will always be many individuals of deviating types. It is our impression that the Swede is blond, blue eyed, tall, and longheaded; but many Swedes do not conform to this description. When these variations are sufficiently pronounced we are very much inclined to consider the extreme variants as types of which the population is composed and to believe that the rather indifferent but frequent middle group origi- nates from an intermixture of the two extreme types. When practical questions are involved this view is useful. The physician who distinguishes between the asthenic and eusthenic type or between other constitutional types is con- fronted by a practical problem. His classification of types does not imply that the individuals of different constitution are distinct types which intermingled and from which the middle type of indifferent constitution developed. In the same way the occurrence of long heads and short heads in Sweden does not prove by itself that we must have a mix- ture of two fundamental types. The extreme forms may as well be interpreted as variants of a single ancestral type. On the other hand extensive migrations have occurred since very early times the world over and mixtures of dis- tinct types have been common. The period of isolation in which the differentiation of local types developed must lie in a very remote time. The present conditions show gradual transitions between types inhabiting adjoining areas, due largely to intermixture. Local types exhibit everywhere similar degrees of variability, so that it is difficult if not impossible to determine the characteristics of the earlier purer types that developed by isolation. Unless the component races are fundamentally distinct, the attempt to isolate in an old stable population distinctive racial types determined by descriptive characteristics is, therefore, an almost insoluble task. We cannot assign one individual to one race, another to another, because we do not know the degree of variability found in the ancestral isolated race, and on account of the long-continued mixture the characteristics of the parental races will appear_in vary- ing combinations in each individual. All attempts to estab- lish among members of the same social group correlations between mental character and bodily form have failed. When we speak of racial heredity we mean certain ete | characteristics in which all members of a race partake. T) white skin-color of the European and the dark skin-color 9; the Negro are racial hereditary traits, because they belon; to all the members of each race. On account of the grea: variability of forms fundamental differences between vari. ous races are not always found. Size and complexity of +! brain, stature, head form, physiological functions and men: reactions vary enormously in each race, and many feature: that are found in one race are also found among individual; belonging to other races. Thus it happens that to judge functions an individual may as well belong to one race as t another. In such cases it is obviously impossible to speak of hereditary racial characteristics because the traits char- acterizing any individual occur in a number of human race: The importance of this observation becomes still cleare; when we consider the individuals not only as members of race as a whole but as descendants of a certain ancestra! group. The racial type is what is called by biologists a phenotype, that is to say, an assembly of individuals that belong to quite distinctive lines of descent. The phenotype, however, may be subdivided into a number of genotypes, or groups of individuals having a common ancestry. In other words, we must consider the whole race as constituted of large number of family lines. When we have a population that has been inbred for a very long time, such as certain village communities in Europe or small isolated tribes of primitive people, the whole community may represent, mor: or less strictly speaking, one genotype, because they are al! descended from the same ancestral group and every family line existing at the present time goes back to the same ancestry. We may note that even in these cases, so far as they have been investigated, the family lines are not by any means identical in type, but that considerable differences among them are found. Even long inbreeding does not produce an identity of family lines. Purity of type would entail a great similarity between different family lines and at the same time a great similarity between the brothers and sisters belonging to each family. As a matter of fact, great uniformity in either respect does not exist among any known group. Similarity of family strains is characteristic of inbred populations no matter what their ancestral com- position may be, while great disparity of family lines is found in new populations of mixed origin such as are found in our modern cities or in countries with immigration drawn from a large area. Great similarity among brother: and sisters in each family is dependent upon the uniformity of the ancestry, but it is not necessarily connected with long- continued inbreeding. To give an example, the mulatto population of South Africa, descendants of Negroes and Dutch settlers, has developed largely by inbreeding. There- fore the family lines are alike, while the children of each family vary very much among themselves and exhibit a mix- ture of Negro and white traits. A more detailed study of the constitution of a single race shows that its family lines vary considerably in ana- tomical and functional characteristics. The pigmentation of one family line may be quite distinct from that of an- other. Pathological traits appear in some strains of the population. Mental traits characteristic of certain family lines will not be shared by others. When comparing different races it is found that the variability of the genotypes comprising each race is so great that a family line might find its proper place in sev- ' e ~ as mo oe 1g ee

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4iid, Jan. 28, 1925] The Nation 9] —— eral races. In other words, many hereditary characteristics are not racial in character, but must be assigned to geno- typical lines, to family strains. If this is true, it is clear that any generalized charac- rerization of a race must be misleading. It may be possi- »le to characterize family lines, but the assumption of gen- eral racial characteristics, anatomical, physiological, or men- +a], excepting those that belong to the race as a whole, is arbitrarily made. The actual problem, therefore, from an objective stand- point, resolves itself into the question whether any charac- teristics, aside from purely anatomical ones, can be found that differentiate races so that they are common character- istics by which the racial position of all individuals and all family lines may be determined. There is no doubt that social groups show essential differences in their appearance and their behavior, but this does not imply that these characteristics are hereditarily determined. Individuals of quite distinctive anatomical build adopt the same functional habits with great ease. We find among people speaking the same language the most diverse forms of articulating organs; but the mode of pro- nunciation depends upon anatomical conditions only in ex- treme cases. It is determined by the social environment in which the individual grows up. The characteristic motor cendencies of large divisions of mankind are also not deter- mined by the special form of the skeleton and of the mus- cular system, but by historically determined motor habits. An example of this is the distribution of different methods of the use of bow and arrow which is characteristic of enor- mously wide areas. Proof of the socially determined char acter of mental reactions is also found in the difference in the behavior of a people in different periods. The descent of the Elizabethan English and the modern English is prac- tically the same. Nevertheless the early free and easy- going life contrasts strongly with the social restrictions and prudery of the middle of the past century. So far as I can see, no convincing proof has ever been given of the heredi tary character of complex functions that are found prevail ing among a given people at the present time. We rather see that all racial strains, when subjected to the sam social environment, develop the same functional tendencies The plasticity of function is so great that it may overco: to a great extent the difference in organic form. Nevertheless individual differences in family characteristics of function may very well exist and be recognized, but the variability of the family lines const tuting each race will be found so great that in this case also we have no right to speak of racial hereditary trait The occurrence of hereditary mental traits that belong to a particular race has never beer function and proved. The available Homer, Virgil, and a Journalist By ROBERT LOUIS BURGESS ¢™‘REEK and Latin are not subjects I reluctantly ‘‘took”’ \¥ in college. Nor are they gateways to a lovely garden, entered so early that the gateway is forgotten, the garden enjoyed. I approached the classic languages at the ages of thirty, demanded of them something very definite, and, with fatal American successfulness, got what I demanded. However skeptical I may be of the source of his edu- cational ideals, I cannot but feel a certain respect for the energy of my Self, this thirty-year-old wistful pedant who forced me to take up these studies. I once told him: “I suspect you have some impossible notion of turning a hard-boiled American journalist into an English gentleman. Your early readings in Macaulay gave you the dream of having me sit by the fire, feet on fender, reading Thucyd- ides in the original, no dictionary needed.” My dominie put his finger on his lips. “There is no time for such chatter,” he said. “‘What is the aorist ... ?” The determined fellow’s theory was that nearly a decade of writing for daily newspapers had worn off the edges of my words, and that hand-to-hand grappling with ancient and beautiful words would restore these edges. I should become conscious again, or perhaps for the first time, of the individual word. As a journalist I thought in terms of whole columns. Never was I able to stop one paragraph, sentence, word, commune with it closely, ask it what it signified, where it came from, where it was going. Acres of words, but never the Word, the acridly individualized etymological personality, giving forth a ring- ing sound, an echo, a long murmur. paper office in that California evidence makes it much more é that the s ent traits appear in varying distribution among the principa racial groups. The behavior of an individual is therefor not determined bv his r: affilia 1! the ¢ ter of his ancestry and his cultura! environment. We may judge of the mental characterist f families and individuals but not of rac I had turned to Pater, to M these there was something of wha‘ I lg I wert words used individually, which were not mer parts of ar agglutinated mass. But still | was not satisfied. There must be something tougher into which I could set my teeth. There must be bayonet fighting with individual words. I must learn to revise, and to res grapple with true revision-units, paragra sentences, not paragraph I went to Victoria, Brit Columbia. 7 mp dominie, this eager Self so pathetically bent on educating his only son, found the atmosphere he must have beer dreaming of while reading Thucydides at the fire wit! Macaulay, feet on fender. For here were high hedge behind which English gentlemen forgot their Greek a occasionally beat their wives in the grane Here were newspapers which dared not publish Amer comic strips for fear of losing subscribers He were roughly dressed well-to-do folk who went walking, brar dishing sticks, defying the chamber of r vi t slogan, “Put Canada on Wheels.” And here, at the publi library, was a whole shelf of Loeb Classics, already thumbed and with many had actually been read. “They do seem to read them,” said the librarian, her- self sufficiently Americanized to be puzzled. In this delightfully archaic atmosp) miles away, physically, from the loose leaves, indicating that * volumes —™ 5 " - ‘ y ‘ hurly-burly of my news- | 5 | long since, alas, successfully

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92 ee The Nation [ Vol. 120, No. 3108 et | “put on wheels,” I went back spiritually two thousand years and more to the Latins and Greeks. Or at least I got as far back as old Roger Ascham, with his insistence on memorizing well the sacred cases and conjugations. Once I said to the dominie: “Funny, isn’t it, that you should get the chance to put over this early-Victorian project of yours in this early-Victorian town, actually named for the stuffy queen of sainted memory, she whose statue smirks emptily over the waters of the harbor?” This I said aloud, but in my heart I loved the image of the young queen, young when this city of hers was founded long ago; and at times I was willing to consider her the lovely symbol of some of the things I sought. Fifteen years before I had amo-amas-amatted a little in school. At that time I had Caesar-to-be-about-to-be’d enough to know that for me, at any rate, this was the wrong way to begin Latin; and I suspected that Xenophon was no true gateway to the Greek I wanted. And so, hav- ing the proverbial little and less of the classical languages, I decided to plunge directly into the Iliad and the Aeneid, exemplifying Edmund Spenser’s remark that “a Poet thrusteth into the middest, even where it most concerneth him.” Learning, unaided, to scan Virgil’s hexameters, I so suffered, so sweat, so strained that I fell sick and had to take to my bed for a day. All the more delightful, there- fore, when I felt the ponderous raft of the Latin line begin to move under my feet. It was the twelfth line of the first book that did first so move, commencing “Urbs antiqua fuit,” a line I can never read now without a thrill, feeling that the “ancient city” has indeed given me much. Then the Greek. Dr. Dinsmore of the University of Washington had told me of a wonderful book, then just out, “Homeric Greek,” by Clyde C. Pharr, which started the beginner with Homer, teaching him first the first word of the Iliad and second the second word of the Iliad. (“Menin aeide thea’’—I hum the lovely tune as I write and thank Pharr in my soul.) I got hold of this book, and plunged. Never shall I forget the first Homeric hexameter to become, not a slowly moving raft, but a flashing canoe under my newly achieved lightness of soul: ‘“Kalxas Thestorides, oionopolon ox aristos,” a line which confines itself to im- parting the information that Calchas, son of Thestor, was by far the best of the interpreters of bird omens. But it was my first Greek hexameter aesthetically appreciated. This was after many weeks of painful battling with the alphabet, with Pharr’s lessons, dictionaries, literal trans- lations, and, finally, with the despised interlinear crib which defensively quotes in its preface that remark of John Mil- ton’s, “We do amiss to spend seven or eight years merely in scraping together as much Latin and Greek as might be learned easily and delightfully in one year.” Since then I have won some smattering of Theocritus, the Anthology, the New Testament, and of Lucretius, Catul- lus, Horace, Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid. But the battle was won in the reading, scrambling from cliff to cliff, of the first eight books of the Iliad and the first six of the Aeneid. These old epics restored the edges to the smooth . worn coins of my words. I have been conscious, ever since, of the individuality of words. I have at last been able to enter upon the lifelong task of revision because, grappling with the Greek and Latin, trying laboriously hour after hour to write a few sentences in schoolboy Greek, a pair of elegiac couplets in Latin, I acquired a sense for small accessible revision-units—clauses, phrases, words. Burrowing in the Budget (The Nation’s Weekly Washington Letter) By WILLIAM HARD I HE mole who will eat his way through the twelve hup. dred and eight large pages of tabulations in which the Bureau of the Budget this year presents its annually fase). nating picture of the financial anatomy of the Americap government will see a lot of things overlooked by the eagles who piercingly glance at the newspaper headlines of the annual budget-and-economy story and then pass soaring); on. For them the Bureau of the Budget is a sort of im. partial sweat-box which takes all the appropriations sub- mitted by all the departments and bureaus and commissions and boards and Turkishly bathes their fat off them unti! they are all equally reduced from looking like G. K. Chester- ton to looking like Calvin Coolidge. This naive view of the matter is ably promoted by all the best speeches of us Re- publicans. We present to the national public an alluring vision of the federal government at all points shedding avoir- dupois and gluttony, and becoming a sylph and an ascetic. The problem for the Bureau of the Budget is not quite so simple. The Bureau in fact recommends increases as well as decreases in appropriations. When it sees work that is good, it naturally is moved toward recommending more money for that work. For instance, it looks at its own work and sees that it is good and thereupon asks more money for itself. It enjoys the unique felicity (among bureaus) of being charged with the duty of estimating its own merits These merits are indubitably and admittedly high. In the fiscal year 1924 the Bureau of the Budget cost us $136,- 217.72, as we say in our exact best budget manner. In the current fiscal year the Bureau of the Budget will cost us, it estimates, $177,341. In the next fiscal year its cost, it estimates, will go up to $182,323. It may be noted further that not much progress is made by the Bureau of the Budget in cutting down the cost o: maintaining the President and the White House. In fact, according to the estimates of the Bureau of the Budget, the President and the White House will in the next fiscal year cost us actually (though merely) thirty-one dollars more than they are costing us during the fiscal year now current. In this fiscal year the President’s salary and the salaries of his White House staff and his traveling expenses and White House repairs and White House fuel and White House lighting and “printing and binding” and the maintenance of the White House grounds and the White House police will cost $424,536. In the next fiscal year they will cost, the Bureau of the Budget tells us, $424,567. The President, it is true, seems to aspire to change this added extravagance of thirty-one dollars in a year’s cost of “the Executive Office” into at least a slender decline of cost by traveling in ordinary cars on ordinary trains instead of in special cars on special trains; but, at best, the decline can hardly work out into being drastic if the President does the traveling that a President is normally expected to do. In other words, there are federal expenses which in fact do not go down; and, further, there are federal expenses which in fact keep on going up, even amid the depressing examinations and ministrations of the Bureau of the Bud-

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Jan. 28, 1925] The Nation 93

eo get; and these expenses often go up with the actual sanction of the Bureau. The real question then becomes this: In what direc- tions are we cutting down our federal expenses? In what directions are we maintaining them in their present size and even (in fairly numerous instances) increasing them? The first part of the answer may seem to be critical and hostile toward the Coolidge economy claims. It is not so intended. The problem of economy in the federal gv ernment is in theory extremely simple but in practice enor- mously complicated and difficult. On that point certai observations (moderately illuminating ones, it is hoped will be made in a subsequent article. Here it is frank], stated, and will be abundantly proved, that our current economy is in bulk a sort of economy which holds out no great hope for any immediate great contraction in the nor- mal daily expenditures of the federal government on its ordinary daily functions. Since this view is directly contrary to the view usually taken, it will now be buttressed by supporting statistics which, it is hoped, will amuse the reader. The Bureau of the Budget estimates that in the next fiscal year our expenditures (exclusive of those paid out of Post Office revenue) will be approximately $266,000,000 less than in this present year. But where does the bulk of that lessening come from? Thirty-one million dollars of it comes from a natural inevitable reducing of the number of soldiers of the Great War who need to be “vocationally rehabilitated.” Eighteen million dollars of it comes from the decline in our pension bill caused by inevitable deaths among our sol- diers of wars before the Great War. Twenty million dollars of it comes from the regained private financial strength of our railroads and from the consequent relief we now have from the public duty of lend- ing them public money. Thirty-five million dollars of it comes from the reduc- tion of the public debt and from the consequent reduction in the amount of interest that has to be paid on it. Another thirty-five million dollars comes from the sup- posed certainty that in the next year there will be fewer taxes which, having been collected in error, will have to be returned to the tax-payers who paid them. Twenty-million dollars of it comes from the fact that the country’s business has so vastly increased and our postal revenues have thereupon correspondingly so vastly in- creased that an estimated deficit of ten million dollars this year is supposed to be about to be turned into a surplus of ten million dollars next year. Finally, fifty million dollars of it comes from an auto- matic reduction in the cost of bearing that unusual and non- normal burden, the bonus for the soldiers of the Great War. Let now these itemized reductions be added together. They amount to $219,000,000. They amount, that is, to more than 80 per cent of the whole net economy shown for next year compared with this year. It becomes absolutely proved therefore that not only the bulk but the overwhelming bulk of our economy for next year is in items conveying to us no promise whatso- ever of any important contraction of normal regular ordi- nary federal governmental expenditures. Why is this? Subsequent articles will endeavor to sup- ply the reasons and to indicate the present drifts of federal governmental development.

os the Drittway ( NMRADUALLY as age comes upon the Drifter he finds nat the most aggravating, the most soul-searing, the most thoi ughly trying thing he has to do is to keep fixed appointments in the morning. The hour does not matter; if it be nine, then nine is too early; that particular morn- ing finds him with a vast zest for more sleep or a more prolonged bath. If the hour is advanced to eleven, that is too late; by that time, having risen at dawn and break- fasted shortly after, he is ready for lunch and nothing is so irksome as the thought of his obligation to do something else. + 7 * * ial ; genes was a time—the Drifter even now grows pale at the thought of it—when each day saw him rise at breakfast more hastily, rush public conveyance, and presently seat him- too far removed from nine a certain nour, dress nastily, to the nearest self at a desk at a moment not 1 o'clock. Nor did the consciousness that tens of millions of men and women were doing the same thing at the same hour sustain his failing spirit. In an age which ealls itself civilized there is no excuse for such a procedure. No man can say the night before that he will feel like working at nine o’clock on the following day; he may want to sleep until noon or rise and begin work at midnight; but no, this machine age decrees that nine is the hour for beginning the daily stint, Just as five or thereabouts is the favored hour for quitting it. docility of man, inc aie ng himself, as when he contemplates this mode of life. And he has only the highest » Drifter is never so amazed at the admiration and respect for the few bold spirits who refuse to be so bound—for a famous woman poet, for example, who ex- plained to him that while engaged in her latest and arduous piece of work, she went to bed at nine in the mort ing, dined, if she was hungry, at midnight, and had tea in the neighborhood of 4 a. n ’ ost 4 4 - ] 4 ] . 4} + + lL. P ances will be interested know at the cook remained 7 " , ao ou i . , af ‘ through four years of this. No, her address not at hand.) <- ~ * + . T is a long time since the Drifter has actual bes restricted to the nine-to-five schedule; nevertheless, he finds himself still so unwise as to make morning appoint- ments, and his friends still so unwise as to expect him to keep them. Thus, when he has engaged himself for, say, ten-thirty, he feels the icy hand of that impertinent hour intruding on him all night; it drags j é t in time to make his sapeintevens if he hurri for mislays his most necessary garments and tles knots shoe-laces; it delays the mijlkman with tne morning’s offer- ing, and clamps itself coldly about the rolls; it holds up the subway train, it pours freezing water on the slippery } streets, and snatches the last morning newspaper newsstand from under his nose. When he reaches his des- tination, late, irate, exhausted, he is in no mood for ariy- thing but to go to bed again, but of course one must never go to bed in the day time; night is the time for sleep. Each time that this little tragedy is enacted the Drifter binds himself never to make another morning appointment; each time he vows that he will not let his appointment interfere with his wishes, but will break it if he does not actually long to keep it. And these vows so far have been in vain. THE DRirTeR —

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The Nation [Vol. 120, No. 3105 EEE ——— ee Correspondence FIDAC and Nationalism TO THE EpIToR OF THE NATION: Sm: The reluctance with which the public America allow our government to be involved in international affairs does not seem to be reflected in the attitude of the ex- service men of the World War. At least, when we view the part the American Legion is playing in the affairs of FIDAC —Fédération Interalliée des Anciens Combattants—we are in- clined to think such is the case. Take, for instance, the fifth annual congress of FIDAC, which was held last October in London. That congress was at- tended by ten delegates from the United States, all selected from the American Legion. These ten men took an active part in the work of the congress, discussing world problems as nimbly and as intelligently, apparently, as the seventy other delegates from the eight Allied nations represented. The activ- ity of the American delegation was sufficiently pronounced so that Colonel Thomas W. Miller, Custodian of Foreign Property in the United States, from Washington, D. C., was elected president of FIDAC for the next year. It would be natural to assume that the man who has fought under the flag of his country would have above all else an intense spirit of nationalism. That is, it would seem that the last thing he would willingly consent to would be the surren- dering of a single power or right of his government into any world organization. The experience of FIDAC runs counter to this. Instead of maintaining a strict attitude of nationalism upon world ex-service matters the members of the American Legion have gladly joined hands with European nations under the FIDAC banner. For five years FIDAC has been advancing the ideal of world peace. The organization has been nurtured in the minds and in the hearts of a few leaders in the nations of the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, Czecho-Slovakia, Poland, Servia, Rumania, and Belgium. But it has been without busi- ness management or money. Today, with an American president who has resigned his position with the United States Government for the purpose of devoting his entire time during the next year to the expansion of the movement, and with nine other men who sat through the congress at London stirred by the ideal of world peace, FIDAC is to have its chance. Money is being raised—$50,000 as the first effort. To those who are unfamiliar with the mental processes of the ex-service man, who did not experience the stress through which he passed during the World War, the willingness with which the members of the American Legion have accepted the program of FIDAC may seem surprising. But to the members of the Legion themselves it has been the only thing they could do. Their crippled bodies and torn lives have called for read- justed philosophies; they have broadened their visions, have gained clearer insight into human values; and they have dedi- cated their best efforts to making impossible the visiting of such a dreadful curse as war upon the millions unborn. In other words, the ex-service man today, particularly the disabled man, has a humanitarian attitude toward the human race. He takes the view that his responsibility is to the human race first, and to his nation second. Not all ex-service men have advanced this far in their reasoning. The congress in London for two or three days was almost shattered by the obstinacy with which the French fought the English proposal that the ex-enemy countries of Germany and her allies be admitted into FIDAC. The other members of the congress had already traversed the path of forgiveness; they could see that world peace would be impossible until the former fighting men of all nations, ex-enemies as well as ex- friends, were joined to bring about the brotherhood of man. leaders in FIDAC will be the instrument through which this country will be led to see that it cannot live unto itself alone. The pur- poses of the organization do not contemplate the drawing of the United States into the League of Nations nor making the government of this country subservient to a world court; FIDAC has nothing to do with such things. But because of the nature of world affairs in this period of human existence, contact with FIDAC ideals, which are world-wide ideals, wil develop a public attitude in this country that will find its satis- factory response only in terms of world activities. Oklahoma City, November 29 REx F. HarRLow More Terrorism in Haiti To THE EpiTor oF THE NATION: Sir: Our colleague, Senator Charmant, was arrested on October 12 last in the city of Jacmel, sent in the hands of two gendarmes to Port au Prince, like a common criminal, and without regard to his age (71 years), his poor health, and th dignity of his occupation he was brutally thrown into prison by order of the prosecutor of the Court of First Instance of the capital. Once arrested upon a charge of infringing the laws of the press an accused writer has every chance of rotting in prison, as the saying goes, as long as the authorities who have seized him feel the need of keeping him away from the political scene. They make use against him of delays, of artifices of procedure of every sort, so that whatever the decision upon the merits of the case, the man, even if declared innocent, will have been subjected to the harsh punishment reserved for guilty person only. For such is the iniquitous consequence of the application of the measures against the press recently decreed by the Coun- cil of State, usurper of the legislative power. Anybody, no matter who, under pretext of insulting the constituted authori- ties by any kind of writing, can be detained in prison during an indefinite time until a definite judgment has been rendered in regard to his guilt. Jolibois, the director of the Courrier Haitien, has had this sad experience almost uninterruptedly for two years. They hold him responsible for articles appearing in his journal even while he is behind the bars, deprived of communication with the world outside. Of what do they accuse Senator Charmant? Of having, in his newspaper, the Courrier Haitien, on October 6 last, spoken in strong terms of disapproval of the ruling govern ment, which has, according to him, gone to the last degree of servility in submitting to foreign domination by suppressing, under pretext of economy, the national schools, famous for many years for useful and loyal service; this at the same moment when the Dominicans were reopening the schools whic! had been closed by the military occupation of the United States. Port au Prince, Haiti, October 31 GEORGES SYLVAIN, Director, Union Patriotique The Taxation of Land Banks To THE EDITOR oF THE NATION: Sir: The question as to whether the bonds of the federal land banks shall be taxed will probably come before the next Congress. There are twelve federal land banks. They are the district central fiscal agencies of the 4,600 cooperative farm loan associations. They are run for service and not for profit, and, accordingly, should enjoy the tax exemptions which cooperative organizations enjoy. These banks, it is true, are frightfully mismanaged, but the farmers are learning that it is possible to take these banks into their own hands. Such articles as that of Mrs. Gertrude M. Shelby, in a recent number of The Nation, are teaching the farmers how to get control of the banks which were intended

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Jan. 28, 1925] The Nation

for them. The need of protection of these banks is acute. The enemies of the land banks are the mortgage-loan interests, who six years ago started the propaganda against their exemp- tion from taxation in a deliberate attempt to undermine this people’s banking system. In the congressional debate last year it was charged that the American Mortgage Bankers’ Associa- tion was spending large sums of money to this end, and was enlisting in the propaganda the private corporations in the public-utility business. These organizations desire naturally to see every possible obstacle thrown in the way of enterprises created purely for community services which might be carried on for profit. When the Farm Loan Act was passed it authorized two different banking systems supposedly for the relief of the farm- ers. One was the Federal Farm Loan System, capitalized by the farmers who organized the farm loan associations; it holds great possibilities of self-help for the farmers. The second was the Joint Stock Land Bank System, which is now composed of seventy banks all privately owned by professional banking in- terests and operated for the profit of the owners. Both sys- tems were granted exemption from taxation. The second sys- tem is not entitled to it, because the exemption amounts to a subsidy to a private enterprise. But in all countries, including the United States, the principle of non-taxation of cooperative and other non-profit-making public-service institutions has be- come recognized. Lake Placid, New York, December 27 J. P. WARBASSE Mexican Labor Learns Democracy To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Viva Mexico! Viva Trevino! Viva Moneda! This at least was articulate. The rest was a confused merging of shouts, protests, and applause. The Confederacion Regional Obrera Mexicana (Mexican Federation of Labor), holding its sixth annual convention at Juarez, Mexico, is still learning its lessons in the democracy so long denied to its members. Picturesquely unkempt, many barefooted and clad in the rough garments of the typical Mexican agricultural worker, their piercing black eyes burning with the intensity of excite- ment and anticipation under their broad sombreros, eager, alert, keenly alive—they refused to be quieted. When the secretary for agriculture was being elected, three candidates were running. The vote for the third was so small that it was decided to vote again for the two highest candi- dates. At once a babel of voices burst forth that sounded like the roar of the ocean. Hisses, shouts, screams, threats, pleadings, protestations, fiery orations that clashed in mid-air like the crossing of swords. “What is the matter?” I asked. “Are they breaking up the convention?” “No, no,” Roberto Haberman informed me, with a quizzical smile, “it is nothing. They have been given five minutes to electioneer and they are doing it. You see they are learning democracy. They have been suppressed, inarticulate, so long. This is their method of expressing themselves.” When Ezekiel Salcedo, the personal representative of President Calles, appeared in the lobby of the hotel Sunday morning ina small, conventional black derby hat, we questioned him. “Where is your beautiful broad sombrero? This hat is so ugly. It doesn’t suit you.” “Gone,” he replied, “in the river,” and he shrugged his shoulders as if to say “I should worry.” “You see,” he explained, “we passed a resolution yesterday to boycott Stetson hats because they do not bear a union label. Now a Mexican is as proud of his hat as an American of his watch. He will go barefooted, and pay fifty, yes, sometimes a hundred dollars for his hat, because he expects to wear it all When writing to advertisers,

his life. thought them the best. Rio Grande. New York, December 22 ment of any . has it that “Keep the I doing? Could supply a fitting tion Week co chools? San Francisco, January 5 the rant - r ° y Theological Note TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: <A slogan is the most important part organization, we are told in these days, and rumor fundamentalists be organized Many of us have bought Stetson hats because we But they tell us now it is a non-union shop, so as we cross the bridge we throw our hats: into We must stand by our brothers.” SEEDS NEARING of the equip as their own: the ne churches as well as in t!} H. E. L. L.

Contributors to This Issue ROBERT DELL, 7 FRANZ Boas is prof CLARA M. SMERTENKO frequent literature and philosop! WINTHROP D. reform for the Ohio I: prisons of the WALTER L. FLEMING ji University. JAMES RoRTY D. MitrRany, formerly member of the Advi n i which n Germany, has he had 918 of the Sixtus ardi rp. Columbia. books on Gre ng as adviser on penal in a reorganization of the Vanderbilt 192] , ardw?, a Policy of

ers: the Briti for the Please tales the Subje et: “Do American William Hard, Carl Van Doren, and others bring as many qi third Nation dinner of Fehruary y to PDI F _} 4 4] Seats, 52.90 ea n,a /ié tions can be reservations warning and | Speak Engl ue hie for P? oTirg- ae they ou

IN MEMORY OF E. D. MOREL memorative and his great service to humanity meeting will January 25, at 8 o'clock. Oswald Garrison Villard, Edwin Markham, Syud Hussain and Prof Shenherd. urged to attend. The be held at Alice Hunt, A.dmission free uth a com- the Community Church, Park Avenue and 34th Street, on Sunday evening, Speakers, John Haynes Holmes, Charles Nagel, William R. ~s Se Morel .are

Hand Woven Russian Linen Exquisite Russian Embroidery CIVIC CLUB, January 22d to LABOR DEFENSE Exhibition and Sale

12th Street th, from 4to6P.M h St root

modernists Vation help perhaps an annual Fire Preven

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Books and Plays > i | First Glance HE “vile and stinking custom” of smoking a pipe for so James I of England called it—has been resisted in almost every country as soon as it came there. James was content to write a book against tobacco, but Mr. Alfred Dunhill in “The Pipe Book” (Macmillan: $7.50) records the decree of a seventeenth-century Turkish ruler in obedi- ence to which “any man found smoking had his nose pierced, and the pipe thrust through the hole’; and Shah Sefi of Persia, taking it into his capricious head to prohibit tobacco, ordered two offenders to have molten lead poured down their throats until they were dead. Stili the pipe has prospered. The discovery of tobacco, a vegetable which in the opinion of Mr. Dunhill meets at last the universal need for a mild narcotic, seems to have made the fortune of this instrument of pleasure, secure as was its mere existence before Sir Walter Raleigh returned from America. The idea of a stem and bowl through which smoke shall be taken into the mouth is found in as many places, perhaps, as the idea of immortality, and is less easily killed. Witness the many makeshift pipes that men in distress have resorted to—knuckle-bones of lambs, thigh- bones of little children, crab’s claws and lobster’s claws, gourds, walnut-shells, gorse-roots, corn-cobs, even holes in the ground. And witness the wild enthusiasm of the Eskimo, who when he is without tobacco eats the refuse from his pipe, and who when he is supplied with the precious grains packs them into his very small bowl, lights them, and swallows the smoke. John Muir saw this once on an island in the Bering Sea, and a certain emissary from Peter the Great watched the heathen Ostiaks of Siberia likewise swallow their smoke; “after which they fall down and lie insensible like dead men, with distorted eyes, both hands and feet trembling for about half an hour. They foam at the mouth, so that they fall into a sort of epilepsy, and we could not observe where the smoke vented itself, and in this manner several of them are lost.” In eigh- teenth-century India, according to Mr. Dunhill, the flexible tube of the nargileh became a necessity for ladies who never could lay their pipes aside. The Negroes of Guinea used to pull all day at two or three handfuls of tobacco burning in a stone bowl at the other end of a reed six feet long. And there was the Englishman not long ago who, in order to color his meerschaum perfectly, engaged a company of guardsmen to keep it going continuously for seven months. Of the present day it is sufficient to report that Washing- ton, Missouri, produces twenty-seven million cob-pipes every year and that St. Claude in France annually manu- factures thirty million briars. Mr. Dunhill, himself a famous maker of new pipes and collector of old ones, had then a rich field before him when he set out to write “The Pipe Book.” The result of his labor is a body of most fascinating information conveyed with great clarity and illustrated with plates which in many cases must make an appreciative mouth water. Here and there he has stopped to sketch the history of the pipe as it forced its way around the world. In the main, how- ever, he has sought to assemble its infinite varieties and explain or describe them. Doubtless all the sizes and shapes are here, and doubtless all the materials—horn, bone, ivory, stone, tin, clay, cob, wood, amber, glass, meerschaum, silver, = mere: gold, porcelain, china, copper, and brass. Tobacco-pipes receive the most attention, yet much is said of pipes in which men and women consume opium, hemp, and the deriv- atives of hemp—kaad, bang, dakka, and hashish. And Mr. Dunhill, always interested in makeshifts, does not neglect emergency fuels like sumach, willow-bark, rhubarb-root, coltsfoot, yarrow, dock-leaf, charcoal, and manure. He does neglect corn-silk, mullein-leaf, buggy-whip, coffee, and string. MARK VAN DOREN The Interpretation of Aristotle Aristotle. By W. D. Ross. Charles Scribner’s Sons. $3.75. My father spent all the many days of his life in the study of Greek; you might suppose it was for Wisdom’s sake—but my father was a modest man. The fact is, he did it for a simpler reason still, a very curious reason, to be whispered rather than told; he did it for love. O*E may imagine this whispered reason to underlie the chap- ter upon Aristotle which D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson, the distinguished English naturalist, contributed to “The Legacy of Greece,” a chapter which stirs in the reader an eagerness to peruse for himself the researches of Aristotle in natural history. Mr. Ross, in the three hundred pages of his learned book, never arouses a like eagerness. The difference lies not wholly in the fact that Mr. Thompson writes with the express purpose of interesting the general reader, while Mr. Ross addresses scholars in the spirit of erudite scholarship. It lies in the fact that Mr. Thompson understands the function of learning better than Mr. Ross does. He can make Aristotle’s discoveries a romantic ad- venture because he is even more interested in the world than he is in Aristotle, even more interested in knowing the truth about matters which Aristotle discussed than in knowing what Aris- totle thought about them. Where Aristotle’s views are at vari- ance with modern science, Mr. Thompson is concerned to know why the great philosopher thought as he did. In his preface Mr. Ross disavows the intention of criticiz- ing Aristotle, and for an interesting reason: What is true in Aristotle has become part, and no small part, of the heritage of all educated men; what is false has been gradually rejected, so that explicit criticism is now hardly necessary. Along with criticism he expressly eliminates from his purpose the effort to envisage Aristotle in relation to his predecessors and followers, as well as to interpret his dependence upon and his contribution to Greek life—the only things that make Aris- totle worthy of the attention of the modern world if he really has been so completely superseded as Mr. Ross asserts. Possi- bly it might be argued that the setting down in detail of the substance of Aristotle’s opinions is the height of self-abnegat- ing devotion, the amassing of riches for others to use. But unfortunately such devotion is in danger of being wasted. As miserly fathers have spendthrift sons, so with rare exceptions the world is careless of accumulations of knowledge by those who know not how to use them. Bacon’s aphorism, “Melius est seire pauca et iis recte uti, quam multa scire quorum ignores usum,” is still pertinent. e It goes without saying that Mr. Ross’s book is accurate. Indeed its very excellence in this respect makes more poignant one’s regret that he has not interpreted Aristotle in a larger spirit. It is difficult to see how a writer of the twentieth cen- tury could avoid considering the bearing of social and economic facts upon Aristotle’s metaphysics; could avoid, for example, considering the relation of slavery and the consequent degrada- tion of manual labor to that glorification of pure intellect which regards even God as incapable of any activity save contempla- tion. The discussion of Aristotle’s politics, again, suffers Or thi 10 ble dis ad on ou

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Jan. 28, 1925] The Nation 97 -hroughout from inadequate recognition of the difference be- tween ancient and modern conditions. He comments as fol- lows upon Aristotle’s conception of the city as the ultimate unit f government: In the course of history city-states have proved un- able to maintain themselves against larger and more pow- erful aggregates. Their inferiority has not thereby been proved; there is much to be said for Aristotle's view. One could hardly conceive a less pertinent comment in view of the vast difference which ease of communication and transporta- tion makes to the scale on which effective government is possi- ble, and still more in view of the difference resulting from th: discovery of the principle of representation, an event as far- reaching in its consequences as the invention of the steam en- gine. In Aristotle’s day effective government on a large scale could only be autocracy. Again, in the consideration of Aris- totle’s famous dictum, “Man is a political animal,” it is not enough to note the jurisdiction of the Greek state over religion, education, and other matters which we regard as more or less private. The spiritual import of the polis as a focus of com- munity activity demands full interpretation before Aristotle’s profound observation can be understood. The discussion of Aristotle’s ethics is much more satisfactory. Something of a Victorian flavor runs through it, however, manifest in such un-Aristotelian language as this: The student must be so brought up that he accepts the general opinions of moral questions which represent the collective wisdom of the race. Scholars must recognize that the kind of interpretation of Greek philosophy which hitherto has prevailed no longer meets the needs of present-day thought. Aristotle, as Mr. Ross sug- gests, will never again be a repository of authoritative know!- edge as he was in the Middle Ages. He is, however, an astound- ing phenomenon in the development of the human mind. An adequate interpretation of him in his historical milieu would be one of the most valuable contributions possible to the history of the human spirit. CLARA M. SMERTENKO The Human Criminal The Criminal as a Human Being. By George S. Dougherty. D. Appleton and Company. $2. HAT does a detective think about criminals? He follows them, searches out the places where they live, learns their habits of coming and going, shadows them for days with- out losing the trail, studies their “mugs” at police line-up, in- terviews them, and works his way into their intricate methods and movements—comes to have, in fact, a mind stored with criminal ways, criminal faces, and the external and visible signs of the whole criminal world. How does this affect him? What thoughts does he really come to have about these scourges of society? When the heat of the hunt has cooled and this procession of law-breakers passes before him in review, what are his considered opinions about the race of offenders? Mr. Dougherty, the philosophizing detective, tells you. Mr. Dougherty “knows at sight most of the criminals of any importance in the United States,” says the advertisement on the jacket of his book. He has been following criminals for many years, as Pinkerton operative and as former deputy commis- sioner and chief of detectives in the New York Police Depart- ment. His face stares at you from the back of the “red book” of the New York telephone service, where his present detective bureau is advertised. He presents the criminal as a human being whose wits are pitted against those of society. Ther? is here, if one may take the book at its face value, nothing of that tough point of view from which the criminal is regarded as an adder, a venomous and vile wretch whose nature is all devil and who must be kept away from decent people. The criminal here is very much like the rest of us. With “all his short- comings,” says Mr. Dougherty, “the criminal may be more human than the law-abiding citizen sunk in his rut of respec- tability—-more human in his emotions, his resourcefulness, his sympathies.” Mr. Dougherty chats pleasantly about his friend- ship with many criminals. It is through a sympathetic under- standing of their essential humanness, he says, that law-break- ers may most often be induced to reform. With thieves of all kinds, he declares, “you are, firs: of all, ninety-nine times in } hundred, dealing with a weak or warped personality that has seldom been treated fairly by police officers.” The true thief, he says again, is “not all there,” mentally or physically. Per- haps his environment from birth has Many thieves, says Mr. Dougherty—he seems to specialize in thieves been wrong. —never learned to play children’s games, or to belong to the sand-lot baseball results of such deplorable and all We must understand the offender to help him. This is an There not understand the criminal and his treatment as thoroughly as he thinks he does. chapter of his book deals with the criminal as a human being. The rest is devoted to the arts of shadowing and “roping,” the methods of criminals, the nine. The upbringing are too plain. interesting and novel point of view in a de- tective. is indication, however, that Mr. Dougherty does Only the first peculiarities of blackmailers, dinner thieves, stick-up men, and house-prowlers, the real city detective, and so on—the anec- dotes and chat of a professional “bull.” Mr. Dougherty soon forgets the ning and deceitful,” he 19 many criminals had mentally.” Also, Mr. Dougherty dves not really understand those com- wisdom of his first chapter. “The criminal is cun writes, on page 124; whereas on page been presented as “not all there plex and varied disturbances of personality which modern criminology sees as causative factors in so much crime. He does not see the psychological differences among criminals or the absolute necessity of individualizing treatment, of separat ing one offender from another and treating him on the basis of his individual needs. Criminals are r 4 s; they are more a class than capitalists or investors or the owners of motor cars. Mr. Dougherty does not quite see this vain, he has little quarrel with our present prison system. He would have the warden be humane and he would help the criminal] to “make good” when he has done his bit; but he suggests no improvements in the ways prisons choose to prepare men for law-abiding lives. As a detective } s satisfied if mar whom he has caught is sent up for his legal term. This is to miss the whole problem of making headway against criminal tendencies once formed, for to convict a man is merely to prove that he committed a specific offense; it has nothing to do with the cure of any traits that are driving him toward crime. Mr. Dougherty is wise enough to be a good influence among detec tives, but unfortunately he seems to think he has reached the heart of a matter on which he has only had a gleam or two of light. WINTHROP D. LAN? David Wilmot David Wilmot: Free Soiler. A Biography of the Great Ad cate of the Wilmot Proviso. By Charles Buxton Going D. Appleton and Company. $6. 6 ar Wilmot Proviso long ago passed int stor With ita introduction into Congress in 1846 by an obscure member from Pennsylvania began the last phase of the ntroversy over slavery which ended when the Thirteenth Amendment was adopted nineteen years later. The Proviso has been exhaustively discussed by historians, but about its author little is known The Proviso made him famous; then he drops out of the story Now comes a biographer, painstaking and faithful, to tell what sort of man Wilmot was. Notwithstanding all the work that went into the haps in part because of it, this story is not one to make Wilmot live again. The style is clear and dry and

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98 The Nation [ Vol. 120, No. 3108 tive is too long drawn out. In places it is a patchwork of political correspondence, speeches, and editorials which needed much boiling down. There is but little local color and little historical We follow Wilmot through all of his boarding- houses in Washington and we know with whom he lived, yet we do not learn much of what he did or said or felt on other sub- jects than politics. Quite likely there was little save political material for Mr. Going to make use of, for no letters could be more entirely political in content than those of Wilmot. But a kind of personality does emerge. We see dimly an able, vigor- ous man, a good politician, a good party man at first—not wor- ried by conscientious scruples, fond of good eating and drink- Beginning as a lawyer and local politician, in his course of honors he is member of Con- gress, district judge, Senator, and member of the Court of An excellent worker at all tasks, his fame rests only background. ing—though never a statesman. Claims. upon the Proviso. The best chapters are those dealing with the antecedents, origin, and authorship of the Proviso and the long struggle over it in House and Senate. In the Proviso debate, which ranges far and wide over the field of slavery, few abolition notes are sounded, but the Free Soil feelings of the Northern Democrats are everywhere evident. Wilmot’s own statement will serve for all: “I have no squeamish sensitiveness upon the subject of slavery nor morbid sympathy for the slave. I plead the cause of the rights of white free men. I would preserve for white labor a fair country, a rich inheritance, where the sons of toil of my own race and color can live without the disgrace which association with Negro slavery brings upon free labor.” WALTER L. FLEMING A La Votre! The Wines of France. By H. Warner Allen. Brentano’s. $3. Paris Restaurants. By “Robert-Robert.” Brentano’s. $1. London Restaurants. By “Diner-Out.” Brentano’s. $1. HE author of “The Wines of France” blends knowledge, reverence, and tolerance—qualities not too prevalent in our home-brewed literature, qualities with which one wishes it was possible to mellow the domestic spirits who are so sure of having reached final truth that they burn in their zeal to im- pose it by force upon all others. Unfortunately, those who most need to read this book will not. No copy was seen pro- truding from a pocket of Mr. William H. Anderson as he emerged from Sing Sing, nor will its seductiveness ever reach the palates—or minds—of those stern souls who classify all fluids containing alcohol under the one word “rum,” and con- sign them to the sewers with a single implacable gesture. Of no such folk was the scholar Erasmus, who in 1532 expressed a wish to live in France, not to command armies but to drink Beaune wine. “Happy, happy Burgundy,” he wrote, “which deserves to be called the mother of man, since she gives him such good milk from her breast.” One of the glories that is France is that her chief indus- tries are not an attempt to make something which all the world makes, winning by doing it cheaper. They are efforts to make something unique, something individual. To be sure, there is an enormous amount of execrable wine made and sold in France—especially to tourists—but the great vineyards are not exploited as purely commercial ventures. To a large extent they are in the hands of old families who would as soon sell out their country in time of war as degrade one of its great products merely to make more money for themselves. There survives still much of that non-commercialized spirit which Dom Goblet exhibited when he was asked to supply Napoleon, then fresh from his triumphs in Italy, with some ancient Clos Vougeot: “If he wants Vougeot forty years old, he must come to my house and drink it. I do not sell it.” The author of “The Wines of France” has tramped through ail the famous grape-growing regions of the country, and he tells the story of their vineyards and the methods of production, ep. livened with an abundance of historical background. Some o; these vineyards, of course, are almost as priceless as the Gardey of Eden. All of the grapes that go into the famous Romang Conti wine, which has been described as “bottled velvet anj satin,” are grown on four and a half precious acres in Bur. gundy which as far back as 1869 changed hands for almos: $50,000. In 1895, the author relates, the Lord Mayor an; Municipal Council of London were entertained at a banquet a: Chateau La Tour Blanche, at which “there was such a list of Bordeaux wines as the world had never seen.” Alas, “some of the councilors—how many vandals there were among them history does not relate—refused wines perfect beyond compare. and asked for whiskey and soda. It is a wonder there wa: no blood shed.” One picks up these guide-books of Paris and London restaurants with scme trepidation. Are the authors, one ask: himself, going to expose to the vulgar public all those fascinat. ing and colorful places in Soho or the Latin Quarter where he used to dine cheaply but oh, so gloriously? Queer it is how one comes to regard his particular public restaurant as strictly private. He takes a possessive pleasure in making it known to his friends, but he resents any general publicity as bitterly as he would a rubberneck wagon that should bring a load of sightseers to go slumming through his home. But there is no need to fear these books. They contain useful information for the visitor, and the one on London, in particular, is written with deftness as well as knowledge. But the places listed are mostly of the sort that in New York City would appear in the “Where to Dine” columns of the news- papers. One suspects that the authors—doubtless prudent as well as informed men—have omitted those few precious places which they regard as their strictly private preserves. Not half a dozen restaurants in the Latin Quarter are mentioned —these mostly places which this reviewer never dared to enter, or at least not a second time. None of his best-loved haunts is revealed. Possibly they no longer exist. More pos- sibly they never did. They were the creation of a good appetite, boon companions, and a lively imagination. To try to redis- cover them now would be as futile as the efforts of “Conrad in Search of His Youth.” It is better, as one thumbs wistfully the pages of these guide-books, to sit at memory’s table ordering without fear of indigestion or the addition from the bill of fare of the Gods. ... “Garcon, dépéchez-vous!” ARTHUR WARNER A Land Half Seen A Far Land. By Martha Ostenso. Thomas Seltzer. $1.50. = volume is disturbing, like the performance of a singer whose voice and temperament are both curiously veiled. At first one is tempted to simplify one’s impression in terms of technique and say: “Miss Ostenso has an ear, but no eye.” This, however, expresses neither the author’s accomplishment nor her apparent limitation. The limitation has to do not so much with a lack of visual sensitiveness as with the quality of the associative processes that are brought to bear upon the image. It is the mind’s eye that lacks energy and precision. Yet Miss Ostenso’s product is genuine and personal. She has her own way of listening to the world and of responding to it with a delicate falling music, such as one hears in her title poem: Dark cannot blot the dark In the place I know, Rain cannot drown the rain, Wind cannot blow The wind of that stormed land Where stillness falls On sudden wings, like a band Of quiet birds on ruined walls. we 4, FE ff. —-> ® "hn a fh ete Ze ek ot

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JSaide as tan. 28, 1925 | The Nation 99 — This and half a dozen other poems almost demonstrate the nossibility of personal communication through a personal possi ? + inet as a rhythm—a shadowy communication which no attempt at int iectual analysis can quite seize. One is obliged to admit, re- gretfully, that this gift is sometimes used to communicate -entimentality, as in The Tramp and Fay. And nowhere coes '. fully satisfy. If it did, Miss Ostenso’s “far land” would be real enough to coexist with Bulgaria and Afghanistan and Indiana—and the domains of Kubla Khan. It is not that real. One could not possibly take a trip there—at least not yet. One is inclined to believe, however, that if Miss Ostenso continues to write poetry she will demonstrate that she has both something to say and a way of saying it. JAMES RortTy Books in Brief Growth. By G. R. de Beer. $2.50. Without dedicating his work to the “educated layman,’ Mr. de Beer has managed to produce a study of growth which can be read without the slightest discomfort even by those timid creatures who show visible alarm in the presence of photo- graphic reproductions of vivid histological import. Each tech- nical term has its meaning so skilfully insinuated into the read- er’s mind that difficulties over nomenclature never arise. It is truly a fascinating work and should be read by all who would know scientifically how we grow, why we grow, and why we stop growing and ultimately die. Rejuvenation naturally bobs up,and though Professor de Beer is perhaps a little too sanguine regarding the famous Steinach technique the discussion entitled Growth, Differentiation, and Age is enlightening and interest- ing. Here we have a distinguished anatomist and zoologist who knows how to make his subject appealing to the lay reader without being in any degree unscientific. It can be done. It should be done more frequently. Longmans, Green and Company The Genesis and Birth of the Federal Constitution. C. Chandler. The Macmillan Company. $2.50. Mr. Chandler has edited a series of papers and addresses by various persons delivered in 1921 before the Marshall-Wythe School of Government and Citizenship at the College of William and Mary. Included with the series, but not a part of it, is the presidential address of the Hon. Hampton L. Carson before the American Bar Association in 1920. The “genesis” of the Con- stitution is traced, in Freemanesque fashion, from the Greek city-state through the Roman and early Italian republics, and thence in England from Magna Carta to the Stuarts. Follow- ing this sweeping survey, which fills nearly one-half of the volume, are chapters on the government of Virginia and Massz:- chusetts prior to the federal constitutional period. None of the addresses offers anything new, and some of them are slight, but those which treat of the work of the Federal Convention and the ratification of the Constitution by the States (the latter by Dr. James Brown Scott) are more worth while. By J. A. Drama Jazz of the Spirit = HE mind,” said Mr. Aldous Huxley in one of his prose poems, “has lost its Aristotelian elegance of shape.” What he meant by this tantalizing phrase I am not at all sure, but he may have meant that the enormous increase in our knowl- edge of the world has made it impossible any longer to arrange that knowledge into a comprehensive or meaningful pattern. Let anyone who fails to sympathize with those who feel this confusion do no more than scan the headlines of the Morning Edition. Then, if he dare, let him seek to find the meaning in the events he sees there recorded or attempt to deny that the life of nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand persons is a series of meaningless actions controlled by no principle either inside or outside themselves, and leading to no con clusion either satisfactory to them or edifying to those who watch them. We know more than any age ever knew before of the events which take place around us, but we are also less sure than any that we can understand them. We cannot even say that we have never seen the good man cut off, or that the voice with a smile wins, without having our generalization refuted by in- numerable items of news. If to the indignant moralists it seems that the broken rhythm and the wild, discordant shrieks of jazz are the only things which seem to typify the mood of 4 shal the people it is because they have, without being philosophers, abandoned hope of finding either moral or intellectual aning in their existence, and because they believe in nothing except } the hectic sensations of the moment which alone can sm ! their despair. They bind themselves together in klans and rotary clubs, hoping that a group hypn will enable them to believe in some pathetic sham like Nordic superiority or the god of Z commercial prosperity, but when the meeting has been dissolved and the members can be frank with themselves the pocket flask and the saxophone reassert their supremacy. More than one artist, surveying this chaos, » describe it, but con ventional form has seemed t limited and too orderly to include their impressions. The result is the expre nistic novel and the expressionistic pla} I am far from wishing to suggest that John Howard Lawson's play “Processional” (Garr The j compl s ful attempt to mirror th te of The author es t in his own way, do it so well j Ald Huxley and Jan Joyce have done it in theirs; but it is something of the sort, I think, which he has wished ¢ i), a? e ha me close enough to success to awaken nd most generous admiration. Taking a stor: ised upor n jneident in the West Virginia coal regio: has deliberately throw realism to the wind Basing ! t nique now upon t OX pressionistic drama, now upon the rough caricature of vaud ville, he has mingled tragedy and satire, pathos and burlesque into a phantasmagoria of d n‘ ss suggest both the wild disorde f ntemporary lif the emotional exasperation which it pr The figure of the tragic hero t realis* but the subsidiary ones belong to some region w } WOE] genuine symbolism and the rough and re f comic strip. The silk-hatted mast f the mine; the P borer eager to explain in a continuou duration the place mouthed Negro with } bar and the her a flapper of the slums ready at every moment to go int vulsions of the jazz dan t r grotesque to the last extreme, yet undoubtedly vera exaggerated outline, and which are nevertheless no more thar atu f behavior. The white-rcebed mer unison “‘God’s will be done” wher “the tar and feathers are ready”; but they ¢ X a fox trot. The soldiers, under the orders of r the mines, knock down the Pole to seare! come across the photograph in his 7 and, taking off their hats, declaim w “His mother!” These acts are no madder performed, but they are simplified stands nakedly forth. Such an extravagant method can be ju f obtains effects which a more conventiona! aid not pro duce. Mr. Lawson’s play does, it seer t e, thus tify itself. The things which he definitely says ild be and have been said in straightforward plays dealing with social themes, but the emotional effects could not be duplicated by any drama of conventional structure. His various types with their recur

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100 The Nation [V ol. 120, No. 3108 rent and characteristic utterances are less the protagonists in any definite story than different instruments, each with a char- acteristic range and timbre, composing the orchestra upon Each seems almost unaware of the other and yet each is obedient to which makes play in a sort of wild harmony. What one gets from the performance is not the particular story which the play has to tell but the sensation which it gives of which is played the jazz symphony of contemporary life. an underlying rhythm, set by the lust of life, them, without knowing it, the cries of disorganized humanity orchestrated in the form of a nearly formless symphony. The members of the Theater Guild have given the play an appropriately fantastic setting, and the actors have entered perfectly into its spirit; but although they have done all pos- sible to make its intention clear they have not and could not make it a play for the general public. A large portion of even the Guild’s highly selected audience was frankly either puzzled or contemptuous, and it cannot be denied that certain of Mr. Lawson’s crudities make it easy to mock him if one desires to do so. But of detailed criticism and of mockery he will ge enough. Let it suffice to say that “Processional” is both nove! and arresting. Those who like their jazz straight and unsophisticated wi)! find it in “Big Boy,” a lively entertainment which centers about the personality of the enormously popular Mr. Al Jolson. He manages somehow to arrange the frank obscenity of the smok.- ing-room story and the facile sentiment of the “Mammy” into the same syncopated rhythm; jazz is thus the natura! medium for the expression of his personality. “Is Zat So” deals with the adventures of a prize-fighter in society. Its rough and ready humor seems to destine it to some success, but it is hardly for the critical. JOSEPH Woop KRUTCH song 4 (Wr) yo THEATRE me THEATRE MUSIC BOX THEATRE gyen.'s\s0; Mats. Wed. & Sat. 2:80 Sam H. Harris Presents Irvinc Ber_tin’s Fourth ANNUAL “MUSIC BOX REVUE” Staged by John Murray Anderson “A MASTERPIECE” says Alexander Woolleott.—Eve. Sun. West of Broadway. Evenings, 8:30. Matinees, Wed. & Sat., 2:30, ceorce ARLISS in John Galsworthy’s “Old English.” RITZ 48th Street, APOLLO THEATRE winds s - oo WILKES Presents MARJORIE RAMBEAU in “THE VALLEY of CONTENT” by Blanche Upright. Staged by Oscar Eagle. By ROMAIN ROLLAND WOL V E Author of “Jean Christophe.” Yid 2 St. & Madison Ave. Friday, dish Art Theater, 8:30, Sat. & Sun., 2:30 & 8:30 Five performances weekly. Complete Synopsis in English Available. THE NEIGHBORHOOD PLAYHOUSE 466 Grand St. Telephone Drydock 78ié First Play of the Repertory Season “THE LITTLE CLAY CART” A Classic Oriental Comedy (except Mon.) Orchestra $1.50. Matinee Saturd+» Balcony $1.00, 75c. “very Eve. Actors’ Theatre Production 1 “Perfect CANDIDA at Actors Theatre”’—Burns Mantle, The Daily News. | Bernard Shaw's comedy masterpiece now being played for a limited engagement every evening and matinees Wednes- day and Saturday at the 48th Street Theatre. B’WAY, 40th St. Evs. 8:30. EMPIRE Mats. Wed. & Sat. 2:30 MARGARET LAWRENCE in “ISABEL” and J. M. BARRIE’S “SHALL WE JOIN the LADIES?” ARTHUR HOPKINS presents “WHAT PRICE GLORY” A new Play by Maxwell Anderson and Laurence Stallings | h { B : | PLYMOUTH THEATRE £22,553550° 27%. 058" | m) ) OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS | Om | LABOR TEMPLE SCHOOL Annual Dinner and Discussion ALDINE CLUB, 5th Ave. Bldg. 7 p.m., Feb. 3rd. Speakers: Harry Emerson Fosdick, Stephen S. Wise, Heywood Broun, A. J. Muste, John Cowper Powys, Edmund B. Chaffee, Will Durant. Tickets $2.50, obtainable at 239 E. 14th St.; reserve before Jan. 30th. sale limited to 700; R AND SHERWOOD ANDERSON | Modern Impulse in Writing’’ Jan. 30, Feb. 6 at 8:30, Jan. 7 at 3:30 p.m. CLEMENT WOOD Fridays “Our Expanding Universe” BENJ. ©. eae . Tuesdays “Guiding the Child’s Leisure” 7 East 15th Street anGERNON LEE Tuesdays “Among My Books” EDWIN GRANT CONKLIN, A.B.; A.M.; Ph.D. Professor of Zoology at Princeton University Will Deliver a Course of Six Lectures at COMMUNITY CHURCH AUDITORIUM Park Avenue and 34th Street On Thursday Evenings at 8:15 on “Heredity and Environment in the Development of Human Personality.” Course Tickets, $3.50, can be secured in advance at the office of the Community Church, 12 Park Avenue. Single admission, 85 cents. Of Special Interest to All Social Workers. THE HAS PROPAGANDA ANY VALUE IN EDUCATION? A Debate of Exceptional Interest between Dr. SCOTT NEARING, Affirmative, ALEXIS C. FERM, Principal of The Modern School, Negative Dr. Henry R. Linville, president of the Teachers Union, Chairman. At the Rand School Auditorium, Friday, January 23rd, at 8:45 P.M., under the auspices of The Modern School of Stelton, N. J. Admission $1.00. Tickets at the Rand School office, 7 East 15th St., and at The Modern School, Stelton, N. J. When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation

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fr, is 7 + ut He . 98 | (te EE ce” fe International Relations Section - Toward a Jugoslav Republic By D. MITRANY HE document which The Nation gives its readers this T week will be of value to the historian as marking the moment when in Jugoslavia, as in so many other coun- tries of late, the heart of the people turned against the rule of kings. The student of politics will find many details in it illuminating the recent events in that country and the character of Balkan politics in general. To the general reader it will serve as an opportune and authentic intro- duction to the crisis now existing in the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. The interest of the document is enhanced by the char- acter of the body which issued it. Just as some truly great journals exercise an influence which far exceeds their cir- culation, so the Croat Union weighs in the balance of ite country’s public opinion much more heavily than its mere membership would warrant. The chief characteristic of this essentially middle-class organization is that it includes the bulk of the Croat intelligentsia. Its intimate meetings sometimes suggest an extra-mural gathering of the faculty of Zagreb University. The President of the Union is Dr. Ivan Lorkovich, editor of the Zagreb Hrvat and one of the finest gentlemen between the Alps and the Balkans. The special conference which adopted the republican resolution mentioned in the document was also attended by a group of delegates from Dalmatia, headed by Dr. Ante Trumbich, well known as one of the framers of the Pact of Corfu. How significant were his presence and his vote there! What a span of history is marked by those two documents —the Pact of Corfu and the Union’s declaration—though six years only separate the one from the other! The Pact of Corfu was a constitutional pact wherein leaders of the southern Slavs agreed to join in a unitary kingdom, with Belgrade as its capital and the Serbian royal house as the ruling dynasty. In the statement printed on the following page the Croat Union definitely dedicates itself now to a federative and republican form of government. Said Dr. Lorkovich in introducing the resolution: “For us, gentle- men, for the Croat Union, this means that we break with every compromise in regard to the sovereignty of the Croa- tian people which we may have been ready to make hitherto.” Up to the time of that declaration the only party which formally stood upon a republican platform was the Croatian Peasant Party, led by Stephen Radich. With seventy mem- bers in Parliament it was the second-largest party in the country, following that of Pachich, which had 107. Its fed- eralist claims, however, were shared by the Slovenes and others. They together formed a strong group of 114 depu- ties in a Chamber of 313 all told, yet without in any way being able to further their federalist point of view. For on the one side was Pachich, who is not a man to be reasoned with, and on the other side was Radich, who persistently refused to go to Belgrade. He argued that it was useless to attend a Parliament dominated by intractable Serbian politicians. They had ignored every wish of the Croats and of the Slovenes, and, falsifying the spirit of the Pact of Corfu, had forced through the highly centralized Vi- dovdan constitution. How could one work with such stub- bornly selfish and intolerant people? By the beginning of 1924 the whole Opposition came to ask themselves that question. The inevitable answer led them all*—Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Bosnians, Germans, ete. —to join hands for the purpose of turning Pachich out of power and attempting to settle the issues which were in- creasingly undermining the unity of the state. It was a solemn and hopeful moment when, as a consequence, the Croats came for the first time to take their seats in the Parliament of Belgrade. It was also the moment when the series of unfortunate events set in which led to the present serious crisis in Jugoslavia. Briefly described, these events will show how in the relentless pursuit of their narrow- minded ends the ruling factors did not hesitate to pass from mere chicanery through political misdemeanor to a reactionary coup d'etat, which has finally unmasked the malign policy of Pachich and of the King. As the arrival of the Croats was bound to put the Pachich Government in a minority, everyone expected it to retire. It was properly assumed that the King would call upon Ljuba Davidovich, whom the united opposition had appointed as its leader, to form a government. Both ex- pectations proved premature. Instead of resigning Pachich began with a parliamentary intrigue. In Juyoslavia the mandates of newly elected deputies have to be confirmed by a parliamentary committee. Usually that is a mere formality, but in the case of the Croatian deputies that formality was delayed for several weeks, during which time they could sit in Parliament but could not vote. Early in May the Croat mandates were at last confirmed. On the same day the King enabled Pachich to escape a vote of censure by adjourning Parliament till October 20. By this trick Pachich could remain in power, unwanted but not yet outvoted. He had nevertheless to resign at the end of July, as the Opposition insistently pressed for a special session of Parliament. On July 27 Ljuba Davidovich took office with a composite cabinet, and a short special session of Parliament voted its confidence in him. His position was enormously strengthened when the four seats in the Cabinet, thus proving that they were will- ing to take their part in a unitary kingdom until constitu- tional developments should satisfy their wishes for au- tonomy. It was in such auspicious circumstances that the King loosed his thunderbolt upon an unsuspecting intry. About the middle of October, a few days before the meeting of Parliament, he forced Davidovich to resign. Pachie} was called back to power and allowed to dissolve the Parlia- ment which had voted confidence in his op; The reactionary course of the King called forth a } protest of the whole Opposition. Another and more sigr ficant retort is the important document which follows. Ths final answer would no doubt have been given at the e! tions which are to take place early in February. But Pachich so well foresaw their results that he has abandoned all restraint and taken refuge in unmitigated vicience. The Croat leader, Radich, and hundreds of his fellow-workers have been imprisoned, his Peasant Party ha n out- lawed, as guilty of subversive intentions toward the state. But that party is a whole province and a whole people; are we then to understand that Jugoslavia, the union of the * The one exception was a group of f mocrat det ei by Svetozar Pribichevich which went over to Pachich and waa rewarded by bim with fou eats in the Cabinet

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102 The Nation [ Vol. 120, No. 310s southern Slavs, is an impossibility? It probably is, as long as Pachich—and, perhaps, the King—rule in Belgrade. The Croat Union Protests YYNHE protest of the Croat Union, to which Mr. Mitrany refers in his article, was published in the Freies Heim (Zagreb) for November 27, 1924. 1. Since its establishment the Croat Union has stood upon the principle of the sovereignty of the people. This republican principle is the basis of modern democracy, which declares that the people create the state and that the power of the state is the product of the people’s will, that the people are the source of all political authority, and that the power of the state is fully justified only when it is established by the people; the people alone have the right to make the supreme decisions in the state, and no one can exercise the power of the state without a man- date from the people. This principle of the sovereignty of the people has been ex- pressed by the Croat Union in all its declarations and manifes- tations, in accordance with the general will of the Croat people, even in the decision of the Croatian parliament of October 29, 1918, which authorized the constituent assembly to make the sovereign decision upon the composition and form of the state. 2. Maintaining this principle but taking account of the form of the kingdom of Serbia with which Croatia was estab- lishing a new relationship, the Croat Union was ready to adopt the following position: Without touching the principle of the people's sovereignty, to create a democratic (which really means a republican) federated state in the form of a monarchy under the dynasty of the kingdom of Serbia. Upon the assumption that this could be realized as soon as the functions which the people intrusted to the king had been defined and limited by the constitution, and inspired by the example of the democratic spirit of many other progressive European constitutional monarchies, the Croat Union was in- clined to accept such a state with an hereditary king as the form of expression of the people’s will. 3. Yet the experiences of the last six years, especially recent experiences, convincingly demonstrate that the present- day monarchy does not give the people’s will effective expres- sion. If one desires such expression compromises must be abandoned and the democratic principle must be given its for- mal expression in a republican form of government. That is the conviction today of the Croat Union, which has therefore decided formally to declare for a republican form of govern- ment. A short factual summary of past events will justify this cor 1, Even the first so-called parliament, the provisional ‘“Peo- ple’s Assembly,” which was artificially formed without an elec- tion, demonstrated the possibility of imposing a centralized state system and showed that a democratic regime was still far removed. Through use of the administrative power new types of law were imposed upon the people, the existing laws were changed, and international treaties were ratified in such man- ner that national territories and national property were dis- posed of in the name of the people and assumed international importance without the consultation or knowledge of the people. Even in the pretenses of the necessities and difficulties of cre- ating a new state, the true intention to subordinate the people made itself obvious. 5. With the creation of the present constitution, commonly known as the Vidovdan constitution, came an energetic attempt to impose upon the people a definite constitutional situation which took no account of the people as the bearer of the law and the power in the state. Sovereign power was in fact taken from the constituent assembly and a situation was created which, made it dangerously easy to force the consent of the assembly. In this fashion the so-called Constitution-Parlia- established which was to vote only upon the consti- Viction., ment Was — —, tution which expressed the will of those then in power. Agains: such an attack upon the sovereignty of the people the elect. representatives of the Croats protested vigorously. 6. When even these machinations proved insufficient th: most extreme terroristic means were for six months utilizeg against the representatives of the people, and enough vote: were bought to assure an absolute majority. On June 28, 192) on the day of the Vidovdan catastrophe of the Serbian peo):. the present constitution was imposed upon the Croat and S)p. vene peoples despite authoritative promises by the Kingdom o; Serbia that the constitution would be adopted only by a quali. fied majority and without compulsion or oppression. 7. The experience of this constitution has demonstrated us that this fundamental law was not created with the intenti of giving the state a constitutional regime under the protection of a ruler who would be the first to honor and preserve :: Rather it was the intention thus to make it possible to cen tralize the entire power of the state in Belgrade and secre(): to give the trustees of the state power over the people, their property, their life, and their fate. 8. It is therefore no wonder that such a constitution has had desolating results, progressively destroying nationa! achievements in the field of law, politics, culture, and economics, and that it has created the conviction abroad that a state s ruled deserves neither confidence nor respect. In such circum. stances it is difficult to speak without irony of parliamentarism, constitutionality, or civic freedom; and the administration, rotten with corruption, is destroying itself by its own lawless- ness, stupidity, and anarchy. Furthermore, personal freedom is so threatened that there have been repeated cases of politica! attacks upon the life and freedom of individuals; there have even been massacres (for instance, in Bjelopolje, Mitrovica, and Pristina). Recently an attempt was made at night upon the life of a deputy while he was in the hands of the police, who were escorting him to prison despite his parliamentary immunity upon the pretense that they could not read his par- liamentary papers. This was the engineer August Kosuti who was attacked at Kastel in Dalmatia. 9. Despite certain passages in the Vidovdan constitutiv: according to which this is a constitutional parliamentary state, other provisions of the same document largely revoke its leg:s- lative powers and make its control over the state illusory. So the parliament becomes a fiction and an illusion. And sinc this parliament was insufficiently subordinate and showed 4 desire to resume its legal attributes and control the activity of the state, it was thus treated. 10. The Serbian Radical Party (which, despite the fact that it masks itself under the name of the Party of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, is an eminently pan-Slavie Serbian socialist party) desired in December, 1922, to strengthen its position by new elections because it was in a minority in par- liament. These elections it wished to carry out in its own fashion using its familiar method. At the election of Mare) 18, 1923, the Government did succeed in increasing the number of deputies of the Radical Party, but the total was only 10: in a parliament of 312. Even this result, which was largely due to reckless utilization of the power of the state for party ends, and to distortion of electoral arithmetic, fails to cor- respond to the number of votes which this party, rightly or wrongly, received. Upon a proportional basis, the party would have had only 82 instead of 107 deputies. 11. Thus the people expressed their lack of confidence in this party which fought the election—and failed to receive 4 majority—under the slogan “Preservation and execution of tie Vidovdan constitution.” Yet by using its power through a! sorts of intrigues and pressure it succeeded in retaining ti! reins of government, treating parliament as an unauthoritative institution which was nevertheless unavoidable in the present democratic atmosphere. 12. In the spring of 1924 an important change occurred A few thinking and just Serbian patriots in parliament. ir

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) 9 a Y nd ‘ 5108 Jan. 28, 1925] The Nation 103 ain | I liz i | OL | | v2 | i! és , iM NOBODY CARED A STRAW WHETHER I WAS | Slo " 1 | A GOOD PROSPECTIVE CITIZEN | 1 i| vv 99 j | OR AN ANARCHIST it | 1 | | | | i! vies . . - | For five long years I never heard of an It has no political program. It is neither | i Americanization institution and I never reactionary nor “bolshevik,” but it is the i | met any social worker.” place where interesting writers who have | f | ie ; something to say appear. i This is the story of a Polish lad who came a | to this country in 1907 as he relates it in s & «@ : I the February number of Scribner’s ea ber. Fl] ] Magazine. In this February number, Ellsworth Hunt eee ington, who advocates the regulation by | 5 i sais the state of its own biological development, i | Nobody cared a straw whether I was a onnttnes “thn Suicide of anc ‘ good prospective citizen or an anarchist. Not political has Ot aelnal _ i H = ‘. ‘ " A Cal, yogical, | So I drifted aimlessly upon the sea of in- l difference in the lonely boat of prejudices ee ¢ , \ and weariness.” oe ss 1 ‘ Albert Guérard has something to ™ * * * about picking a safe, rather than Stanislaw Gutowski came from the thick of the fight for Polish freedom to America at the age of 19. It was the panic year. He could find no work. He talked with few Americans— and two of those swindled him. He be- came a tramp. Today he stands with a record of remark- able work in training non-English-speaking soldiers during the war; With the distinction of having worked his way through college and law school. * * * His article “An Immigrant at the Crossroads” in the February Scribner's Magazine is important testimony on Americanization. Later in the year he will reveal further ideas on Americanization. * * * The February number and the succeeding issues of Scribner’s Magazine contain stim ulating articles, interesting fiction by new writers, and a display of intelligence in criti- cism which will appeal to intelligent people. * * * Many readers of the Nation have not actu- ally discovered Scribner’s Magazine yet. You have a certain preconceived notion about it, perhaps. * * * Read it for yourself and find out. liant, man tor the presidency in “In the Realm of King Log.” It was he who wrote “Mesoc: France: the Dictatorship of the Middle Class” in the January Scribner's Magazine. * * * “Ragtime, Jazz, and High Art’ is W Henderson’s subject, and so-called cal” art in America suffers at his har + * * John Hays Hammond's “Strong Men ot the Wild West’ with its commen: law and its enforcement bevins in * “Humanizing Industry’ by Charle Myers will be a feature of the Ma number. SPECIAL OFFER CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS | 597 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y Enter my subscriptior t SC k | MAGAZINE for | 4 months at $1.00 | or [) 15 months at $4.00 | I enclose check | or ( Send me a bill f | | | Address | ! When writing to advertisers } ’ please mention The Nation

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104 The Nation [ Vol. 120, No. 3108 headed by Ljuba Davidovich began to see that this destruction of the people’s life would finally lead to reaction and ruin even of the Serbian people in their own territory, and so they de- cided to begin the task of saving the people. They therefore turned to the idea of an honorable entente cordiale. 13. The representatives of the Croatian people, supported by those of the Slovenes, had always expressed this idea but got no response. When this appeal came from Serbia, despite the fact that it did not yet go far enough, the Croatian Peasant Republican Party (which, in the elections of 1923, had carried not only Croatia but also Dalmatia, Bosnia, and Herze- govina) abandoned its previous policy of staying away from the Belgrade parliament (which it had followed so long as there was no offer from the Serbs of an entente cordiale) and for the first time entered parliament to cooperate in its work. The inevitable result of this step was that the Radical Government under the leadership of Nicola Pachich was put in the minority and had to resign. 14. Then the Pachich Government, with the help of irre- sponsible elements which seem to have gained a decisive influ- ence in the monarchy, sought by underground machinations and intrigues to frustrate the verification of the mandates of the Croatian deputies. 15. When this failed, Nicola Pachich, as leader of the Radical Party, demanded that he be given a mandate to form a coalition Government with Svetozar Pribicevich. Since this demand could not be met at once on account of public opinion Nicola Pachich announced at a meeting in Bjieljina that he was determined to carry through his policy by any means, even by bloodshed. Referring to the solution of the crisis, he said: We then asked the king to permit us to ask the people whether they wished this state preserved as it was or changed. Only the people have the right to decide that. The king took oath that he would rule according to the will of the people, not according to the will of individual parties. ... We do not know what the king will decide but the Radical Party will not give up its intention to keep this state as it is and I hope that it will be able to force those who oppose the people’s will into obedience. Nicola Pachich’s hint and threat, in posing as the protector of the state as it is, is plain. 16. Nicola Pachich did not immediately receive a mandate to call an election; he was asked to form a new Government which, even with the support of Svetozar Pribicevich’s group, did not have a majority in parliament. This Government was able to keep parliament closed, know- ing that parliament would vote a lack of confidence. Parlia- ment’s regular activity was suspended until October 20 when, according to the precise instruction of the Vidovdan constitution, it was to resume its regular activity. This was a violation of the constitution and a coup d’etat; it aroused bitter resentment even in all parts of Serbia. Thus an absolutist Government opposed to parliament, ruling unsupervised and without re- sponsibility, was inaugurated. 17. The opposition, which had a strong and compact majority, did not submit. It proposed, upon the basis of the constitution, that parliament be called into an extraordinary session, especially since certain urgent questions of a social and humanitarian nature for the benefit of the suffering poor needed attention. 18. It was difficult simply to refuse such a proposal based upon the constitution, so a different temporary escape was found. The composition of a working Government was in- trusted to the leader of the opposition, Ljuba Davidovich, and this was formed on July 27 with the program of freeing the administration of corruption and preparing the way for an entente cordiale of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Those are the two most important questions for the settlement and consoli- dation of conditions in the state. 19. The new Government called parliament together in extraordinary session, worked out a few urgent laws, especially the invalid law and the law against corruption, and won a vote of confidence. A few concrete complaints were brought bef parliament with the request that some of the ministers of th Pachich Cabinet should be indicted for dishonorable acts, prove which concrete data were submitted. The Croat deputies who expressed their confidence in th Government were prepared to enter it and to accept dire responsibility even under the king although they belonged to strict republican party. 20. The people breathed more freely, for it seemed tha with this political change times would become more endurable When October 20 drew near, however, the Davidovich Goy ernment, although it had the unlimited confidence of the ma jority, was asked to resign in a manner which is clear in the published text of the resignation: Since Your Majesty has expressed the necessity of my resigning in the interest of a continuation of our policy of peace, order, law, attack on corruption, and an entente cordiale of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, I take the liberty of submitting my resignation. Ljuba Davidovich himself recently told a gathering that hj Government was systematically hindered in its activity, ang that government decrees were held up for weeks. Sined the public had no suspicion what was happening an attempt was made to compromise the Davidovich Government which had the people’s confidence. Davidovich has openly stated that his Government, which was formed on July 27, felt as early as July 28 that it would be forced to resign. The intrigue was carried by means of false reports which some of the generals were asked to submit. 21. This proceeding brought Nicola Pachich back to power for the period of the elections in a Government composed o the Radical Party and the friends of Svetozar Pribicevich. This Government is the embodiment of reaction, ready to use any means to achieve its goals. It is characteristic of the consti- tutionality and parliamentarism of the period that in the entire six years not one government has been changed because of an insufficient parliamentary majority. Every government has been formed in extra-parliamentary ways. New elections are set for February 8, 1925, in order to create an artificial parliamentary majority that will blindly follow the present holders of power. The first attempt to establish a government on the basis of an entente cordiale between the national groups was bru- tally defeated. Those ministers who were accused of corrup- tion and dishonor have been freed from indictment and they may now cry jubilantly that “evil spreads over the earth.” 22. A regime of violence and corruption which has proved its complete administrative incapacity is now oppressing all parts of the country, but it is especially hostile to the Croatian people. Our cultural, social, and economic institutions are deliberately destroyed. Civil officials are mercilessly persecuted. The existence of autonomous administrative units has almost been destroyed and government commissars are administering rural communes. Business has become the prey of crooks and conscienceless exploiters. The development and existence of the Croatian people, in their domestic and foreign relations, are threatened; they have no influence over their own fate. Thus the Croatian people are forced to work with might and main to become master in their own land. They have proved that they are ready to work peacefully with the true sons of Serbia for the freedom of all and the common good. Conscious of its duty to the Croatian people, aware of the meaning of public events of the last six years, and standing upon the democratic principle of the sovereignty of the people the Croat Union regards it as an absolute political necessity to accept the republican idea as expressed by the Croatian deputies and in the above resolution. Nation READERs: A letter of some importance is in the mail for every subscriber to The Nation. If your address is not in our files, drop us a post-card and a copy of the letter will be sent you. Tue Nation, 20 Vesey Street, New York.

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