The Nation 1925-05-20: Vol 120 Iss 3124

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Shdtild Crifhe Stories Be Suppressed ? rhe Nation CXX, No. 3124 FouNpDED 1865 Wednesday, May 20, 1925 The War Against Evolution How the Fundamentalists Are Barring Science from the Public Schools by Miriam Allen de Ford What Is a Sin in College! A Study of the Moral Standards of American Students by A. P. Brogan | New England 4, Wilbert Snow Fitzgerald on the March 4, Carl Van Vechten George M. Cohan and Irving Berlin ty Mark Van Doren en 1 Cents a ‘Copy Five Dollars a Year d 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, 187% Copyright, 1925, by The Nation, Inc.

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The Nation [ Vol. 120, No. 314 Anywhere a Letter can reach you, we can send The Nation. However far north you escape from city heat, however deep into the woods you go, it will follow to the nearest village post office. Perhaps you want a rest from the day’s use The Nation to report once a week on news, and the events that really do interest you. i/ You may rely on newsstands the rest of the year, but in summer you take a chance of missing copies which may be hard to replace, unless you make sure of them in advance. From mountains to shore and back again, our subscription depart- ment watches your every move, and with a reasonable notice promises each week’s copy at the correct address, post haste! Special Summer Subscription Six months for $2.00 $5.00 a year Foreign $6.00 Canada $5.50 The Nation, 20 Vesey Street, New York: Please stay in town this summer and write me the news. Send The Nation to me from................ I, “ar aiid arr a ad cgeak ea eae cid i este acm. lr eo ee tai aire ee ta i go i ree lk No Ee ee ae RES ae een es A a eee ee it a ett es i or age

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| ow IS FO The Nation INDED 186 v1 CXX NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MAY Contents | ITORIAL PARAGRAPHS ve rer eee Reyer ee ee para ae gpITORIALS d Ne ws of Crime Be Suppressed?.........--++-+: 562 ‘+ Shoot—We’re Coming Down........... 563 Tyranny of Fiction.......... ae Pe ee ere 563 World Grows Old....... cee eesseesereees ree 564 vAR AGAINST EVOLU TION. By Miriam Allen de Ford.. 565 v1¢ REGAINED. By Robert Dell.......... Std daaeatinae aa 567 ae TIN LOOKS NORTH. By Manuel Ugarte 563 aT IS A SIN IN COLLEGE? By A. P. Brogan.. 570 « THE DRIFTWAY. By the Drifter........ errr 671 RESPONDENCE. ........2220--seevecsoee: 572 Oks. ART, AND PLAYS: England. By Wilbert Snow................ Ra Aa ee . 574 t Glance. By Mark Van Doren............++++ee- i der aaieen 574 and Character. By H. B. Alexan der iid hsh cama nks ona 574 rerald on the March. By Carl Van Vechten............ . ge r Misery. By Emil Lengyel ; er ee 576 en of the Century. By Joseph Wood Krutch............ 576 } in Brief SOMOS HSCRHHEC OHV EK CK OO COS ceeee eee 577 Alfred Stieglitz Presents Seven Americans By Glen Mullin... 577 ma: Ibsen’s Iago. By Joseph Wood ee eee 578 SATIONAL RELATIONS SECTION: Cee “RRWEGs 66005040600 a ab aata eka eee eacae ; 580 Pesstneeee PIOtestais «coos sccscccecesvcecses daa =e 5&3 OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, Eprror ASSOCIATE EDITORS LEWIS S. GANNETT ARTHUR WARNER JOSEPH WOOD KRUTCH G EpITor Literary Eprror DA KIRC HWEY MARK VAN DOREN CONTRIBUTING EpITors ; A. HOBSON LUDWIG LEWISOHN H. L. MENCKEN NORMAN THOMAS DAVID BOEHM, CARL VAN DOREN ADVERTISING MANAGER . Five dollars per annum post; paid in the U nited States end $5.50, and to foreign countries of the Postal Union, NATION, 20 Vesey Street, ‘ago Office: 38 So. Advertising: E. Thurtle, ION RATES: Canada, $6.00. Cable Address: NATION, New British Agent for yey Fortune Hill, N.W. 11, En ama New York City. Dearborn Street. M.P., 36, Temple i LP E R SEC U TION OF SENATOR WwW HEEL E R con- tidnee, He won one vindication at the hands of the Sate committee over which Senator Borah presided, and ther at the hands of a Montana jury. But the little ip Which Harry Daugherty brought into the Department Justice remains, and while it remains Wheeler will not safe. Attorney General Stone did not remove them; and Sargent will not. So Senator Wheeler must face ral a third time. His colleague Senator Walsh is defend- him, we understand, without compensation; but the ‘s of preparing to meet such a subtle and elaborate mpaign of calumny as this are enormous. Vindications mg no restitution of the costs, and Senator Wheeler’s iets are not lined in preparation for such a deluge of nicks, His friends must help him. His friends? This is ‘a question of the honor of an individual, but the honor ‘anation. If every man who dares stand up against the ‘es of corruption and indecency in official life is to be esecuted as this man has been, corruption and indecency .Yule the country. Unless—unless there are enough “rs who hate corruption enough to support that man’s “nse. The Wheeler Defense Committee has been organ- ‘to give Senator Wheeler that support. It needs money. iddress is: Lenox Building, Washington, D. C. \ MBASSADOR HOUGHTON’S SPEECH has pro- foundly stirred the European chancelleries—as it was mtless intended to. Mr. Houghton is not given to 20, 1925 making speeches, so that when he does the public may be certain that he has something important to say. This time he gave most solemn warning that the hour had come for Europe to bury the hatchet and its animosities, and really to work for a lasting and genuine peace. In our judgment that cannot come until the Treaty of Versailles is rewritten. We cannot pretend to say, as have some of the F rench commentators, that this was what Mr. Houghton had in mind—we h pe it was But he did make it plain and the President has since announced his approv f the Ambassador’s stand, that Europe need expect no more finan- cial aid from America unless it gives conclusive proof of its will to peace. That is all to the good. The A Lo and the President cannot, of irse, contro] the investme abroad of the money of private ind Phe fi f Morgan may float as many foreig: resell] to its American customers. But this process will be far more difficult if the Ke? erstan hat the rl) ment is opposed to any such procedure in the case of tries which refuse to work for d tation. We note w rr t from Paris to the effect that B th direction of accepting the German security p HIS FRANCE SHOULD DO without hesitation, for it is a great and statesmanlike pr re ceived half the credit it deserv Ir to regard it as furnishing the acid test « r for Germany has offered a binding pled; var upon her eastern or western neighbors f I If France means business, she should accept this ] forthwith reduce her swollen military forces, w h, if cor tinued, are bound to affect advers her relations wit England. With the money saved } lecreasing her armaments and giving up her lish plans for a nav her navy did her no good whatever in the late war—Franee would speedily be able to find « ‘ gin te make regular payments on her d t United States and to her former allies. Of course, some of the jingo French newspapermen are furious at Mr. Houghton, be- cause they say his speech handled Germany and France as if they were in the same category in regard War. The time has long passed for that sort of talk. There will be no progress in Europe until i Russia as exactly on the as hav same rights and privileges in the family of nations the others. Meanwhile, we rejoice that Mr. n has so stirred things up and that our country at last stand where it should have been at the very ou sailles peace conference. Had Mr. Wilson taken this atti tude, that conference would not have been such a dead failure, and the Treaty of Versailles wou! m f + har } ild not have beco t same footing outset of the 1@ the abomination that it is. AILLAUX IS TACKLING the French financial prob- lem with grim seriousness. If he succeeds doing what he sets out to do—balancing the budget out of ordinary revenues, and using reparations payments to create a sink-

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560 The Nation _ [Vol. 120, No. 312, — — ing fund, part of which would be used to pay interallied debts, he will have established France as an honest debtor. The task, however, is not simple, even if the French municipal elections have just indicated a continued slight swing to the Left in French public opinion. It will mean higher taxes, which are always unpopular; and a reduction in military expenses, which will not be easy with a man- size war going on in Morocco. France, however, cannot expect the sympathy of the world, until she faces her position honestly. As Senator Borah recently put it in the New York World: As it works out, the American taxpayer is not only paying the cost of our military establishment, but is, in fact, paying for the maintenance of the French military establishment, or a large portion of it, and at a time when the French taxpayers’ taxes are less than one-half of the taxes in the United States. With Caillaux in power France may at last be facing the harsh realities of her position. She must learn to react to world opinion. Publication of Mr. Austen Chamberlain’s secret memorandum on the state of Europe must have given some French politicians a healthy shock. For that states- man, reckoned as one of the most Francophile men in Eng- lish public life, defends his policy of military alliance on the ground that only so can France be soothed into rewrit- ing the territorial clauses of the Treaty of Versailles. T PRESIDENT COOLIDGE’S INSTRUCTION Theo- dore Burton is speaking against poison gas at Geneva. The navy, on President Coolidge’s orders, may shortly start on an Australian cruise which would be international poison gas in its worst form. The Hawaiian maneuvers were bad enough—they were so barefacedly preparation for the next war with Japan; and their aftermath was worse. Jingo officers and Congressmen are loudly demanding that we make Hawaii the strongest port in the world. These gentry, whether they know it or not, are doing their best to make the next war inevitable. The Hawaiian maneuvers “proved,” as they were intended to “prove,” two contradictory propo- sitions: (a) that the fleet was too weak; (b) that the land defenses were too weak. We do not remember ever in the history of any nation to have heard of any naval or military demonstration which did not “prove” the need of more guns, ships, forts, men, officers, money. Logic is a minus quan- tity in the military mind. But what of the Yankee econo- mist in the White House? Will he permit the officers to squander on parades in the Pacific the dollars that he saves by cutting down the appropriation for the Children’s Bureau and refusing pay increases to the civil employees? Will he ask Ambassador Houghton to lecture Europe on peace, yet permit the navy to spend millions in demonstrat- ing to Asia that we are really a superbly military nation? And what—if he believes this practice-war in the Pacific is needed—does Mr. Coolidge think of the “supreme achieve- ments” of the Harding-Hughes Washington Conference? "Ppa IS REPORTED IN DISMAY. The agenda of the Commission on International Traffic in Arms had been “carefully framed to avoid subjects likely to cause dis- sension.” Then entered Mr. Burton, representing the United States, like a bull in a china shop, and suggested out- lawing poison gas. It wasn’t on the agenda! So the Powers referred it to a subcommittee, and League circles are pray- ing that Mr. Burton has no new surprise up his sleeve. The Nation has no great faith in proposals to outlaw ungens}.. manly methods of warfare, but it has even less faith in car,. fully prepared agenda. If we have more wars they are |jke!, to be dirty wars dirtily fought; and the cause of peace not helped by polite officials endeavoring to conceal the dir, and avoid dissension. The League’s program of forcing, publicity on the international traffic in arms is good as fy as it goes; Mr. Burton’s impolite insistence on the unpless ant subject of poison gas is also good. Geneva and : world need to be shocked into active abhorrence of my. derous war, and into passionate determination to sto, “Carefully prepared agenda,” avoiding dissension, wil! ; help. E ARE A BIT WORRIED about Mr. Coolidye’s pe ! child, prosperity. Indeed, we are so anxious «hoy its whereabouts that we should like to advertise for j: Mis as lost, strayed, or stolen. Take pig-iron. Before th: Hip election 2x foundry was down to $21.76 a ton. Immedq. Hr ately after the election the rise began; under the mag p wand of Calvin Coolidge the price rose by February 21; $25.01. Today it is back to $21.76; the “boom” is over. & more furnaces are going out of blast—twenty-five in Apri! and more mines are suspending operations. Even our pr. mier industry, that of the automobile, shows a reces:: General Motors did thirty-four millions of dollars le: : ness in the first quarter of this year than last year, sellin fi 155,000 cars to dealers instead of 215,000; dealers . . where are making extraordinary concessions in th v of credit in order to make sales. The plight of the farmer : A worse than ever. The high cost of fertilizer is, n - in many cases making it impossible for him to keep wy ne the fertility of his land. Even in Washington they afi 4, beginning to hear from the country that all is not well- Jay there were 45 bank failures and 1,939 commercial fa! luresfih), « in April as against 1,707 bankruptcies for the same : j in 1924. One of the professional apologists for the Pres dent explains that the Administration, bless your des hearts, never expected a boom; that was all newspap: x What it did expect, and what it is still pinning its fa‘:h: is the soundness of fundamental conditions—so sound the many slumps can only be “temporary.” OR TEN YEARS we have been trying—in vain out who started the World War. No matter; we've least found out who won it. It was Rear Admiral Braid! A. Fiske, retired—not so retired, though, but what } able to tell the story himself the other night. He deers President Wilson and Secretary Daniels as pacifists. Aft the latter testified before a Congressional committee it in 1914 that the navy was ready for war, Admiral F's says that he succeeded in getting the committee to cai! hi H] as a witness, as a result of which a larger appropria‘i b was voted than Mr. Daniels had asked for. By 1915, % mac ever, Secretary Daniels had reduced the navy to “a w10l ory ineffective state.” So, says Admiral Fiske: nB I induced Representative Hobson to have a provisi00 Mie in introduced into the navy appropriation bill changing t ‘the title of Aid for Operations to Chief of Naval Operation. giving him considerable power, and legalizing the offce ie This I did secretly, in defiance of all military procedur gy and against the law of Congress; for it was distinct? o a against the law for any army or navy officer to attempt! ~" influence legislation, except in carrying out orders from ‘™ Secretary. it in

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May 20, 1925] The Nation 561 , _ = nys America was “prepared,” and in due time won the are. World War, thanks to the illegal machinations of Rear kely jmiral Bradley A. Fiske, not-so-very-retired. We hope jdmiral Fiske is satisfied with what he won; hardly any- dir iy else is. Can it be that Lowell was predicting the Ad- ing [E-ral’s priceless services when he wrote: ( al Wal, it’s a marcy we’ve gut folks to tell us The rights an’ the wrongs o’ these matters, I vow,— God sends country lawyers, an’ other wise fellers, To start the world’s team wen it gits in a slough; Fer John P. Robinson he Sez the world’ll go right, ef he hollers out Gee! STUDY OF THE ORIENTAL on the Pacific Coast \ has recently been made by a group of professors and . « Mgeudents chiefly in colleges located on the Coast; and their 4, Mapreliminary findings have been published. A few of the - Bore striking facts, taken bodily from the report, suggest #nc interesting possibilities of the final study. On “popula- yn” the report says: C, The Chinese population in the United States and on % the Pacific Coast has been steadily decreasing since 1890. . The Japanese population has been increasing but at a decreasing rate of increase since 1890. ... The ratio of the Chinese and Japanese to the total population in Cali- fornia has been steadily declining since 1900... . in “sickness, poverty, and crime,” it is discovered that: The Oriental has been of very little expense to the American community. Such records of relief agencies as have been studied indicate that the amount of relief given s very small. The extent of poverty, delinquency, and rime... is slight. ... Compared with 16 per cent of the white population, only 6 per cent of the Chinese and cll Japanese population suffer from nervous diseases. .. . SH) “agriculture”: . The great lesson of the desert is that every farm worker must sacrifice his personal independence for the common welfare. In this carefully organized and dis- tiplined system the Japanese, unlike the native white, can make immediate adjustment... . te report raises the questions of comparative racial intel- yence, the second generation, and the state of public jnion. Tentative beginnings are made here toward an nerstanding of a problem at once complicated and elu- ve ieand as dangerous in its implications as any the country adie HPS, You can lead a horse to water, But you can’t make him drink; = You can send a boy to college, Ms But you can’t make him think. HE OLD RHYME is right. You can’t make him think, but given a fair chance he will sometimes do it of his maccord. And he is doing it just now in regard to com- “ory military training. A revolt is sizzling all the way m Boston University (we told the story of the Beanpot’s *sin our issue of April 22) to the Pacific Coast. Gradu- J ythe truth is getting about among students that there is “~ ‘. word in the Morrill land-grant act which requires that rary drill be made compulsory by a college which re- nets 4 Subsidy under this law. As pointed out by Paul pt tggeShard in The Nation of February 18, the law requires y that military training be offered. The exact text is “in subsidized institutions “the leading object shall be, _ without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learn- ing as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts.” The compulsory feature has been introduced either through ignorance or the promptings of militarism. The University of Wisconsin took the lead among land-grant colleges in making its military drill elective two years ago. Once stu- dents and their parents come generally to understand the law, compulsory training is doomed, since even among those with no ethical scruples against the system there is a wide belief that military drill is a bore and a waste of time. OR THIS REASON we welcome enthusiastically the formation of the Anti-Compulsory Military Drill League in the University of Minnesota. The publicity work that it is doing is precisely what is needed to lead all land- grant colleges to give military drill as an elective instead of as a required course. We have before us an open letter which the league has sent to 3,300 faculty members, stu- dents, and organizations. The letter says that Major Wood, commander of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps at the University of Wisconsin, who was originally opposed to making military drill optional, has since come out in favor of the change. “Voluntary drill has eliminated those stu- dents who have an intense inward hatred of drill,” he is quoted as saying. “Our corps is better off because of it.” Whether influenced by the Anti-Compulsory Military Drill League of the University of Minnesota, or by some other source, the campus of Howard University, a Negro institu- tion in Washington, D. C., is the latest to experience an agitation. A student strike was declared ayainst a new regulation providing that anyone absent twenty times from the classes in physical education or the drills of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps should be dropped from the uni- versity. One of the banners displayed on the campus read: “What is this going to be—an army or a university?” WO AMERICANS singularly different, yet both singu- larly characteristic of American life, died last week. One was Herbert Quick, born in an Iowa frontier cabin, who devoted a passionate lifetime to the cause of the Ameri- can farmer; the other was Mrs. John King Van Iensselaer, apostle of the blue-blooded tradition in New York society. Mrs. Van Rensselaer was no mere snob; she was a diligent and intelligent student of local history, with a sensitive appreciation of the qualities of the old Dutch settlers. New York society, she thought, began to degenerate when descendants of John Jacob Astor, dealer in pianos and furs, and of Commodore Vanderbilt, who had been a ferry- boat pilot, were permitted to marry into the old families. Her life looked backward, as life in the aristocracy of the Eastern cities is likely to do; yet it ameaiihed a great tradition in American life, as the names of some of the thirty-eight families which alone she called truly blue- blooded—Jay, King, Duer, Morton, Fish, and others—re- mind us. Herbert Quick told another story. Curiously the hero of his novel “Vandemark’s Folly” was also a New York Dutchman; but a Dutchman who looked forward and went West. Quick, who had learned his A B C’s in a fron- tier school, had taught other farmers’ sons, and then turned —only because infantile paralysis barred more strenuous pursuits to him—to editing farmers’ papers, had a vivid sense of the dramatic character of the great westward migration. In him and in his writing the old Dutch strain again became a significant part of the creative present. ¥

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562 The Nation [Vol. 120, No. 319; —, Should News of Crime Be Suppressed? oe VE,” said Adam as he sat down to supper after a hard day spading up thistles, “the newspapers are paying too much attention to crime nowadays. It’s disgusting the amount of space the Eden Daily News is giving to that Cain-Abel murder mystery.” “It ought to be stopped,” responded Eve firmly. “I'll introduce a resolution about it at the next meeting of the Monday Night Women’s Club.” We are not sure that this conversation is recorded in the Bible; but we are sure that it took place and that it has been repeated at countless supper-tables ever since, attain- ing the virulence of a general public discussion at intervals of every ten or twenty years. We are having such a discussion now, and it has led newspapers in widely separated localities to experiment with the proposals suggested in the debate. The Fayetteville, North Carolina, Observer announced that for fifteen days it would eliminate accounts of all crime from its pages and see how readers liked it. In Des Moines, Iowa, the Register, acting at the suggestion of the women’s clubs of the city, decided to experiment with keeping crime news off the front page, segregating it inside. The Decatur, Illinois, Review undertook to segregate crime inside and to label it as such so that it could easily be read or avoided. Various other journals have been trying one or another of these schemes. The Fayetteville Observer gave up its plan before the fifteen days were over, overwhelmed, so it said, with a demand for the old news in the old way. Other experi- ments still continue, and new ones will doubtless be initiated, but we predict that the total life of the movement will not exceed that of mah jong or the cross-word puzzle. These periodical flare-ups against news of crime are based largely on misconceptions of what the newspapers ought to print or else on misconceptions of what they do print. A study of the front pages of eight prominent East- ern newspapers was made recently in the University of Pennsylvania. The front page was chosen as the “show window’’—typical of the rest of the contents. Not only was all material classified as crime which recorded the com- mission or investigation of crime, but also that dealing with criminal-court proceedings and accidents involving a certain amount of criminality. Even this broad classification ac- counted for only 22.5 per cent of the front-page space, while political and governmental news occupied first place with 38.5 per cent. The managing editor of the Des Moines Register, in commenting on that newspaper’s experiment, said it had demonstrated “that some at least of the news matter that the careless reader has classified as crime news and that he has been maddest about is not crime news at all.” Quite so. Thousands of readers use “crime” as a symbol to describe whatever displeases them in a news- paper’s bill of fare. Unfortunately crime has been, is, and probably long will be one of the great, solid, inescapable facts in this intensely interesting human laboratory called the world. It has been the theme of a large part of the literature of all time. Some of the severest critics of crime news are members of our churches and devoted readers of the Bible. Do they forget that the Bible is perhaps the world’s greatest com- pilation of crime? Any reform, it is admitted, must be pre- ceded by a knowledge of the facts. An understanding crime, a study of the motives and passions which 4); men, is essential to anyone who would know his fellows .. work for their betterment. Crime is news. It is one of those unusual and abnor; aspects of life in which people generally are interes; The very fact that it is unusual and abnormal is evidey,. If Smith shoots his wife, it is news, and Brown wants know about it. If Smith does not shoot his wife, Browp— who has not shot his either—does not ask that the fy: be recorded in his daily newspaper, while Smith would i: mad as a hornet if it were. Without doubt many persoy: get suggestions for crime from the newspapers; witho, doubt, also, many are deterred from crime through learniy, in the newspapers of its frequent failure, peril, and punis ment. And where shall we draw the line once we set out : eliminate or segregate news of crime? It is inextrics mixed with past and current history of the greatest m. ment. If a government official is found to be stealing » misusing public funds, that is crime news. Should it suppressed? If a Wall Street broker is found to be rur. ning a bucket-shop, that is crime news. Should it suppressed? If a hundred m.n are killed in a coal mir: because the company has failed to comply with the safet laws, that is crime news. Should it be suppressed? Obviously the present revival of the notion that news ¢ crime should be kept out of the newspapers is a manifesti. tion of the wave of censorship that is rolling over the cour- try. It is part of the theory that some of us should reg: late the amount and kind of truth which others shou receive. Those who are most passionately advocating suppression or sterilization of crime news are general. persons who like to call themselves “constructive.” Yet i this respect they are championing purely destructive tactics they are ignoring the one practicable way to improvemer’, which consists not in demanding that newspapers eliminate or segregate news of crime but that they write about truthfully. Failure to do this, either deliberate or care- lessly unintentional, is the real evil. When our newspapers are disgusting, degrading, and dangerous—as some uD- doubtedly are—it is not because they print news of crime but because they sentimentalize and distort it, because the garnish it with all the vulgar tricks of the “sob sister and the rewrite man, because they dramatize it according t the hack rules of the hero-villain theory of life. Every newspaper has its own public—a special group that it is reaching or aiming at. Wherever a group of su‘! cient size can express a desire for a truthful presentation 0 crime it can generally find a newspaper ready to cater to t": wish. Most of our better metropolitan newspapers are « ready treating crime with more intelligence and taste the” they showed twenty years ago, although the newly arrive? tabloid dailies are exploiting it shamefully. In New Yor City, for instance, the better journals pass by a count! amount of such material every day because they regard © as too sordid or too commonplace. Selection and truth’! presentation, not suppression—that is what the intellige™ J and conscientious should ask for. Even the Chris?’ n e all

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— =) hay are- pers May 20, 1925] The Nation 563 —_ znience Monitor, contrary to common belief, prints some oe of crime. It does so when it thinks that the crime in jestion seriously affects history. It recorded recently the shooting of the Sirdar of Egypt and has had some details out the assassinations in Bulgaria. When we achieve the Perfect World we shall banish rime from our newspapers. But by then we shall be ready hanish the newspapers also. Don’t Shoot—We’re Coming Down HIS is the title of an authorized interview in the T Nation’s Business with Mr. W. E. Humphrey, the new member of the Federal Trade Commission. In its frankness it is illuminating. It seems that the Federal Trade Commission was intended not to control business but toaid it. “Instead of helping business,” writes the reporter ‘the interview with Mr. Humphrey, “the commission has out every possible obstacle in its way and, worst of all, it— totally without warrant or justification—condemned and maligned business men for practices of which they were ocent.” In other words, the commission, after preferring charges, like all other judicial or semi-judicial bodies, has sometimes found itself unable to carry through its cases. Mr. Humphrey lets us know precisely how the commission 3 going to function hereafter, now that he has been ap- jointed to reform it: “The commission wishes to be worthy the confidence of the business interests of the country.” in other words, the Federal Trade Commission is no onger to function as judge, or prosecutor, or policeman, if rou please. It is to do only what business desires. The s Business explains that “business had looked to the mmission for practical influence and guidance. But the mmission arose like a bad jinnee from an Arabian Nights’ ar.” So President Coolidge is there to see that it does nothing hereafter at which business may take any offense. The business man who has hardly slept o’ nights in dread f action by the commission will henceforth sleep undis- urbed. It will teach and advise him hereafter, be his guide, vhilosopher, and friend ever, never by any chance his prose- utor or his judge. It will be without teeth, and therefore— vill soon sink into innocuous desuetude. Once it becomes merely advisory, with its members all good fellows, merely telling business how to keep within the law of make more money, all will be well again. Even the once redoubtable and always comic William C. Redfield, Secretary of Com- merce under Woodrow Wilson, joins in the chorus in this same issue of the Nation’s Business. The Federal Trade ommission formerly—under Woodrow Wilson, of course— id its duty nobly, he explains. Then it became wickedly legalistic” and has since shown “little of the underlying eco- comic facts” in its cases and so has failed “to make clear the ‘sues involved.”” So the proper thing is not to find new com- missioners who will remedy errors in judgment or proced- ire—it is to turn over the whole commission to big business, ‘0 its will, to be emasculated, to become no longer a guar- lian of the people’s rights, a watchman against injustice, a cutor of wrong-doing. In other words, the commission might now as well be abolished. What President Coolidge has done to draw the teeth if the trade commission he has also done in the case of the Vation’s Indeed, a news-service writer President yesterday tariff an d in Washington declares that “the intimated that business can go ahead with little fear of ther commissions. officious interference from Washington.” It explains the President’s confidence in this by saving of the tariff com- mission that with Mr. Culbertson out it will have a majority to eve with Mr. Coolidge. The trade com- to report, will no longer be unneces- sarily disturbing. The shipping board has been told that its members hold office during good behavior only and must act in a “seemly manner,” and the good old Department of Justice will confine itself to “routine matters. If the era of peace and one fa on earth has not arrived for the American business man, how can it ever be looked for? For on top of all this wonderful news from Washington, on top of all these glorious achievements of the yreatest of Presi- dents, we have Congress adjourned and we have Senator Edge of New Jersey giving the noble ad tives and Senators to say not one word about po anything else this coming summer. Mr. Edge believes that business is very who will see eye mission, it rejoices Lal vice to Representa- } } litics or (é., — er ” e } } 2 } ‘sensitive’ and he entire aygrees with President Coolidge’s desire, as reported % Mark Sulli- van, “to keep business immune from disturbing news from Washington.” Admirable, admirable! Patriotic, philanthropic, wise just as wise as the ostrich, the wisest of birds. We hav only one constructive suggestion to add. Let us chanye the national anthem. The present one is poor—poor musically, poor in spirit. Let us take another leaf from our former enemies and make our anthem “Business, Business tiber Alles.” Why not? It would reassure busin: tremer dously. It would put the emphasis of our nat vhere it belongs. It would give notice to all oe world who Amer- ica’s real rulers are- aie no nonsense about it. F it would be a most delicate compliment to « President and a just recognition of C re prosper - — , The Tyranny of Fiction HE literary history of the last two decades has marked by much-heralded events in various branches of literature. The renaissance of poetry, of drama. and of biography has been vigorously press-aye ted } eager journalists, and it does exist as a real phenomenon: but its effect may easily be overestimated and it has done little to break the established tyranny of prose fiction. I: the catalogues of publishers and in the irculat public libraries fiction is still overwhelmingly dominant over all other departments of belles-lettres, and to the vast majority of literate persons “a book” still means, wit question, a novel. A little more than a century gfo Jane Au the glorious tradition of RicHardson. Fi *, Sterne, and Goldsmith behind her, felt called u: t defend the art she practiced against th consider it a legitimate form of liter torian age was already far advanced before it ised to be the custom specifically to exclude novels when the benefits of wide reading were urged uy ith. Before that the drama had gone through a similar period of opprobrium; it was not at least until Ben Jonson aroused the laughter of the wits by edition and calling them, paradoxically, “Works,” that pubiisning plays ina LieCtec

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564 The Nation [Vol. 120, No. 219, anyone thought of the possibility of founding a literary reputation upon pieces written for the stage. But the drama won its way to respectability, and fiction has now repeated literary history so that today the novel, once barely tolerated, has come to tyrannize. College profes- sors give it a considerable place in their courses, and literary critics, as a matter of course, spend the major part of their time in discussing it. To an orthodox litterateur of a past age—to Dr. John- son, for example—such a condition of affairs would have seemed palpably absurd and unspeakably vulgar; he would have been unable to see in the novel anything capable of equaling in importance or dignity the forms which had the sanction of classical antiquity behind them. Yet to anyone who will now look back upon the development of the novei it will be clear that the importance which it has assumed was inevitable because all the experiments of a century converged to make this marvelous thing which Richardson and Fielding discovered. The comic romances of Cervantes and Rabelais, the pseudo-biographies of De- foe, the brief character sketches which the seventeenth century learned to write in imitation of Theophrastus, and the informal essays of Addison were all brought together and united into one whole, varied and flexible, which in- cluded all the new forms of expression which the growth of an increasingly complex consciousness had developed. Thus the novel answered many needs, and it has continued to show a most amazing power of adaptation and assimila- tion, being continuously refitted and remolded to the de- mands of each succeeding age. When romanticism ar- rived, Scott made it a vehicle of romantic feeling; in the hands of Dickens it came to express the exact blend of optimism and sentiment for which his readers felt the need; George Eliot found it equally serviceable for thos? solemn discussions of morals and sociology which were just beginning to be popular, and since that time it has given no indication of having reached the limits of its flexibility. Revolutionary ethics and iconoclastic criti- cism, social discontent and scientific speculation, have been poured in; it shows no sign of finding any material indigestible. Whatever the interest of the moment may be, whether it is psychoanalysis or war or pacifism, the novel finds a place for it, and thus it is no wonder that novels are read. In them will be found whatever is found in the minds of men at the time when they are written. Doubtless those to whom literature means something more than its subject matter will never cease to feel a certain impatience over the fact that the novel seems to tuake most people forget that other kinds of literature exist. Being as it is a sort of omnium gatherum and often distinguished as a form by nothing except its formlessness, it does not (except in those rare cases where a master—a Hardy, a Maugham, or a Galsworthy—succeeds in giving it a unity of matter and manner) convey much of that sort of aesthetic pleasure which is communicated by the come- liness of shape in a well-turned lyric or a perfect essay. But this sort of pleasure is, and always has been, a pleasure for the few alone. The majority will continue to find in the novel more satisfactorily than anywhere else the matter which concerns them; and the tyranny of fiction will not be relaxed—at least unless some strange revolution of human affairs should bring back again that condition of society in which reading is the privilege of a definitely literary class alone. ——— The World Grows Old HIS world is growing old not only by adding years ; its span, but by discovering for what an amazing nyp. ber of years it has been about as old as it is today. One ¢: the signs of its age is its growing interest in its own pas A young man lives lustily, looking forward; he has no tip, to meditate upon his youth. Age brings discouragemery with the present, lack of interest in the future, reflectjo, upon the past, and the rereading of old diaries. As a world we are feeling old and tired these days, a»; are digging into our past. And every time the archaco) gists make a new discovery they turn another merry jes: at the expense of modern civilization. We have ai: plane: and steam railroads and electric light; but wherein are y. so different from the men and women and babies of Kis: where Professor S. H. Langdon of the Field Museup. Oxford University expedition has been turning over ; sands? Kish died some five thousand years ago; Kis as remote when Athens flourished as Pericles’s city «: prime is from us today. But the women of Kis! with copper hand-mirrors; the men beat out fish-hoo! then passed meditative hours hanging over the Euphrat; they shaved with copper razors, and in idle momen‘s ¢| amused themselves making children’s toys. Professor Lang. don found a top molded to represent a man riding a | a hollow toy goat containing a pebble, which—five t! years ago—served as a baby’s rattle; a toy bank con! a Sumerian child’s pennies. And the boys of Kish | at war, and built toy war chariots. A day came when Kish was destroyed. Angry « tore from the walls of the royal chamber the slate pane: of prisoners with hands bound behind their backs. [[ané- mirrors and fish-hooks and copper razors and carved ‘\ lay where the panic-stricken Sumerians dropped them, ax! for thousands of years the sands of the desert blew a them. The great entry-hall, seven hundred feet long, w:) its five-foot columns was totally forgotten. Today laid bare; and by these mute relics we learn that men had domesticated horses a thousand years earlier than we knew and that the sport of angling is several millenniums than we had believed. Hundreds of cities lie buried and forgotten under ¢! sands of Mesopotamia and Arabia. Civilizations older tha the Sumerian will yet be uncovered. And in them amaze‘ archaeologists will probably discover that boys played 4 war, that women were vain and affectionate, and that par- ents toiled to please their children years before the sea cu! England off from the rest of Europe, when the mastodons still roamed in herds across what is now New York State. Perhaps all this digging will give us some sense of pre portion about ourselves and our little achievements. Per: haps we Americans can learn from our own America! ruins that behind the voyage of Columbus lay centuries 0 a highly developed and subtle civilization on our own ¢0!- tinent, and from these and Asia’s buried cities that civi' zations as proud as our own have faded even out of t! memory of man. But how can we ever adjust ourselves ' such finds as those of another Field Museum digger, w! reckons, are “somewhere between seven and fifteen mi!!! years old”?

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The Nation The War Against Evolution ie By MIRIAM ALLEN DE FORD “PTVHE physical strength of a healthy ape is three times cases definitely reported to me where young people went from 1 that of a human being, and the mental strength three Christian homes to college, high schools, or universities, and > ; } ’ ] f nome ¢€ utionists ar U * fo “* by ts ‘uits tim emos that of an evolutionist.” Thus the Golden Age, = “ hay gh ; ind : = re by its fruits - , shall it be known. ment soathumous spokesman of Pastor Russell. And the Rever- . M ihe f hel livi age ° . . ° ye lV NOTK 15S rF ever t ye LIEV in a iving »q Mr. Bulgin, of Indianapolis, is even less complimentary: Cette and tek. tes ee r led a i " rena : j i 1 ” , —— eee ? revealed ill and word. ‘Unbelief is a bigger sin than murder or horse-stealing. I am working for every boy a Califorals. whethes 4 prominent business man splutters to a scientific society: they be C Protestant. or Jew, against teaching « “Your theory may be very good for monkeys and microbes, theory or hypothesis for est ed fact which it is jes hut 1 for men and women,” I I teacl any young ines while the pupils of South- } pers To te atheism We - torn ] > > s —_ es P 2 Ca } u T ive ? ’ aay Wee n College in Kansas The nation-wide drive against the teaching of evo- ¢ . Sn . - ° « é ? J d | of cls , or 2 r ee: are being obliged to state lution breaks out in newspaper dispatches day after ee a frend ail : eum: n oath that their study of day. Here is one day’s grist: , % oe ha d de- the eyolution has not’ under- } ia a ‘ i no ( t yet we ‘ mined their faith in God. ARREST EVOLUTION TEACHER | Pp appre ey The fundamentalist atti- ena tgs Bee elie : Tennessee Authorities Start Test toward life seems to be Bible “a eS ng , di Case Under New Law | es . rmal 4 merican condi- NASHVILLE, Tenn. May 6 (A. P.) Wi} ‘ the | n. There is no widespread A Dayton, Tenn., dispatch to the Ban | pelled to pay tax . — mer says that J. T. Scopes, science $ $ i ieee leaven of educated skepticism Sonsat ts. Wied tie Meee Gen ae -_T to have : A : “ested vesterdayv on charge of violat- Ow! dre fait n this fundamentalist yeast, rested yesterday on a charge of violat , ' ing the new Tennessee law prohibiting shattered 1 Christian live ‘or three-quarters of our so- the teaching of evolution in the State . ; : public schools. c royed ind a f | college graduates come —_—— laid for the future d ‘rom seminaries where the TALLAHASSEE, Fla., May 6.—Teach- tion of our nat rtine he : ing evolution in the schools of Florida . . niet subjects taught are would be unlawful under provisions of fr t ul eee . . a bill introduced in the House today. ciples of justice and right 18- liltary drill, nineteenth- Any teacher found guilty of violating ’ ‘ : oR : le entury American literature, the provisions of the act would be dis- ; ; paras | 1. Ri F qualified to teach in the schools of on wh r forefathers and the Bible. In Pittsburgh Florida. ry eae bear ee aman recently killed his son Mr. Thorpe. with some of cause he would not join a iit which forbade dancing and flirtation. The Ameri- an Medical Liberty League, Inc., sends out a tract headed: “Vaccination Violates God’s Law.” Two little girls in Min- nesota have won a trip to Chicago by their ability to recite yer a thousand verses of the Bible at one sitting. “They had never seen a movie, used a telephone, ridden on a street car, or seen a building more than three stories high.” Says the Rev. Mr. Francis D. Nichol, one of the editors of Signs of the Times, of Mountain View, California, credited by Ayer’s Newspaper Annual with the largest circulation of any American denominational paper: “‘Why call upon a group of educational and scientific men to solve a religious prob- lem? ... It is not for a group of educators to decide what they wish to teach the youth, but for the fathers and moth- ers to say what they wish to have taught to their children.” Truth is thus to be determined by majority vote of the ‘axpayers, parents, and Christians—not only in the back- ward States of the Southern and Midwestern hinterland, but insuch formerly progressive regions as Oregon, Minnesota, In California, where the problem is critical, the spokes- man of the fundamentalists is the Rev. George L. Thorpe I have a letter from Mr. Thorpe outlining his ] D y and California. vill the of Corona. position. Here are some excerpts from it: I am a father pleading for the soul’s eternal welfare of my two boys and their Christian citizenship and future wel- fare of our country. Evolution undermines both, creates law- essness, and produces atheists. I have over two hundred his followers, in July, petitioned the California State Board of Public Instruetior to throw out from the publie schools and colleges all textbooks implying or teaching the theory of evolution. Did the board politely tell Mr 10 go | where he came from? It did not. It held hearing hearing, with modernist clergymen as the only fri: evolution invited to oppose the fundamentalists, and it finally side-stepped the issue by referring the question to a committee made up of the presidents of nine California colleges, with Dr. W. W. Campbell, president of the Univer- sity of California and world-renowned astronomer, aa its chairman. Of the nine colleges concerned, six are under denominational control. However, the committee reported adversely to Mr. Thorpe. But a final hearing of the board is stil! to i, at which the report will be considered together with briefs from the fundamentalists and an opposing brief by the Science League of America. Should the board decide to retain the textbooks on evolution, Mr. Nichol, editor of the Signs of the Times, announces that the next move will be to place an initiative petition on the State ballot in 1926, leav- ing it to the voters to say whether or not evolution shall be taught in the schools and colleges of the State. There is small question as to the ability of the fundamentalists to secure enough signatures to qualify such They have already, in fact, qualified for another measure, t submitted in 1926, providing for the reading of the King . were a pe ition. 1 fr r ne

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566 The Nation [Vol. 120, No. 3124 James’s version of the Bible in all California schools. And if the anti-evolution measure passes—as the enormous fun- damentalist strength in southern California may well make possible—not only will the high-school students of the State grow up in ignorance of modern evolutionary science, with all this implies, but the splendid scientific work of the tax- supported University of California will be ruined or se,iously curtailed. Such is the method of foisting medievalism on the Be- nighted States of America. In Oklahoma for more than two years it has been impossible to teach the evolution theory in the public schools. Tennessee has just passed a similar law. In Florida the legislature passed a resolution advising school boards or trustees not to employ any instructor who taught Darwinism, and a bill has been intro- duced making such instruction unlawful. In Texas the board of regents of the State University has ordained that “no infidel, atheist, or agnostic shall be employed in any capacity in the University of Texas. . . . No person who does not believe in God as the Supreme Being and the Ruler of the Universe shall hereafter be employed.” Although there are, of course, many evolutionists who are atheists, a teacher of scientific evolution would have hard sledding un- der the interpretations of such a rule. In Kentucky and Texas the lower house of the legislature passed anti-evolu- tion bills, but the upper house failed to carry the measure— in Kentucky by the perilous margin of one vote. The Bap- tists of Kentucky have voted to give no money to any school teaching evolution. The North Carolina board of education will not employ teachers who believe in evolution. Bills are pending or about to be presented in Mississippi, Georgia, West Virginia, Arkansas, Iowa, Illinois, North Dakota, Minnesota, Oregon, and Arizona. Throughout the entire South and Southwest funda- mentalist and anti-evolutionist feeling is very strong. The Georgia Legislature recently held up an appropriation for maintenance of a State library on the avowed ground that books on evolution might be found there. Dr. Henry Fox, professor of biology at Mercer University, Macon, Georgia, was forced to resign last October because he was a believer in and taught the theory of evolution. Persecution of uni- versity professors on this ground dates in America from the eighties, when Alexander Winchell, the geologist, was dropped from his post at Vanderbilt University because of his acceptance of modern geological theories of the chronology of the earth. The situation in Tennessee is acute and interesting. Eagerly, fervently, with much outpouring of eloquence, the legislature has decreed that any teacher in any school or college supported in whole or in part by State funds who shall teach “any theory that denies the story of the divine creation of man as taught in the Bible, and teaches instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals,” shall be subject to a fine of $100. A proposed amendment to the bill which would have restored to the earth the flat- ness it possessed in the days of Joshua was ruled out of order. This law was enacted without a single protest from the men in charge of the State’s educational institutions. Schoolmen protested against it—and some of Tennessee’s leading churchmen, it is good to say—but the State Depart- ment of Education was dumb, and there was never a word of protest from the State University. Side by side with the effort to prohibit the teaching of evolution goes the parallel movement to teach the creation story of the Book of Genesis; this is usually disguised ,, the reading of the Bible in the public schools. I mysg; grew up in a State where the Bible was read to the schoo) children every morning, and heavy emphasis was laid 5, Genesis. At present, Bible reading in the public schools is requir,; by law in Alabama, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennesse, Georgia, and Massachusetts; it is specifically permitted }, law in Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, North Dakota, Oklahom: South Dakota, and New York City; in all the other Sta:, except Arizona, Illinois, Louisiana (by Roman Catholic infly. ence), Minnesota, Nevada, Washington, and New York Stat, outside of New York City (with doubtful interpretations ;; Idaho, Wisconsin, and Wyoming), it is tacitly permitted: and in nearly all such States it actually is read. Recently Congress was surveyed by the Board of Ten perance, Prohibition, and Public Morals of the Methodis: Episcopal Church of Washington, D. C. It appears that | 435 members of the House, 90 are Methodists, 63 Pres}) terians, 48 Baptists, and 21 Christian Disciples—al! sect; which, while including liberal and modernist elements are largely fundamentalist. In the Senate a similar pro. portion is maintained. Thirty-five Representatives and ' Senators announced themselves as without church affiliatio: Against the powerfully organized and subsidized ftnda.- mentalist groups are ranged two active bodies of pro: the American Association for the Advancement of Scie: and the Science League of America. pointed a committee which adopted resolutions condemning the fundamentalist attacks on science and reaffirming ¢} faith of scientists in the theory of evolution; but it has t date done nothing more. well-known New York biologist, wrote recently in a privat letter that his publishers had requested him in futur to omit the word “evolution” from all his textbooks o: biology, as there were so many protests from the South. The other anti-fundamentalist group, the Science League of America, was founded in August, 1924, in Sa Francisco, for the specific purpose of opposing attacks or the teaching of evolution and for the defense of scientif freedom. It was at first the single creation of Mr. Maynar: Shipley, a lecturer and writer on general science, who was aroused by the menacing situation, and, after vain endea- vors to secure action by established bodies, determined tc throw himself into the breach. Although the league is sti! young and weak, it is already doing good work, and is growing rapidly. If the fundamentalist movement swamps the country, and in spite of all opposition we are set back twelve cen- turies or so, there may yet be hope in emigration to Brazil. According to a recent dispatch, strange things are stirring in the Brazilian soul. As evidence there is the story of 5. Anthony of Padua. In 1625, it seems, a Brazilian regiment was placed by the Portuguese Viceroy of Brazil under th saint’s protection. Anthony was thereupon given the title of colonel, and his salary was regularly paid to the Little Sisters of the Poor. But now God and His ministers have fallen on evil and economical times. After conference be- tween the Minister of War and the Prime Minister, the following communication was issued last October: “Colonel Saint Anthony of Padua of the —th Regi- ment, having completed three centuries of service, is now gazetted general and placed on the retired list.” The former has ap- One of its prominent members, a — 3 Gee —~—_ — -_

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The Nation Paris, April g FTER seven years of involuntary exile I find myself A once more in Paris, which was my home from 1906 +, 1918. I have often wondered whether it would not per- am be a mistake to begin over again the life that M. Cle- annul abruptly terminated. On that point I am reassured. 7 fee] as much at home here as though I had been away for . week, and I know now that France is the only country where I ever shall or ever can feel quite at home. The fail- ings of the French are perhaps more exasperating than those of any other people, yet there is something about them that draws me to them instinctively. They possess to an excep- tional degree that indefinable quality—charm. The methods of the French administration are the same as they were in the Year 1 and doubtless will be until the Day of Judgment. That discovery alone makes me feel at home. The fact that the decree of expulsion made against me in May, 1918, had been revoked, which was officially notified to me by the British Foreign Office on November 28 and by the French Ministry of the Interior on December 18, was still unknown to the prefecture of police when I arrived in Paris. I was on the point of being arrested, after I had visited the prefecture, given the required details about my ancestors, supplied the five necessary photographs, and signed my name a dozen times or so to documents that I did not read. Fortunately, somebody at the prefecture tele- phoned to a lawyer whose name I had given as a reference, and learned that my arrest would be a formidable gaffe. It jid not occur to any official that, had I returned to France illegally, the prefecture of police would have been the last place I should have visited. Externally Paris is much the same. The principal change that I notice is in the women, who seem to have become dowdy. They are smarter in Berlin. I was invited lunch yesterday at the Café de Paris. It was crowded, and there was hardly a well-dressed woman in the place. Perhaps French women have become so serious that they no nger think of clothes; it cannot be want of money, for xople with no money cannot lunch at the Café de Paris. Besides, although the French rentiers are hard hit—their neomes are, of course, reduced by nearly three-fourths—the ther classes of the population seem to be better off than efore the war. Naturally, every woman of every age has ‘er hair cut short, but that does not conduce to dowdiness —rather the contrary. Paris is as full of foreigners as Berlin was until the nd of 1923, and, as formerly in Berlin, Russians and Poles oredominate. Hatred of foreigners is more rampant and more acute than it ever was in Germany, and exactly the ‘ame illusions are prevalent. The Parisian public fondly velieves, as the Berlin public used to believe, that the for- “gners raise prices, and there are demands for all sorts of ‘pecial taxation and other vexatious measures. If and when ity Government is silly enough to listen to such demands, ‘ne foreigners will no doubt leave France, as they have left xrmany; the Government will be abused, as it is in Ger- nany, for having driven them away; and, as in Germany, neetings of hotel-keepers and tradesmen will be held to Paris Regained By ROBERT DELL discuss the problem of methods and procedures for bringing them back. This country is not normal. to realize how disastrous has been the effect of the war on One need not be here long the French people—more so than on any other, in my experi- I am assured by many French people that there is a If this be true, it is just Anatole France, too, anticipated it. He was what the fools called a “defeatist” wanted peace by negotiation, without ence. marked intellectual] deterioration. what I anticipated during the war. + in other. words, he victory on either side, at the earliest possible moment. We both felt that France could not stand a long war—that she would be “bled white.””. I am very much afraid that France has been bled white, intellectually and morally. Her losses were far greater than those of any other country, in propor tion to the population; and a country cannot lose the flower of its youth without injury. It would seem—although | cannot account for the phenomenon—that it was Just among the most promising young men that the losses were heaviest A young man, who has just passed brilliantly through the Ecole Normale and is an versity, told me a few days ago that in his immediate circle young men had been killed. “Only are left,” he said, of course with a certair 3ut I fear that there That French literature is deteriorating is only dent. Most of the younger writers seem unable even to write French, and there is no group of young mer to be compared to Kaiser, or Toller, or Fritz von Unruh. I hear on all hands that the art of conversa! ing among the younger generation, who are ested in bridge and dancing. The introduction of bands into the restaurants supports this view. It is not the old or even the elderly, but young men and women of thirty or so, who complain of their contemporaries and the genera- tion younger than themselves. One has only to read the French papers ar the list of the performances at the theaters to see te the French stage has fallen. So far as I can gather there is not a single young dramatist of promise. Half the Pari- sian theaters put on that depressing form of entertainment now called a revue—the real old French revue of the events of the year was a very different matter, usually witty and amusing. An American friend took me a few days ago to the Folies Bergéere. Now, I do not say that the Folies Ber- gere is a representative Parisian theater; it may be the worst in Paris—I hope so. Still it has a world-wide repu- tation and might be expected to make some attempt to live up to it. I think that without any exception the the Folies Bergére was the worst entertainment that I have ever had the misfortune to endure. It reached the ! depth of imbecility, the alleged jokes made one cry, and was not even a good spectacle. No Berlin theater would dare to put on such a show. My American said that he had seen performances in New York as stupid as that of the Folies Bergére, but none so ugly. It is only just to say that the audience, mostly French, appeared as agrégé of the uni - all the promising the old and the stupid exaggeration. ig @e soathi ; ++ IS Sometning In it. 100 evi- d look down what wrt? + revue at friend bored as we.

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568 The Nation [Vol. 120, No. 31 Whatever may be the truth about intellectual deteriora- tion, there can be no doubt at all that French morale has gone to pieces. Possibly the French were intoxicated with victory soon after the war, but, if they were, they are so no longer. Still less are they bellicose. They seem to have lost their love of military glory and, whatever may be the aims of French diplomacy, the French people have no desire for military hegemony. They are just suffering from shell- shock. Their nerves are on the jump and they are afraid of shadows. That is the danger of the situation, as it appears to me. It would take very little to bring about any sort of panic. These conditions may be only transitory; France may yet recover herself. But when I remember how long the effects of the wars of Napoleon lasted and reflect that the present generation will be the parents of the next, I cannot help feeling uneasy. One thing I find is not new—total ignorance of every other country. France seems to be surrounded by an intel- lectual Chinese wall which nothing can permeate. It strikes me more than ever, coming as I do from a country which in that respect is so different. There are many Germans who know little about other countries, but they all want to know about them and are ready to listen to anybody whom they believe able to enlighten them. “Do not leave us,” wrote a German friend to me, “we need your sympathy, and still more your criticism.” That is a typical German atti- tude, and it is one of the strongest reasons for confidence in the future of Germany. It shows that the Germans are not really nationalist. Fundamentally they are cosmopoli- tan, and now that their fetters have to some extent been broken, their cosmopolitanism is reasserting itself. Their demand for knowledge of other countries is supplied by several newspapers with an admirable and objective fo,.:,, news service. There are no such papers in France. Th few that might like to give a good foreign service can, afford it. And is there any demand for it? The Pian are convinced that they know everything about other on».. tries and have nothing to learn. The notions abo: Cor many that exist here would be comic if they were not tray. 3 The French attribute to the Germans qualities and 4, Pee that they do not possess and deny them those that they . . possess. The common belief is that the Germans are =. 3 dowed with superhuman intelligence and machiavelliay oa a ning, that they are a race of bloodthirsty warriors wh» ae happy only on the battlefield, that their waking hours al filled with the desire for revenge and the recovery of Alsace Lorraine, that they are armed to the teeth and would fa on France tomorrow if the French army evacuated the Rhineland. If one attempts to correct these illusions provokes at the best a stare of amazed incredulity, at +) 4 worst a suspicion that one is in the pay of the G: rmas f Government. These things are not, of course, true of every individy, in France, but they must, I think, be taken into account :; dealing with the French nation. We must be patient wi France. We have to deal with an exhausted nation whos r nerves are on edge. The task is difficult, it needs tact ani a patience, but it is far from hopeless. That is one sirory reason for hope. Passionately, whole-heartedly, the Frenc: # # desire peace. Once convince them that a way to peace car } be found and they will follow it. One of the causes of : present nervous crisis is that they hoped to find a wa peace through the Geneva Protocol, and that hope has beer shattered. A Latin Looks North’ By MANUEL UGARTE ] ISTORY shows that administrative predominance is not necessarily the result of a high standard of cul- ture. In Greece, Rome, and France the broadest intellectual development, far from preceding their supremacy, was simultaneous with it or followed it. We cannot say that nations die from too much reasoning. But a plant is strong while it is growing, and beautiful while it is in blossom; and nations, like individuals, have a combative and creative youth, a reflecting and reasoning maturity, and an old age of reminiscence and inaction. In the effort for human progress the youngest groups must always lead. Never has an old man been known to recover his youthful vigor, and there is no record of a race regaining supremacy in the same terri- tory after it has once declined. But it often happens that old civilizations regain their vigor and even surpass their former power when transplanted to other regions. The discovery of America offered such an opportunity to two ancient currents of thought and action. The Spanish discoverers, the Portuguese navigators, and the French ex- plorers represented the creative power of the South, which is essentially Latin. The English colonists, who settled a * This is the eighth in a series of articles on the Nordics. Previous arti- cles in the series have appeared as follows: What Is a Race? by Franz Boas, January 28; Brains and the Immigrant, by Melville J. Herskovits, February 11; Let Race Alone, by Edward Sapir, February 25; You Nordics! by Kon- rad Bereovici, March 18; Our Nordic Myth-Makers, by Hendrik Willem van Loon, April 1; Can There Be a “‘Human Race’? by Alexander Goldenweiser, April 22; and The Race Myth Crumbles, by Harry Elmer Barnes, May 6. The concluding article of the series will be by Herbert Adolphus Miller. century later in regions they had previously visited, were Q the pioneers of the Northern creative power. And the eve p lution of these two groups, transplanted under similar cond- al tions, is one of the most significant factors in the history of fg the world. N What characterizes an energetic nation at the height of th its activity is the flexible spirit of adaptation with which tt changes its methods and adjusts itself to new situations, drawing new forces from its very being without losing the unity of its nature. What distinguishes a nation that is spent is the obstinate positiveness with which it attempts W to apply its own methods, regardless of the latitude or us atmosphere in which it operates. We cannot compare the intrinsic values of the two cul °0 tures which established themselves in the New World; bu! Wi it is plain that Latin culture, essentially theoretical and limited to small groups in vast regions where the population ne is for the most part illiterate, has been surpassed by Angl- # Saxon culture, more experimental and from the start imbued ial with a democratic conception of life. we When, as if following a river to its source, we under- take to trace the point of divergence of these two Nev #™ World groups we are amazed at the ease with which the wm Anglo-Saxon group, so small at the start, expanded is #j “ tal sphere of action on a continent and in an epoch whic! seemed to belong to the Latins, while most of the vast ter

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May 20, 1925] The Nation

569

—_ sories dominated by Spain, France, and Portugal are falling 9 chaos Or passing under the control of other ee Canny < ra. attribute this process to greater diplomatic ski] Frens fi agacity would be to admit the superiority of the group hich gained the advantage. Everything indicates that in addition to these factors there were collective forces, which trag: we may call order, tactics, foresight, perseverance, initiative, rT fers and spirit, of persecution, which, applied at the proper mo- ment, " resulted in greater efficacy of action. Few of our even after winning their independence and

ire ar, repl iblies, n oul oi » through a century of autonomous life, have suc- ho are ery in settling the question of national boundaries, in rs an ME ytilizing their sub-soil wealth, or in gaining a clear concep- \Isace sem of their destiny, while the United States has utilized its 1 fal | creating hitherto-unheard-of forms of prosperity. d the | “The portentous progress of the North marks the highest which the activity and genius of man has attained S, One me degree at the anywhere in the world. In New York, Chicago, or San rman Francisco one is struck dumb with astonishment before a idden, gigantic achievement which makes one live in the vidua future. The Anglo-Saxons have realized the miracle of a int in roung nation developed by a new civilization. The Latins, with with the exception of a few regions at the extreme South, represent young nations bowed under the weight of an t ang ge ancient civilization. rong I have always believed that the men of the South rene gE should face the situation squarely, frankly, and courageously. can A My strongest desire is to see Latin America united, prosper- ous, and victorious. Whatever it does to lessen its chances + f development I feel as a personal sorrow; and with this in jeer ME vind I have devoted several books to the need of mending ur own ways and adopting a common policy of resistance. it this does not imply hatred of nations which, in the xercise of their rights, aspire to become the leaders of humanity, nor does it indicate a false conception of our position in the world, or imply excessive humility. Superior qualities exist in both groups. But the supe- rior qualities of the Latin civilization have been theoretical, were nd the superior qualities of the Anglo-Saxon civilization eve practical. We boast of our tolerance shown to the aborigines ondi- after the first excesses of the conquest, as attested by the ry of fact that the Indians, who have almost disappeared in the North, number millions in the South; and we are proud of nt of the ease with which slavery was abolished almost simultane- ch it wusly with the granting of independence, placing the Afri- ions, anon a decent footing in our various states. the Yet, praiseworthy as these steps may be from the point it is of view of higher morality, they have created situations npts which hinder the rapid development of the group, leaving » OF is burdened by the dead weight of these masses of popula- tion. Superior theories have resulted in inferior material cul- ‘onditions which, combined with a tendency to day-dream, but with empiric education, and with the enervation inherited and from a civilization which stopped to admire itself at the tion height of its power, were bound to result in chaos or stagna- glo- ton. Nevertheless, these masses which cannot be assimi- ued ated constitute a guaranty against absorption as long as ve keep ourselves in tune with present-day life. der- The prosperous regions of Latin America are those Jew which, like Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and Uruguay, have the realized that it is not by dwelling on former mistakes and its ‘alling dates and names out of the past that we can main- ‘ich ‘ain our chance of survival in the life struggle of nations. Henee the tendency to what we call revisionism in the

Latin make-up. Our parent civilization, surcharged as it is with dead ideas that cannot be applied under present con- ditions, has admirable qualities, but lacks the ready means of expression necessary for meeting the new developments of the world, and the particular needs of America. Nations cannot live on tax receipts. Greatness can be attained more effectively by the plow or by factories than by denunciations or speeches, which, after all, are mere pretexts for blindly following the flimsy illusion of a miracle that will suddenly break down in our favor laws which have been sanctioned by experience. I have always believed that Latin Europe should be watched carefully in the higher sense of recalling to our scattered republics their common point of departure, the tradition which draws them together—a sort of spinal col- umn for the new organism. Economically Europe can give us today only a continuation of colonialism. As for an international political body it would be an insecure at best, and would act only when its own interests were not involved, and when it was not h: fear of diffi culties with the United States. Now that the war we are interested in Europe only in the commercial balance as a fertile source of immigration, and as an ethnic or mental antecedent in the advance toward the civilization which must spring from its own being. : autnority mpered by is over as a factor of equilib: of power, It would be a seriou us mistake to believe that we car fulfil our destinies by imitating stagnant civilizations. Not imitation is urgent, but a revival, inspired by the honds which hold us to the in the sources of our own inspiration and bor origins we respect, of vitality renewed edge, just as the United States has metamorphosed and magnified the Anglo-Saxon civilization whic! erited from England. Nations do not die intact. They crumble in a continu ous process of disintegration; and certain regions of Lat America may already have passed the stage where restora tion is possible. They have created unawares favorable to Anglo-Saxon influence, thr: t determir ism of continental gravitation rather than throug? erate policy. Does this mean that we La i down before it? Does it mean that the United Stat ] open the flood-gates of its own vitality, and spread over ter ritories ter. times more vast than those which caused the downfall of the greatest empires of history? While Spain and Portugal were diluting themselves, Anglo-Saxon concentrated his energies. However undis- puted their supremacy, however easy their domination, the statesmen of the North refrained from exter political jurisdiction over the nations which are coming to be materially dependent on them. This subtle form of colonialism implies a process of impoverish- ment which is significant in proportion to the size of the territory in which it operates. No nation can take much from another nation without being affected itself. The strength of the conquering power is drained in proportion to the distance which separates it from its base of opera- tion. have nortartor perrected Through all the ages this has been one of the causes determining the downfall of ruling empires, overwhelmed ir some cases by tributary civilizations, or suddenly over- thrown by slave revolts, as was the case with Rome There is a continental problem—an economic and racial one for the United States, an ideological and emotional] one for Latin America—and this problem expresses itself vari-

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570 The Nation [Vol. 120, No. 312, ee ously, according to the ethnic make-up, the geographic situa- tion, the density of population, the degree of culture, and the extent of European immigration of the various Latin countries. In regions of Latin America, particularly in the extreme South, there is beginning to develop spontane- ously and autonomously a civilization both similar to and divergent from that of the United States. It was retarded by the manner of the colonization and the early territorial expansion, which actually hindered development. But there has been also a complete transvaluation of values in the South, and this is an important factor in the life of the continent. Our America has long had much to learn from the United States, and I firmly believe that our evolution will never go quite as far as its has; I am also certain that it can bear fruit and flourish only within the logic of its own antecedents and its own make-up. Anything else would be painting over a reality which would reappear sooner or later, and which would keep on changing underneath until even the painted color itself is changed. There is no force in the world strong enough to transform to the roots the mentality, character, and spirit of eighty million people in such vast regions. And to escape a difficult future, beset with Indias, Irelands, and Egypts, statesmen must avoid the stubborn self-righteousness that always leads to disillusion and conflict. Over and above the wounds inflicted on it by imperial- ism the Latin civilization in America has a common interest and an important point of contact with the Anglo-Saxon civilization: the necessity of both to protect themselves, especially in the Pacific, from Asiatic influence or penetra- tion. There are struggles to come between the Oriental and Occidental civilizations, and this possible community of in- terests has not been sufficiently taken into account as a fac- tor in continental diplomacy. If the Latin Americans have made mistakes, so have the Anglo-Saxons; and the greatest mistake of all was to drive some of the Southern nations, whether through fear or from a desire for revenge, to turn instinctively toward Asia, opening up a dangerous field which may have harmful results for both in the future. I believe that the Latin civilization will develop in America in spite of all difficulties. In the regions which have been awakened and strengthened by the new spirit it is beginning to stand on its own feet. In weaker regions the United States, acting in accord with higher conceptions, will finally aid in making it possible for the Latin spirit to flourish for the benefit of all. This is not fantasy. I have spoken without bigotry and without foreign prejudice, dealing objectively even with my own grief for Latin America, in order to present things as they are instead of presenting them as I should like them to be. But in the life of nations, as in the human body, there is, besides the physical part, something spiritual. Nations have something intangible which gives them char- acter and establishes their position in history. And the United States will continue to be an idealistic nation because idealism is inseparable from health and youth. Just as it has changed its material conditions, it will modify its prin- ciples. It will try to bring about a situation which will stand the test of time, will realize the latent possibilities in the Latin qualities; you North Americans will realize that a civilization can be really superior, in the opinion of others as well as itself, only when it conciliates all the forces which play a part toward the betterment of the human race. == What Is a Sin in College? By A. P. BROGAN ROPHETS offer dogmas and philosophers construct ar-. chair theories. Ordinary persons have varying amoun of respect or disrespect for these dogmas and these theories but usually assume that the real business of living m), disregard them. Our leaders of thought denounce the eo-. mon man for not being more easily led, but politicians - salesmen have no such complaint to make. The troy). i that our thinkers have been ignorant of the attitudes «: common men, so the common men have naturally ignores their alleged leaders. To overcome this fatal separation, it seemed necessary; that students of ethics should abandon their introspectiy: arm-chair theories and study the people they presume to er. lighten. As a small step in this direction, a study was mai: of the moral valuations of students in American college Such studies should not be limited to college students, by: the existence of large classes of students in ethics cours: offered a desirable beginning. Partial reports about thes studies have been published during the past three years ;; the International Journal of Ethics. Those reports wer written for professional students of ethics, but the main re. sults are clear and interesting. As Mr. Bertrand Russe! referred to these studies in The Nation [April 30, 1924), seems fitting to restate some of the results. Thinkers of former days drew up lists of “cardinal vir. tues” and “deadly sins.” It would be difficult to say how closely those lists corresponded to dominant popular att: tudes of the times. For our present purpose a more obser. vational method must be employed. We must first see whs moral topics popular opinion has “on its mind.” Then w r must study these elements of popular morality. Accoré. 3] ingly students were asked to give lists of the “best pra. # tices” and the “worst practices” that they knew. The stu- ri dents seemed to be unable to give any significant list of best tf practices, whereby hangs another tale. So the study wa: Ww confined to the bad practices. There happened to be just er sixteen of these bad practices which stood out as being mentioned most frequently by the students. The list of of sixteen practices, in alphabetical order, is given below. T Cheating Sabbath-breaking | Dancing Selfishness : Drinking Sex Irregularity Extravagance Smoking Gambling Snobbishness Gossip Stealing Idleness Swearing Lying Vulgar Talk This list was drawn up by the students without any ” influence from the teacher. For this first study, the meat ni ings of the practices were left on a purely common-sens 4 basis, with no attempt at accurate definition. Many persor: will be surprised or vexed at this list. It includes som items which are not usually regarded as being very objet tionable. But it is desirable to include some trivialities, i f such they are, in order to have an approximate point of in difference from which to measure up or down. There ar : many other items which some might desire to include. But my this list of sixteen practices represents what is on the mine of these students before they make any study of ethics

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‘ought sex irregularity worse than murder. May 20, 1925] The Nation 571 _— There were Many other practices mentioned, but never by ore than a few students for each practice. "This alphabetical list of practices was then given to +ydents with instructions to rank the practices according +» comparative badness or “‘worseness.”’ The students were taken at the very beginning of a course in ethics before any influence could come from teacher or textbook. It appears that any group of two dozen or more stu- jents gives substantially the same ranking that any other such group gives. Below are printed the average rankings given by several hundred men and women at the Univer- sity of Texas during the years 1919-1921. The rankings oe based upon arithmetical averages. Number 1 repre- sents what they think is the worst to do, and so on for the thers. PRACTICES RANKINGS BY Men Women et SED cose vcvinsceccssveeces 1 1 EE cbhtcdehnccave da earannnsed 2 2 PEE 60h 06d4 004s ddeneserveraeces 3 3 Lyin 2 cc cPocvccscsccsscscscccvsccecs 4 4 POP eT CTT TTC TTT TTT TT 6 5 SPE ee Cy Tere ee 5 6 Re ere rT eT 7 7 ocean eal eden ke es 9 > PPT OTUTT ETT T TLIC e TCT ee Le 8 9 DE chskedee cb eee wiuvicenkeetine ens 13 10 OCC ECRE TCE EO CCR CECE 10 11 SRE RR ea ee art PCO tra ae me ae 11 12 ET ne eet ee ee 12 13 NN ECT CT EET Tee ree 14 14 PE re eee er re ee re 15 15 DOE dA cncdnenddcscvvedépensesenes 16 16 Please notice how similar the men’s and the women’s rankings are. The only significant difference concerns gos- sip, about which the women seem to be somewhat more “touchy” than the men. The relation between these two rankings may be expressed in technical terms by saying that the coefficient of correlation is positive .98. In other words, these two rankings contain only 2 per cent of differ- ence. This is an unusually high correlation. This same test was given to students at the universities of Columbia, Chicago, Kansas, Wisconsin, and Colorado. The rankings in these Northern universities were the same as the rankings at Texas, with the exception of one prac- tiee. In the Northern universities sabbath-breaking is placed in the fourteenth or fifteenth rank, as relatively un- bjectionable. At Texas it is placed in the eighth or ninth rank. This seems to indicate a sectional difference between ‘he North and the South. Any one who has lived in both laces will have little doubt about the actuality of this lifference. With sabbath-breaking omitted, the women at Texas and at Chicago had a correlation of positive .99. So we may say that except for the religious or ecclesiastical dif- ‘erence about sabbath-breaking, the students in typi- al American universities have almost identical moral valuations. The practice of murder was not mentioned in the lists iften enough to be included in the final list. One young woman put murder in the list for her home town, but tossed it off with the explanation: “Hardly a practice in ny town.” So Mr. Bertrand Russell was hardly justified in “ying that my figures showed that American students I suspect the case is otherwise, but of course the method for settling such a question is the collection of facts. Another state- Mr. Russell was that Ameri- can students thought sabbath-breaking worse than stealing. I have never found any group for whom this would be true. ; Sab- middle or at the . 7 nan - - ; « ive ment made some time ago DY ¢oali (cf + aglwavte - ? mteailng 1S almost aiways next to tae top or worst. bath-breaking is placed either in the bottom of the list. These inaccuracies in the details of Mr. Russell’s quo- tations from my article might not affect the correctness of his low opinion of the } +c aents. moral valuations of American stu- » might despise these valuations no matter what they are. My own attitude might be expressed in the words of Spinoza, “not to ridicule, lament, or despise, but to understand.” After we have understood and described the different types of popular attitudes, interpret them. Perhaps in prove these popular attitudes, but only on the condition that we can have factual knowledge about them. we can explain and some Ways we can even Im- In the Driftway A N advertisement in the newspapers has almost changed Fs the course of the Drifter’s life. He had thought of himself as one who would never alter his profession, wh would be content with merely drifting his days. But when he he was not so sure: for the balar of had finished reading the following Two Rapio ANNOUNCERS WANTED There is a thrill and fascination in th But a man has to have many qualificati He must have a resonant voice; educat i] background; imagination; with broad acquaintanceshiy r a readine translate an idea He must play some mu when an unforeseen gap occurs in a proyrat He must have tact—and a sense of The men we want need not have } but they must have wished to br The hours are frequently long—but it’s great fur pioneer in an ART. The compensation is moderate man has to demonstrate his value. One of the men we want MUST be a capat mpanist at the piano. * " * , " : ( BSERVE the qualifications: tact, propriet wit, inventiveness. The Drifter feels that be lacking in any of these. A sure about the resonance, but the waitress in } f restaurant always hears his order above al] others telephone operator once asked him not to speak His singing voice is not quite so resonant, but no doubt, racnnant wv 9 + re man voice: ne ; ] judging from such voices as he would do. His piano playing, to be sure i could leave that to the other announcer, since on!s e need nas nearad r) tr¢ r ‘ + ia hedal tf » bb qualify. For years he has had to accu hours. Drifting from sunrise to dark igh to hards anyone. And moderate comper ation dogged his footsteps all his lif What 1 culty? Why does he not apply immediately for th and spend the next few years as a pioneer in ar reason is simple, so simple that his readers have doubtless guessed it already. He has never, never, never to a thousand

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572 The Nation [Vol. 120, No. 3194 nevers, in any moment of aberration or otherwise, by day or night, on land or sea, asleep or awake, wished to be a radio announcer. a * * * * * HE Drifter’s aversion to the radio is probably illogical and overdone. There is certainly no reason why persons who wish to do it should not spend their evenings turning knobs and talking of tubes, bulbs, wires, buttons, neutro- dyne, super-neutrodyne, and super-hetero-neutrodyne. If the alternative is going to the movies or listening to the music of a victrola, then there is not much to choose. By this time, it will be evident to the Drifter’s readers that age, crotchetiness, and perhaps dyspepsia have overcome him. The truth is that the Drifter’s favorite evening sport is con- versation. There are few persons really competent to take part in this fascinating game, but those who cannot play can listen. No equipment is necessary; the game can be played anywhere, by any number of persons—the fewer the better. No modern machinery is brought into play, how- ever large, intricate, or marvelous. Participants need neither sing nor play a musical instrument; if the hours are long, the compensation is enormous. Only the ancient action of ideas on ideas, of speech on thought, of knowledge, lucidity, and laughter on the human spirit is employed. The Drifter advises those friends of his who now are occupied with the radio to try his game sometime. They may, with him, find it the most completely satisfying of sports; they may be bored to extinction. In the latter case, they may turn back to their knobs in perfect content. THE DRIFTER Correspondence Louis Fischer and His Critics To THE EptTor oF THE NATION: Sir: My attention has been called to your issue of March 4, containing an article by Louis Fischer on Political Prisoners Under Bolshevism. Mr. Fischer’s all too obvious object is to create the impres- sion that, while in Russia, Emma Goldman and Alexander Berk- man were not particularly interested in persecuted politicals, but that now, being disillusioned, they use that persecution as “a weapon for an open struggle against Russia.” And here is how Mr. Fischer supports his thesis: Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman went on a special train to make propaganda for the Bolsheviks in the Ukraine. Now, in 1920 and 1921, when they were in Russia, more political prisoners crowded the jails than today, and they were worse treated. Berkman and Goldman knew these things. ... Nevertheless they found it possible to support the Communists and to lend themselves to winning anarchist converts to the Bolshevik cause. Mr. Fischer knows very well that Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman never went to the Ukraine to make propa- ganda for the Bolsheviks. Nor did they travel in a special train. It is a matter of record that Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were commissioned by the Petrograd Museum of the Revolution—a non-political, non-partisan organization—to col- lect material on the history of the revolutionary movement and on the revolution. Together with the other members of the com- mission they traveled in a car put at the disposal of the museum by the railroad commissariat—not in a special train. The fact is that Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman accepted that particular work, out of many far more important positions offered them by the Bolsheviki, because—radically disagreeing with certain policies and methods of the Communists—they could —=—y not conscientiously cooperate with them in partisan actiy;:, Mr. Fischer says that “in 1920 and 1921 .. . political pr. oners crowded the jails,” and that “Goldman and Berkman kney these things”—leaving the impression that they were indifferen: in the matter and did nothing about it. Lenin, Trotzky, 7;, viev, Lunacharsky, Kursky (People’s Commissar for Just!ce) et al. could, if they would, tell a different story. For to a|| ap; each of them Goldman and Berkman repeatedly appa behalf of the imprisoned revolutionists, even making a differe,, policy toward the latter a condition of their own coopera: with the Bolsheviki. We arrived in Petrograd January 19, 1920. The very next day began our protest against stupid political perseeutio, For we found out that the non-Communist members of the By. ford group had been ordered under guard by the Cheka, be. cause there were three non-politicals in the group, deport: the American Government as common criminals. Zorin, tary of the Petrograd Committee of the Party, saw the j of our protest and ordered the release of all the revoluti that came on the Buford even if they were not Communis: A few weeks later I came to Moscow. Learned there : a number of Anarchists were being held in the Butyrki ang other Moscow prisons. Together with Rogdayev and As! Russian Anarchists of twenty years’ standing, I visited Kres. tinsky, then secretary of the Communist Party, and later made repeated visits to Chicherin, Karakhan, Lenin, Lunacharsky Zinoviev, and others. With every one of them the matter of political persecution was discussed, pleas made for the releas of revolutionists, practical plans submitted, among other person and in writing to Lenin. Accompanying the (first) English mission from Petr to Moscow, as their unofficial interpreter (May, 1920), I found upon my arrival in the capital that forty-five Anarchist on a hunger-strike in the Butyrki Prison, their demand being that charges be brought against them or that they be liberated On the fifth day of the strike the other politicals in the p: numbering several hundred persons, joined the strike. It was then, on May 25, that I appealed to Prebrazhensky, then secre. tary of the Communist Party, in behalf of the politicals im- prisoned without hearing or trial. My diary under that das (May 25) reports: “Their demand for an examination is leg Prebrazhensky said, “but they can’t change our policy by starv- ing themselves. And if they should all die,” he added, though fully, “it would perhaps be for the best.” Entirely well disposed toward the Bolsheviki, as I was du the first year of my stay in Russia, and anxious to aid in co structive revolutionary work, I sought every opportunity t vince the Communist leaders that a policy of revolutionary tolerance and an ethical attitude toward their political opponent from the Left would serve the revolution far better than perse- cution. Even after my final and open break with the Bolsh after the Kronstadt blood bath, I still strove to help change their policy toward the imprisoned revolutionists. I was a member of the Committee of Delegates (during the first Red Trade Union Congress, July, 1921) that took part in the conference wit! the representatives of the Soviet Government, the Communist Party and the All-Russian Cheka in regard to the Taganka hunger strike. Our conferences lasted almost two weeks and resulted 12 the termination of the strike and permission to the Anarchists imprisoned in the Taganka to go abroad. The fact is that all the time during their stay in Russia from the first day to the last, both Goldman and Berkman exerted themselves to the utmost to persuade the Bolsheviki change their policy toward their revolutionary political oppo nents who demanded only the right to carry on educational work But their efforts in this direction were in vain. Finally reali ing it, and finding mutual work with the Bolsheviki impossi)¢ after the Kronstadt events, they decided to leave Russia * appeal to the awakening conscience of the laboring masses " protest against Bolshevik tyranny and persecution. Berlin, March 18 ALEXANDER BERK MAN thar Year a ye an

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24 oo The Nation 573 May 20, 1925] +) THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: . siz: Mr. Berkman takes great pains to prove that he pro- vested against the political persecutions of the Bolsheviks. He a I never tried to give the impression that he did not. But “a fact that in a thousand and one ways he worked for the ‘eyolution while protesting only supports the point I made re . + : : ghich was that though he knew of the persecutions he worked «th the Soviets, and then when after Kronstadt he grew dis- ‘ysioned these persecutions became a weapon with which to stack the Soviets. ~ 1 saw for the first time today The Notion of March 11, in «hich Henry G. Alsberg’s letter appears. It is endlessly | Alsberg to say that there was in the Russia of 1920 a .op-partisan organization. The Museum of the Revolution was ised in a state building; the train on which Berkman and Goldman went was of course given them by the state. “To col- ‘ct historical material,” says Mr. Alsberg. Was it necessary for this purpose to go into the very war zone; in Ukraine? The Pact is that at that time Machno, the anarchist, was active in she region into which the train went. The Bolsheviks therefore A nt Berkman and Goldman into the territory in order to show -hat these world-famous anarchists were with the Soviets. 4nd surely Berkman, at least, is intelligent enough to un- rctand that when the future of the Red regime hung on a which might have been cut by some counter-revolutionary army the Communists did not care whether he collected a few pers or not. They wanted him to help bolster up the morale of the Ukrainian population. This he and Miss Goldman did. What difference does it make whether Miss Goldman went as an sbserver or as member? To those who were to be propagan- lized the distinction was unknown. Will you please permit me to reply to the letters of B. C. Viadeck and F. A. Mackenzie in The Nation of March 18? Mr. Vladeck is one of the editors of the daily paper which brought \bramovich, the well-known Menshevik, to the United States. \bramovich’s permanent home is Berlin, the capital of the Ger- man republic. In this German republic there are, according to several reliable English correspondents, among them Robert Dell, 7,000 political prisoners, most of whom are Communists. In this German republic, too, the Social Democratic Party, with which Abramovich works hand in glove, is the most powerful norte ALLY. naive f Mr. rose ao | Does Abramovich in his speeches in America point out that Russia with so many enemies within and without, after faving passed through a real revolution and several civil wars, tas fewer political prisoners than Germany? I doubt it. Soviet Russia has 4,500 politicais. Mr. Vladeck asks you to inform him “Why should they [the wlitical prisoners] have to be sentenced to serve in prison if they could be held there at the will of the G. P. U.?” The answer is that they are not held in prison at the will of the ¢.P. U. They are held in prison only when they are first pub- iely tried. He asks: “What difference does it make to a prisoner if he ‘incarcerated as a result of a trial or by administrative order?” The answer is that when they are incarcerated as a result of a ‘rial they remain within the walls of a prison; when they are ‘Incarcerated” by administrative order they are in many cases ‘ree people living as they please except that they must report to ‘se police at certain intervals. Mr. Mackenzie scores a point when he intimates that priests, shops, ete., might be treated as politicals. Some people may ‘sagree. Yet priests in prison are often treated much better than politicals. Was not Archbishop Zepliak sentenced to ten years in 1923? Recently he was in Rome, amnestied after about ‘year’s imprisonment. Incidentally no one ever mentions the “any amnesties pronounced by the Soviet Government. As to Mr. Mackenzie’s third point I can simply weigh his vord against that of the necessarily unnamed foreign ambassa- ‘or who said to me that nobody was arrested for making visits to foreign embassies or missions. I know of no case to indicate the contrary. The visit of Mr. Mackenzie’s “distinguished political economist” may not have been purely social. Such things have happened before. Mr. Mackenzie is correct in saying that Peshkova’s commit- tee cannot make “public appeals for funds.” But it collects money from prominent Communists, obtains food and materials from government institutions, and Bolshoi (Grand) Theater. arranged a concert even in Mr. Mackenzie, finally, maintains that Solovetsky is sepa- rated from the mainland for more than five months. This is not so. And even during the five “ice” months letters and even newspapers are carried to the island on smal] boats. To pass now from these letters to the general subject. I do believe that many persons are honestly pained by the knowledge ° y that persons are imprisoned for political reasons. In the first place, they should remember that not all] the prisoner: tu sia are incarcerated for opinions; many are in prison for acts $1 inca raved Jy opinions, many a l I rea very violent acts. In the second place, they should not permit themselves to be used by persons whose interest in the prisoners is very secondary to their desire to blacken Soviet Russia Berlin, April 9 Louis FISCHER Another Appeal from Nova Scotia * TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sirk: Could I please point out to you the appalling condi- i tions existing here? The Committ ring for over 500 fan lies (over 2,500 persons), but is able ¢ pply onls bare necessaries of life. Milk and eggs are considered luxuries. The strike which is now in its ninth week r the or ( e of so much destitution; the bad times of the last two years have drained the miners of what little money they previously had in reserve, This committee is not taking sides in the labor dispute. Our only aim is to feed and clothe the semi-starved men, w and children. unable to provide the necessary clothing for the little Perhaps some of your readers would subscribe a little to sist us. Stellarton, Nova Scotia, May 2 Frep ©. Cr Secretary, Citizens’ Central Relief Committee There are a number of expectant mothers who are A Prize for College Students Sir: The Students’ Council of the National Woman's Party is offering a prize of $100 for the best essay written by a re student on the subject Equal Rights for Men and Women. The prize will be given by Mrs. William Kent of Califorr The essays are to be between 3,000 and 5,000 words, and must be sent to the Students’ Council, National Woman's Party headquarters, not later than June 15 announced at the October conference of the Students’ Coun and the winning essay will be published. Washington, D. C., April 1 MARY VAN CASTEEL, Chairman, Students’ Counci National Woman's Party Unjust Postal Rates TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sirk: I wish to thank you for the ho in the April 29 number of The Nation exposing the great injus- tice of the new postal rates to the great mass of the American people. Big business certainly has shouldered the burden upon r + r ro r* 2 Phas 4 at 4 : it the backs of the unorganized and to a great ex ing mass of people, but of course the people are partly themselves for the apathy or, in other w their thinking or reasoning powers. Indianapolis, Indiana, April 29 B. T.

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Books, Art, and Plays — New England By WILBERT SNOW Inside, gray smoke curls up, Outside, white flakes troll down Against bare maple trees In an old New England town. Earth lags securely sealed To any tropic gust, Like a plain New England heart Indifferent to lust. Nestled in little hills A waning breed of men Birth-date their headstones— What is left then? Ie i ‘ , . Kirst Glance MEORGE M. COHAN’S “Twenty Years on Broadway, and the Years It Took to Get There” (Harper: $3) goes with a bang. I am sure it was written in a hurry, for Mr. Cohan is not the kind of man to tear his hair over problems of style; his playwriting has usually been done at rehearsals while the actors were waiting for their parts, and once when he was asked on what lines he usually con- structed his dramas he claims to have replied: “Mostly on the Pennsylvania and New York Central.” “No, sir. The real answer is work, work, and lots of it—and plenty of speed, too, kid. Don’t forget the speed.” Speed is perhaps the only quality which this autobiography can boast. It is frank, of course. Yet the achievement about which it is so frank is bound to pass into an early oblivion. And if it is amusing now it hardly will amuse a generation which has forgotten the Irish song-and-dance man who before he was forty-six wrote 31 plays and 500 popular songs, managed 128 theatrical productions, and as an actor gave 3,471 per- formances before large audiences. For the future historian of our manners it will be a document of some importance bearing upon the show business during a certain quarter- century. For us now it is chiefly interesting as the story of an attractive, brash American who, discovering very early what he wanted to do and never in the least dreaming that there was anything else to do, did it with a furious and comical energy which in itself is characteristic of the age. No one ever had more self-assurance than this Peck’s Bad Boy of the Cohan Four who began to scribble “parodies and patter” at fifteen, who danced and sang and acted his way into fame despite a hundred rebuffs, who struggled to New York from the provinces and conquered Union Square, and who at last found most of Broadway stretched like a tri- umphal carpet before his eccentric feet. And no one ever entertained less doubt that immortality is made of just such stuff. Irving Berlin is a full ten years younger than Mr. Cohan, but his life already shapes into romance. Alexander Woollcott’s “The Story of Irving Berlin” (Putnam’s: $2.50) celebrates that life with not a little skill. As a busker along the Bowery, and then as a singing waiter at Nigger Mike’s saloon in Chinatown, the boy Izzy Baline had for his hero, it seems, no less a writer of songs than George M. Coha, When later he graduated to Jimmy Kelly’s saloon in Unjp, Square and began—as Irving Berlin—to write the words Pi songs published by Ted Snyder, and when in 1911 he burs upon the world with “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” he team fore was in a position to be thrilled by Mr. Cohan’s “Yoy’;, there, kid, you’re there!” Within a few weeks followe; three other incredible hits, “That Mysterious Rag,” “T}, Ragtime Violin,” and “Everybody’s Doing It”; and there. after Irving Berlin was to let no season pass without 4 least one riotous success like “My Wife’s Gone to the Coyp. try,” “This Is the Life,” “In my Harem,” “Sadie Salome Go Home,” “Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning,” »; “When the Midnight Choo Choo Leaves for Alabam’.” Now as head of Irving Berlin, Inc., and director of the Mys; Box, he rules his profession wholly; and it is time perhaps to consider just what kind of musician he is. Mr. Woo!) . pT a a a rl ae a ae ae 4s of the masters who have profoundly understood their jntri. cate art; he prefers to place him somewhere near the head of the composers of folk songs. This is probably right— though one wonders incidentally at the parallel which Mr. Woolleott suggests between his hero and Homer, who he supposes was unable to read or write; and one is consider. HRC: ably annoyed by his sentimental insistence that back of Mr Berlin are “generations of wailing cantors to tinge al] his 9" work with an enjoyable melancholy.” Mr. Woollcott a probably not too cynical when in a different context he hints that “somewhere within him the voice of the publisher alse whispers reassuringly that sadness is rather apt to sell better than gaiety in the song market.” MARK VAN Doren i Race and Character The Character of Races. By Ellsworth Huntington. Charles “ Scribner’s Sons. $5. Fj y¥EW of the anthropological books which have followed the se war vie in interest with this one. It is a work with a thesis, cia and it is characterized by sweep of thought and by dranuatie ith: actuality of idea. The entire range of man’s life on the earth ne is envisaged, roundly and with concern for the essentials. The mor latter are, in principle, three: first, “sudden mutations, or possibly small but progressive deviations from the standard type in a definite direction; second, racial mixture; and third, natural selection”—these from the strictly biological angle. From the physical angle there are the two great environmental factors, the gift of nature and the social transmission of cul ture. What is interesting in this catalogue of principles is not any novelty of elements but the fact that Mr. Huntington frankly and frequently recognizes mutation (one might as wel! call it creation) as a vital and real factor in our destinies, and a factor for which as yet he sees no basis of prophecy. There is no smug juggling with a wooden “heredity” and an equally wooden “environment.” Of course Mr. Huntington’s book directly concerned with heredity and environment; these, he says, are the factors about which something is known. Bu he takes pains to analyze them into constituents, recognizing in each term its complexity. If there is any quarrel to make with his terminology it is with his too catholic employment of “natural selection”; even the admired type of beauty in wome is a matter of moral selection, in that it is created by th conscious tradition of a human group; and most of those factors which instil greatness into human history are th direct outcome of moral selection.

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ere a nose +he Va V 20), 1925] The Nation Vid - wr. Huntington seems to illustrate his own shortcoming ith respect to this moral element in his analysis of Chinese sare, to which he devotes four exceedingly interesting chap- eu! . B sors Thus he cites the sale of younger daughters in times of cic . . : —— mine as evidence of the innate selfishness of the Chinese, nine it seems to be but the direct outcome of Chinese With us, in the face of present death the code of honor demands that we save the female members of a group first, beginning with the children; with the Chinese the demand is that all sacrifice themselves to the grandmother, and the grand- father and the mother follow next in order. It is the moral rale of filial piety, and it may call for every sacrifice, even to n rendering his own flesh for the support of his parent’s ’ % Probably this same difference in attitude explains many ggerences between Oriental and Occidental culture. Chinese conservatism is mainly pious preservation of the wisdom of the gncients; our progressivism goes hand in hand with a concerted nticism concerning the benefits of tradition. “One should add that Mr. Huntington gives less than due ‘it to the Chinese race, and rather more than their due to the +herners, Mongols and Manchus, who have invaded China. e periods of Chinese history in which northern China has ben ruled by foreigners have been regarded by Chinese torians themselves as the culturally “dark” ages, and in that . " c mor rT i hie nis- - south where today Mr. Huntington finds a more lively native rulers frequently held sway while the rth and west lapsed under foreign conquest. Certainly (:inese historians would take exception to the statement that ‘most of the Chinese dynasties have been either genuine reigners or else of mingled Tartar-Chinese stock”; and it ;; worthy of note that the real organization of China, under Manchu Chings, was owing to the ability of a Chinese, Kung Tsung-chu. Nor is it possible to share the author’s ration for the late Empress Dowager, who was a thorough tionary, bringing the evils of the Boxer uprising upon her inttry and expending upon the Yee Ho Garden the ten m raised for national defense after the humiliation by n a lige nce ’ Finally, the method employed for gauging the relative ielligence of the provinces of China is certainly faulty; and nee it is in essence the same method later employed for urope and America it deserves some comment. From lists of Micials and men of eminence born within given regions within set period Mr. Huntington makes his general estimates of ial endowment. The results are interesting and valuable thin restricted limits. For China he gives a map showing ye percentage in 1910 of holders of high literary degrees mong the native officials per ten million of inhabitants. The ithern half of the empire, which is presumably the most rely Chinese, shows from double to five times the rate ex- jited by the north. There are, however, two pronounced neptions: Chihli, in which is the national capital, is a rthern province and ranks second only to Chekiang and angsu. on the eastern coast; while Kiangsu, although mthern, is barely above the provinces bordering on Tibet and Wingolia. Mr. Huntington explains the high place of Chihli as due ithe unusual gifts of the Manchus, as well as to the fact at the national capital naturally draws able families, and he ves emphasis to Manchu attainments in the old Chinese tary examinations which “required an unusual power of meentration, unusual determination, and many other high ‘ital qualities. If the Manchus had not possessed those ulities in considerable measure we should scarcely find large imbers of them holding high Chinese literary degrees. Yet 1910, at the end of the old regime, among 410 major officials 0 held such degrees, 50 are recorded as Manchus and 3 as ‘mbers of the Imperial clan.” On their face these figures em conclusive, but their significance vanishes when we take “0 account the facts that the Manchus had their own special schools, under Imperial favor; that they were not expected to with for the first three degrees; and that a official positions was accorded to them because of race, including educational as well as civil offices. illiams says, Mongols and Manchus were favored at the “the large proportion of men compete Chinese ‘ertain percentage of of the Chinese; belonging races filling high offices indicated who were the rulers land.” On the other hand, the low Kiangsi takes on another color when al affairs of its high rank in internal position in offici commerce is considered. There is a Chinese saying, “No town without its Kiangsi,” meaning that t merchant guilds of the men of this pr nce re found everywhere throuyhout the interior; and it is in this strongly Chinese province, always the center of t finest pottery art in China, that the most notable Ching pottery was produced. Of course there is in all this 1 f tt l ? Iperior to the north. The south is the wealthier, while in the nor flo and famine, Mr. H igtor , re t great scourges Perhaps the most that |} map indicate : the value of coast line, though there still remains t} nter that the interior provinces of Kwei ' i H n forn extrao! dinarily favored regi n na t tne eY Fi y" ticular, both in t ( |] Chinese ter 1! n recent political and s | movements, has given birth to many and striking leaders The example of China is taken wit! mi it illustrates the shortcomings of ar ' to the more complex cultures of Europe and America’ T reviewer’s plea in t connect for he It is too easy to surrender iu f the heights, let us say, of Icelandic i: rence to t dangers of sudden degenerat ere ‘ ‘ r thinks Mr. Huntington, is already r rea and great, and it is only by concerted cor f that we can insure a reversal] of directior t “cor scious control of natural] selectior er ‘ next method.” Here we are falling back into * pious ror of the biosociologist, but the problem which th ithor mind is real enough, even after we have War f the speciousness of statistics. Civilization is in per always in peril; and its perils constitute our moral pr Fitzgerald on the March By F. Scott Fitzgerald. Charles Ser:} The Great Gatsby. ner’s Sons. $2. HAT will be the future of F. Scott Fitzgerald? T query has been futilely repeated whenever a new boor from his pen has appeared, since the initial errogation ¥ greeted the publication of that sophomor aster T Side of Paradise.” It will be asked more earnestly than befor by prescient readers of “The Great Gatsby,” who will recog therein a quality which has only recently made its debut t writings of this brilliant young author, the quality vagus referred to as mysticism. Moreover this is a fine yarn, exnia- ratingly spun. Mr. Fitzgerald is a born story-teller; ra and sentences carry the eye easily throug! f books. Further, his work is imbued with that rare and ber cent essence we hail as charm. He is by no means iace.ng in power, as several passages in the current opus abundant.y tes- tify, and he commands a quite uncanny gift for hitting off r acter or presenting a concept in a striking and memorao.e man- ner. The writer he most resembles, curiously enough, despite . . ° ° ° at al and r r -# the dissimilarity in their choice of material and point of t t present in the attack, is Booth Tarkington, but there exists at work of Mr. Fitzgerald a potential brutality, a stark sense of

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reality, set off in his case by an ironic polish, that suggests a comparison with the Frank Norris of “Vandover and the Brute,” or “McTeague.” Up to date, Mr. Fitzgerald has occupied himself almost exclusively with the aspects and operations of the coeval flapper and cake-eater. No one else, perhaps, has delineated these mun- dane creatures quite as skilfully as he, and his achievement in this direction has been awarded authoritative recognition. He controls, moreover, the necessary magic to make his most vapid and rotterish characters interesting and even, on occasion, charming, in spite of (or possibly because of) the fact that they are almost invariably presented in advanced stages of intoxica- tion. More cocktails and champagne are consumed in the novels of Scott Fitzgerald than a toper like Paul Verlaine could drink in a lifetime. “The Beautiful and Damned,” indeed, is an epic of inebriation beside which “l’Assommoir” fades into Victorian insipidity. In “The Great Gatsby” there are several of Mr. Fitzgerald’s typical flappers who behave in the manner he has conceived as typical of contemporary flapperdom. There is again a gargan- tuan drinking-party, conceived in a rowdy, hilarious, and highly titillating spirit. There is also, in this novel, as I have indicated above, something else. There is the character of Jay Gatsby. This character, and the theme of the book in general, would have appealed to Henry James. In fact, it did appeal to Henry James. In one way or another this motif is woven into the tapestry of a score or more of his stories. In Daisy Miller you may find it complete. It is the theme of a soiled or rather cheap personality transfigured and rendered pathetically appealing through the possession of a passionate idealism. Although the comparison may be still further stressed, owing to the fact that Mr. Fitzgerald has chosen, as James so frequently chose, to see his story through the eyes of a spectator, it will be readily apparent that what he has done he has done in his own way, and that seems to me, in this instance, to be a particularly good way. The figure of Jay Gatsby, who invented an entirely fictitious career for himself out of material derived from in- ferior romances, emerges life-sized and lifelike. His doglike fidelity not only to his ideal but to his fictions, his incredibly cheap and curiously imitative imagination, awaken for him not only our interest and suffrage, but also a certain liking, as they awaken it in the narrator, Nick Carraway. When I read Absolution in the American Mercury I realized that there were many potential qualities inherent in Scott Fitz- gerald which hitherto had not been too apparent. “The Great Gatsby” confirms this earlier impression. What Mr. Fitzgerald may do in the future, therefore, I am convinced, depends to an embarrassing extent on the nature of his own ambitions. CARL VAN VECHTEN Master Misery By Edith O’Shaughnessy. B. W. Huebsch, Viennese Medley. Inc. $2. HE tragic life of hungry post-war Vienna, condensed into the story of Aunt Ilde and her nieces and nephews, is the theme of this book. It is the muffled outcry of a frail old lady, a sweet product of pre-war Vienna’s balmy atmosphere, whom a Walpurgis storm, sweeping over this town of music, caught in its eddy, wrested from her comfortable home, and threw on the hard sofa of a miserable alcove room. Aunt Ilde, whose career had been devoted to loving the children of three other women, looks at life’s capricious freaks in breathless amaze- ment. Misery and the quicker pulse necessitated by a more intensive struggle for existence have transformed all those around her into beings who are different from their former selves. She cannot comprehend them, and yet she loves them. Appropriately to the theme and to the genius of the place were this low-toned tragedy is enacted the chapters are headed, in the manner of Romain Rolland, by musical terms descriptive in

—,

each case of the ensuing mood. The chapter which bears the inscription “Adagio assai” is particularly rich in sug, Stes melody. One can hear in it the clash of arms between two ,...

bounded by a bloody war—the first being that of Schuber: ., Johann Strauss and the second being that which now d.,... e* to the tune of Master Misery’s whistle. It was thus tha: ., reality of the new era dawned upon Aunt Ilde: “One m rning 8 in that terrible little hour before the dawn when anxiety ».. BB” done its worst, she got up and counted and recounted the ¢;, . packet of crowns left in her purse. . . . The result had <p: }.. Me” shivering back to bed, where, frightened by a fear bey n she had ever known .. . she had pulled the bedclothes up 9;., her head. She was afraid, afraid... .” y EMIL Lencypy Children of the Century The Spring Flight. By Lee J. Smits. Alfred A. Knopf. 32: 48 O type of the contemporary novel is so assiduous vated in America as that of which Floyd Dell’s “\ ? Calf” is the best-known example. Literally dozens of youn, fR® men have written the autobiography of their youth \ little attempt to disguise the source of their material, oi though they have not in most cases shown any evidence of : ' large imaginative grasp which makes the genuine nov: |): }-a® giving him the power to participate in the lives of others, th; jm have, in a surprising number of cases, written what | to write extremely well. They have had but one adi: nty for the effort to adjust themselves to the life of their coun: ; t when this adventure has been told they have had nothi: ll to say; but they have been keenly self-conscious, and t! } spoken with energy and fire. To discuss them too seriously as creative artists is to forge *®" the nature of the artist’s gift, which includes a far greater power of projection and which keeps alive in the artist a passionate interest in life long after he has made his primary adjustments These young men, once they have passed through the funda. mental experiences, once they have broken from parental! °- fluence, found their first regular employment, and themselves in the world of amorous experience, cease to & more keenly alive than the average man. They have, if yu wish to put it so, been but temporarily stimulated into art by the emotional tension attendant upon growing up, and they cannot, like the artist born, sustain their passion by «ny ser- eralized or impersonal participation in the continuous dram of life. Thus they are not in the most important sense ! at all. Yet their work has a very real significance of its own The first or the second of these novels which one ready strikes one with a new sort of truth. The fifth, the sixth, omy’ the seventh may perhaps seem merely a little repetitious. Bu finally, if one perseveres, they take on a new impressivenes: by virtue not so much of their individual strength as of the! bulk and the unanimity of the testimony which they beat They are not, obviously, copies of one another—the feeling of each is too genuine to be imitation—and yet so similar are the in outline and attitude as to constitute nothing less than t) biography of a generation singularly homogeneous in its and yet obviously different from the generation which preceé it. These young men copied one another’s lives no more tha! they copied one another’s books, yet somehow they found them selves stirred by the same disgusts and moved by the sam vague impulses. " him ere

All over America youths whose disconte could not be traced to any reading or instruction awoke realization that the ways of life accepted by their communi held no interest for them. For no immediate observable ¢a% they had ceased to believe in the standards of value or te cod of morals which seemed to their parents self-evident, and in °" way or another they broke away. Some thought they felt ™ call of artistic pursuits; others, more confused, drifted 1 temporary vagabondage of one sort or another and, ha'f °™

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c * 20, 1925] The Nation

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z ae = sinced that those who disapproved of them were right, admitted + they were “no good”; but one and all these youths experi- ented with life. They sought their bread, their philosophies, .4 their loves in ways which were adventurous at least in the : ae that they were not accepted ways, and if in the end they srrived at something as commonplace as, let us say, journalism marriage, they did not arrive at them by a beaten path, but ‘ously and dangerously. Only dimly aware of one another, aed yet more dimly aware of their own aims and purposes, they ere working together without knowing it. They broke the mold : American life to such an extent that the various institutions ne church, the school, the Elks’ club, and the chamber of aaeentiiial seemed to their parents adequate channels of social life are such no longer, and the various conventional satterns into which life arranged itself in business or profes- sion are no longer so regularly traced out. - Mr. Smits is a typical member of this group. Described ys the son of a Puritan minister and as one who, having for the most part no formal education, spent most of his life in news- naper offices and lumber camps, he has written a novel which, whatever portions of it may be imagined, is obviously a record of his own emotional life and, though of course original in many incidents, essentially like the novels which dozens of his contem- poraries have written. His hero, son of a respectable grocer and mperance agitator, finds himself for no discoverable reason entirely out of sympathy with the ideas and the ambitions of his parents. He begins by frequenting dance halls and saloons, the = places of his town, largely because so doing furnishes the only protest of which he is capable against the life he is ass upon to lead; and later, drifting from employment to em- ployment, he meets every sort of person except that sort which oc- cupies a a recognised niche in society. He has, of course, his love adventures, and he ends nowhere in particular; but his adven- tures are colorful, and they are described with vivid frankness and detachment. Mr. Smits has not written a great novel, but he has written an entertaining book for the reason that he is a child of the century and can describe many others in describing himself. JOSEPH Woop KRUTCH that J na an

Books in Brief By Eunice Tietjens. files from Home. “$1.50. Continuing the mood and technique of Mrs. Tietjens’s free- “Profiles from China” (1917). Something is lost by her oming home. Alfred A. Knopf. The Salem Witch Trials. By William Nelson Gemmill. Chicago: A. C. McClurg and Company. $2. Copious extracts from the actual testimony of witnesses is ere for the first time given to the general public. lhe Marriage of Two Nations. By Saxby Vouler Penfold. New York: The American English Literature Society. Extraordinary things have been done in the name of sex, ut Mr. Penfold is, we believe, the first to find in onvincing explanation of why Great Britain and the United States are separate nations and why they ought to be united. Those who agree with the author in thinking that God ought tot to be referred to as a male, that the original Adam was jsexual, that the deep sleep into which he is said to have ‘llen, “and from which he has never awakened,” was a hypnotic vance in the course of which he lost the feminine part of his tature, and that since Britain in history represents the brutal tale and America the altogether lovely female, sexual attrac- ‘on should bring the nations together in a union which “will cmmand the commerce and secure the peace of the world,” sex a wll be likely to get a prodigious amount of satisfaction out if this book. By the doubters, who will be many, it will be ‘ismissed as rhapsodical nonsense.

Life and Erica. By Gilbert Frankau. The Century Company. $2. Erica did not bury her talent. Instead, she took it up to London and there she met life. Life isn’t all that it should be, but then it never is. At least it has compensating features, which Mr. Frankau describes skilfully. The novel is a highly colored affair—a slightly burnt offering of the mythical jazz age. By Ernest Pascal. Brentano's. $2. Mr. Pascal invites the reader to weep with him over the fate of an unrecognized genius cut off from paradise by the flaming sword of jazz. His hero is so fearful of “compromising The Virgin Flame his art” that one begins to have serious doubts as to its existence. The book is vivid in incident and rich detail; it is only the major premise which has grown shiny at the elbows National Party Platforms. By Kirk H. Porter. The Macmillan Company. $2.75. A collection of the m 1840 which should prove or secondary sources ar and m latforms since ajor inor party f useful to those to whom the origina! unaval ilable Alfred Stieglitz Presents Seven Americans By GLEN MULLIN Alfred Stieglitz established a N EARLY twenty years ago 4 Fifth Avenue what was then known as the Phot Gallery. It became a unique institution in American art Through the influence of Mr. Stieglitz we came into close with the freshest and most significant of the new ideas w } were agitating contemporary art in Europe. Exts exhit tions of work by Matis e, Picasso, Henri Rou 1, Rodin, Toulouse-Lautrec, and others came to the Photo-Secs n Gal lery, or “291,” as Mr. Stieglitz now prefers to call it. Th gallery not only imported foreign pioneers in the strange it sponsored the experiments of young Americans who had som thing new and vital to say. Such diverse painters as Mared Hartley, Georgia O’Keefe, Max Weber, John Marin, Abra} Walkowitz were first made known to the public at “201." W) effect Mr. Stieglitz’s pioneering may have upon * leve! of American art only t n tell; but surely his high-minded hospitality to so many expl be a subversive influence in the art of any country Mr. Stieglitz recently peneares at the Anderson Galleries ime can rers and innovator ild scarce “159 paintings, photographs, and things,” friend whom he had featured in past exhibitions. They included paint ings by Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartl J Mar ( rles Demuth, and Georgia O’Keefe. The photographs mpr studies by Paul Strand and Mr. Stieglitz. 17 ng , were all manifestations in various degrees of expre The expressionist painter does not concern himself with repr ducing the obvious shapes, colors, and textures of objects; wt interests him is his own reveries or adventures in the em world which the object stimulates him to create. The 7 record on canvas of this experience is calculated to g.. ne the hue and form of the emotion, the aesthetic impact of the psychic discharge itself; and so far as represent cerned, the object responsible for the combustion is per s¢ unim- portant. So the object itself in the characteristic expressionist canvas is knocked into an adumbrated cocked hat. The outer world is no longer the recognizable world to which our physical senses are adjusted. It emerges sublimated in * <halations of the Inner Self. It flows out upon canvas, an arbitrary trans- mutation, an iridescent bubble blown out of a froth This process is a negation of realism, of course; but it is entirely legitimate provided the artist “expressing” himself uses sym- bols that we can understand—a language that communicates genuine aesthetic emotion. Too often one feels that the expres-

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578 The Nation [ Vol. 120, No. 31, sionist painter in attempting to liberate his confessions from the unconscious is thwarted by the very temporal limitation of painting. Anchored in an art which is simultaneous, his mes- sage really demands an art of successive impressions—poetry or music. At any rate his trouble is imperfect communication. The frequent tragedy, then, is not that the expressionist is applying a glass eye to the keyhole of his soul but that his visual adventures are related in an unintelligible idiom. John Marin’s contributions to the recent exhibition are a case in point. Mr. Marin has created in the past some of the most lovely nuances of tone that have ever been floated upon the medium of water color. There has been a steady progression in his work, however, toward a mode more and more abstract, although until recently it has remained distinguished and beau- tiful. His admirers were puzzled by the revelation of his latest phase at the Anderson Galleries. There one was confronted by incoherent hashings of line, empty design, and very little evi- dence of his fine color passion. He seemed to be sporting sol- emnly with intellectual notations to such a degree as to stifle in the beholder all imaginative delight. Mr. Marin is groping for something; if he has found it, he alone knows what it is. Less austere was the work of Marsden Hartley. Gifted like Mr. Marin with fine perceptions, he, too, is exploring with most dubious results. He was represented by a few landscapes and a multitude of still lifes. As the dominant color note of the entire show was terra-cotta and the pictures were all low-keyed, the general effect was depressingly monotonous. There was some sense of design in the landscapes, but the still lifes were merely amorphous accumulations of objects crudely painted. A lemon, a glass dish, a dried herring, a lily suggested no differ- entiation of handling. With texture, atmosphere, perspective, tone, design all carefully extracted, little was left beyond a feeling of weight. One wonders if the aesthetic value of mere volume is not overestimated these days. Arthur Dove was represented by several storm motives that were not without beauty. These, however, were overshadowed too conspicuously by a clutter of stale jocosities made up of painted sections of wood glued together, bits of glass, sand, oyster shells, old watch springs—all assembled in glass cases and labeled Friends, Long Island, and so on. The Independent Artists, a few years ago, squeezed the last vestige of mirth out of this species of carpentry. Charles Demuth’s portrait posters were excellent. Even though one as an outsider did not get the full force of the comic symbols, he could at least admire the craft employed. Of all the painters exhibited at the Anderson Galleries, Georgia O’Keefe understood most clearly what she was about. Objective reality for her is a tenuous espalier upon which the spirit expands in strange, exuberant florescence. But this ex- pressionism of hers, unlike Mr. Marin’s, communicates itself. She records her moods with an accent which imparts a definite emotion to the spectator. She takes leaf, tree, and flower motives for the most part and translates them into gorgeous patterns of color. This color is beautifully managed upon the high, intense notes of the palette. Miss O’Keefe’s rapt subjec- tivism resolves the hues and forms of reality into their essen- tials. We intuitively feel and recognize the truth she has made; it is not as if we were contemplating just Miss O’Keefe’s per- sonal edition of the universe created by and for herself as a solitary, lonely possession. It is rather as if a blundering some- thing—our way of looking at nature, perhaps—had caused us to miss the essence of things, and then, quite suddenly, the aesthetic maladjustment had vanished. As for Mr. Stieglitz’s contribution to the exhibition, little need be said. His studies were beautiful, as they always are. This time he featured clouds marvelously lighted and composed. Paul Strand’s photographs of sections of machinery paled be- side them. Some of the painters whose work Mr. Stieglitz has championed would do well to imbibe his conscientious and lofty ideals of craftsmanship. —., Drama Ibsen’s Iago N O play of Ibsen’s is more characteristic of him than “p,. mersholm,” now being given a very intelligent perf,,.. ance by The Stagers at their Fifty-second Street Theater, y.,, other of the master’s works touches his mind at more ga)... points, and none affords a more typical illustration of his dray,. turgic method. The masterly interweaving of the two trage)... the one of the past and the other of the present, in such a yw, that the revelation of the first keeps exact pace with the y, folding of the second and the two climaxes, the one retros», tive the other contemporary, follow upon each others’ heels, ; one of the greatest triumphs of his constructive skill; and - other play of his succeeds in crowding within its short eng: a greater number of the problems, social and individual, w}; those who seek to emancipate themselves must face. It sometimes happens, however, that the most characte. istic of an author’s works is not of necessity his best, and ; it is with “Rosmersholm.” The very fact that it includes ; much, that it attempts to deal at once with heredity, which ; the subject of “Ghosts,” with the social ostracization of a leads and his betrayal within his own ranks, which is the subject ¢ “An Enemy of the People,” and with its own particular then: the completeness of exposition or the finality of treatment whic: it receives in the other plays; and it might, indeed, be difficy: to appreciate fully the implications of some of the points o view indicated were it not that the memory of other pla; illuminates them. The piece is thus a sort of coda, returning: and briefly restating themes developed before, rather than , wholly independent work; and moreover its closeness to th; author’s mind makes it partake to some extent of the tempor! nature of all minds. Such a view of the rank of “Rosmersholm” in the list of Ibsen’s plays is, perhaps, a little heterodox, but a candid com. parison with the current production of “The Wild Duck” y I believe, justify it. Fortunately, however, to deny that : is Ibsen’s greatest is far from saying that it is poor mersholm” remains very great drama—so great, indeed, : the problem offered by a short review is the problem of « ing which of its many fascinating aspects shall be discuss: Putting aside its sociological problem, there can be no « that the conception of the character of Rebecca West is : thing which shows most clearly the advance made by the aut over all previous dramatists in the understanding of at leas one of the problems of human nature, or that it constitutes the distinctive contribution of the play. This girl, possessed of the magnificently vital will of youth and a conscience free of all scruple, had, it will be remembered, found her way to Rosmersholm. There she had seen in th young minister a fit instrument of her purpose and, moved ha! by a ferocious devotion to a scheme for the propagation of ai- vanced ideas and half by a growing love for the man himself, she had decided to rid him of the wife whom she regarded as 4 burden to him and to her. Gradually and all unknown to hm she had insinuated into the mind of the sick wife the idea tha it was her duty to remove herself, and finally, as a supreme sacrifice of love, this wife had flung herself from a little bricz to death in the mill race beneath. Now had any previ dramatist stumbled upon such a plot, Rebecca could not seemed other than a fiend. Her remorseless will, the subtle‘ of her guile, and the inhuman skill with which she played up” the goodness of others make her a sister of Iago—a problem in inexplicable evil—and as such Shakespeare, for example, wou have been constrained to treat her. But the human heart not so simple; villains clear-cut and self-confessed are figme™ of the imagination and born of an observation which can": a ~.93 ce — Cc) ro-rz i il

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The Nation trate into the innermost recesses of the soul. aa f Iago, if Iago ever existed, lay a tortuous psychology » Shakespeare, who saw him as simple black, could not nae end, but which Ibsen, in an analogous case, could; and ne magnificent confession scene of the third act he makes ae ‘7 in 0 Tie ly “Ros nthe lay her soul bare. She had not definitely and deliber- form. wee committed herself to evil, but evil had slipped upon her New a wares, and even in the moment when she was en her ices [MIE oct fiendish designs she was not undivided; for one half of rama. .oq said: “This is what I want to happen,” while another half ; assured her: “But it will not and cannot really happen.” had begun to plot in the service of a fanatical devotion to a e ur. ME *cause,” and this devotion might at least seem to justify her. cradually the desire to gain for herself the possession of the » had intruded itself, but so gradually that she herself did AW She nd ry al know at what moment she had ceased to be a pure if fanati- leng ..) servant of an idea and become merely a remorseless woman whi wcuring the object of her passion. Down somewhere below the vel which critical consciousness can reach, subterranean de- «res had bewitched while they molded her into the semblance of a demon which she could not recognize. Who can set up to judge her wane she cannot judge herself, who can set her down as simple villain when she herself was caught in a more subtle she could devise? That is the question which elf when confronted with a Rebecea repre- trap than any every artist of today must ask | similar problem. The day of Iagos is passed. sents the modern conception of villainy, and Ibsen was the first to show conclusively how this conception might be made dramatic The present performance is, as I have said, highly intelli that is because it isa little Miss Marga ret Wye ) ] . . gent. If it is not abs iutely perfe t A } Wt Tye jued a not sufficiently tense. too sub ley is magnificent in her moments of self-reproach and despair, but less successful in the earlier scenes when she is called upon to suggest quietly the enormous vitality and fascination of the The next best individual bit is contributed by J. M. Anthony as Doctor am adequate in the character. Kerrigan as Ulric Brendel, although Car] Kroll is extremely good, and Warren Will: tosmer. JOSEPH Woop KRUTCH very exacting role of Johannes les ¢ —— - | ich js (9) Cader THEATRE ) we) THEATRE 9 | Belasco THE HAREM W. 4th St. with WILLIAM COURTENAY Eves. at 8:30 ati : : Mats. Thurs. and distinguished cast & Sat., 2:30 ne ? Holbrook Judith Empire whict : in Eves. at 8:20 whick “THE DOVE” Mats. = Wed. feu : By Willard Mack & Sat, 2:20 + ‘1 = 6 L A D I E S Lyceum WwW. 45th St. OF THE Eves. at 8:30 EVENING” Mate, Thurs 2:30 ODounrrms MYNlVSC=-wmey mmr lun ACTORS’ THEATRE PLAYS ( “A BIT O’ LOVE,” John Galsworthy’s great play, for cial Tues. & Fri. Mats. at 2:30. Unusual cast headed by O. P. Heggie & Chrystal Herne. € “THE WILD DUCK,” Ibsen’s thrilling drama. Eves. 2, Mats. Wed. & Sat., 2:30. ( Both at 48th St. Theatre. Bryant 0178. Seats Now. erman Gantvoort presents Barry Conner’ ilarious Comedy of Youth, Love & Laugh ELLS BELL you ered. ne 4th Month! GEO. THEA., B’way & 48d St. Eves., 8:86. a M. COHAN MATINEES WED. & SAT., 2:30. Every Evening (except Monday). as a Saturday Matinee, May 23. THE NEKIHBORHOOD Sheridan’s Famous Comedy pwns’ §*The Critic’’ riage Limited Engagement. Final Performance, May 24. 18 Orchestra, $1.50. Balcony, $1.00. a a ARTHUR HOPKINS presents “WHAT PRICE GLORY” A new Play by Maxwell Anderson and Laurence Stallings PLYMOUTH THEATR 45th St. W. of B’way. Eves. 8:80. Mats. Thursday and Saturday. THEATRE GUILD PRODU CTIONS T Theatre, 52nd Street West « ad GUILD Png & :20 Mate, Thurs. and Sat BERNARD SHAW'S famous comedy CAESAR and CLEOPATRA with a brilliant cast, includ Lionel Atwill, Helen gd dies ‘testis Albert 3runing, Schuyler Ladd, Her Travers, Edmund Eltor and seventy others St age - by Philip Moeller THEY KNEW WHAT THEY WANTED with RICHARD BENNETT and PAULINE LORD KI AW West 45th St. Evenings, § 40. Matinees We ineaday and Satu rday, 2:49 THE GUARDSMAN GARRICK Theatre, 65 West 25th Street Lves., &:40 Mats. Thurs. and Sat., 2:4 GREENWICH VILLAGE 222 °°2°2 | By William Congreve LOVE: LOVE Screen Sensation A Paramount Picture RASS ween ae a Daily OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS j The Debate of the Season — RESOLVED: That the Russian Soviet System Is Superior to Parliamentary Democracy Affirmative Negative M. J. OLGIN, Workers Party Prof. WM. GUTHRIE, ©.C.N.Y. Central Opera House, 67th St. and 3rd Ave. SUNDAY, MAY 17th, 2 P. M. Admission, 50c. = —————————————————— When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation

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International Relations Section India’s Opium Traffic URING the recent debate on the budget in the Indian Legislative Assembly, the Independent and Swaraj groups asked the Rev. C. F. Andrews, an Englishman who is close to Gandhi, to prepare for them a memorandum on the use of opium in India. At the opium conference held under the auspices of the League of Nations at Geneva India was officially “represented” by two Englishmen; In- dians have protested that these officials did not express the desire of the Indian people in the stand they took but only that of the Government of India. Portions of Mr. Andrews’s memorandum are here reprinted from the Bombay Chron- icle of March 30: INTERNAL The Government of India declared at Geneva that India’s internal consumption of opium could not be limited to India’s medicinal needs. But the opium reformers, including America, would have been satisfied if India had agreed to reduce internal consumption approximately to the index-figure of the League of Nations, which stands at 6 seers (one seer equals approxi- mately 2 pounds) per 10,000 of population. That amount of 6 seers per 10,000 is arrived at after much calculation, and is regarded as sufficient to supply amply the full medicinal requirements to civilized people. Today, the opium figure for the whole of India is nearly 12 seers per 10,000 of the Indian population, or nearly double the estimate of the League of Na- tions. But while there are “opium” addicted areas in India where the consumption is enormously too high, there are also many whole provinces wherein the League of Nations index- figure is hardly at all exceeded. For instance, the United Prov- inces stands lowest, with a rate of 6 per 10,000—exactly the League of Nations figure. Bengal, Behar, and Madras stand next, with a ratio of 8 per 10,000. The Punjab stands in the middle, with an average of 11 per 10,000. Bombay is double the amount, with 22 per 10,000, and Burma’s figure is 28. Assam is far the worst of all, with the alarming rate of 52 per 10,000. In some districts of Assam, where the Assamese race predominates, the rate goes up to 173 seers per 10,000 CONSUMPTION .and 189 seers and even to 237 seers in one instance. The last- named figure is the worst in India and Burma. In Burma the presence of the Chinese makes for a high average. We have Mergui, with its tin mines which employ Chinese laborers, with a consumption of 147 seers per 10,000, Tavoy with 66 per 10,000, Katha with 55, and so on. These high figures in Burma are due to the presence of Chinese who are opium smokers. But the most alarming figures of all are probably to be found in the modern industrial centers of India itself. There the excessive consumption of opium is very marked, and we know from the records of Bombay and Ahmedabad and Cal- cutta how much this is given by mothers to young babies. The figures are as follows: Calcutta consumes 144 seers per 10,000, Rangoon 108, Ferozepore 60, Ludhiana 49, Lahore 40, Amritsar 28, Cawnpore 29, Ahmedabad 42, Bombay 43, Broach 51, Sholapur 35, Karachi 46, Hyderabad 52, Madras 26, Cut- tack 25, Balasore 56. In Calcutta and Rangoon, the presence of Chinese prob- ably accounts for the extraordinarily high percentage. It is not difficult to see that on the whole the mass of the Indian village population remains remarkably free from excess in opium consumption (except in Assam and Burma). But the town population, where the religious sanctions of the village life have broken down, has begun to succumb to the insidious opium habit and the danger is very great indeed of still fur- ther increase of vicious consumption of opium. I have already mentioned the daily doping of babies. This leads to chronic ta, constipation and children who are thus habitually doped syg., from debility and intestinal weakness for the rest of ¢},., lives. We are in danger of producing a weakly ang 4, bilitated industrial population which will be a terrible 4;., on the prosperity of India in the future. ' Let me, before passing on, give in a table the opium ».. sumption of the different provinces and areas: United Py... inces 6.6 per 10,000, Bengal 8.1, Behar and Orissa 8.3, y,. dras 8.5, N. W. Frontier 10.2, Punjab 12, Central Provinces 14; Bombay 22.2, Burma 28.7, Assam 52.1, Beluchistan 6, Ajmey 52.7, Coorge 2.3 (Delhi not given). Grand total 12 per 10 p99 After examining these figures very carefully it wil] , seen that it is in the most thickly populated agricultural] proy. inces on the whole that the lowest records are made. The fre four provinces, whose records are fairly near the League of Nations index figure of 6 per 10,000, have a population os 170,000,000. It is clear, therefore, that if we were to de,) thoroughly and drastically with what might be called the darko; areas, such as Assam and the industrial centers, we shou); effect two objects: (a) We should counteract the terribly near danger of th vast bulk of the Indian population becoming infected—a fat, which has already happened to China. (b) We should be able to bring down the final grand tot! for the whole of India, which is now just double the League of Nations index figure, to a much more decent level. Indeed, we might bring the All-India record within the medicinal limits recognized by the League of Nations itself. It may be stated, without hesitation, that if we could bring the All-India figure down to 8 instead of 12, the League of Nations at Geneva would be satisfied. The actual figure for America today is 8 grains per head, which works out at about 4 seers per 10,000 of the population. But Switzerland, even with a Dangerous Drugs Act, is as high as India’s present rate of 12 seers. I have quoted these statistics to show that there is still undoubtedly large variation even in the West, where opium can be obtained only under medical prescription. What follows from this analysis is the fact that if we seriously tackle the three outstanding evils of the present internal opium situation in India, namely: (a) The Chinese evil in Burma and Calcutta, (b) The Assamese race addiction, (c) The increasing evil at industrial centers, we might actually be able, without a Dangerous Drugs Act at all (which would be very difficult to work in India), to bring our opium consumption down to a much lower figure than at present, and we should be able to stand a very fair comparison with Japan and the leading nations of the West. But for such a drastic revision and impartial inquiry to be effective an All-India Committee must be appointed. It would not be satis- factory merely to rely on local investigation, for, as wil! » seen from the above analysis, the problem must be tackled as a whole. I hope that such a drastic inquiry will be asked for when the opium vote is brought forward on the budget. The Royal Commission of 1894-95, on which the Government of India continually relies, is now out of date. A new India has come to birth since then, with new industrial and other prob- lems. Also India has become an original member of the League of Nations. For these and other reasons a new inquiry is absolutely necessary. Whether it should be a Royal Commis sion or not should be decided by the Legislative Chambers. It ought to be made clear to everyone that Japan and the United States and practically every Western country have re fused to make revenue out of opium because they are aware that consumption beyond medical requirements “is a dead loss in health and strength and moral stamina to the whole nation.” As Ruskin so well pointed out, the ultimate wealth of any country is the weal, or well-being, of the people. 0 financial return can make up for loss of health and moral 45

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limits bring ue of e for about even rate there vnere f we The Nation May 20, 1925] Therefore, every rupee saved from the opium revenue to many rupees saved in public health and public A fall in the opium revenue must be always a matter -ratulation. A rise in the opium revenue is a thing to ives * EXTERNAL CONSUMPTION It is now necessary to turn to the export of opium from India ‘ye countries of the Far East for purposes of opium smok- “ the end, at Geneva, it was over this opium exported for smoking—rather than over the internal consumption of “qm in India, beyond medical requirements—that America nally broke away and left the conference. F It is necessary at this point very closely to follow the n argument, because the good faith and honor of India ived. America has publicly accused the Indian Gov- + of conniving at a breach of a solemn contract, signed aled at the Hague Convention of 1912-13, in the plainest terms and in quite undiplomatic language. : and India were accused before the League of Nations of breach of treaty. Many apologetic words were uttered after- rand ” Lord Robert Cecil in trying to smooth matters over, nite of all attempts at a compromise and appeals to the an delegation to withdraw the words uttered, the strong, sunt, and almost brutal accusation still remained, unrepealed 3nd uncorrected. President Coolidge, fully approving of the of the American delegation, recalled the delegates by a “rt cablegram in disgust. Let us examine very carefully the actual point at which this breach occurred and the accusation which was leveled Great Britain and India as responsible and civilized America 1 cp end $ 3 ha uo {mer 4 i hint Ll, The Hague Convention of 1912-13, in Article VII, states a3 follows: The contracting powers shall prohibit the import and export of prepared opium. Those powers, however, which not yet ready to immediately the export of ired opium shall prohibit it as possible. prohibit pl as soon A large proportion of the opium exported from India goes 0 the British possessions in the Far East. It is at once pre- pared by the government of those British possessions for plum smoking and sold in opium dens under a government The Government of India gets out of its contract ty saying that it does not send out prepared opium, but raw sium. The American delegation stated that this was a mere It was a connivance between two parties at a breach ‘f contract, because it was well known that all the opium sent wut from India to the Far East was used for smoking purposes. The British possessions in the Far East which imported this Indian opium took shelter under the words “shall prohibit tas soon as possible.” They said that they needed time to The American delegates pointed out that ‘thirteen years had already elapsed since the signing of the Hague Convention, on January 23, 1912. How much more ume did the contracting powers want? Could they go on ‘laying till doomsday? .. . Let us see how the matter stands for India itself and the lligations of the Indian people with respect to world opinion ind the opinion of the League of Nations. It is quite certain that practically every chest of opium tat leaves India for the Far East is immediately prepared fr smoking and used for smoking. Therefore, Indian opium Thich is used all over the Far East should obviously come un- ‘er this article of the Hague Convention. The only real imbiguity lies in the closing words: “Shall prohibit it as soon & possible.” Having signed this Article VII, we in India ought as soon s possible to have reduced our export of opium to the Far fast to such amounts as are sanctioned by the League of Nations, ie., to about 6 to 8 seers per 10,000 of population. At present, the consumption of Indian opium for smoking in monopoly. 0 Great Brit- HENDRIK VAN LOON? cee eee eee eee ae we CP OOF HERE I wish to take advantage of your special offer to readers « and enclose $2.00 for 12 issues of SUCCESS Regular Price $2 * Name Do You Agree With In The June Issue of Success TG HUMANZ Magazine Mr. Van Loon Says: We « t e t!} children durit cr ¢ A r their oF bra} eS were crammed with tales of mur der, hate and blood .. . it was like raising children in an insane t y yr to 1 | } } 1 take ten vears to get them back tor i] the young @ z= ¢ a 7 good f idament her t “Youngs Girls Are Not Unmoral”’ 30 — Striking Features — 30 including “Main Street Goes Shopping in Wall Street’ Astounding Story of the Dodge Motor Car Deal ‘‘Another Lincoln in the Cabinet Attorney General John G tells his story . Sargent ‘What Do You Think of Psycho-Analysis?" Will Rogers, Stephen Leacock and ‘ otners SUCCESS MAGAZINE CORPORATI( 251 Fourth Ave., New York, N. Y i Address yN 4 i) When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation

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582 The Nation [Vol. 120, No. 31, the Straits Settlements is well over 1,000 seers per 10,000 of the Chinese population to whom its sale is permitted. The same is almost equally true of Indo-China and Macao and other Far Eastern possessions. Whatever we may lose in revenue by forfeiting this trade we shall win back a hundred times over in moral prestige throughout the world. Here again, the whole problem of opium exported from India should be settled after a careful and thorough inquiry by a first-rate commission. At Geneva, as I have already shown, and repeat for the sake of absolute clearness, the Government of India, along with Great Britain, proposed that first of all an interval should be allowed for opium smoking Far East until China stopped its excessive afterward a period of fifteen years should be counted, and at the end of this whole double period opium smoking should be suppressed. America proposed that fifteen years should be allowed from the date of the end of the Geneva not from the time when China ceased to cultivate excessive opium. Furthermore, America declared that the atti- tude of Great Britain and India had been merely obstructionist throughout. We ought not to be to continue in the opium cultivation; Conference, satisfied with this attitude taken up Government of India on our behalf, which has so offended America that she left the Geneva conference. At least, we should submit our export traffic to a thorough in- vestigation, just as we should submit our internal consumption. If there is anything which is against the dictates of humanity, we should be ready to sacrifice this very small fraction of our Indian In the long run, the moral credit that India will obtain in the world, by taking up a truly humani- tarian question, is of far more material and India in her history than a certain number of rupees in hand today, which are obtained by offer- ing to other Just as Great Britain won great credit in history a century ago by the suppression of the slave traffic, so India may obtain great credit in history today by the suppression of the opium traffic. by the at once revenue. attitude on this spiritual importance to people what is recognized as a_ poison. The Passionate Protestant HE Berliner Tageblatt, in its issue of March 10, 1925, published an interesting letter written by the Kaiser in 1901 to his relative, Princess Anne of Hesse, widow of Count Alexander Frederick of Hesse, who had announced her decision to become a Catholic: Your Royal Highness! It is with the deepest regret that I learn from Your Royal Highness’s letter that Your Royal High- ness is inclined to turn away from the religion of the House which gave you birth as well as of that whose name you bear. Perhaps this act of desertion and treachery has already been carried out, although the chief of the court denies that publicly in a fashion which can only increase the tragic and evil effect of this lamentable step. Thus Your Royal Highness denies the faith to which all of your ancestors, both on your father’s side and on your mother’s side, in the House of Hohenzollern and in the House of Weimar, have steadfastly been true; the faith upon respect and devo- tion to which our House has built its power, with and through which alone our House has risen to the throne of empire; the faith in which our common ancestor the Great Elector found the beacon of his path. And this same evangelical faith, to which our House has always held as to a rock, has since the beginning of the Reformation been accepted and defended with particular devotion by the houses of Weimar and Hesse. Your Royal Highness is betraying the faith to which not only your ancestors but also your children belong, which counts among its most distinguished devotees Philip the Generous. If Your Royal Highness believes that Your Royal Highness will find more consolation in the Roman Church than in ours that only proves that Your Royal Highness has sought true con- ARETE —., ——=—=——= THE TRAINING SCHOOL FOR JEWISH SOCIAL WORK 210 West 91st Street, New York City (Initiated by the National Conference of Jewish Social Service) Offers a course of fifteen months of graduate study ang field work in preparation for Jewish social work. Several tuition scholarships of $250 and maintenance fellowships of $1,500 are available. 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Witb improvements (water, road and electric light), $525 to $575. Address Harry Kelly, No. 70 Fifth Ave., Room 411, for circular. Office hours 2: to 6 P. M. daily except Saturdays. Saturday 11 A. M. to 1:30 P. M. —— near Harmon- When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation 4 - ae) ye 2 .

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Nation Go7a=m elation neither in the Gospel nor the Evangelical Church. Your yal Hig rhness has simply not understood the subl ime teachings ¢ the pene at all if you are able to desert them. I shall no tonger be able to recognize Your Royal Hi aan as a member of te House, with whose most sacred traditions you have so rebel- ysly broken. I remain, therefore, firm in my telegraphed asigion that if Your Royal Highness perseveres in this pro- SH weeding it will mean a complete break in all intercourse with 1 members of my House, and I have caused the head of the val Hessian line to be informed of this decision. The House ~ ' r¢) tH henzollern expels Your Royal Highness and has forgotten and sour existence. os ' Homburg, August 7, 1901 WtLLIAM, Emperor and King ance ful "~ . ‘ Contributors to This Issue —!, Mirt1AM ALLEN DE Forp is a California journalist. — RoBeERT DELL, the author of “My Second Country [France],” acted for many years as Paris corre ~ee nt of the Manchester Guardian. He was suddenly expelled by M. Clemenceau in 1918 because he had reported Prince Sixtus’s secret mission to the Austrian emperor. ) MANUEL UGARTE, author of “E] Destino de un Continente,” is an Argentine writer who believes in a united policy the for Latin America. i A. P. BroGAN teaches philosophy at the University of n Texas. WILBERT SNOW is a New England poet, author of “Maine the Coast.” H. B. ALEXANDER, professor of philosophy at the Univer- on- sity of Nebraska, is in Paris delivering a course of lec- tures at the Sorbonne. CARL VAN VECHTEN turned from music criticism to novels 7 and has written “Peter Whiffle,” “The Blind Bow-Boy,” — and “The Tattooed Countess.” —— EmMIL LENGYEL writes for The Nation on Hungarian and Balkan politics, and for New York daily papers on dra- matic subjects. GLEN MULLIN is an artist and writer, author of “The Ad- ventures of a Scholar Tramp.” The LIFE of SIR WILLIAM OSLER By Harvey CUSHING Two Volumes. Large 8vo. 1442 pages. With two photogravure frontispieces, thirty-three halftone plates, and six Me types. The bind- g 1S blue cloth with gilt lettering. Price na box $12.50 net. weed tion of the Life of Osler by his friend ple, Harvey Cushing, is an event. Osler’s ofound influence pervaded the whole of the English- speaking wr orld, His name was a talisman wherever medicine was taught, studied, or practised. The variety of his interests, and his enormous powers of work, made his life a kaleid pe of pu tivity. It is impossible to read fifty pages of this book without re ny that Osler was indeed a very great man. It is not technical and the layman will perhaps be even more struck than the professional by the picture which the “Life es of 1 ° ’ , ] ’ ' the profession as a whole. ‘The secret of a wondertu ¢ is unfolded in these pages. 1f k r fr ti fu r OxFoRD UNIVERSITY PRESS American Branch 35 West 32nd Street k °,° Stat ft The Two Cities: *o73¢s72 By M. D. PETRE [hese essays present in their treatment of the various subjects with which they deal the conflicting claims of humanity and nationalism; of religion or idealism, and patriotism; of social peace and class rivalry. They ask the pertinent question as to how far statecraft can be directed to the fulfilment of those wider human aspira- rea tions which it sometimes encourages but often disap- ty points. Cr. 8vo. $1.50 net LONGMANS, GREEN & CO., Publishers tate er nue 7 y - oe 55 Fifth Avenue New York City See our classified section YOUR SUMMER PROBLEM Should you not find what you want there— If you have a camp, hotel, summer home, boarding house, If you are seexing such accommodations, If you want a summer job,or if you are looking for Camp counsellors, musicians, etc. If you _ an apartmentto rent for the summer, or want an apart- men We recommend placing an advertisement in the classified section of The Nation, as the best means of bringing the right person and the right place together. Rates on request. Address, Dept. Y.S. P., The Nation. The Women of the Caesars By Guglielmo Ferrero The i de ‘ prre: Livia 4 ters M 4 are pre- sented in an informal and vivid w fascinat ing illustrations. $3.75 The School for Ambassadors By Jules J. puecerant The distinguished diplomat who has long proved him to be no less accomplished as an author, has written a new series of suave and charming essays on diplomacy and other things of which he is an acknowledged authority 2 ¢ The Fugger News Letters Edited by Victor Von Klarwill Translated by Pauline de Chary The correspondence of the great Banking H - Fig- ger in the fifteenth century forms the first European record of news gathering. “Every outstanding event » day was covered by Count Philip’s intelligent and cre e eye- witnesses.”—Christian Science Momttor. Ulustr $6.0 At All Booksellers G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS 2 West 45th Street New York — When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation

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' The Nation a 5 J J Z la: 10) OF Pi Tis / j The Bell Telephone Laboratory in 1884. From an old wood engraving published in the ‘Scientific American’”’ Winning nature’s secrets Every day that passes records some new advance in the telephone art. chemistry, of electricity and magnetism, and of matter. Constant experiment and observation are winning new secrets of Nature’s unseen quarry Is yielding to the researches of the laboratory that exact scientific knowledge which is among the telephone engineer's most priceless resources. scientific laboratory. The workshop of the telephone engineer is a Here he studies and experiments with principles and laws of our physical environment and sets them to aid us in our daily lives. Forty-nine years ago the telephone was born in a scientific labo- ratory—a very small laboratory, to be sure, as it numbered in its personnel none but Bell and his assistant. As the Bell System has grown that laboratory has grown, and as the laboratory has grown the telephone has grown in efficiency, in distance covered, in numbers, in perfection. Countless are the milestones marking progress in the telephone art that have come from the laboratory. Today the laboratory numbers among its personnel 3000 em- ployees, more than half of whom are skilled scientists and engineers. Headed by a vice-president of the American Telephone and Tele- graph Company, it is known as the Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc., and forms an indispensable department of the Bell System. AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMPANY AND ASSOCIATED COMPANIES BELL SYSTEM One Policy, One System, Universal Service CO-OPERATIVE ELEVATOR APARTMENT 7 large rooms, excellently § ar- For Sale—janwed: unobstructed by adjacent houses; plenty of light and air; river view; bargain at $7,500, $2,000 down less allowances for decoration and cash; monthly installments and running ex- pense, $103. (Similar apts. usually sell for $10,000 up, with monthly payments $150 up.) West 138th St. Box No. 286, care The Nation. Camps! Take Notice! A camp owner was so successful last year (his first) that he has bought the property he leased and more than doubled his equipment. The only place he advertised in was The Nation and he attributes his fine showing entirely to it. Advertise your camp under “Camps” or “Summer Problem.” Address Advertising Man- ager, The Nation. POSITIONS WANTED 4 ~ Available now. Exceptional Opportunity. rrr ne statistician and editor. Excellent credentials from prominent national organizations and others. Just notable report of a survey of N. Y. Box No. 288, care The Nation. completed County Jails. ECRETARY-STENOGRAPHER: Young man 23, 7 seeking connection, would be delighted to hear from a writer or gentleman connected with small experimental theatre. Free to go anywhere. Ad- dress, Box No. 289, care The Nation. When writing to advertisers, please mention The Nation [ Vol. 120, No. 35 CAMPS AND SCHOOLS CAMP creater UTOP|; A Vacation Ground for Grown.y, LACKAWAXEN, PA. In the picturesque Blue Mountains, 1,590 ¢ above sea level. Full facilities for every sport. Feod excellent. Equipment moder, WM. J. PERLMAN DR. WILL DURAN Managing Director Associate Director Special rate of $9.00 for Decoration Da week-end. Come and get acquainted. Booklet on request: 11 West 37th St., N. y. Fitzroy 2731. The Camp of Comforts for Adultg ECHO LAKE TAVERN sf%,t'e Ada 5 Miles from Lake Geor New York-Lake George, Round Trip, $12.28 Rate $27.50 per Week Reservations Limited to 100 Running Water and Lavatories in Each Cabiy For booklet address Warrensburg, N. Y., 9 383 W. 42nd St., . = © Phone Lonvgac | 4752-5678. Special rate for Decoration [ay, ' LENA BARISH REBECCA NUDEL DELAWARE CLIFF CAMPS For boys and girls ‘‘o-educationa! for little ones; separate for older children. Athletics and water sports; Free creative activities, Nature Study. Moderate charges Literature on request Hannab G. Salutsky-Hardman and Selon De Leon, Pirecters Address: 1549 Morris Avenue, New York City HOFFMANN SCHOOL fer Individual Developmeni Fort Washington Avenue, New York (; DAY AND BOARDING 8SCHO®! Rebecca Hoffmann, Director Dr. Nathan Peyser, Educational Direct. Children 4-10 years Bus Servi YOUR SUMMER PROBLEMS MALL group interested in music and rhythm s\J dancing has taken camp on lake in Main Would like to be joined by a few people for who or part of summer. Tel. Richmond Hill 0809, 4 write Box No. 291, care The Nation. O let for the summer: Attractive, cool furnishe 6 room apartment in Stamford, Conn. Yar trees; 15 minutes from Long Island Sound. Bo No. 292, care The Nation. OR RENT: Beautifully furnished house, Fore Hills, L. I June lst to October Ist. Fou bedrooms, two baths, electrically equipped laund $250 per month to careful people. 188 Ascan Ave nue. Telephone Boulevard 8149. FEW nicely furnished rooms to select partie very reasonable. Mrs. E. P. Merwin, 221 Carnaga Ave., Far Rockaway, N. Y. Phone Fa Rockaway 2932J. 7 EW GARDENS, near Forest Hills, 20 minut from Penn. Sta.; clean air, quiet 4 room mod ern apartment, furnished, grand piano; renta! Ma or June to October, $100 a month. Tel. Richmon Hill 0809. —_— gix-room apart New for summer months; For Rent furnished housekeeping ment on Stuyvesant Square (East 15th St.), York. Box No. 290, care The Nation. — June 1st to October ist. Fur For Rent—)jshea apartment; large attrac tive living room with fireplace, bedroom, bath, kitchenette; very light, good air; Murray Hill se tion; moderate rent. Tel. Vanderbilt 3626, or Box 287, care The Nation. ee

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